Changing Gender Relations Research Articles

Reed, K.Gender and Genetics: Sociology of the Prenatal. London: Routledge. 2012. 198pp. £34.99 ISBN 978‐1‐138‐82289‐4 (pbk)

Reed, K.Gender and Genetics: Sociology of the Prenatal. London: Routledge. 2012. 198pp. £34.99 ISBN 978‐1‐138‐82289‐4 (pbk)

Gender Inequality, Processes of Adaptation, and Female Local Initiatives in Cash Crop Production in Northern Tanzania

AbstractThis article contributes to development research, as well as research studying inequality in agricultural systems. We use empirical data from an ethnographic study in the village of Mamba, in northern Tanzania (2006–2009). This study analyzes the question of changing gender relations and the patriarchal constraints to collective action under market liberalization of cash crops. Our findings demonstrate that the shift to a market economy has influenced the nature of production relations, deepening inequalities in gender relations and the position of women. However, some women circumvent their disadvantaged situations through their association with various types of collective action groups or networks. In order to investigate the different impacts on women's lives, we analyze women's interest and motivations for these collective actions. We also identify the processes of adaptation to the new production relations through the coffee trade network and tomato cultivation groups, two local initiatives. We analyze the differences between these two forms of collective action and theorize on their different impacts on women's empowerment.

Satellitization of Arab Media: Perceptions of Changes in Gender Relations

AbstractThis article explores how students living in East Amman in Jordan perceive a link between global television entertainment and social changes, particularly changes in gender relations. The study relies on a questionnaire distributed among university students in Amman in 2009 and 2010 with 946 Muslim respondents, and focus group discussions and individual interviews with 44 Muslim students living in East Amman in 2013. The theoretical framework for the discussion is cultivation theory, moral panic, and audience reception. The main conclusion from this study is that many students believe that watching television makes viewers see ‘reality’ in view of TV programs. Another conclusion is that students seem to tailor their use of television according to their own needs. A third conclusion is that many students experience moral panic and see global television as an attack on cultural values. Other students, however, welcome global television's transmission of what they consider new liberal ideas. The students’ experience is that television entertainment products such as Turkish and American films and series, have an actual impact on social changes linked to gender relations in the East Amman society. The impact of global TV on local society is envisioned as being either “good” or “bad”.

Music and Traditions of the Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar by Lisa Urkevich (review)

MIGRATIONS Music and Traditions of the Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. By Lisa Urkevich. New York: Routledge, 2015. [xiv, 356 p. ISBN 9780415888707 (hardcover), $160; ISBN 9780415888721 (paperback), $63.95.] CD, examples (with text transcriptions), illustrations, lyrics and terms in Arabic script (transliterations), translations, tables, notes, appendix, glossary, bibliography, index.Not often does such tremendouslyneeded, well-grounded scholarship come to an academic and general readership as Music and Traditions of the Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar by Lisa Urkevich. The fact that permission to enter and exit Saudi Arabia is significantly restricted, as is traveling be- tween provinces within it, and the fact that social mores greatly limit contact between the sexes outside of family life, only make Urkevich's navigation of the processes required to accomplish her research among men and women in their various contexts and locales all the more remarkable. Stemming in part from the teaching associated with her professorship at the American University of Kuwait, and based on two decades of research during which she mostly resided in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait while negotiating the challenges in conducting the supporting fieldwork, this book by design combines the attributes of an ethnographic monograph and a textbook for a wide readership.In a succinct refutation of outsider stereotyping of Arabia as musicless, the opening of the preface points to the region's extraordinarily rich and diverse traditions before going on to describe the goal of the book as introducing and celebrating Arabian Peninsula musical with a focus on folk and traditional urban music (p. ix). This section also provides valuable contextualization of the book, including coverage of its utility and methodology with specificity and candor. For example, occasional problematic suggestions came with the helpful contributions that Urkevich received from external reviewers, and she points out, for instance, that addressing social issues like gender and religion from a western anthropological standpoint would have offended many regional citizens, which was inconceivable (p. xi).The introductory chapter describes the geo-cultural makeup of the Peninsula along with national groupings, associated tribal ties, extent of historical influence by inbound migrant cultures, and intersection of traditional and modern lifestyles. Within the contrasting backgrounds lies a well-established distinction between Bedouin, or tribal nomads, and their descendants on the one hand and h.ad. ar, or settled peoples, and their descendants on the other hand, with each having their own and traditions. Urkevich points out that in distinctions such as this, the line between the two is sometimes blurry. Further, in terms of four large categorizations of traditional musical arts, those of the Bedouin and h. ad. ar can be seen to overlap in an association with land, alongside those that are associated with sea, with incoming immigrant cultures, and with urban classicism (p. 4). Another general introductory issue has to do with certain negative connotations of within society. Owing both to tribal perceptions of making as being akin to manual labor, and thus degrading, as well as to some religious interpretations of Islam that see musical arts as indicative of poor moral values, can carry a stigma for those making and listening to it. This can be all the more so for women, and of particular value here is Urkevich's coverage of the changes in gender relations and perceptions of making since the late nineteenth century, when women and men more often attended musical gatherings in mixed company and before came under the more pointed religio-political attacks of the twentieth century (pp. 5-7).Following the introduction, the book unfolds in two large parts, each of which covers the sizable geo-musical areas under study: Part I: The Najd and Upper Gulf Region and Part II: The Hijaz and Southwest Region. …

