Women's Domestic Roles Research Articles

Eco-Gender Gap Dalam Pemeliharaan Lingkungan di Desa Wisata (Kasus : Rumah Tangga Anggota Komunitas Pecinta Lingkungan di Desa Wisata Batulayang, Kecamatan Cisarua, Kabupaten Bogor)

Batulayang Tourism Village is one of West Java Province's sustainable tourism villages. Gender equality in environmental preservation are an important factor in efforts to preserve the ecological environment. Men and women share equal responsibility for environmental preservation. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between environmental preservation and the level of the gender gap. This study uses a mixed method exploratory sequential design approach, applying in-depth interviews for qualitative followed by questionnaires for quantitative data collection. The respondents in this research are 30 household members of the environmental community and 5 people research subjects who were in Ecovillage Program. The Spearman Rank Correlation and Chi-Square Test were utilised in this data processing for quantitative data. The research findings indicate that the Ecovillage Programe has sufficiently increased community participation to care more about the surrounding environment; however, in its implementation in the household sphere, the lack of gender-based environmental awareness causes there to still be a gap between husbands and wives in environmental management because environmental management is often associated with women's domestic role.

Discrimination as a relational matrix of analysis: race, gender, age, social class, immigration, religion, politics, and civil identification: a case study of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The general objective of this research is to analyze how and to what extent racist, patriarchal, classist and political arguments are interlocked and mutually reinforced in multiple residual forms today. This article adopts Foucault’s concepts of biopower and normalization to analyze the persistence of racism surrounding unequal and discriminatory power relations and the oppression of racialized, gender, and social inequalities (Foucault 1994; Koopman 2013). A representative survey was applied to 759 urban inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who answered a questionnaire asking for their socio-demographic characteristics, perceptions, expectations, attitudes, practices, and intergroup relationships regarding racism, patriarchalism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, class discrimination and political-ideological self-identification. The multivariate method of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied, and the results show the predominance of patriarchal values against women, LGBTQ+, Black, youth and poor persons, through explicit racism and the legitimation of the use of violence for both, men and women. Women primarily reject providing sex education at school, agree with their domestic role as wives and with the idea that females’ behavior causes their own rapes, reject LGBTQ marriage, and discriminate against youths, while men rank first the domestic role of women, explicit racism and criminalization of Black people.

“Once upon a time, there was a freedom fighter called Amma.” Mothers and grandmothers of Rajputana and the Indian freedom movement

The stronghold of patriarchal and feudal restrictions in Rajputana made participation in Indian freedom struggle more difficult for women than in British India. This paper draws from an intimate recollection of varied associations of the author's great-grandmother, Kalavati Devi, with the movement to scrutinize the lack of recognition to women in the history of Indian freedom movement. The paper argues for an intertwined understanding of public participation and domestic roles of women in the light of their nationalist consciousness. The narrative of Kalavati documents her contribution to the nationalist cause beyond her public role to explore whether her role as a wife and a mother can be viewed as part of the nationalist movement. The paper also makes a case for using family memories, oral narratives, and non-formal sources to document political activism of women and bring attention to the domestic sphere in the history of the freedom movement.

Women and the Rwandan gacaca courts: gender, genocide and justice

AbstractThis article examines the gacaca trials of women accused of perpetrating the Rwandan genocide, asking whether and how ideas about their gender impacted their defences, testimonies and experiences as defendants. It uses court reports of the trials of 91 accused women; a set of sources that provides novel insights into the role of gender in an African transitional justice system. These sources reveal that ideas about gender – particularly female peacefulness and passivity – were commonly invoked by both accused women and wider trial participants. These gendered ideas not only helped women to achieve acquittals, but they also contributed to the Rwandan state's construction of a ‘truth’ narrative that ordinary Rwandan women are not capable of genocide violence. Additionally, women's trials reveal a further function of the gacaca process: as a political tool that made moral judgements about contemporary Rwandan women's domestic roles and place within the household.

