Women in politics in democratic transition: The case of Bhutan

This thesis is a study about women's participation in Bhutan's new democracy and exposes the patriarchy embedded in Bhutanese society which is reinforced through cultural practices and the legal framework. It reveals the public/private dichotomy, the low educational attainment of girls and the gendered division of labour which derails women's public life. It discloses a masculine driven party politics and the challenges of being a woman in the world of men. Nonetheless, the first trailblazing women parliamentarians demonstrated a principled, feminine, political leadership in a masculine environment. Semi-structured interviews, document review and participant observation methods were used to collect data.

Health and prevention among East African women in the U.S.

African-born individuals in the U.S. face significant health challenges, including low utilization of preventive screening services. Using a community-based participatory research framework, we describe preliminary efforts at establishing a collaborative relationship with the East African communities of San Diego, identifying salient community health needs, and developing a framework for disseminating information and addressing identified health gaps. To this end, 40 East African-born women participated in focus groups with the purpose of eliciting community perspectives on U.S. health care services, beliefs about preventive screening, and to garner recommendations for future outreach. Qualitative analyses identified participants’ desire to engage in primary prevention techniques that incorporated best practices from their home countries and the U.S., and the need for health education programs to provide information on increasingly prevalent chronic diseases. The findings are discussed in connection with continued community-engaged efforts and the implications for health and resettlement policies to reduce inequities disfavoring resettled refugees.

Postnatal depressive symptoms amongst women in Central Vietnam: A cross-sectional study investigating prevalence and associations with social, cultural and infant factors

Background This study investigated the prevalence and socio-cultural correlates of postnatal mood disturbance amongst women 18–45 years old in Central Vietnam. Son preference and traditional confinement practices were explored as well as factors such as poverty, parity, family and intimate partner relationships and infant health. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in twelve randomly selected Commune Health Centres from urban and rural districts of Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam. Mother-infant dyads one to six months postpartum were invited to participate. Questionnaires from 431 mothers (urban n = 216; rural n = 215) assessed demographic and family characteristics, traditional confinement practices, son preference, infant health and social capital. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and WHO5 Wellbeing Index indicated depressive symptoms and emotional wellbeing. Data were analysed using general linear models. Results Using an EPDS cut-off of 12/13, 18.1 % (n = 78, 95 % CI 14.6 - 22.1) of women had depressive symptoms (20.4 % urban; 15.8 % rural). Contrary to predictions, infant gender and traditional confinement were unrelated to depressive symptoms. Poverty, food insecurity, being frightened of family members, and intimate partner violence increased both depressive symptoms and lowered wellbeing. The first model accounted for 30.2 % of the variance in EPDS score and found being frightened of one’s husband, husband’s unemployment, breastfeeding difficulties, infant diarrhoea, and cognitive social capital were associated with higher EPDS scores. The second model had accounted for 22 % of the variance in WHO5 score. Living in Hue city, low education, poor maternal competence and a negative family response to the baby lowered maternal wellbeing. Conclusions Traditional confinement practices and son preference were not linked to depressive symptoms among mothers, but were correlates of family relationships and wellbeing. Poverty, food insecurity, violence, infant ill health, and discordant intimate and family relationships were linked with depressive symptoms in Central Vietnam.

Double-Edged Imitation : Theories and Practices of Pastiche in Literature

This study concentrates on the contested concept of pastiche in literary studies. It offers the first detailed examination of the history of the concept from its origins in the seventeenth century to the present, showing how pastiche emerged as a critical concept in interaction with the emerging conception of authorial originality and the copyright laws protecting it. One of the key results of this investigation is the contextualisation of the postmodern debate on pastiche. Even though postmodern critics often emphasise the radical novelty of pastiche, they in fact resuscitate older positions and arguments without necessarily reflecting on their historical conditions. This historical background is then used to analyse the distinction between the primarily French conception of pastiche as the imitation of style and the postmodern notion of it as the compilation of different elements. The latter s vagueness and inclusiveness detracts from its value as a critical concept. The study thus concentrates on the notion of stylistic pastiche, challenging the widespread prejudice that it is merely an indication of lack of talent. Because it is multiply based on repetition, pastiche is in fact a highly ambiguous or double-edged practice that calls into question the distinction between repetition and original, thereby undermining the received notion of individual unique authorship as a fundamental aesthetic value. Pastiche does not, however, constitute a radical upheaval of the basic assumptions on which the present institution of literature relies, since, in order to mark its difference, pastiche always refers to a source outside itself against which its difference is measured. Finally, the theoretical analysis of pastiche is applied to literary works. The pastiches written by Marcel Proust demonstrate how it can become an integral part of a writer s poetics: imitation of style is shown to provide Proust with a way of exploring the role of style as a connecting point between inner vision and reality. The pastiches of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Michael Dibdin, Nicholas Meyer and the duo Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr illustrate the functions of pastiche within a genre detective fiction that is itself fundamentally repetitive. A.S. Byatt s Possession and D.M. Thomas s Charlotte use Victorian pastiches to investigate the conditions of literary creation in the age of postmodern suspicion of creativity and individuality. The study thus argues that the concept of pastiche has valuable insights to offer to literary criticism and theory, and that literary pastiches, though often dismissed in reviews and criticism, are a particularly interesting object of study precisely because of their characteristic ambiguity.