Americans Recaptured: Progressive Era Memory of Frontier Captivity by Molly K. Varley

Reviewed by: Americans Recaptured: Progressive Era Memory of Frontier Captivity by Molly K. Varley Sherry L. Smith Americans Recaptured: Progressive Era Memory of Frontier Captivity. By Molly K. Varley. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014. Pp. [x], 230. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8061-4493-1.) This book by Molly K. Varley argues that some Progressive-era people used eighteenth- and nineteenth-century captivity narratives for their own purposes. They often did so by publishing new editions of old texts and constructing monuments like statues and other kinds of physical memorials in public places. Building on Frederick Jackson Turner’s theory that the frontier experience molded American identity, this generation of Americans embraced white captives who lived among Indians as the perfect symbols representing the best of both the frontier and the Native worlds. By resurrecting these stories, Progressives hoped to project the past onto the future, perpetuating a national collective identity while alleviating any doubts about the morality of conquest. Captives’ experiences, they believed, “embodied the Turnerian process” by which European immigrants became Americans (p. 179). Meanwhile, the suffering those captives endured helped justify Indian extinction. Memorializing white captives served other purposes as well. It valorized rural, small-town America at a time of rapid urbanization and helped blend conservation of natural places with cultural landscapes. It spoke to unsettled concerns about changing gender relations by celebrating women captives who exhibited the supposed female attributes of maternalism and a community orientation but who, in captivity, gained the masculine virtues of independence, individualism, strength, and self-sufficiency. Thus, with victory over the Indians behind them, Progressives could promote the adoption of some aspects of Indian cultures into a wholly American identity. Indians could vanish and become assimilated, while their virtues and knowledge would be incorporated into the larger culture. One of Varley’s main examples is Quaker and Progressive activist William Pryor Letchworth, who wanted to conserve a lovely stretch of New York’s Genesee River. Concerned that the idea of conserving the land’s natural values would not alone suffice, Letchworth used the story of well-known Seneca captive Mary Jemison to cement the land’s significance and help preserve it from development. Eventually, Letchworth retrieved Jemison’s remains when Buffalo’s expansion threatened her gravesite and reburied them on a bluff above the Middle Falls of the Genesee. He also helped erect a statue of her and moved the Jemison log cabin to the site, thus marrying the scenic and historic. Later, Letchworth donated the property to the state for a park, hoping the Jemison story would encourage visitors to “incorporate Indian characteristics…[and] apious connection to the land, an internal quietness, and an anti-modern mentality” into their own lives (p.74).Of course, Varley also notes, contemporary Indians were a different matter, and conservationists displayed no qualms about removing Native people from parklands. [End Page 707] Historians have long understood that representations of Indians—or, in this case, their captives—reveal much more about the creators of those texts, images, and monuments than they do their subjects. By zeroing in on a particularly unsettled period in American history, Varley finds that some Anglo-Americans turned to captivity narratives to assure themselves that the frontier “creation story” continued to inform nation-building as the United States adjusted to new realities, especially the waves of immigrants who supposedly threatened to upend it (p. 15). However, not all shared these views or turned to these narratives. Nevertheless, Varley’s evidence, which comes completely from east of the Mississippi River, is convincing regarding a segment of the nation. The decision to organize the book by case study leads to much repetition, and a bit more acknowledgment of alternative visions (whether those of people such as anthropologist Franz Boas or non-Anglos) would have strengthened the volume. But the attention paid to monument building contributes to the genre of memory studies and adds a welcome eastern Native American element to that literature. Sherry L. Smith Southern Methodist University Copyright © 2016 The Southern Historical Association