Manikam Kalbu and Nusantara Women: An Inquiry into Regional Female Expertise and Knowledge

What was the role of women as gatekeepers and users of technology before its modernisation and institutionalisation in Nusantara? How were they custodians of specific knowledge formed in and around the Malay world? There is no adequate amount of information in the archives for these questions to be answered sufficiently, but in Manikam Kalbu, Faisal Tehrani’s novel about two Malay seamsters set in a parallel period—the Malaccan sultanate in the 16th century and Malaysia in the 20th century—elicits the profound mastery of the material, tools, and art of sewing and craftsmanship by female characters who were depicted as caretakers of traditional knowledge and gatekeepers of their respective craft. Such depictions are either skewed or non-existent in Malay or Indonesian historiography, as many historical narratives are male-centric or focused on the political participation or domestic roles of women as wives and mothers. This study aims to uncover traces of historical reality from Faisal Tehrani’s fictional world as a means to fill the gap in historical literature and paint a critical and often absent picture of women in Nusantara, their expertise, their knowledge and the continuities of traditional and indigenous knowledge.

Theories of Postindustrial Fertility Decline: An Empirical Examination

AbstractFamily formation patterns in the postindustrial world have changed markedly in the past several decades. Fertility rates have declined, cohabitation rates have increased, age at marriage has gone up, and nonmarital childbearing has become more common in most postindustrial settings. A dominant theoretical explanation for these changes is second demographic transition (SDT) theory, which posits widespread value change towards individualism and postmaterialist concerns. In contrast, gender equity theory emphasizes structural changes, including women's increased participation in the public sphere and the resulting incompatibility of women's domestic and public roles given the slower adaptation on the part of families and institutions to adapt to women's new roles. We test the predictions of these two theoretical frameworks by analyzing fertility decline in 27 European societies. We find evolving gender egalitarianism, measured by the prevalence of gender‐egalitarian attitudes, to have greater explanatory power than SDT‐related ideational changes. The gender equity framework is particularly relevant in explaining the recent fertility trajectories of Central, Eastern, and Southern European countries.

The Impact of Marriage on Women's Employment in the Middle East and North Africa

Marriage is a central stage in the transition to adulthood in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This article investigates the effect of marriage on women's employment in MENA, examining how different types of work are affected by relatively early marriage, defined as marriage by the median age of marriage. An important contribution of this study is to examine the two main mechanisms by which marriage can affect work: (1) its effect on ever entering work and (2) its effect on exiting work. This study endogenizes the marriage decision using an instrumental variables approach. It finds that marriage by the median age reduces women's probability of market work by 47 percent in Jordan, 30 percent in Tunisia, and 16 percent in Egypt. Much of the effect is due to a reduction in the probability of private wage work, which women tend to leave at marriage. HIGHLIGHTS Women in Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia often leave employment at marriage. Marrying by the median age has varying effects on different types of employment. Women are particularly likely to leave private sector wage work at marriage. Changes are needed to reconcile private wage employment with women's domestic roles.

Gender Islam dan HAM

The polemic in the discussion of women's domestic and public roles is the inaccurate interpretation of gender in the perspective of social, economic, legal, political and religious construction. As a result, one of the sexes is marginalized and subordinated. Women and men are not placed as human beings who have equal opportunities. The error in interpreting the two roles of the human type is called gender bias. It is a must to carry out reinterpretation so that there is a shared awareness that there are equal opportunities and treatment in carrying out their duties as servants of God.

Dorothy Wordsworth's Food-Mediated “History of the Personal” in The Grasmere Journal

Abstract Food practices (preparation and consumption) have long been viewed as mere domestic routines, and thus, often dismissed for being too “frivolous [a] realm” to receive the same scholarly attention as “great topics” such as “politics, economics, justice and power” (Shapiro 2). Emerging during the 1970s, food studies owe their theoretical model to research in fields of enquiry such as anthropology, sociology, structuralism, or women's studies, which have highlighted the aesthetic value of food and its transformative implications for the intermediation of social relations with others. Accordingly, food occasions various socio-cognitive activities that help an individual achieve a sense of attachment and belonging to a community. Based on the premise that food is instrumental in social relations, as well as in expressing a wide range of values, experiences and emotions, the present analysis gives an insight into the epistemic potential of food to attribute new meanings to Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere memoir. Laura Shapiro's non-fictional account, What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food that Tells their Stories Laura Shapiro's What She Ate consists of the biographies of six notable female figures from different centuries and continents and highlights the importance of food in making them “recognizable” throughout history (7). Shapiro's collection of these women's personal stories and struggles gives insight into the more subtle meanings of food and its capacity to restore the balance of power between genders. In each story, food shapes the character's mind and body through evocations of endurance, resilience, internalized oppression, political statement or trendsetting dietary habits. serves as a useful starting point for the present reading of Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal as food narrative that has family relations, daily experiences and emotions constantly mediated through food. In brief, The Journal represents an intimate record of Dorothy's life, household activities and personal observations of the (natural and social) world surrounding Dove Cottage, which she shared with her famous sibling, Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, between May 1800 and January 1803. In this sense, I propose a constructivist-relational approach to Dorothy's narrative as interconnected with food, with the primary aim to explore how her numerous food references in the Journal contribute to the construction of her personal narrative and identity. As posited here, The Grasmere Journal offers a glimpse of Dorothy and William Wordsworth's dietary, social and writing routines, but also projects an image of Dorothy in a position of power, a woman ahead of her time, with a progressive stance, which goes beyond the societal expectations with regard to women's domestic role during the Romantic period.

