Women in Political Life:

Data regarding the participation of women in elective and appointive office at local and national levels in 60 countries are analyzed. Included are data from both industrializing and industrialized countries. Overall, the data reveal that, globally, women's presence among political elites remains low, significant variations in the proportion of women elected to public office exists among the industrializing countries andthe industrialized centrally planned and market oriented economies. Regional differences are significant for women's appoinment to the diplomatic service in the industrializing countries.     

Women in Movement Transformations in African Political Landscapes

Since the mid-1980s and especially after the early 1990s, women's organizations have increased exponentially throughout Africa as have the arenas in which women have been able to assert their varied concerns. Women are organizing locally and nationally and are networking across the continent on an unprecedented scale. They have in many countries been aggressively using the media to demand their rights in a way not evident in the early 1980s. In some countries they are taking their claims to land, inheritance and associational autonomy to court in ways not seen in the past. Women are challenging laws and constitutions that do not uphold gender equality. In addition, they are increasingly moving into government, legislative, party, NGO and other leadership positions previously the nearly exclusive domain of men. In these and other ways women have taken advantage of the new political openings that occurred in the 1990s, even if the openings were limited and precarious. This second generation of activism is markedly different from the earlier post-independence generation of women's mobilization. The reasons for these shifts are varied: the rise of multi-partyism and demise of military rule; the growing influence of the international women's movement; shifting donor strategies; the expansion of the use of the cell phone and the Internet in the late 1990s; coupled with a significant increase in secondary and university educated women. The article explores the major changes in women's mobilization in Africa by contrasting the current women's movements with those that emerged after independence.     

Decomposing Gender Beliefs: Cross‐National Differences in Attitudes Toward Maternal Employment and Gender Equality at Home

Few cross‐national studies distinguish between different aspects of gender egalitarianism and compare them systematically. In this study, we examine cross‐national differences in attitudes toward mothers' participation in the labor market and toward gender equality within the household, using a multilevel analysis of individual data from 33 nations. The results indicate greater support for employed mothers, but a lower level of approval of gender equality at home, among residents of countries that offer women more educational and economic opportunities. We argue that macrolevel gender equality increases individuals', particularly women's, incentives to support female labor force participation. Because of a persistent belief in gender differentiation, however, macrolevel gender equality has the opposite relationship with attitudes toward altering gendered practices beyond enabling women's public sphere participation. The fewer explicit barriers to women's achievement in society, the more likely individuals will feel a need to defend gendered roles in the private sphere. That the potential harm of advocating gendered practices in the private sphere is smaller in societies with fewer impediments for women is also likely to account for the negative association between macrolevel gender equality and support for egalitarian gender roles at home.     

Effects of Global Democracy on Women's Reproductive Health: 1970–2005, Cross-World Analysis

ABSTRACT

Despite many trends that have been commonly assumed to enrich societal well-being, this article posits that in addition to benefits there are also costs associated with democratization. This article comparatively analyzes the effects of democratic transition on women's health in democratizing well-developed as compared with developing countries across the world. Considering the junction of positive and negative outcomes of democratization, the author argues that to women the costs of democratization are much more substantial than to men because their societal roles are less valued and life for most women is centered at home and, hence, is not considered to be of public concern. Thus far, democratization's costs to women have been largely overlooked, not only in terms of economic opportunities but also in terms of their impact on women's health. These costs cannot be ignored as they limit women's empowerment and endanger national health.     

Socialist Feminism in Latin America

The women's movement around the world takes many stances, including women's rights, feminism, women's research, women's auxilaries of political and religious organizations and socialist feminism. Because of its unique political and economic history, socialist feminism is the dominant emergent stance of the women's movement in Latin America. Brazil, Peru, and the Dominican Republic are examined. Socialist feminism is related to both the international women's movement, political trends within each county and constraints of the current political situation. Women's movements in other Latin American countries are also briefly discussed.     

Women as Workers and as Carers under Communism and After: The Case of Bulgaria

This paper reviews the work-family policy of Bulgaria before and after the transition. Before the transition the family policy was one of earner–carer where women were given support to combine work-force participation with childcare and men were at least encouraged to help with carework. After the transition women's access to help with carework became so limited that the family policy, by default, became one of dual earner, but with extremely high levels of unemployment. A survey of 349 women by the Varna Employment Office indicates how devastating the loss of employment was during the transition. Today policies that support family caregiving still exist on paper but are not enforced. This is due, in part, to the lack of organized broad-based women's groups. Such organizations would be necessary for women to effectively claim the rights and entitlements to caregiving support. But there is continuing pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others to eliminate any state support for caregiving.     

