Gender, inclusivity and UK mosque experiences

Access to, management and attendance of places of worship often takes gendered forms. Gender imbalances in UK mosques manifests in attendance and management patterns and is reflected in the facilities available. The sense that mosques are perceived widely as ‘prayer-clubs for men’ (Maqsood 2005: 4–5) is often reflected in the physical spaces and facilities made available to female worshippers, and it must be noted that some mosques do not provide any of the latter at all (Dispatches 2006). Shockingly, a recent survey found that ‘women form part of the congregation in [only] half (51%) of the organisations surveyed’ (Coleman 2009: 10). Relatedly, UK Mosque management committees privilege male involvement, decision-making and leadership roles, with figures of as few as 15% women in management positions (Asim 2011: 34) and more who ‘will simply not entertain the idea’ (Asim 2011: 39). Such imbalances reflect the specificities of the UK-religious context (Maqsood 2005) yet, globally, women’s mosque involvement appears to be changing far more rapidly than here. This paper explores how gender, religious identity and sexualities interface with women’s mosque access, involvement and experiences therein. It draws upon original research with a sample of women, and indicates that inclusivity is an important topic in UK mosques, far beyond gender.     

Transgender Dispossession in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Transparent</Emphasis>: Coming Out as a Euphemism for Honesty

Since the 1990s, television narratives have increased visibility for LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual) individuals and underscored the need for a deep exploration of the heterosexism (homophobia) that pervades much mainstream American programming (Lee and Meyer in Sex Cult 141:234–250, 2010; Manuel in Soc Semiot 19(3):275–291, 2009). One such serial, Transparent, has been credited by many major media outlets with transforming the way Americans think about transgender, gender expansive (Ehrensaft in Gender born gender made, The Experiment, New York, 2011), or trans*, individuals. Exploring Transparent through Butler and Athanasiou’s (Dispossession: the performative in the political, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2013) framework of dispossession, this essay argues that the depiction of dispossession in Transparent may serve to hypostasize the gender binary rather than to disrupt it. By severing the rhetorical act of “coming out” from the historical pathologization of non-normative sexualities and gender expansiveness in America, Transparent risks undoing the very social progress that it has the potential to further. While the show could powerfully disrupt cisgender privilege (Brydum in The true meaning of the word cisgender, 2015), as of its second season, instead, it merely illustrates how the media produced trans* “coming out” narrative all too often reifies the gender binary and cisgender privilege. Although it is tempting to praise Transparent for its representation of gender expansiveness, its problematic use of the “coming out” rhetoric should not be ignored.     

Honeymoon,medical treatment or big business? An analysis of the meanings of the term “reproductive tourism” in German and Israeli public media discourses

Background/Introduction

Infertile couples that travel to another country for reproductive treatment do not refer to themselves as “reproductive tourists”. They might even be offended by this term. “Tourism” is a metaphor with hidden connotations. We will analyze these connotations in public media discourses on “reproductive tourism” in Israel and Germany. We chose to focus on these two countries since legal, ethical and religious restrictions give couples a similar motivation to travel for reproductive care, while the cultural backgrounds and conceptions of reproduction are different.

Results

Our research shows that the use of the metaphor “reproductive treatment” and its hidden messages depends on the writers’ intention and the target population. Although the phenomenon of patients travelling for reproductive treatment can fit into the definitions of tourism, the term emphasizes aspects that do not reflect patients’ reality. In both the German and the Israeli public media debate the term “reproductive tourism” is either used to criticize the economic aspects of the phenomenon or to attract patients as potential clients.

Conclusions

Ethicists should be cautious when borrowing metaphors like “reproductive tourism” from the public debate. Our findings support Penning’s suggestion to use instead an unloaded term like cross-border reproductive care to describe the phenomenon in a more neutral way and to make it explicit whenever criticism is necessary.

