Changes In Women Research Articles

Komatsudani Then and Now: Continuity and Change in a Japanese Preschool

In this article the reflections of the teachers and directors of Komatsudani Hoikuen (‘day-care center’) on a video the authors recently made at their preschool are used to explore processes of continuity and change in Japanese preschool education over the course of a generation. The social changes that are associated with changing preschool practices in Japan include: a falling birth rate, women's changing attitudes about marriage and work, the social isolation of families, a putative decline in the quality of parenting, and a prevailing mood of national pessimism that is closely tied to a long period of economic decline. These factors are discussed in relation to Komatsudani's minimalist approach to curriculum, to its strategy for dealing with children's disputes, and to its development of a system of older children helping with the care of infants and toddlers.

The Italian family from the 1960s to the present

SummaryThe family in Italy lies at the centre of an apparent paradox. On the one hand, it appears stronger in its traditional form based on marriage and on intergenerational solidarity than in most European countries. The normal way of living for couples is marriage, marriage instability is lower than the European average, and births out of wedlock are scarce. On the other hand, with its low fertility and long permanence of children in their parents’ household, Italy appears to be a country where the forming of new families and the reproduction of families is most difficult. This article explores the reasons for this paradox, many of which lie in the persistent gender division of labour and in the lack of supportive family policies. At the same time the article shows that despite the apparent stability of the family many changes are under way, some of them dating back to the early 1960s: not only because of fertility decline, but also due to women's changing patterns of behaviour and expectations.

Ladies First: Race, Class, and the Contradictions of a Powerful Femininity

This article helps to fill a gap in the literature on the role of femininities in reproducing inequality. In particular, this research examines one version of femininity—ladyhood—and the ways that it is shaped by racism, classism, heterosexism, and sexism. Women may enact ladyhood in pursuit of a “powerful femininity.” Data come from an ethnography on an interracial, elite women's social change organization, which made ladyhood part of its meanings and practices. Specifically, by enforcing ladyhood, the women effectively reproduced their own subordination. Their “power” was an illusion. I explain their allegiance to ladyhood by placing the organization in the historical context of racism and class struggle.

No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, and: Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End, and: Feminism in the Heartland (review)

No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, and: Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End, and: Feminism in the Heartland (review)

Multigenerational family structure in Japanese society: impacts on stress and health behaviors among women and men

Rapid population aging in Japan has led to rising demands for informal care giving. Traditionally, care giving for aging parents has fallen disproportionately on the shoulders of women living in multigenerational households. However, rising labor force participation by Japanese women, declining marriage and fertility rates, and women's changing expectations have combined to produce unprecedented strains on traditional multigenerational households where care giving to elders traditionally takes place. In this paper, we explored gender-specific relationships between family structure, stress and worries, and health behaviors, using linked data from two national surveys conducted in Japan: the 1995 Comprehensive Survey of the Living Conditions of People on Health and Welfare, and the 1995 National Nutrition Survey. We found that women in multigenerational households reported more care-giving worries, and also less future health and financial worries. Living with parents was associated with protective health behaviors (less smoking, less heavy drinking), but also more sedentary behavior among women, while men in “sandwich” families (i.e., living with both parents and children) reported heavier smoking. The association of family structure and health behavior was not mediated by worries. Living alone was associated with worse health for women. These findings suggest gender-specific patterns of worries and health behaviors that reflect both the health-protecting and health-damaging effects of living in multigenerational households.

The World Turned Upside Down: Below Replacement Fertility, Changing Preferences and Family-Friendly Public Policy in 21 OECD Countries

Over the past two decades, a decline in birth rates in advanced industrialized societies to levels well below those required for population replacement has been accompanied by a major change in the cross-national incidence of fertility. This has, in turn, given rise to a massive transformation in traditional cross-national patterns of relationships between fertility and other variables. Whereas previously the countries with the highest period fertility rates were those in which family-oriented cultural traditions were most pronounced and in which women's labour market participation was least, these relationships are now wholly reversed. This study uses data for 21 OECD countries to provide a more thorough and systematic mapping of the linkages between fertility, cultural values, economic structure and social policy than has hitherto been attempted in the literature, while simultaneously addressing some of the theoretical and methodological issues that arise in explaining a reversal of this magnitude. It argues that seemingly anomalous linkages with cultural traditions and employment structure are consequences of women's changing work and family preferences and of cross-national differences in the adoption of family-friendly public policy.

