Diversity Of Women Research Articles

Securing the home: Gender, CCTV and the hybridized space of apartment buildings

This article explores gendered narratives of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in apartment buildings. Drawing on primary data from a study with a diversity of women in Toronto, Canada, the authors foreground women’s experiences with apartment living and situate it as a profoundly feminized domestic arrangement. Consideration of the workings of CCTV in apartment buildings troubles both security and surveillance studies, especially in the context of the dominant legal and ideological configuration of ‘the home’. The apartment is at once ‘the home’ and neighbourhood; it is simultaneously a private space that must be secured from external threats and a public space that inhabitants have little power to secure.

Abortion, unwanted childbearing, and mental health (Aborto, maternidad no deseada y salud mental)

Una gran cantidad de literatura reporta hallazgos correlacionales de estudios realizados en países desarrollados donde el aborto es legal. Dichos estudios presentan graves problemas metodológicos y sesgos selectivos que exageran los riesgos de salud mental asociados con el aborto, mientras que minimizan los riesgos de la maternidad no deseada. Los profesionales de la salud deben ser capaces de evaluar críticamente esta literatura y tener cuidado al generalizar los hallazgos sobre el aborto provenientes de contextos diferentes en términos legales. Aspectos como las diversas características de las mujeres, y las circunstancias y razones para evitar un nacimiento, no se han incorporado adecuadamente en la teoría o la investigación que busca explicar la variación en la salud mental tras un aborto. Las revisiones críticas han dado cuenta de que los predictores de problemas de salud mental después de un aborto o de llevar a término el embarazo son similares. Además, cuando una mujer tiene un embarazo no deseado, la probabilidad de que pueda tener problemas de salud mental tras el embarazo es similar sin importar el resultado del mismo (aborto vs. nacimiento). Los sesgos de muestreo selectivo, así como factores de riesgo comunes y confundir el aborto con un embarazo no deseado, son elementos que pueden explicar la correlación existente entre el aborto legal y los resultados negativos en la salud mental observados en la literatura de los países desarrollados. Ahora bien, los efectos negativos documentados en embarazos y maternidad no deseados son múltiples, graves y de larga duración para la madre y el niño. Las condiciones cambiantes de la sociedad, en particular en los países en desarrollo, dan una oportunidad para corregir los sesgos y limitaciones de la investigación actual. En este sentido, son necesarios estudios de alta calidad destinados a comprender las diversas asociaciones entre los embarazos no deseados y los efectos, tanto positivos y negativos, en la salud mental. Tales estudios pueden sustentar el desarrollo de programas para reducir la maternidad no deseada y promover la salud mental pre y postembarazo para todas las mujeres, independientemente de si deciden interrumpir o no el embarazo.

Challenge, Conformity and Casework in Interwar England: the first women councillors in Devon

Edith Splatt and Juanita Phillips, both former suffragettes, were the first women councillors on, respectively, Exeter City Council and Devon County Council. This article explores how these two very different women approached their task, the issues they tackled, both on welfare generally and specifically on some topics high on women's post-suffrage agendas. It considers the local support on which they drew and contrasts the different reception they were accorded, their representation of their constituents' interests, and their progress on committees and in the full council. The article contributes to an understanding of the diversity of women's contributions to public service after the achievement of women's suffrage.

Evaluating Women Entrepreneurs in the Informal Sector: Some Evidence from India

Studies on women entrepreneurs in the informal economy no longer view them merely as a residue from some pre-modern mode of production that is disappearing. Instead, they are either read through a structuralist lens as marginalised populations engaged in low quality work conducted under poor conditions for low pay out of necessity in the absence of alternative means of livelihood, or through a neo-liberal lens as engaged in relatively higher quality endeavour more as a rational choice. The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically these contrasting explanations. To do this, the results of face-to-face interviews with 323 women entrepreneurs operating in the Indian informal economy are analysed. The finding is that although the structuralist representation is largely appropriate for women engaged in informal waged work, it is not so valid for women informal entrepreneurs working on a self-employed basis where incomes are higher, they receive more credit from formal institutions, union membership is higher and such work is more likely to be a rational choice. The outcome is a call to recognise the diversity of women’s experiences in the informal sector and that not all informal entrepreneurship by women in developing nations is low-paid necessity-oriented endeavour carried out as a last resort.