     

Genetic Testing and Post-Testing Decision Making among <Emphasis Type="Italic">BRCA</Emphasis>-Positive Mutation Women: A Psychosocial Approach

Through an analysis of an online survey of women who tested positive for the BRCA genetic mutation for breast cancer, this research uses a social constructionist and feminist standpoint lens to understand the decision-making process that leads BRCA-positive women to choose genetic testing. Additionally, this research examines how they socially construct and understand their risk for developing breast cancer, as well as which treatment options they undergo post-testing. BRCA-positive women re-frame their statistical medical risk for developing cancer and their post-testing treatment choices through a broad psychosocial context of engagement that also includes their social networks. Important psychosocial factors drive women’s medical decisions, such as individual feelings of guilt and vulnerability, and the degree of perceived social support. Women who felt guilty and fearful that they might pass the BRCA gene to their children were more likely to undergo risk reducing surgery. Women with at least one daughter and women without children were more inclined toward the risk reducing surgery compared to those with only sons. These psychosocial factors and social network engagements serve as a “nexus of decision making” that does not, for the most part, mirror the medical assessments of statistical odds for hereditary cancer development, nor the specific treatment protocols outlined by the medical establishment.     

Professors’ Behaviors and Attributes that Promote U.S. Women’s Success in Male-Dominated Academic Majors: Results from a Mixed Methods Study

High rates of attrition of women from male-dominated academic majors may stem from both individual-level personal attributes (e.g., lower confidence in skills; Sax et al. 2015) and non-supportive environmental factors (e.g., chilly climate; Blickenstaff 2005; Hill et al. 2010). Grounded in social cognitive career theory (Lent et al. 1994), the present study utilized a mixed methods approach to identify faculty behaviors and attributes that support women in male-dominated majors and help to prevent attrition. In Study 1, data from eight focus groups involving 23 senior women in male-dominated majors at a mid-sized U.S. Midwestern university were coded to identify common themes exploring why certain professors’ behaviors/attributes are useful to women in male-dominated majors. Results indicated that professors’ behaviors led to learning experiences that helped women create personal connections within departments and provided them with department or career-related information as well as opportunities to gauge/demonstrate their skills to combat the idea that they fit the incompetent-woman stereotype. In Study 2, survey data (n = 65) examined professors’ support, academic advising time, and percentage of female faculty within a department as buffers against the negative effects of sexism on women’s academic achievement, physical health, and social belongingness. Sexist events in the department were associated with women’s reduced sense of belonging, but academic advising time served as a buffer of this association. Overall, our results indicated that proximal environments are important and that professors’ behaviors that support women without singling them out were most helpful.     

Corrupting Conversations with the Marquis de Sade: On Education,Gender, and Sexuality

In this essay, the author joins a conversation started by Martin (Reclaiming the conversation: the ideal of the educated woman. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1985) regarding gender and education seeking to extend the conversation to address sexuality. To do so, the author brings a reading of the Marquis de Sade to challenge the emphasis on reproduction in education as it relates to gendered and sexual norms. The author, following Martin’s approach in Reclaiming the Conversation, reads one particular text of Sade’s—Philosophy in the Bedroom—to argue for queer possibilities that Sade brings to the conversation around gender and sexuality within twenty-first century education. The Marquis de Sade may viscerally seem an inappropriate choice to return to and use to join the conversation, but his novelic imagination incites complications in the conversation. Following in the footsteps of Martin’s re-reading of historic philosophical texts the author offers not only another layer of thinking about “female education,” but also opens up space for engaging gender and sexuality in the history and philosophy of education. As issues around gender and sexed bodies become ever more present and contested in educational discourses, does Sade continue the conversation in ways that corrupt the reproductive aims of education?     

Race,Gender, and Class Distinctions Among Aging Middle Class Black and White Women: Implications for Feminist Interventions

Although Black¹For the sake of simplicity, the generic terms Black and White are used to denote differences between the two groups of women. and White women’s relationships have received considerable attention, the important questions of how and if these relationships change with age and social class have received less attention. This article using the metaphor of intersectionality, and grounding women’s relationships in historically and contextually relevant frameworks, provides an understanding of the social and cultural tensions that continue to influence the standpoints of aging middle class Black and White women. The authors pose many probing questions about whether or not aging middle class Black and White women are capable of developing genuine friendships rather than superficial acquaintanceships. The article concludes with implications for Black and White feminist therapists, which highlight the necessity for personal reflections about issues of power and oppression and how they permeate interactions, depth of historical knowledge, and the promotion of positive aging techniques. Each of these and others help to forge a greater understanding of relationship building between these two groups of heterogeneouswomen.     