Preserving Domesticity: Reading Tupperware in Women's Changing Domestic, Social and Economic Roles*

L'image représentée par Tupperware est essentiellement féminine. Cet article analyse la littérature entourant Tupperware pour y retrouver cette image de la fémininité de classe moyenne, euronord‐américaine et domestique. L'analyse de cette littérature se fait en tenant compte des changements et continuités, au cours des 50 dernières années, des rôles domestiques, économiques et sociaux des femmes nord‐américaines. Ces rôles domestiques et économiques se sont entrelacés, ce qui a permis à L'entreprise de mieux les exploiter. La réussite de Tupperware en s'associant à cette image très précise peut servir comme baromètre pour révéler comment les femmes négocient les pressions combinées de la maison et du travail.Tupperware projects a quintessentially gendered image. This article explores writings by and about Tupperware to discover its representation of middle‐class white domestic femininity. This image is read against changes and continuities in North American women's domestic, economic and social roles over the past fifty years. There has been an ongoing intertwining of women's domestic and paid work roles that Tupperware has been able to exploit. The enduring success of Tupperware as a company associated with a specific image is thus a useful barometer indicating how women are contending with the combined pressures of home and work.

Structural change and the narrowing gender gap in wages: theory and evidence from Hong Kong

This paper offers a theoretical and empirical analysis on the sources of the narrowing gender gap in wages. Based on some existing literature, the model posits that the narrowing gender gap may be related to women's changing comparative advantage and the gender gap is smaller in occupations in which physical labor is less intensively used. The model implies that when an economy transforms from a manufacturing-oriented economy to service-oriented economy, a woman's productivity relative to a man's will generally increase so that the gender gap narrows. The implications of the theoretical analysis are then tested based on 1% random sub-samples of two population censuses. The empirical results support the predictions of the model.

Living with a woman with fibromyalgia from the perspective of the husband.

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain syndrome, which affects mostly middle-aged women. The syndrome is poorly understood and treatment is mainly palliative. The diagnosis is established from diagnostic criteria. Living with FM means living a life greatly influenced by the illness in various ways for people affected. Aim of the study. The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of living with a woman with FM from the husbands' perspective. Five men married to women with FM were interviewed using a narrative approach. The interviews were analysed using qualitative thematic content analysis. The analysis resulted in the following seven themes: increasing responsibility and work in the home; being an advocate for and supporting the wife; learning to see the woman's changing needs; changing relationship between spouses; changing relationship with friends and relatives; deepening relationship with the children and lacking information and knowledge about FM. The findings show that the women's illness had a great impact on husbands' lives, and that husbands lacked information about the woman's illness. This study shows that it is not only the women with FM who experience a changed life; the whole family life is influenced and limited by FM. The husband's role in the family changes, first and foremost concerning responsibility and workload within the family. This must be taken into consideration in care planning. This study also highlighted the need of information and knowledge about FM expressed by the participants, information that health care personnel have a great responsibility to give.

Democrats, Republicans, and the politics of women's place

Democrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women's Place is impressive in its scope, powerful in its argument, and compelling in its analysis. . . . Using data sources ranging from public opinion surveys to elite interviews to party platforms to presidential speeches, Sanbonmatsu provides a provocative account of how and why the parties' electoral strategies have varied across gender issues. Scholars will be reading and citing this book for years to come.-Susan J. Carroll, Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers UniversityKira Sanbonmatsu's study contributes to our knowledge of the complexity of the response of the Democratic and Republican parties to the gender issues that emerged on the political scene as a result of the women's movement. She expertly shows how the perspectives of both party activists and the general public need to be taken into account across a range of gender issues for an understanding of the impact of women as a political force in contemporary politics.-Barbara Burrell, Northern Illinois University and author of A Woman's Place Is in the House: Campaigning for Congress in the Feminist EraDemocrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women's Place is an unusual double-treat-an original study of party politics and a review of how issues created by women's changing roles in society have never quite made it to the top of the political agenda. Readers who care about the obstacles faced by social issues in the political marketplace should not miss this book. They will be richly rewarded.-Doris A. Graber, University of Illinois at Chicago, Political Science Quarterly[Sanbonmatsu] has done important work in raising the question of the separation between abortion and other gender issues, and has moved us some distance in the direction of understanding this phonomenon. . . . [T]his book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the place of gender in American electoral and party politics in the last three decades.-Gretchen Ritter, University of Texas, Austin, Perspectives on Politics

