Digital Commons Network^™

The Interaction Of Customary Law And Microfinance: Women's Entry Into The World Economy, Shana Hofstetter

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This note examines the complicated relationship between microfinance and customary law. Microfinance, the practice of giving small, collateral-free loans to the poorest members of society, has gained great popularity in the last thirty years. These loan programs specifically target women and use women's traditional emphasis on groups to ensure success. Customary law can hinder microfinance ventures because of the restrictions these laws place on women's roles and responsibilities. Case studies on the Dominican Republic, Morocco, and Bangladesh explore how individual customary laws can hinder microfinance programs and women's micro-businesses. This note also discusses how microfinance programs act as catalysts of …

The Maine Women's Advocate (2008 - Summer), Maine Women's Lobby Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Women Film Directors And Producers, Ann M. Savage

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Encyclopedic entry concerning women film directors.

Survey Of Leadership Programs: Valued Characteristics Of Leadership Within The Deaf Community, Deborah Kamm-Larew, Marcia Lamkin

JADARA

This study surveyed leadership programs operating for and by the Deaf community through questionnaire and interview data. Three categories of leadership development were identified as currently operating in the United States for people who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: youth leadership programs, special interest mentoring groups, and formal leadership training programs focused on professional development and leadership skills. In addition, this study identified common leadership traits and training methods within these programs. Using a randomized list of leadership traits, valued characteristics were identified. The traits chosen most often were empowerment, advocacy, and decision making skills.

The Mystery Of Capital Formation In Sub-Saharan Africa: Women, Property Rights And Customary Law, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

Economists such as Hernando De Soto have argued that clearly defined property rights are essential to capital formation and ultimately to economic growth and poverty alleviation. This article traces two impediments to the clear definition of property rights in the African context: customary law and the status of women. Both of these issues interfere with the attempt of African countries to rearticulate property law with the goal of capital formation. Constructive attempts to define property rights must address the problem of enforcement in under-resourced environments where changes may not be welcomed.

Exploring Positive Women's Lives In Namakkal District, India, P. Kousalya, Deepika Ganju

Reproductive Health

This report describes an initiative that was undertaken to document the experiences of HIV-positive ever-married women in Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu, India. The initiative sought to explore the circumstances in which women learned about their HIV status; their feelings on finding out they were HIV-positive; the nature of husband–wife relationships prior to and following disclosure of women’s HIV status; the extent of support or discrimination that women experienced from family members, friends, and neighbors; treatment-seeking behaviors; and women’s perspectives about ways in which the multiple needs of HIV-infected women can be met. Drawing on the testimonies of these women gathered …

Just Don't Call Me A Feminist: Senior And Junior Women Managers' Perceptions Of Communication Dilemmas At Work, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Barrett (2004) found senior women managers evaluated workplace communication strategiesdifferently according to whether they thought a man or a woman was using the strategy. Butorganisationally junior younger women often reject overt feminist standpoints and might evaluatethese strategies differently. To test this, 255 junior women managers evaluated strategies for the samedilemmas older women had. When evaluating strategies for short and medium term dilemmas (egbeing interrupted, getting credit for an idea), junior women managers evaluate less than older womenmanagers on the basis of the communicator's gender. However with longer term dilemmas (eg gettingachievements noticed for promotion), junior women managers avoid some strategies …

Inclusion And Exclusion In Women's Access To Health And Medicine, Susan M. Dodds

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Women's access to health and medicine in developed countries has been characterized by a range of inconsistent inclusions and exclusions. Health policy has been asymmetrically interested in women's reproductive capacities and has sought to regulate, control, and manage aspects of women's reproductive decision making in a manner unwitnessed in relation to men's reproductive health and reproductive decision making. In other areas, research that addresses health concerns that affect both men and women sometimes is designed so as not to yield data relating to the ways in which women's physiology and gendered location may affect their experience of the condition and …

Domestic Work, Amanda Moras

Sociology Faculty Publications

This encyclopedia entry provides a brief history of domestic work and its relationship to race and ethnicity in the United States.

Advocating At The Margins: Women’S Ngos In China, Ling U

Honors Theses

The development of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China has been unprecedented in the past fifteen years. The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) and parallel NGO Forum in Beijing, China, opened the door for the first time for the establishment of women’s NGOs in China. This paper examines the development of Chinese women’s NGOs with a particular focus on two organizations in Beijing for marginalized female populations: one focusing on lesbians and the other helping women with HIV/AIDS. I examine the structure and growth of each NGO; however, on a more personal level and perhaps more importantly, I use …

The Effect Of Counterfactual Priming On Women's Decisions Regarding Mammography Screening, Amy Y. Chan, Jing Wang, Peter Caputi

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The counterfactual priming effect occurs when "what if" and "if only" thoughts about one event broadens ones mind-set to consider a more diverse range of evidence and possibilities in a different decision making or problem solving context. This study examined this effect as applied to mammography screening decisions.