‘We are in Complete Agreement’: The Diversity Issue, Disagreement and Change in the European Women's Lobby

This article analyses how leading members of a social movement organization talk about a controversial topic and looks at how the leaders relate to internal disagreement. By using the issue of women's diversity as point of departure, the article shows how European Women's Lobby (EWL) leaders engage in boundary making vis-à-vis multidimensional equality claims. The interviewed leaders identify women's issues as a majority issue and contrast them with minority issues and women's diversity. It is suggested that the arguments applied by the EWL leaders are similar to those historically articulated when issues such as women's emancipation were marginalized within the traditional class-based labour movement. The presence of diverging opinions among the leaders with regard to how this controversial issue should be framed is subsequently used as an empirical illustration of the dynamism in movement claims. The conclusion of the article suggests that multidimensional equality claims are controversial and disputed within the organization, but that differences in opinion among the leaders coexist and form part of a continuously on-going framing process.

“The Love of My Life”

Academic research has typically focused upon the importance of sports fandom for men, and there is also a lack of comparative work which examines fans of different sports. This article aims to address this omission by exploring the meaning and importance of sports fandom for women. Drawing on a “grounded theory” approach, 85 semi-structured interviews were conducted with female fans of men’s football (soccer) and rugby union in England. Building upon Giulianotti’s (2002) work, I develop a preliminary model of female fandom. I examine two female fan “types” (“hot’ and “cool” fans), and explore two different kinds of gender performance (“masculine” femininities and “feminine” femininities) which helped to connote these. My findings demonstrate the need to consider the range and diversity of women’s supporter styles.

The Woman/Architect Distinction

The complicated links between individual life stories and theories of gender are central to feminist discussion. Since the end of the 1970s, feminist discourse has debated the tensions between feminism's collective category, “woman”, and the diversity of women. Feminist theory has worked to undo the monolithic category of Woman. This paper argues that research on women in architectural practice should draw on this long-standing debate, particularly when researchers use life-story interview texts as the corner-stone for gender studies. Researchers who use gender as a category of analysis must negotiate the complexity of lived subjectivity narrated in the interview testimonial. The apparent “refusal” of women interviewees to self-identify as women architects or explain career trajectories primarily through the prism of gender invites us to produce more subtle theories of identity, lived subjectivity and mechanisms of gender identification in feminist architectural research. The term, woman architect, invites us to think about the hyphenated nature of identity.

Bacterial Communities in Women with Bacterial Vaginosis: High Resolution Phylogenetic Analyses Reveal Relationships of Microbiota to Clinical Criteria

BackgroundBacterial vaginosis (BV) is a common condition that is associated with numerous adverse health outcomes and is characterized by poorly understood changes in the vaginal microbiota. We sought to describe the composition and diversity of the vaginal bacterial biota in women with BV using deep sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene coupled with species-level taxonomic identification. We investigated the associations between the presence of individual bacterial species and clinical diagnostic characteristics of BV.Methodology/Principal FindingsBroad-range 16S rRNA gene PCR and pyrosequencing were performed on vaginal swabs from 220 women with and without BV. BV was assessed by Amsel’s clinical criteria and confirmed by Gram stain. Taxonomic classification was performed using phylogenetic placement tools that assigned 99% of query sequence reads to the species level. Women with BV had heterogeneous vaginal bacterial communities that were usually not dominated by a single taxon. In the absence of BV, vaginal bacterial communities were dominated by either Lactobacillus crispatus or Lactobacillus iners. Leptotrichia amnionii and Eggerthella sp. were the only two BV-associated bacteria (BVABs) significantly associated with each of the four Amsel’s criteria. Co-occurrence analysis revealed the presence of several sub-groups of BVABs suggesting metabolic co-dependencies. Greater abundance of several BVABs was observed in Black women without BV.Conclusions/SignificanceThe human vaginal bacterial biota is heterogeneous and marked by greater species richness and diversity in women with BV; no species is universally present. Different bacterial species have different associations with the four clinical criteria, which may account for discrepancies often observed between Amsel and Nugent (Gram stain) diagnostic criteria. Several BVABs exhibited race-dependent prevalence when analyzed in separate groups by BV status which may contribute to increased incidence of BV in Black women. Tools developed in this project can be used to study microbial ecology in diverse settings at high resolution.