Changes in Women’s Wages after Parental Leave

In 1986 German parental leave and benefit policy was expanded by extending the potential duration of leave from six to ten months and paying maternity benefits to all new mothers. The potential duration has increased four times since 1986 and stood at three years in 1992. This study uses differenced log-wage regressions to examine the effect of taking maternity leave on wage growth for two 5-year periods, 1984–1989 and 1989–1994. Taking leave negatively affected wage growth in both periods. Estimates imply that each month of maternity leave reduced wage growth by 1.5 percent over five years.

Analyzing Politics and Change in Women's Organizations

Research on women's political action too often passes over women's organizations that do not officially adopt a feminist ideology and do not explicitly set out to change gender power relations. Based on implicit notions that such women's organizations are nonpolitical (or less interesting), the research often supports a false dichotomy between feminist and nonfeminist organizations rather than illuminates women's common political ground. This study addresses women's collective action, politics and change by focusing on the case of Nicaraguan Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs - women who lost a son or daughter in the revolution or Contra War. Although some members in Matagalpa critiqued male domination, the organization itself did not set out to challenge the gendered division of labor; indeed, their collective demands relied upon and in many ways reinforced traditional gender identities. I argue that such movements are important to feminist political analysis. As I demonstrate in this article, an organization's lack of an official feminist ideology does not mean that individual members do not express interests, identities and ideals that challenge the gendered status quo. Such research, however, requires a nuanced approach, recognizing women as both accommodating and resisting gendered social structures. Thus, this study challenges the dominant feminist-feminine dichotomy by demonstrating that women's collective action is not only per se political (and politically important) but may also challenge as well as reinforce gendered power structures.

Residence near power lines and the risk of birth defects.

There has been some concern that exposure to electromagnetic fields may cause birth defects. We studied risks of birth defects by residential exposure to 50-Hz magnetic fields from power lines. We estimated the distance between residence and power lines for 161,844 Norwegian residences, and their corresponding magnetic fields in the period 1980 to 1997. Risks of 24 categories of birth defects were compared across exposure levels, adjusting for social and demographic variables. Among those living near power lines, the greatest reductions in risk were for cardiac defects (odds ratio = 0.5; 95% confidence interval = 0.3-0.9) and respiratory defects (0.4; 0.2-0.9). The largest increase in risk was for esophageal defects (2.5; 1.0-5.9). Other associations were weaker and had wide confidence intervals. There was little evidence that residence near power lines affected the risk of birth defects. The observed decreased risks of cardiac and respiratory defects and the increased risk of esophageal defects should be interpreted with caution given the number of endpoints, the imprecision in the calculations of the distance from the residence to the power line, and the limited information on pregnant women's change of residence.

Stronger Than Dirt: A Cultural History of Advertising Personal Hygiene in America, 1875 to 1940

