Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World

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FOR INFORMATION: SAGE Publications, Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 E-mail: [email protected] SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 India SAGE Publications Ltd. 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763

Vice President and Publisher: Rolf A. Janke Senior Editor: Jim Brace-Thompson Project Editor: Tracy Buyan Cover Designer: Janet Kiesel Editorial Assistant: Michele Thompson Reference Systems Manager: Leticia Gutierrez Reference Systems Coordinator: Laura Notton

Golson Media President and Editor: J. Geoffrey Golson Director, Author Management: Susan Moskowitz Senior Layout Editor: Mary Jo Scibetta Layout Editors: Kenneth Heller, Lois Rainwater, Mary Sudal Copy Editors: Anne Hicks, Laura Liebeck, James Mammarella, Mary Miller, Barbara Paris Proofreaders: Joyce Li, Mary Beth Curran Indexer: J S Editorial

Copyright © 2011 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of women in today’s world / Mary Zeiss Stange, general editor, Carol K. Oyster, general editor, Jane E. Sloan, multimedia editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4129-7685-5 (hardback) 1. Women--Encyclopedias. 2. Women--Social conditions-21st century--Encyclopedias. I. Stange, Mary Zeiss. II. Oyster, Carol K. III. Sloan, Jane, 1946HQ1115.E55 2011 305.403--dc22 2010049272 11 12 13 14 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Chronology of Women in

vi vii xv xxvii xxxix

Resource Guide Appendix: Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action Index Photo Credits

1609 1623

xlix 1–1608

1633 1777 1891

About the Editors Mary Zeiss Stange, General Editor, is Professor of Women’s Studies and Religion at Skidmore College, where for nine years she served as director of the Women’s (now Gender) Studies Program. Her work is broadly interdisciplinary, with current emphases on the intersections among gender and environmental studies, social and environmental justice, and global ecofeminism. Her books include Woman the Hunter (1997), Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (with Carol K. Oyster, 2000), Heart Shots: Women Write about Hunting (2003), and Hard Grass: Life on the Crazy Woman Bison Ranch (2010). She edited Stackpole Books’ “Sisters of the Hunt” series of reprints of classic women’s outdoor writing, and is the author of numerous scholarly articles and review essays, for publications ranging from the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, the Women’s Studies Quarterly and the Women’s Review of Books to the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Liberty Magazine. She is a contributing writer for USA Today’s Op-Ed page. She earned a B.A. in English Literature, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion and Culture Studies, all from Syracuse University. Carol K. Oyster, General Editor, is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute for Ethnic and Racial Studies at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. Her work focuses on gender and racial stereotypes, and attitudes toward societally marginalized groups. Her books include Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (with Mary Zeiss Stange, 2000), Groups: A User’s Guide (2000), and Introduction to Research: A Guide for the Health Science Profesional (with W.P. Hanten and L.A. Llorens, 1987). Other works include “Whose Death Is It, Anyway?” (in N. Bauer-Maglin and D. Perry [editors], Final Acts: Death, Dying and the Choices We Make, 2010) and “Social Insecurity: A Cautionary Tale” (in N. Bauer-Maglin and A. Radosh [editors], and Women Confronting Retirement: A Nontraditional Guide, 2003). Oyster earned her B.A. in Psychology from UCLA, an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Loyola Marymount University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Delaware. Jane Sloan, Multimedia Editor, is the Media Librarian at Rutgers University Libraries in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and former Women’s Studies Librarian at Rutgers, and Cinema-Television Librarian at the University of Southern California. She is the author of several cinema studies reference books on Robert Bresson, Alfred Hitchcock, and most recently Reel Women, on contemporary feature films about women. She was the recipient of the Award for Significant Achievement in Woman's Studies Librarianship, from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Women's Studies Section (WSS) in 2008. vi

Introduction

The close of the first decade of the 21st century is an ideal time to reflect on the status of women in today’s world. Women’s situation in virtually every conceivable arena—from poetry to politics, education to economy—changed more dramatically in the last 100 years than in the preceding 1,000. And, especially since the turn of the millennium, as the pace of new technologies and new information continues to accelerate, so too has the apparent speed of that social and cultural evolution. It is therefore an apt historical moment to mark progress made in so many areas, while at the same time pondering the complex challenges that accompany change, and bearing in mind that change is not always or invariably for the better. This, in a nutshell, is what the Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World is all about. When we commenced this project, we immediately became aware of its unavoidably vast scope. How does one (or, in our case, two) begin to identify which issues are of greatest import to over half the world’s population? Who should appropriately be singled out, in terms of their accomplishments, as the most significant women on the planet? How might a reference work capture the myriad realities of what it means to experience life as a female in genuinely global terms: across lines of nationality, class, race and

ethnicity, ability, religion, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, politics . . . to name just some of the considerations we had constantly to bear in mind? Our assignment, for this initial edition of the encyclopedia in four print volumes and online, was to identify roughly a thousand entries, with a one million-word limit for the resulting text. As daunting as this may sound, we quickly understood that while this encyclopedia could do considerably more than merely scratch the surface it would not be possible to cover everything about women in today’s world. Nor, indeed, would it be desirable to attempt it. Any reference work that claimed complete comprehensiveness on this subject would immediately, and rightly, be suspect. We knew there would be some gaps in the areas these volumes cover, many of which will be filled in the two successive updated online editions, consisting of an additional 500 entries and another half-million words, that we project over the next two years. We have, in this initial four-volume offering, done our best to include what we believe to be the essentials. And we are confident that anything this encyclopedia of women in today’s world may lack in terms of completeness is more than made up for by its overall coherence and consistency of purpose. vii

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A few words about its purpose, as we general editors envision it: In terms of its audience, we see this work, like any good encyclopedia, more as a starting point, than as an end in itself. That is, whether those who consult this work are simply casual readers looking for some reliable information on a particular subject, or students or scholars commencing research for some specific project, we intend that the entries here will not simply provide reliable information, but will also spur further reflection and provide the essential guidance as to where to look next for more specialized or refined information. You might say that, as its structure evolved, in global terms this encyclopedia is conceived more as a map or an itinerary than as a travelogue. Additionally, while it is intended to be useful for a variety of audiences, there is one in particular that deserves special mention here: the community of feminist and women’s and gender studies scholars. Our approximately 400 contributors are, overwhelmingly, members of that community, here in the United States and around the world. We are aware that its critics charge that scholarship grounded in feminism is tainted by political and other biases. However, we also recognize that just as the global women’s movement is primarily responsible for the positive changes that have occurred for women and girls over the past century, so too the “academic wing” of that movement—women’s and, more recently, gender studies—provides the best lens through which to chart and analyze those changes. Feminist analysis is today acknowledged to be a fundamental critical tool across the academic disciplines. Throughout the process of assigning and editing entries, we have emphasized fair and balanced presentation as a fundamental requirement, no matter how controversial a given topic might be. Entries that leaned too far in any political or theoretical direction suggesting bias—including that for which only the hackneyed phrase “political correctness” suffices— were not included. We are pleased to say that as a result, the Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World represents the genuine depth and diversity of current scholarship by and about women, and is the most comprehensive reference work available on women worldwide that is firmly grounded in women’s and gender studies.

How the Encyclopedia Was Created: Goals We drew our inspiration for the overarching goals of this encyclopedia from its title, and these goals are threefold. First, this encyclopedia is about women in today’s world. While the ever-expanding disciplines of gender studies, LGBTQ studies and queer theory all afford ample opportunity for addressing the lives and experiences of men, those subjects fall outside the purview of this work, except to the extent that information about men is necessary to illustrate or illuminate some relevant aspect of women’s reality. Hence, for example, the entries on the social construction of masculinity and the Roman Catholic priesthood, while superficially male-centered, are included here to serve the larger goal of comprehending some specific facets of women’s lives. Second, our goal is to focus on women in today’s world. The emphasis throughout is consistently contemporary and, in spirit, future-oriented. Of course, any definition of “today” is bound to be to some extent arbitrary, but our guiding principle was to concentrate on the world post-2000. While we realize this excludes some iconic issues and individuals in women’s studies, our aim here is to create a unique resource, containing information that is as current and forward-looking as we could make it, and which cannot readily be found in one place elsewhere. Such historical information as is necessary to an adequate understanding of any entry’s subject is, naturally, included. But we kept this as much as possible to a minimum, as readers searching for deeper history of subjects like the 19th-century women’s suffrage movement or educational opportunities available to women in medieval Europe have plenty of other places to look. Our focus is on the issues, ideas, and people that will extend and expand our understanding of women’s progress into the future. Our third goal, and in some ways the most challenging to achieve, has been to focus on women in today’s world. In a sense, in global terms, there are so many facets to women and their lives that only an encyclopedia could hope to begin to capture them all. Yet, at every step along the way of aiming for a truly global perspective and content, we were reminded of how much ground there is (quite literally) to cover, and how impossible it would be to cover it all. We therefore identified 15 broad thematic categories that

Introduction



we felt would, with reasonable inclusiveness, organize this work as a resource on today’s women in global terms. We shall turn to the category list (Reader’s Guide) presently, but first must note one other question we had to address early on, regarding how to approach the subject of women in today’s world. That question was, simply put, which women do we want to feature? Standard reference works on women invariably include entries devoted to individual women: their lives, discoveries, accomplishments, places in history. While we appreciate its utility, we determined from the start to eschew this “great women” approach. This was, in part, because there are so many prominent, high-achieving women out there around the world these days that any attempt to include them all would be doomed to futility. But, more fundamentally, as scholars and as feminists we wanted to steer clear of the distaff version of the “great man” approach, which must necessarily entail setting some sort of standards for what constitutes “greatness” in the first place— standards which are clearly impossible when one is thinking in global terms, and which tend to default to the patriarchal “conquering hero” model which we intended to avoid at all costs. This is not say readers won’t find some conventionally “great women” here: heads of state, corporate CEOs, entertainers, scientific innovators, powerbrokers and Nobel laureates. Failing to include such extraordinary, and often internationally celebrated, women would weaken our goal of accurately representing women’s status in the world today. But for every household name, there are two or three others who will be, while no less remarkable in their accomplishments, unfamiliar to most persons who consult this encyclopedia. We call the entries on all the women we have included “Signal Biographies,” to suggest that their life stories exemplify some particular aspects of the range of women’s experience. We trust that in reading these women’s stories in light of one another—for example, Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust and Nepalese education activist Stella Tamang, or Serbian human rights activist Stanislavka Stasa Zajovic and V-Day founder Eve Ensler—readers will come to appreciate the depth and breadth of the ways in which some truly great women are changing the world in which we all live. In keeping with our

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emphasis on women in the world of today, all but a very small handful of the women whose lives are included as Signal Biographies in this work are still alive and active. The Organization of the Encyclopedia Once we determined our overall goals and objectives for this project, our next task was to figure out the most effective way to organize its content. As mentioned above, we wanted to create a unique resource, containing an array of information about women not available in one unified source elsewhere. After playing around with a variety of categorical combinations, we lit upon the following as the best overall structure for organizing our material for the encyclopedia’s Reader’s Guide: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Activism in Theory and Practice Arts Business/Commerce/Economy Countries Education Environment Government/Law and Justice Health: Mental and Physical Media and Popular Culture Religion Science and Technology Sports and Recreation Sexualities War and Conflict Women’s Lives

Each category contains several different types of entries. But descriptions of theories, organizations, women’s social, political or cultural problems, and the roles they assume are not enough. We accompany these entries with the biographies of some of the remarkable women who have developed the theories, worked in or run those organizations, sought to solve those problems and lived those roles. Granted, our strategy has created some strange bedfellows: Where else could Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dolly Parton and Lady Gaga comfortably occupy the spotlight together under the category “Arts”? Or legendary White House correspondent Helen Thomas share a press pass with supermodel-turned-interviewer Tyra Banks? Or, on a somewhat darker note

