The Cost of Doing Femininity: Gendered Disparities in Pricing of Personal Care Products and Services

Economic discrimination has been a major focus of gender research for the past several decades and such studies reveal a persistent gender wage gap. This study examines another aspect of the interaction between gender and the economy that has been largely ignored by social scientists—gender-based disparities in the cost of goods and services in the personal care industry. We examine prices charged for personal care products and services that are targeted toward women or men and find that women pay more than men for certain items and services. Our research suggests that although the differences are not uniform across types of services or products, women do tend to pay more than men for items such as deodorant, haircuts, and dry-cleaning. We suggest that such practices contribute to gender inequality by increasing women’s economic burden and reinforcing essentialist thinking about gender (i.e., that women and men are biologically different).     

Familiar subjects? Domestic violence and child welfare

Historically, domestic violence and child welfare have been seen as largely separate concerns. Over the last decade domestic violence has finally gained a place on social work agendas, partly as a result of linking domestic violence with child protection issues. Whilst welcoming the extent to which domestic violence is being taken seriously, we raise concerns about the dominant feminist perspectives guiding this project. We argue that current feminist theory is based on fixed and essentialist gender and generational categories which are unhelpful in understanding the complexities of family situations and family processes. Instead we argue for the relevance of relational understandings of gender, power and violence developed from feminist post-structuralist and psychoanalytic theorists. In doing so, we challenge accepted feminist understandings of domestic violence, and question the basis upon which dominant feminist approaches claim an unviolable alliance between the interests of women and children.     

The connections between disability and child abuse: A review of the research evidence

Two possible connections between disability and abuse are explored: that disability can be the outcome of abuse, and that children with disabilities are differentially vulnerable to abuse. Evidence supporting both propositions is presented and assessed. Major problems in research and research methods are highlighted: the differing definitions of disability and abuse, the reliance on data drawn from clinical samples and case files, and failure to develop innovative methods which would enable direct participation of children and adults with a range of disabilities. The paper concludes that our current knowledge base is inadequate to either distinguish between the two connections or provide clear guidance on a range of concerns within the child protection field.     

Prisoner's dilemma from a moral point of view

In a recent issue of this journal, C. L. Sheng claims to havesolved andexplained the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) by studying it from a moral point of view - i.e., by assuming that each player feels sympathy for the other. Sheng does not fully clarify this claim, but there is textual evidence that his point is this: PD's arise only for agents who feel little or no sympathy for each other; they cannot arise in the presence of a high degree of reciprocal sympathy. A high degree of such sympathysolves the PD in that it prevents PD's from arising, and a low degree of itexplains the PD in that it provides an essential condition for the occurrence of that game. This thesis is false, as some examples show. These examples are important; they prevent us from underestimating the problem posed by the PD.     

Stochastic dominance for ranking ventures

Tests for stochastic dominance help to rank ventures in order of preference. An example is given to show how Second Degree Stochastic Dominance can improve on the results of First Degree Stochastic Dominance but in another example, they do not yield a complete ordering of ventures. A reduction of the size of the efficient set of ventures is possible for the case where the utility function consists of two linear sections, and results for this case are given.     

Advocacy in Practice: The Troubled Position of Advocates in Adult Services

This paper is a review, and critical appraisal, of the theoryand practice of advocacy. Advocacy is not social work, but itsprinciples and values resonate closely to those espoused bythe British Association of Social Workers (BASW, 2002). In thispaper, we interrogate the assumption that advocacy is necessarilyalways a positive and enabling experience. Indeed, we suggestthat the use of advocacy can be contested from the point ofthe view of the service user (the advocacy partner¹), the advocateand from professionals working with advocates (or positioningthemselves as advocates). Drawing on recent research that evaluated advocacy servicesin Nottinghamshire, we discuss some of the key tensions. Inparticular, we consider the reality of the advocate’srole, including where it relates to and differs from socialwork, and the issue of whether advocacy can be part of whata social worker does anyway. We also review, briefly, the dilemmasarising from professionals acting as advocates, especially inrelation to being independent of services.