Why Do Women Endorse Honor Beliefs? Ambivalent Sexism and Religiosity as Predictors

Cultures of honor, such as Turkey, prioritize defending individual and family reputations, but in gender-specific ways (Nisbett and Cohen 1996). Men maintain honor via reputations for toughness, aggression, control over women, and avenging insults. Women maintain honor through obedience to men, sexual modesty, and religious piety. Honor beliefs support women’s subordination, justifying violence against them (Sev’er and Yurdakul, Violence against Women, 7, 964–998, 2001) and therefore should be challenged. Understanding honor beliefs’ ideological correlates may inform such efforts. We hypothesized that benevolent sexism, a subjectively favorable system-justifying ideology, would more strongly, positively predict Turkish women’s (versus men’s) honor beliefs; whereas hostile sexism, which is openly antagonistic toward women, would more strongly, positively predict Turkish men’s (versus women’s) honor beliefs. Additionally, due to justifications for gender inequality embedded in Islamic religious teachings, we expected Islamic religiosity to positively predict honor beliefs for both genders. A convenience sample of Turkish undergraduates (313 women and 122 men) in Ankara completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Religious Orientation Scale, and Honor Endorsement Index. Regression analyses revealed that benevolent (but not hostile) sexism positively predicted women’s honor beliefs, whereas hostile (but not benevolent) sexism positively predicted men’s honor beliefs. Islamic religiosity positively predicted honor beliefs for both genders, but (unexpectedly) did so more strongly for men than women. We suggest that combating benevolent sexism and promoting feminist interpretations of Islamic religiosity may help to empower Turkish women to challenge honor beliefs.     

Examining Care and Opposition in the Narratives of U.S. Local Women of Color Activists

As a result of persisting stigma, transgender people experience vastly higher rates of harassment, violence, and mental health issues compared to cisgender people. The current study experimentally evaluated a computer-mediated intergroup contact strategy, called E-contact, to reduce transgender stigma. E-contact is a synchronous, cooperative, goal-directed online interaction which is informed by Allport’s intergroup contact theory. In total, 114 cisgender, heterosexual, Australian undergraduates and community members (83 women, 31 men) were randomly allocated to E-contact with an online confederate who either disclosed that they were a transgender woman or a cisgender woman. Following the online interaction, participants then completed measures assessing prior transgender contact and transgender stigma. The findings revealed that transgender E-contact reduced stigma for cisgender men whereas it had no impact on women’s already lower levels of stigma. These novel findings have important implications for researchers, policymakers and counsellors interested in developing transgender stigma reduction interventions by (a) highlighting the importance of transgender contact for those individuals with low or poor prior contact and (b) targeting prejudice-prone populations, such as men, who stand to gain the most from such cooperative, goal-directed interventions.

     

The Creation of the Workplace Social Courage Scale (WSCS): An Investigation of Internal Consistency,Psychometric Properties,Validity, and Utility

Purpose

The current article reviews extant knowledge on courage and identifies a dimension of courage relevant to modern organizations, social courage, which is an (a) intentional, (b) deliberate, and (c) altruistic behavior that (d) may damage the actor’s esteem in the eyes of others. Through a multiple-study process, quantitative inferences are derived about social courage, and the Workplace Social Courage Scale (WSCS) is created.

Design

Four studies using seven samples analyze the WSCS’s psychometric properties, internal consistency, method effects, discriminant validity, convergent validity, concurrent validity, and utility. Many of these are investigated or replicated in largely working adult samples.

Findings

Each aspect of the WSCS approaches or meets specified guidelines. Also, social courage is significantly related to organizational citizenship behaviors, and the construct may relate to many other important workplace outcomes.

Implications

The current study is among the first to quantitatively demonstrate the existence of courage as a construct, and the discovered relationships are the first statistical inferences about social courage. Future research and practice can now apply the WSCS to better understand the impact of social courage within the workplace.

Originality

Despite many attempts, no author has created a satisfactory measure of courage, and the current article presents the first successful measure through focusing on a particular courage dimension—social courage. Future research should take interest in the created measure, the WSCS, as its application can derive future inferences about courage and social courage.

