Arts and Humanities Commons^™

At War With Their Bodies Or At War With Their Minds? A Glimpse Into The Lives And Minds Of Female Yo-Yo Dieters – The Curtain Has Lifted In U.K.?, Huda Iqbal Ahmed Qazi, Harshad Keval

Journal of International Women's Studies

Yo-yo dieting is a common phenomenon yet little interdisciplinary research has been carried out on dieting, food and nutrition in the social context. This study investigated the effects of yo-yo dieting on social and psychological well-being using qualitative methods. Data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with women who yo-yo diet. A total of 9 participants, 20-51 years old, were recruited by purposive and snowball sampling techniques from the University of Roehampton, London, U.K., where the first author was a student at the time of the study. Thematic analysis derived four major themes: the physical and/or mental impact of yo-yo …

Social Status And Change: The Question Of Access To Resources And Women's Empowerment In The Middle East And North Africa, Elhum Haghighat

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) do not face a single social ideology that opposes change. It is incorrect to conclude that Islam per se is predominantly responsible for limiting women’s access to resources, employment, reproductive health, and social services. It is critical, however, to understand how Islam is used as an instrument of control in the hands of the governing elite; when expedient, Islam and historical traditions of patriarchy supply a framework and a justification for impeding or limiting women’s progress. At times, it has also been used in concert with government aims to slow population …

Assessing Reliability And Validity Of The 15-Item Short Version Of The Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Aws) Among Turkish Students, Raquel Delevi, Asli Bugay

Journal of International Women's Studies

The purpose of the present study was to adapt the 15-item short version of Attitude toward Women Scale (AWS) (Spence & Helmreich, 1978) into Turkish by first doing the translation of its items and then by investigating its preliminary psychometric properties. AWS and Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) were administered to Turkish college students. Factor structures, convergent validity, and internal reliability were investigated across two independent samples. Result revealed satisfactory internal reliability, convergent and construct validity for the 12-item short version in both samples, suggesting that the scale can be used as a reliable instrument in the Turkish culture to …

Challenging Cultural Discourses And Beliefs That Perpetuate Domestic Violence In South Asian Communities: A Discourse Analysis, Janki Shankar, Gita Das, Sabrina Atwal

Journal of International Women's Studies

South Asians are one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in North America. Domestic violence (DV) in the South Asian community is at least as prevalent as it is in the general population, yet is massively underreported. Several reasons have been cited for the silence of South Asian immigrant women about DV. While some of these are financial, social and structural, there are others that arise from discourses specific to South Asian communities. The aim of this study was to examine the origins of these discourses using the framework of historical critical discourse analysis. This paper presents the results of …

Towards 'Feminist Mothering': Oppositional Maternal Practice In Margaret Atwood’S Oryx And Crake, Suparna Banerjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the present article I focus on Margaret Atwood’s presentation in Oryx and Crake (2003) of the patriarchal construct of motherhood, paying attention also to the way this theme here is linked up with the question of the woman’s/mother’s agency in personal life and in society. My exploration of this theme would bring out Atwood’s critique of what has been identified as the patriarchal ‘institution’ of motherhood and her presentation of an instance of ‘mothering’ that both underlines the lacunae in the sexist ideology of motherhood and gestures toward an alternative. This alternative discourse of childrearing presents a counternarrative that …

History, Organization And The Changing Culture Of Care: A Historical Analysis Of The Frontier Nursing Service, Edith West

Journal of International Women's Studies

Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the organizational shift at the Frontier Nursing Service from all female, nurse run and community-people focused to the corporate-consumer focus adopted everywhere else and the accompanying work environment issues this shift brought to the organization.

Background: Though it is not possible to isolate a single causative factor nursing’s history of cyclic ‘shortages’ as the problem is complex and interrelated, and there is no simple description in the available literature, there is agreement that the problem is having a negative impact on the current nursing practice environment, the retention of nurses, the …

The State Of Internal Democracy Within Women Interest Groups In Malawi, Happy Mickson Kayuni

Journal of International Women's Studies

Vibrant women’s interest groups are to a larger extent a recent phenomenon in Malawi’s socio-political history. Locally and internationally, the contribution of voluntary organisations (including women interests groups) in actively creating possible spaces for new democratic practices is well acknowledged. However studies have not adequately analyzed the extent or degree of the internal democracy in these women interests groups. Furthermore, studies that examines the implication of the absence or presence of internal democracy in such groups is largely missing. Consequently, this paper aims at analyzing the state of internal democracy in Malawian women’s interest groups. In addition, the paper examines …

Preliminary Exploration Of Bystander Intention To Stand Up For A Female-Peer Targeted In Sexual Harassment In Greek Academia, Stiliani “Ani” Chroni, Stefania Grigoriou, Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis, Yannis Theodorakis

