Digital Commons Network^™

Workin’ It Out At Curves – Religion, Gender, And The Body In Contemporary America, Jamie K. Singelais

Senior Scholar Papers

I performed qualitative research in the form of participant observation, surveys, and in-depth interviews to examine Curves, a fitness franchise for women found throughout the United States and, increasingly, the rest of the world. I conducted this exploratory study specifically at the Curves in Waterville, Maine, and made several trips to other franchises in the area for comparative purposes. One of my key findings is the importance of understanding Curves’ organization as a business, specifically, its status as a franchise and the effect that this has on its popularity and growth. Additionally, my research revealed the role, surprising to me, …

Gender Bias In Peer Grading Among Undergraduate Students, Elizabeth Dalton

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

Using the observation that people refer to their own genders when talking about an unknown author, one might infer that people might relate to authors of their same sex. If this is true, this could be a gender bias as people could attribute good qualities of an unknown author to their gender. This led to an investigation of gender bias in peer grading where students were thought to attribute better grades on a paper if the author is their same sex. Participants were separated into three groups separated by the knowledge of the author’s gender then asked to grade a …

Apotheosis Or Apparition? Bombay And The Village In 1990s Women’S Cinema, Rashmi Sawhney

Books/Book chapters

This article examines the representation of Bombay in Aruna Raje’s Rihaee (1988) and Sai Paranjpye’s Disha (1990). It has been argued here that in both films, Bombay functions as a narrative anchor to the fictive village, which is depicted as the locus of Indian modernity. Symbolism of the village-city trope is used to reorganise the syntagm of modernity-location-gender in new relations of power and also to present alternative visions of national development within the socio-economic context of 1990s liberalisation in India. The dialectic between city and village in these films emphasises the role of memory and migration in women’s cinema, …

Transitioning From Patriarchal Society: Women’S Rights And Gender Equality, Melissa Donahue

ESSAI

No abstract provided.

The Dynamics Of Social Capital And Conflict Management In Multiple Resource Regimes: A Case Of The Southwestern Highlands Of Uganda, Pascal C. Sanginga, Rick N. Kamugisha, Andrienne M. Martin

All UNF Research

Increasingly, social capital, defined as shared norms, trust, and the horizontal and vertical social networks that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutually beneficial collective action, is seen as an important asset upon which people rely to manage natural resources and resolve conflicts. This paper uses empirical data from households and community surveys and case studies, to examine the role, strengths, and limits of social capital in managing conflicts over the use and management of natural resources. We inventoried over 700 cases ranging from conflicts between multiple resource users to supra-community conflicts between local communities concerns for better livelihoods and national/international …

Gendered Support Strategies Of The Elderly In The Gwembe Valley, Zambia, Lisa Cliggett

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Chinese Americans And The Borderland Experience On Golden Mountain: The Development Of A Chinese American Identity In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs Of A Girlhood Among Ghosts, Diane Todd Bucci

Ethnic Studies Review

In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston tells the story of her immigrant family and their efforts to rise above their working-class status in America, which optimistic Chinese regard as the Golden Mountain. The Hongs' experience is not unlike that of other immigrants who come to America to escape hardship in their homeland and hope to live the American Dream. The road to American success has numerous obstacles, and immigrants encounter many conflicts on their journey. One conflict relates to their cultural identities. Gloria Anzaldúa uses the word "borderland" to refer to the meeting …

Reducing The Social Exclusion Of Girls, Kelly Hallman, Eva Roca

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Across the globe, girls are systematically excluded from participation in social, economic, and political life. The absence of girls in these arenas has implications not only for the young women themselves but also for society as a whole, exacerbating poverty and perpetuating disparities in health, education, and economic achievement. Internationally, this marginalization makes it difficult or impossible for some countries to achieve society-wide goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals identified by the United Nations as benchmarks to reduce poverty. For a number of years, the Population Council has been studying the causes and effects of girls’ social exclusion in …