     

Marinella and her interlocutors: hot blood,hot words,hot deeds

In the treatise called La nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne co’ diffetti et mancamenti de gli uomini (The nobility and Excellence of women, and the Defects and Vices of Men) (1601) Lucrezia Marinella claims that women are superior to men. She argues that men are excessively hot, and that heat in a high degree is detrimental to the intellectual and moral capacities of a person. The aim of this paper is to set out Marinella’s views on temperature differences in the bodies of men and women and the effects of bodily constitution on the capacities necessary for political deliberation and rule. I situate Marinella’s argument in the context of an ongoing debate about physiological differences between the sexes, begun in antiquity and extending into the Renaissance. That debate is important for several reasons: (i) as part of a broader discussion of the nature and worth of women, (ii) as determining influential interpretations of ancient authorities on matters of physiology, and (iii) as anticipating later discussions of the relation between the sexed body and political roles. This paper considers Marinella in dialogue with a number of interlocutors, elements of whose work can be found in her own: Aristotle, Mario Equicola, Galeazzo Flavio Capra, Ludovico Domenichi and Torquato Tasso.     

Exploring College Men’s and Women’s Attitudes about Women’s Sexuality and Pleasure via their Perceptions of Female Novelty Party Attendees

Women’s sexual desire, agency, and activity have long been stigmatized. In contemporary times, however, adult novelty parties, or gatherings where women can learn about and purchase sex toys or other sensual aids in a group setting, are widespread. The current pervasiveness of novelty parties may be indicative of greater acceptance of women’s sexuality in contemporary Western society. The goal of the present study is to determine whether young people are more accepting of women’s sexuality and desire via their evaluations of women who attend novelty parties relative to more traditional kitchen product parties. In two experiments, U.S. college students read either a novelty party catalog or a kitchen party catalog, and they evaluated hypothetical female attendees of their respective party catalog type across ten total domains. In Experiment 1 (n = 205), novelty party attendees were rated as more vivacious, less traditional, and more insecure than were kitchen party attendees. In Experiment 2 (n = 211), women were harsher than men on novelty party attendees compared to kitchen party attendees in most domains, and men rated novelty party attendees as more masculine than kitchen party attendees, whereas women rated novelty party attendees as less masculine and feminine than kitchen party attendees. Applied and social implications of the present results are discussed, highlighting ways to improve perceptions of women’s sexual desires and pleasure.     

Biosocial selfhood: overcoming the ‘body-social problem’ within the individuation of the human self

In a recent paper, Kyselo (2014) argues that an enactive approach to selfhood can overcome ‘the body-social problem’: “the question for philosophy of cognitive science about how bodily and social aspects figure in the individuation of the human individual self” (Kyselo 2014, p. 4; see also Kyselo and Di Paolo (2013)). Kyselo’s claim is that we should conceive of the human self as a socially enacted phenomenon that is bodily mediated. Whilst there is much to be praised about this claim, I will demonstrate in this paper that such a conception of self ultimately leads to a strained interpretation of how bodily and social processes are related. To this end, I will begin the paper by elucidating the body-social problem as it appears in modern cognitive science and then expounding Kyselo’s solution, which relies on a novel interpretation of Jonas’s (1966/2001) concept of needful freedom. In response to this solution, I will highlight two problems which Kyselo’s account cannot overcome in its current state. I will argue that a more satisfactory solution to the body-social problem involves a re-conception of the human body as irrevocably socially constituted and the human social world as irrevocably bodily constituted. On this view, even the most minimal sense of selfhood cannot privilege either bodily or social processes; instead, the two are ontologically entwined such that humans are biosocial selves.     

Social Support and Postpartum Depression Revisited: The Traditional Female Role as Moderator among Mexican Women

Women who lack social support tend to have a higher risk of postpartum depression. The present study examined the traditional female role, understood here as the adoption of passive and submissive traits specific to Mexican women, as another risk factor for postpartum depressive symptomatology that interacts with social support. Using two waves of data from a longitudinal study of 210 adult Mexican women (20–44 years-old, M _age = 29.50 years, SD = 6.34), we found that lacking social support during the third trimester of their pregnancy was associated with greater depressive symptoms at 6 months in the postpartum, although this relationship depended on the level of endorsement of the traditional female role during pregnancy. Lower social support during pregnancy predicted greater postpartum depressive symptoms for women with higher endorsement of the traditional female role, even when accounting for prenatal depressive symptoms. These results suggest that Mexican women’s experience of social support may depend on their individual adherence to gender roles. Understanding the association between women’s traditional roles and social support in the risk for postpartum depression can improve prevention and educational programs for women at risk.     

