Women's progression to leadership: A project-based organisational perspective

This is a qualitative study of female underrepresentation in leadership roles in project-based organisations in Australia, specifically the construction and property development industries. Using a gender lens, the underlying structural and cultural barriers to women's advancement to leadership in those organisations was studied and, in particular, what challenges they face in their career advancement and what attempts they make to resolve those challenges. The findings show that the unique characteristics of project-based organisations, with their perpetual masculine work practices, embedded masculine logic, gender-based bias and masculine organisational culture, all maintain the pattern of underrepresentation of women.

Women, environmental changes and forestry-related development : Gender-affected roles of rural people in land degradation and environmental rehabilitation in a dry region of Sudan

The purpose of the present study was to increase understanding of the interaction of rural people and, specifically, women with the environment in a dry area in Sudan. The study that included both nomadic pastoralists and farmers aimed at answering two main research questions, namely: What kinds of roles have the local people, and the women in particular, had in land degradation in the study area and what kinds of issues would a gender-sensitive, forestry-related environmental rehabilitation intervention need to consider there? The study adopted the definition of land degradation as proposed by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which describes land degradation as reduction or loss the biological or economic productivity and complexity of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. The Convention perceives desertification as land degradation. The dry study area in Sudan, South of the Sahara, has been the subject of land degradation or desertification discussions since the 1970s, and other studies have been also conducted to assess the degradation in the area. Nevertheless, the exact occurrence, scale and local significance of land degradation in the area is still unclear. This study explored how the rural population whose livelihood depended on the area, perceived environmental changes occurring there and compared their conceptions with other sources of information of the area such as research reports. The main fieldwork methods included interviews with open-ended questions and observation of people and the environment. The theoretical framework conceptualised the rural population as land users whose choices of environmental activities are affected by multiple factors in the social and biophysical contexts in which they live. It was emphasised that these factors have their own specific characteristics in different contexts, simultaneously recognising that there are also factors that generally affect environmental practices in various areas such as the land users' environmental literacy (conceptions of the environment), gender and livelihood needs. The people studied described that environmental changes, such as reduced vegetation cover and cropland production, had complicated the maintenance of their livelihoods in the study area. Some degraded sites were also identified through observations during the fieldwork. Whether a large-scale reduction of cropland productivity had occurred in the farmers' croplands remained, however, unclear. The study found that the environmental impact of the rural women's activities varied and was normally limited. The women's most significant environmental impact resulted from their cutting of trees, which was likely to contribute, at least in some places, to land degradation, affecting the environment together with climate and livestock. However, when a wider perspective is taken, it becomes questionable whether the women have really played roles in land degradation, since gender, poverty and the need to maintain livelihood had caused them to conduct environmentally harmful activities. The women have had, however, no power to change the causes of their activities. The findings further suggested that an inadequate availability of food was the most critical problem in the study area. Therefore, an environmental programme in the area was suggested to include technical measures to increase the productivity of croplands, opportunities for income generation and readiness to co-operate with other programmes to improve the local people's abilities to maintain their livelihoods. In order to protect the environment and alleviate the women's work burden, the introduction of fuel-saving stoves was also suggested. Furthermore, it was suggested that increased planting of trees on homesteads would be supported by an easy availability of tree seedlings. Planting trees on common property land was, however, perceived as extremely demanding in the study area, due to scarcity of such land. In addition, it became apparent that the local land users, and women in particular, needed to allocate their labour to maintain the immediate livelihood of their families and were not motivated to allocate their labour solely for environmental rehabilitation. Nonetheless, from the point of view of the existing social structures, women's active participation in a community-based environmental programme would be rather natural, particularly among the farmer women who had already formed a women's group and participated in communal decision making. Forming of a women group or groups was suggested to further support both the farmer women's and pastoral women's active participation within an environmental programme and their general empowerment. An Environmental programme would need to acknowledge that improving rural people's well-being and maintaining their livelihood in the study area requires development and co-operation with various sectors in Sudan.

