Digital Commons Network^™

A Feminist Case For Leadership, Amanda Sinclair

Amanda Sinclair

No abstract provided.

Women's Reaearch And Action Group, Report Of Activites, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

WRAG commenced in 1993 in the context of very active public discourse about Muslim women’s rights under family law (in the wake of Supreme Court judgment in Shah Bano’s case where a 70-odd year old woman was granted maintenance from her husband who had divorced her). WRAG was also established soon after the destruction of Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992, subsequent to which there were attacks against the Muslim community in many parts of India including Mumbai. In this context, WRAG felt the need to understand Muslim women’s perspectives on family laws that govern them. It commenced, in 1994, …

A Different Sort Of Justice: The Informal Courts Of Public Opinion In Antebellum South Carolina, Elizabeth Dale

Elizabeth Dale

Studies of nineteenth century legal history assume that the antebellum South, and antebellum South Carolina in particular, had a legal culture shaped by honor culture and marked by the hierarchical assumptions and extralegal violence that honor culture engendered. In this article, I offer a modification of that well-established account. While I do not question the influence of honor on South Carolina's antebellum legal culture, I suggest that the state had a second, shame-based system of popular justice, in which women played a prominent role. As was the case with honor culture, this second form of extralegal justice, which I have …

The Gender Bend: Culture, Sex, And Sexuality – A Latcritical Human Rights Map Of Latina/O Border Crossings, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

In the course of studying and theorizing about Latinas/os and their location in law and culture, critical theory has been simultaneously liberating and restraining, confining, and coercive. Critical theorists have made substantial inroads in recognizing the intersectionality, multidimensionality, multiplicity, and interconnectivities of the intersections of race and sex. These paradigms are central to an analysis of the Latina/o condition within the Estados Unidos (United States). However, much work remains to be done in other areas - such as culture, language, sexuality, and class - that are key to Latinas'/os' self-determination and full citizenship. Cognizant of, and notwithstanding such limitations, this …

Maternity Leave: Taking Sex Differences Into Account, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

This Article focuses on restructuring the workplace in the context of maternity leave. Although most women are no longer, and, indeed, generally cannot be required to take maternity leave, many are not guaranteed leave or may be provided only with inadequate leave. A minority of states have addressed this problem by enacting statutes requiring that all employers provide job-protected maternity leave. Two of the statutes, the California and Montana provisions, have been challenged as discriminatory under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, and the Supreme Court has recently …

Fatherhood And Equality: Reconfiguring Masculinities, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

In this article, Professor Dowd sets out the asymmetric pattern of men’s caretaking as compared to women’s caretaking, and raises the issue of why greater equality has not been achieved in care as women’s participation in the workforce has increased. She argues that not only is this linked to the lack of institutional and structural supports for parenthood, which leads to gendered outcomes in who does care, but in addition, and perhaps most importantly, the barrier to care is cultural, linked to masculinities norms. Dowd sets out the barriers to care linked to masculinities and suggests a further analysis linked …

Bringing The Margin To The Center: Comprehensive Strategies For Work/Family Policies, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

The ultimate goal of work/family policy has always seemed deceptively clear: to provide institutional and cultural support to permit a healthy balance between family and work. An implicit assumption of that goal is that it would be achieved without undermining principles of equality. Indeed, the assumed result of work/family balance is that it would help achieve equality: families would be treated equally, caregivers would be supported equally, and children and family members would receive necessary and important care equally. It has long been recognized that work/family balance is especially critical to gender equality. Equality principles require that work/family policy and …

Boys, Masculinities And Juvenile Justice, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

Culture and tradition are part of the macrosystem of ideas and beliefs that have a dramatic effect on children and families. One aspect of culture is gender beliefs, values and roles. Feminist analysis has explored the incorporation of gender in a wide range of structures, challenging gender bias and advocating reform of a range of laws, structural systems, and social practices. Masculinities analysis, an outgrowth of feminist analysis that focuses on men as gendered subjects, provides a perspective to consider those areas in which men are disproportionately present either in positions of power and privilege, or in positions of disadvantage. …

Asking The Man Question: Masculinities Analysis And Feminist Theory, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

Masculinities scholarship is an essential piece of feminist analysis and of critical equality analysis. It requires that we "ask the man question" to further unravel inequalities. This symposium marks one of several movements toward examining and considering what masculinities scholarship can offer. In this introduction, I suggest a framework of masculinities analysis and describe its relationship to feminist theory. First, I consider why we should ask the "man question," and how we should ask it. Second, I explore how masculinities analysis might be useful in our examination of the "man question." Masculinities work can be used to understand more clearly …

The Oceanway, Promenade Or A Smart Transport Route?, Nigel Cartlidge, Lynne Armitage

Lynne Armitage

This paper arises out of a doctoral case study that sought to understand how people value, use and relate to urban beach precincts so that the development of seaside places may functionally reflect the role they play in people’s lives. The case study examined the complex relationships between the urban design attributes and spatial arrangement of beach precincts and public access to activity, amenity and facility in a case study of three different Gold Coast beach precincts.

