Digital Commons Network^™

Educating The Silenced: Threads Of Visual Culture In Domesticating The Wives In Malaysia, Esmaeil Zeiny

Esmaeil Zeiny

As a very controversial issue in Islam, polygamy allows Muslim men to marry up to four wives. It has been told that the Quran encourages polygamy; thus, it is a part of Islamic Sharia. Many Muslim men practice it at their whim and they contend that they do so to follow the Sunnah. Amongst Muslim countries, Malaysia is one of those countries where polygamy is rife. To make it as an acceptable Islamic practice and a more common phenomenon, polygamy is favoritized and advocated through the mass media such as TV shows and newspapers. Although suffering agonizing experiences of being …

The Effects Of Home-Based Pilates In Healthy College-Age Females, Betsy Donahoe-Fillmore, Mary Insana Fisher, C. Jayne Brahler

Betsy Donahoe-Fillmore

Objectives: To quantify and determine the effects of Pilates on core endurance, hamstring flexibility, balance, body composition/mass and perceived stress level in healthy college age females. Study Design: Randomized controlled trial design. Background: Emerging research on the Pilates technique is inconclusive regarding benefits to core endurance, flexibility, balance, body mass, and perceived stress. Methods and Measures: Female college students (n=57; 18-35 years old) were randomly assigned to a Pilates group, who exercised at home with a DVD, or a control group who did not engage in Pilates practice. Core endurance, hamstring flexibility, balance, body composition and stress measurements were taken …

Scarce Medical Resources – Parenthood At Every Age, In Every Case And Subsidized By The State?, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The dilemma of scarce medical resources is deeply rooted in the ancient mankind history, but it has been accelerated in the modern era with the appearance of the bio-medical innovations. This acute dilemma is relevant to all the western developed states, include Israel. Nevertheless, in one field there is the notion that Israel has unlimited medical resources – the fulfillment of its citizen's procreation and parenthood rights. Thus, for sociological, demographical, religious and security reasons the State of Israel invests a vast amount of money to develop and use the various fertility treatments. Israel, today, has the highest per capita …

“I Wish I Was A Bird To Fly Back And Forth:” Immigrant Women And Their Transnational Families Caring At A Distance: Draft 4/14/15, Sondra Cuban Dr.

Dr. Sondra Cuban

This case study of fifty women immigrants in Washington state focuses on the ingenious emotional strategies they engaged in with their left-behind families to care at a distance and the problematic ways the information and communication technology (ICTs) mediated these relationships across space and time. The study draws on a feminist transnational framework and an extended case method approach to understand the emotional dimensions and meanings of care by separated members and the ways the social technologies, and other factors, shaped these transnational spaces and interactions. The study utilizes ethnographic methods (interviews, informants, journals, focus groups, documentary analysis, and informal …

Shared Responsibility Regulation Model For Cross-Border Reproductive Transactions, Sharon Bassan

Sharon Bassan

The term “cross-border reproductive transactions” refers to the phenomenon of tens of thousands of people who travel from one country to another to purchase reproductive services, in order to have a child. The foci of this paper are the lion share of cross-border reproductive transactions, specifically between consumers, i.e., intended parents from affluent countries, and suppliers of reproductive services, egg sellers and surrogate mothers, the majority of whom are from lower middle-income countries. Strong concerns regarding the morality of consumers’ states’ policy arise when a country nationally restricts or bans commercial surrogacy, while accepting the results of cross-border reproductive transactions …

Protecting The Welfare Of Our Children For A Better Tomorrow, Aileen N. Gonzalez

Aileen N Gonzalez

No abstract provided.

Reading Music: Representing Female Performance In Nineteenth-Century British Piano Method Books And Novels, Laura Vorachek

Laura Vorachek

The editorial content of piano method books published in the nineteenth century contributed to the gendering of the domestic piano by targeting a middle-class female audience. At the same time, these tutorials circumscribed the ability and ambition of female pianists, cautioning women against technical display or performing challenging pieces in company, thereby reinforcing the stereotype of the graceful, demure woman who played a little. However, this effort was complicated by both the tutorials themselves and contemporary fiction. The middle-class women reading these tutorials also read novels—a fact the method books occasionally acknowledge—which often presented a very different picture of women’s …

Playing Italian: Cross-Cultural Dress And Investigative Journalism At The Fin De Siècle, Laura Vorachek

Laura Vorachek

This examination of late Victorian journalism reveals that one type of clothing offered middle-class women protection from street harassment: cross-cultural dress. In appropriate ethnic attire, reporters and social investigators ventured into the immigrant communities that made up a part of England’s urban poor, exploring such trades as Jewish fur-puller or Italian organ-grinder. This incognito ethnic attire afforded women both the means and the authority to carry out their investigations into the Italian constituency of the Victorian working poor. This study also examines how costumes enabled female investigators to manipulate class- and gender-based assumptions about who had broad access to the …

Sentencing Pregnant Drug Addicts: Why The Child Endangerment Enhancement Is Not Appropriate, Monica Carusello

Monica B Carusello

No abstract provided.