Warm,but Maybe Not So Competent?—Contemporary Implicit Stereotypes of Women and Men in Germany

A fundamental model of stereotypes, the stereotype content model (SCM, Fiske et al. 2002), postulates that stereotypes of many social groups vary on two core dimensions: warmth and competence. In line with traditional gender stereotypes, the SCM predicts women to be perceived as warmer than men, and men to be perceived as more competent than women. Research on implicit measurement of stereotypes suggests that, next to people’s underlying beliefs, a major predictor is the tendency to favor one’s own group (Rudman et al. 2001). We examined gender stereotypes concerning warmth and competence, using implicit association tests (IATs, Greenwald et al. 1998) and drawing on diverse samples of women and men in eastern and western Germany (i.e., students and non-students; total N?=?384). On the warmth dimension, an overall women-warmth stereotype was found, confirming predictions of the SCM. On the competence dimension, associations of own gender and competence were observed for both men and women, suggesting the impact of self-favoring processes. Findings are discussed with respect to social role theory (Eagly 1987) and the changing roles of women.     

Living With Genetic Vulnerability: a Life Course Perspective

This is the second article of a two part series about utilizing the life course perspective (LCP) in genetic counseling. Secondary data analysis was conducted on a grounded theory, longitudinal study which provided a wide focus on living with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) risk. The aim of this analysis was to explore the longitudinal data for both the temporal and social context of living with BRCA mutation genetic test results. Sixteen women from two previous studies were interviewed on multiple occasions over an 8 year time period. The LCP was used to direct a thematic analysis of the data. Families experience the consequences of knowing they carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation long after the initial diagnosis. These women’s experiences across time reflect the concepts of the LCP and show how life is changed when families know they live with a genetic vulnerability to an adult-onset and potentially life-threatening disease. Different emphases on concepts from the LCP were evident across the different age groups. For example, the group of 40–50 year old women emphasized the concept of linked lives, those in their 30’s focused on human agency and women in their 20’s were more focused on timing of events. This study helps give direction to healthcare providers counseling women living with a BRCA mutation.     

We Agree: Fat IS a Feminist Issue! Response to Commentators

In our review of the literature on women and weight bias (Fikkan and Rothblum 2011), we attempted to cull findings from multiple disciplines that demonstrate the impact (social, educational, and financial) of the stigma of women’s weight. We undertook this for two purposes: the first was to address a gap in the weight bias literature, which tends to make only a side note mention that fat women suffer worse penalties than do fat men; the second, to raise the point that feminist scholars, though highly attuned to pressures on women to be thin, have spent less time discussing the disparate impact for women of being fat, despite the mounting evidence of how much weight bias impacts women. We offered some of our own thoughts on the persisting neglect of this topic among feminist writers, despite previous calls to action (Rothblum 1992, 1994). Given the dearth of attention to what has become one of the most frequent types of discrimination against women (Puhl et al. 2008), we asked: “is fat a feminist issue?” We were delighted with the response from the commentators and the thoughtful exploration they devoted to our question and to this issue within feminist scholarship. Here, we briefly summarize some of the main themes identified by these writers, offer our own thoughts on these themes and repeat their call to action for further study of this important area of women’s lives.     

Aging,Agency, and Activism: Older Women as Social Change Agents

Current cohorts of older women are potential social activists, and their potential to contribute to social change is examined. It is argued that engagement in social action is positive and empowering for aging women. Older women both contribute to and benefit from social capital, connections among individuals in social networks, and norms of reciprocity (Putnam, 2000 Putnam , R. ( 2000 ). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community . New York : Simon & Schuster .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Recommendations are offered for organizations that wish to recruit and engage older women as members. A feminist therapy perspective is consistent with the empowerment of older women as social agents.