Convergence of gender roles in a globalized world: international comparison of family and gender roles

This paper examines emerging and changing gender roles in different regions of the world. Using data on 12 countries from last three ISSP Special Modules “Family and Changing Gender Roles” (1994, 2002 and 2012), we compare the evolution of gender roles about motherhood and fatherhood and its relation with the extension of women as breadwinners around the world: four Western Europe countries, representatives of different models of Welfare State (Germany, United Kingdom, Norway and Spain) plus United States, three former Soviet nations (Russia, Poland and Czech Republic), two Latin American countries (Chile and Mexico) and two Asian nations (Japan and Taiwan). Data show that family change (measured both in terms of attitudes and social practices) is spreading from Western contexts to other regions of the world, although the pace of this change varies from one country to another, depending on cultural, economic and political factors.

Fathers of girls, fathers of boys: influence of child's gender on fathers' experience of, engagement in, and representations of paternity.

The aim of this study was to examine the influence of child's gender on several dimensions-of paternity: the fathers' personal experience of paternity, their involvement in child rearing, and their representations. A total of 147 Swiss fathers of 18-month-old children (65 girls and 82 boys) relationship to the child or relationship with the child's completed questionnaires. The child's gender had little influence on paternal experience, mother. Globally, the fathers took on few responsibilities which were largely devolved to mothers. Fathers of boys were more involved in child care than fathers of girls. Finally, a discrepancy was found between the fathers representations of paternal roles in rearing girls and boys and the actual level of responsibility that fathers adopted in their relationship with their child.

Gender Stereotypes and Gendered Vocational Aspirations among Secondary School Students

Research Topic/Aim: Horizontal gender inequalities appear to be rather stable, with girls more often choosing ‘female' service professions, and boys choosing career paths related to science, technology, engineering or mathematics, since measures to bring more women into typical ‘male' jobs and more men into typical ‘female' jobs did not turn out to be sustainable. This paper focuses on gender stereotypes, namely non-egalitarian patriarchal gender-role orientations and gender associations of the school subjects German and mathematics. Dealing with and abolishing such gender stereotypes may be key strategy to reach sustainability regarding more equal vocational choices. Thus, gender stereotypes will be theorised and empirically analysed as a major predictor of gender-typical vocational perspectives considering interest in these school subjects as a mediating factor. Furthermore, we focus on structural patriarchy as a root of gender-role orientations, and teacher gender regarding its impact on gendered images of subjects. Theoretical and methodology framework: Our analyses of gender segregation in vocational aspirations and vocational choice center on Gottfredson's (2002; Gottfredson and Becker, 1981) Theory of Circumscription, Compromise and Self-Creation. One of the main assumptions of this theory is that people associate jobs with particular sexes and those jobs that do not fit particular gender roles are not considered. Empirical analyses are based on survey data of eighth-graders in the Swiss canton of Bern (N = 672). Structural Equation Models (SEM) for male and female students are estimated. Conclusions/Findings: Results reveal different patterns for boys and girls; for boys, gender-typical (male) vocational perspective could be explained via gender role orientations, interest in mathematics and gender associations of the school subjects, for girls, the factors under consideration could be empirically linked to ‘atypical vocational perspective'. Relevance to Nordic educational research: The study focuses on gender relations in society and how they are reproduced. Gender segregation in vocational choice and at the labour market is a universal issue - affecting both egalitarian and non-egalitarian gender regimes in similar ways. Although in general Northern countries appear to be more equal regarding gender inequality, gender segregation is rather persistent (Jarman, Blackburn and Brooks, 2012) and therefore remains a relevant topic.

Schizophrenia Modifying the Expression of Gender Identity Disorder

According to the Brazilian Federal Medical Association, transsexualism is recognized as a gender identity disorder if a long-term diagnostic therapeutic process has demonstrated that the transposition of gender roles is irreversible, and if only hormonal and surgical procedures are appropriate to relieve the stress associated with the gender identity. Although such treatment will only be initiated with caution and after a long phase of intense diagnostic screening, the differentiation between pure identity disorders and transsexual feelings secondary to an ongoing psychopathologic process, such as schizophrenia, can be arduous for many health professionals. To report a case of a female patient with schizophrenia and transsexualism and the risks of a potential diagnostic confusion. A 19-year-old black woman, with an 8-year history of undifferentiated schizophrenia and intense gender dysphoria, was referred for sex reassignment surgery evaluation in the Ambulatory for the Treatment of Sexual Disorders of the ABC Medical School. After a more adequate antipsychotic treatment, her masculine behavior has persisted, but her desire to change her own genital organs has decreased. A better acceptance of the multiplicity of possible genders should neither contribute to inadequate interpretations of the signs and symptoms of our patients nor facilitate dangerous clinical or surgical recommendations. Baltieri DA, and De Andrade AG. Schizophrenia Modifying the expression of gender identity disorder. J Sex Med **;**:**-**.

