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Stories about “Ben10” relationships between older women and their younger male lovers appear regularly in the Daily Sun, South Africa’s most popular tabloid newspaper. Daily Sun readers, who are typically township residents, engage vociferously over the rights and wrongs of such relationships on the tabloid’s Facebook page, and alternatively berate or support the older, working class women who feature in them. These women could be understood as “postfeminist” insofar as they are financially independent and sexually autonomous. Their actions echo those of the independent township women in the mid 20th century who, resisting patriarchal apartheid social engineering, brewed beer and rented rooms in order to assert their financial and sexual independence. In both cases, these women’s bold actions confront local hetero-patriarchal norms and call into question an ideal local patriarchal gender order. However, the meanings that are made by the readers of such women in Ben10 relationships today also reflect a social context characterised by a contestation over the meaning of rights, high rates of unemployment, gender-based violence and HIV, factors that curtail a premature diagnosis of postfeminist identity. Drawing on a textual analysis of several articles and their Facebook comments, we argue that any assessment of postfeminism in southern spaces must account for how historical and contextual factors such as these constrain the reach of global postfeminism.

PurposeThis paper focuses on how gendered processes of working life are (re)constructed and are also challenged discursively in paid and volunteer care and work in reception centers. The purpose of this paper is to show how caring work with asylum seekers can both enhance the traditional gender order and challenge it through enabling men to have opportunities to care.Design/methodology/approachThe data were produced through qualitative interviews among paid workers and volunteers in reception centers, and analyzed through a discourse analysis approach.FindingsThree discourses of care and work were identified: a discourse on solidarity and care; a discourse on control and order; and a discourse on caring men. The findings show that traditional attitudes toward gender are easily discerned in other cultures, but not as easily recognized in the everyday processes near at hand. Gender order is retained through traditional roles, which also reflects conventional attitudes in a society often seen as a model country for equality. However, change is possible, and one core issue is the need to involve men in care work and caring in general.Social implicationsThe findings can be applicable to the deconstruction of traditional gender order in working life; to the disclosure of gendered xenophobia in work with asylum seekers, in particular through dialogue with “Others”; and to the enabling of care by men.Originality/valueLittle previous research has been done on care in reception centers and care as a gendered activity with value. In the future many countries are likely to encounter increases in asylum seekers, and therefore, intersections of gender and ethnicity are of importance in societies as regards migration, work and care.

Peace processes have been slow to recognise women, which is later reflected in the political landscape of the post-conflict society. Researchers have emphasised that the post-conflict setting many times constitutes a greater challenge for women than men as they face more vulnerability and insecurity in forms of domestic violence and being excluded from the formal peace processes. This is the case for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is still facing difficulties both socially, politically and economically due to the civil war at the beginning of the 1990s. For instance, the country is facing major economic difficulties, which have contributed to high unemployment rates which is especially affecting women and the youth. Thereby this study which is based on eight qualitative semi-structured interviews explores how young women with tertiary education in Bosnia and Herzegovina experience their participation in the post-conflict setting, and what out-looks they have on their future in relation to the predominant gender order. Through the thematic analysis and by using a theoretical framework related to “Conflict, Gender, Ethnicity and Post-Conflict Reconstruction” and “gender order” their experiences were analysed. The results of this study show that although the young women experienced that they could participate in society, all of them experienced obstacles related to politics and gender traditional expectations of women. Their outlooks were relatively positive as they recognised several opportunities to fulfil their dreams due to education. Moreover, the majority of them wanted to stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The post-conflict setting is affecting the entire population, however, young women are further affected by the gender order. Ultimately, the patriarchal gender order which is heightened in the post-conflict setting is impacting these young women’s participation and outlooks, which limits their prospects. However, through their participation and how they conduct themselves, they are opposing the place they have been given in the gender order. Fredsprocesser har varit långsamma med att erkänna kvinnor, vilket senare har återspeglats i det politiska landskapet i samhället efter en konflikt. Forskare menar på att tiden efter en konflikt många gånger utgör en större utmaning för kvinnor än för män, eftersom de är mer sårbara och ofta möter olika former av våld i hemmet samt utesluts från de formella fredsprocesserna. Det här är fallet för Bosnien och Hercegovina, som fortfarande står inför svårigheter både socialt, politiskt och ekonomiskt på grund av inbördeskriget i början av 1990-talet. Landet står exempelvis inför stora ekonomiska svårigheter, vilket har bidragit till den höga arbetslösheten som särskilt drabbar kvinnor och ungdomar. Mot bakgrund av det här undersöker studien, som baseras på åtta kvalitativa semi-strukturerade intervjuer, hur unga kvinnor med högre utbildning i Bosnien och Hercegovina upplever sitt deltagande i det post-konfliktsamhälle som de lever i, hur deras framtidssyn ser ut och hur de förhåller sig till den nuvarande genusordningen. Genom tematisk analys och användningen av ett teoretiskt ramverk relaterat till “Konflikt, genus, etnicitet och post-konfliktrekonstruktion” och ”genusordning” analyserades deras erfarenheter. Resultatet av studien visar att de unga kvinnorna upplevde att de kunde delta i samhället men också att de kände vissa hinder, relaterade till politik och de traditionella könsrollerna som finns i samhället. Samtidigt var de ungas syn på framtiden relativt positiv, då de ansåg att det fanns många möjligheter för dem att uppfylla sina drömmar eftersom de hade studerat. Många av dem ville stanna i Bosnien och Hercegovina. Miljön som är i ett post-konfliktsamhälle påverkar hela befolkningen dock är unga kvinnor extra utsatta, då de också är påverkade av den regerande genusordningen. Den nuvarande patriarkala genusordningen som ofta kulminerar i ett post-konfliktsamhälle begränsar de unga kvinnornas deltagande, vilket påverkar deras tankar om framtiden. Dock, genom sitt deltagande och agerande i samhället sätter de sig emot den plats som de har tilldelats i genusordningen.