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perhaps, Iraq war heroine Tammy Duckworth march with Abu Ghraib’s Lynndie England and Algerian terrorist/freedom fighter (and, subsequently, senator) Zohra Drif-Bitat. But what may, to the casual observer, look like serendipity we prefer to think of as an illustration of the astonishing variety of women’s lives, on every level. As to the categories that make up the Reader’s Guide: While the guide is arranged alphabetically, the categories are organized thematically, and in many ways their themes necessarily overlap. Nonetheless, those themes can be broadly summarized as follows: Activism in Theory and Practice. Having historically been largely excluded from access both to power and to resources, women have been forced to identify and create their own strategies for change. Both in theory and in practice (and the necessary relationship between the two is complex and often subtle), women have been in the forefront of the creation and development of groups for the protection children’s rights and family rights, animal rights and nature rights; movements for and against reproductive freedom; and, of course, for women’s rights, under a variety of banners both liberal and conservative. Women have worked together to create groups as diverse as RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), MADRE in Latin America, the Tibetan Women’s Association, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The lives of women like Native rights activists Winona LaDuke and Wilma Mankiller, disability rights activist Simi Linton, human rights activist Shirin Ebadi and women’s rights activist Engy Ayman Ghozlan illustrate the interconnection of efforts worldwide to conquer inequality, as well as the theories underpinning those efforts. Arts. As recently as a generation ago, when literary anthologies and art history texts featured at best the occasional token female, and the worlds of theater, dance and cinema were totally under male control, the bitter joke in feminist circles was that “Anonymous” must have been a woman. Not only have feminist arts historians and literary scholars done superb work of rediscovering a tradition of women’s artistry, women are today among the prime movers in the shaping of contemporary arts. Because of—and explicitly in resistance to—the conventional association of “wom-

en’s arts” with “lower” art forms, we have included in this category a broad array of women’s artistic production, comprehending rock and hip-hop as well as classical music, romance novels along with the work of Pulitzer- and Nobel-prize honorees, feminist filmmaking and Bollywood, urban architecture and landscape design. Business, Commerce, and Economics. Women increasingly participate in the institutions that have traditionally been the bastions of male power. Women run small and large companies, multinational corporations and sports organizations. They work in offices and laboratories. They design clothing and model the designs on the catwalk. Women are also, however, the largest unpaid—and underpaid—workforce in the world. The entries in this section highlight both women’s positive advances across the fields of business and commerce, and also the long way they have yet to go. In the latter regard, we paid particular attention to contemporary efforts to raise the standard of living of women and girls, and their access to financial and other resources, in developing nations—ranging from Grameen Bank of Bangladesh to UNIFEM to women’s thrift cooperatives and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development. Countries. This article category significantly gathers together up to date information about the current state of women’s affairs on a country-by-country basis, arranged by continent and/or hemisphere. While each entry is an invaluable resource in its own right, taken together these entries also provide an international, intercultural platform for the comparative and cross-cultural thrust of this encyclopedia. Education. Feminist historian Gerda Lerner has argued that the educational disadvantaging of women and girls has historically been the primary reason for their subordination. In this category we bring together comprehensive information regarding efforts, worldwide, to counteract that disadvantaging, in initiatives like UNICEF’s “Girl-friendly Schools” program, the Global Campaign for Education, No Child Left Behind and the Campaign for Female Education in Africa. We pay attention as well to the roles women play in education at all levels, in institutional and alternative contexts. And we mark the achievements



of scholar-administrators like U.S. university president Shirley Ann Jackson, and Brazilian indigenous educator Adir Casaro Nascimento. Environment. Ecofeminism, and the environmental activism it engendered, from the Green Belt movement in Africa and India’s Chipko, to diverse movements for environmental protection ranging from Love Canal to the antinuclear protests in the United Kingdom: all have been the products of women’s grassroots energy. This owes in no small part to the fact that, whether the environmental crisis takes the form of drought or disease or toxic waste, women and their children are invariably most directly affected. Women like Val Plumwood, Wangari Maathai, and Vandana Shiva have therefore devoted their lives both to theorizing about, and activism for the protection of, the rights and interests both of endangered people and endangered places. Government/Law and Justice. Women today run countries as well as companies; they head political parties as well as social justice action movements. This broad category attempts to give a flavor of the manifold import of women’s political activity today, and the extensive range of issues confronting political activists and agenda-setters. It also comprehends the increasing role women play in framing legislation— yet with a critical eye to the fact that when it comes to laws surrounding their own reproductive health and behavior, control of that legislation still too frequently rests in the hands of men. This category takes up, as well, the role that violence plays in women’s lives, in regard to such worldwide facts as rape and domestic violence on the one hand, and to their own capacity for violence on the other. Women serve as police officers, attorneys judges, and prison guards. Sometimes the crime perpetrators they arrest, prosecute, convict, and guard are also women. Health: Mental and Physical. The biology of their bodies creates a unique set of life experiences for women. Women’s lives are affected by such universal health issues as cancer, heart disease and—particularly in the developing world as well as in poor communities in the United States and other developed nations—HIV/AIDS. Yet evidence shows that, up until recently, in virtually every area medical research

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has failed adequately to include women, either as researchers or as subjects. The complex realities of sex, sexuality, and reproduction shape the contours of women’s mental as well as physical health. Pressures on girls and women to focus on body image and beauty are associated with increases in eating disorders and cosmetic surgery. Such pioneering women’s health reformers as Somali anti-FGM activist Waris Dirie, Dutch abortion rights activist Rebecca Gomperts, and former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders are profiled in this category. Media/Popular Culture. Some of today’s women gain celebrity for discovering cures or creating art, others for breaking athletic records or bringing peace to hitherto war-torn countries or managing media empires or producing cutting-edge journalism. In our increasingly image-obsessed age, some women are famous simply for being famous. And beyond fame and celebrity, popular culture presents a potpourri of images, ideas, ideals and role models which shape the possibilities of self-perception available to girls and women for better and for worse. The entries in this category run the gamut from Barbie dolls and Dora the Explorer to Ms. magazine and Our Bodies, Ourselves; from baby beauty pageants to pornography, slasher movies to soap operas, reality television to roller derby. Religion. Perhaps no aspect of human social or cultural life worldwide has had a greater impact on the lives of women and girls than religion. The ways in which religious ideas and ideals about the female/ feminine shape the expectations of and possibilities afforded to women are portrayed in these entries across religious and national boundaries. We pay significant attention, as well, to feminist resistance to patriarchal religion in a variety of contexts, to the changing landscape of marriage and ministry, and to the role religions play in shaping public policy relating to sexual and reproductive behavior. The signal biographies in this category include Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori and Amina Wadud, and religious renegades like Sonia Johnson and Starhawk.

Science and Technology. This category suggests the many ways in which women are entering scientific and technological fields formerly closed to them—

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from aerospace exploration to astronomy, engineering to earth science—and transforming those fields in the process. It also includes several entries exploring 21st-century technological realities as various as sexting, Internet dating, computer gaming and cyber-stalking, and their potential impact on women and girls. Sports and Recreation. Women play tennis and soccer, they excel at golf and figure skating, they lift weights and run marathons, they hunt and ride in rodeos. A post-Title IX generation of girls has grown up experiencing exercise and sports participation as normal components of their education. Some have gone on to careers in coaching or as referees. The entries in this category point to the breadth of women’s sports participation, which is borne out by such biographies as those of figure skater Kim Yu-Na, golfer Annika Sörenstam, race-car driver Danica Patrick, boxer Laila Ali, and Olympic shooter Kim Rhode. Sexualities. This category of entries takes up the increasingly complex discourses surrounding sexuality and sexual orientation, LGBTQ theory and activism, and queer theory. Some entries depict how in certain cultural contexts, tolerance of diverse gender identity and expression is institutionalized. Others portray the institutionalization of discrimination based on these same factors. War and Conflict. Women invariably suffer disproportionately in conflict zones, both in terms of being victimized by the hardships that all people experience in wartime and, more especially, in being treated by turns as instruments of and/or as spoils of war by enemy combatants. Women at the same time serve in the militaries of several of the world’s nations, in some contexts seeing combat, and suffering from its aftereffects. Women also figure as very active participants in terrorist and insurgent movements around the world. Women’s Lives. Finally, there are certain social and cultural features of women’s lives which are intimately tied to institutionally defined social roles among humans in general, and among women in particular. Issues of aging and discrimination are universal. For many, heterosexual marriage, motherhood, divorce

and widowhood are pivotal concerns. Lesbians’ loves and lives revolve around other women, sometimes generating hatred or violent reactions from society at large. To marry or not, whether or not to bear children are for some women matters of choice, while for others the “choice” is dictated by biology or by other people—sometimes without the affected woman’s consent, or even her knowledge. Parenthood is for some a solitary journey, perhaps chosen but sometimes involuntary. Women are mistresses and mail-order brides, Quinceañeras and prom queens, nannies and homemakers, “helicopter parents” and “soccer moms.” This brief summary of our organizational themes can at best suggest the virtually inexhaustible range of material available to our contributors. We trust that, reading one category of entries against another, users of this reference work will make their own further connections among our original 15: indeed, we very much encourage them to! One final dimension of this encyclopedia that must be noted is that it is quite intentionally a work still in progress. The process of putting together this initial offering, available simultaneously in four print volumes and online, was itself a lesson in how much work there remains to be done. Our approximately 400 contributors, representing dozens of nationalities based in educational institutions and working as independent scholars on five continents, have amassed an astounding amount of information about women in today’s world. But there is, needless to say, more ground yet to cover. Hence, in a very real sense, our end in this project is also our beginning. We are already hard at work on the first of two online supplements of this encyclopedia, to be published in 2012 and 2013. Each will contain another 250 entries, adding a total of 500 more entries and approximately a half-million more words, to amplify and supplement the content of these first four volumes. Therefore, while as its General Editors we are both proud of what we have accomplished here, we are equally pleased to say that, in a very real sense, the best is yet to come. Multimedia Edition The print edition of the encyclopedia is complemented by a multimedia online edition, with the



inclusion of some 99 video clips from news agencies that were researched by Multimedia Editor Jane Sloan to illustrate key articles and themes within the work. Reflecting what life is like for women around the world, the multimedia clips work with the text articles, ranging from the topics of abortion in Poland to women’s political status in Yemen. Moreover, the several hundred photographs and captions complement the articles as well, yielding a multifaceted presentation. Acknowledgments This encyclopedia is the result of the combined efforts of a number of people without whom the project could not have been completed. We wish, first of all, to thank Rolf Janke, Publisher, and Jim BraceThompson, Senior Editor, of SAGE Publications for their vision in creating this encyclopedia and for their continuing enthusiasm. We owe Multimedia Editor Jane Sloan a wealth of gratitude for her skillful and thoughtful selection of the multimedia components which complement and enhance the written words here. We are grateful to Geoff Golson, President and Editor of Golson Media, for inviting us to edit the encyclopedia and for his patience, organization, and support throughout the process. Sue Moskowitz, Golson Media’s Director of Author Management, has been amazing in her ability to recruit and manage a cadre of writers whose diversity and expertise have contributed so richly to the finished product. Thanks as well to Senior Layout Editor Mary Jo Scibetta. Finally, we wish to thank the SAGE production team. In addition, Mary Zeiss Stange is grateful for Skidmore College’s support of her work on this project, in

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the form of funding travel and research assistance. My special thanks to the students in the fall 2009 Women’s Studies Senior Seminar, for their brainstorming and constructive suggestions about potential headwords, and more especially to my 2009/2010 research assistant Arielle Kouffman for her energy and many creative insights. During summer 2010, Alexis Shenfil Smart brought a “Millennial” perspective and a global awareness to our continuing work: The forthcoming online supplements of this encyclopedia will owe much of their international depth and topical variety to her invariably savvy discoveries and suggestions. As always, my appreciation for Carol Oyster’s good humor, sharp intellect, and willingness, from time to time, to yield the social scientific passive voice to my editorial pen. Carol Oyster would like to thank her colleague, Mary Zeiss Stange, for continuing our previous collaboration by asking me to join her in this project. Coming from complementary academic disciplines, our joint efforts have once again resulted in a product of which I am very proud. I would also like to express my most profound gratitude to my daughter, Katherine, for her patience in allowing me to prattle on endlessly about the project, for contributing a number of the headwords that appear in the work that reflect both her generation’s perspective and her own successful progress in her medical education, and for making me proud in too many other ways to express. Mary Zeiss Stange Carol K. Oyster General Editors

Reader’s Guide

Activism in Theory and Practice Animal Rights Arab Feminism Bat Shalom—Jerusalem Women’s Action Center Chicana Feminism Children’s Rights Codepink Critical Race Feminism Domestic Violence Centers Eagle Forum EMILY’s List Environmental Activism, Grassroots Family Research Council Feminism on College Campuses Feminist Majority Foundation Feminists for Life Focus on the Family Gay and Lesbian Advocacy General Union of Palestinian Women Global Feminism Granny Peace Brigade Independent Women’s Forum Indigenous Women’s Rights: Bolivia Iranian Feminism Islamic Revolution in Iran

MADRE Million Mom March Mothers Against Choice Mothers Against Drunk Driving NARAL National Organization for Women National Women’s Political Caucus Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq Panchita’s House: Domestic Workers Rights in Lima, Peru Peace Movement Rape Crisis Centers Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Social Justice: Activism Take Back the Night Third Wave Tibetan Women’s Association Transnational Feminist Networks Vagina Monologues, The White Supremacy Womanism Women in Black Women Involved in Farm Economics Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom xv