Social rules for managing attempted interpersonal domination in the workplace: Influence of status and gender.

The present study utilized a social rules approach to investigate the relative influence of gender and status on managers' self-evaluations of their effectiveness in handling a dominating subordinate. In the first study 84 White middle-class participants identified the prescriptive and proscriptive rules for socially appropriate responding to a stimulus situation involving a pushy subordinate. Four rule sets were identified for female and male managers and subordinates, respectively. Rule-sets shared a number of common rules and showed some variation according to gender roles. In the second study, 91 White middle-class participants rated the individual rules for importance and also rated their personal and managerial effectiveness when responding to the stimulus situation using gender- and status-consistent and gender-and status-inconsistent response strategies. Both men and women rated the female gender and status- consistent strategy as most effective, and rated the status-inconsistent strategy as less effective than a gender-inconsistent response. Results were interpreted as providing more support for a situational gender-related theory of workplace behavior, rather than a traditional gender role perspective.

Eastwards / westwards: which direction for gender studies in the 21st century?

Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? is a collection of essays which focus on themes and methods that characterize current research into gender in Asian countries in general. In this collection, ideas derived from Gender Studies elsewhere in the world have been subjected to scrutiny for their utility in helping to describe and understand regional phenomena. But the concepts of Local and Global – with their discoursive productions – have not functioned as a binary opposition: localism and globalism are mutually constitutive and researchers have interrogated those spaces of interaction between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, bearing in mind their own embeddedness in social and cultural structures and their own historical memory. Contributors to this collection provided a critical transnational perspective on some of the complex effects of the dynamics of cultural globalization, by exploring the relation between gender and development, language, historiography, education and culture. We have also given attention to the ideological and rhetorical processes through which gender identity is constructed, by comparing textual grids and patterns of expectation. Likewise, we have discussed the role of ethnography, anthropology, historiography, sociology, fiction, popular culture and colonial and post-colonial sources in (re)inventing old/new male/female identities, their conversion into concepts and circulation through time and space. This multicultural and trans-disciplinary selection of essays is totally written in English, fully edited and revised, therefore, it has a good potential for an immediate international circulation. This project may trace new paths and issues for discussion on what concerns the life, practices and narratives by and about women in Asia, as well as elsewhere in the present day global experience. Academic readership: Researchers, scholars, educators, graduate and post-graduate students, doctoral students and general non-fiction readers, with a special interest in Gender Studies, Asia, Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, History, Historiography, Politics, Race, Feminism, Language, Linguistics, Power, Political and Feminist Agendas, Popular Culture, Education, Women’s Writing, Religion, Multiculturalism, Globalisation, Migration. Chapter summary: 1. “Social Gender Stereotypes and their Implication in Hindi”, Anjali Pande, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. This essay looks at the subtle ways in which gender identities are constructed and reinforced in India through social norms of language use. Language itself becomes a medium for perpetuating gender stereotypes, forcing its speakers to confirm to socially defined gender roles. Using examples from a classroom discussion about a film, this essay will highlight the underlying rigid male-female stereotypes in Indian society with their more obvious expressions in language. For the urban woman in India globalisation meant increased economic equality and exposure to changed lifestyles. On an individual level it also meant redefining gender relations and changing the hierarchy in man-­woman relationships. With the economic independence there is a heightened sense of liberation in all spheres of social life, a confidence to fuzz the rigid boundaries of gender roles. With the new films and media celebrating this liberated woman, who is ready to assert her sexual needs, who is ready to explode those long held notions of morality, one would expect that the changes are not just superficial. But as it soon became obvious in the course of a classroom discussion about relationships and stereotypes related to age, the surface changes can not become part of the common vocabulary, for the obvious reason that there is still a vast gap between the screen image of this new woman and the ground reality. Social considerations define the limits of this assertiveness of women, whereas men are happy to be liberal within the larger frame of social sanctions. The educated urban woman in India speaks in favour of change and the educated urban male supports her, but one just needs to scratch the surface to see the time tested formulae of gender roles firmly in place. The way the urban woman happily balances this emerging promise of independence with her gendered social identity, makes it necessary to rethink some aspects of looking at gender in a gradually changing, traditional society like India. 2. “The Linguistic Dimension of Gender Equality”, Alissa Tolstokorova, Kiev Centre for Gender Information and Education, Ukraine. The subject-matter of this essay is gender justice in language which, as I argue, may be achieved through the development of a gender-related approach to linguistic human rights. The last decades of the 20th century, globally marked by a “gender shift” in attitudes to language policy, gave impetus to the social movement for promoting linguistic gender equality. It was initiated in Western Europe and nowadays is moving eastwards, as ideas of gender democracy progress into developing countries. But, while in western societies gender discrimination through language, or linguistic sexism, was an issue of concern for over three decades, in developing countries efforts to promote gender justice in language are only in their infancy. My argument is that to promote gender justice in language internationally it is necessary to acknowledge the rights of women and men to equal representation of their gender in language and speech and, therefore, raise a question of linguistic rights of the sexes. My understanding is that the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights in 1996 provided this opportunity to address the problem of gender justice in language as a human rights issue, specifically as a gender dimension of linguistic human rights. 