Frequency and Types of Partner Violence Among Mexican American College Women

Objective and Participants: The authors studied the prevalence of partner violence, by type, among Mexican American college women aged 18 to 35 years (N = 149; response rate = 85%). Results: Twelve percent of women who reported a dating partner in the past year were physically or sexually assaulted, 12.1% were stalked, and 9.1% scored as psychologically abused. Among those experiencing partner violence, almost half experienced stalking and 89% reported psychological abuse. Few women (25%) who experienced physical violence believed violence was a problem in their relationship. Conclusions: Partner violence was prevalent in this population, and participants experienced many forms of violence. Because few women experiencing physical violence report that violence is a problem in their relationship, interventions must address perceptions of violence and its impact on women's mental and physical health in college populations.     

Not Taking It Any More: Women Who Report or File Complaints of Sexual Harassment*

Signaler un cas de harcèlement sexuel n'est pas évident. Pour comprendre les conditions dans lesquelles les femmes le font, un sondage téléphonique et des archives ont été analysés provenant de la Commission canadienne des droits de la personne. La vulnérabilité personnelle est un critère négligeable. Les femmes ont tendance à déposer des plaintes lorsque le cas de harcèlement implique un supérieur, plusíeurs harceleurs ou que l'agression est grave. Les femmes qui portent plainte éprouvent plus de difficultés ulterieurement que celles qui préferent se taire. Le fait de denoncer un cas de harcèlement a des répercussions negatives sur le travail et dans la vie personnelle. La plupart des femmes quittent leur emploi une fois la plainte déposéd. Des variables pertinentes sur le plan juridique permettent de prévoir Tissue d'une plainte. Reporting sexual harassment is not a common practice. To understand conditions under which women report harassment and its effects, two data sets were analyzed: a telephone survey of Canadian working women and archival data from the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Personal vulnerability, such as age, marital status or income, has little impact. Women tend to file external complaints when harassment involves a supervisor, multiple harassers or is severe. Women who report experience more adverse outcomes than non-reporters. Reporting has a negative effect on work and personal life; the vast majority leave the job where the complaint occurred. Legally relevant variables, such as severity or psychological distress, predict the settlement of complaints.     

PREDICTING THE QUANTITY OF LAW: Single versus Multiple Remedies in Sexual Harassment Cases

Recently, Black's theory of law has been criticized for failing to capture quasi and de facto governmental social control institutions. A restatement of this theory introduces the idea of "more or less governmental social control" that encompasses government endorsement of private forms of social control or government delegation of social control powers to private parties. Drawing from this, we assess the utility of Black's theory by examining sexual harassment cases handled by the Canadian Human Rights Commission , a quasi-governmental body that has been delegated social control powers. Previous tests of Black's theory have relied primarily on criminal processes that often involve identifiable increments in law. While a sexual harassment case may be settled or dismissed, paralleling the criminal justice process of conviction or acquittal, further increments in law are less identifiable within this quasi-governmental institution. Using over 200 sexual harassment cases in Canada, we test several concepts from Black's theory for explaining decision making within a quasi-governmental social control institution and, specifically, for predicting whether single or multiple remedies are used to resolve these types of cases. Our results show some support for Black's theory, but demonstrate that whether a case was sent to conciliation played a greater role in predicting the quantity of law than the social structural dimensions emphasized by Black or the offense seriousness variables highlighted by more traditional criminal justice research.     

Characteristics of Women With Children Who Divorce in Midlife Compared to Those Who Remain Married

This study evaluated characteristics that distinguish women who end a first marriage in midlife from those who remain married. The sample consisted of 459 married and 180 divorced women who had participated in 3 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Discriminant analyses were used to assess differences that occurred between the two groups in financial and psychological well-being in the 10 years between NSFH Waves 2 and 3. The major finding was that midlife divorce appears to have long-term financial consequences for women, especially in regard to wealth accumulation. The findings provide some initial information about the long-term effects of midlife divorce that will be useful to professionals working with women who are considering divorce at this stage of life.     

