Gender Lens Research Articles

Challenges and Opportunities for Women and Girls in Adaptation to the Climate Change Action Plan 2021-2030: A Case Study in Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Vietnam is one of many countries heavily impacted by climate change in recent decades. The Mekong Delta region has been a prominent example of the severity of climate change on agriculture and ecosystems. Many studies have been conducted to assess the impacts of climate change on different sectors in Vietnam, however, there are gaps in understanding climate effects from a gender perspective and the important role gender plays in climate response and adaptation. This paper aims to use a gender-specific perspective to examine effects of climate change on women’s and girls’ livelihoods, water and food security, labor and income, migration and education in Hoa An commune, Hau Giang province in Mekong Delta. Particularly, this paper addresses challenges that women and girls face amidst impacts of climate change. It also discusses opportunities to empower women and young girls in which education and training on raising awareness of climate change and taking appropriate adaptation measures, play a significant role. The paper is structured through the discussion of the theoretical background that employs a gender lens to frame climate change within the context of Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The methodology section describes the study site in Hoa An commune of Hau Giang province in the delta. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted during the data collection process. The results report on (1) gender roles and gender power at family and at work (2) vulnerability perceived by women and girls, (3) impacts caused by climate change (4) livelihood support from central and local governments, adaptation, and role of education.

The advancement of a gender ethics protocol to uncover gender ethical dilemmas in midwifery: a preliminary theory model

ObjectivesEthical dilemmas at both the individual and structural level are part of the daily work of midwives and gender inequality and injustice can affect women’s sexual and reproductive health. Mainstream bioethical theory has been criticized for neglecting women’s issues. To ensure women’s experiences are addressed, a gender lens on ethics is crucial.AimThis study develops a theory model by exploring ethical dilemmas related to gender in the context of maternity care from the perspective of midwifery science and feminist ethics.MethodsThe research strategy followed a coherent stepwise approach: literature search, thematic analysis, elaboration of a gender ethics protocol, and the integration of various components into a preliminary gender ethics model for midwifery.FindingsA literature search was performed using Scopus and Web of Science to identify ethical dilemmas in maternity care linked to gender and power. The search of articles published between 1996 and 2019 returned 61 abstracts. These abstracts were screened and assigned one of the following themes: The Midwifery Profession, The Rights of the Woman, Fetal Rights Dominate, and Medicalization of Pregnancy and Childbirth. A tentative gender ethics frame was developed and tested on two articles on abortion, one from Denmark and one from Japan. The protocol facilitated the gender analysis of ethical dilemmas related to abortion, which were related to the imbalance of power relations in health care. In the final step, we synthesized the dimensions of gender and power in a gender ethics model for midwifery.DiscussionThe gender ethics protocol developed revealed gendered dimensions of ethical dilemmas in midwifery. This gender analysis adds to the understanding of the “do no harm” principle by revealing assumptions and stereotypes that promote unequal power relations. The gender ethics model is an innovative approach that envisions and exposes power imbalance at the micro, meso, and macro levels.ConclusionsThe protocol could improve gender competence among researchers, midwives/professionals, and midwifery students throughout the world.

Gendered exposure, vulnerability, and response: Malaria risk in a changing climate in Western Kenya

Climate change has been linked to increasing rates of malaria infection in Western Kenya. Projections show an increased risk of malaria infection under climate change scenarios, impacting vulnerable populations and placing millions of people at risk. Developing suitable risk management strategies requires understanding the hazard, exposure, vulnerability and response to climate change and malaria risk in the context of other local environmental, socio-economic and socio-cultural factors (including gender) that influence exposure, vulnerability and capacity to cope. This paper draws upon two analytical frameworks, using data gathered from focus group discussions with small-scale farmers in Western Kenya: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Risk Assessment Framework; and Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) to analyze social constructions underpinning farming responsibilities and decision-making power and how these influence the gendered dimensions of exposure, vulnerability and response to climate change and malaria risk in the community. This paper finds that gender influences the risk of malaria through feminization of agricultural activities in the region, socially constructed gendered responsibilities for care and farm work, which increases exposure and vulnerability to mosquito bites and malaria infection, and socially constructed rights of women to make farming decisions and manage farm income, which influences their capacity to manage risk and cope in the long term. Drawing on these findings, this paper proposes that an intersectional gender lens needs to be incorporated into climate and malaria adaptation policy and programming. It concludes with recommendations for implementing the UNFCCC Enhanced Lima Work Program on Gender at the country levels and the development of gender-responsive climate change and malaria risk management.

