Young helpline callers and difference: exploring gender, ethnicity and sexuality in helpline access and provision

This article, which has its origin in a feasibility study carried out for three youth telephone helplines, focuses on gender, difference and helpline access by young people. During the research process the writers noted that for the three commissioning helplines, as is the case with the majority of other telephone helplines, approximately two‐thirds of callers are female. A helpline for young Muslims where the gender access ratio was 50/50 stood out as being different in this respect. Until recently, literature on gender and help‐seeking has tended towards making a blanket identification of males as experiencing difficulties in negotiating pathways to help. Although this difficulty of males is evident in relation to both help‐seeking and access to helplines, our study suggests that, at least in relation to helpline usage, when we take culture, ethnicity and sexuality into account, the help‐seeking situation may be more nuanced. This has implications in terms of enabling a cross‐section of young people to access helplines as well as with regard to helpline service development.     

性别觉悟与妇女命运--从分析张洁、王安忆小说的女性人物说起

妇女的性别觉悟,也可以说成妇女个人自我意识的觉醒程度,受个人所处的社会政治、历史经济、文化传统等多方面因素影响决定。妇女性别的觉醒程度在不同时代及不同的个人身上,其表现各有特点,其作用也不尽相同。对妇女自身来讲,则直接影响妇女个人如何面对命运、选择机遇,以至决定最终的人生模式。本文试图对张洁、王安忆创作的长篇小说《无字》、《长恨歌》中两个主要女性人物一生命运与个人性别觉悟的关系做出分析,探讨这一关系的普遍意义。     

庄严而残忍的悲歌--重读老鬼的《血色黄昏》

本文从《血色黄昏》反映生活的真实性、作者塑造人物形象的典型性以及独特的表现风格三个方面,对小说作了评述。     

无限传递尽在秋波--试论中外影视对眼睛和眼神的处理

本文通过对中外影视名片中眼睛、眼神的分析,阐述其在影视艺术中所起的重要作用.观众在鉴赏影视作品时,要善于把握银幕上种种无声语言及各种细节,这对吸取艺术精华,获得审美愉悦有着极为显著的意义.     

Equal opportunities,true options or hidden unemployment? A comparative perspective on labour‐market marginality

Previous studies have shown that women generally adjust to unemployment better than men. This study shows that young women value work equally as highly as men, and have negative feelings when unemployed, which indicates the existence of a closed gender gap. However, children have a different influence on men's and women's unemployment experiences. Being a parent increases job-search activity and work involvement among men. On the other hand, children moderate negative experiences of unemployment among women, and they decrease their job-search activity and work involvement. Being a parent increases labour-market marginality among young unemployed women. For young men it is a motivational factor for searching for and getting a job. The comparison shows furthermore that patterns of re-employment vary in the involved countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Scotland. They reflect differences in the overall unemployment situation in the countries and the welfare strategies applied.     

The Experience of Gender Change in Public Sector Organizations

The state has a twofold relationship to gender change in society, through its overall steering capacity and through the gendered character of its constituent agencies. It is therefore important to understand the experience of gender change in state organizations. The findings from a study of gender relations in ten public‐sector worksites in New South Wales, Australia are presented. There is a widespread consciousness of gender change linked with new labour processes, restructuring and new patterns of management. These changes are uneven and limits to change are visible. Gender is recognized as an organizational problem in specific circumstances, most visibly where men’s resistance to change appears. A number of mechanisms limit the consciousness of gender as a problem. Several trends, including the current strength of neo‐liberalism, converge to make the gender‐neutral workplace the principal goal of gender reform in the public‐sector workplace. This, however, limits the state’s steering capacity in regard to societal gender relations.     

Creating Stepfamilies: Integrating Children Into the Study of Union Formation

As a result of the growth in out‐of‐wedlock childbearing and union instability, adults contemplating forming a new union are often already parents. This article examines the role of children in stepfamily formation, both coresident and not, using the 2,594 respondents in the National Survey of Families and Households who were not living with a partner in 1987/1988. We consider children of the respondent and of the partner, which allows us to examine the determinants of entering a stepfamily. We found that being a coresident father dramatically increases forming a union with a woman with children. Women’s coresidential children reduce women’s odds of forming unions with men who do not have children and increase them for unions with men who do.     

Book Reviews

Book reviews: Rosemary Crompton (ed), Restructuring Gender Relations and Employment: The Decline of the Male Breadwinner Susan Eisenberg, We’ll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working in Construction Fiona M. Wilson, Organizational Behaviour: A Critical Introduction Rohan Collier, Equality in Managing Service Delivery Joyce K. Fletcher, Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power and Relational Practice at Work Miriam Glucksmann, Cottons and Casuals : The Gendered Organisation of Labour in Time and Space     

Premarital Cohabitation and Housework: Couples in Cross‐National Perspective

The authors examine the effect of premarital cohabitation on the division of household labor in 22 countries. First, women do more routine housework than men in all countries. Second, married couples that cohabited before marriage have a more equal division of housework. Third, national cohabitation rates have equalizing effects on couples regardless of their own cohabitation experience. However, the influence of cohabitation rates is only observed in countries with higher levels of overall gender equality. The authors conclude that the trend toward increasing cohabitation may be part of a broader social trend toward a more egalitarian division of housework.