Growing Flowers in the Frost: Civic Activity, Citizenship and Gender in Russia

This study analyzes civic activity, citizenship and their gendered manifestations in contemporary Russia. It is based on a case study conducted in the city of Tver , located in the vicinity of Moscow, during 2001-2005. The data consists of interviews with civic activists and municipal and regional authorities; observations of civic organizations; and a quantitative survey conducted among local civic groups. The theoretical and methodological framework of the study draws upon a micro perspective on organization, discourse analysis, gender and citizenship theories and Pierre Bourdieu s theory of fields and capital. This study develops theoretical understanding of the characteristics and logic of civic organization in Russia. It shows that social class centrally structures the field of civic activity. Organizations can be seen as a vehicle of the educated class to advocate their interests, help themselves and seek both social and individual-level change. The study also argues that civic organizations founded during the post-Soviet era are often an institutionalized form of informal social networks. Networks, which were a central element of everyday interaction in Soviet society, are a resource and often the only resource available that can be made use of in contemporary organizational activities. The study argues that gender operates as a key structuring principle in the Russian socio-political community. Civic activity is often discursively associated with femininity and institutional politics with masculinity. Women tend to participate more than men in civic organizations, while men dominate the formal political domain. The study shows that civic organizations are important loci of communality. This communality, however, differs from the communality envisioned in the communitarian and social capital debates in the West. It is selective communality , as it is restricted to the members of the organizations and does not create generalized reciprocity and trust. Civic organizations tend to build upon and reproduce the traditional Russian organizational form of circles , kruzhki. Along with the analysis of civic activities, the study also examines the redefinition of the role and functions of the state. The authorities interviewed in this study understand civic organizations as serving those goals and interests determined by the authorities, instead of viewing them as sites of citizens self-organization around interests and problems citizens themselves deem important, or as a counterforce to the state. By contrast, civic activists understand the core of organizational activity to be advocacy of their interests and rights, tackling social problems, the pursuit of wider social change and self-help. Co-operation between authorities and organizations tends to be personified and based upon unequal, hierarchical patron-client arrangements, which inhibits the development of democratic governance. The study will be published in Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series later this year.

Notions of Nation : A Critical Discursive Psychology perspective on the Isle of Man

At the the heart of this study can be seen the dual concern of how the nation is represented as a categorical entity and how this is put to use in everyday social interactions.This can be seen as a reaction to the general approach to categorisation and identity functions that tend to be reified and essentialized within the social sciences. The empirical focus of this study is the Isle of Man, a crown dependency situated geographically central within the British Isles while remaining political outside the United Kingdom. The choice of this site was chosen explicitly as ‘notions of nation’ expressed on the island can be seen as being contested and ephemerally unstable. To get at these ‘notions of nation’ is was necessary to choose specific theoretical tools that were able to capture the wider cultural and representational domain while being capable of addressing the nuanced and functional aspects of interaction. As such, the main theoretical perspective used within this study was that of critical discursive psychology which incorporates the specific theoretical tools interpretative repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions. To supplement these tools, a discursive approach to place was taken in tandem to address the form and function of place attached to nationhood. Two methods of data collection were utilized, that of computer mediated communication and acquaintance interviews. From the data a number of interpretative repertoires were proposed, namely being, essential rights, economic worth, heritage claims, conflict orientation, people-as-nation and place-as-nation. Attached to such interpretative repertoires were the ideological dilemmas region vs. country, people vs. place and individualism vs. collectivism. The subject positions found are much more difficult to condense, but the most significant ones were gender, age and parentage. The final focus of the study, that of place, was shown to be more than just an unreflected on ‘container’ of people but was significant in terms of the rhetorical construction of such places for how people saw themselves and the discursive function of the particular interaction. As such, certain forms of place construction included size, community, temporal, economic, safety, political and recognition. A number of conclusions were drawn from the above which included, that when looking at nation categories we should take into account the specific meanings that people attach to such concepts and to be aware of the particular uses they are put to in interaction. Also, that it is impossible to separate concepts neatly, but it is necessary to be aware of the intersection where concepts cross, and clash, when looking at nationhood.

Women writing woman: representations of gender and sexuality

Pykett, Lyn. 'Women writing woman: representations of gender and sexuality', In: Women and literature in Britain 1800 - 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp.78-98, 2008. RAE2008

Społeczna interpretacja wybranych wczesnośredniowiecznych cmentarzysk rzędowych w perspektywie gender studies i lifecycle analysis

Wydział Historyczny: Instytut Prahistorii

Gender-dependent language anxiety in Polish communication apprehensives

This paper analyzes the relationship between communication apprehension and language anxiety from the perspective of gender. As virtually no empirical studies have addressed the explicit influence of gender on language anxiety in communication apprehensives, this paper proposes that females are generally more sensitive to anxiety, as reflected in various spheres of communication. For this reason, language anxiety levels in communication apprehensive females should be higher, unlike those of communication apprehensive males. Comparisons between them were made using a student t test, two-way ANOVA, and post-hoc Tukey test. The results revealed that Polish communication apprehensive secondary grammar school males and females do not differ in their levels of language anxiety, although nonapprehensive males experience significantly lower language anxiety than their female peers. It is argued that the finding can be attributed to developmental patterns, gender socialization processes, classroom practices, and the uniqueness of the FL learning process, which is a stereotypically female domain.

