Oppositional Girlhoods and the Challenge of Relational Politics

Over the last five years, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have problematized the discourse of “adolescent female exceptionalism” (Switzer in Fem Theory 14(3):345–360, 2013, p. 4) popularized by the NIKE Foundation’s Girl Effect. Arriving at similar conclusions, scholars point to the artificial neocolonial divisions between ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’ of the world animated by an ‘invest in girls’ logic. This paper endeavors to move beyond the “oppositional girlhoods” (Bent in Sociol Stud Child Youth 16(1):3–20, 2013a, p. 7) bind of girl effects discourse to propose that differentially positioned and experienced girlhoods might be better understood as transnational, relational cultural formations. Drawing from our empirical research with girls in North America and Sub-Saharan Africa, we consider the implications of girls’ increasing global visibility as the ‘saviors of humanity’ from different geopolitical contexts. We then go further to suggest the oppositional girlhoods frame assumes reductive, apolitical, and ahistorical claims of divergence between girlhoods in the Global North and Global South “with highly unequal effects” (Gonick et al. in Girlhood Stud 2(3):1–9, 2009, p. 3). By countering the normative construction of global girlhoods as mutually exclusive forms of personhood and historical experience, our project authorizes a new understanding of girlhoods as mutually constituted and relationally contingent. It is from within this relational framework that we propose new directions for thinking about girlhoods transnationally.     

Gendered Representations of Male and Female Social Actors in Iranian Educational Materials

This research investigates the representations of gendered social actors within the subversionary discourse of equal educational opportunities for males and females in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) books. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the theoretical framework, the authors blend van Leeuwen’s (Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis, Routledge, London, 2003) ‘Social Actor Network Model’ and Sunderland’s (Gendered discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2004) ‘Gendered Discourses Model’ in order to examine the depictions of male and female social actors within this gendered discourse. The gendered discourse of equal opportunities was buttressed by such representations within a tight perspective in proportion to gender ideologies prevailing in Iran. Resorting to CDA, we can claim that resistance against such gendered discourse in Iranian EFL textbooks militates against such gender norms. These representations of male and female social actors in school books are indicative of an all-encompassing education, reinforcing that the discourse of equal opportunities is yet to be realized in the education system of Iran.     

Towards a Model of Positive Youth Development Specific to Girls of Color: Perspectives on Development,Resilience, and Empowerment

This paper presents a feminist theoretical model of adolescent development for girls of color, a model that can be used to critique and resist the dominant deficit-oriented perspectives about girls of color that appear in research and educational contexts. We integrate ecological, phenomenological, and critical race feminist perspectives on development and socialization and emphasize that girls’ emerging identities are complexly heterogeneous. Our model adapts the competencies of the existing positive youth development model (Lerner et al. in J Early Adolesc 25(1):10–16, 2005) by infusing them with a critical feminist lens that emphasizes critical consciousness, resistance, and resilience and allows us to specify the model to fit the experiences of and contexts in which girls of color develop. This paper includes a presentation of our conceptual model and uses qualitative data to examine how components of our model map on to the everyday experiences of Black and Latina adolescent girls and their development.     

The Spreading of Cohabitation as a Diffusion Process: Evidence from Italy

Drawing on seminal work by Nazio and Blossfeld (Eur J Popul 19(1):47–82, 2003) and Di Giulio and Rosina (Demogr Res 16(14):441–468, 2007), this paper tests whether the recent spread of cohabitation in Italy has followed the typical pattern of diffusion of innovation processes. In doing so, we contribute to the debate on the determinants of the emergence of “new” family behaviour. Following previous literature, innovative behaviour should spread initially through direct social modelling, i.e. interpersonal communication among highly selected individuals (peer effects). At later stages, the diffusion should spread through knowledge awareness of the innovation, i.e. communication with previous generations (pre-cohort effects), so that also less selected individuals are prone to adopt the new behaviour. In the specific Italian context—a Catholic, “familistic” setting, with high normative pressure and importance of parental approval—we surmise the influence of previous generations to be dominant. We use data from the “Family and Social Subjects” survey carried out by Istat (2009) and apply Event History Analysis in the form of competing-risks exponential models to study Italian women’s transition to cohabitation as first partnership. Results suggest that the most important driver of the spreading of cohabitation in Italy is represented by the degree of its diffusion among older cohorts. However, we find a positive and significant interaction between women’s education and peer effects at the onset of the phenomenon, in line with the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) hypothesis. Cohabitation is also more likely if parents experienced separation/divorce and, more generally, if the environment of the family of origin can be described as “SDT-friendly”.     

