This paper examines the ways Israeli law differentiates betweensingle and married women. The first section explores the littlewe know of single women and single mothers' realities. The secondsection analyses Israeli laws related to military service,housing assistance, homemakers' status in the social securitysystem, ways of becoming a mother, and public support formothers. The legal analysis reveals complex distinctions betweensingle and married women ranging from ignoring single women whenthey have no children and encouraging them to marry, (...) toambivalence towards single women who want to conceive, and ontosubstantial public support for single women who are alreadymothers. The article points to directions of change needed so thelaw will adequately address single women's choices and needs. (shrink)

There is a respectable feminist tradition in utopian thought. Dreams and fantasies about gender-equal, women-friendly or female-dominated worlds have been formulated abundantly. However, utopian thinking has also met with severe criticism. By definition, utopias were said to be too idealistic, and of little use in the process of societal change. More recently, it has been stressed that the concept of utopia has been superseded by postmodern awareness, in which general explanations of gender inequality (and, along with them, general utopian (...) views) are disqualified to the benefit of more local and more specific theories. In this book, the reader will find not one general, broadly defined utopia, but instead, a wide array of more or less specific, feminist utopias. Utopias are viewed as preliminary and imaginary goals from which present situations can be revalued and from which strategies for change can be developed. As such, utopias have not lost their significance. (shrink)

The aim and objective of this study is to analyse the causes of domestic violence against married women in Pakistan providing a complete picture of understanding on the phenomenon. This study was conducted in Safoora Goth, Karachi one of the oldest residential centre of Karachi where all local ethnic groups and class of people are inhabited. The factors included in the study were various reasons of domestic violence, nature of domestic violence, types of domestic violence, separation, and feeling (...) of deprivation, husband drug addiction, partner violence, family system, family economic, ages of women and all other such related causes regarding domestic violence. The universe of the study was Safoora Goth, Karachi. The calculated sample size was 313 respondents in which researcher selected simple random sampling technique. The tool for the data collection was a questionnaire. Hypotheses were tested statistically among 5 hypotheses all have gotten accepted and showed the result as there are various causes of domestic violence. Thus, the researcher concluded that family system, family income and husband drug addiction are related to the domestic violence in a great deal. (shrink)

Unmarried and childless women are frequently portrayed negatively in society. Social storytelling often renders them discriminated against, or in extreme cases, outcast by their kin or clan. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with never married women to explore the concept of femininity, constructions of identity in daily-life, identity changes over time, marital status, and the interaction between having not married and womanhood. Data specifically relating to self-definitions of femininity and marital status concentrate on the speakers’ constructions (...) of themselves as both the subject (powerful) and the object (powerless) of their own reflective enquiry. Four key themes emerged through the analysis: ‘Being Never Married’; ‘Society’s Perceptions’; ‘Being Feminine’; and ‘The Self and Transitions’. This study facilitates understanding of never married women’s relationship with themselves, their gender identity, and marital status; and is key to understanding how this population discusses their marginalisation in society. (shrink)

Inscrites dans la législation sur la nationalité de nombreux États au cours du xixe siècle, les discriminations de sexe concernant la transmission, l’acquisition ou la conservation de la nationalité, en particulier la dépendance de l’épouse à l’égard de la nationalité de son mari, suscitent des protestations de la part de groupes internationaux de femmes dès le début du xxe siècle. Au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale, dans un contexte marqué par le nationalisme et l’acquisition du suffrage pour les femmes (...) dans de nombreux pays, le débat s’internationalise. Cet article analyse, à l’échelle internationale, les arguments des différents protagonistes de ce débat qui réactive la ligne de tension entre individualisme et familialisme et constitue l’occasion d’une reformulation des contours de la citoyenneté des femmes. (shrink)