'Toward the Heart of Justice' - Keynote Address, Women's Diversity Conference, March 24, 2012, Adrian College

In her keynote address, Richael will discuss how her identities as a young, southern, Black, queer female shapes her experience with power and animates her work as an organizer, writer, and lawyer. In particular, she will focus on her current work as a community lawyer at the D.C.-based organization, Advancement Project, where she is using a variety of tools to engage powerful institutions - law and politics - to support the struggle of persons who have lost their right to vote as a result of criminal convictions. Finally, Richael will reflect on three foundational values that have grounded her throughout her life’s experiment in engaging power toward individual and collective transformation: embracing vulnerability, experiencing wholeness, and cultivating radical imagination.

Politics, Economic Provisioning, and Suffrage in St. Louis: What Women Said, What Men Heard

Introduction In February of 1919, State Representative Charles P. Comer, a 39-yearold unmarried lawyer from a St. Louis brewery ward, voted against granting presidential suffrage to women. Despite the defiant gesture, expected of a man identified by national suffrage leaders as an especially vehement opponent of woman suffrage (Catt and Shuler 1923: 349), presidential suffrage passed that day in the Missouri House by 123 votes to eight.(1) Only four months later, Missouri joined the rush of state legislatures called to ratify the 19th Amendment, granting women equal suffrage on all electoral levels. On July 2, Representative Comer voted aye, explaining to his fellow (male) legislators that, I've played poker long enough to know when to lay down my hand (Catt and Shuler 1923: 349). The St. Louis women, upper class and progressive, who cheered from the galleries, had been battling the likes of Charles Comer for nine years.(2) One of the enduring questions in history is why any group would choose to share political power with another group, thus diluting its own power. The granting of suffrage to American women in 1919 is one of those events in which we seek answers. I focus here on the diversity of women's visible economic provisioning functions, arguing that the granting of suffrage had political benefits to the men in power; at the same time, the political risks were being lessened because women were starting to look like men economically. Charles Comer decided to join the majority. One would like to ask why he thought the game was lost. Was he suddenly convinced, as some historians have suggested, by the role of women in World War I? (for example, Barck and Blake 1947: 264-266). Was he impressed by the support finally voiced by President Woodrow Wilson or former President Roosevelt? (Catt and Shuler 1923: 258, 177). Did increasing awareness of the consequences of prohibition dry up opposition to suffrage along with the St. Louis breweries? Some states refused the pressure to call sessions to consider ratification. Why not Missouri, which had defeated suffrage in the 1913, 1915, and 1917 General Assemblies and in a 1914 referenda, and that had been considered a black state--nearly hopeless in its opposition--by suffrage leaders only months earlier? (Victory Map 1918). The Missouri case and, in particular, events in St. Louis help illuminate the reasons men in power were willing to grant the vote to women. By looking at a specific locale, we can see more clearly the economic and political workings that led even a black state's legislators to join the band-wagon. Papers and books over the years have often focused on what women said, on their changing strategies, related to the vote. This article uses the matter of economic provisioning to get at what men heard: what they took from women's strategies and what they saw women doing, politically and economically, to back up the talk. I will present background on what women were indeed doing, politically and economically, in St. Louis, as well as look at the political climate in which men operated. I will assess the reasons men might have been willing to grant suffrage in light of what they heard in St. Louis. Charles Comer might have had second thoughts about--or been wary of--denying the growing economic power he would have seen in the women of St. Louis. From his law office near the Old Courthouse, he would note the businesses that depended on their female typists, stenographers, and other clerical help. For that matter, he knew first-hand the inconvenience of the current strike by the girls on both St. Louis telephone companies: the Kinloch telephone exchange was barely working on July 2, 1919, and the Bell exchange was slow. (3) From his bachelor rooms at the Missouri Athletic Club on the northwest corner of Fourth and Washington Avenues, he might have seen a steady stream of immigrant and native women heading to the shirtwaist, shoe, and cigar factories each morning. …