Using professional development resources to support the inclusion of gender equity in early childhood teaching and curriculum planning

ABSTRACT Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global health issue that affects significant proportions of women and girls. Despite research showing that children understand and perform stereotypical gender norms from as young as 3 years, addressing gender with young children is controversial. Programs that aim to teach gender fairness and respectful relationships in early childhood settings are uncommon. This article reports on an evaluation of a trial of a whole of service approach to the teaching of gender equity with a group of early childhood services in Melbourne, Australia. The project resulted in many changes in professional practice including applying a gender lens to planning practices and making changes to the resources provided in children’s learning spaces. This research has important implications for how gender equity might be taught with young children and the support that early childhood educators need to implement these changes.

The benefits and burdens of care: A gendered analysis of American elementary school teachers navigating uncertainty at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper brings together anthropology of uncertainty and gender and education to examine the gendered daily experiences of elementary level teachers in the United States at the onset of the COVID-19 emergency. We found that teachers responded to ongoing uncertainty through various forms of care both at work and home: care for students and their families, their colleagues, their school community, their own families, and when possible, themselves. We argue that this care work served as a key mechanism that teachers used to navigate the uncertainty posed by the pandemic while simultaneously serving as a weight that exacerbated their stress, anxiety, and workload, and ultimately limited their capacity to care for themselves. Additionally, we argue that the care-laden responses of elementary school teachers to this crisis both reflect and reify the particularly gendered ways that women are tasked with the necessary work of nurturing in schools as well as in families. This work makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on education in emergencies by framing the concept of emergency through the lenses of uncertainty and gender. We show how providing education in emergency settings can be a productive process functioning along relational and temporal axes. Furthermore, we shed light on the day-to-day work of teachers in a global health emergency and provide a framework for understanding the immense and often gendered care work they do. Finally, by situating this article in the United States, we seek to highlight the presence of emergencies across the Global North, thereby making a case for extending the concept of emergency within the field of education in emergencies beyond the Global South. By examining early pandemic patterns of intensive care work conducted by teachers, this paper helps to explain the global crisis of teacher burnout and attrition 2 years after the pandemic began and offers insight for those seeking to prevent teacher burnout in the next emergency.

Masculinity in Contention: Performance, Language, and Gender in the Lebanese Army during the Civil War

AbstractThe gender history of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) has so far focused on the study of female figures. In an attempt to widen the scope of analysis, this article reconsiders the role of the Lebanese army in war-torn Lebanon through the lens of gender. Based on interviews with retired officers and noncommissioned officers, I argue that the military—the combat personnel in particular—never relinquished its claim to an exclusive militarized masculinity, despite the rise of contending actors. By maintaining this claim, these men strove to confront both the new standards of masculinity imposed by the militias and the anxiety caused by the disruption of gender roles throughout the conflict. To make sense of this confrontation, the article investigates how the veterans have engaged in a social performance, during both past and present, to (re)enact their manliness in front of an audience. This diachronic approach allows me to further untangle the combat officers’ trajectories during the war, using gender to bring them into conversation with their milieu.

Accelerating alienation: gender and self-efficacy in the accelerator context

PurposeThis study focuses on the lived experiences of early-stage women founders in a venture accelerator context. In particular, this work explores how gender shapes entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) development in early-stage female founders in the venture accelerator context.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative, feminist-sensitive research methodology was utilized, with empirical evidence drawn from interviews with fifty one female founders and four accelerator managers located in four, competitive accelerator programs located in the Northeastern United States.FindingsStudy findings highlight how accelerators contribute to ESE development. Data also shows how the micro-processes related to masculinized discourse, culture, as well as mentorship and training, contribute to the “othering” and minimization of women during early-stage venture development.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the accelerator literature through a provision of insights into the ways a dominant, masculinized discourse and culture alienates female participants, making them feel “othered’, and resulting in a lack of fit with critical networking and funding opportunities. Second, this study builds on self-efficacy theory by applying a gender lens to the areas of mastery learning, vicarious learning, social persuasion and mental state, thus illuminating ways that the masculinization of these processes negatively disrupts the ESE development of female founders. Third, this study builds more broadly on the women's entrepreneurship literature by showing how masculine norms and culture ultimately impact upon the well-being of women in an early-stage entrepreneurship context.

