Late-career international migration and reproductive work. A comparison between Peruvian and Ukrainian women in the Southern Europe

Research on the relationship between reproductive work and women´s life trajectories including the experience of labour migration has mainly focused on the case of relatively young mothers who leave behind, or later re-join, their children. While it is true that most women migrate at a younger age, there are a significant number of cases of men and women who move abroad for labour purposes at a more advanced stage, undertaking a late-career migration. This is still an under-estimated and under-researched sub-field that uncovers a varied range of issues, including the global organization of reproductive work and the employment of migrant women as domestic workers late in their lives. By pooling the findings of two qualitative studies, this article focuses on Peruvian and Ukrainian women who seek employment in Spain and Italy when they are well into their forties, or older. A commonality the two groups of women share is that, independently of their level of education and professional experience, more often than not they end up as domestic and care workers. The article initially discusses the reasons for late-career female migration, taking into consideration the structural and personal determinants that have affected Peruvian and Ukrainian women’s careers in their countries of origin and settlement. After this, the focus is set on the characteristics of domestic employment at later life, on the impact on their current lives, including the transnational family organization, and on future labour and retirement prospects. Apart from an evaluation of objective working and living conditions, we discuss women’s personal impressions of being domestic workers in the context of their occupational experiences and family commitments. In this regard, women report varying levels of personal and professional satisfaction, as well as different patterns of continuity-discontinuity in their work and family lives, and of optimism towards the future. Divergences could be, to some extent, explained by the effect of migrants´ transnational social practices and policies of states.

Gender and Leader Effects in the 2010 Australian Election

The impact of voters’ gender on leader evaluations in parliamentary systems has been largely unexplored, while the impact of female leaders on voter attitudes and preferences remains to be fully established. This paper uses Julia Gillard’s historic candidacy in the 2010 Australian federal election to explore how voters evaluated Australia’s first female prime minister, and to test the impact of their assessments on vote choice. The authors also examine whether Gillard’s high-profile candidacy affected women’s levels of political interest, awareness and engagement in what had been largely a ‘man’s game’. Their findings confirm that Gillard enjoyed a gender-affinity effect in 2010 in terms of both leader evaluations and vote choice, and women’s political engagement was significantly affected by the Gillard candidacy.

Expanding Women's Worlds?: Development, Gender, and Environment in Rural Morocco

This honors thesis is an anthropological exploration of women's cooperatives in two regions of rural Morocco. Specifically, I am interested in how contemporary development projects such as the cooperative are understood by the peoples of these regions. By conducting first-hand ethnographic research among women's cooperatives in two drastically different environments of rural Morocco, I gain further insight into the roles that culture and geography play in determining the 'success' of cooperatives inlocal communities. In using the term 'success,' I will compare notions of success as used by both Western development organizations as well as local people in Morocco. I examine and analyze the very delicate and complex interaction that occurs between largely Western development agencies and local cultures particularly through the lens of gender. I will also convey the importance of an exchange of cultural practices through development projects rather than the imposition of one cultural system on another. In writing this thesis, I hope to contribute to the growing field of the anthropologyof development, a subset of cultural anthropology that examines international development practices and the economic, social, and political factors that have an impact on the local culture. I examine cooperatives from the perspectives of both the people whoparticipate in them through personal interviews as well as development institutions through an ongoing body of published literature. Focusing on gender implications that such development initiatives have on the rural cultures of Morocco, I argue that gender identities are crucial aspects of local cultures that must be addressed within development practices. On a broader scale, I argue that a deeper knowledge of local cultures is essential if development agencies are to be 'successful' in non-Western cultures.