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Signal Biographies Brady, Sarah Ebadi, Shirin Ensler, Eve Ghozlan, Engy Ayman LaDuke, Winona Linton, Simi Mairs, Nancy Mankiller, Wilma Michelman, Kate Zajovic, Stanislava Stasa Arts Australian Aboriginal Artists Bollywood Classical Music, Women in Country and Western Music, Women in Dance, Women in Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago) Film Actors, Female Film Directors, Female Film Production, Women in Guerrilla Girls Hip Hop National Museum of Women in the Arts Novelists, Female Photography, Women in Poets, Female Representation of Women Studio Arts, Women in Sweet Honey in the Rock Visual Arts, Women in Women Make Movies Signal Biographies Chicago, Judy Coppola, Sofia Duffy, Carol Ann Holzer, Jenny Kngwarreye, Emily Leibovitz, Annie Lessing, Doris Morrison, Toni Oates, Joyce Carol Parton, Dolly Showalter, Elaine Te Kanawa, Dame Kiri Walker, Alice

Walker, Kara Zaimont, Judith Lang Business, Commerce, and Economics Association for Women’s Rights in Development CEOs, Female Child Labor Cosmetics Industry Cowgirls Crafting Industry Diet Industry Direct Sales Domestic Workers Economics, Women in Entrepreneurs Equal Pay Fair Trade Fashion Industry Financial Independence of Women Glass Ceiling Grameen Bank of Bangladesh International Monetary Fund International Women’s Day Management Management Styles, Gender Theories Maquiladoras Mentoring Microcredit Migrant Workers Nannies 9to5 Nontraditional Careers, U.S. Parental Leave Partner Rights Part-Time Work Philanthropists, Female Poverty Poverty, Feminization of Sewa in India Sex Workers Sexual Harassment Sweatshops Trafficking, Women and Children Unions United Nations Development Fund for Women Unpaid Labor Wedding Industry Women’s Cooperatives

Reader’s Guide



Women’s Funding Network Women’s Thrift Cooperatives Work/Life Balance Signal Biographies Ledbetter, Lilly Mehta, Renu Nooyi, Indra Stewart, Martha Countries Africa Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo Congo, Democratic Republic Côte D’Ivoire Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger

Nigeria Rwanda São Tomé and Principe Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Americas Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Bahamas Barbados Belize Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname

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Trinidad and Tobago United States Uruguay Venezuela Asia Afghanistan Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Bruei Darussalam Cambodia China East Timor Georgia India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Korea, North Korea, South Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Maldives Moldova Mongolia Myanmar Nepal Oman Pakistan Palestine Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Seychelles Singapore Sri Lanka Syria Tajikistan

Thailand Turkey Turkmenistan Ukraine United Arab Emirates Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen Europe Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia (FYROM) Malta Monaco Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania San Marino Serbia and Montenegro Slovakia Slovenia Spain

Reader’s Guide



Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Pacific Australia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu Education Adjunct and Contingent Faculty American Association of University Women Attainment, Elementary School Completion Attainment, College Degree Attainment, Graduate Degree Attainment, High School Completion Campaign for Female Education College and University Faculty Community Colleges Educational Administrators, College and University Educational Administrators, Elementary and High School Educational Attainment, Effect of Unpaid Labor on Educational Opportunities/Access Elementary Educators Family and Consumer Sciences Fields of Study Financial Aid Forum for African Women Educationalists “Girl-Friendly” Schools Global Campaign for Education Hate Speech and Bias on College Campuses High School Teachers Home Schooling National Women’s Studies Association No Child Left Behind Professional Education, Trade/Vocational Schools

School Fee Abolition Initiative Single Sex Education Title IX Vocational and Trade School Faculty Women’s Colleges Women’s Resource Centers Women’s Studies Signal Biographies al-Faiz, Norah Jackson, Shirley Ann Nascimento, Adir Casaro Tamang, Stella Environment Birth Defects: Environmental Factors Cancer: Environmental Factors Climate Change as a Women’s Issue Drought Ecofeminism Environmental Justice Famine Green Belt Movement International Conference on Population and Development Locavorism/Slow Food Movement Love Canal Navdanya Overpopulation Rachel’s Network Toxic Waste as a Women’s Issue Vegetarian Feminism Water as a Women’s Issue Women’s Environment and Development Organization Signal Biographies Brockovich, Erin Gibbs, Lois Maathai, Wangari Plumwood, Val Shiva, Vandana Waters, Alice Government/Law and Justice Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity AMBER Alerts Attorneys, Female

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Convention on the Rights of the Child Convention to End Discrimination Against Women Council of Women World Leaders Crime Victims, Female Drug Trade Equal Rights Amendment Feminist Jurisprudence Gender Quotas in Government Girl Gangs Guns and Gun Use Hate Crimes Heads of State, Female Honor Killings Honor Suicides International Action Network on Small Arms Judges, Women as Law Enforcement, Women in League of Women Voters Lilly Ledbetter Act Megan’s Law Nongovernmental Organizations Parental Leave Act Perpetrators, Female Political Ideologies Prison Administration Prison Guards, Female (U.S.) Prisoners, Female (U.S.) Rape, Legal Definitions of Rape, Prosecution Rates Representation of Women in Government: International Representation of Women in Government: U.S. Roe v. Wade Self-Defense, Armed Self-Defense, Unarmed Sex Offenders, Female Sex Offenders, Male Social Justice Theory United Nations Conferences on Women United Nations Conventions Violence Against Women Act Voting Rights White House Council on Women and Girls Signal Biographies Albright, Madeleine Bachelet, Michelle Bhutto, Benazir

Bruntland, Gro Harlem Clinton, Hillary Rodham Gandhi, Sonia Ginsberg, Ruth Bader Kirchner, Cristina Fernández de Merkel, Angela Obama, Michelle O’Connor, Sandra Day Palin, Sarah Pelosi, Nancy Queen Noor Rice, Condoleezza Robinson, Mary Sarkozy, Carla Bruni Sigurðardóttir, Jóhanna Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson Thatcher, Margaret Health: Mental and Physical Abortion, Access to Abortion Laws: International Abortion Methods Addiction and Substance Abuse Anxiety Disorders Bariatric Surgery Birth Defects Body Image Botox Breast Cancer Breast Reduction Surgery Caesarean Section, Rates of Chastity Pledges Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital Childbirth, Medication in Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural Contraception Methods Cosmetic Surgery Crisis Pregnancy Centers Depression Diabetes Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of Disability: Definitions Doulas Dysthymia in Minority Population Eating Disorders Fecundity

Reader’s Guide



Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of Female Genital Surgery, Types of Fertility Freedom of Choice Act “Freedom of Conscience” Legislation Gardasil Gender Dysphoria Gender Reassignment Surgery Global “Gag Rule” Health Insurance Issues Heart Disease HIV/AIDS: Africa HIV/AIDS: Asia HIV/AIDS: Europe HIV/AIDS: North America HIV/AIDS: Oceania HIV/AIDS: South America Hysterectomies Infant Mortality Infanticide Infertility, Incidence Infertility, Treatments Life Expectancy, International Comparisons of Maternal Mortality Medical Research, Gender Issues Menopause: Medical Aspects Menopause: Social Aspects Menstruation Mental Health Treatment, Access to Mental Health Treatment, Bias in Mental Illness, Incidence Rates Midwifery Nurses Nutrition Nutrition in Pregnancy Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Physicians, Female Physicians, Specialties Physicians Assistants, Female Plan B Planned Parenthood Post-Abortion Trauma Syndrome Postmenstrual Dysphoric Disorder Postpartum Depression Postpartum Psychosis Pregnancy

Premenstrual Syndrome Prenatal Care Psychotropic Medications Puberty Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined Rape, Incidence of Rape and HIV Rape Trauma Syndrome Rates of Psychological Disorders by Gender Reproductive Cancers Reproductive Health Issues Reproductive Rights “Revirginization” RU-486 Self-Mutilation Sex Education, Abstinence-Only Sex Education, Comprehensive Sex Education, Cross-Culturally Compared Sexually Transmitted Infections “Snowflake Babies” Sterilization Sterilization, Involuntary Suicide and Race Suicide Methods Suicide Rates Women’s Health Clinics World Health Organization Signal Biographies Bowers, Marci Dirie, Waris Elders, Joycelyn Gomperts, Rebecca McCorvey, Norma Solomon, Suniti Suleman, Nadia Yates, Andrea Media/Popular Culture Action Heroes, Female Advertising, Aimed at Women Advertising, Female Professionals in Advertising, Portrayal of Women in American Girl Dolls Anime Barbie Dolls Beauty Pageants Beauty Pageants (Babies/Young Children)

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Blogs and the Blogosphere Body Art Bratz Dolls Cartoonists, Female Celebrity Women Censorship “Cougars” Disc Jockeys Dora the Explorer Feminist Publishing Hello Kitty Journalists, Broadcast Media Journalists, Print Media Manga Media Chief Executive Officers, Female Ms. Magazine Our Bodies, Ourselves Pink, Advertising and Pornography, Portrayal of Women in Pornography Produced by Women Pornography/Erotica Reality Television Roller Derby Romance Novels Slasher Movies Soap Operas, Cross-Culturally Considered Sports Ilustrated Swimsuit Edition Toys, Gender-Stereotypic Women’s Cable Networks Women’s Magazines Signal Biographies Amanpour, Christiane Banks, Tyra Couric, Katie DeGeneres, Ellen Ehrenreich, Barbara Goody, Jade Hefner, Christie Huffington, Arianna Maddow, Rachel Madonna Paglia, Camille Queen Latifah Steinem, Gloria Thomas, Helen vanden Heuvel, Katrina

Walters, Barbara Winfrey, Oprah Religion African American Muslims Anglican Communion Black Churches Buddhism Candomblé Catholics for Choice Chinese Religions Christian Identity Christianity Chabad Movement Clergy Abuse/Pedophilia Contraception: Religious Approaches Creation Care Movement (Evangelical) Da Vinci Code, The Evangelical Protestantism Feminist Theology Fundamentalist Christianity Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints Hinduism Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Indigenous Religions, Global Islam Islam in America Islamic Feminism Judaism Ku Klux Klan Kumari, Living Goddess in Nepal Lesbian/Gay Clergy Machismo/Marianismo Mary Magdalene Metropolitan Community Church Ministry: Protestant Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Mujerista Theology Native American Religion New Age Religion Nuns: Buddhist Nuns: Roman Catholic Operation Rescue Orthodox Churches

Reader’s Guide



Orthodox Judaism Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered Priesthood: Episcopalian/Anglican Priesthood: Roman Catholic Progressive Muslims (U.S.) Pro-Life Movement Purity Balls Rabbis, Female Religious Fundamentalisms, Cross-Culturally Considered Revolve Roman Catholic Church Santería Secularity Law, France Shari`a Law Sikhism Southern Baptist Convention Stem Cell Research: Religious Arguments for and Against Suttee Taliban Veil Virgin Mary Virgin of Guadalupe Voodoo Wahabism Wicca/Goddess Spirituality Witchcraft: Worldwide Womanist Theology Women’s Ordination Conference Yoga Signal Biographies Barclay, Aviel Johnson, Sonia Pagels, Elaine Schori, Katharine Jefferts Starhawk Wadud, Amina Winkett, Canon Lucy Science and Technology Astronauts, Female Astronomy, Women in Biology, Women in Chatrooms Chemistry, Women in Computer Games

Computer Science, Women in Earth Science, Women in Engineering, Women in Internet Internet Dating Mathematics, Women in Multiverses, Gender Stereotypes in Pedophilia Online Physics, Women in Science Education for Girls Sexting Stem Coalition Veterinarians, Female Signal Biographies Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise Billa-Komaroff, Lydia Grandin, Temple Ride, Sally Shoemaker, Carolyn Sports and Recreation Auto Racing: Formula One Auto Racing: NASCAR Basketball: College Beach Volleyball/Volleyball Boxing Coaches, Female Coaches of Women’s Teams Cowboy Action Shooting Dykes on Bikes Exercise Science Figure Skating “Fitness” Golf Gymnastics Horse Racing, Women in Hunting Little League Olympics: Summer Olympics: Winter Pilates Rodeo Running/Marathons Shooting Sports, Women in Soccer, Children’s Soccer, Professional Sports Announcers, Female

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Reader’s Guide

Sports Officials, Female Steroid Use Swimming Team Owners, Female Tennis Track and Field Weightlifting Women’s National Basketball Association Xtreme Sports Signal Biographies Ali, Laila Kim, Yu-Na Patrick, Danica Rhode, Kim Sörenstam, Annika Torres, Dara Visser, Lesley Williams, Venus and Serena Sexualities Africa Asia Bisexuality Civil Unions Coming Out Drag Kings Europe Gender, Defined Heterosexism Heterosexuality Homophobia Human Rights Campaign Intersex Lesbian Adoption Lesbians LGBTQ North America Oceania Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Queer Theory Same-Sex Marriage Sex, Defined Sex Education in the Home Sexual Orientation Sexual Orientation, Theories of Causation Sexual Orientation and Race

Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: United States Transgender “Two-Spirit” Signal Biographies Chase, Cheryl Feinberg, Leslie Flannery, Sarah Shepard, Judy Vincent, Norah War and Conflict Abu Ghraib Combat, Women in Community Defense/Resistance Conflict Zones Guerrilla Fighters, Female Land Mines Lesbians in the Military Military, Women in Military Leadership, Women in Military Stationed in Muslim Countries Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military Prisoners of War, Female Prostitution in Combat Zones Rape in Conflict Zones Suicide Bombers, Female Terrorists, Female Wars of National Liberation, Women in Signal Biographies Cornum, Rhonda Drif, Zohra Duckworth, Tammy England, Lynndie Karpinski, Janis



Women’s Lives Adoption Aging, Attitudes Toward Antifeminism Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural Child Abuse Perpetrators Child Abuse Victims Childcare Childlessness as Choice Dating Violence Diet and Weight Control Divorce Domestic Violence Elder Abuse Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America “Fatherlessness” “Femininity,” Social Construction of Feminism Foster Mothers Gender Roles: Cross-Cultural Girl Scouts Girls, Inc.

