Search

The book "Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution" edited by Michelle Arrow is a collection of essays that explores the agenda for women during the Whitlam government in Australia. The book is divided into five sections, each focusing on different aspects such as political influence, the law, health and social policy, media, arts, and education, and the legacies of the era. The essays provide historical knowledge, personal stories, and inspiration for readers. The collection aims to shape the future by examining the past and highlighting what was achieved and what still needs to be done for women's equality and justice. The book also emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives and voices, including Indigenous contributors, in the fight for lasting and meaningful change. [Extracted from the article]

In the name of women's protection, Dutch immigration authorities police cross-border marriages differentiating between acceptable and non-acceptable forms of marriage (e.g. 'forced', 'sham', 'arranged'). The categorisation of marriages between 'sham' and 'genuine' derives from the assumption that interest and love are and should be unconnected. Nevertheless, love and interest are closely entwined and their consideration as separate is not only misleading but affects the exchanges that take place within marriage and, therefore, has particular implications for spouses, especially for women. The ethnographic analysis of marriages between unauthorised African male migrants and (non-Dutch) EU female citizens, often suspected by immigration authorities of being 'sham', demonstrate the complex articulation of love and interest and the consequences of neglecting this entanglement – both for the spouses and scholars. The cases show that romantic love is not a panacea for unequal gender relations and may place women in a disadvantaged position – all the more so because the norms of love are gendered and construe self-sacrifice as more fundamental in women's manifestations of love than that of men's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine the agentic role of the physical spaces (e.g. landing beach, fish market and fish processing kitchen) within which fishery tasks are undertaken as they entangle with human, non-human, and discursive forces to co-create gendered subjectivities in fisher couples' decision-making and practices. The paper is based on larger ethnographic study on fisher couples' decision-making and practices in Ghana's Western region, using participatory ethnographic observation including photo elicitation, vignettes and 38 in-depth interviews. Findings from the study indicate that the fish landing beach (consisting of sea water and sandy coast) played active roles in the kinds of tasks men and women could perform. The ability of the sea water to wet women's long dresses, coupled with their menstrual body and discourse of women as unclean worked together to limit women's ability to engage in activities, such as fishing. In terms of fish processing and trading, the study showed that the enclosed nature of fish processing kitchen served as a protective force which prevented public scrutiny of couples' household practices to allow for husbands to help their wives in fish processing and storage. In instances of disagreement, the bedroom played a protective role where couples settled their differences on somewhat equal ground. Tracing the agentic and constitutive role of spaces, shift our focus from a purely social understanding of gender towards a holistic view of the multiple and complex pathways through which the environment and matter combine with discourses to co-create continuous and flexible (re)iterations of gender emergences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental support or resistance has been widely recognised as an important factor that enables or constrains the implementation of quality Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE). This paper analyses parental experiences of involvement and engagement with Gender Equality Matters (GEM), an educational programme focused on raising awareness, building confidence and enhancing capacity levels among children to tackle gender inequality and promote LGBTQI inclusion. The paper focuses on qualitative data from participating parents in the Irish primary school context. Pre- and post-questionnaires (n = 162) and semi-structured interviews (n = 3) were utilised to gain insight into the parents' experience of participating in GEM. Using thematic analysis, the analysis explores three themes: 1) positive parental partnerships; 2) naturalistic at-home conversations; and 3) resistance and disengagement. The study highlights the key role of parental partnerships with school curricula, whilst critically reflecting on potential sites for resistance and providing a successful model for future educational programmes to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can NGOs implement rights-based gender equality programs when donor focus on the area is shrinking? This paper explores how one development program has made strategic choices incorporating the interests of multiple stakeholders, addressing donor interests while simultaneously addressing the needs of local communities. It examines the evolution of BRAC's Polli Shomaj, a rural women's civil society organisation designed to challenge power structures through collective action in rural Bangladesh. It draws on interviews with program staff and existing program literature to find that over time, BRAC leadership has narrowed its program focus to shed its broad transformative agenda to focus solely on gender equality through a combination of service delivery and rights-based approaches. The paper suggests that while it is possible for NGOs to promote gender equality through a combination of rights-based and service-delivery approaches, greater focus is needed on challenging power structures to bring about lasting structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to examine the representation of masculinities and femininities in the renowned South Indian drama film The Great Indian Kitchen. The research construes the manner in which the two dominant genders promote and/or modify patriarchal norms within the institution of family. The functioning of women as ancillary members of patriarchy, the interplay between masculinities and femininities, their evolution in contemporary times, etc., are also critically engaged in the paper. The paper argues that the movie The Great Indian Kitchen not only illustrates different masculinities and femininities but also reconstructs the patriarchal family structure which institutionalises gender inequality. It further argues that the movie proposes an alternative image of the family based on gender equality, where men and women live with mutual respect and complementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adds to a growing body of literature that aims to correct the