Heteronormative landscapes: Exploring sexuality through elite women athletes

While much progress has been made towards increased acceptance of sexual and gender diversity in women’s sport, there also are myriad examples where adversity abounds for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender athletes. Even within inclusive sport environments, the reproduction of white normativity and the marginalisation of people of colour and transgender athletes often exist. In this review, we use a transnational, queer feminist analysis to explore the intersections of sexuality, gender, race, social class, and nation and examine how they combine to perpetuate heterosexism and homonegativism in women’s sport. Using contemporary incidents in elite women’s sport, we highlight the confluence of these multiple axes of oppression. Our review also reveals the contradictions in lived experiences with binary categorisations of gender and sexual orientation. While challenges and disruptions of homonegative and heterosexist environments provide hope to future generations of LBT athletes, there is a continued imperative to critique heteronormative, homonormative, and international representations of LBTs in sport as well as the treatment of all women in sport.

Vaginal Microbiome and Epithelial Gene Array in Post-Menopausal Women with Moderate to Severe Dryness

After menopause, many women experience vaginal dryness and atrophy of tissue, often attributed to the loss of estrogen. An understudied aspect of vaginal health in women who experience dryness due to atrophy is the role of the resident microbes. It is known that the microbiota has an important role in healthy vaginal homeostasis, including maintaining the pH balance and excluding pathogens. The objectives of this study were twofold: first to identify the microbiome of post-menopausal women with and without vaginal dryness and symptoms of atrophy; and secondly to examine any differences in epithelial gene expression associated with atrophy. The vaginal microbiome of 32 post-menopausal women was profiled using Illumina sequencing of the V6 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Sixteen subjects were selected for follow-up sampling every two weeks for 10 weeks. In addition, 10 epithelial RNA samples (6 healthy and 4 experiencing vaginal dryness) were acquired for gene expression analysis by Affymetrix Human Gene array. The microbiota abundance profiles were relatively stable over 10 weeks compared to previously published data on premenopausal women. There was an inverse correlation between Lactobacillus ratio and dryness and an increased bacterial diversity in women experiencing moderate to severe vaginal dryness. In healthy participants, Lactobacillus iners and L. crispatus were generally the most abundant, countering the long-held view that lactobacilli are absent or depleted in menopause. Vaginal dryness and atrophy were associated with down-regulation of human genes involved in maintenance of epithelial structure and barrier function, while those associated with inflammation were up-regulated consistent with the adverse clinical presentation.

Online Women-Seeking-Women Personal Ads and the Deployment of “Tomboy” Identities

This article examines online women-seeking-women (WSW) personal ads that engage with tomboy identities and ideologies. This research demonstrates the importance of body and physicality among lesbian personal ads and the diversity of women using online personal ads. The meaning of “tomboy” in the language of WSW personal ads suggests major themes of use including: as an intermediate identity distinct within a butch/femme dichotomy, as a tempering agent for traditional femininity, as a fluid construct of personality, physicality, and body, as an understood descriptor of a particular aesthetic or physicality, and as synonymous with butch. To be a tomboy is to be simultaneously understood as a social stereotype, but also as complex, fluid, and of multiple meanings.

Roar Like a Tiger on TV?