Reader’s Guide Grandmothers “Helicopter Parents” Homemakers and Social Security Homemaking Household Decision-Making Mail-Order Brides Marriage Marriages, Arranged “Masculinity,” Social Construction of Mistresses Mothers in Prison Property Rights Quinceañeras Rural Women “Security Moms” Single Mothers “Soccer Moms” Stay-at-Home Mothers Stereotypes of Women Teen Pregnancy Welfare Widows Working Mothers

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List of Articles

A Abortion, Access to Abortion, Ethical Issues of Abortion, Late Abortion Laws, International Abortion Laws, United States Abortion Methods Abu Ghraib Action Heroes, Female Addiction and Substance Abuse Administrative Assistants/Office Managers Adolescence Adoption Advertising, Aimed at Women Advertising, Female Professionals in Advertising, Portrayal of Women in Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Afghanistan African American Muslims Aging, Attitudes Toward Albania Albright, Madeleine al-Faiz, Norah Algeria Ali, Laila Alternative Education

Amanpour, Christiane AMBER Alerts American Association of University Women American Girl Dolls American Idol American Samoa Amish Andorra Anglican Communion Angola Animal Rights Animal Trainers, Female Anime Antifeminism Antigua and Barbuda Anxiety Disorders Arab Feminism Archery Architecture, Women in Argentina Armenia Art Criticism: Gender Issues Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview) Association for Women’s Rights in Development Astronauts, Female Astronomy, Women in xxvii

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Attainment, College Degree Attainment, Elementary School Completion Attainment, Graduate Degree Attainment, High School Completion Attorneys, Female Australia Australian Aboriginal Artists Austria Auto Racing, Formula One Auto Racing, NASCAR Aviation, Women in Azerbaijan B Bachelet, Michelle Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Banks, Tyra Barbados Barbie Dolls Bariatric Surgery Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise Basketball, College Bat Shalom Beach Volleyball/Volleyball Beauty Pageants Beauty Pageants (Babies/Young Children) Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bhutto, Benazir Biology, Women in Birth Defects, Environmental Factors and Bisexuality Black Churches Blogs and the Blogosphere Body Art Body Image Bolivia Bollywood Bosnia and Herzegovina Botox Botswana

Bowers, Marci Boxing Brady, Sarah Bratz Dolls Brazil Breast Cancer Breast Reduction/Enlargement Surgery “Bridezillas” Brockovich, Erin Brundtland, Gro Harlem Brunei Darussalam Buddhism Bulgaria Bullying in the Workplace Burkina Faso Burundi Business, Women in C Caesarean Section, Rates of Cambodia Cameroon Campaign for Female Education Canada Cancer, Environmental Factors and Cancer, Women and Candomblé Cape Verde Cartoonists, Female Casaro Nascimento, Adir Catholics for Choice Celebrity Women Censorship Central African Republic Chabad Movement Chad Chase, Cheryl Chastity Pledges Chatrooms Chemistry, Women in Chicago, Judy Chicana Feminism Chief Executive Officers, Female Child Abuse, Perpetrators of Child Abuse, Victims of Child Labor Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital Childbirth, Medication in



Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural Childcare Childlessness as Choice Children’s Rights Chile China Chinese Religions Cho, Margaret Christian Identity Christianity Civil Unions Classical Music, Women in Clergy Abuse/Pedophilia Climate Change as a Women’s Issue Clinton, Hillary Rodham Coaches, Female Coaches of Women’s Teams CODEPINK College and University Faculty Colombia Combat, Women in Comedians, Female Coming Out Community Colleges Community Defense/Resistance Comoros Computer Games Computer Science, Women in Conflict Zones Congo Congo, Democratic Republic of the Contraception, Religious Approaches to Contraception Methods Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Convention on the Rights of the Child Coppola, Sofia Cornum, Rhonda Cosmetic Surgery Cosmetics Industry Costa Rica Côte d’Ivoire “Cougars” Council of Women World Leaders Country and Western Music, Women in Couric, Katie Cowboy Action Shooting Cowgirls

List of Articles Crafting Industry Creation Care Movement (Evangelical) Crime Victims, Female Crisis Pregnancy Centers Critical Race Feminism Croatia Cuba Cyber-Stalking and Internet Harassment Cyprus Czech Republic D Da Vinci Code, The Dance, Women in Dating Violence DeGeneres, Ellen Denmark Depression Diabetes Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of Diet and Weight Control Diet Industry Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago) Direct Sales Dirie, Warris Disability Definitions Disc Jockeys Divorce Djibouti Domestic Violence Domestic Violence Centers Domestic Workers Dominica Dominican Republic Dora the Explorer Doulas Drag Kings Drif-Bitat, Zohra Drought Drug Trade Duckworth, Tammy Duffy, Carol Ann Dykes on Bikes Dysthymia in Minority Population

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E Eagle Forum Earth Science, Women in East Timor Eating Disorders Ebadi, Shirin Ecofeminism Economics, Women in Ecuador Education, Women in Educational Administrators, College and University Educational Administrators, Elementary and High School Educational Attainment, Effect of Unpaid Labor on Educational Opportunities/Access Egypt Ehrenreich, Barbara El Salvador Elder Abuse Elder Care Elders, Joycelyn Elementary Educators EMILY’s List Engineering, Women in England, Lynndie Ensler, Eve Entrepreneurs Environmental Activism, Grassroots Environmental Issues, Women and Environmental Justice Equal Pay Equal Rights Amendment Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Evangelical Protestantism Exercise Science F Faculty, Adjunct and Contingent Fair Trade Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America Family and Consumer Sciences Family Research Council Famine Fashion Industry, Theoretical Controversies

Fatherlessness Faust, Drew Gilpin Fecundity Feinberg, Leslie Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of Female Genital Surgery, Types of “Femininity,” Social Construction of Feminism, American Feminism on College Campuses Feminist Jurisprudence Feminist Majority Foundation Feminist Publishing Feminist Theology Feminists for Life Fertility Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Fiber Arts, Women in Fields of Study Figure Skating Fiji Film Actors, Female Film Directors, Female: Europe Film Directors, Female: International Film Directors, Female: Latin America Film Directors, Female: United States Film Production, Women in Financial Aid Financial Independence of Women Finland Fitness Flannery, Sarah Flight Attendants Focus on the Family Fonda, Jane Forum for African Women Educationalists Foster Mothers France Freedom of Choice Act “Freedom of Conscience” Legislation Fundamentalist Christianity Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints G Gabon Gambia



Gandhi, Sonia Gardasil Gardening Gay and Lesbian Advocacy Gender, Defined Gender Dysphoria Gender Quotas in Government Gender Reassignment Surgery Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural General Union of Palestinian Women Georgia Germany Ghana Ghozlan, Engy Ayman  Gibbs, Lois Ginsberg, Ruth Bader Girl Gangs Girl Scouts “Girl-Friendly” Schools Girls Inc. Glass Ceiling Global Campaign for Education Global Feminism Global “Gag Rule” Golf Gomperts, Rebecca Goody, Jade Government, Women in Grameen Bank of Bangladesh Grandin, Temple Grandmothers Granny Peace Brigade Greece Green Belt Movement Grenada Guam Guatemala Guerrilla Fighters, Female Guerrilla Girls Guinea Guinea-Bissau Gun Control Guyana Gymnastics H Haiti Hate Crimes

List of Articles Hate Speech and Bias on College Campuses Heads of State, Female Health, Mental and Physical Health Insurance Issues Heart Disease Hefner, Christie “Helicopter Parents” Hello Kitty Heterosexism Heterosexuality High School Teachers Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints Hinduism Hip Hop HIV/AIDS: Africa HIV/AIDS: Asia HIV/AIDS: Europe HIV/AIDS: North America HIV/AIDS: Oceania HIV/AIDS: South America Holzer, Jenny Homemakers and Social Security Homemaking Homeschooling Homophobia Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward Honduras Honor Killings Honor Suicides Horse Racing, Women in Household Decision-Making Household Division of Labor Huffington, Arianna Human Rights Campaign Hungary Hunting Hysterectomies I Iceland Independent Women’s Forum India Indigenous Religions, Global Indigenous Women’s Issues Indigenous Women’s Rights, Bolivia Indonesia Infant Mortality Infanticide

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Infertility, Incidence of Infertility, Treatments for International Action Network on Small Arms International Conference on Population and Development International Monetary Fund International Women’s Day Internet Internet Dating Intersex Iran Iranian Feminism Iraq Ireland Islam Islam in America Islamic Feminism Israel Italy J Jackson, Shirley Ann Jamaica Jameson, Judith Japan Jewelry Design, Women in Jingjing, Guo Johnson, Sonia Jordan Journalists, Broadcast Media Journalists, Print Media Judaism Judges, Women as K Kali for Women: Feminist Publishing in India Karpinski, Janis Kazakhstan Kenya Kim, Yu-Na Kirchner, Cristina Fernández de Kiribati Kngwarreye, Emily Ku Klux Klan Kumari, Living Goddess in Nepal Kuwait Kyrgyzstan

L LaDuke, Winona Lady Gaga Land Mines Landscape Architecture, Women in Laos Latvia Law Enforcement, Women in League of Women Voters Lebanon Ledbetter, Lilly Leibovitz, Annie Lesbian Adoption Lesbian/Gay Clergy Lesbians Lesbians in the Military Lesotho Lessing, Doris LGBTQ Liberia Liechtenstein Life Expectancy, International Comparisons of Lilly Ledbetter Act Lin, Maya Linton, Simi Lithuania Little League Locavorism/Slow Food Movement Love Canal Luxembourg M Maathai, Wangari Macedonia (FYROM) Machismo/Marianismo Madagascar Maddow, Rachel Madonna MADRE Mail-Order Brides Mairs, Nancy Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Management, Women in



Management Styles, Gender Theories Manga Mankiller, Wilma Maquiladoras Mariana Islands, Northern Marriage Marriages, Arranged Marshall Islands Mary Magdalene “Masculinity,” Social Construction of Mata Amritanandamayi Math Maternal Mortality Mathematics, Women in Mauritania Mauritius McCartney, Stella McCorvey, Norma Media Chief Executive Officers, Female Medical Research, Gender Issues in Megan’s Law Mehta, Renu Menopause, Medical Aspects of Menopause, Social Aspects of Menstruation Menstruation, Rituals Surrounding Mental Health Treatment, Access to Mental Health Treatment, Bias in Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of Mentoring Merkel, Angela Metropolitan Community Church Mexico Michelman, Kate Microcredit Micronesia Midlife Career Change Midwifery Migrant Workers Military, Women in the Military Leadership, Women in Military Stationed in Muslim Countries Millennial Generation Million Mom March Ministry, Protestant Mistresses Moldova Monaco Mongolia

List of Articles Montenegro Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Morocco Morrison, Toni Mothers Against Choice Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers in Prison Mozambique Ms. Magazine MTV Mujerista Theology Multiverses, Gender Stereotypes in Myanmar N Namibia Nannies NARAL National Museum of Women in the Arts National Organization for Women National Women’s Political Caucus National Women’s Studies Association Native American Religion Nauru Navdanya Nepal Netherlands New Age Religion New Zealand Nicaragua Nicks, Stevie Niger Nigeria 9to5 No Child Left Behind Nongovernmental Organizations Worldwide Nontraditional Careers, U.S. Nooyi, Indra North Korea Norway Novelists, Female Nuns, Buddhist Nuns, Roman Catholic Nurses Nutrition Nutrition in Pregnancy