Transphobia And The Relational Production Of Gender, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Knowing one's place in the social order, whether that place is one of relative privilege or not, serves two psychologically ameliorative functions. It relieves one from the “anxiety of [gender] identity interrogation” and it helps to inform one as to the socially agreed upon, acceptable conduct for interpersonal exchanges--the episteme of social interaction. This Paper will demonstrate that gender identity is produced through relational, contextually influenced, interpretative processes. Because gender is constructed in societies which strongly embrace static, binary conceptions of gender, and in which social, familial, occupational, and sexual *139 interactions are heavily influenced by gendered social scripts, gender …

Unruly Corporeality: Aids, Immigration And The Imagined Australian Body, Zoë Anderson

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Particular bodies within the Australian nation can be seen to threaten to disrupt and destabilize dominant notions of cultural citizenship. Understood through intricate intersections of ethnicity, gender and sexuality, 'Australianness' - and its correlation to the geographical nation - is constantly monitored. Crucial here is the manner in which boundaries of whiteness, and 'true Australianess', are reconstituted, fuelling avoidance of the ambiguities of national belonging and ensuring the enduring pathologisation of the 'un'Australian. In particular, discursive associations between HIV/AIDS and the 'foreign' as perceived contaminates to the nation operate to reinforce these understandings. Here, the threat of disease both informs, …

This Sporting Life: Sports And Body Culture In Modern Japan, William W. Kelly, Atsuo Sugimoto

CEAS Occasional Publication Series

Yale CEAS Occasional Publication Series - Volume 1

Sports in Japan have long been embedded in community life, the educational system, the mass media, the corporate structures, and the nationalist sentiments of modern Japan. For over a century, they have been a crucial intersection of school pedagogy, corporate aims, media constructions, gender relations, and patriotic feelings. The chapters in this book highlight a wide range of sports, and together, they offer a significant window on to the ways that the sporting life animates the institutions of modern Japan.

Reducir La Exclusión Social Des Las Niñas, Kelly Hallman, Eva Roca

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

En todo el mundo, las niñas son sistemáticamente excluidas de la participación en la vida social, económica y política. La ausencia de niñas en estos terrenos tiene consecuencias, no solo para las mismas jóvenes sino también para la sociedad en su totalidad, ya que se exacerba la pobreza y se perpetúan las disparidades de salud, educación y éxito económico. A nivel internacional, esta marginación dificulta o hace imposible que algunos países logren objetivos en toda la sociedad, como los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio, considerados por las Naciones Unidas como parámetros para reducir la pobreza. Desde hace algunos años, el …

Consolidating A Gender Perspective In The Procosi Network, Erica Palenque De La Quintana, Patricia Riveros Hamel, Ricardo Vernon

Reproductive Health

The Integral Health Coordination Program (Programa de Coordinación en Salud Integral, or PROCOSI) in Bolivia developed a program to certify service delivery and management support NGOs as gender-sensitive. The certification system is based on an initial self-assessment by teams consisting of staff from service delivery (clinical) or management support (administrative) NGOs, followed by the development and implementation of activities to improve the gaps found until a minimum of 80 percent of the designated quality and gender standards are met. At the project’s end, 14 of the 15 participating NGOs had reached compliance with at least 80 percent of the proposed …

Testing The Effectiveness Of The Men As Partners Program (Map) In Soweto, South Africa, Prudence Ditlopo, Saiqa Mullick, Ian Askew, Ricardo Vernon, Edwin Maroga, Sgidi Sibeko, Mokgethi Tshabalala, Rabbuh Raletsemo, Dean Peacock, Andrew Levack

Reproductive Health

This project was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Men as Partners (MAP) program in South Africa in terms of: changing men’s gender attitudes, norms and behaviors; changing aspects of gender dynamics in relationships; reducing the prevalence of unwanted pregnancy risk behaviors at individual and community levels; and increasing male involvement in gender based violence (GBV) and HIV prevention and in HIV care and support activities. The intervention activities implemented were MAP workshops, public demonstrations, and participation in community action teams. The evaluation of the interventions showed that about 30% of the workshop participants had also attended other MAP …

Disrupted Conventions: Gender Roles In Mildred Walker's The Curlew's Cry And Winter Wheat, Pandora Andre-Beatty