Development Experience of Adivasis: Case Studies from Kerala

Two different cases of conflicts over natural resources from the Indian state Kerala such is analyzed in this paper- Kadar Adivasis and Wayanad. Reasons, causes of migration and changed gender relations due to development and policy interventions are the focus of the first case, the second case is policies in conflict with rights to resource access. Both these cases tell us some insightful stories about the Adivasi experience with the idea of development. This paper largely argues for inclusivity in terms of the cultural heterogeneity of the Adivasi communities in the whole development scenario. And also, the sustainability of the communities would only be sustainable by giving rights on the resources they possess.

Spouses in the Household and the Family Business – Who (does) the Care and Who (does) the Work

Abstract In this pilot study we explore the mutual conditionality of bargaining power between spouses in the processes of intra-household allocation of resources (care work) and the assignment of their roles in family businesses (paid work) in Vojvodina, Serbia. Our intention is to explain the changes in gender relations in family businesses run by spouses under different socio-economic and institutional conditions, and especially in the context of enforced postsocialist neoliberal transformation after 2009. We formulate a theoretical and methodological framework based on the case of ten firms and check its validity for deeper and wider research into the key causes, forms and characteristics of gender bias in this area.

Being a Traditional Dad or Being More Like a Mum? Clashing Models of Fatherhood According to Swedish and Polish Fathers

The purpose of this article is to document how Swedish and Polish fathers understand their parental roles in the times of changing gender relations. An important question is how they deal with two conflicting models of fatherhood—the traditional model based on breadwinning and the new model of involved fatherhood. I argue here that fatherhood is a highly contextual phenomenon and the way men engage in parental roles is strictly connected with the social expectations and people’s assumptions about parenting and gender roles. The focus of this paper will be on the links between three elements: (1) the institutional context, in particular the family policy systems, (2) a conflict resulting from the coexistence of two different models of fatherhood, and (3) men’s parenting behaviour. The article consists of two parts. In the first one the family policy systems of Sweden and Poland are described. The second part is based on 52 in-depth interviews conducted with Swedish and Polish middleclass and heterosexual fathers. A thematic analysis revealed that the experience of fatherhood is firmly embedded in in a family policy system. Depending on the definitions of parental roles adopted by the welfare state, the particular mechanisms of family policy can sustain or reconstruct the models of fatherhood (and motherhood) and consequently have an impact on the gender inequalities.

A matter of sexual confidence: young men’s non-prescription use of Viagra in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

This paper examines the non-prescription use of the sexual enhancement drug Viagra by young men in Addis Ababa. Data was collected through repeated in-depth interviews with 14 Viagra users – heterosexual men between the ages of 21 and 35 – and focus-group discussions with 21 male and 22 female university students. Study participants turned to Viagra to impress lovers, as a ‘support mechanism’ when feeling weak or tired, to counteract the effects of chewing the stimulant plant khat and to satisfy what they perceived as a psychological ‘addiction’. More generally, young men used Viagra to quell anxieties about what they perceived as women’s growing expectations about their sexual performance – informed by changing gender relations and sexual expectations, constructions of masculinity that emphasise sexual prowess, and a misreading of women’s sexual desires largely fuelled by the emergence of pornography as a new standard for sexual performance. While some men gained sexual confidence by using Viagra, others – particularly those who used Viagra regularly – paradoxically experienced feelings of loss of manhood.