traditional lack of attention to the role of women lawyers who have exercised their power as active citizens by participating in legal reform and facilitating access to social justice for all Australians. The paper highlights the unique contribution to gender equality of one such woman, Eve Mahlab AO, through a close examination of her oral history, which was drawn from the pilot stage of a project that now comprises a corpus of over fifty interviews recorded with 'trailblazing' Australian women lawyers. The methodology adopted is innovative in combining a legal analysis and a discourse analysis of the interview with Eve Mahlab. This approach offers insights into those aspects of her personal and professional biography that most influenced and enabled her contributions in the public and private spheres, allowing us to publicly acknowledge and record them. The paper demonstrates how such use of oral history broadens and deepens our understanding of the diverse social and professional forces that shape political consciousness and motivate feminist engagement in civic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that is associated with value creation and considered a driver of economic development. While Africa exhibits a strong upsurge in the number of women entrepreneurs, the continent is still struggling in terms of gender equality and women's empowerment. The region is entrepreneurially disadvantaged, with a low degree of female participation in this field and a large gender gap in favor of men. Therefore, this paper aims to present original insights into female entrepreneurship from the context of Morocco, exploring the motivations and barriers to women entrepreneurs in the service sector. It adopts a multi-level integrative framework and combines feminist and institutional theory to capture the agency and enabling factors along with institutional regulative and normative constraints associated with female entrepreneurship. The paper adopts an interpretative qualitative research approach capitalizing on in-depth interviews with twenty women entrepreneurs in the service sector. The data is analyzed using thematic coding and identified factors are classified into micro-meso-macro levels. The findings highlight the importance of integrating multiple lens and levels of analysis to capture the complexity of the phenomenon and illustrate the imbrication and interplay of enablers and constraints and contribute theoretically and empirically to knowledge on female entrepreneurship in the North African context and a factor-driven economy through the case of Morocco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the under-representation of women in STEM education in Bangladesh, and proposes ways to boost their participation to help achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ensuring quality education for all. The key argument of this paper is that while celebrating Bangladesh's success in reducing the gender gap in primary and secondary education, the persistent gap between women's participation in general education and their representation in STEM subjects receives less attention. Although women students' enrolment at the tertiary level has increased, their representation in STEM fields remains low for various reasons – societal perceptions, inadequate infrastructure, prejudice, etc. While Bangladesh has taken steps to promote gender equality in education, measures directly targeting increased participation of women in STEM education are lacking. However, in addition to implementing institutional policies to increase women's participation in STEM education, the paper recommends tackling the socio-cultural obstacles that discourage women from doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the intrahousehold allocation of housework and paid work in five Latin American countries. Prior work has consistently shown that income plays a major role in the region’s large gender gaps in the distribution of unpaid work at the aggregate level. However, the extent to which earnings shape intrahousehold decisions regarding the allocation of unpaid work remains unexplored. Using harmonized time-use surveys for Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay, we analyze the relationship between earnings and housework drawing on the framework of the dependency, gender deviance neutralization, and autonomy. We find that in Latin America, increases in women’s absolute earnings are related to decreases in the hours women devote to housework. At the same time, the allocation of men’s time into housework does not seem to be related to their own or their partners’ earnings. Against our expectations, differences in contextual gender inequality across countries does not seem to be relevant. These findings help us assess how well existing theories, formulated to account for phenomena of the developed world, apply to more unequal contexts that have higher levels of gender inequality and where a high proportion of women are excluded from paid work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines urban and well-educated Taiwanese women's resistance to the dominance of the valorization of female appearance, providing ethnography of undoing beauty in East Asia's era of post-developmentalism. Findings reveal the importance of the factor of time in their resistance to bodily grooming. First, participants have a "holistic" understanding of "doing beauty"; they consider this set of gender inequalities "chrono-normativity," which serves as a vector of social control. Second, the burden of long-term sustainability of aesthetic investment often turns into an unbearable weight that includes an endless quest for extreme slenderness, the exhausting immaterial labor of enacting cuteness and hetero-likability, and the difficulty of long-term financial affordability. Third, due to a bleak economic outlook and strong gender inequalities, disapproval of the quest for beauty showcases women's rejection of pursuing market success based on an aspirational and future-oriented temporality. Participants' "lying down" attitude and their emphasis on "assured little happiness" are witness to an anti-aspirational temporality, since women seek a present-focused and non-dominated experience of temporality. I argue that this anti-aspirationalism should be seen as an alternative configuration of neoliberal rationality where the care of the self and its ethos of individualism eclipse the pursuit of economic productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study draws on the theory of 'migrant optimism' and anticipated discrimination to examine whether a gap in educational expectations and achievement exists between immigrant and native students in Qatar and explores whether the impact of educational expectations on educational achievement is contingent upon the migratory status of students (migrant or native students). It utilizes data on students aged 15–16 obtained from the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The