Gender and Work Patterns in Indian Cities: A Socio-Spatial Analysis

Using an original household survey conducted in Hyderabad and Mumbai that identifies intra-city spatial coordinates of residents, this study presents a socio-spatial analysis of gender and paid work. The results show that the ease of movement through the city, allocation of care work-related considerations and educational attainment are all crucial to understanding the labor force participation patterns of urban women in India. A gender lens identifies key facets of access and mobility characterizing urbanization in developing countries. Spatial heterogeneity of residence has very different outcomes for the labor force participation of women and men. HIGHLIGHTS Gender and city geographies mutually shape each other. Women’s labor force participation varies across and within Indian cities; men’s labor force participation is nearly uniform. Women’s paid work is higher in cities that have women-friendly transportation. Women’s paid work is higher in sub-city zones with superior transportation facilities for all. Policies that ease care or commuting burdens improve women’s participation in the labor force.

Incorporating a gender lens into nutrition and health-related policies in Fiji: analysis of policies and stakeholder perspectives

BackgroundGender equality, zero hunger and healthy lives and well-being for all, are three of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that underpin Fiji’s National Development Plan. Work towards each of these goals contributes to the reduction of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). There are gender differences in NCD burden in Fiji. It is, however, unclear whether a gender lens could be more effectively included in nutrition and health-related policies.MethodsThis study consisted of three components: (i) a policy content analysis of gender inclusion in nutrition and health-related policies (n = 11); (ii) policy analysis using the WHO Gender Analysis tool to identify opportunities for strengthening future policy; and (iii) informant interviews (n = 18), to understand perceptions of the prospects for gender considerations in future policies.ResultsGender equality was a goal in seven policies (64%); however, most focused on women of reproductive age. One of the policies was ranked as gender responsive. Main themes from key informant interviews were: 1) a needs-based approach for the focus on specific population groups in policies; 2) gender-related roles and responsibilities around nutrition and health; 3) what is considered “equitable” when it comes to gender, nutrition, and health; 4) current considerations of gender in policies and ideas for further gender inclusion; and 5) barriers and enablers to the inclusion of gender considerations in policies. Informants acknowledged gender differences in the burden of nutrition-related NCDs, yet most did not identify a need for stronger inclusion of gender considerations within policies.ConclusionsThere is considerable scope for greater inclusion of gender in nutrition and health-related policies in Fiji. This could be done by: 1) framing gender considerations in ways that are actionable and inclusive of a range of gender identities; 2) undertaking advocacy through actor networks to highlight the need for gender-responsive nutrition and health-related policies for key stakeholder groups; 3) ensuring that data collected to monitor policy implementation is disaggregated by sex and genders; and 4) promoting equitable participation in nutrition related issues in communities and governance processes. Action on these four areas are likely critical enablers to more gender equitable NCD reduction in Fiji.

The Loving Embrace: Women’s Legal Mobilization in favor of a Feminist Constitution in Colombia in 1991

ABSTRACT What do women contribute when constitutions are written? How can they make their voices and proposals heard? Can feminism shape constitutional law? These are the main questions in the narrative of the feminist movement’s participation in the shaping of the 1991 Colombian Constitution. The objective of the essay is to recover the role of women in lawmaking while applying a gender lens to historical methodologies, by using documental evidence from the national archives and newspapers to uncover their actions and voices, as well as conducting interviews with feminist leaders in Colombia active during the 1990s. These findings show the repertoires of action of the women’s movement taking advantage of a crucial political opportunity to write constitutional law, as well as the obstacles and trade-offs they faced to advance women’s human rights in Colombia’s new charter. The essay argues that, despite the strategic feminist mobilization to include women’s reproductive rights in the Constitution, the political alliances outside (and inside) the National Constitutional Assembly between the Liberal Party and the Catholic Church blocked some of their demands, especially with regard to voluntary motherhood. The conclusions identify the feminist heritage of the new constitutional order that emerged as a result.

Gender Analysis of Education Budgets in Pakistan: Case Studies of Punjab and Sindh

This study provides a gender analysis of public sector budgets in education sector. An in-depth analysis of pre-primary to secondary level education budgetary allocations and spending in Pakistan of 2016-18 has been conducted. The study identifies that 22.8 million children aging between 5-16 years were out of school in 2016-17. In Sindh, a vast portion of girls’ public schools is functioning without basic facilities while the state of basic facilities is relatively better in the Punjab. Furthermore, study finds noticeable gender disparities in budgets for public education sector. The study concluded that in order to ensure sufficient allocations to promote girls’ education budget making process needs to be reconfigured. The gender lens should be introduced at a very early stage where budget call circulars are being sent to the departments concerned.

