Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Beyond Confronting The Myth Of Racial Democracy: The Role Of Afro-Brazilian Women Scholars And Activists, Nathalie Lebon

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

This paper offers a synopsis of the current scholarship mapping the social and economic exclusion of women of African descent in Brazil. It highlights the work of and role played by Afro-Brazilian women scholars and activists in redressing the paucity, until recently, of basic data and research on the life conditions of women of African descent. Finally, it provides some initial thoughts on the national and transnational dynamics of knowledge production underlying this state of affairs.

New Hope For Women Newsletter (Fall 2007), New Hope For Women Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Gender In Politics, Sheri L. Kunovich, Pamela Paxton, Melanie M. Hughes

Sociology Research

Women’s political participation and representation vary dramatically within and between countries. We selectively review the literature on gender in politics, focusing on women’s formal political participation.

We discuss both traditional explanations for women’s political participation and representation, such as the supply of women and the demand for women, and newer explanations such as the role of international actors and gender quotas. We also ask whether women are distinctive—does having more women in office make a difference to public policy? Throughout the review we demonstrate that a full understanding of women’s political representation requires both deep knowledge of individual cases such …

Can Developing Women Create Primitive Art? And Other Questions Of Value, Meaning And Identity In The Circulation Of Janakpur Art, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, I examine the values and meanings that adhere to objects made by Maithil women at a development project in Janakpur, Nepal – objects collectors have called ‘Janakpur Art’. I seek to explain how and why changes in pictorial content in Janakpur Art – shifts that took place over a period of five or six years in the 1990s – occurred, and what such a change might indicate about the link between Maithil women’s lives, development, and tourism. As I will demonstrate, part of the appeal for consumers of Janakpur Art has been that it is produced at …

Secrets And Hiding Places: The Worth Of Women In Nicholas Nickleby, Elizabeth Redmond

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In early Victorian England, married women were denied the legal right to own property, and social convention remanded them to ostracism if they chose to remain single. Likewise, jobs that were available to women failed to pay a living wage, so women were placed under tremendous economic and social pressure to marry. In Charles Dickens' novel, Nicholas Nickleby, he depicts how marriage becomes manipulated within the working and middle classes as a means to acquire wealth. Dickens also compares the repression of women to the abuse suffered by school children in the Yorkshire schools, which had a reputation for neglecting …

New Directions In Workforce Development: Do They Lead To Gains For Women?, Susan R. Crandall, Surabhi Jain

New England Journal of Public Policy

In order to achieve gender equality, it is critical to resurrect women’s interests as a driving force in the formulation of workforce development policies and programs. Current workforce strategies are centered on helping economically disadvantaged individuals gain employment in high demand industries that offer opportunities to earn family-sustaining wages. Yet many of these high-growth industries consist of male-dominated occupations, which provide lower earnings and advancement potential for women. Because women continue to be channeled into lower-paying fields, demand-driven workforce policies may result in lower earnings for women. To address gender biases, increased emphasis should be placed on selecting jobs that …

Diversification Of A University Faculty: Women Faculty In The Mit Schools Of Science And Engineering, Nancy Hopkins

New England Journal of Public Policy

A broadly diverse faculty is critical to MIT’s educational mission, and significant efforts have been made to achieve a faculty whose diversity reflects that of the students we train. To assess the success of some of these efforts, I examined the percentage of women faculty in the Schools of Science and Engineering over time. In Science, the increased number (and percentage) of women faculty today is the consequence of: pressures associated with the civil rights movement in the early 1970s; unusual efforts between 1996 and 2000 by former Dean of Science Bob Birgeneau in response to the 1996 Report on …

Women In New England Politics, Paige Ransford, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Anne Marie Cammisa

New England Journal of Public Policy

This essay addresses a serious deficiency in the literature on women and politics in the United States today: the lack of attention to regional variation and, more specifically, the absence of research on women’s representation in New England. This deficiency is particularly troubling since political analysts of all stripes typically portray New England as imbued with ideological, individual, and structural characteristics likely to lead to rates of political representation higher than the nation as a whole. This essay provides a brief history of women in politics for New England as a whole; describes the current status of women at congressional, …