3. “The Rebirth of an Old Language: Issues of Gender Equality in Kazakhstan”, Maria Helena Guimarães, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. The existing language situation in Kazakhstan, while peaceful, is not without some tension. We propose to analyze here some questions we consider relevant in the frame of cultural globalization and gender equality, such as: free from Russian imperialism, could Kazakhstan become an easy prey of Turkey’s “imperialist dream”? Could these traditionally Muslim people be soon facing the end of religious tolerance and gender equality, becoming this new old language an easy instrument for the infiltration in the country of fundamentalism (it has already crossed the boarders of Uzbekistan), leading to a gradual deterioration of its rich multicultural relations? The present structure of the language is still very fragile: there are three main dialects and many academics defend the re-introduction of the Latin alphabet, thus enlarging the possibility of cultural “contamination” by making the transmission of fundamentalist ideas still easier through neighbour countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (their languages belong to the same sub-group of Common Turkic), where the Latin alphabet is already in use, and where the ground for such ideas shown itself very fruitful. 4. “Construction of Womanhood in the Bengali Language of Bangladesh”, Raasheed Mahmood; University of New South Wales, Sydney. The present essay attempts to explore the role of gender-based language differences and of certain markers that reveal the status accorded to women in Bangladesh. Discrimination against women, in its various forms, is endemic in communities and countries around the world, cutting across class, race, age, and religious and national boundaries. One cannot understand the problems of gender discrimination solely by referring to the relationship of power or authority between men and women. Rather one needs to consider the problem by relating it to the specific social formation in which the image of masculinity and femininity is constructed and reconstructed. Following such line of reasoning this essay will examine the nature of gender bias in the Bengali language of Bangladesh, holding the conviction that as a product of social reality language reflects the socio-cultural behaviour of the community who speaks it. This essay will also attempt to shed some light on the processes through which gender based language differences produce actual consequences for women, who become exposed to low self-esteem, depression and systematic exclusion from public discourse. 5. “Marriage in China as an expression of a changing society”, Elisabetta Rosado David, University of Porto, Portugal, and Università Ca’Foscari, Venezia, Italy. In 29 April 2001, the new Marriage Law was promulgated in China. The first law on marriage was proclaimed in 1950 with the objective of freeing women from the feudal matrimonial system. With the second law, in 1981, values and conditions that had been distorted by the Cultural Revolution were recovered. Twenty years later, a new reform was started, intending to update marriage in the view of the social and cultural changes that occurred with Deng Xiaoping’s “open policy”. But the legal reform is only the starting point for this case-study. The rituals that are followed in the wedding ceremony are often hard to understand and very difficult to standardize, especially because China is a vast country, densely populated and characterized by several ethnic minorities. Two key words emerge from this issue: syncretism and continuity. On this basis, we can understand tradition in a better way, and analyse whether or not marriage, as every social manifestation, has evolved in harmony with Chinese culture. 6. “The Other Woman in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Case of Portuguese India”, Maria de Deus Manso, University of Évora, Portugal. This essay researches the social, cultural and symbolic history of local women in the Portuguese Indian colonial enclaves. The normative Portuguese overseas history has not paid any attention to the “indigenous” female populations in colonial Portuguese territories, albeit the large social importance of these social segments largely used in matrimonial and even catholic missionary strategies. The first attempt to open fresh windows in the history of this new field was the publication of Charles Boxer’s referential study about Women in lberian Overseas Expansion, edited in Portugal only after the Revolution of 1975. After this research we can only quote some other fragmentary efforts. In fact, research about the social, cultural, religious, political and symbolic situation of women in the Portuguese colonial territories, from the XVI to the XX century, is still a minor historiographic field. In this essay we discuss this problem and we study colonial representations of women in the Portuguese Indian enclaves, mainly in the territory of Goa, using case studies methodologies. 7. “Heading East this Time: Critical Readings on Gender in Southeast Asia”, Clara Sarmento, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. This essay intends to discuss some critical readings of fictional and theoretical texts on gender condition in Southeast Asian countries. Nowadays, many texts about women in Southeast Asia apply concepts of power in unusual areas. Traditional forms of gender hegemony have been replaced by other powerful, if somewhat more covert, forms. We will discuss some universal values concerning conventional female roles as well as the strategies used to recognize women in political fields traditionally characterized by male dominance. Female empowerment will mean different things at different times in history, as a result of culture, local geography and individual circumstances. Empowerment needs to be perceived as an individual attitude, but it also has to be facilitated at the macro­level by society and the State. Gender is very much at the heart of all these dynamics, strongly related to specificities of historical, cultural, ethnic and class situatedness, requiring an interdisciplinary transnational approach.