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xxxiv List of Articles O Oates, Joyce Carol Obama, Michelle Obsessive Compulsive Disorder O’Connor, Sandra Day Olympics, Summer Olympics, Winter Oman Operation Rescue Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq Orthodox Churches Orthodox Judaism Our Bodies, Ourselves Overpopulation P Pacifism, Female Pagels, Elaine Paglia, Camille Pakistan Palau Palestine Palin, Sarah Panama Panchita’s House: Domestic Workers Rights in Lima, Peru Papua New Guinea Paraguay Parental Leave Parental Leave Act Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Partner Rights Parton, Dolly Part-Time Work Patrick, Danica Peace Movement Pedophilia Online Pelosi, Nancy Perpetrators, Female Peru Philanthropists, Female Philippines Photography, Women in Physician Assistants, Female Physician Specialties Physicians, Female Physics, Women in

Pilates Pink, Advertising and Plan B Planned Parenthood Plumwood, Val Poets, Female Poland Political Ideologies Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered Pornography, Portrayal of Women in Pornography Produced by Women Pornography/Erotica Portugal Post-Abortion Trauma Syndrome Postpartum Depression Postpartum Psychosis Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military Poverty Poverty, “Feminization” of Pregnancy Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder Premenstrual Syndrome Prenatal Care Priesthood, Episcopalian/Anglican Priesthood, Roman Catholic Prison Administration Prison Guards, Female (U.S.) Prisoners, Female (U.S.) Prisoners of War, Female Professional Education Professions by Gender Progressive Muslims (U.S.) Pro-Life Movement Prom Property Rights Prostitution, Legal Prostitution in Combat Zones Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of Psychology/Psychiatry, Women in Psychotropic Medications Puberty Puerto Rico Purity Balls Q Qatar Queen Latifah Queen Noor of Jordan



Queer Theory Quinceañeras R Rabbis, Female Rachel’s Network Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined Rape, Incidence of Rape, Legal Definitions of Rape, Prosecution Rates of Rape and HIV Rape Crisis Centers Rape in Conflict Zones Rape Trauma Syndrome Reality Television Religion, Women in Religious Fundamentalism, Cross-Cultural Context of Representation of Women Representation of Women in Government, International Representation of Women in Government, U.S. Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights Reproductive Cancers Revirginization Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Revolve Rhode, Kim Rice, Condoleezza Ride, Sally Robinson, Mary Rock Music, Women in Rodeo Roe v. Wade Roller Derby Roma “Gypsy” Women Roman Catholic Church Romance Novels Romania RU-486 Running/Marathons Rural Women Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia

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Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Same-Sex Marriage Samoa San Marino Santería São Tomé and Principe Sarkozy, Carla Bruni Saudi Arabia School Fee Abolition Initiative (Kenya) Schori, Katharine Jefferts Science, Women in Science Education for Girls Secularity Law, France “Security Moms” Self-Defense, Armed Self-Defense, Unarmed Self-Employed Women’s Association of India Self-Mutilation Senegal Serbia Sex Education, Abstinence-Only Sex Education, Comprehensive Sex Education, Cross-Culturally Compared Sex Education in the Home Sex Offenders, Female Sex Offenders, Male Sex Workers Sexting Sexual Harassment Sexual Orientation Sexual Orientation: Scientific Theories of Causation Sexual Orientation and Race Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: United States Sexually Transmitted Infections Seychelles Shari`a Law Shepard, Judy Shiva, Vandana

xxxvi List of Articles Shoemaker, Carolyn Shooting Sports, Women in Showalter, Elaine Sierra Leone Sigurðardóttir, Jóhanna Sikhism Singapore Single Mothers Single-Sex Education “Singletons”/Single by Choice Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson Slasher Movies Slovakia Slovenia “Snowflake Babies” Soap Operas, Cross-Culturally Considered Soccer, Children’s Soccer, Professional Soccer Moms Social Justice Activism Social Justice Theory Solomon, Suniti Solomon Islands Somalia Sörenstam, Annika Sotomayor, Sonia South Africa South Korea Southern Baptist Convention Spain Sports, Women in Sports Announcers, Female Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Sports Officials, Female Sri Lanka Starhawk Staša Zajović, Stanislava Stay-at-Home Mothers Steinem, Gloria STEM Coalition Stereotypes of Women Sterilization, Involuntary Sterilization, Voluntary Steroid Use Stewart, Martha Studio Arts, Women in Sudan Suicide and Race

Suicide Bombers, Female Suicide Methods Suicide Rates Suleman, Nadya “Octomom” Supermodels Suriname Suttee Suu Kyi, Aung San Swaziland Sweatshops Sweden Sweet Honey in the Rock Swimming Switzerland Syria T Tajikistan Take Back the Night Taliban Tamang, Stella Tanzania Te Kanawa, Dame Kiri Teachers’ Unions Team Owners, Female Teen Pregnancy Tennis Terrorists, Female Thailand Thatcher, Margaret Third Wave Thomas, Helen Tibetan Women’s Association Title IX Togo Tonga Torres, Dara Toxic Waste, as Women’s Issue Toys, Gender-Stereotypic Track and Field, Women in Trafficking, Women and Children Transgender Transnational Feminist Networks Transsexuality Trinidad and Tobago Trotta, Margarethe von Tunisia Turkey

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Turkmenistan Tuvalu “Two-Spirit” U Uganda Ukraine Unions United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United Nations Conferences on Women United Nations Conventions United Nations Development Fund for Women United States Unpaid Labor Urban Planning, Women in Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vagina Monologues, The vanden Heuvel, Katrina Vanuatu Vegetarian Feminism Veil Venezuela Veterinarians, Female Vietnam Villa-Komaroff, Lydia Vincent, Norah Violence Against Women Act Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Mary Virgin of Guadalupe Visser, Lesley Vocational and Trade School Faculty Volleyball. See Beach Volleyball/Volleyball Voodoo Voting Rights W Wadud, Amina Wahhabism Walker, Alice Walker, Kara Walters, Barbara Wars of National Liberation, Women in Water, as Women’s Issue

Waters, Alice Wedding Industry Weightlifting Welfare White House Council on Women and Girls White Supremacy Wicca/Goddess Spirituality Widows Williams, Venus and Serena Winfrey, Oprah Winkett, Canon Lucy Witchcraft: Worldwide Womanism Womanist Theology Women in Black Women Involved in Farm Economics Women Make Movies Women’s Cable Networks Women’s Colleges Women’s Cooperatives Women’s Environment and Development Organization Women’s Funding Network Women’s Health Clinics Women’s History Month Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Women’s Magazines Women’s National Basketball Association Women’s Ordination Conference Women’s Resource Centers Women’s Review of Books Women’s Studies Women’s Thrift Cooperatives Working Mothers Work/Life Balance World Health Organization X Xtreme Sports Y Yates, Andrea Yemen Yoga Z Zaimont, Judith Lang Zambia Zimbabwe

List of Contributors

Abatsis McHenry, Kristen University of Massachusetts, Boston Ackerman, Alissa University of California, Merced Adams, Jennifer DePauw University Adams, Tony Northeastern Illinois University Addison, Michelle Newcastle University Adney, Karley University of Wisconsin, Marathon County Agüera Cabo, Mercè University of Girona Alcalde, M. Cristina University of Kentucky Alexandre, Chandra Institute of Transpersonal Psychology Alexy, Allison Lafayette College Allison, Jill Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador Almond, Amanda Connecticut College Altinay, Rustem Ertug Bogazici University

Anderson, Kristin University of Houston, Downtown Anstey, Erica University of South Florida Anthony, Deborah University of Illinois at Springfield Anuik, Jonathan Lakehead University, Orillia Appelbaum, Jenna New York University Aseltine, Elyshia University of Texas at Austin Atay, Ahmet University of Louisville Avishai, Orit Fordham University Bagilhole, Barbara Loughborough University Bagwell, Dana Independent Scholar Baker, Carrie Berry College Baker, Nancy Sam Houston State University Baker, Vanessa Bowling Green State University xxxix

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Bakirci, Kadriye Istanbul Technical University Barlow, Constance University of Calgary Barnard, Sarah Loughborough University Barnes, Rebecca University of Derby Barr, Elissa University of North Florida Barrett, Hazel Coventry University Bassett, Deborah University of Washington Bassett, Molly H. Georgia State University Basu, Pratyusha University of South Florida Baxandall, Rosalyn State University of New York, Old Westbury Bello, Barbara University of Milano Bello y Villarino, José-Miguel Independent Scholar Bent, Emily National University of Ireland, Galway Berry, Bonnie Social Problems Research Group Bilous, Adriane Fordham University Bittarello, Maria John Cabot University Block, Marcelline Princeton University Bogstad, Janice University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire Bond, Cynthia Loyola Marymount University Borck, Cathy The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Boros, Claudine Touro College Bos, Angela College of Wooster Boslaugh, Sarah Washington University

Bouclin, Suzanne McGill University Bowles, Emily Lawrence University Bowles, Ryan University of California, Santa Barbara Boyers, Robert Skidmore College Brännlund, Emma National University of Ireland, Galway Braun, Yvonne University of Oregon Bray, Una Skidmore College Brigley Thompson, Zoe University of Northampton Brown, Carl East Tennessee State University Browne, Kath University of Brighton Brunson, Jan Bowdoin College Bueskens, Petra Deakin University Burkett, Jennifer University of Southern Mississippi Buscher, Austin Claremont Graduate University Buss, Candice University of North Carolina, Greensboro Calarco, Jr., Paul Hudson Valley Community College Canelo, Kayla California State University, Stanislaus Carter, Daryl East Tennessee State University Cermele, Jill Drew University Cerven, Christine University of California, San Diego Chen, Ya-chen Clark University Choubey, Asha M.J.P. Rohilkhand University Chrisler, Joan Connecticut College Churcher, Kalen Niagara University



Coelho, Maria University of Minho Cokely, Carrie Curry College Comerford, Lynn California State University, East Bay Cornelius Smith, Erika Purdue University Coulter, Myrl Independent Scholar Crain, Crystallee California Institute of Integral Studies Crutcher, Emily University of California, Santa Barbara Cruz, Gemma DePaul University Cunningham, Carolyn Boston College Currans, Elizabeth The College of William and Mary Cutts, Qiana Argosy University Atlanta Daprano, Corinne University of Dayton Dasgupta, Arundhati University of Lethbridge Davari, Dordaneh Rutgers University Davey, Gareth Hong Kong Shue Yan University Davidson, Cait Independent Scholar Davidson, Deborah York University Davis, Corrie Kennesaw State University de la Porte, Susan University of KwaZulu-Natal DeHaas, Jocelyn Eastern Washington University Del Moral Garrido, Marian Universidad de Granada DeLap, Alpha University of Washington Desnoyers-Colas, Elizabeth Armstrong Atlantic State University Dethloff, Heather Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

List of Contributors Deutsch, James Smithsonian Institution DeWan, Jennifer Independent Scholar Dewey, Susan Indiana University, Bloomington Dicken, Virginia Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Diduch, Amy McCormick Mary Baldwin College Doll, Yvonne U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Donohue, Stacey Central Oregon Community College Dowsett, Julie York University Drew, Patricia California State University, East Bay Duffy, Donna University of North Carolina, Greensboro Duprat-Kushtanina, Veronika École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Duquaine-Watson, Jillian University of Texas at Dallas Eagleman, Andrea Indiana University Edmonds, Regina Assumption College Edy, Carolyn University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Eileraas, Karina University of California, Los Angeles Elkind, Perrin University of California, Berkeley Enszer, Julie University of Maryland Etaugh, Claire Bradley University Fackler, Jennifer University of Houston Fahs, Breanne Arizona State University Fairclough, Kirsty University of Salford Farkas, Zita Independent Scholar Farrell, Annemarie Ithaca College

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List of Contributors

Federer, Lisa University of California, Los Angeles Finn, Melissa York University Fischer, Clara Trinity College Dublin Fitzgerald, Monica Saint Mary’s College of California Fleetwood, Jennifer University of Kent Floyd, Nancy Georgia State University Flynn, Johnny P. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Ford, Elyssa Arizona State University Fornengo, Graziella University of Turin Foster, Stephenie Legacy Fountain, Kim Independent Scholar Fumia, Doreen Ryerson University Furia, Stacie Northland College Galman, Sally University of Massachusetts, Amherst Garner, Karen State University of New York, Empire State College Gatrell, Caroline Lancaster University Gillentine, Andy University of Miami Good, Deirdre The General Theological Seminary Gordon-Dseagu, Vanessa University College London Gosztyla, Shell State University of New York, Albany Gotlib, Anna State University of New York, Binghamton Gott, K. C. East Tennessee State University Grady, Marilyn University of Nebraska-Lincoln Graetz, Naomi Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Graney, Katherine Skidmore College Gregg, Elizabeth Jacksonville University Groeneveld, Elizabeth University of Guelph Gunnison, Elaine Seattle University Gustafson, Diana Memorial University Halasz, Judith State University of New York, New Paltz Hant, Myrna University of California, Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Women Hardy, Kate Queen Mary, University of London Harris, Sian Newcastle University Hayden, Sara University of Montana Hayes, Brittany City University of New York Heilbrunn, Sarah California Polytechnic State University Heitner, Keri University of Phoenix Helgren, Jennifer University of the Pacific Henderson, Heike Boise State University Hern, Warren University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Hernandez, Marcia University of the Pacific Herrera, Cristina California State University, Fresno Hidalgo, Danielle University of California, Santa Barbara Hilarides, Bridget Reed College Hill, Emily University of North Dakota Hinze, Susan Case Western Reserve University Hirani, Vasant Royal Free and University College London