Why Not A Dollar?, Evelyn Murphy

New England Journal of Public Policy

Statisticians point out that women do not yet have quite as many years’ experience in the workforce as men have. It’s true that for the generation that began working in the 1960s, fewer women than men have a steady forty or fifty years of on-the-job experience. So maybe there should be a gap of a few pennies (at most!) to reflect that slight disadvantage. But not 23 cents’ worth! Social scientists hedge their conclusions about what causes that broad gap with disclaimers. They acknowledge that biases exist in their measurements. They admit that they cannot say for sure that differences …

Women In Power, Margaret A. Mckenna

New England Journal of Public Policy

The country is filled with powerful women, but women in power remain significantly underrepresented across a variety of professional fields, in business, academe, politics, and the media. With more women enrolled in colleges today than men, continued underrepresentation of women in leadership roles throughout society is not just morally unacceptable, it is economically damaging. The nation needs to maximize all human capital, in order to meet our own challenges and stay competitive in this global economy. Young women need to be supported in developing the knowledge and skills necessary for being leaders and catalysts for change. Reflecting on a career …

The Face Of Corporate Leadership: Finally Poised For Major Change?, Toni G. Wolfman

New England Journal of Public Policy

When, several decades ago, interested observers began commenting on the absence of women and minorities from corporate boardrooms and executive suites, there was not much data on the role of women in the national economy, little benchmarking, and few efforts to make the business case for breaking down the barriers that had been excluding women from positions of corporate power. Since that time, academic researchers and activists from many venues have produced a wealth of data, arguments for diversifying corporate leadership, and strategies and resources designed to create opportunities for women and minorities to advance to those positions. And yet, …

Rethinking Retirement Policy In Massachusetts, Ellen A. Bruce

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women are significantly poorer than men in old age. One major cause of women’s disproportional poverty is retirement income policy that bases pensions and savings incentives on earned income. This paper describes the structure of our retirement policies and argues that some policies should be implemented that are not associated with earned income as a way to both support women’s caregiving roles and insure their economic well-being in old age.

Numbers Are Not Enough: Women In Higher Education In The 21st Century, Sherry H. Penney, Jennifer Brown, Laura Mcphie Oliveria

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women are now the majority of students in institutions of higher education in the United States, and in many ways women as students and faculty have seen significant progress. But numbers do not tell the whole story. Subtle forms of discrimination continue to exist, and the higher up the pyramid you go, the fewer women are to be found, whether among tenured faculty, as presidents and provosts or as board members and board chairs. Many steps can be taken to improve the situation. Some institutions are recognizing that. We note some positive changes and discuss areas where improvement is needed. …

Do What You Love, Cathy E. Minehan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is about the author’s career and how it has taken her to many places in her life and beyond. She starts on her first day of training in New York and ends up with her as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She describes balancing her life with her career and the rewards and difficulties of it all.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1990, the New England Journal of Public Policy published a special issue on Women. The subject was women & economic empowerment. The authors found that while women had made significant gains during the 1970s and 1980s in many spheres relating to the workplace, true equity with respect to their male peers was still elusive, and gender bias, despite remedial legislation, continued to be the acceptable norm.

Seventeen years on, another group of women, under the direction of guest editor Sherry H. Penney, herself a contributor to the 1990 journal, looks anew at some of these issues and expands the …

We've Got The Power: Rise Of Women Entrepreneurs, Phyllis Swersky, Aileen Gorman, Jessica Reardon

New England Journal of Public Policy

The authors address women’s recent entrepreneurial successes in local, national, and international settings, offering, as a case study, one nonprofit organization whose mission is to support women entrepreneurs and help them grow: The Commonwealth Institute. In examining The Commonwealth Institute, the authors provide insight into the challenges facing some of the women entrepreneurs they work with in Massachusetts. They also offer some strategies to make sure women continue to make a significant contribution to New England’s economy.