O impacto da reforma da administração pública na satisfação dos funcionários públicos : o caso dos Açores

Dissertação de Mestrado em Ciências Económicas e Empresariais.

Social gender stereotypes and their implications in Hindi

This essay looks at the subtle ways in which gender identities are constructed and reinforced in India through social norms of language use. Language itself becomes a medium for perpetuating gender stereotypes, forcing its speakers to confirm to socially defined gender roles. Using examples from a classroom discussion about a film, this essay will highlight the underlying rigid male-female stereotypes in Indian society with their more obvious expressions in language. For the urban woman in India globalisation meant increased economic equality and exposure to changed lifestyles. On an individual level it also meant redefining gender relations and changing the hierarchy in man-woman relationships. With the economic independence there is a heightened sense of liberation in all spheres of social life, a confidence to fuzz the rigid boundaries of gender roles. With the new films and media celebrating this liberated woman, who is ready to assert her sexual needs, who is ready to explode those long held notions of morality, one would expect that the changes are not just superficial. But as it soon became obvious in the course of a classroom discussion about relationships and stereotypes related to age, the surface changes can not become part of the common vocabulary, for the obvious reason that there is still a vast gap between the screen image of this new woman and the ground reality. Social considerations define the limits of this assertiveness of women, whereas men are happy to be liberal within the larger frame of social sanctions. The educated urban woman in India speaks in favour of change and the educated urban male supports her, but one just needs to scratch the surface to see the time tested formulae of gender roles firmly in place. The way the urban woman happily balances this emerging promise of independence with her gendered social identity, makes it necessary to rethink some aspects of looking at gender in a gradually changing, traditional society like India.

Gender asymmetries in family and work spheres: strategies and conflicts of qualified women working in portuguese state administration

In Portugal, feminine activity rate of working mother is high but remains structural asymmetries of responsibilities between women and men in familiar spheres. Based on quantitative and qualitative data results are presented that show that, in spite of a global feminization rate of 58,6%, women workers in State Administration remains with major responsibilities in familiar/private lives than men. Women in technical and leadership functions have the same patterns of familiar and domestic responsibilities but different patterns of work-time. Women in technical functions tend to have a strategy of work-family time balance, despite less career opportunities, while women in leadership functions adopt a supremacy of wok-time, just as men. Nevertheless, both women, in technical and leadership functions, feel a permanent conflict between career and family responsibilities, which is not felt by men. Gender roles define dominant models of work and family organisation which conduct to different professional strategies and career opportunities.

Viver sem Medo - Projeto de Intervenção com um Grupo de Mulheres em situação de Vulnerabilidade Social