Living Arrangements of Single Parents and Their Children in South Korea

As the divorce rate in South Korea increases, an increasing proportion of children are growing up in single-parent families. Given the limited public support and disadvantages for women in the labor market, it is expected that single parents in Korea, single mothers in particular, are more likely to use family ties to mitigate economic and social difficulties, including the option to live with their parents. We assessed the living arrangements of single parents and their children with respect to co-residence with the grandparents of the children using samples from the 2010 Korean Census and the Program for International Student Assessment conducted in 2009. We found that a fairly small proportion of single mothers live with their parents and that the prevalence of co-residence with parents among both single mothers and single fathers was relatively low in Korea compared with Japan and Taiwan. We also found that single parents with a higher level of education are more likely to live with their parents than those with less education, which contrasts with the pattern found in the United States. We discuss the implications of our findings in contemporary Korea, which has traditionally been regarded as a country with strong family ties.     

The Challenges Facing Single Female Parents of African Background in Regional Australia

In this paper we investigate the problems experienced by single African women of refugee background being resettled in Wagga Wagga (Wagga), New South Wales, Australia. Wagga is one of the regional centres that the Australian government has earmarked for resettlement of people arriving under the refugee resettlement, better known as “humanitarian”, programs. In this exploratory qualitative research we have focused on the challenges women encountered in accessing services and the stigma of single parenthood within their cultures. Individual interviews were conducted with 10 women of varying ages and African nationalities. The research found that the key concerns were a lack of knowledge about available services, few specific and culturally relevant African services, feelings of isolation, and African community attitudes towards single women.     

Sexual Behavior in Parked Cars Reported by Midwestern College Men and Women

In an anonymous survey of 195 men and 511 women (M_age = 19.8) at a small Midwestern university, 119 men (61%) and 303 women (59.5%) reported that they had engaged in sex while parked. Of these 422, 14% lost their virginity in a parked car. Having sex in parked cars was more likely to involve relational dating partners than hookups. In most recent incidents, the majority of respondents were with a serious but noncohabiting romantic partner (56.9%) in the back seat (63.4%) of a standard car (56.4%) parked out in the country (56.0%). The most common sexual acts were penile-vaginal sex and genital touching, reported by 84.6% and 57.5% of respondents, respectively. Condoms were used by 58.2% of respondents. Less than 1% of respondents reported sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or pregnancy outcomes. These data, including personal stories of memorable incidents, revealed that despite discomfort, body bumps, and risk of being caught, sex while parked was primarily a positive sexual and romantic experience for both men and women. A dark side of parked-car sex existed in that 2.5% of men and 4.3% of women reported being sexually coerced. The future study of sex in parked cars in urban environments is recommended.     

Dating and Sexual Behavior Among Single Parents of Young Children in the United States

Theory and research on partnered parents suggests trade-offs between parenting and sexuality, with those trade-offs most pronounced among mothers of young children. However, little research has focused on how a growing demographic of single parents negotiates dating and sexual activity. The current study drew upon a 2012 nationally representative sample of 5,481 single Americans 21 years of age and older, of whom 4.3% were parents of a child age five or younger. Dependent variables were sexual thoughts, frequency of sexual activity, number of sexual partners in the past year, dates during the previous three months, and whether one was actively seeking a relationship partner. Covariates included parental age, sex/gender, sexual orientation, education, and income. Using the entire sample of singles, we found no main effects of number (0, 1, 2+) of children aged five years and younger or number of children aged two years and younger on dating and sexual behavior variables. Next, using analyses restricted to single parents (n = 2,121), we found that single parents with a child aged five years or younger, adjusting for covariates, reported greater frequency of sexual activity and first dates but no differences in other outcomes compared with single parents of older children.     

Reporting Rape in a National Sample of College Women

Abstract

Background: Studies indicate that a small percentage of rapes are reported to law enforcement officials. Research also suggests that rapes perpetrated by a stranger are more likely to be reported and that rapes involving drugs and/or alcohol are less likely to be reported. College women represent a unique and understudied population with regard to reporting rape. Methods: In the current study, the authors interviewed a national sample of 2,000 college women about rape experiences in 2006. Results: Only 11.5% of college women in the sample reported their most recent/only rape experience to authorities, with only 2.7% of rapes involving drugs and/or alcohol reported. Minority status (ie, nonwhite race) was associated with lower likelihood of reporting, whereas sustaining injuries during the rape was associated with increased likelihood of reporting. Discussion: Reporting, particularly for rapes involving drugs and alcohol, is low among college women. Implications for policy are discussed.     

