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Employment in the transport sector has historically proven to be male-dominated, even in countries like Tunisia which have evidenced public policy narratives and legal employment frameworks promoting gender equality. This paper presented the findings from a grounded research study examining women's employment experiences in blue-collar roles in the transport sector of Greater Tunis. Drawing on extensive interviews with both female and male transport employees, as well as field observations, it demonstrates that familiar sectoral narratives of transport work as 'too rough, too hard and too dirty for women' can be understood through the broader political economy of the country and the transport sector within it. The research evidences the sustained and mutually-constitutive relationship between patriarchal cultural norms and capital's development through successive periods of populist welfarism and neo-liberal governance, indicating that progressive advances in women's employment rights are not socio-economically embedded and suggesting that future research would be usefully informed by feminist social reproduction theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Womenomics', a signature programme promoted by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, aims to boost the country's economy by attracting women, an under-utilized resource, to join the workforce. To achieve this aim, the Japanese Government has been promoting a gender-equal society in various areas, including education. This paper seeks to investigate whether the government's endeavour to promote a gender-equal society is reflected in contemporary Japanese EFL textbooks. Three recently published popular textbooks were examined. The findings revealed evidence of the authors' gender awareness, including common use of gender-neutral vocabulary and a neutral term of address, Ms, for women. Two textbooks also displayed a balanced distribution of male and female speakers and their amount of talk. However, underrepresentation of women and their achievements is still prevalent in contemporary Japanese textbooks. Other observations include the portrayal of men in a wider range of social roles than women, and the depiction of men using material and cognitive processes and women using relational processes, suggesting that men are more physically and cognitively active than women. A gender dichotomy was also noted in mixed-sex dialogues, with a tendency for men to provide information and for women to seek information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the explanations and justifications offered by dual-career heterosexual couples in defence of an unequal division of housework within their relationships. The article draws on individual semi-structured interviews conducted with 12 couples aged between 20 and 35, identified as a sample of the population that has the resources to capitalise on modern opportunities for gender equality in heterosexual relationships. Although all of the couples claim to aspire to equality, this translates into practice for only one of the couples interviewed. The research findings indicate that a number of the couples employ similar justifications, with both male and female respondents arguing that women have higher standards and are more competent performers of household chores, and that the division of labour is practical, based on the hours worked by both partners. The paper concludes that while couples continue to expend their time and effort in defending and justifying inequality, rather than in working to challenge it, heterosexual relationships will continue to be overwhelmed by traditional gender roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question raised in this paper is how gender equality may affect sexual health. We suggest that this is dependent on the extent of gender equality. Our conclusion is a call for knowledge which consider a range of factors in future empirical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]