Keeping a sense of proportion but losing all perspective: a critique of Gorard's notion of the 'Politician's Error'

In 1999 Stephen Gorard published an article in this journal in which he provided a trenchant critique of what he termed the `politician's error' in analysing differences in educational attainment. The main consequence of this error, he argued, has been the production of misleading findings in relation to trends in educational performance over time that have, in turn, led to misguided and potentially damaging policy interventions. By using gender differences in educational attainment as a case study, this article begins by showing how Gorard's notion of the politician's error has been largely embraced and adopted uncritically by those within the field. However, the article goes on to demonstrate how Gorard's own preferred way of analysing such differences – by calculating and comparing proportionate changes in performance between groups – is also inherently problematic and can lead to the production of equally misleading findings. The article will argue that there is a need to develop a more reliable and valid way of measuring trends in educational performance over time and will show that one of the simplest ways of doing this is to make use of existing, and widely accepted, measures of effect size.

The influence of gender in the direction of Spanish cooperative societies on profitability and indebtedness: an empirical analysis

In this paper the claim for the market for a new business management to ensure the presence of women in decision -making to respond to new social needs addressed. Thus, this paper analyzes the influence of gender diversity of the directors on the profitability and the level of debt for a sample of 5,199 Spanish cooperatives. Unlike capitalist societies, these organizations have a number of peculiarities in their government, and that the partners are themselves major time, agents and customers. The study focuses on the Spanish context, where there is an open debate on the importance of women's business management, as in other countries, driven by the proliferation of legislation on gender equality, being, in addition, Spain, the pioneer in having specific legislation on Social Economy. The results show that cooperatives with greater female representation in theirs Boards have higher profitability. On the other hand, those Boards with a higher percentage of women show a lower level of indebtedness.

Analyzing the Influence of Gender Upon High Technology Venturing Within the Context of Business Incubation

We explore the influence of sex role attribution and associated gendered ascriptions upon the entrepreneurial experiences of a female high-technology business owner operating within the context of business incubation. Our literature analysis and empirical evidence suggest that stereotypical gendered expectations surrounding incubated high-technology venturing reproduce masculine norms of entrepreneurial behavior. The adoption of a gendered perspective to explore the experience of business incubation responds to contemporary calls to embed feminist analyses within the entrepreneurial field of enquiry. Furthermore, we draw upon evidence from a detailed case study informed by a life history narrative to explore a female entrepreneur's experience of incubated high-technology entrepreneurship. © 2011 Baylor University.

Gender mainstreaming and the Common Agricultural Policy

While there are many case studies looking at gender mainstreaming in national contexts, this article offers a pan-European perspective to examine how a stated commitment to gender equality at this meta-level works in practice. The European Union’s (EU) stated commitment to gender mainstreaming the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is critically reviewed. The article reviews theoretical literature on gender mainstreaming, considers the position of women in agriculture across Europe, and examines efforts by the EU to gender mainstream the CAP. It argues that at best, gender mainstreaming focuses on the symptoms of gender inequality in agriculture rather than the causes. Because of this, gender mainstreaming cannot be transformative in this context. Little thought has been given to the practical difficulties of actually gender mainstreaming a policy such as the CAP. The EU’s priority for the CAP focuses on the mainstream business goal of a viable agricultural industry and does not pay any heed to gender inequalities in agriculture. In short, the stated commitment to gender mainstreaming is empty rhetoric

Gender Differences in the Perceptions of Genuine and Simulated Laughter and Amused Facial Expressions

This article addresses gender differences in laughter and smiling from an evolutionary perspective. Laughter and smiling can be responses to successful display behavior or signals of affiliation amongst conversational partners—differing social and evolutionary agendas mean there are different motivations when interpreting these signals. Two experiments assess perceptions of genuine
and simulated male and female laughter and amusement social signals. Results show male simulation can always be distinguished. Female simulation is more complicated as males seem to distinguish cues of simulation yet judge simulated signals to be genuine. Females judge other female’s genuine signals to have higher levels of simulation. Results highlight the importance of laughter and smiling in human interactions, use of dynamic stimuli, and using multiple methodologies to assess perception.

Revisiting intersectionality for EU Anti-Discrimination Law in an economic crisis –a critical legal studies perspective

This article discusses the role of EU anti-discrimination law in challenging EU anti-crisis measures from a critical legal studies perspective. Critical legal scholarship is defined through its challenge of ‘lex’ through the vision of ‘ius’ and its critical links with social movements. EU anti-discrimination law attracts critique for constituting a compartmentalised socio-legal field, which prevents justice for those at intersections of inequalities. By defining as the aim of anti-discrimination law the combat of disadvantage resulting from ascribed otherness around the nodes sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and disability, the article suggests a convincing normative vision suitable to de-compartmentalise the field and adequately address intersectionality. This critical legal perspective on intersectionality differs from its sociological counterparts by omitting class as a category. The article demonstrates that this distinction is necessary for EU anti-discrimination law to maintain its critical edge.