An Examination of Conflict in Emerging Adulthood Between College Students and Their Parents

Abstract

Two hundred seventy-three college students between the ages of 18 and 22 years, and in the midst of what some researchers would refer to as Emerging Adulthood, reported the most common topics of conflict that they experience with their mothers and fathers and provided their perceptions of these conflicts. Female and male emerging adults reported similar topics of conflict with their mothers and fathers. The sex of the emerging adults and that of their parents who were involved in the conflict appeared to play an important role in the complex dynamic related to their perceptions of their parents following the conflict, especially for positive perceptions of fathers and perceptions of fathers' emotional availability and acceptance. The results of this study further the understanding of conflicts that occur between emerging adults and their parents.     

The Everyday Violence of Hepatitis C Among Young Women Who Inject Drugs in San Francisco

A theoretical understanding of the gendered contours of structural, everyday and symbolic violence suggests that young addicted women are particularly vulnerable to the infectious diseases caused by injection drug use-especially hepatitis C. Participant-observation fieldwork among heroin and speed addicts in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood reveals that extreme levels of violence against women are normalized in the common sense of street-youth drug culture. Physical, sexual and emotional violence, as well as the pragmatics of income generation, including drug and resource sharing in the moral economy of street addicts, oblige most young homeless women to enter into relationships with older men. These relationships are usually abusive and economically parasitical to the women. Sexual objectification and a patriarchal romantic discourse of love and moral worth leads to the misrecognition of gender power inequities by both the men and women who are embroiled in them, as well as by many of the public services and research projects designed to help or control substance abusers. Despite deep epistemological, theoretical and logistical gulfs between quantitative and qualitative methods, applied public health research and the interventions they inform can benefit from the insights provided by a theoretical and cross-methodological focus on how social power contexts shape the spread of infectious disease and promote disproportional levels of social suffering in vulnerable populations.     

What We Can Learn of Resilience from Older African-American Women: Interviews with Women Who Worked as Maids in the Deep South

Resilience theory is increasingly informed by an in-depth study of personal narratives and story telling by survivors of personal trauma and cultural hardship. From the perspective of risk and resilience theory, this study examines the personal narratives of three older African-American women who engaged in domestic service from childhood. Collectively, their autobiographical memories describe experiences coping with the forces of an oppressive social and economic system. Our analysis of these personable narratives reveals how these women not only endured the cruelties of segregation and racism but somehow prevailed over them.     

The Relationship Between Psychological Functioning in a College Sample and Retrospective Reports of Parental Loyalty Conflicts and Psychological Maltreatment

Two-hundred forty participants completed questionnaires that explored parental unions, experiences of parental loyalty conflict behaviors, psychological functioning, and frequency of exposure to maltreatment. Significant relationships were found between nonintact parental union status and experiences of parental loyalty conflict, parental loyalty conflict and psychological abuse, and parental loyalty conflict and anxiety and depression symptoms. Relatively low frequencies of experiencing parental loyalty conflict can negatively affect psychological functioning. Implications for psychological, social, and legal service providers are presented.     

Capturing the Multiple and Shifting Identities of Farm Women in the Northeastern United States

The identities of women on farms are shifting as more women enter farming and identify as farmers, as reflected by the 30 percent growth in women farmers in the U.S. census of agriculture (USDA 2009). This article draws from identity theory to develop a quantitative measure of the identities of farm women. The measure incorporates multiple roles farming women may perform and weights these roles by their salience to two farm identities, farm operator and farm partner. We use a sample of women on farms (n = 810) in the northeastern United States to assess the measures of role identity in relation to reported decision‐making authority, farm tasks, and farm and individual characteristics. The findings provide a multidimensional view of farming women in the northeastern United States, a far more complex view than traditional survey research has previously captured. This research provides a measure that other researchers can use to assess the multiple and shifting identities of farming women in other sections of the United States.     

Single and the City: State Influences on Intimate Relationships of Young,Single, Well‐Educated Women in Singapore

Low fertility rates and an aging population challenge the city‐state of Singapore. The Singaporean government therefore encourages singles to marry and have children. Using ethnographic data and interviews (N = 28), collected between August and December 2012, this explorative study examined the relationship between government interference and the love lives of young, well‐educated, single women in Singapore. Getting married is expected not only by the state, friends, and family members but also by singles themselves. The author examined how young women view and experience these social ideals in their daily lives. Foucault's (1982, 1984) idea of governmentality and Budgeon's (2008) idea of couple culture were used to investigate how government policies intervene in the romantic relationships of individuals through various channels, such as the housing policy, matchmaking initiatives, and social norms. The government may effectively affect individuals in certain ways, whereas at other times individuals may act in a manner that is opposite to what the government expects.