Gender and post-conflict civil society

Abstract

Women have historically participated in revolutionary/liberation movements. A consensus among scholars working in the field suggests that once the broader aims of the movement have been achieved, women's public role and the concern for gender differentiated interests diminish in the post-conflict society. The aim of this study is to apply this hypothesis using the case study of Eritrea. Eritrea offers an opportunity to study a modern, successful revolutionary movement that relied heavily upon women's contributions both as support personnel and as front-line soldiers. Preliminary evidence suggests that Eritrea is following the pattern of many other post-conflict societies. Several questions are addressed here: Does the hypothesis which suggests women's participation is welcomed during a revolutionary struggle, but discouraged in post-conflict society, hold true in the Eritrean case? What role did women play in Eritrean independence and what role do they currently play? Have the reforms enacted by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) carried forward under the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ)? What role does women's inclusion play in creating a viable civil society? How has the generational aspect of women's military service affected society's overall perception of women?     

Gender Ideology and Women's Labor Market Transitions Within Couples in the Netherlands

Objective

This study examines the role of women's and their partners' gender ideology in shaping women's labor market entries, exits, and changes in hours of employment.

Background

Recent research argues that women's gender ideology is crucial for understanding women's contemporary labor market participation. However, the role of male partners' gender ideology for partnered women's labor market participation has received less attention.

Method

The analysis uses three waves of a large‐scale household panel survey based on a random sample of individuals within Dutch households. Random‐effect models are applied to study whether women's and their partners' gender ideology are associated with women's labor market transitions and whether relevant household characteristics' associations with women's labor market transitions are conditional on both partners' gender ideology.

Results

Women's gender ideology is associated with the probability of women's labor market entries and exits, but not with changes in women's hours worked, whereas their male partners' ideology is related only to the probability of women's labor market exits. Furthermore, the negative association of having children with changes in women's hours worked is stronger for traditional compared to egalitarian women. There is no clear evidence that gender ideology moderates the association of the male partner's labor market resources with women's labor market transitions.

Conclusion

Women's labor market transitions are not only reactions to economic pressure and institutional constraints but also women's and marginally their partners' gender attitudes.     

Women in Politics in Post-Transitional Democracies: the chilean case

This article looks at women's participation in formal political institutions in posttransition politics. Employing the case of post-dictatorship Chile, it outlines the barriers to women's participation in the formal political arena; discusses the various strategies that Chilean women are currently employing to overcome their exclusion; and finally, examines the challenges that political women confront in promoting 'women's interests' in political institutions. Throughout the article two main arguments are advanced. First, where women's movements do not demand institutional reforms during the transition period - a time when movements enjoy influence and parties are in flux - then the barriers to women in political institutions re-emerge. In Chile, the fact that women did not demand institutional reforms, such as quotas for women in decision-making positions, is linked tothe broader strategy of the movement tomake citizenship demands based on women's 'difference'. This strategy inhibited women from demanding power (i.e. access to institutions as individuals) because this conformed to a masculine-defined notion of politics inconsistent with women's 'different' style of practising politics. A second,related argument is that a strategy based on women's 'difference' hinders women in politics frompromoting feminist goals,especially in the climate ofsocial conservatism that characterizes post-transition Chilean politics. Despite these constraints and the many challenges Chilean women in politics confront, gains are being made, as women recognize the need for, and begin to demand, institutional reforms to expand their presence in formal politics.     

Women and Representation in Japan

Japan's high level of socio-economic advancement notwithstanding, the level of women's representation in Japan lags behind that in not only other advanced countries but also many developing countries. This article aims to elucidate the causes of the under-representation of women in Japan. Preceding studies suggest that multiple, intertwining factors have had a collective influence on the number of women representatives. Based on these studies, I highlight four factors which affect women's representation: the electoral system; socio-political culture; electoral quotas; and the activities and attitudes of women concerning their own representation. I discuss how these factors have influenced the under-representation of Japanese women, in effect demonstrating that all the above factors have had negative impacts. Among these, the most serious obstacle is women's lack of enthusiasm for a larger political presence, which is sustained by Japanese political culture and social customs. I argue that strong women's voices calling for more women representatives are the necessary basis for measures to improve the under-representation of women.     