Does The Right To Elective Abortion Include The Right To Ensure The Death Of The Fetus?, Stephen G. Gilles

Stephen G Gilles

Is the right to an elective abortion limited to terminating the woman’s pregnancy, or does it also include the right to ensure the death of the fetus? Important as this question is in principle, in today’s world the conduct that would squarely raise it cannot occur in practice. The right to elective abortion applies only to fetuses that are not viable, which by definition means that they have been determined to have no realistic chance of surviving outside the uterus. Even if abortion providers used fetus-sparing methods rather than the fetus-killing methods they currently prefer, pre-viable fetuses would die within …

The Affordable Care Act: A “Preventative-Focused” Healthcare Regime To Improve Reproductive Cancer Outcomes Among Women Of Lower Socio-Economic Status, Rachele M. Hendricks

Rachele M Hendricks-Sturrup

No abstract provided.

From The Laboratory To The Desk: Combating The Dangers Of A Sedentary Lifestyle, Rachele M. Hendricks-Sturrup

Rachele M Hendricks-Sturrup

"From the Laboratory to the Desk: Combating the Dangers of a Sedentary Lifestyle," by Rachele Hendricks-Sturrup

Inclusive Leadership And Gender, Margaret Grogan, Shamini Dias

Margaret Grogan

A review of relevant recent research indicates that girls’ issues are generally off the radar screen in local pre-K-12 schools in the United States. This is particularly problematic because gender inequities continue to be perpetuated in schools through largely unconscious cultural mores and pedagogies. Gender inequities are deeply rooted in historical, philosophical, and cultural narratives of gender so that we, educators, are ourselves articulations of gender-based narratives. Moreover, the intersectionalities between gender, race, English speaking ability, sexuality, class, religion, ability, poverty etc. greatly exacerbate this problem. Together with their teachers, principals must develop critical self-awareness as well as intentional ways …

Artificial Insemination From Donor (Aid) – From Status To Contract And Back Again?, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The last few decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the institutions of family and parenthood and an abandonment of the historical emphasis on their bionormative structures. These changes are the result of societal shifts with respect to public openness and technological innovations that segregate marital relations from sexuality and fertility. The resultant parenthood structures, which depart from traditional spousal and parental models, intensify the ability and need to determine legal parenthood in numerous unprecedented contexts. Sir Henry Maine famously stated that mankind is pacing from status toward contract. This theme has had particular resonance during the past half century in …

Why Rape Should Not (Always) Be A Crime, Katharine K. Baker

Katharine K. Baker

Legitimate Families And Equal Protection, Katharine K. Baker

Katharine K. Baker

Responding To Gendered Dynamics: Experiences Of Women Working Over 25 Years At One University, Ellen Broido, Kirsten R. Brown, Katie Stygles

Kirsten R. Brown, Ph.D.

A Feminist Case For Leadership, Amanda Sinclair

Amanda Sinclair

No abstract provided.

Actitudes Sobre La Violencia Hacia La Pareja Y Roles De Género De Las Mujeres Uruguayas., Maximo Rossi, Marisa Bucheli

Maximo Rossi

According to World Health Organization (2013), 30% of even-partnered women have experienced either physical or/and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) in the course of their lives.

The incidence of IPV in Latin America and Caribbean region is higher relative to other high income and middle-income countries. This problem is particularly relevant in Uruguay. The empirical literature provides evidence that violence towards partners is more likely among individuals that justify, approve or favor this type of violence.

This paper explores the extent to which tolerant attitudes to violence against women are correlated with tolerance to violence against men, and the relation …

Loyalty's Reward — A Felony Conviction: Recent Prosecutions Of High-Status Female Offenders, Michelle S. Jacobs

Michelle S Jacobs

Between 2001 and 2004, six high-status women were charged with crimes in connection with corporate criminal cases. The public is familiar with some of them, although not all of their cases have been covered equally in the press. With the exception of an occasional article now and then mentioning the exploding rates of female incarceration, women's crime tends to be invisible to the public eye. The statistical data the government collects and analyzes on women and crime will be discussed. This article will focus on the prosecution of the individual cases of Lea Fastow, Betty Vinson, and Martha Stewart. Their …

Sacagawea: A Uniquely American Legend, Donna Jean Kessler

Donna J Barbie

In an examination of American texts produced from 1804 to 1989, this dissertation delineates that Sacagawea became a legendary figure because she has exemplified critical elements of narrative traditions recounting the nation's sacred beginnings. As a plethora of works have portrayed Sacagawea as the Indian princess of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, she became an important emblem of manifest destiny. Flexible within its mythic framework, the Sacagawea legend has additionally enabled proponents to confront timely cultural issues, such as women suffrage, taboos against miscegenation, and modern feminism.