Si Rukat Nakan dalam Masyarakat Karo

This article aims to describe the relations of equality and respect for men and women in the Karo cultural frame. The relationship between the two, where adat (culture) is the main reference often has bad-faced implications for the Karo patriarchy. Patriarch Karo is often claimed not to have a space of equality and respect for women. The problem will be focused on the use of idioms attached to Karo women. One idiom that is very attached to Karo women is rukat nakan. Idiom the rukat nakan describes the domestic duties of women, namely arranging accommodation and household logistics. With regard to the relationship between men and women, feminists claim the rukat nakan idiom is a form of condescension toward women, even an attempt to domesticate Karo patriarchal role of women. On the other hand, this idiom is also often referred to to validate the wife's subordination to her husband. The results of the research through interviews, literary research and analysis of Karo song poems, the idioms of rukat nakan are an illustration of the appreciation of the domestic role of women. Si rukat nakan is a domestic assignment which describes a very private relationship between husband and wife. The term “si rukat nakan” is not to denigrate or domesticate women, but it shows respect for women's roles.

The Role of Fishermen's Wife in Increasing Family Income

The uncertainty of the income that the head of the fisherman's household in Namlea Village encourages his wife to work to meet family needs. The role of the fishermen's wife is needed because it affects the level of family income. This is what encourages researchers to conduct research with the aim of knowing how the role of fishermen's wives in increasing family income in Namlea Village, Buru Regency. The method used in this research is a survey method, which is an investigation that obtains facts from the existing symptoms of the role of fishermen's wives in Namlea Village, Namlea District, Buru Regency and analyzed by descriptive method. Sampling in this study using a purposive sampling method. This type of research is descriptive qualitative. Respondents taken in this study amounted to 18 people or 25% of the total population of 72 fishermen's wives. The domestic role of women, which are all activities carried out by fishermen's wives in maintaining fishermen's households, which consists of jobs such as cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning the house, and childcare are priceless. The public role of women is all the activities of fishermen's wives that generate income outside of their homes. Fishermen's wives are required to play a role in making a living by being involved in earning a living. The work that is done by the fishermen's wife is like selling fresh (raw) fish and processed fish (smoked fish). The results of this study indicate that 18 fishermen wife respondents show a contribution or proportion that affects the total income of the fishermen's family with the criteria classified as moderate, which means that it is quite influential in increasing family income and can meet family needs. This research can assist local governments in formulating policies related to improving fishermen's welfare through the active role of family members.

Negotiating femininity, motherhood and beauty: Experiences of Pakistani women breast cancer patients

ABSTRACT Breasts are a symbol of femininity, sexuality and maternity and therefore play a role in the way breast cancer is perceived by society. Goffman in 1963 sees stigma such as arising out of disease, by noting that people with socially undesirable characteristics have “spoiled identity” that leads to social discrimination and devaluation. This qualitative feminist ethnographic study explores understanding of breast cancer in a patriarchal setup and the stigma arising out of it. Here I use the six dimensions of stigma as a theoretical framework, as defined by Jones, Scott and Markus. After approval of an ethics committee, 37 research participants (22 patients who had undergone mastectomy and 15 caregivers) were included in the study sample. The data collected via in-depth interviews/focus group discussions was examined thematically. The emerging themes included concepts of shame, self-disclosure of serious illness, loss of breast/s, maternal symbol, beauty, femininity, adjusting to a “new identity,” alopecia and the overburdened caregiver. It is seen that breast cancer poses a threat to femininity as it leads to a distortion of beauty ideals and disrupts the domestic roles of women as housewives and mothers which stigmatizes them and they have to make multiple efforts to restore themselves physically and mentally.