Considering the importance of complying medical and general ethics and the lack of a study on determining ethical considerations in the communication network of women undergoing hysterectomy surgery, this study aimed to present these aspects in the patients’ lives by a standard researcher-made instrument. This mixed method analysis (exploratory sequential mixed methods design was conducted in the whole of 2020 to create the “ethical considerations in communication network of women undergone hysterectomy” questionnaire and investigate its psychometric properties. A (...) researched-made instrument was validated and its psychometric properties were checked among 218 women by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Accordingly, the 8 factors extracted included “complying ethical consideration by the physician (a)”, “complying ethical consideration by medical team (b)”, “complying ethical consideration in the hospital (c)”, “complying ethical consideration by the secretory in the clinic (d)”, “complying ethical consideration by the spouse (e)”, and “complying ethical consideration by the family and friends (f)”, “complying ethical consideration by the media and society (g)” and “complying ethical consideration by herself (h)”. The results of Cronbach’s alpha test showed that there is moderate to good internal consistency in all dimensions. Cronbach’s alpha for the whole questionnaire was calculated as 0.75, which shows that the internal consistency is at a good level. According to the results of this study, the reliability (internal consistency) and construct validity of the ethical considerations in the communication network of women undergoing hysterectomy questionnaire were confirmed. However, in light of the study limitations, caution should be practiced in the interpretation of the results. There is a need for further longitudinal studies in multiple settings using random sampling methods. (shrink)

Little is known about the lives of the never married. Demographic data show that rates of nonmarriage have increased significantly across racial and ethnic groups. Among women, African Americans have the highest rates of nonmarriage, followed by Asian Americans and European Americans. This research used in-depth interviews with native- and foreign-born Chinese American and Japanese American never married women to explore why these women are delaying or rejecting heterosexual marriage. Respondents were asked a series of (...) open- and closed-ended questions about their attitudes, experiences, and decisions concerning marriage and family life. Questions also focused on how their family backgrounds and occupational plans affected their decisions to marry. Preliminary findings reveal that Chinese American and Japanese American women express a number of reasons for being never married. The four most consistent factors were their parents' marriages, their status as the eldest or only daughter, their educational goals, and the perceived lack of suitors. (shrink)

This article examines popular discourses of women's sexuality in 1920s England and argues that sex manuals like Marie Stopes's Married Life and sex novels like E.M. Hull's The Sheik, despite their adherence to status quo values, were liberating for women through their affirmation of women's sexual subjectivity. Stopes's enormously popular book contributed strongly to a new understanding of women's sexual drives as natural and autonomous. The changing attitudes were reflected in the numbers of postwar (...) class='Hi'>women who actively participated in the creation and consumption of popular sex-novels and films, exercising both economic and sexual freedoms at once. This article focusses on the film version of The Sheik, which experienced great success as part of this growing leisure market catering specifically to women's desire, and in particular on the figure of Rudolph Valentino as a “woman-made” man. The film's “crossed” representations of sexuality (the emancipated “flapper” and the effeminate yet virile “sheik”) challenged traditional notions of femininity and masculinity, and in doing so, were liberating for women consumers at the same time that they threatened the sexual identities of men. (shrink)

This paper presents an overlapping generations household model with positive assortative matching, incomplete information about partner’s type and a gender pay gap on the labor market. In equilibrium, a gender pay gap creates an excess supply of desirable husbands and women marry early to increase their chance of being matched with an ideal partner, which results in a gender age gap on the marriage market. A modified model with asymmetric information yields a similar result. An extended model where individuals (...) have an option to remain single yields a similar result as well. (shrink)

A woman’s lack of or limited reproductive autonomy could lead to adverse health effects, feeling of being inferior, and above all being unable to adequately care for her children. Little is known about the reproductive autonomy of married Ikwerre women of Rivers State, Nigeria. This study demonstrates how Ikwerre women understand the terms autonomy and reproductive rights and what affects the exercise of these rights. An exploratory research design was employed for this study. A semi-structured interview schedule (...) was used to conduct thirty-four in-depth interviews and six focus group discussions with purposively sampled educated, semi-educated, and uneducated Ikwerre women in monogamous or polygynous marriages. The collected data was analysed qualitatively with MAXQDA 11 using open and axial coding. The interviews and focus group responses reveal a low level of awareness of autonomy and reproductive rights amongst the Ikwerre women in Nigeria. While some educated women were aware of their reproductive rights, cultural practices were reported to limit the exercise of these rights. Participants reported that Ikwerre culture is a patriarchal one where married women are expected to submit and obey their husbands in all matters; and a good married woman according to Ikwerre standard is one who complies with this culture. Women’s refusal of sexual advances from their husbands is described as not being acceptable in this culture; and hence rape in marriage is not recognized in Ikwerre culture. Education and awareness creation on the importance of women’s reproductive autonomy could improve their reproductive rights and autonomy in marital settings. Overcoming the patriarchal aspects of Ikwerre culture—for example, the greater value placed on male children than female children and treating women as incompetent individuals—is necessary to promote gender equality as well as help improve women’s reproductive autonomy. (shrink)