Only a century ago, the privilege of washing with soap was mainly a special prerogative of the well to do, and a bath was something most people avoided. But by the end of World War I, a revolution in standards of personal hygiene had taken place. Soap was not only more widely used but was suddenly viewed as a powerful symbol of purification, civilisation, and progress. What caused this radical shift in attitudes? In this fascinating cultural history, Juliann Sivulka shows that the transformation of soap from luxury product to everyday staple and symbol of success was the result of both the newly emerging advertising industry and large-scale societal changes brought on by the modernisation of daily life. The new emphasis on soap translated into more elaborate cleanliness rituals, creating in turn specialised places devoted to care of the body, more complex domestic interiors, and eventually new customers for an emerging consumer society. Making use of a large body of primary research material, Sivulka's study reveals that cleanliness came to symbolise a morally superior and civilised individual. Keeping clean, according to advertisements, was not only a healthy habit, it also ensured romance, material abundance, and acceptance into the successful white middle class. Advertisements also reflected women's changing roles as agents of cleanliness, as well as creators of mass cultural images that reinforced narrow stereotypes of both men's and women's role in society, which feminists later protested. The African American consumer culture and personal cleanliness rituals emerged in a pattern similar to their white counterparts but were informed by politics of appearance. This profusely illustrated study is full of insights about the development of the consumer culture that we all take for granted. Sivulka reveals many interesting connections between our attitudes toward cleanliness and conceptions of the body, inhabited space, social class, gender, and race.

Reversal of Fortune

The earnings of African American women increased throughout the 1960s and 1970s, yet by the 1980s there were signs of a reversal. Using data from the 1980 and 1990 censuses of population, this study examines the deterioration in Black women's earnings across the 1980s. The authors ask what caused the earnings reversal given the improvements in Black women's human capital and industrial locations. The study finds that while the returns to schooling and industrial distribution improved over the decade, these gains were offset by the negative effects of changing family structure, nonmetropolitan residence, and occupational redistribution. Noteworthy is the fact that despite higher returns for public sector employment, work in this sector contributed little to Black women's changing economic status, perhaps because of cutbacks in affirmative action programs. The authors also find evidence of a widening bifurcation among African American women workers, with growing numbers of this group concentrated in the lower end of the earnings distribution.

Self-Reported Behavioural and Medical Changes in Women after Their First Myocardial Infarction: A 4-Year Comparison Between Participation and Non-Participation in a Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme

Background: Women's recovery following a myocardial infarction (MI) has not yet been studied in a thorough manner. Aim: Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare women's self-reported behavioural and medical changes, both in those women who voluntarily participated and those women who did not participate in a cardiac rehabilitation programme (CRP). Methods: A non-randomised comparative study design, including pre- (baseline) and post-tests (1 and 4 years after), was implemented in 18 hospitals in Sweden. Consecutively chosen women suffering their first MI ( N=240) completed a questionnaire regarding behavioural and medical factors. Results: At baseline, significant differences existed between the groups regarding time stress (increased in the CRP group) and hypertension (increased in the non-CRP group). The behavioural factors improved, irrespective of CRP participation or not, with the exception of time stress, which was consistently high in the CRP group both 1- and 4-years after the MI. Regarding the medical factors, the significant difference in hypertension disappeared after 1 year. Four years after the MI, the CRP group reported significantly less rehospitalisation and more interventive cardiology compared to the non-CRP group. Conclusion: The women benefited from CRP participation in relation to medical factors, but not at all in relation to behavioural factors. Accordingly, randomised clinical trials are necessary to perform in order to determine the effects of a long-term individual-based supportive CRP, performed by well-educated healthcare professionals.