results show that migrant students have higher educational expectations and achievement than Qatari students, while female students in all groups enjoy better performance and hold higher educational expectations. The results also show that the gender gap among Qatari students is bigger than the gender gap among migrant students. Educational expectations have a significant and positive impact on achievement among Qatari and migrant students alike. These results and their theoretical implications are further discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progress towards women's empowerment (WE) and gender equality is slow and uneven across the Global South. Livestock systems support the livelihoods of one billion poor people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), most of whom are women. While livestock and gender research has focused on addressing gender inequalities to build a better livestock sector, there is growing evidence that livestock development can contribute to WE and gender equality. The latter is the main topic of this scoping review. A total of 99 papers, corresponding to 102 studies, were included in the analysis. Results indicate that the gender approach strongly influences the effect of livestock interventions on WE, as much as the type of livestock intervention. Gender accommodative approaches were associated with more advances in WE than gender blind approaches, but there was no significant difference in the reported negative effects, challenging the prevailing assumption that gender-accommodative approaches 'do no harm'. Most asset transfer projects combined with extension had positive effects while those focusing on output markets negatively impacted WE. Gender accommodative approaches had negative or unclear impacts on women's labour and workloads. Use of these findings should help guide the design of livestock projects aiming to enhance gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dependency theory had great influence in Latin America between 1940 and 1970, but since then it has lost political and academic relevance. However, in recent years, the dependency agenda has been increasingly revisited, incorporating new analytical axes and conceptual bridges with other theories. Despite this, this agenda remains largely blind to gender and racial-ethnic inequalities. This paper aims precisely to address this gap by combining the dependency school with feminist economics to address the links between gender inequalities and Latin American peripheral position. In particular, I propose to develop two analytical axes resulting from the combination of both currents. First, I argue that gender inequalities function as 'adjustment variables' in the 'up' and 'down' economic cycles of Latin American countries. Thus, women's wages and more precarious working conditions constitute a central axis of peripheral countries in the international competition for attracting capital. Second, I argue that the large wage gap and high informality derived from the productive structure of the periphery catalyse the commodification of 'low-cost' paid domestic work. This 'cheap' care work satisfies the care needs not only of the upper-middle sectors of the peripheries, but also of the central markets through Global Care Chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual revictimization can have a negative impact on many facets of women's wellbeing, yet limited evidence exists regarding specific interventions that support healing and the reduction of further revictimization. This paper will explore regional and rural women's experience of a group-based empowerment program, the Shark Cage program, in Victoria, Australia. The "Shark Cage" program aims to address revictimization by empowering women and girls to build personal boundaries and assertiveness within the context of gender equality and human rights. Data were collected via participant observations across the 8-week program, in combination with semi-structured interviews with participants (N = 11) pre and post intervention. All participants had access to therapeutic support outside of the program. Findings indicate that the program fostered connections among women with shared experiences of sexual revictimization, reducing feelings of isolation. Participants detailed the benefit of developing and practicing skills in reducing revictimization, such as assertiveness and boundary setting. Program learning and recovery was embedded within a network of embodied emotions, social connections, cultural norms and place-based relations that influenced how participants recovery could be understood, processed and addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual harassment remains pervasive in the workplace. Complementing past research examining the intra-organizational effects of sexual harassment, this paper investigates its extra-organizational consequences by considering reputational damage organizations can suffer from sexual harassment claims. Four experiments (NTotal = 1,534) show that even a single sexual harassment claim can damage public perception of gender equality of an organization, which reduces organizational attractiveness. However, an organizational response characterized by proactive consideration of the claimant (compared to no mention of sexual harassment, mention of sexual harassment with no response, or a minimizing response to a sexual harassment claim) fully restores, and sometimes even increases, public perceptions of the organization's commitment to due process and gender equality. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the burgeoning literature on how women construct resistance, project their agency and sculpt a positive identity for themselves. It employs feminist critical discourse analysis as a framework to examine how Nigerian blogs on gender issues constitute a discursive site for sociopolitical action, the interrogation and deconstruction of gendered social structures and the amplification of women's voices(s). The article analyzes discursive strategies used in the blogposts to resist gender inequality, women's exploitation and female subjugation while constructing a positive image for women and emphasizing their empowerment. The results reveal three main strategies: (1) denouncing patriarchy and gender discrimination, (2) countering toxic gender narratives and (3) calling out sexist attitudes and praising women who resist such behaviour. Together, these mechanisms contribute to a sociopolitical critique of systematic gendering of privilege aimed at social transformation and Nigerian/African women's emancipation. Implications of the study for research on marginalized, disenfranchised groups are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores teenage girls' responses to general advice, and formal prevention messages, designed to reduce sexting-related risk and prevent harm. We conducted workshops with seven groups of girls (28 in total), aged 