Gender and Women - Abstracts and Full Texts

Female Athletes: Being both Athletic and Feminine
W. Stephen Royce, Janet L. Gebelt, & Robert W. Duff , University of Portland
Abstract: Because athletics traditionally has been seen as incompatible with traditional roles for women, female athletes have been expected to experience gender role conflict as they attempt to identify with incompatible roles. However, while negative stereotypes of female athletes persist, research has found little such conflict. In this study, questionnaire and interview data from male and female college athletes and nonathletes suggest some explanations for this. The data showed: (a) Female athletes were accorded greater respect than were male athletes; (b) all groups' ratings of the femininity of female athletes were above the neutral point, though the ratings of men and nonathletes were significantly lower than those of women and athletes; and (c) consistent with the multiplicity perspective, female athletes reported experiencing their feminine and athletic identities as distinctively different aspects of self. - http://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol5Iss1/FeminineAthletes.htm

Social Structural Model of Women’s Reproductive Rights:
A Cross-National Study of Developing Countries
Vijayan K. Pillai and Guang-zhen Wang
Abstract: Using data from 101 developing countries, this study tests a theoretical model of women’s reproductive rights in developing countries. The effects of modernization processes and family planning programs on women’s reproductive rights are examined. It is found that family planning programs have no statistically significant effect on women’s reproductive rights, although they contribute to the decline in population growth. The effect of women’s education on reproductive rights is found to be negative. Gender equality is the most important factor that affects the achievement of women’s reproductive rights in developing nations. Social and economic development does not directly influence women’s reproductive rights, but functions through the attainment of women’s education and gender equality. Policy implications are discussed.- http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/articles/abstracts24-2.html

Trail, G. T., Anderson, D. F., & Fink, J. S. (2002). Examination of gender differences in importance and satisfaction with venue factors at intercollegiate basketball games: Effects on future spectator attendance. International Sports Journal, 6, 51-64.
Abstract: The results of this study indicated that respondents differed on satisfaction with, and importance of, venue characteristics (overall venue cleanliness, concessions, parking, usher behavior, restrooms, audio experience) at intercollegiate basketball games based on team gender and spectator gender. - http://exercise.educ.iastate.edu/research/research_abstract.asp?pubid=132

UNIFEM - Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality: Implementation and Accountability
Presentation by Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director, UNIFEM -
http://www.unifem.org/speeches.php?f_page_pid=77&f_pritem_pid=118

Experts Say Bias and Violence Increase Women's Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS -
http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=373&Language=1

UNIFEM LAUNCHES WEB PORTAL ON WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY
Portal Launched to Commemorate Third Anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 on
Women, Peace and Security -
http://www.unifem.org/pressreleases.php?f_page_pid=6&f_pritem_pid=122

Partnerships for Women's Empowerment: Key to Sustainable Development
Presentation by Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director, UNIFEM -
http://www.unifem.org/speeches.php?f_page_pid=77&f_pritem_pid=117

New Report Reveals Paradox of Ongoing Violence Against Women Despite Considerable Progress
Over Last Decade in Efforts to Eliminate It -
http://www.unifem.org/pressreleases.php?f_page_pid=6&f_pritem_pid=147

One in Three Women Worldwide Could Suffer Violence
Directed at Her Simply Because She is Female -
http://www.unifem.org/pressreleases.php?f_page_pid=6&f_pritem_pid=149

Women Pioneers in Canadian Sociology: The Effects of a Politics of Gender And a Politics of Knowledge
Margrit Eichler

Abstract: This article examines the life histories of ten anglophone Canadian pioneer women sociologists: Helen Abell, Grace Anderson, Jean Burnet, Eleanor Cebotarev, Kathleen Herman, Helen McGill Hughes, Thelma McCormack, Helen Ralston, Aileen Ross and Dorothy Smith. All were born before 1930, encountered significant sexism, and found jobs very easily. This pattern is placed into the context of a politics of gender and a politics of knowledge. Politics of gender in the institutional context and in family roles resulted in disadvantages, while the effect of the women’s movement led to solidarity among women sociologists and eventual improvements in their situation. The simultaneous emergence of the women’s movement and the Canadianization movement led to a politics of knowledge which proved advantageous for both. Nevertheless, the sociological canon so far has not included women pioneers — the author needed to conduct interviews since almost no published information existed about most of these important sociologists prior to this paper.

Author Gul Ozyegin - Untidy Gender - Domestic Service in Turkey
- Interviews with Turkish maids yield surprising facts about class and gender roles
- Excerpt available at www.temple.edu/tempress

"A sophisticated and sensitive text on domestic service in Turkey that singles itself out by a powerful account of the micro-sociology of power. It engages the reader in much broader debates about the mutual relations of class and gender, the role of patriarchal controls in shaping informal female labor markets and the management of status differentials by women in their daily lives. An important scholarly contribution written in a lucid and accessible style."
—Deniz Kandiyoti, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Untidy Gender takes readers into the interconnected worlds of Turkish maids and the women who employ them, tracing the incorporation of rural migrant women into the interiors of the domestic spheres of the urban middle-classes. Firmly grounded in data collected through a representative survey of 160 domestic workers, in-depth interviews, and participant observation in the kinship-based communities of domestic workers, this book forges a new understanding of the complex interaction between gender and class subordination.

Ozyegin traces the lives of two kinds of workers; those from the squatter settlements who work in a number of locations, and those who live with husbands employed as "doorkeepers" or building superintendents in the basements of middle-class apartment buildings. In a literal "upstairs, downstairs" arrangement, the latter women sometimes take on apartment cleaning for clients in the building.

At the center of the book are a number of ironies about patriarchy. On the surface, husbands have absolute control over whether or not their wives work, but some women work in secret, and those "doorkeeper" husbands who allow their wives to work often provide child care themselves. Ironically, the very constraints on the spatial and social mobility of the women creates a labor market in which domestic workers' labor is expensive and not readily forthcoming, which, in turn, gives them a degree of power in negotiating their relationship with their middle-class employers.

Untidy Gender offers insights not only into the gender and class dynamics of Turkish society, but contributes to the refinement of central terms of feminist scholarship and research on work in the informal sector, cross-class relations between women, gender and class inequality, and women's experiences of modernity and urbanization. The author ends with a personal account of her own difficulties with the class tensions of the maid-employer relationship.