Handbook of the psychology of women and gender

PART I: HISTORICAL, THEORETICAL, AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES. 1. Women as Subjects, Actors, and Agents in the History of Psychology (R. Unger). 2. Theoretical Perspectives on Women and Gender (S. Wilkinson). 3. Choices and Consequences: Methodological Issues in the Study of Gender (V. Rabinowitz and D. Martin). 4. Women, Psychology, and Evolution (P. Gowaty). 5. Gender Similarities and Differences as Feminist Contradictions (M. Kimball). 6. Framing Gendered Identities (K. Deaux and A. Stewart). PART II: DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES. 7. Biological Influences on Psychosexual Differentiation (K. Zucker). 8. From Infancy through Middle Childhood: The Role of Cognitive and Social Factors in Becoming Gendered (K. Powlishta, et al.). 9. Adolescent Girlsa Voices: Resonating Resistance in Body and Soul (D. Tolman and L. Brown). 10. Current Perspectives on Womena s Adult Roles: Work, Family, and Life (L. Gilbert and J. Rader). 11. Motherhood and Mothering (A. Woollett and H. Marshall). 12. Older Adult Women: Issues, Resources, and Challenges (S. Canetto). PART III: SOCIAL ROLES AND SOCIAL SYSTEMS. 13. The Psychology of Men and Masculinity: Research Status and Future Directions (G. Good and N. Sherrod). 14. Changing Times, Changing Gender Roles: Who Do We Want Women and Men to Be? (M. Kite). 15. Gender and Language (M. Crawford). 16. Gender and Social Interaction (M. LaFrance). 17. Gender and Relationships (K. Dion and K. Dion). 18. Sexualities (C. Kitzinger). PART IV: GENDER AND PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH. 19. Gendered Bodies and Physical Health (J. Chrisler). 20. Disorderly Constructs: Feminist Frameworks for Clinical Psychology (J. Marecek). 21. Therapy with Women: Feminist Frameworks (J. Worell and D. Johnson). 22. Sociocultural Issues in Counseling for Women of Color (K. Wyche). PART V: INSTITUTIONS, GENDER, AND POWER. 23. A Developmental Examination of Violence against Girls and Women (J. White, et al.). 24. Power and Gender: The Double--Edged Sword of Ambivalence (S. Goodwin and S. Fiske). 25. Sexual Harassment (B. Gutek and R. Done). 26. Women, Gender, and the Law: Toward a Feminist Rethinking of Responsibility (M. Fine and S. Carney). 27. Changing Society, Changing Women (and Men) (E. Cole, et al.). References. Author Index. Subject Index.

Neoliberalism, Gender, and Property Rights in Rural Mexico

AbstractThe Mexican Constitution was revised in 1992 to foster privatization of agrarian reform lands. Legal inheritance protections for spouses were removed, and individual title holders (85 percent male) obtained rights to sell land formerly considered family patrimony. State disinvestment contributed to economic crisis in the land-reform sector. This longitudinal study of four communities in northern and central Mexico explores the counterintuitive effects of agrarian law, customary inheritance norms, and women's changing roles in household economies and community sociopolitics on the material and ideological bases for women's entitlement to land. Quantitative and qualitative data show that women's rights to land under customary inheritance norms were upheld locally and that women's control of family land increased along with growing responsibility for production and community activism. Women's property rights were enhanced rather than eroded as families and communities struggled to meet the economic and social challenges posed by the neoliberal agenda.

Transnational Perspectives on Women's Domestic Work: Experiences of Brazilian Immigrants in the United States

SUMMARY This article focuses on immigrant women's transnational experiences and perceptions of paid and unpaid domestic work. The dominance of work was an evident theme throughout the interviews with 26 Brazilian women who had been employed in domestic or food service work in the United States. Various intersections of gender, class, culture, and migration were evident in the women's changing definitions of work, measures of the quantity and quality of their paid and unpaid domestic work, and perceptions of their own fluid identities as Brazilian women, domestic workers, and immigrants. Through their daily lives and work experiences these immigrant women made concerted efforts to forge, maintain, or recreate contacts and connections with values and perspectives from both Brazilian and U.S. society. In the process they created dynamic transnational understandings and perspectives on women's domestic work.

In the Valley of the Sweet Mother: Gendered metaphors, domestic lives and reproduction under a Brazilian state mining company

Metaphors have been studied by feminist geographers as examples of both power over and empowerment by women. In this article, the author takes three gendered metaphors used by people in the Brazilian mining town of Itabira as starting points to enlarge a discussion of the mining economy's effects on women's lives. One, the 'sweet mother,' describes the company's reskilling and cultural education of male workers from the 1940s to the early 1980s. Second, women react to these strategies with a contending image of the company as 'the rival.' Finally, the phase of company downsizing has created a new metaphor: 'the stepmother.' These metaphors elucidate ways that public and private spaces become intertwined in three moments of the state mining company's life: its arrival in the region in the mid-1940s; its expansion from the 1960s to the 1980s; and its restructuring in the last 10 years. The author suggests that women's ironic rewriting of the foundational metaphor of 'sweet mother' is central to their reconceptualization of economic change under the company. The alternative metaphors also reflect women's changing views on motherhood, sexuality and family partnership.