Louisa May Alcott and Hospital Sketches: An innovative approach to gender and nursing professionalization.

To show the development of an emerging nursing profession through the eyes of Louisa May Alcott and Hospital Sketches. In Hospital Sketches, Louisa May Alcott recounts her experiences when she worked as a nurse of injured soldiers during the American Civil War, in an autobiographically and masked-referential way, which allows her to negotiate between transgression and convention. Unlike other reviews, in this paper the relevance of nursing remains highlighted. Discussion paper. Existing literature in databases, history books and our own reading of facts. Illuminating overlooked meanings hidden in nurses' personal sources enables to approach their contribution to history, improve their visibility and project the future of nursing. Nursing care, whether domestic or professional, was and remains a catalyst for change. Through Alcott's words, we understand the transition of nursing care as a gradual extension of the middle-class woman's domestic role and a progressive definition of nurses' identity. In particular, we highlight how certain professional nursing nuances which appear in the text are compatible with the gradual extension of the boundaries of women's domesticity. Furthermore, Alcott's use of literary devices reveals the delicate balance between women's domestic role and some new nursing professional features, which anticipates nursing professionalization.

Images: Selected work, 2004–2017

ImagesSelected work, 2004–2017 Goldschmied and Chiari Click for larger view View full resolution IMAGE: Goldschmied & Chiari NYMPHEAS #37, 2011 Lambda print, 120 cm (diam.) Click for larger view View full resolution IMAGE: Goldschmied & Chiari UNTITLED VIEW, 2017 Digital print on glass and glass mirror, 115 × 70 cm [End Page 49] Click for larger view View full resolution Goldschmied & Chiari DUMP QUEEN #1 (triptych panels B and C), 2008 Diasec print, 180 × 180 cm each [End Page 50] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 51] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 52] Click for larger view View full resolution Goldschmied & Chiari GENEALOGY OF DAMNATIO MEMORIAE 1965–1981, 2009 Two carved living trees, 450 cm (height)Installation view (left); detail (right) Collection of MACRO (Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma) Photo: Altrospazio [End Page 53] Click for larger view View full resolution Goldschmied & Chiari NYMPHEAS #12, 2007 Lambda print, 125 × 333 cm Collection of Michele and Philippe Levy [End Page 55] Click for larger view View full resolution IMAGE: Goldschmied & Chiari WELCOME, 2004 Sheetrock, plaster, cement, paint, 10 × 1.5 × 2.35 mt Collection Ugolini Photo: Gabriele Basilico [End Page 57] Sara Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari are an artist duo from Italy, working with varied media: photography, video, performance, and installation. They work and live in Milan. Girls Just wanna have fun: Goldschmied & Chiari's Irreverent Humor Humor is not a trait for women, even less so for women artists in the Italian art world, where women's creativity has historically focused either on intimacy or on abstraction. In order to be taken into consideration by a male-dominated art scene, women artists working in the Italian peninsula have, since the '70s, consistently been obliged to be extremely serious about their work and its content. This trait can be traced all the way to the present with few exceptions, making Goldschmied & Chiari's (Sara Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari) artistic practice exceptional in its constant employment of a peculiar, irreverent form of humor that functions as subliminal social critique. Humor used as a strategy to reconsider historical events in a post-ideological form of feminism develops in their work in witty installations that articulate a lucid critique of contemporary society and its relationship to history. Radically distancing themselves from the stereotype of authoritative and earnest feminism, Goldschmied & Chiari turn laughter into a metaphor for transformation. Their images trigger subtle political disruptions, allowing them to delve into the complex history of post-Cold War narratives, offering the public a new understanding of the relationships between the symbolic and the social. My first encounter with Goldschmied & Chiari's work (goldiechiari at the time) dates back to 2002 when I was working on a large survey show of emerging Italian art, exIT: Nuove geografie della creatività italiana, curated by Francesco Bonami. I was surprised by their work Senza titolo #17 that portrayed in a full-color photograph two girls dressed as if they were in boarding school, in plaid skirts and colored stockings, with long braids, sitting on the floor helping an elderly "grandmother" knitting in her armchair by making a hank of yarn. Looking closer, one sees that the girls were actually adolescents trapped in a parody that the artists further highlighted by installing in front of the photo what looked like a gigantic ball of yarn but was actually a sphere made of 1,500 cm of barbed wire (Sfera, 2002). The "tableau vivant" quality of the image made it both funny and critical, as visitors could relate as much to the stereotyped enactment of women's domestic roles as to the artists' rebellious desire. Instead of relegating their creativity to the domestic sphere, these "mischievous little girls" had wound a menacing barbed-wire ball that evoked Italy's recent past of social unrest and urban guerrillas. The assumption of ironic activist alter egos in one way referenced feminist practices of the '70s, yet at the same time seemed to mock the violence associated with protest and its success. [End Page 116] This type of atmosphere linked to city barricades and acts of protest is the inspiration for a large...

