Just Being a Woman Isn't Enough Any More

This study focuses on TV news coverage of women in the local elections held in Israel in 2008. The questions posed were: Did national TV news in Israel during the election campaign reflect the changes in the status of women in local politics that have occurred in the last two decades? How prominent was the representation of women politicians in national TV news coverage and what patterns did it display? The sample used in the study consisted of all items dealing with women that were broadcast by one of the national TV stations during the month prior to the local elections. All the news and current affairs broadcasts were analyzed. All items in which women candidates featured, as well as items dealing with issues relating to women in politics in general, were taped and transcribed. The study was based on an interpretive analysis employing the analytical tool of “media frames.” Although the extent of the coverage of women remained quite meager, this reflects the sociopolitical reality in which women politicians are still a small minority. However, whereas the literature emphasizes the negative stereotypical representation of women politicians, the national TV news representation of women in the local elections was more complex. On the one hand, it mirrored the patriarchal power structure, primarily the subordination of women to men, but on the other hand it also offered a forum for genuine feminist discourse.     

The neoliberal mom: how a discursive coalition shapes low-income mothers’ labor market participation

Research has elucidated the conflict low-income mothers face when trying to comply with the imperatives of the neoliberalism and mothering discourses. Feminist scholars have argued that low-income mothers’ alternative conceptions of morality and behavior constitute an act of resistance to inferiorizing definitions embedded in these discourses. Drawing on this literature, I offer a new conceptualization of the seemingly contradictory discourses. Based on interviews with 48 low-income Israeli mothers, I suggest that the neoliberal ideology is not limited to the neoliberal discourse, which primarily measures the individual's commitment to the labor market, but rather has diffused into the mothering discourse, which sets the standards for good mothering. This diffusion constructs a discursive coalition of ‘neoliberal moms’, wherein the current hegemonic notion of good mothering and the neoliberal call for personal responsibility intersect and shape mothers’ perceptions and decision-making processes. Moreover, the neoliberal mom constructs an alternative morality: moral motherhood. Accordingly, the moral component of good mothering means taking personal responsibility to act in ways that promote one's children's future inclusion. I argue that the discursive coalition framework helps us to better understand mothers’ labor force entries and exits, and how these constitute a way of negotiating paths to social inclusion.     

Volunteers and the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) result from exposure to a traumatic event and influence a person's ability to cope psychologically. Recent documentation from emergency rooms shows that medical personnel, including volunteers who treated severely injured people, can develop symptoms of PTSD even though the volunteers themselves were not personally subjected to the stressful event. This article finds similar results among adolescents who volunteered with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance, and blood bank service. Because of the security threats Israel has faced, these adolescents are likely to be exposed to traumatic events during their volunteer service, and some may develop PTSD. This article explores who is most susceptible to developing PTSD and the underlying theories of why that may be the case. Since the adolescents' motives to volunteer vary, the article proposes that volunteers with certain motives retain their enthusiasm for volunteering despite the danger of developing PTSD symptoms. It also finds that some of the motives to volunteer correlated with a reduction in the level of PTSD symptoms. Understanding the adolescents' motivations to volunteer will help nonprofit leaders and managers allocate volunteers according to their motivations and the levels of threat a particular job entails.     

“IF YOU SIT AND CRY NO ONE WILL HELP YOU”: Understanding Perceptions of Worthiness and Social Support Relations among Low‐Income Women under a Neoliberal Discourse

Drawing on Wax's concept of “condition reciprocity,” this study draws on data from 35 in‐depth interviews to examine how low‐income women in Israel frame their reliance on personal networks for survival. Findings reveal that women used a similar rationale focusing on productivity with respect to their interpersonal relations. Consistent with the neoliberal principle of market citizenship, most women perceived themselves as worthy of support from personal networks based on their work commitment. By contrast, women who could not rely on a current, past, or future definition of productivity did not consider themselves as deserving support and experienced extreme social isolation.     