Hixon, Amy University of KwaZulu-Natal Holcomb, Briavel Rutgers University Hopkins, Jason University of California, Santa Barbara Horn Sheeler, Kristina Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis Horsley, William Reed College Houlihan, Meggan A. Ball State University Huang, Yu-ling State University of New York, Binghamton Hung, Li-Ching Overseas Chinese University Huntoon, Alishia Oregon Institute of Technology Hurst, Rachel St. Francis Xavier University Husain, Jonelle Mississippi State University Ignagni, Sandra York University Jacobsen, Joyce Wesleyan University Jaffer, Jennifer Independent Scholar Jamal, Judy Columbia University Janssen, Diederik Independent Scholar Johnson, Phylis Southern Illinois University Johnson, Carolyn Columbia University Teachers College Johnson, Helen University of Queensland Jones, Meredith University of Technology, Sydney Jones, Rita Lehigh University Kaell, Hillary Harvard University Kahl, Mary State University of New York, New Paltz Kain, Edward Southwestern University

List of Contributors Kalmbach, Hilary University of Oxford Kane, Jennifer University of North Florida Kaptan, Senem Sabanci University Karakurt, Gunnur Texas Tech University Kaul, Nitasha University of Westminster Kaur, Mandeep University of Texas, Austin Kaur, Jasmeet Independent Scholar Keifer-Boyd, Karen Pennsylvania State University Keith, Tina Pathways Community Behavioral Healthcare Keller, Jessalynn University of Texas at Austin Keller, Mary University of Wyoming Kelley, Kate S. University of Missouri Kelly, Kimberly Mississippi State University Kermani, Zohreh Harvard University Khan, Farida University of Wisconsin, Parkside Khoja-Moolji, Shenila Harvard University Klein, Jessica Adelphi University Knight, Wanda Pennsylvania State University Koh, Adeline Richard Stockton College Kohlman, Marla Kenyon College Koncikowski, Jeanette State University of New York, Buffalo Koppelman, Constance State University of New York, Stonybrook Krehbiel Keefe, Susi Brown University Kreitler, Katy Nicole University of San Francisco

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Kretzschmar, Uta Chemnitz University of Technology Kronenfeld, Jennie Arizona State University Kuehl, Rebecca University of Minnesota Kwan, Samantha University of Houston La Monica, Nancy York University Lai, Suat Yan University of Malaya Lans, Alexander College of Wooster Lee, Jason University of North Florida Leitz, Lisa Hendrix College LeSavoy, Barbara State University of New York, Brockport Letherby, Gayle Plymouth University Leyser, Ophra Haskell Indian Nations University Liberman, Rachael University of Colorado at Boulder Little, Christopher University of Toronto Lizzio, Celene Harvard University Logsdon-Conradsen, Susan Berry College Love, Bettina Northern Kentucky University Lumsden, Rachel The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Lyons, Courtney Baylor University Maatita, Florence Southern Illinois University Edwardsville MacLean, Vicky Middle Tennessee State University Madonia, Heather College of Wooster Madsen, Susan Utah Valley University

Maetala, Ruth Ministry for Women Youth and Children Affairs Maina, Julie Roanoke College Malzac, Julien Université de Toulouse Mann, Carol University of London Manning, Jimmie Northern Kentucky University Mansfield, Katherine Cumings University of Texas at Austin Marsh, Patricia University of Central Missouri Mayhead, Molly Western Oregon University McCarthy, Ashling University of KwaZulu Natal McKelley, Ryan University of Wisconsin, La Crosse McIntosh, Heather Northern Illinois University Mendick, Heather Goldsmiths University of London Merriman, Katherine Harvard Divinity School Meyer, Doug The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Mignon, Sylvia University of Massachusetts, Boston Mills, Shirley University of Texas–Pan American Mizumura, Ayako University of Kansas Mlinarevic, Gorana University of Sarajevo Moghadam, Valentine Purdue University Morales Villena, Amalia Universidad de Granada More, Alison St. Bonaventure University Moreau, Marie-Pierre University of Bedfordshire Moreno, Gerardo Northeastern Illinois University



Mortenson, Joani University of British Columbia, Okanagan Movileanu, Angela University of Siena Mupotsa, Danai Monash University Murray, Dara Rutgers University Narasimhan, Vasantha Skidmore College Nario-Redmond, Michelle Hiram College Nash, Catherine Brock University Newman, Matthew Arizona State University Ní Mhórdha, Máire University of St. Andrews, Scotland Nichols, Tracy University of North Carolina at Greensboro Nix-Stevenson, Dara University of North Carolina at Greensboro Noyola, Sonia University of Texas at Austin O’Brien Hallstein, D. Lynn Boston University Ochoa Rodríguez, M. Delores Universidad de Granada Okopny, Cara University of Maryland O’Leary, Pamela Independent Scholar Oleson, Kathy Reed College Ortbals, Candice Pepperdine University Oxford, Connie State University of New York, Plattsburgh Pabón López, María Indiana University School of Law Pamonag, Febe Western Illinois University Pankake, Anita M. University of Texas–Pan American Pantea, Maria-Carmen Babes Bolyai University

List of Contributors Parenti, Brittany Northwestern University Parsons, Jacqueline St. Mary’s University Patel, Priti Southern Africa Litigation Centre Patterson, Natasha Simon Fraser University Pease-Hernandez, Christine Slippery Rock University Pfeiffer, Alice Independent Scholar Plant, Rebecca University of California, San Diego Plec, Emily Western Oregon University Polacek, Kelly Myer Independent Scholar Policek, Nicoletta University of Lincoln Poloni-Staudinger, Lori Northern Arizona University Poltera, Jacqui University of Western Sydney Predoi-Cross, Adriana University of Lethbridge Purdy, Elizabeth Rholetter Independent Scholar Raimist, Rachel University of Alabama Ramalho, Tania State University of New York, Oswego Rangil, Viviana Skidmore College Reed, Jennifer California State University, Long Beach Reger, Mark Limestone College Reid Boyd, Elizabeth Edith Cowan University Reviere, Rebecca Howard University Reynaga-Abiko, Geneva University of California, Merced Rholetter, Wylene Auburn University Richards, Judy Newcastle University

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List of Contributors

Richman, Alice UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health Richter, Nicole Wright State University Ricordeau, Gwénola Université Lille 1 Riley, Jeannette University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Rittenhofer, Iris Århus University Rodgers, Julie National University of Ireland Maynooth Rodriguez, Jenny University of Strathclyde Rodriguez Medela, Juan University of Granada Röhner, Jessica TU Chemnitz Rose, Jennifer Connecticut College Roth-Johnson, Danielle University of Nevada, Las Vegas Rowley, Sarah Indiana University Royce, Tracy University of California, Santa Barbara Ruminski, Elesha Frostburg State University Ruspini, Elisabetta University of Milano, Bicocca Salina, Doreen Northwestern University Sanders, Sara University of California, San Diego Sanford, Kimberly University of Nevada, Las Vegas Sardadvar, Karin University of Vienna Sauer, Michelle University of North Dakota Scheckler, Rebecca Radford University Schuster, Paulette Hebrew University Schütz, Astrid Chemnitz University of Technology

Selen Artan, Zeynep The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Shankar, Janki University of Calgary Shearer, Christine University of California, Santa Barbara Shearman, Mary Simon Fraser University Shelton, Nicola University College of London Shouse Tourino, Christina Saint John’s University Siddique, Julie The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Simic, Olivera University of Melbourne, Australia Simpson, Roona University of Edinburgh Singh, Shweta Loyola University Chicago Singh, Parminder Independent Scholar Sippy, Jessica Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Smanick, Abbey College of Wooster Smith, Cary Mississippi State University Smith Koslowski, Alison University of Edinburgh Soliday, Elizabeth Washington State University, Vancouver Solovieva, Olga Union College Souder, Donna Colorado State University, Pueblo Stackman, Valerie Howard University Stange, Mary Zeiss Skidmore College Steegstra, Marijke Radboud University Nijmegen Steiner, Linda University of Maryland



Stephenson, Carolyn University of Hawaii at Manoa Stettner, Shannon York University Steyn, Petrus Stellenbosch University Stiles, Erin University of Nevada, Reno Strentzsch, Julie St. Mary’s University Struve, Jennifer Towson University Sulik, Gayle Texas Woman’s University Tallis, Vicci Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa Talukdar, Jaita Loyola University, New Orleans Tayeb, Lamia High Institute of Human Sciences in Tunis Taylor, Yvette Newcastle University Teetzel, Sarah University of Manitoba Thacker, Devon Colorado University, Boulder Thomas, Sue Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation Thomas, Valorie Pomona College Thompson, Phyllis East Tennessee State University Throop, Liz Georgia State University Thrower, Leesha Northern Kentucky University Thurston, Wilfreda University of Calgary Tolley-Stokes, Rebecca East Tennessee State University Tolstokrova, Alissa International School for Equal Opportunities Tosolt, Brandelyn Northern Kentucky University Treitler, Vilna City University of New York

List of Contributors Trevino, Marcella Bush Barry University Turner, Bryan The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Vallance, Denise York University van den Hoonaard, Deborah St. Thomas University van der Tuin, Iris Utrecht University Vancour, Michele Southern Connecticut State University Varnum, Charis Columbia University Versace, Jaimee Connecticut College Vieitez-Cerdeño, Soledad Universidad de Granada Vijeyarasa, Ramona University of New South Wales Wadhwa, Vandana Boston University Wall, Jessica Indiana University Bloomington Walters-Kramer, Lori Independent Scholar Wayne, Tiffany Independent Scholar Weaving, Charlene St. Francis Xavier University Weida, Stacy Indiana University Werhun, Cherie University of Winnipeg Whatley, Jonathan Independent Scholar White, Katie University of Maryland, College Park Whiteside, Erin Penn State University Wies, Jennifer Eastern Kentucky University Wilhelm, Brenda Mesa State College Williams, Hettie Monmouth University

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List of Contributors

Williams, Joyce Middle Tennessee State University Wing, Adrien University of Iowa Law School Winter, M. Corrine St. Ambrose University Wolff, Kristina University of Maine, Farmington Wolford, Karen State University of New York, Oswego Wright Miller, Gill Denison University Wyatt-Nichol, Heather University of Baltimore

Yanus, Alixandra High Point University Young Barstow, Eliza Harvard University Zagura, Michelle State University of New York, Albany Zamir, Sara Ben-Gurion University, Eilat Zárecká, Petra Masaryk University Ziegler, Sianna Reed College Žnidaršic Žagar, Sabina University of Primorska, Koper

Chronology of Women in Today’s World

2000 The United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 1325, reaffirming the vulnerability of women and children in conflict areas around the world and calling for greater female participation in cease-fire and peace negotiations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the controversial RU 486 drug (mifepristone) known as the abortion pill, giving American women access to a noninvasive abortion that had been available in some countries for over a decade. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) becomes the first former First Lady in American history to serve in the United States Senate. Stanford professor Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African American female National Security Advisor in American history.

go far enough in addressing inherent gender inequities in Egyptian society. Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Interpreter of Maladies, the tale of an Indian American family vacationing in India while their marriage slowly crumbles. Writer Stacy Schiff wins the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography for Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), which follows the 52-year marriage of the Russian American novelist and his wife. Paying homage to When I Lived in Modern Times, the Orange Prize for the best English-language novel of the year written by a woman is awarded to British writer Linda Grant.

Tarja Halonen, a long-time member of the Finnish Parliament, is elected president of Finland.

American actress Julia Roberts wins the Best Actress Academy Award for playing the title role in Erin Brockovich, a film about a financially struggling mother and environmental activist challenging a polluting conglomerate in court.