Sustainability through a gender lens: The extent to which research on UN Sustainable Development Goals includes sex and gender consideration.

Through efforts of the Gender Summits and UN Women, it is evident that all United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets must be viewed from a gender perspective to ensure that the outcomes benefit women and men equally. Our research focuses on the extent to which sex and gender topics are explicitly covered in research related to the SDGs. Expanding on previous studies, we have developed an approach to detect and visualize the volume and proportion of research publications that include explicit mention of sex and gender terms. The approach visualizes the topical coverage of the publications in the corpus of each SDG as a term map, and overlays that view with the proportion of the publications associated with sex and gender topics. We show that attention to sex and gender topics is uneven across the SDGs, and that even where overlap between an SDG and consideration of sex and gender is high, significant topical areas of relevance to the SDG have little explicit connection with sex and gender. This study lays the groundwork for the evidence-based development of a roadmap toward greater integration of sex and gender across all SDGs as well as monitoring integration progress over time.

"Through the looking glass: A lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping": Correction to Petsko et al. (2022).

Reports an error in "Through the looking glass: A lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping" by Christopher D. Petsko, Ashleigh Shelby Rosette and Galen V. Bodenhausen (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Advanced Online Publication, Jan 13, 2022, np). In the article, a coding error that impacted the results of Experiments 2a and 2b has been corrected, and the supplemental material and Figures 3 and 4 have also been updated. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2022-20006-001.) A growing body of scholarship documents the intersectional nature of social stereotyping, with stereotype content being shaped by a target person's multiple social identities. However, conflicting findings in this literature highlight the need for a broader theoretical integration. For example, although there are contexts in which perceivers stereotype gay Black men and heterosexual Black men in very different ways, so too are there contexts in which perceivers stereotype these men in very similar ways. We develop and test an explanation for contradictory findings of this sort. In particular, we argue that perceivers have a repertoire of lenses in their minds-identity-specific schemas for categorizing others-and that characteristics of the perceiver and the social context determine which one of these lenses will be used to organize social perception. Perceivers who are using the lens of race, for example, are expected to attend to targets' racial identities so strongly that they barely attend, in these moments, to targets' other identities (e.g., their sexual orientations). Across six experiments, we show (a) that perceivers tend to use just one lens at a time when thinking about others, (b) that the lenses perceivers use can be singular and simplistic (e.g., the lens of gender by itself) or intersectional and complex (e.g., a race-by-gender lens, specifically), and (c) that different lenses can prescribe categorically distinct sets of stereotypes that perceivers use as frameworks for thinking about others. This lens-based account can resolve apparent contradictions in the literature on intersectional stereotyping, and it can likewise be used to generate novel hypotheses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Through the looking glass: A lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 123(4) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2023-02979-003). In the article, a coding error that impacted the results of Experiments 2a and 2b has been corrected, and the supplemental material and Figures 3 and 4 have also been updated. All versions of this article have been corrected.] A growing body of scholarship documents the intersectional nature of social stereotyping, with stereotype content being shaped by a target person's multiple social identities. However, conflicting findings in this literature highlight the need for a broader theoretical integration. For example, although there are contexts in which perceivers stereotype gay Black men and heterosexual Black men in very different ways, so too are there contexts in which perceivers stereotype these men in very similar ways. We develop and test an explanation for contradictory findings of this sort. In particular, we argue that perceivers have a repertoire of lenses in their minds-identity-specific schemas for categorizing others-and that characteristics of the perceiver and the social context determine which one of these lenses will be used to organize social perception. Perceivers who are using the lens of race, for example, are expected to attend to targets' racial identities so strongly that they barely attend, in these moments, to targets' other identities (e.g., their sexual orientations). Across six experiments, we show (a) that perceivers tend to use just one lens at a time when thinking about others, (b) that the lenses perceivers use can be singular and simplistic (e.g., the lens of gender by itself) or intersectional and complex (e.g., a race-by-gender lens, specifically), and (c) that different lenses can prescribe categorically distinct sets of stereotypes that perceivers use as frameworks for thinking about others. This lens-based account can resolve apparent contradictions in the literature on intersectional stereotyping, and it can likewise be used to generate novel hypotheses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

S1603 Anatomic Distribution of Gastric Adenocarcinoma Varies Among Patients of Different Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in the U.S.