Future Promise For Women In Science, Christine Armett-Kibel

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article examines possible reasons why women are still not making it to the top in the hard sciences in academia. It considers two major difficulties that women face. The first concerns the psychological nature of women, which is alleged to be unsuited to the competitive and aggressive mindset considered necessary for scientific achievement. The second concerns the childbearing and child-nurturing roles of women, which make it difficult for them to conform to the intense, time-consuming demands of an academic career in science. The article argues that many of the qualities associated with the female stereotype are actually human characteristics …

Life Balance: Can We Have It All?, Beth Brykman

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women today struggle to make difficult choices involving their children and their careers. Can they achieve that elusive sense of life balance? Beth Brykman taps her personal experience and her professional marketing skills to craft this well-researched issue. Having been a full-time employed, parttime employed, and a stay-at-home mom, Brykman interviewed more than one hundred mothers, some employed, some not, from many walks of life, letting the women speak for themselves about the reality of their lives and satisfaction with the paths they selected. This insightful discussion of contemporary motherhood captures the many challenges facing women, offering the pro’s and …

Walking The Maternal Tightrope: Work And Family In America, Roxanne A. Donovan, Andrew L. Pieper, Allison N. Ponce

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the last few decades, an unprecedented number of women with children have entered the U.S. workforce. The ability to negotiate the roles of parent and employee is important to the health and financial well-being of these women and their families, but institutional and social barriers impede the process. Using the empirical and theoretical literature on women and work, this article examines these barriers. The authors address the impact of cultural ideals, psychological processes, and public policy on the maternal work-family balance. Several changes that would help create an atmosphere supportive of balance are explored, including increased support for shared …

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

Senior Scholars Papers in Computer Science

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, …

The Domestic Violence Experiences Of Women In Community Corrections, Rachel Bridges Whaley, Angela M. Moe, Mark Eddy, Jean Daugherty

Sociology Faculty Publications

A variety of studies indicate high rates of domestic violence in the backgrounds of women offenders. We examine and extend this work through a qualitative study of women on probation or parole in a western U.S. county. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 women who participated in a larger study in which only questionnaire data were collected. Participants completed a brief telephone interview about prior experiences of partner violence and then a face-to-face extensive in-person interview. In the analyses, several notable themes emerged regarding the women’s histories of child victimization, partner abuse, substance abuse, coercion into crime, and a lack …

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

Nancy J. Knauer

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 gender …

Multiple Forms Of Maltreatment And The Effects On Mental Health In Hispanic And Caucasian Women, Marci Mae Danielson

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of multiple forms of abuse (physical, psychological, and sexual) on later psychopathology (depression, anxiety, and somatic complaints as assessed by the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist -HSCL) among two ethnic groups (non-Hispanic Caucasian and Hispanic).

Leave No Woman Behind, Ethiopia: Baseline Report, Annabel Erulkar, Tekle-Ab Mekbib, Helen Amdemikael, Garry Conille

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

“Leave No Woman Behind, Ethiopia” is an experimental project being implemented in rural areas of Ethiopia’s Amhara region. The project uses the mobilization of women into groups and adult literacy as an entry point for reproductive health education and referrals. Measurement of the program’s impact is being undertaken using a quasi-experimental research design including baseline and endline surveys in six Kebele Associations in rural Amhara. This report presents findings from the baseline survey conducted among more than 3,000 girls and women aged 10–45 in rural Amhara region. The results cover a broad range of topics including education, work, livelihoods, social …

The International Protean Career: Four Women’S Narratives, Marian Crowley-Henry, David Weir

Articles

In this paper, we share individual narratives outlining the experiences of four well-educated western women following a permanent international career in the South of France. By virtue of detailed interview transcripts and contextual information regarding the specificity of the location in question, a comprehensive picture of the experiences and choices of individual women in leadership business positions on an international level is painted. Our aim is not to generalise the findings to a wider population, but to gain an insight into the depth and complexity of career issues for women in general, and particularly for women working in a foreign …

Our Stories: Women Speak Out Against Hiv And Aids—An Interactive Communication Package For Rural Low-Literate Women, Vijaya Nidadavolu, Moumita Saha, Vijaya Usha Rani

HIV and AIDS

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) estimates that there are over 5.1 million people living with HIV and AIDS in India. Among new infections reported in 2006, 88 percent were reported in the reproductive age group (15–49 years). The virus is spreading rapidly among women, including married and monogamous women, and adolescent girls. Existing literature shows that women's vulnerability is compounded due to their gendered disadvantage in information access, literacy, and decision-making. This disadvantage is particularly acute in the case of married women in rural India. NACO has indicated the need to develop audience-appropriate strategies for communicating HIV-related information. To …

Building Sustainable Networks For Young Women And Icts Throughout Australia, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

No abstract provided.