"Marie Howland-19th-Century Leader for Women's Economic Independence

Marie Howland (1836–1921) was an important working-class figure in the early U.S. women's movement who mounted an inspired challenge to separate spheres and the prevailing domestic ideology. Well before Edward Bellamy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she called for domestic work to be respected, paid, and collectively organized. Howland made it her life's work to remove barriers to economic independence for women through the overhaul of social and economic institutions that posited the home as the center of female existence and exploited workers. She wanted women to have the economic freedom to marry for love, not economic necessity, leave a bad marriage, survive widowhood, or not marry at all. By delving into Howland's early years in rural New Hampshire and the Lowell textile mills, her close association with radical bohemians in New York City, and her later participation in experimental communities, the following treatise provides a long overdue, comprehensive account of her life and work. My inquiry reveals how Marie Howland promoted women's freedom within a class analysis, rejecting Marxism and embracing the utopian socialist theory of Charles Fourier. It also offers an in-depth look at her popular utopian novel, Papa's Own Girl, where a cooperative community of economically independent women and enlightened men replace the patriarchy and individual competitiveness of the emerging, but by no means entrenched, industrial order. In addition, my treatise focuses on Howland's efforts to put ideas into practice. Unwilling to limit her activism to intellectual discussions, she lived in a Fourierist household in New York City, a cooperative settlement in western Mexico, and the single-tax community of Fairhope, Alabama. She pushed the Grange and the International Workingman's Association to focus on women's issues. She also made sure that her personal relationships with men were based on free love and mutual respect, not economic necessity and legal contract. I also examine how Howland dedicated her life to changing gender and class relations, but made little effort to improve conditions for African Americans. Like many white reformers, she drew on popular scientific theories of biological difference to justify the unequal treatment of African Americans. Besides shedding light on important intellectual and social developments, like phrenology, free love, Fourierism, the Grange, and theosophy, this examination of Marie Howland reveals the complexities, possibilities, and limitations of the women's rights movement before the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Palestinian-Israeli single mothers accord motherhood a new meaning ‘I would like to teach my children a new way of life … I'm responsible for them now’

ABSTRACTOver the last three decades, Palestinian society in Israel has undergone numerous changes, reflected in the rising numbers of families headed by single mothers. This article is based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2011 among 24 divorced, separated, and widowed Palestinian single mothers in Israel. I analyze this emerging family configuration, focusing on these women’s experiences as mothers and on how they accord new meaning to motherhood. My analysis will deal with the diverse ways these women ‘do motherhood’ and negotiate with different familial players. It will extend beyond the discourse on motherhood to shed light on the current changes in power and gender relations taking place in Palestinian-Israeli society.

What are the mature men who do not work, do not look for a job, and are not retired doing?

Reduced participation of the male population in economic activities is the result of their later entry and earlier leave from the labor market. This earlier exit is not only associated to "early" retirement. Between 1993 and 2013, there was an increase in the number of men aged 50-59 who were not working, not looking for a job, and were not retired (NER) . The literature stresses that work is the most important social event of a man's life, and the traditional gender contract establishes the breadwinner role for men and the caregiver one for women. This growth suggests changes in gender relations since a decrease was observed in the proportion of male household heads, and an increase in that of male spouses, and of those living with their parents. This may be a consequence of their difficulties in participating in the labor market, also given their low education level; therefore, requiring greater participation from women. This trend is contradictory with the new demographic regime. A later leave from economic activities is an important requirement to minimize the challenges brought about by the reducing workforce and aging population.