16–17 years, in a New Zealand city. Each group participated in a series of three workshop sessions. Drawing on a Freirean 'problem-posing' approach, we designed the workshops as spaces in which girls were invited to observe and critically discuss norms related to sharing nudes as well as harm prevention messages. Girls noticed the problematic gender and sexual politics that shape abstinence-based models that target girls (implicitly) to not send nudes, but which leave boys who distribute or otherwise misuse them out of the picture. Participants navigated a careful path between attending to risk and protection on the one hand, and endorsing their right to freedom of expression on the other. We argue for a subtle, but significant, shift away from a focus on sexting safety to a focus on the prevention of image-based sexual coercion, harassment and abuse. This reframing would help to direct prevention efforts to the gendered drivers and dynamics of harm perpetration, and the ways in which they are problematically socially ignored or condoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monetary policy has been historically concerned with controlling inflation, using the interest rate as its main tool. However, such policies are not gender- or race-neutral. This paper explores econometrically the effect of changes in the interest rate for female and black employment creation in Brazil. We conducted a fixed effects analysis for 13 states between 2012 and 2021 to estimate the effects of changes in interest rates on unemployment, separating it by gender and race. Our results show that the increase in the real interest rate has a positive effect on the relative unemployment of black men to white men, no effect on the relative unemployment of black women to white men, and a negative effect on the relative unemployment of white women to white men. These effects are intensified in regions where the black share of the population is lower. This paper contributes to understanding the challenges to closing gender and racial gaps, particularly in developing economies. We conclude that social stratification, if not considered, can lead to misleading policies that perpetuate unequal socioeconomic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private tutoring participation is increasing in several developing countries, and this expansion has attracted the interest of scholars spanning disciplines of economics, sociology and history. This paper presents a theoretical model of private tutoring demand. The model incorporates the household and school characteristics in a developing country context and demonstrates the source of gender gaps in access to private tutoring. Using a recent database from India and employing a hurdle model approach, the paper also provides estimates of the drivers of private tutoring participation and spending for pre-secondary students. Our results indicate evidence of gender gaps in private tutoring access, and that the socio-economic profile of a student is positively correlated with tutoring demand. Further, school quality indicators are negatively correlated with tutoring participation, suggesting that students at 'better' schools rely less on tutoring. Overall, the findings suggest that tutoring demand is influenced by a mix of demand-side (household, community drivers) and supply-side (school quality and learning environment) factors. The results bring into focus the equity implications of tutoring growth and the need to improve school quality in order to reduce the dependence on private tutoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change threatens hard won progress in the education and life outcomes of adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by compounding the harmful effects of gender inequality and poverty. In recent years, there has been a rise in global advocacy for gender transformative education for climate justice that addresses the underlying gender inequalities driving climate vulnerability for adolescent girls in LMICs. But, has the international development and education community responded to this call? This paper seeks to establish a baseline for answering this question through a landscape analysis of actors working on issues of gender and climate change with youth, especially girls, as well as a landscape analysis of publicly available curricular materials on climate justice and gender equality. We find that although there are many nongovernmental efforts focused on different entry points into the nexus of gender, education, leadership, and climate change, there is much more room for aligning gender equality and climate justice programming for girls. This paper highlights the gaps and opportunities for doing so and offers a taxonomy of programming approaches to guide actors and their collaborators toward more intersectional educational programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adverse climate impacts present a significant challenge for the majority of the world's population. It is especially true for smallholder farmers in coastal Bangladesh, where some adaptation initiatives appeared to be short-sighted and reproduced further inequity, poverty, and food insecurity. Based on empirical insights, this paper shows how short-sighted climate responses can adversely affect gender equity, illustrated through three adaptation strategies. First, agricultural institutions have traditionally and historically linked with gender roles. Outmigration from the region is gendered as males leave first. This forces increased household and farm responsibilities onto female household members and increased vulnerability. This gendered vulnerability becomes compounded by the ways critical weather information flows at the local level. Taking this gendered lens, this paper illustrates how shrimp farming has caused long-term woes for society. These insights help in understanding the complexity of climate–society interactions and the importance of long-term planning on any climate adaptation initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lebanon's reservations in ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1997 left women at the mercy of the country's personal status codes derived from its 18 religious sects and its lenient, if not absent, laws on marital rape and domestic violence. It was only in August 2017 that article 522, which allows a rapist to escape punishment in case he marries his victim, was repealed by parliament. Rape, nonetheless, is still stigmatized and victims are often blamed and shamed. Using Bakhtin's heteroglossia and Foucault's moral principles of refusal, curiosity and innovation, this paper presents an in-depth analysis of women's advocacy campaigns to argue that these campaigns formulate heteroglossic discourses that consolidate the social field of women through their silence and visibility. Identifying heteroglossic disturbances as fundamental to the production of the discourse on gender and the