Mujeres '94

ABSTRACT

Periods of democratic transition may provide space for increased political participation by women. Often, however, women's participation inexplicably falls off after the transition period to former low levels. This article argues that the form women's participation takes in transitions is crucial to both the shape of the resulting new democracy, and the subsequent impact of the new democratic institutions on building or sustaining a women's movement. A case study of the 1992-1994 transition period in El Salvador suggests that women must be present and contribute to the transition; form autonomous organizations but remain engaged with the state; and transform their political behavior from opposition to interaction with the new state.     

Where Women Rebel

While a significant literature on women's participation in armed rebel groups exists, much of this work is focused on individual cases or regional comparisons among movements. This has led to a lack of cross-national work on women in insurgencies, and a limited understanding of the extent to which women are engaged in civil conflict internationally. This article introduces new data on women's involvement in seventy-two insurgencies active since 1990, and assesses the validity of several assumptions about women and rebellion drawn from existing literature on women in conflict and on civil wars generally. I show that women are active in rebel groups much more often than current scholarship acknowledges. This involvement includes frequent service in combat and leadership roles, where male participants are often presumed to be the default. Finally, while forced recruitment tactics are frequently used to bring women into service, much of their participation appears to be voluntary in nature.     

Do ‘his’ education and class matter? The changing effect of the husband on women's labour‐market transitions in Italy and Britain

A new stream of sociological and demographic theory emphasizes individualization as the key process in late modernity. As maintained by Hakim ( 2000 ), women also have increasingly become agents of their own biographies, less influenced by the social class and the family. In this study, I intend to contribute to this debate by analysing how, in Italy and Britain, women's movements between employment and housework are linked to their husband's education and class, and how this link has changed across cohorts. Using discrete‐time event‐history modelling on the BHPS and ILFI, my findings show that in both countries, if the woman's educational and labour‐market profile is controlled for, the husband's occupation and education have lost importance. Yet, although based more on ‘her’ than ‘his’ profile, divisions along ‘classic’ lines are still evident and not context‐free, and they assume different forms in the two countries with distinctive institutional and cultural settings. In ‘liberal’ Britain, women's labour‐market participation responds more to motherhood and class than to education, while in ‘familistic’ Italy education seems more important, which suggests the existence of returns over and above strictly human capital/economic ones.     

The disconnection between policy practices and women's lived experiences: combining work and life in the UK and the Netherlands

Combining work and family life is central to women's participation in the labour market. Work–life balance has been a key objective of UK and Dutch policy since the 1990s, but policies created at the national level do not always connect with the day to day experiences of women juggling caring and domestic responsibilities with paid work. Using qualitative data from a European Social Fund Objective 3 project the paper explores women's lived realities of combining work and family life in the UK in comparison to the Netherlands as a possible ‘best practices’ model. We argue that women in both countries experience work–life balance as an ongoing process, continually negotiating the boundaries of work and family, and that there needs to be a more sophisticated appreciation of the differing needs of working parents. Whilst policy initiatives can be effective in helping women to reconcile dual roles, many women in both the UK and the Netherlands still resolve these issues at the individual or personal level and feel that policy has not impacted on their lives in any tangible way.     

Hospital Mergers

Abstract

When secular and sectarian (often Catholic) hospitals merge, women's reproductive healthcare services are often put in jeopardy. Some merger efforts are successful and others fail. Several issues arise as a result of this situation. First, what role do women's reproductive rights activists and their supporters play in effecting hospital merger decisions? This question does not assume that all women support women's rights organizations or that all women support a full range of reproductive rights. Secondly, what other factors seem to effect the outcome of merger discussions? In order to answer these questions, it is first necessary to understand the extent of Catholic hospital expansion and the nature of the hospital merger movement itself. These considerations will provide perspective for the two case studies of the American hospital merger movement that provide venues for examining the issues relating to participation and other factors that effect the outcome of merger talks. Cumberland and Baltimore are the two communities examined in this study. Though it would be a mistake to generalize to all merger situations based on these two cases, there are lessons that women's reproductive healthcare advocates can learn from the experiences of these two communities.

The issue of hospital mergers and the availability of reproductive healthcare services for women does raise an additional issue. Private sector decisions are being made that have a direct impact on public services, that is, the availability of a set of healthcare services in communities. This is not the direction that most public policy analysts consider.

The more frequently asked policy questions begin with public policy decisions and ask how they influence non-governmental decisions.     

Bringing nations in: Some methodological and conceptual issues in connecting feminisms with nationhood and nationalisms

The recent explosion of case studies about women's involvements in national projects reveals considerable diversity ranging from hostility and alienation, to affiliation or participation. Feminist analysis is just starting to explore the causes and effects of such diversity, however, since a single, common relationship usually was theorized between ‘gender’ and ‘nation’. This article addresses some methodological and conceptual issues concerning the systematic comparison of these diverse relationships. It is argued that comparison is required to explain ‘linkages between ideologies, religions and conflicts’ from a gendered perspective and to incorporate the wide variety of women's experiences regarding national projects.

