Can Darwinian Feminism Save Female Autonomy and Leadership in Egalitarian Society?

As a Darwinian feminist I welcome any attempt at correcting the historical neglect of women’s roles in human evolution, as Rebecca J. Hannagan (2008, in this issue) does in her paper “Gendered Political Behavior: A Darwinian Feminist Approach.” There is much to be said for the view that women’s political agency in foraging societies has systematically been underestimated, due to a combination of researcher bias and the lesser visibility of women’s political strategies. As a feminist Darwinian, however, I must conclude that wishful thinking seems to have led Hannagan into overestimating the degree of female autonomy and leadership in these societies.     

Gendered Political Behavior: A Darwinian Feminist Approach

Darwinian feminists use an evolutionary framework to examine behaviors that promote survival and reproductive success. Subsequent power relations between women and men arise from conflicting reproductive strategies and social scientists ought to reconfigure their understanding of the psychological and behavioral repertoires of women and men based on their dynamic interactions throughout human evolution. This paper is an addition to the feminist literature on women’s contribution to evolution through an exploration of autonomy and leadership in egalitarian society and uses a Darwinian feminist approach to understand gendered political behavior.     

Feminist Biologies: Revising Feminist Strategies and Biological Science

Rebecca Hannagan’s analysis of gender and leadership based in evolutionary biology challenges scholars to integrate research in biology with feminist insights. This commentary argues that this is a timely challenge and that that the project of integrating feminism and evolutionary biology in accounts of gender is necessary for bringing about more equitable futures. However, the commentary also suggests that biological inputs should be understood as operating within categories that feature substantial variation, that change through time, that are not independent and complete sources of human outcomes, and that biological factors interact with language and culture.     

Female religious leadership in Switzerland: norms,power, and money

Women’s access to positions of leadership in religions is a highly contested issue in Western societies, both inside religions themselves and in societal discussions of religion. Reliable data on actual female leadership are, however, scarce, especially in European countries and regarding minority religions. This article describes and explains statistically the normative openness of congregations to female leadership as well as the actual existence, position, and financial remuneration of female leaders across the whole range of religious traditions in Switzerland. The study is based on data from the representative National Congregations Study of 2008/2009. Our results show that, despite considerable normative openness, female spiritual and administrative leadership remains scarce in most religious traditions. The highest percentage of female spiritual leaders can be found in the milieu of alternative spirituality, followed by the Reformed congregations. A generally high percentage of female leadership can be found on administrative boards. It is only leadership positions in certain Christian traditions (Reformed, Catholic, Evangelical-classical) that are normally remunerated for women; many other traditions do not have female leadership or, as in the case of the milieu of alternative spirituality, such leadership positions are not remunerated.     

Gender Differences in Leadership Aspirations and Job and Life Attribute Preferences among U.S. Undergraduate Students

The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in constructs associated with leadership aspirations in a sample of 467 undergraduate students because these might contribute to the gender gap in leadership attainment. The results demonstrated that female participants perceived themselves as having less leadership ability than male participants, and viewed their attainment of leadership roles as less likely than male participants did, which could reflect anticipated discrimination. Female participants reported less interest than male participants in elite leadership positions (e.g., CEO, senator), and associated positive characteristics with such roles less than male participants. They were also less likely than male participants to indicate a willingness to accept a promotion that would require them to sacrifice enjoyable work. Male and female participants ranked the importance of a variety of job and life attribute preferences similarly, though female participants emphasized the importance of life attribute preferences (e.g., family, good health), whereas male participants emphasized the importance of job attribute preferences (e.g., high salary). Finally, male participants were more likely than female participants to expect and prefer that they would out-earn their future spouses. These results highlight the need for greater consideration of how young women’s and men’s leadership aspirations and job/life preferences contribute to the gender gap in leadership attainment.     

Born a pastor,being a woman: biographical accounts on gendered religious gifts in the Diaspora

Women’s presence in Pentecostal leadership positions has slowly increased over the past decades, which raises new questions on the reconfiguration of gender roles and its relationship with religious doctrines. Based on empirical research, this article examines the construction of female leadership and religious authority within Pentecostal churches in a diasporic context. We draw upon biographical narratives of six female Pentecostal pastors—three African and three Latin American—who are leaders in Pentecostal churches in Spain. Our aim is to understand which conditions allowed these women to obtain positions of leadership in a mainly male dominated Pentecostal milieu and analyse the discursive articulation of Pentecostal conservative views on gender issues with local dynamics in the construction of female religious authority. The article shows that the authority of these women within the church realm is forged and legitimated through a religious narrative, one that empowers them as religious leaders without challenging their (and other women’s) subaltern role in the domains of social and family life.     