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this thesis, I discuss the significance of gender in Mildred Walker’s novels The Curlew’s Cry and Winter Wheat. Walker wrote and situates both narratives in Montana, supporting my argument that literature of the American West remains a productive area for examining gender roles. The Curlew’s Cry is set at the closing of the American frontier in the early 20th century, while Winter Wheat is set during the settled agricultural era of the 1940s. I argue that instead of re-enforcing gender stereotypes commonly found in novels set in the American West during and after the white settlement of the plains, …

Women In Science And Engineering: Politics Of Gender, Ibironke Lawal

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Women are fewer than men in science and engineering, therefore, the assumption is that women generally prefer arts and humanities. But to some analysts, the reason for the low percentage of women in these careers may be due to innate mental and psychological differences between them and men. Others contend that women have the capacity to excel in any profession and that their fewness in science and engineering can be attributed to other factors. They urge educational institutions and employers to develop programs and specific policies that would allow women to strike a better balance between the demands of work …

A Study Of Gender Equality At Private And Public Two-Year And Four-Year Florida Institutions, Stacey Lazenby Malaret

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to examine the perception of gender equality from the viewpoint of women administrators at Florida public and private two- and four-year institutions. Potential respondents were chosen from American College Personnel Association and/or National Association of Student Personnel Administrators databases. The data used for this study were obtained from 32 female administrators (50% response rate) who completed a self-administered online questionnaire, distributed to potential respondents in August and September, 2007. Collected data were entered into an SPSS database. Through data analysis, confidence intervals were reported for each survey item. Comparable means were studied for each of the six …

Red Families V. Blue Families, Naomi R. Cahn, June Carbone

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The "culture wars," as they play out in high profile Supreme Court decisions and legislative fights over abortion and same-sex marriage, are first and foremost about family values. Central to these differences - and the focus of the article - is the fact that different families in different parts of the country are leading different lives. The one clear, organizing principle that distinguishes the two systems: age of family formation. The defining characteristic of what we term the "new middle class morality" is delay in family formation until the late twenties or early thirties. This new morality, which correlates more …

Gender Matters: Making The Case For Trans Inclusion, Nancy K. Knauer

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “The transgender communities are producing an important and nuanced critique of our gender system. For community members, the project is self-constitutive and, therefore, has an immediacy that also marks the efforts of other marginalized groups who have attempted to make sense of the world through description, interrogation, and ultimately a program for transformation. The transgender project also has universalizing elements because, existing within the gender system, each one of us embodies a particular gender articulation. It is through this articulation that we define ourselves in relation to the gender we were assigned at birth, the gender we choose, the …

Negotiated Boundaries: Conceptual Locations Of Pregnancy And Childbirth, Shannon Houvouras

The Qualitative Report

Dominant notions of reproduction perceive childbearing as physical processes that take place within women’s bodies. This perception undermines non-physical components and removes men from the process. This project uses social constructionism to explore the locations women describe pregnancy and childbirth taking place in their childbearing narratives. Based on in-depth interviews with 15 mothers, findings reveal that women conceptualize childbearing as taking place in multiple locations: (1) within the female body, (2) within both the female body and a non-physical realm (e.g., emotional) of one or both partners, (3) detached from any particular location, and (4) within both partners’ bodies. Conceptualizing …

Unbending Gender Narratives In African Literature, Charles C. Fonchingong

Journal of International Women's Studies

The last century has witnessed an upsurge in literature triggered by the feminist movement. This unprecedented event has transformed the various literary genres that are being deconstructed to suit the changing times. African literature has not been spared by the universalized world order. The paper attempts a re-analysis of gender inequality from the pre-colonial to post-colonial period from the lenses of literary narratives. Male writers like Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, and Cyprain Ekwensi in their literary mass are accused of condoning patriarchy, are deeply entrenched in a macho conviviality and a one dimensional and minimalised …

Volume 6, Issue 2, St. Norbert College

Assessment News (campus only)

Assessment News was a newsletter out of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness from 2002 to 2013. Almost all are archived here as open access, but some are designated campus only.