propagation of its perception, the study also attempts to show how women's voice is generated through a particular staging of forces. The main case study for this paper is the campaign entitled Shame on Who?, launched in November 2018 by ABAAD, one of the most prominent non-profit associations advocating gender equality in the MENA region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractRecent decades have seen an increasing gap occurring between the ‘desired’ and ‘actual’ family size of middle-class and professional women. This situation of ‘unrealised fertility’ and ‘incomplete families’ carries implications at a population, but also couple and individual level. This paper explores how middle-class professional women make decisions about partnering and parenthood and how these are shaped by a contemporary neoliberal feminist discourse which articulates the possibility of ‘having it all’ through engagement in careful life planning, appropriate self-investment, and by drawing on new technologies of reproductive biomedicine. Informed by semi-structured interviews with UK and US women conducted at two different points in time, it explores how they approach and experience the process of relationship formation in the face of age-related fertility decline. It also examines how the use of social egg freezing shape their romantic and family building expectations but also their interactions with (potential) partners. In doing so, it explores how gendered cultural dating scripts and unequal gender power relations shape the formation and progression of intimate relationships in a manner which can disempower women as they age. It therefore questions whether egg freezing may be the ‘great equaliser’ that some have hoped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper proposes a critical assessment of equality policies from a theoretical standpoint. As an analytical proposal, this idea is exemplified within the educational context of Vocational Education and Training in Spain, specifically in the Region of Valencia. We have analysed Order 85/2016, insofar as it establishes mechanisms that seek to encourage access by women to professional fields which have been historically and culturally masculinised. Our analysis is based on two key questions: Does this policy succeed in increasing the number of women who undertake studies in masculinised professional fields? Is providing access to training sufficient to drive changes in gender relations? To approach these questions, we have reviewed the theoretical framework that gives rise to public policy and performed a comparative analysis of the number of enrolments registered since these mechanisms came into force. Our findings have led us to conclude that not only does this policy fail to fulfil its goal of encouraging women to enrol in certain studies, but its theoretical implications have paradoxically been found to heighten the gender divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the factors that influence a greater or lesser decrease in gender inequality, paying special attention to the role of social policy. To this end, a measure of inequality in the distribution of income between men and women has been developed and a panel of data has been estimated for 33 European countries and a time period of 15 years. The results show that income inequality in general, as measured by the Gini index, and gender inequality based on differences in the distribution of income between men and women are closely linked, and that retirement benefits and women's educational attainment are the tools that most improve gender equity in income distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses panel data and qualitative interviews from southwestern Ghana to analyse farmers' heterogeneous oil palm marketing decisions and the effect on household welfare. We show that despite the supposed benefits that smallholders could derive from participation in global agribusiness value chains via formal contracts, such arrangements are rare although two of Ghana's 'big four' industrial oil palm companies are located in the study area. In the absence of formal contracts, farmers self-select into four main oil palm marketing channels (OPMCs). These OPMCs are associated with varying levels of welfare, with processing households and those connected to industrial companies by verbal contracts being better off. Furthermore, own-processing of palm fruits is shown to reduce gender gaps in household welfare. We also unearth community and household level factors that hamper or facilitate participation in remunerative OPMCs. These results have implications for development policy and practice related to inclusive agricultural commercialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The barriers and challenges to women's participation in sport have been well established, however there is a paucity of research examining the development of a women's football team from an ethnographic methodology. In this case study, the primary researcher was embedded as an insider researcher within a football club, conducting 160 hours of observations, field notes, informal discussions, and three semi-structed interviews capturing the development of a women's football team over an 18-month period in Melbourne, Australia. Utilising a spatial justice theoretical framework, this study revealed that although there has been an increase in investment in women's sport, and a desire by women to play, women's teams still face an abundance of spatial injustices that constrain their participation, such as pre-established sporting clubs being privileged and prioritised. This led to difficulties for a newly established ethnically diverse women's team in negotiating access to facilities and playing in competitive leagues. Issues of spatial justice are rarely considered within gender equity in sport policy, yet the findings of the study outline the need to address injustice if gender equity within sport participation is to be realised. This research provides methodological, empirical and practical contributions to knowledge on women's participation in community football. The paper concludes by illustrating that issues of spatial justice need to be foregrounded in efforts to promote and support women's participation in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper explores the relationship between attitudes towards mathematics (ATM) and achievement in college calculus in active learning (AL) and lecture-based (LB) classrooms. Previous work on this relationship has mainly been limited to LB instruction, neglecting the impact of innovative approaches such as AL. Less attention has been paid to the roles played in this relationship by gender, year in college, and initial ATM. Results from a sample of 535 undergraduate students enrolled in 9 AL and 9 LB sections are presented. Data included ATMI surveys' responses, final grades, and demographics. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted. The influence of instruction on students with low ATM was also examined. Gender and year in college were the main demographic variables considered. Achievement in AL was found to be less dependent on initial ATM in terms of correlation. AL showed higher gains in grades than LB, when controlling for ATM and demographic variables. Effect sizes of AL instruction on grades of students with low ATM were larger than those of students with higher ATM. Furthermore, AL courses had a large effect size (d = 0.81) on female students with lower ATM, confirming its role as a gender equalizer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, and the special issue, seek to unpack the gendered nature of entrepreneurial pathways, specifically in relation to the role of social policies. We achieve this aim by first conceptualising gender, entrepreneurship, and social policy, to highlight the need to generate a stronger research agenda on the role of social policy within gender and tourism entrepreneurship research. We next outline an overarching framework for delineating the intersection of gender, entrepreneurship, and social policy, based on a critical review of existing studies, as well as by situating the papers in this special issue. We present this discussion through three thematic framings: (1) gender and entrepreneurship, (2) gender and social policy and (3) entrepreneurship and social policy. In conclusion, we discuss the implications for social policy and practice, and in doing so call for a research agenda that situates social policy more centrally within considerations of gender and tourism entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on an evaluative study of an agroecology movement that has been running in South Africa for over 20 years. The study applied a Value Creation Framework to gather value creation stories from key movement members, farmers, trainers, and the involved organizations. Data was generated through storytelling interviews, document analysis and participant observations. The findings show that the functions of the movement are enabled by support from tertiary institutions, government departments, NGOs, international networks and the private sector. In the initial stages, the movement's growth as measured by the uptake of agroecology faced resistance because the associated labor intensity, especially in the early stages and farmers considered it to be very slow compared to conventional methods. However, the movement's mobilization through open dialogs, co-creation and farmer-centered learning approaches has seen a gradual and wide adoption of agroecology practices by over 2700 new and existing farmers in the Eastern Cape alone, thereby widening the learning and seed-sharing network. In the communities it has reached, the movement has registered transformational gains in biodiversity preservation, social cohesion, market power, gender equality and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe paper examines the fascinating case of middle-income Sri Lanka with pre-existing macroeconomic weaknesses hit by COVID-19. The pandemic created a public health emergency and an economic crisis in 2020, causing economic damage and dampening Sri Lanka’s development prospects. The evidence shows a sudden growth contraction, a steep rise in poverty, falling women’s employment, worsening macroeconomic imbalances, and high external debt levels rising. Rather than requesting early IMF assistance for its balance of payments problems, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government opted for home-grown remedies including ultra-loose monetary policy, import controls, bilateral swaps and loans, and a ban on fertilizer imports. The unconventional policy mix temporarily mitigated economic scaring from COVID-19 and supported the economy. But the distortions introduced by prolonging this unconventional mix and the Russia-Ukraine conflict shock pushed Sri Lankan economy into external debt default, a worsening economic crisis and Rajapaksa’s resignation in 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east part of former divided Germany, which existed between 1949 and 1990, saw the emancipation of women as a national objective. In this paper we examine the gender ideologies of young people in the GDR in relation to state socialist ideas of gender equality. First, we outline the GDR's socialist state policy in favour of maternal full-time employment, even with young children, between the 1950s and the 1980s. We then present the results of our analysis of gender ideologies using survey data collected by the GDR's Central Institute of Youth Research in 1984. By applying latent class analysis, we identify two patterns of egalitarianism in the analytic sample, which we term 'all-inclusive-egalitarians' and 'not-in-my-backyard-egalitarians' ('nimby-egalitarians'). The former supported gender equality in both the public and familial spheres. The nimby-egalitarians, by contrast, had ambivalent attitudes, as they supported gender equality in the public sphere and at the same time held more traditional attitudes towards the private sphere. Our study demonstrates that after almost 40 years of propagating gender equality, state socialism in the GDR had some success in shaping societal gender ideologies. However, we reveal ambivalences which researchers have previously often overseen, especially in contrast to the Western part of Germany. The top-down shaped GDR patterns of egalitarianism also bear similarities to the stalled gender revolution in contemporary Western democratic societies. Beyond the results, the paper proves the richness and principle usability of hitherto rarely used data sets preserved from the GDR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everything that comes in, eventually goes out. One way or another. This paper will look into eating and defecating practices among rebels in Colombia, in particular, the FARC-EP. I will argue that these practices, despite being daily occurrences, have been overlooked in conflict studies. I will argue that eating practices in particular reinforced emotional bonds within the organization and fostered micro-solidarity. At the same time, eating and defecating practices reflected and reinforced, at once, organizational practices and ideological commitments of the rebels – particularly gender equality and collectivism. This paper, by focusing on cherished everyday activities which are deeply human, both biological and social, is a call to re-humanise this field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic review did not show any usability evaluation tool specifically developed for blind people. This paper reports an empirical study, investigating the similarity between usability evaluation tools for people with visual impairment. A total of 87 blind people from both genders, equally distributed, from 18 to 75 years old, with congenital blindness were reached. The hypothesis is that a tool using onomatopoeia could be