Am I the Right Candidate? Self-Ascribed Fit of Women and Men to a Leadership Position

Women are assumed to show a self-ascribed lack-of-fit to leadership positions compared to men (Heilman Research in Organizational Behavior 5:269–298, 1983). The present study examined whether this gender difference would diminish when agency is accounted for and whether a stimulus person’s gender would alter women’s self-ascribed fit. German management students (91 women, 95 men) received a fictitious recruitment advertisement for a leadership position that portrayed a man, a woman, or both a man and a woman. Participants indicated their perceptions of agency and suitability to the advertised position. As predicted, women judged themselves as less suitable for the leadership position than men and participants’ self-reported agency mediated this effect. Furthermore, all participants felt most suitable if a male and a female stimulus person were portrayed.     

Why Managerial Women are Less Happy Than Managerial Men

Women with managerial careers are significantly less satisfied with their life than their male counterparts. Why? In a representative German panel dataset (GSOEP) we find biological constraints and substitutive mechanisms determining the subjective well-being of female managers. Women’s terminated fertility has a negative impact on women’s life satisfaction between the ages of 35 and 45, when managerial careers usually take off. Money and spare time can compensate for this biological difference. But to maintain an equivalent level of happiness, women need to be compensated by much more income for each hour of spare time given up than men do. So, in order to reach better gender equality in leadership positions, women must be either paid higher incomes (on average around 10%) or must be incentivized with more spare time than men. In the conclusion, we speculate on a new mix of carrots and sticks for advanced careers in order to boost female representation in leadership positions.     

Footsteps I would like to follow? How gender quotas affect the acceptance of women leaders as role models and inspirations for leadership

This research examines how the method of selecting women leaders affects other women's leadership interest. The results of three experiments (N = 1,015) indicated that only when women leaders were selected due to merit, not quota-based policies, did they boost female participants’ interest in a leadership position. These reactions were mediated by perceptions of the woman leader's deservingness of her position (Studies 1–3) and consequent acceptance as a role model (Studies 2 and 3). Accordingly, success information validating quota-based selected leaders’ competence provided a boost in leadership interest equal to that of merit-based selected leaders (Study 2). For male participants, quota but not merit-based selected women leaders lowered interest in leadership due to their pessimistic assessment of the probability of being selected (Study 1). These results suggest that a wise implementation of quota regulations includes validating women's competence so they are perceived as deserving of their leader roles and can thus serve as inspiring role models.     

Scandalous subwomen and sublime superwomen: exploring portrayals of female suicide bombers’ agency

When the terms ‘women’ and ‘violence’ are used, it is usually in the context of women as victims and rarely as perpetrators of violence, and yet women do behave aggressively – for instance, as female suicide bombers. An ethical analysis of this role, however, has tended to be somewhat overlooked, partly because of the gender stereotypes at play, with little (or spurious) focus on the agency and autonomy of the women. This has resulted in an incomplete understanding of the unique ways in which societies treat female political aggressions, and the consequences of this for their agency. This paper seeks to redress these issues by evaluating two different societal portrayals of female suicide bombers; that of the ‘scandalous subwoman’ and the ‘sublime superwoman’. It argues that violent women's agency is often distorted to extremes beyond that of their male counterparts, and that it is imperative to avoid misrepresenting them either as agentless victims (‘subwomen’) or wholly agentic (‘superwomen’) since, even in times of political instability, they can rarely be dichotomised in this binary way.     