The genre of reality TV is a significant feature of popular culture and has grown to include shows that document diverse aspects of social life. The common element of these shows is that they use personal history as spectacle, basing themselves on the idea that the shows portray the real lives of ordinary people rather than scripted performances. This paper takes a closer look at one of these reality TV shows—A Baby Story—to examine how this “record of reality” works to challenge and/or reinforce established norms related to gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability. Based on an analysis of 24 episodes, we identify four main discourses in A Baby Story related to women and childbirth: (1) The birthing woman; (2) The birthing story; (3) The role of medicine; and (4) Agency and resistance. Through a discussion of these discourses, we argue that A Baby Story constructs a specific televisual narrative that supports established gender roles and dominant social norms in relation to the event of childbirth, rather than reflecting the diversity of women's experiences. By presenting this televisual narrative as ordinary or common A Baby Story potentially acts as a powerful element of a larger electronic panopticon that serves to surveil and discipline women and their bodies.

Diversity in an Israeli intersectional analysis: The salience of employment arrangements and inter-personal relationships

Synopsis This paper compares the work experiences of cleaning employees in Israel from three ethno-national categories – immigrants from the FSU, women from two Arab towns, and Mizrahi women in the southern periphery – as a basis for a systematic analysis of local gender/class/ethno-national intersectionality. The findings underscore the structural processes that expose women of ethnic minorities to the pressures of breadwinning motherhood, and revealed their dependence on cleaning and its diverse employment arrangements. Aside from this inter-ethnic commonality, the fragmentation of employment arrangements points to sources of diversity in women's experiences. Opportunities for inter-personal encounters shaped by specific employment arrangements were found to generate distinct experiences. These opportunities equip women with knowledge enabling them to cope in the community, family and at work. The significance of the emerging diversity for intersectional analysis is discussed.

Re‐visiting Histories of Modernization, Progress, and (Unequal) Citizenship Rights: Coerced Sterilization in Peru and in the United States

AbstractScholars have provided compelling evidence of the positive impact global guidelines for human rights have had on the promotion of gender equity and citizenship rights in modernizing nations across the globe. This essay seeks to approach these successes with caution. It questions whether all citizens of a nation are equally empowered by current paradigms of progress and modernization; and it shows that changing constructions of class, ethnicity, and gender have often compromised the equalization of citizenship rights. Coercive sterilization campaigns in the United States and in Peru provide a useful lens to evaluate the diverse effects public policies can have on different populations of a nation. These campaigns took place in different national settings and time periods, and amidst radically disparate global understandings of human and women’s rights. When legislators in the United States implemented sterilization campaigns, a universal definition of reproductive rights and bodily integrity was nonexistent. When women were sterilized in Peru, international norms, endorsed by the United Nations, defined reproductive rights as a central feature of women’s human rights, and Peru signed and ratified this UN resolution. Nonetheless, both campaigns found ways to target designated ‘unwanted populations’, and disproportionally sterilized women. Acknowledging women’s agency and the diversity of women’s experiences, I recognize that some women managed to use the campaigns to increase their reproductive choices. But many others became victims of aggressive measures to control their sexuality and reproduction, even after national political leaders claimed to accept global norms of women’s reproductive rights.

‘The waiting mode’: First-time mothers’ experiences of waiting for labour onset

Purpose To explore first-time mothers’ experiences of waiting for labour onset, and to contribute to the discussion of existing practices surrounding perinatal care. Methods A qualitative study of 17 women in Norway. Diaries written by the informants and in-depth interviews were analysed in a tradition of life-world phenomenology. Results The participants entered a state of active waiting, “the waiting mode”, in the days around the estimated date of delivery. When the women entered the mode there was a marked change in the way they interpreted bodily sensations. The women experienced being in a state of constant bodily alertness, their bodies felt all-consuming and they experienced themselves as being “more and more body”. This generated a sense of being enclosed in the body, intensely trying to identify the signs of labour. Being in the waiting mode seemed to draw labour closer in a manner that opened up for the birthing process and helped the women to prepare for labour. Conclusions The findings indicate that the estimated date of delivery is pivotal in shaping women’s experiences of waiting. It raises concerns related to how women who are giving birth for the first time are prepared for labour, and a worry that too much weight is put on the exact date. A stronger emphasis on the diversity of women’s experiences might be in place. Pregnant women could be encouraged to explore and interpret bodily experiences on their own terms, not merely in relation to the estimated date of delivery.