Although robust sex differences are abundant in men and women’s mating psychology, there is a considerable degree of overlap between the two as well. In an effort to understand where and when this overlap exists, the current study provides an exploration of within-sex variation in women’s mate preferences. We hypothesized that women’s intelligence, given an environment where women can use that intelligence to attain educational and career opportunities, would be: (1) positively related to their willingness to (...) engage in short-term sexual relationships, (2) negatively related to their desire for qualities in a partner that indicated wealth and status, and (3) negatively related to their endorsement of traditional gender roles in romantic relationships. These predictions were supported. Results suggest that intelligence may be one important individual difference influencing women’s mate preferences. (shrink)

The extraction of a pecuniary penalty for the recusancy of married women was a heavily contested issue in the Parliament of Elizabeth. Under the rules of coverture, married women controlled no property. It was thus ineffective to fine them, for they were unable to pay the penalty. As a result, the government attempted to hold husbands responsible for the penalties of their wives through the use of recognizances under the auspices of the Commissions for Causes Ecclesiastical, (...) a prerogative court. Research into the York Commission’s use of recognizances indicated that it had indeed been possible legitimately and legally to obtain a pecuniary penalty for the recusancy of a married woman by the 1570s. This was generally believed to have been legally impossible until they became obtainable by statute in 1593. Detailed examination of the records of the Commission indicates clearly that the depiction in the scholarly literature of the levying of these penalties as somehow improper or even illegal is erroneous. These forfeitures might have seemed irregular, but were indeed legitimate and obtained by proper and legal means in the context of contemporary standards of authority and control, both governmental and familial. This study demonstrates how respect for the standards of coverture, patriarchy, and marital obligations incorporated in the use of the recognizance provided a highly effective and legal means to penalise and correct both recusant wives and their husbands. (shrink)

Moderating effects of religiousness and spirituality on the relations between sexual and non-sexual dyadic communication with sexual and marital satisfaction were examined. Three hundred forty-two married Jewish women responded to self-report measures. Religiousness moderated the relations between both sexual and non-sexual communication with marital satisfaction—for the less religious these relations were stronger in comparison with the more religious—but not with sexual satisfaction. Sexual communication had a unique contribution to the prediction of sexual satisfaction while both types of communication (...) demonstrated unique contributions to the prediction of marital satisfaction. The implications of these findings on the role of dyadic communication in relational satisfaction and the meaning of sexual and marital satisfaction for the more and less religious are discussed. (shrink)