A Typology of Dutch Mothers’ Employment Narratives: Drifters,Privilegeds, Balancers,Ambitious

The sharp increase in Dutch mothers’ labour market participation in recent decades has led to remarkable heterogeneous working patterns. This variation makes the Netherlands an interesting case with which to explore how mothers differ in their ‘narratives of choice’ and (early adult and present) attitudes towards work, gender and motherhood. This was conducted through 39 semi-structured interviews with mothers living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The study builds further on the scientific work on relationships between attitudes and personal preferences on the one hand, and employment behaviour on the other (e.g. Hakim, in Br J Sociol 54(3):339–345, 2003; Hakim, in Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hants, 2003; Halrynjo and Lyng, in Br J Sociol 60(2):321–343, 2009; Hoffnung, in Sex Roles 50(9–10):711–723, 2004; Sanders and Beekes, in Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1993; Thompson, in J Sci Study Relig, 30(4):381–394, 1991). Most of these studies are based on large surveys which lack the details of behavioural steps, preferences and attitudes that mothers themselves underline as relevant while describing their employment decisions. This qualitative study reveals a typology of Dutch mothers, based on the variety of their narratives of choice and considerations regarding the ideal gender division of labour, work and motherhood. The study also reveals a ‘narrative of acceptance’ among all interviewees regarding their spouses’ contribution to the unpaid work, accompanied by a disappearance of gender concerns.     

Impact of Gender and the Stereotyped Nature of Illustrations on Choice of Color: Replica of the Study by Karniol (2011) in a Spanish Sample

Early acquisition of stereotypes that associate “blue” with boys and “pink” with girls can influence their preferences for these colors and also their choices in clothing, toys or objects in relation to gender stereotypes. In a Spanish sample (5–10-year olds, n = 614), this study reproduces the previous research conducted by Karniol (Sex Roles 65(1/2):119–132, 2011) for the purpose of analyzing whether gender-linked color preferences rule the choice of coloring booklets and if children’s choices of color are affected by their own gender. The results show that although boys used fewer female-stereotyped colors than girls, both genders colored in each figure with the stereotyped colors associated with them. This result indicates that boys and girls share similar gender stereotypes and use colors that agree with these stereotypes.     

Follow the Leader: A Relational Demography, Similarity Attraction, and Social Identity Theory of Leadership Approach of a Team’s Performance

While voluminous research exists on managerial successions and the decline of female head coaches, limited research has evaluated the impact of the coach’s gender on a team’s performance. Therefore, this study focused on gendered coaching successions to determine if the gender of the head coach influenced the team’s performance when controlling extraneous variables (e.g., revenues, expenses, and team statistics). Utilizing the theoretical foundations of relational demography (Tsui et al. in Productivity and interpersonal relations in work teams characterized by diversity, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp 97–130, 1995) , similar-attraction paradigm (Byrne in The attraction paradigm. Academic Press, New York, 1971) and social identity theory of leadership (SITL; Hogg in Pers Social Psychol Rev 5:184–200, 2001), we hypothesized coaching successions to similar demographic leader-member dyad relationships would positively impact team performance. Data from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Equity in Athletic Data Analysis websites were collected on all Division I women’s basketball head coaching successions from 2003 to 2010. Coaching predecessors and successors were coded by gender, win-loss ratios, and performance statistics. Analysis of variance and repeated measures analysis of covariance were used to analyze the data. Results indicated demographic similarities in leader-member dyadic relationships do not advance team performance.     