Mothering From a Distance

Notions of motherhood have been shaped by a Western ideology that encourages mothers to intensively mother their children, selflessly indulging in their child's every want and need. Failure to adhere to such criteria results in the label of “bad” mother. This understanding of motherhood has been viewed through a White, middle-class, heterosexual lens, limiting our ability to see the diversity of women's lives. In an effort to encourage exploration of women's nuanced experiences, feminist scholars have begun to explore marginalized mothers. This article adds to this research, drawing attention to noncustodial mothers. Because they do not live with their children on a full-time basis, noncustodial mothers deviate from the ideology of the “good mother,” providing an opportunity to explore the navigation of motherhood from a distance. Through qualitative interviews with 16 noncustodial mothers, strategies of resistance and accommodation of the cultural ideal emerge.

Women's Motivations for Sex: Exploring the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition, Text Revision Criteria for Hypoactive Sexual Desire and Female Sexual Arousal Disorders

There are problems with the existing definition of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in that desire for sex and sexual fantasy are not a universal experience. To explore: (i) women's motivations to engage in sexual activity; (ii) frequency and predictors of sexual fantasies; (iii) sexual arousal; (iv) recognition of sexual arousal; and (v) association between relationship duration and these variables. Three thousand six hundred eighty-seven women completed a web-based survey of previously pilot-tested items. Investigator-derived self-report questions of sexual desire and arousal, and sexual fantasies. Among women who easily became aroused, 15.5% reported only engaging in sex if they felt sexual desire at the outset whereas 30.7% typically or always accessed desire only once they were aroused. Women in longer-term relationships engaged in sex with no sexual desire more often (42%) than women in short-term relationships (22.4%) (P < 0.001). The percentage of women that reported fantasies only sometimes was 52.5%. A logistic regression revealed that religion (odds ratio [OR] = 1.45; P < 0.001), difficulty getting aroused (OR = 0.511; P < 0.001), responsive desire (OR = 0.919; P < 0.05), and frequency of orgasm (OR = 1.11; P < 0.05) were significantly associated with sexual fantasy. After controlling for age, relationship duration was negatively associated with frequency of initiating sex (r = -0.116, P < 0.001), women's satisfaction with their own sexuality (r = -0.173, P < 0.001) and sexual satisfaction with the partner (r = -0.162, P < 0.001). Results reflect diversity in women's motivations for sex, and there is evidence that responsive desire occurs in women with and without arousal difficulties. We strongly recommend relationship duration as well as adequacy of partner sexual stimulation to be recognized in any future diagnostic framework of dysfunction. Clinical implications as well as those for future diagnostic nomenclature are considered.

By Invitation Only: The American Library Association and the Woman’s Building Library of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893

From May to October 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition hosted over 27 million visits from people who came to witness the myriad technological and cultural wonders on display. One such marvel was the seven‐thousand‐volume library housed within the Woman’s Building. The convergence of the American Library Association and the fair’s Board of Lady Managers at the special conference session held at the midpoint of the fair’s six‐month run brings into focus competing visions of culture and progress that contended within the public space of the Woman’s Building and in the larger theater of the Columbian Exposition. These competing visions are nowhere more evident than in the discourses of inclusion and exclusion that informed the cultural projects of the Woman’s Building Library and the ALA. On the one hand, the inclusiveness of the collection in terms of genre, literariness, and subject matter illustrates the breadth, depth, and diversity of women’s contribution to print culture (particularly in the United States) up to 1893. On the other hand, the exclusiveness of the collection in terms of the class and ethnicity of the women who contributed to it illuminates the mechanisms involved in the mediation and erasure of race and class in women’s print culture.