Zwischen Schutz und Scham? Konfliktbedingte Flüchtlingssiedlungen, Gewalt und Geschlechterverhältnisse

Between Protection and Shame? Conflict-induced Refugee Settlements, Violence and Gender Relations. Abstract This article discusses how gender relations change in refugee camps and the role sexual and gender-based violence plays. The majority of refugees are displaced due to conflicts, making refugee camps post-conflict spaces. Despite protection and assistance measures, such camps are criticized for prevailing restrictions and the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence. Based on an empirical study of a refugee camp in Uganda, this article explores and analyses the structures in the refugee settlement, the forms and conditions of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as changing gender relations. It is argued, on the one hand, that diverse interdependent forms of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as victims and perpetrator structuresexist, and, on the other hand, that the violence is linked with the changing gender relations as well as traumatic experiences made in the refugee contexts, during conflict and flight. Keywords: Refugees, sexual and gender-based violence, gender relations, post-conflict ----- Schlagworter: Fluchtlinge, sexuelle und geschlechterbasierte Gewalt, Geschlechterbeziehungen, Postkonflikt ----- Bibliographie: Krause, Ulrike: Zwischen Schutz und Scham? Konfliktbedingte Fluchtlingssiedlungen, Gewalt und Geschlechterverhaltnisse, PERIPHERIE, 2-2015, S. 235-259. https://doi.org/10.3224/peripherie.v35i138-139.24298

Gender Mainstreaming Critiques: Signposts or Dead Ends?

An enduring legacy of the Beijing conference, gender mainstreaming has been widely implemented and widely critiqued since the 1990s. But the basis of these critiques has changed over time: this article charts a typology of critique approaches. It shows how the central problem is diagnosed variously as the loss of the political dimensions of gender in the course of mainstreaming; or technical shortcomings; or the gendered nature of organisations as the causes of technical failure. For others, the problem has been the failure to scrutinise the connection between gender mainstreaming and changes in gender relations in women's real lives. More recently, another group asserts that the trajectory of gender mainstreaming is simply part of the much broader logic of neoliberal governance. Understanding the technologies of power that shape a feminist practice suitable for the governance institutions into which it is inserted can help guide future feminist engagement.

After the Wedding Night

This study seeks to understand the ways in which men who pledge sexual abstinence until marriage negotiate and assert masculine identities before and after marriage. Using longitudinal qualitative data, this work traces the ways in which men who pledge abstinence until marriage manage a tension between both “sacred” and “beastly” discourses surrounding sexuality. The situational and interactional gendered practices of these men highlight their attempts to resolve the incongruity between practices of sexual purity and hegemonic definitions of masculinity. I argue that a decision to pledge sexual abstinence until marriage is an example of hybrid masculinities (Bridges and Pascoe 2014) in that the postmarriage transition to a more hegemonically masculine status suggests that such practices are not challenging current gendered systems of power and inequality. These findings underscore the potential fallacy in using cross-sectional data to illustrate changes in gender relations, and demonstrate the importance of incorporating life course perspectives when theorizing masculinities.

“Full-time wife” and the change of gender order in the Chinese City

Work and family are the most critical of the contested terrains that determine the status of women in the gender order, the differing pattern of inequality between men and women. “Full-time wife” is a relatively new label in China, emerging only in the late twentieth century. It corresponds to the term “housewife” used in the 1950s and 1960s. Based on 59 in-depth interviews carried out between 2006 and 2007 in Guangzhou City, this article focuses on “full-time wives” and the dilemma they face in the conflict between family and work, an issue that is essential to an understanding of changing gender relations in China. The paper argues that a combination of the traditional Chinese gender order, improving wages of the family under the “socialist” market economy, and the rolling back of state protection was a key reason for the emergence of the full-time wife phenomenon. The analysis of the position of the full-time wife demonstrates how rolling back state protection affected women and specifically how it undermined the admittedly inconsistent advances in gender equality made in the previous era. For example, women now experience many new kinds of subordination, both in the labor market and the family. China’s market economy requires social policies that aim to improve the work-family balance in order to prevent or mitigate the further development of the market-constructed gender order.