1920-30년대 한국의 이상적 '신여성' 이미지와 패션

The term "new woman" (신여성 [Sinyeoseong], 新女性) refers to an idealized image of contemporary women during the so-called modern period in East Asia. In Korea, these "modern girls" were also referred to as modan (毛斷), or "cut-hair", reflecting changes in appearances that rejected the traditional value system in favor of "the new" in everyday life. Although it was used to refer to the perceived educated leaders of this new period, it also had the negative connotation of referring to frivolous women only interested in the latest fashion. The popular discourse on this "new woman" was constantly changing during this early modern period in East Asia, ranging from male-driven women's movements to women-driven liberal and socialist movements. The discourse often included ideals of what constituted female impeccability in women's domestic roles and enlightened views on housekeeping, yet in most cases the "new woman" was also expected to be a good wife and mother as well as a successful career woman. The concept of the "new woman" was also accompanied by an upheaval in women's social roles and their physical boundaries, and resulted in women repositioning themselves in the new society. The new look was a way of constructing their bodies to fit their new roles, and this again was rapidly reproduced in visual media. Newspapers, magazines, and plays had gained immense popularity by this time and provided visual material for the age with covers, advertisements, and illustrations. This research will explore the fashion of the "new woman" through archival resources, specifically magazines published in the 1920s and 1930s. It will investigate how women's appearances and the images they pursued reflected the ideal image of the "new woman." Fashion information providers, trendsetters, and levels of popular acceptance will also be examined in the context of the early stage of the fashion industry in East Asia, including production and distribution. Additionally, as the idea of the "new woman" was a worldwide phenomenon throughout the 19th and early 20th century, the effect of Japanese colonialism on the structure of Korean culture and its role as a cultural mediator will also be considered in how the ideal image of beauty was sought, and whether this was a western, colonial, or national preference.

Private faith: Social memory, gender and the Roman Catholic Church in contemporary Tokyo

It is not uncommon for Japanese Catholic women to conceal their religious identity from their family, relatives and colleagues. This paper examines the ‘private faith’ of such Japanese Catholic women in contemporary Tokyo. It situates their choice to hide their religious identity at the intersections of several discursive fields, and examines lay Catholic's negotiated identity from three angles: historical consciousness, gender and institutional change. In particular, the paper studies negative historical consciousness about religion, married women's domestic cultic roles which are dominated by Buddhist idioms and the shift of emphasis to religious tolerance on the part of the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960's.

"Relationships and Money, Money and Relationships": Anxieties around Partner Choice and Changing Economies in Post–Soviet Cuba