Journal of International Women's Studies

University students’ intentions to stand up for a female-peer victimized in a sexual harassment incident by peer and/or professor as perpetrator were explored using the planned behavior theory. The participants were 296 Greek male and female undergraduate students. Using a standard planned behavior theory questionnaire, hypothetical scenarios of sexual harassment conveyed through (a) unwanted verbal comments of sexual content, (b) unwanted physical contact, and (c) gender based taunting, were presented to participants. In all scenarios, bystander intention to stand up was predicted. Specifically, we found that it is more likely for a student-bystander to intervene when perceiving a strong social …

Ethnic Conflict And Forced Displacement: Narratives Of Azeri Idp And Refugee Women From The Nagorno-Karabakh War, Mehrangiz Najafizadeh

Journal of International Women's Studies

The region that now constitutes the Republic of Azerbaijan has witnessed a lengthy history of conflict between Azeris and ethnic Armenians living in Azerbaijan. This longstanding conflict has had severe consequences for Azerbaijan, and Azeri women have been especially affected as hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes and now live as refugees or as internally displaced persons (IDPs). In this article, I examine Armenian-Azeri ethnic conflict and the plight of Azeri IDP/refugee women both in social historical context and through fieldwork that I have been conducting in Azerbaijan. I first establish the broader sociopolitical context by providing …

Violence Between Female In-Laws In India, Martin Rew, Geetanjali Gangoli, Aisha K. Gill

Journal of International Women's Studies

Indian mothers-in law are consistently legally implicated in violence against their daughters-in-law, particularly in dowry-related cases. This paper explores whether current sociological, psycho-dynamic and feminist explanations are adequate, arguing that policy and research must incorporate deeper understandings of the relationship between violence, abuse and the continuum of everyday practices of power and control in middle-class Indian households if women are to be protected from abuse. Critically, policy and research must recognise the impact of the socio-cultural preference for sons. Daughters are viewed as inferior; however, mothers to sons enjoy a relatively elevated position within the family. Even leaving aside issues …

The 'Emancipated Ladies' Of America In The Travel Writing Of Fredrika Bremer And Alexandra Gripenberg, Sirpa Salenius

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Swedish novelist Fredrika Bremer (1801-1865) and the Finnish Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg (1857-1913), both active women’s rights advocates who toured in the United States in the 1850s and 1880s, respectively, used their travel writing as a powerful medium in promoting their ideological agendas. They articulated their gender politics through presenting American women as pioneers, leaders in women’s suffrage and models of female emancipation. Women’s activism in America was perceptible not only in the formally organized women’s rights movement but also in various reform movements (abolitionism, temperance, and labor movements) that contributed to women’s suffrage on a worldwide scale. As the …

Motherhood And Sexuality: A 20-Year Content Analysis Of Sexuality-Related Articles In Popular Magazines For Mothers, Leah E. Shipps, Sandra L. Caron

Journal of International Women's Studies

This exploratory study investigated the inclusion of articles related to sexuality in magazines targeted to mothers over a 20-year period. Articles in the most popular parenting magazines, including American Baby, Baby Talk, Fit Pregnancy, Good Housekeeping, Mothering, Parenting, Parents, and Working Mother, were analyzed for sexuality content from 1991 to 2010. The starting point for this research was selected after an obviously pregnant Demi Moore appeared nude on the cover of the August 1991 issue of Vanity Fair. The cover, and many others that followed, suggested an acknowledgement of pregnant women as sexual beings. However, it also raised …

Combining Multiple Roles Among High Position Women In Israel, As Seen By The Woman, Her Husband And A Child, Bosmat Shalom-Tuchin

Journal of International Women's Studies

The study examines the perceptions of the women and their family members regarding the factors enabling them to achieve high positions in the workplace. It also seeks to understand the influences the women’s career has on her children and family life. The conceptual basis of the research is the work-family role conflict theory and role enhancement perspective. In addition, the study compares the Israeli women strategies for balancing work and private life as they relate to the family structure to the cultures in the countries around the globe. Twenty-two life-story interviews were conducted with high positioned Israeli women, some of …

Women's Experience Of Infertility: A Multi-Systemic Perspective, Roni Berger, Marilyn S. Paul, Lisa A. Henshaw

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article describes a study that used a multi-system perspective to document the self-reported experience of women struggling with infertility and its treatment. A sub-sample of 56 participants from a parent study that examined posttraumatic growth in the context of infertility was used based on their answers to a single open-ended question about their infertility experience, which was included in the original questionnaire. Inclusion criteria were self-identified failure to achieve a pregnancy or carry it to term after at least one year of trying in the six years prior to the study and absence of a recent crisis unrelated to …

Unheard Voices In The Community Building Process: The Role Of Poor Black Women In The U.S. During The Mid-20th Century, Dawn Hinton

Journal of International Women's Studies

This work focuses on the process by which two Black women with little resources and education contributed to the development of community. These women were born in the mid-20th century and their narratives are included in the Black Women Oral History Project. Discovered here is that there was a path to community development that these women followed which involved their desire to help, the recognition and use of churches and other community organizations to implement change in their communities.