The work is devoted to the gender analysis of children's games and material for creativity of the Soviet period. The sources used were magazines for children published in the period from the 1920s to the 1980s, such as «Chizh», «Yezh», «Sverchok», «Murzilka», «Pioner», «Yunyy tekhnik» and «Veselyye kartinki». A comparative analysis of this material in different time periods was carried out, taking into account gender attitudes and based on the development of Soviet pedagogical thought.

Although same-sex couples and their offspring have been legitimised in many European countries, heteronormativity is still embedded in institutions and practices, thereby continuing to affect the daily lives of LGBT individuals. Italy represents a clear example of the hegemonic power of heteronormativity because of the fierce opposition to recognising lesbian and gay parenthood among many parts of society. This paper focuses on the peculiarities of the Italian scenario with the aim of highlighting how heteronormativity works in contemporary neoliberal contexts. By drawing on queer and feminist perspectives, the article also analyses how LGBT equal rights demands can contribute, to some extent, to reinforcing heteronormativity. Implications concerning strategies for challenging the regime of normality and queering kinship are discussed.

peer-reviewed Academic capitalism is an outcome of the interplay between neoliberalism, globalisation, markets and universities. Universities have embraced the commercialisation of knowledge, technology transfer and research funding as well as introducing performance and audit practices. Academic capitalism has become internalised as a regulatory mechanism by academics who attempt to accumulate academic capital. Universities are traditionally gendered organisations, reflecting the societal gender order. Despite fears regarding the feminisation of the academy, the embrace of academic capitalism is contributing to its re-masculinisation and exercises an incidental gender effect. Practicing is the means by which the gender order is constituted at work. Three practices in which academics engage are examined as exemplars of the way academics increase their academic capital stock in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) faculties in four European universities, in Bulgaria, Denmark, Ireland and Turkey. These practices tend to be more achievable and likely to be engaged in by men, thus, career practices are the mechanism through which the gender effect of academic capitalism is achieved, academic capitalism perpetuated and the gender order maintained in STEM in academia. peer-reviewed

The article is devoted to the study of linguocultural competences of migrant women from Central Asia in the Republic of Tatarstan. The analyzed materials were obtained using mass sociological survey methods, as well as biographical and semi-structured interviews. On the basis of language skills in Tatar and Russian languages the article studies attitudes of migrant women to the development of language skills, analyzes different speech situations and reveals the influence of linguocultural competences on the nature of their social contacts, which ultimately determines the success of adaptation in the host society Статья посвящена изучению лингвокультурных компетенций женщин-мигрантов из Центральной Азии в Республике Татарстан. Анализируемые материалы были получены с использованием методов массового социологического опроса, а также биографического и полуструктурированного интервью. На основе навыков владения татарским и русским языком рассматриваются установки женщин-мигрантов на развитие языковых навыков, анализируются различные речевые ситуации, выявляется влияние лингвокультурных компетенций на характер их социальных контактов, что в конечном счете определяет успешность адаптации в принимающем обществе