Feminist thought characterizes women's sexuality as both a source of freedom and a source of exploitation. Central to the feminist research agenda on women's sexuality is the analysis of strategies that women use to increase their sexual autonomy and reduce their sexual constraints. One such strategy is the sexual liaison between single women and married men. In this article, liaisons between single women and married men are examined from the perspective of the single (...) woman. Data come from intensive interviews with 65 single women who have been or are involved with a married man. Gender norms play a significant role in transforming a platonic relationship into a sexual one, but once a liaison is established those norms can be curtailed. In these liaisons, single women experience greater control over their sexuality than they do in socially approved relationships because they feel freer to repudiate their sexual repressions, to abstain, to have safe sex, and to explore their sexual preferences. The article concludes with a discussion of these liaisons as strategies women adopt to achieve sexual autonomy within the constraints of androcentric institutions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to the UNICEF report entitled ‘Ending Child Marriage: Progress and Prospects’, there are 700 million women who were married as children, and 280 million girls are at risk of becoming child brides. In Turkey, according to the reports written by feminist organisations 1 in 3 marriages there is a child. These figures are alarming and signal the need for further and urgent research in the field. In 2016 I made my first ever film entitled Growing Up (...) class='Hi'>Married. The film explores what happens after child marriage by focusing on the stories of four women from Turkey and making their experiences visible and audible, in an attempt to contribute to and advance debates around this significant, complex and emotionally charged human rights issue which has often been discursively silenced. Working on a documentary film on forced marriage in Turkey poses challenges to me as a UK-trained and based academic, who focuses on theories around feminism and media rather than filmmaking practice. In this article, I critically reflect upon the process of making a documentary film, and theories around interviewing women to examine the tensions inherent within representing forced marriage on screen. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 13 Stephanie Yingyi Wang When Tongzhi Marry: Experiments of Cooperative Marriage between Lalas and Gay Men in Urban China Ang Lee’s film The Wedding Banquet could be classic introductory material for tongzhi studies and, particularly, for research on cooperative marriage.1 In the film, Wai-Tung, a Taiwanese landlord who lives happily with his American boyfriend Simon in New York, (...) is troubled by his parents’ constant efforts to try and find him a bride. His partner Simon suggests he could arrange a marriage of convenience with WaiTung ’s tenant Wei Wei who is from mainland China and is also in need of a green card to stay in the United States. However, their plan backfires when Wai-Tung’s enthusiastic parents arrive in the United States and plan a big wedding banquet. As the film critic and scholar Chris 1. Tongzhi, literally “same purpose,” is the Chinese term for “comrade.” Since the 1990s, it has been appropriated to replace the more formal tóngxìnglìan (same-sex love) to refer to gay men and lalas (same-sex desiring women) in the Chinese-speaking world. The translation of xinghun as “cooperative marriage” is debatable, as xinghun literally means “pro-forma marriage.” In other works, “contract marriage,” “fake marriage,” or “pro-forma marriage” are used to refer to gay-lala marriage. Informed by Lucetta Kam’s work, I use “cooperative marriage ” to highlight that such marriage is not merely functional without sustenance, but is contingent on the cooperation and negotiation between multiple parties in the relationship, as my findings suggest. See Lucetta Yip Lo Kam, Shanghai Lalas: Female Tongzhi Communities and Politics in Urban China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 85. winner of the 2018 Feminist Studies Graduate Student award 14 Stephanie Yingyi Wang Berry points out, analysis of the film rests not on any individual, but on the Confucian family as “it negotiates the interface with globally hegemonic American culture,” suggesting that there exists an understanding of gayness in the context of the family that is distinct in Chinese culture.2 Berry continues to argue that the moral ambivalence produced by the film is structured by different sets of values: the gay person is not merely concerned about individual identity fulfillment, but he also adjusts his actions to satisfy the family expectation; the parents, especially the father figure, is not merely a patriarch with strict moral provisions and standards, but someone who can allow for implicit negotiation to keep the surface harmony as long as he gets a grandson; the woman is not merely an independent agent freed from social constraints, but a bride who is also attached to emotional comfort and conjugal ideals. Just as The Wedding Banquet tactfully reveals one type of cooperative marriage with its mutual benefits and examines the multilayered complexity of each individual player in the marriage game, this research takes as its subject cooperative marriage between gay men and lalas as an exciting departure to understand queer subjectivities and queer kinship intersected with gender, sexuality, class, and tongzhi politics in urban China.3 Though seemingly monolithic, marriage and family have become contested terrains for tongzhi to negotiate their gender performance, queer desires, and aspirations for better lives. The transnational makings of gayness and rights-based identity politics have contributed to the increasing awareness of a cosmopolitan gay identity and the desiring of alternative life choices of Chinese tongzhi, which lays the very foundation of their motivation to seek ways to cope with the heteronormative family model. Coming out and gay marriage are upheld as primary tropes of identity politics, facilitated by the self-identified tongzhi grassroots groups that emerged during the initiation of AIDS work in 1994 for gay men and at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, which gathered hundreds of lesbians from around the world in Beijing.4 How2. Chris Berry, “Wedding Banquet: A Family (Melodrama) Affair,” in his Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes (London: British Film Institute, 2003), 183. 3. Lala is a slang term in China for same-sex desiring women and includes lesbian, bisexual, and trans women. 4. Katie King, “‘There Are No... (shrink)

This analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households confirmed earlier findings: Much of the violence between married partners occurred in couples in which both partners were reported as perpetrators, and women as well as men committed violent acts in married couples. However, the NSFH data indicated that the probabilities of injury for male and female respondents differed significantly, with wives more likely to be injured than husbands. The NSFH differentiated between violent acts and injurious outcomes (...) and provided an empirical rebuttal of the “battered husband syndrome.” At the same time, the NSFH reproduced many of the problems of quantitative surveys as they are currently used to measure the incidence and consequences of intimate violence. The article discusses the major problems with both the content and the context of currently employed survey methodology, as exemplified by the NSFH. (shrink)

본 연구의 목적은 결혼이주여성의 이혼 원인에 대한 기존 연구와 상담을 활용한 사례연구를 통해 결혼이주여성에 대한 다문화교육의 방향과 내용을 제시하고자 하였다. 기존의 연구에서 밝혀진 결혼이주여성의 주요 이혼원인은 성격차이, 경제적 무능력, 음주 및 도박, 배우자 가족과의 갈등 등이었으며, 본 연구에서 결혼이주여성의 이혼상담 사례를 통해 밝혀진 주요 이혼 및 갈등원인은 성격차이와 배우자 가족과의 갈등이었다. 그러나 결혼이주여성들을 대상으로 우리 사회에서 수행되고 있는 다문화교육은 그 내용과 방향이 결혼이주여성의 한국 사회 정착에 초점이 맞추어져 있어 이들의 가족 내 갈등을 해결하기에는 다소 무리가 있어 보인다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 (...) 결혼이주여성의 이혼 요인을 기초로 하여 다음과 같은 다문화교육의 방향과 내용을 제시하였다. 첫째, 국제결혼에 대한 다문화교육의 선제적 접근이 필요하다. 우리 사회에서 국제결혼 이전에 시행되고 있는 다문화교육을 국제결혼 당사자들뿐만 아니라 시부모 등을 포함한 다문화가족 구성원에 대해 확대 실시하고 다양한 교육 프로그램을 마련할 필요성이 있다. 둘째, 개별성에 기초한 다문화교육을 실시할 필요가 있다. 다문화가족의 개별 구성원에 대한 교육을 의무화하고 개별적 다문화가족에 대한 다문화교육을 실시할 필요가 있다. 셋째, 다문화 사회․가족 윤리의 재정립을 통한 다문화교육을 실시할 필요가 있다. (shrink)

_Misapprehensions of culture and religion are used for the early marriages of women in Pakistan, which generates few significant challenges for women to pursue their higher education. The present study identifies such challenges for married women in higher education. These challenges are relevant to women’s post-marriage lifespan in rural Pakistan. Building upon Fredrickson’s (2001) and Hobfoll’s (2001) theories focused on post marriages issues, the study has developed open-ended questions for collecting in-depth information. Therefore, 43 in-depth (...) interviews with married women were conducted and through qualitative data analysis using NVIVO software, the study has highlighted that early marriages of girls have become a cultural norm, and education priorities of the girls are insignificant for parents to decide the marriage date. Married women pursuing education at marriage do not get any support from husbands and in-laws as the patriarchal norms prohibit women from stepping out from home. In these circumstances, women may get subject to the victim of many unlawful practices, including intimate partner violence (IPV). Thus, the present study findings imply that married women's participation in higher education is negligible due to weak legislation on women’s rights and strong illegitimate tribal practices._. (shrink)

Sex matters. How men and women regard sex and bond sexually powerfully shapes the lifeworld. Sex is one of the major forces that influence a society and its background taken-for-granted norms. This chapter explores the ways in which the now dominant Western secular culture has generally deflated and demoralized the significance of sexual activity. Differences in preferred sexual activities are, according to this secular culture, to be appreciated as morally neutral lifestyle choices provided that they are consensual and affirm (...) the “dignity” of the parties involved. As I argue, the dominant secular culture seeks to place consensual sexual acts, of which the use of sex robots is just one additional example, beyond moral judgment, further isolating individuals from the rich social connections of traditional family life, thereby transforming the family and advancing the secularization of society. (shrink)