Participation, Representation And Voice In The Fight Against Gender Violence: The Case Of The Women’S Movement In Spain, Adriana Sandu

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article provides a critical examination of ‘whiteness’ and notions of ‘sisterhood solidarity’ in the context of women’s fight against gender violence in Spain. Drawing on intersectionality theory this article focuses on how different women’s organisations deal with gender violence policy in Spain, how this debate is framed, who makes the claims, and what structural inequalities are being preserved in this process. Using qualitative interviews with women activists, observations and participation in meetings and debates of women’s organisations in Madrid and Barcelona during 2007-2008, this research explores the inter-relations between majority and minority women’s mobilization, organization, political influence and voice. …

International Dimensions Of Discrimination And Violence Against Girls: A Human Rights Perspective, Yvonne Rafferty

Journal of International Women's Studies

In many cultures, being born female can consign the girl child to the peripheries of society where her safety is denied and her human rights are routinely violated. At each and every stage of development, girls are more likely than boys to confront a host of disadvantages associated with discrimination and violence, although the social norms and cultural rules that influence girls are most intensely felt as she struggles to develop into adulthood. At the onset of puberty, or even before, some girls are pulled out of school and forced into early marriage and high-risk pregnancy. Others become victims of …

‘To Say The Same Thing In Different Words’: Politics And Poetics In Late Victorian Translation From Modern Greek, Semele Assinder

Journal of International Women's Studies

Against a backdrop of Victorian academic gender politics, the woman warrior from War of Independence folk songs emerged in British women’s writings. After a close reading of a translation by Elizabeth Edmonds, Modern Greek is reviewed as a contender for the New Woman’s Classics.

“A Key Area Of Knowledge Delivered By Someone Knowledgeable”: Feminist Expectations And Explorations Of A One-Off Economics Lecture On Gender, Emily Henderson

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper explores the action of attending a visiting academic’s one-off lecture, whether in the lecture theatre or on the Internet, in order to gain knowledge from a recognised expert of an unfamiliar but relevant field of research. The actions of entering the theatre and sitting for an hour, or of clicking “play,” appear to be simple gestures for the acquisition of knowledge; this paper explores the complexity of the processes surrounding the lecture, and the way in which the lecture constructs a passive listening position for the audience. The exploration takes place in the frame of one such lecture: …

Non-Binary Gender Concepts And The Evolving Legal Treatment Of Uk Transsexed Individuals: A Practical Consideration Of The Possibilities Of Butler, Alex Harris

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay seeks to bridge the gap between the UK legal system’s treatment of transsexuals and post-structuralist gender theory. It argues that whilst the greater representation of transsexuals in UK legal discourse embodied in the Gender Recognition Act is a positive move forward in terms of classic liberal notions of human rights and in its acceptance of transsexuals as proper subjects before the law, it nonetheless represents an essentialist conception of transsexuals; requiring them to ‘fit’ within binary categories of male and female. It is argued that post-structuralist thought regarding gender can illuminate some of the problems inherent within the …

Quite Contrary: Mary Daly Within And Without Women’S Studies, Kathryn Telling

Journal of International Women's Studies

Recent scholarship in the historiography of feminism has sought to challenge certain received histories of the movement which seem likely to obscure the social, intellectual and political complexity of the past, and indeed of the present. With good reason, such research has often preferred to focus on general intellectual currents rather than individual cases. This paper, however, focuses on some common constructions of one feminist in particular: philosopher and theologian Mary Daly (1928-2010). I hope to demonstrate that an analysis of one individual’s positioning within feminism’s history, as well as in relation to a conception of correct intellectual practice for …

Introduction: New Writings In Feminist And Women’S Studies, Trishima Mitra-Kahn, Maud Perrier

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

‘The Rose Of No Man’S Land [?]’: Femininity, Female Identity, And Women On The Western Front, Nancy Martin

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article provides an analysis of a range literary texts and memoirs written by, and about, women who served as nurses, VADs, and ambulance drivers on the Western Front. It explores how these texts represent “feminine” identity in relation to the war’s emotional and physical trauma and focuses, in particular, on moments where conventional notions are challenged, or made impossible, by the war’s chaos. In addition, this article explores how these women understood, articulated, and represented the men they sought to aid. Fundamental to this discussion is an exploration of the period’s propaganda and iconography and how these women writers …