"Relationshipsand Money, Money and Relationships": Anxieties aroundPartnerChoice and Changing Economies in Post-SovietCuba Elise Andaya Now, everyone has family ... overseas that help them because here the salaries don't suffice. And if they don't have family overseas, people go looking ... for a partner with money, and that's the way it goes. Relationships and money, money and relationships. I'm telling you, girl, you have to survive and with the problems we have, it's not easy. —Lisette Fuentes, 28, homemaker Feminist scholars have long contended that putatively private concerns around gender, kinship, and reproduction serve as key entry points for exploring broader social struggles and transformations. Building on their insights, I use the discourses around partner choice in contemporary Cuba as a lens onto experiences of social change fol lowing the devastating economic crisis precipitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's principal trading partner. As with other modernist projects, the early Cuban revolutionaries viewed time and history as linear processes, in which the gradual perfeccionamiento (per fecting) of society with the passage of time would bring about a fully realized socialist society. Ideologies and practices of marriage and kin ship were considered one marker of this progress toward el hombre nuevo FeministStudies39, no. 3. © 2013 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 728 Elise Andaya 729 (the new man) and the new nation; orthodoxy held that in socialism's egalitarian society, romantic partnerships would be based on per sonal compatibility and mutual respect rather than concerns around economic or social mobility. The dramatic re-shaping of Cuba's economy and society in the post-Soviet era, however, has given rise to new economic inequali ties as well as new strategies for survival and well-being. As the epi graph above suggests, kinship relations can often take center stage in these negotiations. In this article, I examine the perceived impact of the economic crisis on practices of partner choice in contemporary Cuba. I argue that anxieties around changing ideologies and practices of gender and kinship reflect a broader disquiet about changing social and economic hierarchies in Cuba and the future of the socialist proj ect in a new global and local political-economic order. When socialism emerged in Cuba, it did so in a highly stratified society shaped by nearly four hundred years of a sugar-plantation and slave-based economy under Spanish colonialism (1515-1898) fol lowed by fiftyyears of US influence during which Havana was inter nationally known as "the playground of the Caribbean." The 1959 revolution held out the promise of a radically egalitarian society in which the state would satisfy the needs of all of its citizens, eradicat ing the racial, economic, and gender inequalities that the revolution aries viewed as the legacy of capitalism and colonialism. Bolstered by economic subsidies from the Soviet Union, the new state guaranteed support for citizens through full employment; established the ration system to ensure an egalitarian distribution of household necessi ties; inaugurated national systems of social services, education, and healthcare; desegregated public spaces; abolished laws governing "legitimate" and "illegitimate" children that disproportionately dis criminated against children born of race- and class-mixed unions; and wrote the 1975 Family Code that explicitly articulated the shared role of women and men in the ideal socialist family. This social transformation, the revolutionaries argued, was also dependent on the production of a new socialist subject who would be motivated by values of solidarity, morality, and collectivity rather than by individualist and materialist interests. Yet although Cuban socialism declared the birth of the "new man," it was perhaps more crucially on the practices of women that claims to social progress 730 Elise Andaya were staked. While the revolutionaries' Marxist-Leninist framework meant that changes in class relations and relations of production were generally prioritized over explicit gender or familial policy, reforms aimed at incorporating women into the public labor force inevitably reshaped broader gender relations. The reconfiguration of colonial gender and kinship ideologies, which emphasized women's domestic roles as the source of their moral authority, was a particular goal of socialist reform efforts. Female participation in public labor, the rev olutionaries predicted, would not only contribute to building social ist society but...

A senhora da casa ou a dona da casa? Construções sobre gênero e alimentação no Egito Antigo

A proposta deste artigo é apresentar um breve histórico sobre a produção acadêmica relativa aos estudos da alimentação no Egito antigo, com suas articulações no campo de gênero. Egiptólogos investigaram as práticas alimentares desarticuladas dos estudos de gênero e do papel das mulheres, privilegiando a religião e os estudos funerários. No entanto, os estudos de gênero articularam a produção dos alimentos, o âmbito doméstico e o papel das mulheres na egiptologia. Descobertas arqueológicas e o desenvolvimento de uma atitude crítica por parte dos egiptólogos têm contribuído para desconstruir os modelos teóricos anacrônicos para as mulheres e as relações de gênero, bem como tirar a egiptologia do seu próprio isolamento.

Adapting the Saints: Romantic Hagiography in Felicia Hemans's Records of Woman

Throughout Records of Woman: With Other Poems (1828), Felicia Hemans repurposes biographies of female saints, prosopographies of exemplary women, and sacred art to interrogate women's domestic roles across cultures. By merging secular and religious emotions, Hemans constructs a distinctly Romantic brand of hagiography that venerates exemplary women who embrace suffering and death for a noble cause. Hemans's critics imposed a more traditional model of hagiography onto her biography after her death, thereby shaping the Romantic poet's posthumous reputation into that of a saintly Victorian poetess.

UK Pension Reforms: Is Gender Still an Issue?

The UK Pensions Commission confirmed that women's domestic roles are crucial to their pension disadvantage. As a result, measures enacted in the Pensions Acts of 2007 and 2008 aimed to make state pensions more inclusive for those with periods out of the labour market for family caring, as well as encouraging more saving through private pensions by those with low to moderate earnings. Will these legislative changes, and subsequent reforms and plans, substantially reduce future gender inequality in UK pensions? In this article, we suggest the benefits to women will be patchy and overall less than expected. We first review the interaction of male-oriented pension schemes with the gendered division of caring labour and how this has changed for later cohorts of women. We then analyse, from a gender perspective, the pension reforms and proposals since 2007. Finally, we consider policy alternatives that would give women a better deal in pensions and conclude with an assessment of the mixed effects of pension reforms.