By presidential decree, Egypt creates the National Council for Women. Many feminists claim it does not

American actress Marcia Gay Harden wins an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Pollock xlix

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in which she plays artist Lee Krasner, the wife who subsumes her career to what she sees as the greater talents of her husband, artist Jackson Pollock. Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel in space, begins spearheading NASA’s EarthKam, an Internet-based project that provides interactive access to space shots for middle schoolers. She subsequently founds Sally Ride Science, a program designed to support greater female involvement in science and mathematics. For the first time in the history of the Olympics, female athletes compete in as many events as males. Czech-American Martina Navratilova is in-ducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Marla Runyan, who is classified as legally blind, wins her first title at the USA Track and Field Championships. Australian track and field Olympian Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, who won every Australian event she entered between 1950 and 1954, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Chris Carver, four-time Olympic Coach of the Year, is honored for her career in coaching synchronized swimmers by being inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Rachel Carson, the author of the environment-themed The Silent Spring (1962), begins putting together a “good ol’ girls’ network” to improve the environment and empower women. The Guerilla Girls, a group of radical feminist artists, establish the Guerilla Girls BroadBand Website as a focal point for activists involved in issues of justice. In Stenberg v. Carhart, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Nebraska law banning intact dilation as a method of late-term abortion because it makes no exception for when maternal health is threatened. In U.S. v. Morrison, which involves the alleged rape of a female student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the U.S. Supreme Court determines that the Violence against Women Act of 1994 is unconstitutional because Congress cannot use powers granted them under the Interstate Commerce Clause or the enforcement clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to provide civil remedies for gender-related crimes. In Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that victims of gender discrimination are not always required to produce direct evidence of discrimination to prove their claims.

Three-time American Olympic synchronized swimmer Tracie Lehuanani Ruiz-Conforto is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Dora the Explorer is added to the Nick Jr. television schedule, chronicling the adventures of a young Latina whose quests to discover the world while helping others becomes a hit with both male and female preschoolers. In addition to serving as a role model for Hispanic girls, the series also teaches basic Spanish to young viewers.

Considered one of the greatest freestyle swimmers of all time, American Olympian Shirley Babashoff, the winner of eight gold medals in team events, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Former jockey Julie Krone becomes the first woman in American history to be inducted into the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame. Seven years earlier, Krone had made history by becoming the first female jockey to win the Triple Crown.

At the age of 55, Diana Hoff becomes the second woman and the oldest on record to row across the Atlantic Ocean.

At the age of 90, Doris “Granny D.” Haddock crosses America on foot to bring public attention to the need for campaign finance reform.

Under the leadership of Winsome McIntosh, the Founding Circle of Rachel’s Network, named after

Texas homemaker Andrea Yates is found guilty of drowning her five young children in a bathtub.



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2001 On September 11, four commercial jetliners are hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists to be used in two attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and one on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., causing nearly 3,000 deaths. The fourth attack is averted when passengers rush their attackers, resulting in the deaths of everyone on board when the plane crashes in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

In February during a 90-day 1,717-mile trip, American explorer Ann Bancroft and Norwegian explorer Liv Arnesen become the first women to cross Antarctica on skis. Bancroft had earned the distinction of being the first woman to cross the North Pole in 1986. After leading an all-female team across the South Pole in 1996, she became the first woman in history to have crossed both the North and South Poles.

In Ferguson v. City of Charleston, the U.S. Supreme Court decides that a South Carolina hospital’s actions in forcing pregnant women to undergo substance testing and reporting the results to the police violate constitutional protections against warrantless searches.

Halle Berry becomes the first African American woman in history to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Monster’s Ball, a dark drama about the romance between an African American woman and a racist prison guard.

In Pollard v. E.I. Dupont Nemours Company, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that “front pay,” which is awarded to victims of gender discrimination, who successfully challenge discriminatory behavior under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is not subject to the damage caps placed on compensatory awards. In Nguyen v. INS, the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the constitutionality of a law requiring children born out of wedlock to American fathers living abroad to prove paternity by the age of 18 to claim citizenship, even though such children born to American mothers living abroad become citizens automatically. Economics professor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is elected president of the Philippines. Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of President Sukarno, who led Indonesia into independence, becomes the first female president of Indonesia. Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, an Olympian in track and field, is elected Governor of South Australia. Rwanda passes minor women’s rights legislation in an effort to improve the lives of women and children. In the United States, Maine joins other states in providing legal protection for breastfeeding mothers.

American actress Jennifer Connelly wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind, which is based on the life of mathematician John Nash and his descent into madness after becoming a cryptologist. Australian writer Kate Grenville wins the prestigious Orange award for the best English-language novel written by a woman for The Idea of Perfection, the tale of Harley Savage, an awkward and eccentric quilter afraid to love after the unexpected death of her husband. Chinese-American skater Michelle Kwan wins her fourth straight U.S. Figure Skating Championship. Tennis players Venus and Serena Williams become the first sisters to face off against one another in the Grand Slam final of the U.S. Open. Five-time gold medalist for the United States, speed skater Bonnie Blair is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Blair, who is one of the most honored athletes in American Olympic history, also has one bronze medal. She held the record for most Olympic medals won by an American until 2010, when the record was broken by male speed skater Apolo Ohno. Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti-Biro, who has won 10 Olympic medals, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

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Four-time American gold medalist and swimmer Janet Evans, who is best remembered for her unorthodox windmill stroke, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Drama in homage to her play, Topdog/Underdog in which she chronicles the struggles of two brothers named after President Abraham Lincoln and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

Noted African American figure skater and coach Mabel Fairbanks is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in the coaching category. Because of segregation, Fairbanks was shut out of many ice shows in the 1940s and 1950s. She responded by forming her own ice shows and touring the world.

Writer Diane McWhorter wins the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.

Three-time American Olympic synchronized swimmer Tracie Lehuanni Ruiz-Conforto is named Synchronized Swimmer of the Century by the International Swimming Hall of Fame. American Venus Williams shuts out Justine Henin of Belgium in the women’s singles series at Wimbledon. 2002 Females 17 years of age and over are granted suffrage rights in Timor-Leste. In the United States, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is extended to provide coverage to unborn children who require medical procedures. The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), an international group committed to promoting women’s rights from a global perspective, celebrates its 20th anniversary. Olympians Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers become the first American women to win Gold Medals in bobsledding. Flowers is also the first Black athlete from any country to win a Gold Medal in a Winter Olympics competition. The two women are chosen to carry the flag into the Closing Ceremony. The first time the women’s skeleton competition is included in the Winter Olympics, Tristan Gale carries home the Gold Medal for the United States. Playwright Susan-Lori Parks becomes the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for

American writer Ann Patchett wins the Orange Award for best English-language novel written by a woman, for Bel Canto: A Novel, which follows the intricate relationships of a group of terrorists and their hostages. After placing fourth in the women’s short program, ice skater Sarah Hughes engineers an upset and wins the Gold Medal for Women’s Ice Skating by landing seven triple jumps in Salt Lake City, Utah. British ice dancer Jayne Torvill, who along with partner Christopher Dean became the highest-scoring ice dancers in Olympic history in 1984 after producing a routine based on Ravel’s Bolero, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Four-time Australian Olympian in track and field, Betty Cuthbert is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American Olympian Valerie Brisco is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1984, she became the first Olympian to win gold in both the 200- and 400-meter track and field events and won an additional gold medal in 1988. Temple University fencing coach, Nikki Tomlinson Franke, an African American, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American tennis player Venus Williams beats fellow American Lindsay Davenport to claim victory in the women’s singles at Wimbledon. Australian actress Nicole Kidman wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of British feminist writer Virginia Woolf in The Hours.



In Athens, Greece, the Deste Center for Contemporary Arts honors the work of contemporary female artists with the Fusion Cuisine International Exhibit. 2003 In Oman, women 21 years of age and over win the right to vote. California Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Democratic Minority Leader in the history of the United States House of Representatives. Career politician Micheline Calmy-Rey of Switzerland becomes the Swiss head of state by virtue of her position on the Federal Council. She subsequently heads the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Valeria Ciavatta of the Popular Alliance of Democrats becomes one of two Captain Regents of San Marino. Nino Burjanadze, an international law professor, becomes the Acting President of Georgia, a former Soviet republic. Fiji passes the Family Leave Bill, recognizing the fact that women contribute to households in non-financial ways and stating that divorced women have property rights based on those contributions. The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the cost of partner violence in the United States exceeds more than $5.8 billion annually. Female literacy surpasses that of males for the first time in the United Arab Emirates, and women now are the student majority at the university level. A female is elected to the national legislature in Qatar, becoming the first woman to win election through universal suffrage in the Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights works, which focuses par-

Chronology

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ticularly on protecting the rights of women, children, and refugees. The United States Congress passes the Partial-Birth Ban Abortion Act, banning late-terms abortions performed by intact dilation, without including an exception for protecting maternal health. In a Nevada state law case, Department of Human Resources v. Hobbs, the Supreme Court holds that Americans are allowed to use the federal courts to bring suit for violations of the federal Family Leave Medical Act of 1993, which provides for unpaid parental leave when families are having or adopting a child or when employees or family members are experiencing serious illnesses. Egypt enacts a restrictive law that makes it more difficult for all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including those that support women’s rights, to obtain official recognition. The law is later deemed unconstitutional. The Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority reinstates Shari`a family laws and reestablishes religious courts but reverses itself the following year. The African Union adopts the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, calling for all member countries to cease discriminating against women and guarantee the protection of their rights. South Africa–born actress Charlize Theron wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Daytona Beach prostitute and serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the film Monster. Actress Renée Zellweger wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Ruby Thewes in the Civil War drama Cold Mountain. American writer Valerie Martin wins the Orange Award for best English-language fiction written by a female for Property: A Novel, which takes place in New Orleans in the 1830s. After 58 years of males-only competition, Swedish golfer Annika Sörenstam joins the PGA tour.

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African American track and field athlete Jackie JoynerKersee is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She won gold for the United States in both 1988 and 1992, becoming one of the most celebrated female athletes in American history. Australian Heather McKay, who is often cited as the greatest female squash player of all time, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Chinese diver Min Gao who won gold medals in 1988 and 1992 is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Golfing coach Linda Vollstedt is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Financial reports reveal that British author J.K. Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter novels about a boy attending a school of witchcraft and wizardry, is now richer than the Queen of England. Rowling is the only author in the history of the world to become a billionaire from the proceeds of her writing. When the Williams sisters face off in the women’s singles championship series at Wimbledon, Serena claims victory over her elder sister Venus. 2004 Educator and activist Gertrude Ibengwe Mongella of Tanzania is named President of the Parliament of the African Union. Luisa Diogo becomes Prime Minister of Mozambique. Former exile Baleka Mbete becomes Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa. In Pennsylvania State Police v. Suders, the U.S. Supreme Court determines that employers may not defend charges of gender discrimination filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by claiming they have taken action to prevent further misbehavior in cases where plaintiffs have been forced to vacate their jobs to avoid hostile environment sexual harassment. Noted primatologist Jane Goodall wins the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest for

her work with chimpanzees and her dedication to improving the lives of animals. She is also invested as a Dame in her native Britain. The Turkish-centered Women’s Human Rights group holds a regional conference in Malta to address the violation of the sexual and bodily rights of women. American biologist Linda B. Buck wins the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for her work on the olfactory system. Austrian playwright and novelist Elfriede Jelinek wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. One of her best known works is The Piano Teacher (1988). Jamaican British writer Andrea Levy wins the Orange Award for best English-language fiction written by a female for Small Island, which is set in World War II London and Jamaica. Kenyan activist and parliamentarian Wangari Muta Maathai wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the environment and women’s rights. She is the first African woman to win this prize. Writer Anne Applebaum wins the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Gulag: A History, a chronicling of Soviet labor camps under Joseph Stalin. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act holds convicted murders liable for the deaths of both a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Women participate in the first democratic elections in the history of Afghanistan. In Morocco, the national legislature enacts major reforms to Islamic family codes, expanding the rights of wives and mothers. In the United States, opponents defeat the Freedom of Choice Act, which would have provided additional protection for abortion rights. Italian-born Sonia Gandhi stuns her adopted home of India when she brings the Gandhi dynasty to an end by refusing to become Prime Minister several years



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after the death of her husband, Rajiv Gandhi, a member of the Gandhi family that had ruled India since the 1940s.

are stranded at the Superdome, where they have fled for safety, without food, water, medicine, and other basic necessities.

The most destructive tsunami in the history of the world occurs in the Indian Ocean in December, creating massive waves with energy levels equal to 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. In its wake, 150,000 people are dead or missing and millions are left without homes. For years afterward, women and children were disproportionately affected by the aftermath.

Kuwait finally grants female suffrage, but because of existing suffrage laws, it is limited to those who have been citizens for 20 years.