Through the prisms of gender and power: Agency in international courtship between Colombian women and American men

Since 1999 Colombia has experienced dramatic increases in emigration, particularly the emigration of women towards the U.S. as fiancées of U.S. citizens or residents. Parallel to this trend is the increased number of websites facilitating these Colombian-American matches. This dissertation investigates the agency of Colombian women and American men who pursue romantic courtship through the services of International Marriage Brokers (IMBs) from the “Gendered Geographies of Power” (GGP) framework of analysis. It examines how both groups’ social locations, their positioning in multiple axes of differentiation including gender, nationality and social class, affects how and why they exert their agency across and within different geographic scales. Most importantly, it investigates the role the imagination plays (imagination work) in both men and women’s agency, an aspect of the GGP framework that has been under-researched and theorized to date. The research also finds that this imagination work is promoted and cultivated in deeply gendered ways by IMBs seeking to profit off this transnational courtship. ^ Employing data collected via interviews and content analysis of IMBs’ websites, the dissertation analyzes comparatively the expectations each group (women, men and IMBs) bring to their imagination work and experiences of the courtship marketplace. A central question posed and answered in the dissertation is “What do women and men courting each other in cyberspace seek and do they find it?” The dissertation finds that the men seek “traditional” women and the women seek “liberated” less “macho” men. Ironically, the men find Colombian women who are among the most “liberated” women in their homeland but who downplay this aspect of themselves in order to strategically find a more modern man and migrate abroad where they expect to find greater personal and professional opportunities.^

Through the Prisms of Gender and Power: Agency in International Courtship between Colombian Women and American Men

Since 1999 Colombia has experienced dramatic increases in emigration, particularly the emigration of women towards the U.S. as fiancées of U.S. citizens or residents. Parallel to this trend is the increased number of websites facilitating these Colombian-American matches. This dissertation investigates the agency of Colombian women and American men who pursue romantic courtship through the services of International Marriage Brokers (IMBs) from the “Gendered Geographies of Power” (GGP) framework of analysis. It examines how both groups’ social locations, their positioning in multiple axes of differentiation including gender, nationality and social class, affects how and why they exert their agency across and within different geographic scales. Most importantly, it investigates the role the imagination plays (imagination work) in both men and women’s agency, an aspect of the GGP framework that has been under-researched and theorized to date. The research also finds that this imagination work is promoted and cultivated in deeply gendered ways by IMBs seeking to profit off this transnational courtship. Employing data collected via interviews and content analysis of IMBs’ websites, the dissertation analyzes comparatively the expectations each group (women, men and IMBs) bring to their imagination work and experiences of the courtship marketplace. A central question posed and answered in the dissertation is “What do women and men courting each other in cyberspace seek and do they find it?” The dissertation finds that the men seek “traditional” women and the women seek “liberated” less “macho” men. Ironically, the men find Colombian women who are among the most “liberated” women in their homeland but who downplay this aspect of themselves in order to strategically find a more modern man and migrate abroad where they expect to find greater personal and professional opportunities.

Gender and female entrepreneurship in a pro-entrepreneurship magazine

In this working paper I discuss gendered entrepreneurship by exploring how the media writes about female entrepreneurship. The starting point is that the media when talking and writing about female entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurship, mould meanings of gender in entrepreneurship. I view entrepreneurship and gender as socially constructed, discursive phenomena. To uncover the processes of constructing gender in female entrepreneurship this paper applies a discursive framework, which treats language as a representational system producing and circulating meaning. The focus on language use as action implies that practises of writing and talking about female entrepreneurship ‘make’ gender as much as the women entrepreneurs) themselves: both involve working on culturally shared meanings to make reality intelligible. The data consists of articles published in Yrittäjä, a pro-SME magazine, in 1990-1997. In the analysis I show how gender is constructed in media talk. as a women’s issue Women entrepreneurs are constantly compared with men and with an implicitly masculine ideal of entrepreneurship and with strengths and weaknesses of women are displayed pointing out that the meaning making of gender taking place in the data refers to equality discourse. Finally I discuss possible consequences of the hegemonic equality discourse and suggest lines of further research.