similar to another tool that uses human expressions. Thus, this research compared the Circumplex Model of Affect emotions list and an onomatopoeic prototype using Chi². The results show a similarity between the two tools. Therefore, the findings suggest that the prototype based on onomatopoeia allows blind people to evaluate product usability. In addition, this paper presents a process to build similar tools for people with visual impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with two Islamist movements in India since 2011, this article contributes to a better understanding of how Muslim community leaders try to spearhead third front alliances with secular and religious minorities through discourses of shared political and economic victimhood and the provision of protection against the assertions of Hindu nationalists in an era of unprecedented Hindu vote consolidation. While such alliances exist, the paper analyzes a new trend within Muslim politics that promotes a political departure from the traditional patronage of the Indian National Congress (INC) and other low-caste and socialist parties, which have historically represented the Muslim masses. I then discuss the limitations of these third front leadership ambitions, whereby Islamist movements are seen as incompatible with gender equality and secular norms. Theoretically, the paper informs the academic debate on coalition-building processes within social movement theory (SMT), which has partially ignored the role of conservative religious actors in democratic as well as authoritarian systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decades have seen efforts to increase digital inclusion for women worldwide, with the ultimate aim to advance gender equality. However, progress is slow, despite important advances in moving beyond a focus on 'digital access' (as measured by network coverage and hardware) towards a more holistic understanding of inclusion that considers abilities, awareness and agency. Here, we propose a further theoretical shift that draws on social system theories (e.g., Luhmann, 1984) and on the theory of 'intersecting inequalities' (Kabeer, 2010). We propose to understand the gender digital gap, particularly in mobile and internet usage, not merely descriptively but dynamically – since even factors like agency and awareness change over time – by applying concepts of feedback loops, low-equilibrium traps, multi-dimensional exclusion and systems analysis. This paper highlights how women may become locked in a state of low-inclusion unless the feedback loops between digital, social, economic and political exclusion are addressed through policies that tackle multiple dimensions. The paper reviews research on gender digital gaps with particular focus on developing countries, and with direct implications for policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to higher education. This paper explores the challenges Indonesian female academics encountered during the pandemic in which the boundaries between home and work were further blurred. Accordingly, the gender gap was further widened as unpaid and unacknowledged academic and domestic work disproportionately affected women. This paper draws on data gathered from survey, diary studies and in-depth interviews with female academics in the social sciences and humanities. It examines how Indonesian female academics juggled domestic and professional work at home, caring duties both at home and work, and shouldering administrative workloads. In addition, findings reveal that female academics found new meanings in their academic work and the importance of caring and collective solidarity, especially in a crisis such as the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent investigations into sex discrimination, sexual harassment and predatory behaviour within police organisations have led to a range of gender reforms that aim to create more inclusion, respect and safety. These reforms have tended to be female-focused and designed to support greater equality for female police. This paper reports on an interview-based study that sought to understand and address resistance to gender equality reform within a large police organisation in Australia. The paper draws on Nancy Fraser's model of social justice to consider the capacity of particular reforms to reproduce and/or transform the organisation's hierarchical structures and masculinised cultures. Fraser's model is presented as enriching current understandings about how the policy aims of gender equality might be realised in police organisations through a broader focus on supporting political, cultural and economic justice for all. The paper concludes by considering the practice implications of this social justice approach for police organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative perspective on a gender-transformative model for gender equality, versus a gender-sensitive approach, both of which were integrated into a gender and agriculture development intervention in Burundi. The gender-transformative approach followed an iterative cycle of critical reflection and action to analyze gender inequalities and build women's solidarity and collective action. It also engaged men equally in the processes of critical reflection and action. The participants found that the gender-sensitive approach initiated some important community discussions about gender, but participants in the gender-transformative approach spoke about farther-reaching and potentially more sustainable gender norm changes. This paper presents qualitative findings on participants' perceptions of change and discusses the implications for implementing community-led, gender-transformative approaches in the agriculture sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the gendered dimensions of family violence is central to preventing violence against women (PVAW). What is seen as more important for Indigenous PVAW programmes, however, is situating gender-based violence within the broader context of colonial violence. In this paper, the significance of this focus is highlighted through a case study of a healing and behavioural change programmefor young Indigenous men within Victoria (Australia). Drawing on the voices of two leading facilitators, the paper examines how this program recognizes and responds to the ongoing impacts of colonisation on the lives of its young Indigenous male participants. It details the significance of safe relations and spaces as requisite for healing the trauma of young Indigenous Australian men towards addressing their perpetuation of gender-based and other forms of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes inspiration from the Indigenous Fijian practice of 'curui' – weaving or patching together – as a metaphor to explore connections between climate justice, gender equality, and education in Fijian policies and practices. The paper argues that neither gender equality nor education can be 'silver