Inside The 'Black Box': Women Accountants In Small Firms, Glenda Strachan, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Research on women’s employment conditions has been based on the experiences of women in large organisations. There is little information about women’s employment and their employment conditions in small businesses. This paper is the first and preliminary analysis of a segment of the findings from a survey of CPA Australia members working in small firms. The paper reports on employment conditions that may assist women to combine paid work and family care responsibilities such as parental leave and family care leave, as well as part-time work. The research concludes that employment in small firms does not offer these conditions as …

Creative Women In Advertising Agencies: Why So Few “Babes In Boyland”?, Sheri L. Broyles, Jean M. Grow

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore reasons why there are so few women in creative departments of advertising agencies and to discuss what impact that might have on the work environment of those creative departments and advertising messages they create.

Design/methodology/approach – Provides a review of published research and plus opinions of professionals who cover the advertising industry or work in agency creative departments. Personal observations from the authors’ time working in the advertising industry are also included.

Findings – Themes gleaned from the literature look at the gender gap, the creative department of advertising agencies …

Ms 123 Guide To The Women Physicians (1855-1996), John P. Mcgovern Historical Collections & Research Center

Manuscript Finding Aids

This collection includes newspaper clippings, medical license update cards, copies of journal articles and book chapters, and other material relating to women in medicine, and female doctors in Texas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. See more at MS 123.

Constraints On Food Choices Of Women In The Uk With Lower Educational Attainment, Mary Barker, Wendy T. Lawrence, Timothy C. Skinner, Cheryl O. Haslam, Sian M. Robinson, Hazel M. Inskip, Barrie M. Margetts, Alan A. Jackson, David J. P. Barker, Cyrus Cooper

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective: Women of lower educational attainment have less balanced and varied diets than women of higher educational attainment. The diets of women are vital to the long-term health of their offspring. The present study aimed to identify factors that influence the food choices of women with lower educational attainment and how women could be helped to improve those choices. Design: We conducted eight focus group discussions with women of lower educational attainment to identify these factors. We contrasted the results of these discussions with those from three focus group discussions with women of higher educational attainment. Setting: …

Midlife Women Maintaining Enriching Recovery From Alcohol Dependence, J B. Withnall, S B. Hill, Sharon R. Bourgeois

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Poster presented at The Joint Scientific Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism June 27– July 2, 2008—Washington, D.C., United States

Keep Them In School: The Importance Of Education As A Protective Factor Against Hiv Infection Among Young South African Women, Audrey Pettifor, Brooke Levandowski, Catherine L. Mac Phail, Nancy S. Padian, Myron Cohen, Helen Rees

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective To identify risk factors for HIV infection among young women aged 15-24 years reporting one lifetime partner in South Africa. Design In 2003, we conducted a nationally representative household survey of sexual behaviour and HIV testing among 11 904 young people aged 15-24 years in South Africa. This analysis focuses on the subset of sexually experienced young women with only one reported lifetime sex partner (n = 1708). Methods Using the proximate determinants framework and the published literature we identified factors associated with HIV in young women. The associations between these factors and HIV infection were explored in multivariable …

Investigating Psychosocial Well-Being Among Ethnically Diverse Rural Women: Expect The Unexpected, Rochelle L. Dalla, Catherine Huddleston-Casas, Maria León

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of similarity and difference in psychosocial well-being among 42 first-generation, Spanish-speaking Latinas, 23 second-generation, English-speaking Latinas, and 25 English-speaking Caucasian women residing in five unique rural Nebraska communities. Participants completed a series of self-report survey instruments to assess indices of psychosocial health, including: marital satisfaction, marital communication, family communication, social support, and depression. Spanishspeaking Latinas and English-speaking Caucasians evidenced the greatest similarity in patterns of experience. Twenty-eight percent of the total sample (n = 25) scored above the clinical cutoff for depression. Implications and suggestions for future work are discussed.

Book Review: "Assembling Women: The Feminization Of Global Manufacturing". By Teri L. Caraway, Vicki D. Crinis

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Teri Caraway’s study of Indonesian labor in workplaces such as the garment, textile, electronics, timber, tobacco, and automobile industries is a contribution to the literature on the feminization of factory work in Southeast Asia. Overall, the book, presented in six chapters, questions why female inequality in the workforce continues. Why do women outnumber male workers in export-processing industries while the same numbers of women are not represented in capital-intensive industries? According to Caraway, political economists believe that once women entered the paid labor force, they would eventually equal male workers in number, but political economy analysis has not been able …

Minority Women And Forced Migrations: A Comparative Study Of Flight And Settlement Experiences Of Women Refugees In India And Australia, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase, Roberta Julian

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper draws attention to the factors and experiences of displacement and the ways in which women cope with forced migration and resettlement. Through our comparative analysis of the resettlement experiences of women within the developing countries in the South Asian region and women from the Asin region who have settled in Australia, we challenge and problematise the various bureaucratic categories of 'the displaced' (such as political refugee, economic migrant, asylum seeker, illegal immigrant).