Citizen Jane : exploring the relationship between gender and cellular phones in societies of control

In this thesis, I argue that the mutually productive relationship between women (as gendered subjects) and cellular phone technology is one of control. Women use cellular phones to organize, manage and otherwise control the multiplicity of tasks required of them on a daily basis. At the same time, through using cell phones, women participate in regimes of control including surveillance and persistent connection. I explore this relationship at the level of everyday practice, and conclude by speculating about this relationship at a wider level of social control and organization. This argument emerges from the critical approach suggested by Slack and Wise (2005), who argue that technology and culture are inseparable. They provide articulations and assemblages as tools of analysis. I situate this analysis more broadly within Foucault's (1991) work on govemmentality, in its modem form of societies of control (Deleuze, 1995b).

The effect of gender and alcohol placement in the processing of sexual intent

Alcohol consumption in women is known to be perceived by men as signalling sexual intent. However, it is unclear whether such assumptions extend to the simple presence of alcohol. The present study investigated the association between gender and alcohol placement on processing of sexual intent.

Predictors of Attitudes toward Lesbians and Transgender Women in Relationships on a College Campus

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the attitudes which perpetuate intolerance toward LGBT individuals, and to recognize, in particular, the unique attitudes transpeople face as a minority in the nation and even in the LGBT community. This research contributes to the bodies of research concerning the interrelatedness of intrinsic religiosity, political conservatism, sexism, the rape myth, lack of effective legal protection, and the intolerance of gender non-conformists. I have identified distinctions between attitudes on the part of both women and men, as well as toward different gender non-conformists. I have also taken research as a whole further by assessing the predictors of attitudes toward specific members of the LGBT community in public relationships. The implications of these findings are potentially as far reaching as to have an impact on policies effecting healthcare, education, anti-discrimination and employer rights legislation, on both local and national levels.

Gender and Alcohol Use in Early Modern Augsburg

The use of alcohol in early modern German society was prescribed by carefully structured cultural norms. Drinking, even to the point of drunkenness, was not a sign of insecurity and "disorder" as many historians have claimed. Rather, participation in drinking bouts helped define and enhance men's social status. Drunkenness was therefore tolerated among men as long as they lived up to both the rules and norms of tavern society and the demands of their role as householder. Public drinking was a male prerogative, and drunkenness among women was universally condemned. Nonetheless, when alcohol abuse interfered with the household, women could and did deploy public power to impose limits on men's drinking behaviour.

Being female doing gender:narratives of women in education management

The paper explores gender relations in academia and discusses how gender is constructed within academic institutions. It is based upon the study of a business school, part of a British university. The construction of gender relations within this institution was of special interest because the majority of managerial roles were occupied by women. All female academic managers (dean, associate deans and heads of department) and a random selection of female and male academics were interviewed. The process of construction of gender relations is investigated through the analysis of the discrepancy between the ‘masculine culture’ of high education institutions and the dominance of women managers within this organization. It is suggested that the numerical dominance of women managers may create tensions between their individual identities as women and their managerial identities, due to the predominance of masculine practices and values within the organization. Additionally, it emerged that the maintenance of masculine ideals and practices is also associated with downplaying women’s achievements.

Is financial instability male-driven? Gender and cognitive skills in experimental asset markets

The hypothesis that price stability would reliably increase with the fraction of women operating in financial markets has been frequently suggested in policy discussions. To test this hypothesis we conducted 10 male-only, 10 female-only and 10 mixed-gender experimental asset markets, and compared the effects of gender composition, confidence, risk attitude and cognitive skills. Male and female markets have comparable volatility and deviations from fundamentals, whereas mixed-gender markets are substantially more stable. On the other hand, higher average cognitive skills of the group are associated with reduced market volatility. Individual-level analysis shows that subjects with higher cognitive skills trade at prices closer to fundamental values and earn significantly higher profits; similarly, mixed markets exhibit lower mispricing, particularly for traders with lower cognitive skills. Our results are demonstrated to hold in other experimental asset market studies, suggesting that a mixed-gender composition reduces mispricing across different types of asset markets.