Lord of the Guys: Alpha Girls and the Post-feminist Landscape of American Education

A recent discourse of girlhood, that of alpha girl and empowerment, has emerged in US popular literature with claims that adolescent girls are uniquely positioned to become the new economic, cultural and social winners of the twenty-first century. Similar to Sheryl Sandberg’s story in Lean In, Alpha girls embody both traditional masculine characteristics, such as competitiveness and independence, with traditional features of femininity such as collaboration, according to psychologist Dan Kindlon, author of Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She is Changing the World. However, little research has been conducted that explores the alpha girl discourse in the day-to-day lives of adolescent girls, deemed alpha, in US public school classrooms. Using interview and observation data, this paper examines how Kindlon’s supposed alpha girls and their middle school teacher make sense of and live this notion of empowerment, and argues that their experiences both complicate and reify the alpha girl discourse.     

Aging,Femininity, and the Body: What Appearance Changes Mean to Women with Age

In this article, I analyze interviews with a diverse group of 30 women aged 46–71 to understand how they experience signs of aging, such as weight gain, gray hair, and facial hair, in everyday life. I find that some women’s responses are in line with normative femininity and appearance norms. Others, however, focus on different gendered meanings of the body that are connected to care-taking, work, ageist treatment, and past abuse. I argue that feminists should apply the theoretical concept of femininity more broadly than appearance and attraction issues to gain a deeper understanding of the multiple meanings of living in an aging female body in a gendered society. In the conclusion, I discuss the implications of this study for public health policies as well as future research on gender and the body.

Race-Class-Gender Theory: An Image(ry) Problem

For over 100 years, but particularly since the 1980s, scholars have heavily relied on images of race, class, and gender as “intersecting” and “interlocking” forms of oppression and disempowerment. This imagery has helped feminists develop the empirically grounded theoretical premises that (1) race, class, and gender are social structural locations, (2) structural locations shape perspectives, (3) no individual is all-oppressed or all-oppressing, (4) the meanings of race, class, and gender are localized, and (5) race, class, and gender depend on and (6) mutually constitute each other. In this article I synthesize these premises to reveal some opportunities for theoretical development that may inspire a new generation of race-class-gender scholarship. I argue that while intersection is fairly limited as a conceptual image, the interlocking imagery can help us identify how the relationships among these structures of oppression have become institutionalized.

Declining first-marriage rates in England and Wales: A change in timing or a rejection of marriage?

During the 1970s, first-marriage rates in many Western European countries declined sharply. We use two different methods (devised by Ryder and by Le Bras and Roussel) to assess how far the changes in first-marriage rates in England and Wales arise from a shift to marrying at later ages or from a decline in the popularity of formal marriage. The two methods yield consistent results, and indicate that the majority of young people in England and Wales will continue to marry but that during the 1970s many were postponing marriage. The pattern of cohabitation and prevailing attitudes to marriage are compatible with such a finding. Recent marriage patterns in England and Wales are found to differ from those in France and Sweden.     

中西女性主义翻译对比下译者主体性探析

随着翻译研究的"文化转向",译者主体性问题引起了研究人员的关注。西方女性主义与翻译相结合,女性主义译者从独特的视角体验并指导着翻译实践,彰显出西方女性主义激进的译者主体性。与西方激进的女性主义翻译相比,中国尚缺乏对西方女性主义翻译理论的本土运用,国内某些具有女性主义意识的女译者在翻译中虽能发挥其主动性和能动性,但均采用了具有中式色彩的、比较温和的翻译策略。     

Gender and Mathematics Achievement in China and the United States

This study examines the relationship between gender and mathematics achievement among students in China and the United States, with an emphasis on the gender gap among mathematically talented students. The results show that in neither the US nor China are there gender differences in eighth grade math-achievement test scores. In China, there are no gender differences in mean college entrance examination math scores among high-school seniors, while in America, the mean SAT-Math score among male high-school seniors has been consistently higher than those of their female counterparts. In both the US and China, there are gender differences among the top math performers on college entrance examinations; boys are over-represented. The Chinese national mathematics curriculum, well-trained teachers, beliefs by students and their parents that academic achievement is more a product of effort than of natural ability, a gender-neutral parental expectation for children’s education, and generous family spending on the education of girls are suggested as possible factors underlying the comparable performance of the Chinese female and male students. The sorting system at Chinese secondary school level and a cultural stereotype favoring boys in mathematics are suggested as possible contributors to the math-achievement gender gap found among the top Chinese high school seniors.