Malaysia: Women, Labour Activism And Unions, Vicki D. Crinis

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Pond-Women Revelations: The Subaltern Registers In Maithil Women's Expressive Forms, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Ponds are ubiquitous in the Maithil region of Nepal, and they figure prominently in folk narratives and ceremonial paintings produced by women there. I argue that in Maithil women's folktales, as in their paintings, the trope of ponds shifts the imaginative register toward women's perspectives and the importance of women's knowledge and influence in shaping Maithil society, even as this register shift occurs within plots featuring male protagonists. I argue further that in the absence of a habit of exegesis in their expressive arts, and given the cross-referential, dialogic nature of expressive practices, a methodology that draws into interpretive conversation …

Misyar Marriage As Human Trafficking In Saudi Arabia, Stephanie Doe

Global Tides

The severity and scope of human trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation has been grossly understudied until this past decade. Reliable information on how and why trafficking in persons occurs is scarce, especially for the Middle East. Saudi Arabia’s notorious policies of discrimination against women serve as the starting point. In Saudi Arabia, the monarchy has co-opted the traditional roles of women as an emblem of its own Islamic character, thereby making it a symbol of its national heritage. An entrenched institution of patriarchy uses gender construction as an instrument of state policy and state security. This intimate relationship between …

Attitudes Towards One’S Aging Among Single, Professional, Highly Educated, Baby Boom Women: “I Don’T Know Who I Am, But I Am Not A Crazy Old Maid!”, Tatyana Shepel

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Age is a value-laden cultural construct as it conveys social attitudes toward aging. This qualitative research, using a grounded theory approach and critical feminist gerontology as a theoretical framework, makes visible the experience of growing older and the renegotiation of self-identity among the ten single, professional, highly educated women ages 47-59 who resided in the Pacific Northwest and lets their voices be heard. In this study ten in-depth interviews and one focus group provided narrative data that captured women’s experiences of aging and uncovered common themes. The explored phenomenon of aging is experienced in the various socio-cultural contexts and conditions …

Living Past Your Expiration Date: A Phenomenological Study Of Living With Stage Iv Cancer Longer Than Expected, Cynthia Levine

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

More treatment options exist today for persons diagnosed with terminal cancerextending lives longer than expected though there is little known about the psychosocial needs or resources for these individuals. This study describes the experience of living past the expiration date and still living with Stage IV cancer. A transcendental phenomenological approach was used to elucidate vivid expressions of this experience in a sample population of five Caucasian women. The women survived beyond their prognoses of an earlier expiration are not close to imminent death and are still living with incurable breast cancer metastases. The aim of this phenomenological inquiry is …

The Invisible Pregnant Athlete And The Promise Of Title Ix, Deborah Brake

Articles

The question of how law should respond to women who become pregnant, and whether to specially accommodate pregnancy or analogize it to other conditions, features prominently in virtually every area of sex equality law. In debates over women's equality in the workplace, for example, it has been the defining issue for the development of and debate over various models of equality in feminist legal theory. Until recently, however, the issue has been all but absent in debates and discussion about Title IX and its promise of sex equality in sports. This changed suddenly in 2007, when ESPN televised a program …

Inner Voice Of Women's Self-Leadership, Diana M. Cooley

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

My research explores an aspect of leadership that is personal, which is the inner voice of self-leadership. The inner voice affects all aspects of leadership. The inner voice is highly personal in that one’s private thoughts are unique. The inner voice can increase one’s self-awareness and influence one to move forward and change or to pull one back to stand still. My thesis is that we can more fully understand how women leaders lead themselves and subsequently lead in society if we advance our understanding of their stories and experiences regarding the inner voice. This research improves our understanding of …

The Leadership Self-Identity Of Women College Presidents, Robbie Hertneky Phd

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this research study was to explore the concept of leadership self-identity in a particular population of formal leaders—women college presidents. Using narrative inquiry, the research examined the following: how these women describe and define themselves as leaders, what personal attributes they believe allow them to be leaders, their past and future career intentions, how their relationships with others influence their leadership self-identity, and the stories they tell about themselves and leadership. Participants were asked questions designed to reflect their core identity and personal narrative, and to describe their career and relationships. Common themes that emerge include: how …

Glass Ceiling, Medora Barnes

Medora W. Barnes

Out-Of-Body Image, Caroline Heldman

Caroline Heldman

On a typical day, you might see ads featuring a naked woman's body tempting viewers to buy an electronic organizer, partially exposed women's breasts being used to sell fishing line, or a woman's rear-wearing only a thong-being used to pitch a new running shoe. [...] Dove beauty products launched a much-lauded advertising campaign that used "real women" (i.e., not super-skinny ones) instead of models, but then Dove's parent company, Unilever, put out hypersexual ads for Axe men's body spray that showed the fragrance driving scantily clad women into orgiastic states.