Individuals in dating and marital relationships experience various transgressions that require forgiveness (e.g., hurtful communication, mistrust, lies, or infidelity). This study examines forgiveness-granting strategies in the context of forgiveness tendency, relationship length, commitment, satisfaction, and relational consequences to better understand relationship dynamics. 649 individuals (532 dating, 117 married), aged 18–65 (M = 26.00, SD = 8.82) participated. The sample included 517 women (79.7 %) and 132 men (20.3 %). Participants described a forgiven transgression and completed questionnaires, including the (...) Multidimensional Forgiveness-Granting Scale (MFGS), Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18), Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS), and the commitment subscale from the Investment Model Scale. One open-ended question (types of forgiven transgressions) was analyzed consensually. Quantitative data were analyzed using correlational analysis, regression analysis, and t-tests. The most common transgression was infidelity. A linear regression analysis showed that the strongest positive predictor of relationship satisfaction was the tendency to forgive one’s partner. Nonverbal displays positively predicted relationship strengthening, while the discussion strategy predicted relationship deterioration negatively. These findings emphasize the importance of how forgiveness is communicated and may inform interventions to enhance romantic relationships. (shrink)

Widowhood is common in old age, can be accompanied by serious health consequences and is often linked to substantial changes in social network. Little is known about the impact of social isolation on the development of depressive symptoms over time taking widowhood into account. We provide results from the follow-up 5 to follow-up 9 from the longitudinal study AgeCoDe and its follow-up study AgeQualiDe. Depression was measured with GDS-15 and social isolation was assessed using the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6). (...) The group was aligned of married and widowed people in old age and education through entropy balancing. Linear mixed models were used to examine the frequency of occurrence of depressive symptoms for widowed and married elderly people depending on the risk of social isolation. Our study shows that widowhood alone does not lead to an increased occurrence of depressive symptoms. However, "widowed oldest old", who are also at risk of social isolation, have significantly more depressive symptoms than those without risk. In the group of "married oldest old", women have significantly more depressive symptoms than men, but isolated and non-isolated do not differ. Especially for people who have lost a spouse, the social network changes significantly and increases the risk for social isolation. This represents a risk factor for the occurrence of depressive symptoms. (shrink)

The musha mukadzi (Shona) or umuzi ngumama (Ndebele) is an African gendered philosophy that means women make up the home. This philosophy has been researched in African traditional religions (ATRs) and is interrogated from interdisciplinary angles in academia. African feminist research has highlighted how this philosophy can be derogatory, stereotyped and oppressive to women if it is naïvely used in domestic contexts. As a result, contemporary African feminists and gender scholars attempt to expose both the liberative and oppressive (...) nature of this philosophy. This study seeks to interrogate how women from the grassroots understand this philosophy. It draws from in-depth interviews with women from Zimunya, Mutare, in Zimbabwe who describe this philosophy as a resource for sustainable livelihoods. Methods used to collect data involved in-depth interviews from a sample of 10 women whose ages ranged from 35 to 50 years. The findings highlight that for both single and married women in Zimunya, the musha mukadzi or umuzi ngumama philosophy has empowering traits that enhance women’s agency and sustainable livelihoods in the domestic household. They describe how this philosophy has empowered them to initiate income-generating projects that include rearing of poultry (road runners), membership to a sewing club, selling dried traditional foods and money savings ( mikando ). Contributions: This article explores an African gendered philosophy, musha mukadzi or umuzi ngumama [women make the home], and how this has been used as a resource by women in sustaining livelihoods. (shrink)

This study analyzes 400 minutes of natural conversations between Korean married women and investigates their interactions with focus on their use of address terms to index closeness. In particular, it examines the emergence of the female solidarity term caki ‘you’, and demonstrates solidarity’s entailment of power. Traditionally, Korean women with children have been addressed by reference to their children’s names even by her friends. Caki, which allows friends to directly address each other, has become a popular alternative, (...) indicating solidarity. In addition, contrary to their traditional dismissal as gossip, Korean mothers’ conversations and networks have become a socially recognized form of power, called the ‘Married Women’s Network’, for sharing valuable information, particularly on children’s education. Therefore, women’s use of the solidarity term caki may also be motivated by a power factor to stay integrated in the mothers’ network, demonstrating Tannen’s ‘paradox of power and solidarity’. (shrink)