S1603 Anatomic Distribution of Gastric Adenocarcinoma Varies Among Patients of Different Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in the U.S.

Financing tourism entrepreneurship: a gender perspective on the reproduction of inequalities

Market economies are often characterised by a failure to self-regulate. One of the most enduring of these ‘market failures’ is the ability to maximise the entrepreneurial potential to generate growth. Within this context, gender remains one of, and probably, the most prevalent dimension of this perceived failure to maximise entrepreneurial potential. Feminist political economy provides a starting point for understanding this reproduction of inequalities via policy interventions that have sought to address perceived market failure. This paper analyses how such gendered inequalities are reproduced. Through the critical assessment of Spain’s Emprendetur funding scheme, active from 2012 to 2016, 996 applications were analysed, through a content analysis, applying a gender perspective. The findings, including a decision tree analysis, demonstrate not only that women participate less as applicants in the funding scheme but are also less successful. This can be partly explained because women apply via business typologies that are less successful in relation to the dominance of ICT and technologically informed innovations. However, the barriers extend beyond these typologies; for even when controlling for critical success factors like project size, women are less successful, experiencing a double gender gap, that underlines the need for a gender lens policy approach.

A Study on Career Progression of Women during Covid- 19

The COVID-19 pandemic situation is harming the health, social and economic well-being worldwide, and with women at the centre. First and foremost of women are major leading the health response: women structure almost 70% of the health care workforce, exposing them to a greater risk of infection. At an equivalent time, women also are shouldering much of the burden reception, given school and child care facility closures and longstanding gender inequalities in unpaid work. And the women also faced high risks of job and income loss, and face increased risks of violence, and exploitation, abuse or harassment during times of crisis and quarantine. Policy responses must be immediate, which they need to account for women’s concerns. Governments should consider adopting emergency measures to help parents manage work and caring responsibilities, reinforcing and increasing income support measures, expanding support for small businesses and thus the self-employed, and improving measure to assist women victims of violence. Finally, all the rules and policy responses to the crisis must embed a gender lens and account for women’s unique needs, responsibilities and perspectives.

The Gendered Experience of Close to Community Providers during COVID-19 Response in Fragile Settings: A Multi-Country Analysis

Many countries, and particularly those including fragile contexts, have a shortage of formal health workers and are increasingly looking to close-to-community (CTC) providers to fill the gap. The experiences of CTC providers are shaped by context-embedded gender roles and relations. This qualitative research study in Lebanon, Nepal, Myanmar and Sierra Leone explored the gendered experiences of CTC providers during the COVID-19 pandemic in fragile settings. We used document review, in-depth interviews or focus group discussions with CTC providers, and key informant interviews with local stakeholders to generate in-depth and contextual information. The COVID-19-associated lockdowns and school closures brought additional stresses, with a gendered division of labour acutely felt by women CTC providers. Their work is poorly or not remunerated and is seen as risky. CTC providers are embedded within their communities with a strong willingness to serve. However, they experienced fractures in community trust and were sometimes viewed as a COVID-19 risk. During COVID-19, CTC providers experienced additional responsibilities on top of their routine work and family commitments, shaped by gender, and were not always receiving the support required. Understanding their experience through a gender lens is critical to developing equitable and inclusive approaches to support the COVID-19 response and future crises.

Sustainability through a gender lens: The extent to which research on UN Sustainable Development Goals includes sex and gender consideration

Sustainability through a gender lens: The extent to which research on UN Sustainable Development Goals includes sex and gender consideration

Critical Analysis of the Implementation of Clean India Mission in the Rural Areas: A Gender Perspective

ABSTRACT After completing Clean India Mission’s first phase, the government declared the campaign a success and set out plans to implement the second phase. However, emerging evidence has questioned the claim’s validity as open defecation remains a reality in the country. Acknowledging the well-established link between sanitation and gender, this study has looked into the campaign through a gender lens. Based on a discourse analysis, it critically examines the implementation phase of the campaign by analyzing how the mission developed treatises about women’s group identity, pursued women’s empowerment, and created gender-sensitive messaging. This study concludes that the campaign did not pursue its gendered objectives properly; from the policy level to the implementation, the campaign failed to – i) address existing differences within different groups of women in rural India and ii) disseminate gender-sensitive messaging. Although the campaign created some foundations for women’s empowerment, there remains untapped potential.