Trots att Sverige anses ha en av världens mest jämställda arbetsmarknader, framställs den som en av världens mest könssegregerade horisontellt och vertikalt. Studien är utförd på BillerudKorsnäs Karlsborg som är ett svenskt skogsindustriföretag som tillverkar både pappersmassa och papper.Jag har i samråd med BillerudKorsnäs fått uppdraget att skildra produktionsoperatörernas upplevelse av jämställdheten och om det finns några organisatoriska förklaringar till att könsfördelningen ser ut som den gör. Syftet med studien är att undersöka och analysera hur könsmönster och kön skapas, upprätthålls och förändras inom produktionen med hjälp av frågeställningarna;Vilka föreställningar om kön uttrycker intervjupersonerna? Vilken betydelse ser intervjupersonerna att kön har för arbetsplatsen idag? Om och på vilket sätt åskådliggörs tecken på könsmönstrens förändring? En kvalitativ metod är använd med semistrukturerade intervjuer som insamlingsmetod av empirin. Det teoretiska ramverket utgörs av West och Zimmermans (1987) teori om att göra kön samt Ackers (1990) teori om kön och organisationer. Resultatet visar att könsmönster och kön inom produktionen inte upplevs ha någon betydelse för arbetsplatsen. Förklaringarna ligger i att arbetet inte längre anses vara fysiskt tungt och därför kan utföras av både män och kvinnor. Trots detta framkommer det att uppfattningar om skillnader mellan kvinnor och män förekommer, att kvinnor och män är olika,där skillnaderna till stor del handlar om vad kvinnor och mäns egenskaper anses bidra med till arbetsplatsen. Kvinnor anses bland annat vara noggranna til lsin natur vilket ger en indikation på att männen inte skulle vara det.Resultatet visar även att förklaringarna både förvisas ut i det omgivande samhället och in i organisationen. Resultatet visar således att den sociala konstruktionen av kön och dess könsmärkning i och utanför organisationen ligger till grund för den låga andelen kvinnor inom produktionen. Although Sweden is considered to have one of the world's most equal labor markets, it is presented as one of the world's most gender-segregated horizontally and vertically. This study is carried out at BillerudKorsnäs Karlsborg, which is a Swedish forest industry company that manufactures both pulp and paper. In consultation with BillerudKorsnäs, I have been commissioned to describe the production operators' experience of gender equality and whether there are any organizational explanations for the gender distribution as it does. The purpose of the study is to examine and analyze how gender patterns and gender are created, maintained and changed within production using the issues; What notions of gender express the interviewees? What significance do the interviewees see that the gender has for the workplace today? If and in what way are signs of the change in gender pattern illustrated? A qualitative method is used with semi-structured interviews as a method of collecting the empirical data. The theoretical framework consists of West and Zimmerman's (1987) theory of making gender and Acker's (1990) theory of gender and organizations. The result shows that gender patterns and gender in production are not felt to have any significance for the workplace. The explanations lie in the fact that the work is no longer considered physically heavy and can therefore be carried out by both men and women. Despite this, it appears that perceptions of differences between women and men occur, that women and men are different, where the differences are largely about what women and men's properties are considered to contribute to the workplace. Women are considered to be accurate in nature, which gives an indication that the men would not. The result also shows that the explanations are both exiled in the surrounding society and into the organization. The result thus shows that the social construction of the sex and its gender labeling in and outside the organization forms the basis for the low proportion of women in production.

It seems that the above comment about Alice in Wonderland could equally apply to the young women and girls whose stories have populated this book. With her long golden hair and pretty blue dress, the fictional Alice appears as the embodiment of childhood innocence and Victorian girlhood. As we have seen in the preceding chapters, that idealist image has not been totally squelched, although it possibly lives on in the minds of policy makers and service providers as an adult construction of girl rather more vibrantly than in the girls themselves. But that’s not the whole story of Alice. She is also an explorer to whom it falls to engage with the rules and concerns of adults and peers in her present world and with all of the inherent contradictions, logics, and performativities she confronts in the different zones into which she travels. And her energy and effort in trying to accommodate to these rules and to recognize cultural patterns and achieve some sort of sense of herself as belonging are also recognizably at play in the world of girls today.