Chapter one provides a review of American frontier myths, concepts of sacred mission …

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 …

Rethinking Social Support In Women's Midlife Years: Women's Experiences Of Social Support In Online Environments, Julie Dare, Lelia Green

Julie Dare Dr

The midlife years (45–55) often coincide with fundamental changes in women’s lives, as women experience transitions such as menopause, changes to family structure due to departure of children or divorce, and parents’ ageing and death. These circumstances tend to increase women’s reliance upon their social support networks. Evidence suggests that social support is critical in helping women manage transitions during the midlife period and develop a sense of self-efficacy; this article highlights that this support is being increasingly exchanged through mediated communication channels. The article presents a comparative investigation of mediated communication channels, primarily email and online chat, through which …

Corporate Boardroom Diversity: Why Are We Still Talking About This?, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

What exactly is board diversity and why does it matter? How does diversity fit in an attempt to build the best board for any organization? What attributes and skills are required by law and what mix of experiences and talents provide the best corporate governance? Even though most companies say they are looking for diversity, why has there been such little progress? Are required director attributes, which are a must for all boards, consistent with future diversity gains and aligned with achieving high performance and optimal board composition? My goal is to provide answers to these questions, and to discuss …

Sociology Professor Participates In White House Summit On Working Families, Colleen Butler-Sweet

Colleen Butler-Sweet

The call from the White House aide came on a Friday morning in June, and on the following Monday, Colleen Butler-Sweet was in Washington, D.C., at the invitation of The U.S. Department of Labor, attending the White House Summit on Working Families.

Human Rights, Women, And Third World Development, Winston E. Langley

Winston E. Langley

As part of the effort to inaugurate a new international socio-political order after World War II, international emphasis was given to certain moral and legal entitlements we have come to call human rights. That emphasis initially found its most forceful expression in the Charter of the United Nations, which not only asserts its members' faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, as well as in the equal rights of men and women of all nations, but also recites its members' commitment to employ international machinery for the promotion of the social and economic …

Commodification Of The Female Egg: Stem Cell Technology And The Future, Rachel Rose Ostrander

Rachel Rose Ostrander

As the science of stem cell research progresses it is difficult to tell what implications it will have on our society and for women. I will begin this discussion by examining how science has viewed women in the past, and use this as a basis to conjecture about how they will be viewed and treated in the future. Prevalent gender bias in scientific writing should be a cause for concern as the science of stem cell research and commodification of the female egg becomes more of a reality.

The process of egg donation has stirred much debate in the feminist …

A Call To Is Educators To Respond To The Voices Of Women In Information Security, Amy B. Woszczynski, Sherri Shade

Sherri Shade

Much prior research has examined the dearth of women in the IT industry. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of women in IT within the context of information security and assurance. This paper describes results from a study of a relatively new career path to see if there are female-friendly opportunities that have not existed in previous IT career paths. Research methodology focuses on a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with women who are self-described information security professionals. A primary goal of the study is to understand the perceptions of women in information security and determine …

"Law And Justice Are Not Always The Same": Creating Community-Based Justice Forums For People Subjected To Intimate Partner Abuse, Leigh S. Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

What constitutes justice in cases involving intimate partner abuse has historically been determined not by the person subjected to abuse, but rather an actor within the legal system—a police officer, a prosecutor, an advocate, or a judge—and those individuals most often define justice in terms of what the legal system has to offer. People subjected to abuse may conceive of justice quite differently, however, in ways that the legal system is not well suited to address. For people subjected to abuse who are interested in punishment, whose goals are congruent with the legal system’s goals of safety and accountability (as …

Convergeing Around The Study Of Gender Violence: The Gender Violence Clinic At The University Of Maryland Carey School Of Law, Leigh S. Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

Domestic violence clinics have been a staple of law school clinical programs since the 1980s. The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law recently created the nation’s first Gender Violence Clinic, however. This article describes the motivation for taking a broader approach to gender based violence, the types of cases handled by the clinic, the challenges posed by the clinic structure, and the pedagogical goals for the clinic.