当代女权主义视野中的阿伦特政治哲学思想

在当代女权主义者力图打破男性/女性、公共领域/私人领域的二元论构架,解构本体论的"妇女"概念,把"多样的差异"、"自我认同"等话语引入女权主义政治的过程中,她们发现阿伦特的思想为女权主义超越传统理论的限制,提供了非常有启发性的角度,从而出现了新一轮的关于"阿伦特的女权主义"的研究热潮.作者从阿伦特关于私人领域/公共领域的区分和自我认同两方面的思想来讨论当代女权主义者对她的重新阐释,表明作为哲学家和女性的自我教育是一场持续的斗争、行动和解释学循环.     

法国唯物主义女性主义研究——以社会性别理论为例

法国唯物主义女性主义是最早、最著名的唯物主义女性主义流派。其社会性别理论颠覆了传统女性主义关于生理性别与社会性别关系的认识,欲给＂生理决定论＂以彻底打击,但有＂矫枉过正＂之嫌。法国唯物主义对女性受压迫的物质性根源进行了探索,但探索的结果却分散在性、家庭、阶级和再生产等领域中而未能统一。这种＂多元决定＂女性主义理论,很难说是对马克思主义女性主义＂二元模式＂的超越,因为二者都抛弃了马克思主义的革命核心。     

Athletic or Sexy? A Comparison of Female Athletes and Fashion Models in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues

Using a modified version of Goffman’s (Gender advertisements. Harper Colophon, New York, 1976) gender display as a conceptual framework, this study examined the gendered body images of female athletes and female fashion models. We investigated sexualized female body images by comparing athletes with fashion models in Sports Illustrated (SI) swimsuit issues. Specifically, we used images of female athletes and female fashion models from SI swimsuit issues (n = 1,099) over the past 15 years (1997–2011). The variables analyzed included four photographic image categories: photo shot location, facial expression, body display, and hand display. The findings revealed few differences in sexual portrayals between female athletes and female fashion models.     

Migration during early married life

A one per cent sample drawn from the 1971 Census (the OPCS Longitudinal Study) was used to study the migration patterns of women in the early years of first marriage. Information from the retrospective fertility and migration history contained in the 1971 Census record was analyzed and the results show migration at, or soon after, marriage to be almost universal. Marriage migrants constituted a quarter of all one-year within-county movers and a fifth of inter-regional movers among women aged 16–29. In the early years of marriage differentials in migration rates according to duration of marriage were greater than differentials associated with age or with husband's change of occupation. The pattern of migration around marriage varied according to a number of socio-economic factors. The timing of the first and subsequent births early in marriage was found to have little effect on migration rates once allowance for duration of marriage was made in the analysis. The results of the study demonstrate the value of the OPCS Longitudinal Study as a source of migration data.     

Late fertility decline in the Netherlands: The influence of religious denomination,socioeconomic group and region

Both published results from the 1930, 1947, 1960 and 1971 censuses and unpublished ones are used to examine the influence that religious denomination, socio-economic group and region exerted on the fertility of marriages contracted between 1876 and 1959. A theory formulated by Lesthaeghe and Wilson on the relation between modes of production and secularization and the pace of fertility decline in Western Europe offers — in combination with van Heek's views on the special position of Dutch Roman Catholicism — a starting point for an explanation of why the fertility decline of Roman Catholics, self-employed and agricultural labourers lagged behind.     

试析中国女性主义本土化的可能及限度

女性主义在1990年代作为一种先进的西方理论被介绍到中国来。但在实际的应用中出现了问题,即对西方女性主义理论的生搬硬套和简单的“拿来”、“拼贴”。中国的女性主义者试图构建起建立在中国本土经验基础上的中国女性主义理论体系,这实际上是一种“中国特色的女性主义”,即将西方的女性话语资源与中国的本土经验相结合。中西方的女性主义需要开放式的对话,中国的女性主义要对西方女性主义进行对接、整合和再创造。