bullets' for the huge challenges that the climate crisis raises, particularly for small island developing states (SIDS) such as Fiji that exist at the sharp end of the crisis. The paper contributes close analysis of Fijian national climate change policies and development plans from 2010, identifying the ways in which these policies frame and discuss the connections between climate, gender, and education, and asking whether these policies acknowledge traditional ecological knowledges, and the extent to which they are aligned with notions of justice. It argues that connected approaches to education, centred in Indigenous knowledges and ontologies, have thus far been insufficiently included in Fiji's policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, girls' education has been an increasingly high-profile concern in international development policy. At the same time, there has been a trend towards the greater production and reliance on quantitative data, indicators and targets in national and international education policy. Scholars have raised concerns about the rise of 'performance-based' approaches to accountability in education, and potential counterproductive effects of this for social justice and equality. However, few studies have explored how this trend plays out in practice within international organisations, particularly in relation to the heightened focus on girls' education. This paper explores the implications of the increasing reliance on quantitative measures for policy actors and draws on a set of interviews with key stakeholders working in organisations concerned with gender and education to explore their divergent understandings of accountability processes. The paper concludes by reflecting on the prospects for a transformative approach to measuring gender equality and girls' education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates gender differences in political participation across 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using data from the World Values Survey (2010-2014). A distinction is made between two different participation types, institutional and non-institutional. We use an ordered logit model to evaluate whether the gender gap in both forms is mediated by demographic and attitudinal controls and assess whether variables influencing participation affect men and women differently. We find that most socioeconomic resources and political attitudes are correlated with higher levels of participation. However, the analysis reveals a persistent gender gap that can be generalized to the entire spectrum of engagement in the MENA, with larger gaps for less institutionalized forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines performance differences among demographic groups on the ETS Major Field Test in Business. The study employs the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique to analyze the test score differentials by gender and racial minority status. This technique decomposes the difference into two parts: an endowment effect (or explained portion) and a returns effect (or unexplained portion). The results demonstrate that the endowment effect fully explains the gap between white and racial minority students but virtually none of the gender gap. This large unexplained gap between male and female test performance suggests the need for further study of potential gender bias of the exam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 5 for gender equality by 2030, it is crucial for health and development professionals and governmental officials to understand how legal systems empower or oppress populations on the basis of gender worldwide, including opportunities and challenges of statutory provisions created by legal pluralism. Using Ethiopia as a case study, this paper examines how local laws applied in Sharia and Customary Dispute Resolution courts impact gender equality and the health of women and girls inspite of the inculcation of human rights statutes into national legislation, including the Constitution. We identify several key issues with the substantive law and its enforcement. First, laws which have been instituted at the national level to improve gender equally have been poorly enforced at the local level. Second, there is a sustained enforcement of laws that oppress women and that protect male perpetrators of gender-based violations. Third, local courts limit female representation and uphold patriarchy. To improve the health of women and girls, stakeholders must take into consideration the ways in which legal systems uphold harmful gender norms and obstruct and/or advance progress towards equal representation, opportunities, and constitutionally-mandated protections for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the potential that mediated text can have on expanding Lebanese young people's notions and understandings of sexuality beyond their personal boundaries and the immediate local context to uncover the portrayal of these notions within a global mediated space. It specifically seeks to examine the intersection between Lebanese youth media practices and sexual learning by identifying the extent to which watching the hit Netflix series Sex Education, affected young people's sexual identities, knowledge and practices. Four focus groups, each comprised of six respondents, described the importance of the series in influencing young people's sexual learning and thoughts in a society where sexuality and sexual subjects are taboo. The four main discussion themes that were developed – namely, Open Mindedness: transgression, acceptance and respect; Transformation: life skills and right choices; Gender Equality, Well-being and Health; Reliability/identification and the Need for Trustworthy Connections; and the Need to Re-educate Family and Society about Sex – underscore the importance of the series as a learning tool, the need for the re-introduction of sexual education as part of school curricula in Lebanon, and the re-education of society more generally to help foster healthier sexual lives among young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like many liberal democracies, there is a gender gap in the Australian Parliament. While there has been growing momentum to increase the number of female parliamentarians in the national legislature, the Parliament of Australia continues to be a male dominated domain. This paper investigates the factors that contribute to maintaining the gender gap by focusing on the ambitions of young women to become a member of the national parliament. We find that the appeal of becoming a parliamentarian for young women is significantly curtailed by beliefs that the institution maintains stereotypical gender norms as well as a masculine, and misogynistic, culture. Furthermore, we find that young women believe they lack the skills and confidence required to occupy public office which further diminishes their political ambition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]