La migración femenina y los cambios en las relaciones de género en las familias: el caso de las transmigrantes colombianas en Italia

En las migraciones internacionales, los movimientos poblaciones de mujeres son muy significativos, no solo por el número de personas que involucran, sino también porque presentan características propias que los distinguen de los movimientos poblacionales masculinos. La perspectiva de género aplicada a los fenómenos migratorios ha sido muy útil para demostrar que las migraciones no son neutrales en cuanto al sexo, y entender en profundidad las migraciones femeninas.Este artículo se focaliza en las migraciones colombianas hacia Italia, un fenómeno todavía poco estudiado pero que presenta particularidades interesantes por su fuerte heterogeneidad, por la elevada presencia femenina y la variedad de itinerarios de las mujeres migrantes. A partir de la perspectiva de género, pretende observar las diferencias entre la experiencia de hombres y mujeres durante la migración. Ello para desentrañar algunas de las desigualdades de género y su intersección con otras desigualdades que derivan de algunas categorías sociales que intervienen durante la migración.Se focaliza en la familia, un observatorio importante donde las relaciones de género se manifiestan con gran determinación, pero donde se suceden cambios a partir de la migración, que contribuyen a modificar la condición familiar y social de la mujer. En dichos flujos, aunque los cambios en las relaciones de género no apuntan hacia una sola dirección, se evidencian diferentes trayectorias de las mujeres en las que a menudo ellas son protagonistas activas, independientes y autónomas, logrando articular ventajas y desventajas presentes durante el proceso migratorio.

Género y migración: Desandando caminos

Gender and migration: Retracing paths The essay has been divided into two moments: A first look where key aspects are needed to understand the theoretical and conceptual evolution of the topic in question, their ideological marks through the various theoretical orientations that make their epistemic basis. Migration itself is a factor of change in gender relations whose realization depends on the structure of opportunities for women in the contexts of origin and destination. It attempts to reconstruct the way in order to form the theoretical ground on the issue in question. A second stage, characterized by the different gender dimensions of migration processes, which can address a number of strategic issues that point the way to understand the relationship: gender-migration.

‘Women now wear trousers’: men's perceptions of family planning in the context of changing gender relations in western Kenya

Gender inequity has been closely linked with unmet need for family planning among women in sub-Saharan Africa but the factors related to male family planning disapproval are not well-understood. This qualitative study explored men's perspectives of gender roles and cultural norms as they pertain to family planning. Twelve small group meetings were held with 106 married men in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Shifting gender relations made the definitions of manhood more tenuous than ever. Men's previous identities as sole breadwinners, which gave them significant control over decision-making, were being undermined by women's increasing labour force participation. While many men viewed family planning positively, fears that family planning would lead to more female sexual agency and promiscuity or that male roles would be further jeopardised were widespread and were major deterrents to male family planning approval. By addressing such fears, gender-sensitive programmes could help more men to accept family planning. Increased family planning education for men is needed to dispel misconceptions regarding family planning side-effects. Focusing on the advantages of family planning, namely financial benefits and reduced conflict among couples, could resonate with men. Community leaders, outreach workers and healthcare providers could help shift men's approval of joint decision-making around family size to other reproductive domains, such as family planning use.

Hegemonic Masculinity and the Possibility of Change in Gender Relations

Hegemonic masculinity was introduced as a concept which, due to its understanding of gender as dynamic and relational, and of power as consent, could explain both the persistence of male power and the potential for social change. Yet, when hegemonic masculinity is applied in empirical cases, it is most often used to demonstrate the way in which hegemonic masculinity shifts and adopts new practices in order to enable some men to retain power over others. This is especially so in feminist International Relations, particularly studies of military masculinities, where shifts toward “softer” military masculinities such as the “tough and tender” soldier-scholar demonstrate to many feminists merely the “flexibility of the machinery of rule.” In this article, I challenge the pessimism of these accounts of military masculinity. My particular contribution is to build on an emergent and underdeveloped strand of Connell’s work on hegemonic masculinity: how change might be theorized. I argue that hegemonic masculinity remains a useful concept, but that the process through which “hegemony may fail” requires rethinking. I make this argument by exploring and working through empirical material on military masculinities, drawing on both my own research and critical analysis of the literature.