Are we there yet? Advancing women in Canada and Australia: Similar goals, different policies

Differences in opportunities and outcomes in the workplace are inherent in a free and competitive market. However when differences between individuals and groups are identified as resulting from particular policies, behaviours or attitudes, any resulting inequality may be identified as unfair. Increasingly, unfair disparities in societies and their workplaces are regularly challenged. Many of the unfair disparities are recognised as caused through unfair discrimination (Anker 1997). When defining discrimination, the International Labour Organization Convention (ILO) No. 111 defines it as “any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction, or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation” (ILO, 1958). Yet, the argument for addressing this ideal of ‘equality of opportunity’ is complex. Ekmekci (2013) identifies the difficulties as the determination of whether any process should be based on equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. In addition, there is the difficulty of determining what exactly constitutes a process for addressing unfair disparity due to the haziness of what constitutes discrimination and controversy in the meaning as well as policy implications of equality (Tomei, 2003).

Women in leadership: An analysis of the gender pay gap in ASX-listed firms

This study provides evidence that after several decades of fighting for equal pay for equal work, an unexplained gender pay gap remains amongst senior executives in ASX-listed firms. After controlling for a large suite of personal, occupational and firm observables, we find female senior executives receive, on average, 22.58 percent less in base salary for the period 2002–2013. When executives are awarded performance-based pay, females receive on average 16.47 percent less in cash bonus and 18.21 percent less in long-term incentives than males. The results are robust to using firm fixed effects and propensity-score matching. Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition results show that the mean pay gap cannot be attributed to gender differences in attributes, including job titles. Instead, the results point to differences in returns on firm-specific variables, in particular firm risk.

Lydia Kaminsky nee Judey with unidentified men and women in the laboratory of her husband Dr. Anatol Kaminsky Portraits Women

Born Riga 1903, died New York 1976. Married Dr. Anatol Kaminsky, a Russian-born doctor who got his medical education in France. They escaped to France and Morocco, and reached the USA in 1942

Five Women in Hats with Landscape

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Women in the congregation in the days of Hazan I. B. Seixas

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The determinants of sexually transmitted infections among reproductive age women in St. Petersburg, Estonia and Finland

OBJECTIVES: Sexually transmitted infections' (STIs) rate vary in St. Petersburg, Estonia and Finland; the aim was to compare the determinants of self-reported sexually transmitted infections in these areas. METHODS: Data from four population-based questionnaire surveys were used (Finland in 1992 and 1999; St. Petersburg in 2003; Estonia in 2004). With the exception of the 1992 Finnish survey (interview) all were postal surveys, with 1,070 respondents in Finland (78 and 52% response rates), 1,147 (68%) in St. Petersburg, and 5,190 (54%) in Estonia. RESULTS: Risky sexual behaviours were equally common in the three areas and the determinants were the same. Women with an STIs history more often had had their first sexual intercourse when aged under 18, had not used condom during first intercourse, had a high number of lifetime or previous year sexual partners. However, marital status and education were not similar determinants. Cohabiting and well-educated women in Finland were more likely to have STIs while in other areas the associations found were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Risky behaviour predicts STIs, but does not explain the varying rates of STIs between areas.

The Kandhkelgaon Story: a bold bid by women in Kandhkelgaon Village, Saintala Block, Bolangir District, to break out of their poverty trap

One third of the people on earth who are described as living in absolute poverty are found today in India. “These people,” says Mr B K Satpathy, “are caught in a poverty trap’.” “Poverty trap?” we ask. “These are creative weavers; their cloth has a distinctive style, but those who supply their thread also take away and sell the cloth, paying just a small labor cost for each saree. If they are skilled and work hard this amounts to only 25-30 rupees (60-70 US cents) per day.” Under this arrangement, weaving does not provide enough to live on, and people are seeking ways to escape their entrapment in poverty. (Pdf contains 6 pages).

Women in aquaculture

[PDF contains 61 pages]

The role of women in marketing of frozen fish in Lagos State of Nigeria

The involvement of women in the marketing of frozen fish in Lagos State (Nigeria) was examined in this study. Two hundred questionnaires were administered to fish marketers in five markets randomly selected within the Lagos metropolis based on their storage capacities. These markets were Balogun (500 tones), Idumagbo and Idumota (250 tonnes each) Obalende and Epetedo (37.5 tonnes each). From the study results, a greater percentage of women (64.2%) are actively involved in marketing of frozen fish in the study areas. Over 56% of these traders are retailers while about 33% are wholesalers. More than 91% of the marketers were found to be literate. A high percentage of the frozen fish are imported (68%), 27% from coastal fishing and 5% from riverine fishing. The commonest fish in the markets were titus (34%), sardine (32%), hake 19%, catfish 10% and argentine 5%. Catfish has the highest profit margin. The greatest problem of these traders is the lack of modern storage facilities and where available, the erratic power supply constitutes a problem