Especially significant in this diversity is that, while national projects in ‘the West’ are rarely a site for women's liberation and most ‘western’ feminists are alienated from nationalism, globally women are more often mobilized by national projects than any other form of politics (Bystydzienski 1992). Moreover, some women's movements affiliate with national projects with positive outcomes. To understand how women's diverse involvements in national projects affect domestic and international conflicts, we need to identify factors producing this diversity in gender/nation relationships. The article reports on a ‘test’ of six hypotheses concerning three modal cases drawn from a larger project eventually concerning thirty countries.     

REREADING UNDECLARED WORK

The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether undeclared work is the same when conducted by men and women. Conventionally, the view is that such work is always profit-motivated market-like work and that women's undeclared work mirrors their subjugated position in the formal labour market in terms of pay, contract type and sector. Reporting evidence gathered during 861 face-to-face interviews in contemporary England, this paper finds that to represent undeclared work as a profit-motivated market-like endeavour is to read such work through the lens of men's accounts of such work. For women, although some undeclared work is of this variety, the vast majority is conducted for friends, neighbours and kin for reasons associated with redistribution and social capital building and thus more akin to unpaid mutual aid than employment. To unshackle narratives of undeclared work from current market-centred readings, therefore, this paper differentiates between profit-motivated market-like informal employment and undeclared work carried out in a moral economy of paid favours so as to unravel the nature of men's and women's participation in this sphere and explore the implications for understanding women's community engagement.     

Doing Gender,Doing Surveys? Women's Gatekeeping and Men's Non‐Participation in Multi‐Actor Reproductive Surveys

Gender differences in research participation have been documented in both quantitative and qualitative studies, a pattern that is particularly pronounced in studies of reproduction. We use the National Survey of Fertility Barriers to analyze three reasons frequently used to explain men's non‐participation in reproductive research: (1) Reproduction is a sensitive subject for men, (2) reproduction is women's domain, and (3) men's unavailability due to seemingly pragmatic reasons (e.g., work schedule). Using binary logistic regression, we test these three explanations across two different models: women's gatekeeping (denying researcher access to partners) (n = 1,637) and men's own non‐response (n = 1,454). A substantial minority of women (12.8 percent), engaged in gatekeeping, but the dominant mechanism of men's non‐participation was their own non‐response once women granted researcher access to partners. Consistent with prior studies on general survey non‐response, several demographic variables were associated with men's participation. Additionally, findings suggest that the notion of reproduction as women's domain received the strongest support, though specific variables within this construct differed for models predicting women's gatekeeping versus men's non‐response of their own accord.     

From the private to the public sphere: new research on women's participation in peace-building

Despite the United Nation's landmark Security Council Resolution on women, peace and security in 2000 which highlighted the importance of women's participation in peace-building, only one in 40 peace treaty signatories over the last 25 years has been a woman. Yet evidence from non-government organisations and women's rights organisations shows that women are active agents of peace, resolving conflicts at all levels of society with little or no recognition. This article discusses new research which tracks women's roles in building peace at local levels in five conflict-affected contexts: Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone. The article highlights the significance of violence against women as a barrier to peace-building, and explores how and why women's exclusion and marginalisation from peace processes tends to increase the more formal the processes become. The article uses two case studies of women's rights organisations in Afghanistan and Nepal to illustrate the research findings and demonstrate how communities can mobilise to promote gender equality and fulfil women's rights.     

Do Female Colleagues and Supervisors Influence Family Role Attitudes? A Three‐Level Test of Exposure Explanations Among Employed Men and Women in 27 European Countries

This study examines the relationship between various aspects of female labor participation and people's family role attitudes. Following exposure theory, we expect that individuals may adopt more egalitarian family roles as they are more often exposed to employed women because it dispels negative ideas about women's capabilities and brings them into contact with nontraditional networks. This study provides an elaborate test by examining the role of exposure to female colleagues and supervisors in three contexts: workplaces, occupational sectors, and countries. We found that the number of female colleagues at work and in occupational sectors was positively related to egalitarian family roles of employed men. Our study further showed that this positive relationship between exposure to female colleagues at work and men's egalitarian family roles was weaker in female‐dominated sectors. Remarkably, exposure to national female labor participation was not significantly related to the family roles of employed women.