My Home is Not My Castle: Follow-Up of Residents of Shelters for Homeless Youth

The paper presents a follow-up evaluation of Israel’s first two shelters for homeless youth. The main research questions were: (a) Did the youngsters achieve the shelters’ main goal of reaching a normative and suitable post-shelter residence? (b) How do the youngsters evaluate their stay at the shelter and its impact on them? (c) Is there a relationship between youngsters’ post-shelter residence and their evaluation of the shelter stay? Data on 345 youngsters were collected through follow-up telephone interviews with the youngsters, their parents, and community social workers. The findings indicate that the majority of these youngsters left the shelter to living arrangements that were normative but not necessarily fitting with their wishes and needs. Most of the youngsters were satisfied with the shelter, but no relationship was found between general satisfaction and achievement of the shelters’ declared goal. The discussion focuses on the significance of the findings with regard to the declared and operative goals of shelters.     

Working‐class mothers’ school involvement: a class‐specific maternal ideal?

Recent ideological shifts, along with budgeting constraints, have made parental involvement in the schooling process necessary. Such expectations have increased the toll on working‐class mothers, who now have to assume responsibility in three time‐consuming areas: child care at home, school involvement and labour market participation. In analysing how mothers deal with this threefold expectation, research has focused on class‐specific maternal ideals and practices, but rarely directed systematic attention to how these concurrent expectations shape the maternal ideals they embrace. Moreover, few studies have examined how mothers’ maternal ideals shape their employment interruptions. The current paper considers how working‐class mothers rationalize the maternal ideals they embrace with regard to school involvement and examines how they negotiate them vis‐à‐vis other possible maternal ideals. Interviews of 48 Israeli low‐income mothers reveal that educational success is consensually perceived as critical for maximizing life chances and that this understanding evolved from the gradual realization that school involvement through extensive mothering – where women rely on others to meet their children's schooling needs – must be replaced by school involvement through intensive mothering – namely, personal presence‐based nurturing. We draw some implications relevant to the debate over class‐based maternal ideals.     

Conservative and alternative motherhood in popular Israeli TV series

The present study analyzes the models of motherhood reflected and constructed in two popular Israeli television series that center around mothers. The analysis reveals the change in social norms and values regarding the institution of motherhood in Israel, while also shedding light on the construction, reproduction, and distribution of the dominant and alternative discourses of motherhood in neoliberal countries, and the global diversity of this discourse. Using critical discourse analysis, the study shows a dialectic flux in the representation of Israeli motherhood between the tendency to preserve preexisting notions and the propensity for innovation. It demonstrates the move from a collective society in which motherhood constitutes a woman’s civil duty to her nation and serves as a source of power in the public sphere, to an individualistic society where motherhood is also a private identity and universal practice. While the emergence of an ambivalent mothering discourse in the few years between the two series reflects the development of an alternative feminist voice in the Israeli public sphere, both series still reflect the deeply embedded conservative social presumption that every Israeli woman should become a mother at some stage in her life.     

The construction of maternal identity among Israeli mothers who are welfare clients

Dominant social, cultural, and professional discourses view motherhood as the core of a woman's identity. Thus, the identity of women who do not meet the general expectations of motherhood might be negatively affected. Specifically, mothers who are welfare clients may violate the prevailing norms concerning the maternal role. This qualitative study explores how Israeli mothers who are welfare clients construct their maternal identity. Studies of mothers who are clients of welfare services suggest that they feel blamed for being “bad” or “unfit” mothers. However, women occasionally negotiate or challenge the negative perceptions that are forced on them by hegemonic discourses of motherhood. We postulate that such women experience a troubled maternal identity that they negotiate through interactions with others. Accordingly, this study set to explore how Israeli mothers who are welfare clients negotiate their maternal identity in the context of motherhood and welfare discourses. Fourteen participants were interviewed, and the findings illustrate the vulnerability of the mothers and their strategies to construct a positive maternal identity. We discuss the findings in light of the concept of troubled identity.