Women,Men, and Leadership: Exploring the Gender Gap at the Top

Elite-level leaders in business and government make significant and far-reaching decisions influencing many facets of society. However, relatively few of these powerful positions are held by women. This article explores gender in leadership by focusing on the difficulties women experience in attaining and being seen as effective in top leadership positions. It begins by revealing the lack of parity between the sexes in leadership and in the remaining sections it addresses empirical research that serves to illuminate the leadership labyrinth, or obstacles to women’s progress, also known as the glass ceiling. In the first section, research on gender and leadership styles, traits, and effectiveness is reviewed followed by a consideration of how both domestic responsibilities and current organizational cultures differentially impact women and men on their journey to top leadership positions. The focus then shifts to examining how stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination contribute to women’s under-representation in elite leadership roles by both impacting perceptions of and responses to women as well as impacting the experiences of women themselves. The final section concludes with thoughts on promoting parity in top-level leadership.     

真实型领导对员工工作投入影响的多重中介效应模型

为了考察真实型领导影响员工工作投入的内在作用机制,采用真实型领导行为量表、职业认同量表、情感承诺量表、组织支持感量表和工作投入量表对308名企业员工进行施测,结果发现：（1）真实型领导通过职业认同、情感承诺和组织支持感的间接作用对员工的工作投入产生影响;（2）职业认同、情感承诺和组织支持感在真实型领导影响员工工作投入的过程中起完全中介作用。     

“Caught in the Same Webs”<Emphasis Type="Italic">—</Emphasis>Service Providers’ Insights on Gender-Based and Structural Violence Among Female Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada

Drawing on the experiences of service providers supporting live-in caregivers and migrant agricultural workers in two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec), we explore how structural violence shapes the precarious conditions of female temporary foreign workers. Service providers emphasized how transnational social pressures on women to maintain employment, the captivity involved in women’s employment contracts, the limits on unionization, and women’s isolation and lack of privacy, act together to create an unbalanced relationship between the employer and female worker. In turn, this leads to precarious migration and work conditions that foster a vulnerability to violence and abuse while at the same time limiting access to and delivery of services and social support to female temporary foreign workers. Amid these restrictions, service providers focus on making a difference where they can through initiatives such as human rights education workshops, offering support, understanding Canadian regulation, and empowerment workshops. Greater Canadian national options for permanent residency status could provide a basis for adequate services to temporary foreign workers as part of their universal human rights. Temporary foreign workers contribute to Canadian society, making it encumbant upon the Canadian state to ensure the respect of their universal human rights.     

Married with children: How family role identification shapes leadership behaviors at work

In this paper, we explore the question of how an employee's family role identification, as driven by family structure (marital and parental status combined), affects their leadership behaviors at work. Using survey data from working professionals and executives pursuing a Master of Business Administration degree, we found that, as expected, those respondents who were both married and had children reported higher levels of family role identification relative to other respondents. Also, we found evidence of an indirect effect of family structure on leadership behaviors such that being married with children was indirectly associated with higher supervisor ratings of the respondents’ leadership behaviors via family role identification and the transfer of resources from the family role to the work role. Further, this indirect effect was stronger for women than for men. Contrary to traditional expectations, and consistent with enrichment theorizing, our findings suggest that investment in the family role can enhance employees’ display of valuable leadership behaviors in the workplace.     

Reducing women’s lack of fit with leadership positions? Effects of the wording of job advertisements

Linguistic forms which refer to individuals impact mental representations of these individuals: When masculine generics are used, women tend to be cognitively underrepresented, whereas feminine–masculine word pairs are associated with a higher cognitive inclusion of women. The present research investigates whether linguistic forms affect women’s perceived lack of fit with leadership positions, which is particularly pronounced for high-status leadership positions. In a hiring-simulation experiment (N = 363), we tested the effects of different linguistic forms used in German-language job advertisements: (1) masculine forms (e.g., Geschäftsführer, ‘CEO, masc.’); (2) masculine forms with (m/f) (e.g., Geschäftsführer (m/w), ‘CEO, masc. (m/f)’); and (3) word pairs (e.g., Geschäftsführerin/Geschäftsführer, ‘CEO, fem./CEO, masc.’). The job ads announced either a high- or low-status leadership position. Results showed that female applicants were perceived to fit less well with the high-status position than male applicants when either the masculine or the masculine form with (m/f) was used––even though they were perceived to be equally competent. However, female and male applicants were perceived as fitting the high-status leadership position similarly well when word pairs were used.     