In this book, we look at the ways current girls and young women are responding to the unprecedented transformation of women’s lives from the traditional roles of earlier times to the still largely uncharted waters of the twenty-first century. We begin with a sketch of the situation.

Activists in feminist, queer, and trans movements share in common a critique of the existing gender order. Yet activists may have different understandings of what is wrong with existing gender arrangements, and different understandings of what might be required to establish greater social equality. Using data from interviews with activists in the feminist, queer, and trans movements in Iceland, this article looks at the ways that gender equality and the gender binary are understood by individuals who identify with feminist, queer, and/or trans activism, and some of their shared and conflicting critiques of the existing gender order.

Hegemonic gender role is specific configuration of different gender performances and practices that represents socially accepted answer on concrete (economic, political and social) circumstances within given society in particular historical moment. Analytical insight into their content and direction of change could provide us better understanding of other social structures and aspects of social life of society/ culture/sub cultural community/social group within which hegemonic gender role has been formulated and practicized. In that sense this research shell try to recognize them as a legitimate source of data about societal process of structural transformation of Serbian society during the last two decades.

This thesis explores the scope for children’s voices offered to children in court mandated investigations regarding custody, residence or contact. The focus is on children who have been exposed to their father’s violence against their mother The aim is to study how the legislators’ intentions concerning children’s participation in this area are implemented in work groups. The assumption is that implementation can be seen as collective learning. Implementation may in this case challenge established relations of power like age and gender orders. Professional discourses on violence have to shift from gender neutral to gendered discourses and discourses on children have to include a participation discourse. Learning which includes a shift in discourses and challenges established power relations is defined as radical learning.The approach is social constructionist and draws on group interviews with social workers specialized in family law.The thesis analyses which discourses of violence and of children are accessible and used at group level. This can be seen as a discursive opportunity structure. The discourses in question are: gender violence, child protection, treatment and family law discourses as well as care and participation discourses. The conclusion is that all these discourses are accessible to the professionals and the effects of the different discourses are discussed regarding the possibilities for creating a safe situation for mother and child during the investigation.The thesis furthermore analyses the organisation of the work groups. These characteristics can be seen as an organisational opportunity structure. The analysis shows different patterns in the groups when it comes to structure and stage of learning process. One group seems to be at the stage where the members are prepared to start talking to the child about the father’s violence.The final chapter presents a discussion of radical learning and the possibilities for radical social change when established power relations are challenged.

This thesis elicits logic of gender and sexuality from modern written material on psychiatric assessment of transsexualism in Sweden. Asymmetries of gender and sexuality with regard to females vs. males are analysed. In two empirical parts, depictions of female-to-male (FTM) compared to male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals are schematically investigated. In analysing the various aspects involved in gender passing vs. gender crossing, a cross-marking between the realms of gender and body is proposed, suggesting asymmetrical accesses to cross-gender representations for females vs. males, as well as analysing the different strategies necessary for gender passing regarding FTMs and MTFs. Furthermore, this thesis focuses on the sex/gender distinction being empirically conceptualised within the context of psychiatric assessment of transsexualism. It is argued that the subtle but salient asymmetry in the empirical application of the sex/gender distinction is schematically in line with results from earlier psychometric femininity-masculinity tests, in that only passivity-as-femininity in the male invert proved a measurable entity, while the masculinity of the female invert/FTM proved non-measurable. In addition, primary transsexualism’s historical affinity with category of sexual inversion is focused on. The importance of the concepts of activity and passivity in ascribing and granting meaning to (cross-)gender masculinity and femininity in this paradigm is focused on and extended into an analysis of contemporary applications of these concepts. Additional psychiatric taxonomical work is also analysed, such as the separating of gender from sexuality through differential diagnosis, producing the categories of transvestic fetishism and effeminate homosexuality for males. This taxonomic separation does however not seemingly involve the FTM transsexual. Finally, it is suggested that the fe/male asymmetries regarding body, gender and sexuality mapped in this material can be further contextualised through an overlay of the gender and sexuality logic employed in the one-sex and two-sex models, as laid out by historians.