Understanding Antiwar Activism As A Gendering Activity: A Look At The U.S.’S Anti-Vietnam War Movement, Say Burgin

Journal of International Women's Studies

Research into the gendered nature of war experiences has provided rich ways of understanding how gender constructs society and the nation. Scholarship on peace activism and gender has deepened our knowledge of women’s roles within warring societies and the ways women have understood themselves as promoters of peace. While much of this research asks how antiwar activities and war are predicated upon dominant gender ideals and focuses in particular on women’s experiences, this article aims to explore how some wartime events, specifically antiwar activism, constitutes or reconstitutes gender. Focusing on the United States’ anti-Vietnam War history, I examine how activists …

Bahraini Women In The 21st Century: Disputed Legacy Of The Unfinished Revolution, Magdalena Karolak

Journal of International Women's Studies

The role of women in the Arab Spring uprisings requires special attention. Indeed, women participated alongside men in recent political movements and were actively involved in shaping the outcomes of these processes. The case of Bahrain is especially interesting. Even though the Bahraini “Day of Rage” movement was ultimately marginalized at large, it had unlikely consequences for Bahraini women. As female empowerment has been a high priority on the government’s agenda, participation of women in the public sphere serves important functions and in the aftermath of Bahraini uprising it got an additional boost. The aim of this paper is to …

Failing The Masses: Buthaina Shabaan And The Public Intellectual Crisis, Asaad Al-Saleh

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article discusses the problematic and double-sided role of the public intellectual in the Syrian revolution, which started on March 15, 2011 and is still unfolding. When recently challenged by Syrians, the regime enforced its control by carrying out military operations against its own citizens, not without endorsement by a large portion of the population. The article follows the case of Buthaina Shabaan (b.1953-), the writer, professor, and advocate of the Syrian regime. While spurring the populace to embrace the possibility of democratic reform, this female intellectual has accepted—even embraced—the political control employed by an authoritarian one-party regime, which uses …

Women At A Crossroads: Sudanese Women And Political Transformation, Leah F. Sherwood

Journal of International Women's Studies

The ‘Arab Spring’ is a nuanced phenomenon of significance to African democracy and women’s rights in Sudan – north and south. Political transformation processes underway in postrevolution Arab states simultaneously give voice to human rights advocates and rise to Islamist political groups. The reverberating trend presents a risk of deepening Islamist governance in Sudan and reinforcing patriarchal patterns of kinship in South Sudan. It also offers opportunity, north and south, for Sudanese women to form a common agenda, engage politically, promote a vibrant civil society, challenge human rights violations and develop a voice through participation. Given the Islamist upsurge in …

Social Networks And Women’S Mobilization In Tunisia, Sami Zlitni, Zeineb Touati

Journal of International Women's Studies

After the fall of Ben Ali’s regime, fears were growing as various religious parties have decided to run in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of October 23th, 2011. The Code of Personal Status, the very symbol of Bourguibian modernity, might well be challenged. Beyond their presence on traditional media, feminist movements have organized themselves online so as to make themselves heard and to be able to mobilize public opinion. Facebook has become a place that maximizes visibility, thus allowing Tunisian feminists to make their ideas and their actions widely known. By favoring distanciated commitment, Facebook is a tool that …

Jordanian Women’S Political Participation: On The Verge Of Arab Spring, Abdulhalim M. Al-Adwan

Journal of International Women's Studies

Recent decades in Jordan have witnessed considerable changes in women’s roles in the political sphere and in the community. Jordan has passed, modified, or adopted legislation that fosters the rights of women and the abolition of discrimination against them. Women experienced real visibility in higher leadership positions with 10.8% in the lower house and 11.7% in the senate. Yet, while women earn higher levels of education, their participation in the labor market is relatively low, and those who want to join the labor force meet higher levels of unemployment. Although women have made real progress in the public sphere, their …

“Every Knot Has Someone To Undo It.” Using The Capabilities Approach As A Lens To View The Status Of Women Leading Up To The Arab Spring In Syria, Lorraine Charles, Kate Denman

Journal of International Women's Studies

The status of women in Syria has undergone great change in the last century and particularly in the decade leading up to the Syrian Arab Spring. Despite this advancement, many women are still not permitted the freedom to convert their capabilities into chosen valued activities and achievements. This has resulted in a lack of agency to decide, act and bring change in Syria. Most women do not partake in political and public life and, due to the nature of the regime and the socio-cultural landscape, their freedom to make decisions affecting their status within the public and private sphere is …