Natures,Human Nature,Genes and Souls: Reclaiming Theological Anthropology Through Biological Structuralism

Abstract : Within the field of Theology and Science, discussions regarding the relationship between biology and theological anthropology have tended to focus on the themes of ‘human uniqueness’ and ‘human nature’. These ideas have continued among theologians and anthropologists despite the widespread agreement among neo‐Darwinian evolutionary biologists that such general or universal accounts of ‘natures’ in general, or ‘human nature’ in particular, have no proper place within the neo‐Darwinian evolutionary framework. In view of this neo‐Darwinian rejection of universal human nature and the subsequent undermining of theological anthropologies based on such, Biological Structuralism is proposed as an alternative theoretical framework through which to construct a theological anthropology in light of evolution. Within the Structuralist framework scientific resources are provided which facilitate fresh perspectives on ancient theological discussions regarding the nature of the soul and the place of nonhuman animals within theological anthropology.     

Female Leadership and Role Congruity within the Clergy: Communal Leaders Experience No Gender Differences Yet Agentic Women Continue to Suffer Backlash

Role congruity theory predicts that female leaders will experience prejudice because the role of leader aligns more closely with the stereotypic male gender role than it does with the stereotypic female role. Yet the theory also states that the context of leadership matters. Female leaders in communal contexts often do not experience prejudice because the communal role is congruent to the female role. The purpose of my study is to examine female leadership within the context of the religious congregation and the profession of the clergy. Using multilevel models to analyze Wave 2 of the U.S. Congregational Life Survey (50,595 congregants in 255 congregations), I tested two competing hypotheses about whether the role of clergyperson is congruous or incongruous for women based on congregants’ perceptions of their leaders. I also hypothesized that female clergy using a more masculine leadership style would experience more prejudice. Results offer support for the hypothesis that female clergy experience role congruity, yet, I also found that they experience prejudice if they use a more masculine leadership style. These findings have implications that suggest that, even though there are behavioral restrictions for women, the profession of clergy is an amenable profession for female leaders.     

A comparative analysis of the conditional reflex discoveries of pavlov and Twitmyer,and the birth of a paradigm

Research on conditional reflex (CR) in Pavlov’s Physiological Laboratory has preceded Twitmyer’s work on conditioning at the University of Pennsylvania by 3 or 4 years. The events in Pavlov’s laboratory lead toward the postulation of a new paradigm that rejected the Cartesians conceptualization of the reflex as a mechanistic response to stimuli by replacing it with the Darwinian notion of the organism’s adaptation to the environmental conditions. The Pavlovian paradigm rejected the Wundtian method in favor of the objective, conditional reflex method.     

‘Mill’s Liberal Project and Defence of Colonialism from a Post-Colonial Perspective’

Abstract

Whilst this paper was initially part of a larger project tracing the development of Anglo-American thought from the colonial through to the post-colonial era, below it stands alone as reflection on the colonialism of John Stuart Mill read from a post-colonial perspective. It aims to show that Mill’s views on colonial rule were largely informed by his principle of liberty which, in turn, was based on his qualitative utilitarianism. The driving force behind his colonialism, as with his work in general, was his unwavering belief in the importance of human progress and development. Mill never believed, as did many of his contemporaries, that the ‘backward’ societies of the colonies were inherently inferior, but rather that they needed paternal intervention from more civilised, progressive societies in order to stimulate growth in that spontaneous human development was not inevitable. When read in this light Mill’s views on colonial rule, while culturally bigoted and ethnocentric, appear less contradictory to his liberalism as a whole.     

Effects of Principal-Teacher Gender Similarity on Teacher’s Trust and Organizational Commitment

In many Western public primary school systems, the gender composition of the principals is more heterogenic than that of the teachers, but research on the effect of gender on social psychological processes related to school leadership is scarce. The present work aims to address this lacuna by exploring the effects of principal-teacher gender similarity in the Israeli public primary school system, where most teachers are women, on teachers’ trust in their principals and on organizational commitment. Data from 594 female public primary teachers working with male and female principals were analyzed. The results show that when the principal and teacher are of the same gender, both affective and cognitive trust in the principal are higher. Moderation analysis indicated that female teachers’ affective trust in male principals increases with relational duration. A second moderation effect that was found indicated that gender similarity and cognitive trust in principal have a negative interactive effect on teachers’ continued commitment to school, countering the positive effect of gender similarity on commitment. The results and their implications are discussed, and future research is recommended.