Discourses often uncover underlying social boundaries related to concepts such as ethnicity, gender and religion. By applying an intersectional approach, this article shows how the gendering of ethno-religious boundaries is central in the narratives of parents of Belgian, Italian and Moroccan origin, living in Flanders, Belgium. These processes are extremely salient when discourses on partner choice are discussed, as is the focal point in the current study. The construction of boundaries and identities are deeply influenced by dominant social representations. The (...) results show how the construction and justification of boundaries can also have restrictive consequences for individuals. Parents want to restrict daughters for their own good, and exogamy seems to be the prerogative of sons. (shrink)

Recent feminist literature has begun to call attention to the diverse linkages between work and family, including the extensive work married women often do for their husbands' careers. Using a longitudinal sample of American women born around 1910, this study employs quantitative and qualitative data to compare different aspects of wives' support and to develop an understanding of how women of their generation constructed their involvement. The authors begin their analysis by comparing wives' support across husbands' (...) occupations and then examining differences in activities and the ways in which women describe their relationships to their husbands' work. They find considerable variation in the way women constructed their relationships to husbands' careers. The evidence suggests that women who provided services directly related to their husbands' work may have been the most satisfied with their involvement. (shrink)

Feminist writings often argue that the welfare state, like the society that underpins it, is patriarchical, and that a major overhaul of policy is necessary in the quest for gender equality. This is possibly a valid claim, if not for all welfare states, then at least for some. The very same objective would, nevertheless, appear additionally persuasive if women-friendly policy can be shown to improve not only the welfare of women, but of all. In this article I shall (...) attempt to demonstrate that the feminist case need not be based on the narrower cause of women's emancipation because improving women's welfare will, simultaneously, improve upon societal welfare. Or, to put it differently, gender equality is potentially a substantial Pareto improvement in so far as women are emerging as the axial principle of any positive welfare equilibrium for post-industrial society. The post-war welfare equilibrium was built around the male breadwinner's earnings and job security, coupled to the family's internalization of caring needs. The “standard production worker” cum male breadwinner became the normative guideline for institution-building. Be it the full employment commitment, collective bargaining, labour market regulation, or social protection, all were primarily designed to safeguard his job, earnings capacity, and social entitlements. His security was assumed to deliver universal security. The male breadwinner constituted the nexus between economy and family, between production and consumption. As research has shown, women's economic dependence on men was near absolute in the post-war decades. This dependency was doubly reinforced because few married women worked and if they did, their wages were typically low. (shrink)

Life among most African families and communities revolves around women. In both African religion and culture, women’s lives oscillate between two opposite extremes of being at the centre and periphery at the same time. Women are both the healers and the often wounded by the system that respects them when there are problems and displaces them whenever there are opportunities. Their central role is expressed by a Shona proverb musha mukadzi (the home is a woman). This proverb (...) expresses how women endure the pain of both religion and culture to create a decent society. Women also endure the pain of pandemics such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and COVID-19 and at times succumb to the same while taking care of some family members who would have fallen victim to the epidemic. Countless married women have been made susceptible to HIV and AIDS as they try to live according to the African cultural dictates of mothering and/or motherhood. Other women and girls also contract the disease because of how religion and culture exert them to some unbearable circumstances. For example, women and girls nurse their ill relatives without protective equipment and clothing. At times they are abused by men because of some cultural beliefs that unprotected sex is a remedy for HIV and AIDS. In addition, most women and girls were also victims of COVID-19 while serving their family members. In doing all the good work to serve families, women are driven by the proverb musha mukadzi. Using desk research methodology, this paper argues that musha mukadzi is both a toolkit for women’s resilience to endure pandemics and at the same time a subtly oppressive statement often used to manipulate and abuse women to stand in places that are too difficult for their capabilities. Contribution: African women bear the brunt of pandemic burdens such as HIV, AIDS and COVID-19. Sometimes they become susceptible to the same while taking care of their family members affected by pandemics in the name of fulfilling the Shona proverb, musha mukadzi. The topic has contributed to the scope of the journal as it advocates to inculcate a peaceful society. The article also challenges African societies not to use musha mukadzi to ill-treat women as objects of African religio-cultural patriarchal ideology. (shrink)