The Future Of Polyamorous Marriage: Lessons From The Marriage Equality Struggle, Hadar Aviram, Gwendolyn Manriquez Leachman

Hadar Aviram

Amidst the recent legal victories and growing public support for same-sex marriage, numerous polyamorous individuals have expressed interest in pursuing legal recognition for marriages between more than two consenting adults. This Article explores the possibilities that exist for such a polyamorous marriage equality campaign, in light of the theoretical literature on law and social movements, as well as our own original and secondary research on polyamorous and LGBT communities. Among other issues, we examine the prospect of prioritizing the marriage struggle over other forms of nonmarital relationship recognition; pragmatic regulative challenges, like taxation, healthcare, and immigration; and how law and …

Underreporting Of Chargeable Time: The Impact Of Gender And Characteristics Of Underreporters, Michael D. Akers, Tim V. Eaton

Michael D. Akers

No abstract provided.

Can Extended Exposure To New Technology Undermine Its Acceptance? Evidence From System Trials Of An Enterprise Implementation, Monica Adya, Maureen Francis Mascha

Monica Adya

Despite significant attention given to effects of early exposure on acceptance and adoption of new systems, there continues to be ambiguity regarding its effectiveness beyond a threshold. For organizations concerned with optimal utilization of IT resources, a deeper understanding of ideal levels of early system exposure can result in greater realization of benefits through enhanced design of system training and mitigation of adverse effects of exposure on adoption. In this article, we propose that the relationship between system exposure and acceptance can demonstrate diminishing gains—as early exposure to a system increases beyond a reasonable level, its acceptance declines. Preliminary findings …

Early Determinants Of Women In The It Workforce: A Model Of Girls’ Career Choices, Monica Adya, Kate Kaiser

Monica Adya

Purpose – To develop a testable model for girls’ career choices in technology fields based on past research and hypotheses about the future of the information technology (IT) workforce.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Review and assimilation of literature from education, psychology, sociology, computer science, IT, and business in a model that identifies factors that can potentially influence a girl’s choice towards or against IT careers. The factors are categorized into social factors (family, peers, and media), structural factors (computer use, teacher/counselor influence, same sex versus coeducational schools), and individual differences. The impact of culture on these various factors is also explored.

Findings …

Setting The Record Straight: A Proposal For Handling Prosecutorial Appeals To Racial, Ethnic Or Gender Prejudice During Trial, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

Does Gender Affect The Relation Between Blood Pressure And Pain Sensitivity?, James A. Mccubbin, Suzanne G. Helfer

James A. McCubbin

High resting blood pressure is associated with decreased pain sensitivity. This study was designed to explore this relation in young, normotensive men and women. Twenty-nine women (mean age 19.1, range 18–29) and 26 men (mean age 19.3, range 18–25) rested for 10 min while systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressures were measured. They were then asked to complete a 2-min cold pressor task. Participants were asked to fill out the short form of the McGill Pain Questionnaire immediately after the pain task. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to predict pain sensitivity from resting blood pressure, gender, and the interaction …

Women Of Color In Legal Education: Challenging The Presumption Of Incompetence, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

Female law professors of color have become the canaries in the academic mine whose plight is an early warning of the dangers that threaten legal education and the future of the legal profession. As legal education is restructured in response to declining enrollments, tenure itself is coming under fire, and downsizing and hiring freezes are becoming more common. Female law professors of color, who tend to be concentrated at middle- and lower-tier law schools, are particularly vulnerable. But this vulnerability may foreshadow the predicament of all but the most elite law faculty if academic employment becomes increasingly precarious. This article …

In Pursuit Of Feminist Postfeminism And The Blessings Of Buttercup, Teresa Hubel

Teresa Hubel

Introduction: I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that the term “postfeminism” is often and perhaps most frequently used—by the mainstream media generally and by actual people—as a kind of casual dismissal of feminism that comes implicitly coupled with the suggestion that the cutting-edge place to be these days, with regard to women, is the one where the old victim mentality has been sloughed off and a new flying-free-of-those-chains approach to gender in all its diversity and in all its equal opportunity has been boldly embraced. Given the terms of this unstated argument, any criticism of this postfeminism automatically …

Two Methods In Teaching Introductory Physics, With Emphasis On The Effect In Gender Performance, Maria Babiuc-Hamilton

Maria C. Babiuc-Hamilton

Reports show that females are underrepresented in physics, and their average scores are lower than males. This proposal is targeted towards improving the performance of female students studying physics. Two different pedagogical approaches in teaching introductory level physics will be compared: the lecture-based method, enhanced with multimedia, and the active learning laboratories based on the Physics Suite. We analyze which method is more efficient in fostering the success of female students. The expected benefit of this project is that it will improve the understanding on how different pedagogical methods can influence female students to perform better in physics. It will …

Deconstructing Maths Anxiety: Helping Students To Develop A Positive Attitude Towards Learning Maths, Sarah Buckley