Sex, Trust, And Corporate Boards, Joan M. Heminway

ExpressO

This essay collects and interprets social science research on sex and trust and uses this work to shed new light on the emerging case for gender diversity on corporate boards. Specifically, the essay describes research findings that indicate (1) that men and women trust and are trustworthy on different bases and (2) the existence of a bias against women in corporate leadership positions. Based on this research and current legal scholarship on corporate governance, the essay asserts that gender diversity on corporate boards may be desirable but difficult to attain. The essay also calls for more targeted research on the …

Implicit Family Process And Couples Rules: A Comparison Of American And Hungarian Families, Noemi Gergely

Theses and Dissertations

Family life is organized by rules, and most of them are unspokenly agreed-upon by family members and may be even out of awareness. Implicit family process and couple rules may facilitate or constrain family relationship and intimate couple relationship growth. Prevalence of family rules may be different across cultures. Family members may perceive their rules and family functioning differently according to their family position and gender. Married couples may view their relationship rules differently than couples who cohabit. This study utilized the Family Implicit Rules Profile (FIRP) and the Couples Implicit Rules Profile (CIRP) Questionnaires to answer these research questions. …

“It’S A Balancing Act!”: Exploring School/Work/Family Interface Issues Among Bilingual, Rural Nebraska, Paraprofessional Educators, Rochelle L. Dalla, Pallabi Moulikgupta, Wiliam E. Lopez, Vicky Jones

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Nebraska’s rural school districts have a rapidly growing Spanish-speaking student body and few qualified instructors to meet their educational needs. This investigation examined factors that promote and challenge the ability of rural Nebraska paraprofessional educators to complete an online B.S. program in elementary education, with a K-12 English as a second language endorsement. Interviews focused on the interface between school, work, and family, with special attention on family system change and adaptation. Twenty-six bilingual paraprofessional educators enrolled (or formerly enrolled) in the education program were interviewed. Twenty were first- (n = 15) or second-generation (n = 5) immigrant Latino/as. Influences …

Report On Selected Indicators By Gender, N.A.

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

No abstract provided.

Exploration Of The Socialization Process Of Female Leaders In Counselor Education, Lea Randle Flowers

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Higher education literature, has several contributions that pertain to mentoring styles in academia, female faculty, gender and leadership, and recruitment and retention of women and minorities in academia. However, specific references that lend voice to the experiences of female counselor educators in the context of their career paths and patterns are scant(Hill, Leinbaugh, Bradley,& Hazler, 2005). This qualitative investigation explored the socialization process of 8 female leaders in counselor education from throughout the United States utilizing grounded theory methods. The primary theme of socialization was organized into three main categories, (a) childhood socialization, (b) anticipatory socialization (Van Mannen, 1976), and …

Romantic Attachment Styles, Gender, And Reasons For Living., Niles Adrian Cruz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine reasons for living in people with secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent romantic attachment styles. Romantic attachment style was assessed by use of the Adult Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ). Reasons for living were assessed using the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL). The independent variables were gender and romantic attachment style. The dependent variable was the RFL score.

Participants included 235 male and female students from a southeastern university. A brief demographic questionnaire, the RFL (Linehan,M., Goodstein, J., Neilson, S., & Chiles J., 1983), and the AAQ (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), were administered in electronic format …

Memory Task: Gender Differences In Verbal And Spatial Memory Ability, Miranda Richardson, Anna Zeik

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

Memory can be broken down into two components: verbal and spatial memories. Verbal memory involves reading, writing, vocabulary and comprehension of texts. Spatial memory, on the other hand, involves the ability to read maps, rotate geometric figures in space, and understand diagrams. Women are thought to have better verbal memories than men, whereas men seem to have better spatial abilities than women. We recruited 28 participants from the Human Subject Pool in order to test this hypothesis. We found that this is not true when we gave the participants memory tasks; there are more differences within a certain gender than …

No Longer Intending: The Relationship Between Relinquished Fertility Intentions And Distress, Lynn K. White, Julia Mcquillan

Bureau of Sociological Research: Faculty Publications

We use data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to assess whether relinquishing a serious intention to have (more) children leads to greater increases in depressive symptoms than continuing confidence in childbearing intentions. Our sample includes 2,200 individuals of childbearing age, men and women, all parities, and all marital statuses. Change score analysis shows that individuals who relinquished a serious intent to have children had elevated distress at Time 2 and that the association is conditioned by gender, health, and education. We find that fertility potential can be important to psychosocial well-being and that closing …