O presente relatório, fundamentado teoricamente, surge do desenvolvimento de um projeto de Educação e Intervenção Social com um grupo de Mulheres, denominado “Mais Valentes”, participantes no Projeto EntrEscolhas – Geração D’Ouro, com base na metodologia de investigaçãoação participativa, inserida no paradigma socio-crítico. O Projeto “Viver sem medo” foi desenvolvido a partir da finalidade de capacitar as mulheres do Grupo Mais Valentes para a tomada de decisão sobre os seus percursos de vida, tendo em conta o seu papel nas diferentes esferas da sociedade e, essencialmente, na família. Neste sentido, recorreram-se a técnicas e métodos de investigação que permitiram a construção do conhecimento sobre o grupo e cada uma das suas participantes, identificando-se problemas, necessidades, potencialidades e objetivos que pudessem responder aos anteriores. Ao longo do relatório é apresentada a construção do conhecimento sobre a realidade e o desenho e desenvolvimento do projeto concretizado conjuntamente com as participantes e, ainda, com contributos do e das Profissionais do Projeto EntrEscolhas – Geração D’Ouro. Neste sentido, foram realizados Encontros semanais com o grupo “Mais Valentes” e, posteriormente, ações com o objetivo de proporcionar a reflexão sobre os papéis sociais e familiares de género, o desenvolvimento de competências de literacia escolar e social e com vista à promoção de um melhor relacionamento interpessoal que permita a partilha e o diálogo. Por forma a avaliar todo o processo, recorreu-se ao modelo de avaliação CIPP, no sentido de se obter uma visão integral de todo o Projeto “Viver sem medo” e, assim, conseguir concretizar uma avaliação sistemática e contínua do mesmo, com base nas vivências de participação no projeto e opiniões das Mulheres e, assim, se possibilitar as mudanças desejadas, num clima de confiança e apoio mútuo.

Caught between changing tides: Gender and kinship in Cape Verde

Gender ideologies in Cape Verde are shifting. Individuals find themselves caught between changing tides, pushed and pulled in opposite directions by divergent gendered expectations. The article examines the different ways in which young women and men take recourse to tactics in response to the tensions that arise as they deal with changing gender ascriptions in the midst of their relations with community and kin. Women, in particular, are unevenly affected by traditional demands and expectations whilst they cross the boundaries of traditional gender roles in their pursuit of enhanced education and more sexual freedom. Yet, their actions are not characterized by an outright rejection of traditional gender ideologies, but rather by piecemeal tactical manoeuvres to plot a route through the centrifugal forces at play. keywords

Gender-role alternation in the simultaneously hermaphroditic freshwater snail Physa acuta: not with the same partner

In simultaneous hermaphrodites, gender conflicts that arise from two potential mates sharing the same gender preference may be solved through conditional reciprocity (or gamete trading). Conditional reciprocity had initially been considered widespread, but recent studies suggest that its real occurrence may have been overestimated, possibly because most mating observations have been performed on isolated pairs of individuals. Some resulting patterns (e. g., non-random alternation of sexual roles) were indeed compatible with conditional reciprocity but could also have stemmed from the two partners independently executing their own mating strategy and being experimentally enforced to do so with the same partner. Non-random alternation of gender roles was recently documented in the simultaneously hermaphroditic freshwater snail Physa acuta. To distinguish between conditional and unconditional gender alternations, we observed copulations of individually marked snails reared at three contrasted densities. We showed that density affected the overall frequency of copulations during the first 2 days of the experiment with high-density boxes showing more copulations than low density boxes, but it did not affect gender alternation patterns. A change in gender role was observed more often than expected by chance over two successive copulations by the same individual, confirming previous studies. However, gender switches did not preferentially occur with the same partner. We conclude that gender alternation is not due to conditional reciprocity in P. acuta. It may rather stem from each individual having a preference for gender alternation. We finally discuss the mechanisms and the potential extent of this unconditional reciprocity.

Paternity and health services. Qualitative research on men's experiences during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum of theirs partners

Background: Little research has been carried out with regards to the inclusion of men during the birth process. The objective of this paper involves exploring the needs and expectations of the health services manifested by a group of fathers as a result of their experience during the birth process. Methods: Qualitative research was carried out in Granada in 2004 via individual interviews with fathers who showed shared responsibility in the upbringing. The profile is: employment, medium-high educational level, one or more child: 0-6 months of age. The transcript was subsequently submitted to hermeneutic analysis. Results: Some semantic constructs are: 1) Health Services do not concede the women as protagonists, 2) Birth process is depending on the body. Fathers can only support and fight for the relevance of men, 3) Men seem like “invisible”, 4) Health services inhibit their participation, and 5) have dealings with fathers according to their gender roles. The participants address the relationship between expectations of care during the birth process and unsatisfied demands, and the manner in which they employ the obstacles encountered within health services that inhibit their participation as arguments that confirm their separation from the process. Conclusions: This paper draws attention to the limited scope of the provision of healthcare during the birth process in terms of protagonism afforded to fathers. Indeed, despite their requisitory discourse, the interviewees manifest contradictory attitudes in the face of changes that require them to make commitments. We identify elements that could be improved to adapt services to the needs of fathers and vice versa.