Dr Sarah Buckley

Higher maths ability is often believed to go hand-in-hand with greater levels of general intelligence. At the same time, many students have a negative attitude towards maths. Maths anxiety is defined in the research literature as feelings of concern, tension or nervousness that are experienced in combination with maths. In 2005, researchers in the United States estimated that approximately 20 per cent of the US population were highly maths anxious. Given the cultural similarities between the US and Australia, we can assume that the percentage would be comparable here. Research in education, cognitive psychology and neuroscience shows that anxiety can …

Demographic Trends In Consumer E-Health Adoption: Analysis Of Nci Hints 2003 And 2005 National Surveys, E. Vance Wilson, Nancy K. Lankton, Sule Balkan

Nancy K. Lankton

It has become common for healthcare providers to offer e-health services to patients and other consumers. Experts suggest these services are desired by users, and this has been confirmed generally through empirical research. However, most empirical studies of e-health adoption have focused on demographically homogeneous populations and have been implemented through cross-sectional designs. This study applies data from two administrations of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) conducted by the U.S. National Cancer Institute to develop an analysis of adoption trends that crosses time (2003-2005) and also addresses effects of gender, age, socio-economic status, and race/ethnicity on e-health use. …

Some Reflections On Teaching And Learning From Numeracy And Mathematical Literacy Assessments, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

No abstract provided.

Lessons From Pisa For Mathematical Literacy, Ross Turner

Ross Turner

Testosterone Effects On Renal Norepinephrine Content And Release In Rats With Different Y Chromosomes, Thomas J. Jones, Gail Dunphy, Amy Milsted, Daniel Ely

Amy Milsted

The Y chromosome in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and stroke-prone rats has been shown to contain a locus that contributes to the hypertensive effect; both the sympathetic nervous system and testosterone may be involved. The objective of this study was to look at the effects of testosterone on renal norepinephrine (NE) release and content in the isolated perfused kidney in different Y chromosome backgrounds. The study involved male SHR, Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY), and 2 consomic strains with different Y chromosomes (n=5 to 8 per group). Adult animals were castrated, and implants containing testosterone propionate were placed at the base of …

Sagittal Plane Biomechanics Cannot Injure The Acl During Sidestep Cutting, Scott G. Mclean, Xuemei Huang, Anne Su, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert

Anne Su Ph.D.

Background. Knee joint sagittal plane forces are a proposed mechanism of anterior cruciate ligament injury during sport movements such as sidestep cutting. Ligament force magnitudes for these movements however, remain unknown. The need to examine injury-causing events suggests elucidation via model-based investigations is possible. Using this approach, the current study determined whether sagittal plane knee loading during sidestep cutting could in isolation injure the anterior cruciate ligament. Methods. Experiments were performed on subject-specific forward dynamic musculoskeletal models, generated from data obtained from 10 male and 10 female athletes. Models were optimized to simulate subject-specific cutting movements. Random perturbations (n=5000) were …

Reclaiming Eroticism In Academia, Emma Bell, Amanda Sinclair

Amanda Sinclair

In this article we address the question ‘what are we to do with ourselves?’ by arguing for the reclamation of the erotic in higher education. By defining the erotic in a way which encompasses the pursuit of pleasure and love, we seek to re-differentiate the collapsed categories of sex and eros. Universities have always been environments where a love of learning and pleasure in pedagogy is possible. Yet a range of cultural and societal factors have rendered academic life on the one hand disembodied, and on the other, commodified and sexualized, especially for women. Our suggestion is that these effects …

Sequins, Sass And Sisterhood: An Exploration Of Older Women's Belly Dancing, Angela M. Moe

Angela M. Moe

Disempowering stereotypes plague public perceptions of older women’s bodies, particularly within Western contemporary societies. Consequently, as women age their bodies often become sources of shame, discomfort and ridicule. Belly dance, as a form of recreative leisure, provides a unique and somewhat unexpected space for women to subvert such perceptions. Based on qualitative interviews with older American women who belly dance, this paper examines the ways in which this form of recreation provides participants a means of (re)gaining mobility, (re)claiming social space, (re)building social support, and (re)defining what it means to be sensual later in life.

Are Men More Likely Than Women To Become Heroes And Villains?, Scott T. Allison, George R. Goethals

Scott T. Allison

Roy Baumeister's analysis of the evolution of gender roles suggests that men take greater risks than women and are therefore more likely to occupy the extreme ends of success and failure in society. We extend this analysis further to argue that men may be more likely than women to become heroes and villains.

Does Consistency Pay? The Effects Of Information Sequence And Content On Women’S Negotiation Outcomes, Carol T. Kulik, Mara Olekalns, Emma T. Swain

Mara Olekalns

Women are usually perceived as warm or competent, but rarely both. This research investigates how the sequence and content of warmth-relevant relational information and competence-relevant performance information affects female negotiators’ social (perceptions of their warmth and competence) and economic outcomes. Female employers (but not male employers) rated a negotiating female employee as high warmth when they received relational information first and were able to discount the employee’s competence with a team-based relational attribution (E1) or when they received performance information first and were convinced the employee’s warm behavior was genuine (E2). The sequence and content of warmth-relevant and competence-relevant information …

Financial Freedom: Women, Money, And Domestic Abuse, Dana Harrington Conner

Dana Harrington Conner

No abstract provided.