In this article the author argues that indigenous Bemba women of Zambia used their culture of symbolic communication for marital sex agency. African women are often portrayed as not having agency and negotiating power when it comes to sex whether in marital or casual relationships. However, through imbusa teachings, Bemba women of Zambia had the negotiating power and agency over their sexual desires using indigenous beads as a marital communication tool before Christianity, interaction with various cultures, and (...) colonial activity infiltrated the institution of imbusa. Missionaries were consistently and insistently invading the space of imbusa claiming the need to be made aware of what was being taught. Missionaries claimed that they wanted to prepare a manual for new arriving priests so that they would include Christianity to the teachings in order to teach the Bemba women Christian ways of marriage. As a result, much of the indigenous imbusa teaching was portrayed as demonic and Bemba women needed to disregard them in order to be Christian married women. Using symbolic interactionism, this article will demonstrate the teachings of imbusa that gave Bemba women agency to express and negotiate their sexual desires in marriage. Bemba women had a ritual of hanging beads on the wall or placing them on the bed at certain times in their marriage. For instance, when they were menstruating, they hung red beads which was to communicate that they were not available for sexual relations.Contribution: This article contributes to the African indigenous cultural understandings and positions held by indigenous women prior to their interactions with diverse cultures and religious views. Contemporary indigenous women can leverage some positive feminist approaches from within the culture. (shrink)

Summary Recent research has highlighted the risk of HIV infection for married teenage women compared with their unmarried counterparts (Clark, 2004). This study assesses whether a relationship exists, for women who have completed their adolescence (age 20–29 years), between HIV status with age at first marriage and the length of time between first sex and first marriage. Multivariate analysis utilizing the nationally representative 2004 Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey shows that late-marrying women and those with a (...) longer period of pre-marital sex have the highest risk of HIV. Although women in urban areas overall marry later than their rural counterparts, the positive relationship between age at marriage and HIV risk is stronger in rural areas. The higher wealth status and greater number of lifetime sexual partners of late-marrying women contribute to their higher HIV risk. Given that the age at first marriage and the gap between first marriage and first sex have increased in recent years, focusing preventive efforts on late-marrying women will be of much importance in reducing HIV prevalence among females. (shrink)

Drawing on fieldwork and interviews from South India, the author analyzes married women's experiences of stigma when they are childless and their everyday resistance practices. As stigma theory predicts, childless women deviate from the “ordinary and natural” life course and are deeply discredited, but contrary to Goffman's theory, South Indian women cannot “pass” or selectively disclose the “invisible” attribute, and they make serious attempts to destigmatize themselves. Social class and age mediate stigma and resistance processes: Poor (...) village women of childbearing age are devalued in ways affluent and professional women avoid; differently situated women challenge dominant definitions and ideologies of family in distinctive ways. South Indian women are creating spaces for childless marriages within the gendered margins of families and culturally prevalent definitions of womanhood. The findings contribute to rethinking Western assumptions in Goffman's theory and suggest new directions for research on power and everyday resistance. (shrink)

Client-provider relationships have significant effects on how individuals comprehend their life situation during chronic disease and illness. Yet, little is known about how frontline health care providers (HCPs) influence client’s identity formation through meaning-making with clients such as HIV-positive women living in poverty. This requires ethical consideration of the meanings made between clients and providers about client’s health and well-being, both individually and in the larger society. Health care providers (N = 15) and married women living with (...) HIV (N = 33) in north-central India engaged in separate intensive interviews providing narrative data which were analysed using a conceptual framework crossing Lipsky’s street-level bureaucracy theory (Lipsky 2010) with meaning-making processes. HCPs and women construct meanings of women’s role as caregivers that impact women’s sense of identity, health, and well-being. Findings indicate that despite being well-intentioned, HCPs inadvertently reinforce rigid gender norms and convey that women’s worth is tied to their familial caregiving role. HCPs’ discretionary advocacy may also reinforce societal images of women as incapable and needy, thereby harming them more generally. Attention to the gender-sensitive training of HIV health care providers may assure that discretion is ethically interrogated to promote gender equity and enhance women’s access to social welfare services. (shrink)