Interviews Of Women Research Articles

Brown Bodies in White Coats: Maori Women Scientists and Identity

The literature on women and science primarily targets issues of access and participation and it has tended to scrutinise structural barriers to participation, recover narratives of women scientists to raise their profile, and focus substantially on the history of science. While this literature has contributed much to our understanding of women and science, the role of colonialism and the embodiment of ‘race’ in women's participation in science have been rendered ‘invisible’. This paper is drawn from a wider research project that includes open‐ended interviews with 16 Maori women scientists. For this paper, I have focused on parts of the women's interviews when they were asked to discuss their identity in relation to their work. I draw on feminist, postcolonial, and poststructural theories to explore some of the conditions by which the subject ‘Maori women scientist’ emerges in the workplace and how the Maori women experience these conditions in relation to how they see themselves. I will argue that the term ‘Maori woman scientist’ appears to be ‘impossible fiction’ due to the fragmented nature of the identity, ‘Maori’, ‘woman’, and ‘scientist’.

Reproductive health in Mongolia: results from three provinces and one urban district.

The purpose of this study was to obtain data for facilitating the planning, monitoring and evaluation of reproductive health services in Mongolia. The survey was carried out in 17 randomly selected health facilities where health professionals were graded on their reproductive health knowledge and also in 64 adjacent households where 162 women of childbearing age were interviewed for their comments on reproductive health services and to obtain their reproductive health knowledge/behaviour. We rated the reproductive healthcare delivery system, using the methodology of Kielmann et al. The results from the women's interviews are encouraging and show a high acceptance of and satisfaction with family planning services.

Talking Up Equality: Women Barristers and the Denial of Discrimination

This article examines the phenomenon of women barristers' denials of the existence of discrimination against women at the Bar, against a backdrop of widespread evidence of sex discrimination and gender bias in this branch of the legal profession. Using interview transcripts from a research study of the status of women at one of the independent Bars in Australia, the article analyses the various stories told by senior women barristers to the interviewers about their gender and experiences at the Bar. It argues that structural and psychological explanations of denials of discrimination are inadequate to account for the range and public nature of the stories told by these women. Rather, the evidence suggests that the women's interview responses were part of the active constitution of themselves as (non/gendered) subjects of the Bar.

Caring about connections: gender and computing

For nearly four years (1995-9), we have interviewed female and male computer science students about their experiences studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, in one of the top computer science departments in the country (USA). We heard differences in orientations to computing in men's and women's interviews when they arrive at the university. We have traced the effects of these differences on women's sense of belonging and comfort in the program, and on their decisions to stay or leave. While most of the male students describe an early and persistent magnetic attraction between themselves and computers, women much more frequently link their computer science interest to a larger societal framework. Nearly half of the women we interviewed attached their interest in computer science to other arenas, such as medicine, education, space exploration, and the arts. For many of these women, while interest in computing is strong, they are concerned that their study of computer science not require a myopic focus on the machine, or detach them from people and other concerns. We discuss how computer science curriculum and culture frequently mirror and bestow prestige on an orientation toward computing commonly identified with men, while devaluing and pushing to the margins the orientations associated with women. The identification of computing as a male domain is so pervasive that men suffer far less from a mismatch with the dominant culture than do women. In this context, we discuss the importance of "revisioning" computer science, so that the answer to the question: "what is computer science?" incorporates and values women's perspectives as well as men's.

Factors associated with HIV-infected women's delay in seeking medical care

Data from an investigation of HIV-infected African-American, Puerto Rican and non-Hispanic white women's treatment behaviour and decision-making are presented. Findings are based on a thematic analysis of the narrative accounts of 31 women who exhibited significant delay in seeing a physician about their HIV infection after testing positive for HIV antibodies. Analysis of the women's qualitative interview data indicated that a variety of barriers impeded them from actively pursuing treatment. The women's psychological responses to learning their serostatus were the most pervasive factors associated with delaying seeking care. Implications of the analysis for informing the design of secondary prevention efforts to move women into treatment earlier are discussed, such as the need to develop interventions or supportive services designed to assist women in coming to terms with their infected status.

Auxiliary nurses in Mexico: Impact of multiple roles on their health

As more women worldwide enter the labor force, debate has been generated over how this additional work role influences women's health. In this study, we explored the work, maternal, and spousal roles of 59 auxiliary nurses in two university‐affiliated Mexican hospitals. Participants completed questionnaires that included demographics, a women's roles interview protocol, a self‐rating of health status, and the Cornell Medical Index (CMI). No significant correlation was found between the perception of their health status and the number of roles, amount of role involvement, or their perceived levels of stress and satisfaction in any of their three roles. Work stress was significantly correlated with the number of physical symptoms (r = .30, p < .05), longer periods of standing (r = .31, p < .05), more muscle strain (r = .53, p < .01), eye problems (r = .43, p < .01), frequent changes in environmental temperature (r = .30, p < .05), and perceptions of economic inadequacy (r = .37, p < .01). Years of education was not related to any health measure or degree of stress or satisfaction in any of the roles. The greater the degree of role integration, that is, the greater the sum of satisfactions minus stresses of each role, the fewer the physical symptoms (r = .48, p < .05) and the fewer total symptoms (r = .43, p < .05) reported on the CMI. Those with more spousal stress reported more work‐related muscle strain (r = .35, p < .05), and working mothers with three or more children tended to perceive themselves as less healthy (r = .75, p < .01). Thus, analyzing the interrelationship of women's multiple roles is a better predictor of health than examining specific role stresses in isolation.

The Experiences of Lesbians in Alcoholics Anonymous

A feminist ethnographic study of lesbians' experiences in recovery from alcohol problems was done to understand from their perspectives how they identified alcohol use as problematic, sought help, experienced health care interactions and participation in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and maintained recovery. Through community-based purposive sampling in San Francisco, 35 lesbians recovering from alcohol problems participated in semistructured ethnographic interviews of 2 hours duration, which were subsequently interpreted using ethnographic coding, narrative analysis, and matrix analysis. A major finding was that participation in AA was fraught with tension in three areas. Each tension was defined by two poles of experience that appear to be in conflict. They were assimilation versus differentiation, authority versus autonomy, and false consciousness versus politicization. These tensions are elaborated and supported by examples from the women's interviews. Nursing implications regarding the role of AA in recovery for marginalized women are discussed.

When Women Interview Women - And Then Publish It: Reflections on Oral History, Women's History, and Public History

When Women Interview Women - And Then Publish It: Reflections on Oral History, Women's History, and Public History

“It'S So Opinioney”

Drawing upon classroom discussions in high school women's history courses and follow-up interviews six years later, this article addresses three central questions: “What impression does viewing our history from primarily a male perspective, with the authority of the school behind it, make on students?” “What impression does viewing our history from a female perspective, with the authority of the school behind it, make on students?” “How can a gender-balanced history help female and male students to think about the concerns they have in shaping their own lives and in judging their society?”