American actress Hilary Swank wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Maggie Fitzgerald, a female boxer. Australian actress Cate Blanchett wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role as Hollywood film legend Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, which is based on the life of notorious recluse Howard Hughes. University of Texas women’s track and field coach Beverly Kearney is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Brazilian tennis player Maria Esther Bueno is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Her record includes 19 Grand Slam titles, 11 women’s doubles titles, and one mixed double title. American swimmer Nancy Hogshead Makar, who won three gold medals and one silver medal in freestyle swimming in 1984, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Maria Sharapova of Russia holds off American Serena Williams to win the women’s singles title at Wimbledon. 2005 Hurricane Katrina strikes the Gulf Coast of the United States in August, causing structurally unsound levees to flood 80 percent of New Orleans. The flooding results in major destruction to the people, property, and infrastructure of the city. Many of the poorest residents, who are predominately African American,

Social activist Michaëlle Jean, who was born in Haiti, becomes the first black Governor General of Canada. In this capacity, she serves as a representative of the Queen of England, who appoints the Governor General in consultation with the Canadian Prime Minister. In Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, the Supreme Court upholds rights guaranteed under Title IX of the Education Amendments that ban disciplinary action against anyone bringing charges of sex discrimination, including those not being directly discriminated against. Angela Merkel becomes the first woman in the history of Germany to be elected as Chancellor. That same year, Forbes names her as the most powerful woman in the world for the fourth time. Maria do Carmo Trovoada Silveira becomes Prime Minister of the island nation of São Tomé and Principe. After serving as National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African American female to serve as Secretary of State. Her nomination is controversial because of her association with the George W. Bush administration’s preemptive actions in Iraq. Feminists in Afghanistan hold demonstrations demanding that the constitutional rights of women be expanded. Turkish officials launch a media campaign designed to combat honor killings. Iraq passes a new constitution guaranteeing equal rights, but in practice women continue to face discrimination in the public and private realms.

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Algeria reforms its Family Code leading to a major spike in divorce rates. Feminists claim the reforms serve to impoverish women and children. While males in Saudi Arabia are allowed to vote in local elections for the first time, women continue to be denied the right of suffrage. Officials claim it is because segregated voting booths, which are required by religious law, are unavailable. South Africa limits the practice of “virginity testing” of young girls, which has resurfaced in response to rising rates of HIV/AIDS. American writer Marilynne Robinson wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Gilead, the story of a dying minister writing letters to his young son to provide him with a written memory in lieu of being a physical presence in his life. British author J. K. Rowling and illustrator Mary GrandPré win the Quill Award for Book of the Year for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the phenomenally successful series about the boy wizard and his friends. They also win in the Children’s Chapter Book/Middle Grade category. Elizabeth Kostova wins the Debut Author of the Year prize at the Quill Awards for The Historian, which blends history, folklore, and fiction. Ann Brashares wins the Quill Award for best Young Adult/Teen book of the year for Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood, which follows the hugely successful Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2001) and Second Summer of the Sisterhood (2003). Sue Monk Kidd wins the Quill Award for Best Fiction book of the year for The Mermaid Chair, which tells the story of a woman in her 40s falling in love with a Benedictine monk while facing a life crisis. Debbie Macomber wins the Quill Award for Best Romance of the year for 44 Cranberry Point, a contemporary romantic mystery. Television chef Rachael Ray wins the Quill Award for Best Cookbook of the year for Rachael Ray’s 30-Min-

ute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes. The Division for the Advancement of Women and the Commission on the Status of Women conduct an assessment of the 10-year impact of the Beijing Platform for Action. American actress Reese Witherspoon wins the Academy Award for her portrayal of country music legend June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. British actress Rachel Weisz wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for the role of Tessa Quayle in The Constant Gardner, the tale of a man seeking answers in the brutal murder of his wife. American writer Lionel (née Margaret Ann) Shriver wins the Orange Award for best English-language novel for We Need to Talk About Kevin, which is written from the perspective of the mother of a boy who perpetrates a fictional school shooting. With a record of 880 wins, University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt becomes the coach with the most wins in the history of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur breaks a world record for solo circumnavigation of the globe, traveling more than 27,000 miles in less than 72 days. Ice skater Katarina Witt, who won gold medals for East Germany in 1984 and 1988, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Cleveland Cavaliers basketball coach Lusia HarrisStewart is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1976, she became the first female to ever score in a game of women’s Olympic basketball. Softball coach Marjorie Wright is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. When two Americans face off in the women’s singles showdown at Wimbledon, Venus Williams wins over Lindsay Davenport.



The Danica Phelps’ Wake exhibit opens at New York’s Zach Feuer Gallery, depicting daily female routines that include a morning shower. 2006 The women of the United Arab Emirates are granted nominal suffrage, but because the national legislature is appointed rather than elected, women essentially remain disenfranchised. According to the rotation on the Federal Council, Doris Leuthard becomes President of Switzerland. Michelle Bachelet, a moderate Socialist, becomes Chile’s first female president and brings the number of current female heads of state to 11. As President of Liberia, economist Ellen JohnsonSirleaf becomes the first woman to be elected head of state in any African country. Fatoumata Jahumpa-Ceesay becomes the Speaker of the Gambian National Assembly. Republican Sarah Palin becomes the first female governor of the State of Alaska. Katie Couric becomes the first solo female anchor of a broadcast network evening news show. Attorney Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain is selected as the first Muslim woman to serve as President of the United Nations General Assembly. The Pakistani national legislature approves the Protection of Women’s Rights Bill, which is designed to overturn the Hudood Ordinance of 1979 that had been enacted under military rule, resulting in an epidemic of rape and other crimes against women.

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American singer/actress Jennifer Hudson wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Effie White in Dreamgirls, becoming the third African American actress to win in this category. Previous female African American winners were Hattie McDaniel for Gone With the Wind (1939) and Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost (1990). Native American novelist Louise Erdrich wins the Scott O’Dell Award in historical fiction for The Game of Silence about the life of young Omakayas of the Chippewa tribe. American poet Claudia Emerson wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Late Wife, a series of poems about a woman’s journey through divorce, recovery, and remarriage. Australian American writer Geraldine Brooks wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel March, which tells the story of Louisa May Alcott’s March family from the perspective of the father of the four girls featured in Little Women and its sequels, Little Men and Jo’s Boys. Historian Caroline Elkins wins the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, which examines the truth behind Britain’s colonization of Kenya and the ethnic cleansing that took place as the British sought to subdue the Mau Mau. British writer Zadie Smith wins the Orange Award for best English-language fiction written by a woman for On Beauty, which deals with ethnic and cultural differences in the United States and Great Britain. One reviewer remarks that it is “a transatlantic comic saga.”

Effa Manley, who co-owned the Negro League team, the Newark Eagles, with her husband in the 1930s and 1940s, becomes the first woman elected to the American Baseball Hall of Fame.

Julie Powell wins the Quill Award’s Debut Author of the Year recognition for Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. It is made into the movie Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in 2009.

British actress Helen Mirren wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.

Laura Joffe Numeroff wins the award for Best Children’s Illustrated Book for If You Give a Pig a Party at this year’s Quill Awards.

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Best-selling author Janet Evanovich wins the Quill Award for Best Mystery/Suspense/Thriller of the year for Twelve Sharp, the 12th book in the series about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. African American poet Maya Angelou wins the Quill Award for Best Poetry of the Year for Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem. Diana Gabaldon wins the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror book of the year at the Quill Awards for A Breath of Snow and Ashes, which features time travelers of the American Revolution era. Television chef Rachael Ray wins the Quill Award for Best Cookbook of the Year for Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats: A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners. Charmed, a television show about three sister witches living in San Francisco, becomes the longest-running television show in American history with all female leads. It debuted in 1998. At the age of 16, high school student Michelle Wie ranks second among female golf players. American swimmer Diana Nyad is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Almost three decades earlier Nyad broke the record for the longest swim by either sex, swimming 102.5 miles from the Bahamas to the Florida coast. Basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Australian swimmer Shane Gould is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She was the first swimmer in Olympic history to win three gold medals in world record time, and she is the only person of either sex to have simultaneously held every freestyle record from 100 meters to 1,500 meters.

drowning her five young children in a bathtub by reason of insanity. 2007 Democrat Nancy Pelosi, a congresswoman from California, becomes the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in the history of the United States. Philanthropist Pratibha Patil is elected the first female president of Indonesia. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the wife of former president Néstor Kirchner, is elected President of Argentina. Educator Dalia Itzik becomes Acting President of Israel. Jurist Nino Burjanadze becomes Acting President of Georgia, a former part of the Soviet Union. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Ban Abortion Act, dismissing arguments from some critics that it is vague and places an undue burden on a woman’s constitutional access to abortion. In its 371st year as an American institution of higher learning, Harvard University finally chooses a female president, Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust. She is the fifth woman in American history to lead an Ivy League school. After steadily dropping in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the number of women in the Russian Parliament begins to rise, surpassing the number of seats held during the Communist era. In Kuwait, the national legislature opens debate on the expansion of women’s rights.

Amélie Mauresmo of France defeats Justine Henin of Belgium to claim victory at the women’s singles at Wimbledon.

Biochemist and astronaut Peggy Whitson becomes the first woman in history to serve as commander for the International Space Station.

Following an appeal that led to a second trial, Texas homemaker Andrea Yates is found not guilty of

Iranian British writer Doris May Lessing becomes the oldest person in history to win the Nobel Prize for



Literature. Her best-known works include The Grass Is Singing and The Golden Notebook. American poet Natasha Trethewey wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Native Guard, a series of poems that connect the author’s own multiracial history to the broader history of the American South. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngoz Adichie, who divides her time between her native country and the United States, wins the prestigious Orange Award for best English-language novel written by a female for Half of a Yellow Sun, which follows the travails of two couples caught up in attempts to create an independent nation amid ongoing strife between Christians and Muslims. French actress Marion Cotillard becomes the second actress in history to win the Best Actress Academy Award for a non-English-speaking role, playing legendary French singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, roughly translated as “The Beautiful Life.” British actress Tilda Swinton wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Karen Crowder in Michael Clayton, a George Clooney vehicle about business corruption, Wimbledon officials announce that henceforth prize money for female athletes will equal that of males. Moroccan Olympian Nawal El Moutawakel, a member of the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame, is named Minister of Sports in the Prime Minister’s cabinet. Moroccan hurdler Nawal El Moutawakel, who in 1984 became the first African-born Muslim female Olympian, is named to the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American tennis player Venus Williams defeats Marion Bartoli of France to win the women’s singles at Wimbledon. Romance writer Nora Roberts carries home the award for Book of the Year for Angels Fall at the Quill Awards, voted on by the public via the Internet.

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Diane Settterfield is honored as the Debut Author of the Year by the Quill Awards for The Thirteenth Tale, a gothic suspense novel. Actress Sissy Spacek is honored for Best Audio Book by the Quill Awards for her reading of the Harper Lee classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. The Quill Award for Best Adult/Teen book goes to Patricia McCormick for Sold, a novel about a young girl tricked and sold into prostitution in Nepal. Laura Lippman wins the Quill Award for Best Mystery/Suspense Thriller for What the Dead Know in which one of two sisters kidnapped as children returns as an adult to reclaim her identity. 2008 The United Nations Development Fund for Women launches the Say No to Violence Against Women initiative to combat violence worldwide. New York senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) becomes the first woman in the history of the United States to win a presidential primary when she claims victory in the New Hampshire primary and becomes the first female to be considered a viable candidate for the office of President of the United States. Attorney Evaline Widmer-Schlumpf becomes a member of the Federal Council, which serves as Switzerland’s head of state. Baleka Mbete is passed over as a presidential successor when the current president is forced to resign. She becomes Deputy President instead of becoming South Africa’s first female president. Guatemala passes new legislation designed to prohibit the practice of femicide, gender-related murders. A new Nicaraguan abortion law criminalizes abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or dangers to maternal health and bans physicians from treating pregnant women with cancer, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/ AIDS), malaria, and cardiac diseases.

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French virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which she shares with her colleague, Luc Montaginier, for their discovery that HIV produces AIDS. The United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 1820, reaffirming its commitment to ending violence against women of the world. The Internet site Women on the Web (wowo wow. com), a daily mixture of conversation and advice, is launched by Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Liz Smith, Joni Evans, Mary Wells, Sheila Nevins, Joan Juliet Buck, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Reed, Joan Ganz Cooney, Judith Martin, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner, Cynthia McFadden, and Marlo Thomas. Responsibility for the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is transferred to the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. The committee is responsible for overseeing compliance with the United Nations program implemented in 1981. Narrated by Morgan Freeman and produced by the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), Where the Water Meets the Sky is released, chronicling the true stories of 23 Zambian women who have benefitted from CAMFED’s efforts to use education as a tool for breaking the cycle of poverty. The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., launches Clara®, an interactive database of more than 18,000 female visual artists. British actress Kate Winslet wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader, a drama set in post–World War II Germany. Spanish actress Penélope Cruz wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a romantic drama about two women traveling in Spain. British writer Rose Tremain wins the Orange Award for best English-language novel written by a woman for The Road Home about a poor Russian immigrant

trying to eke out a living in London while sending money home. Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston wins the National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Japanese professional golfer Hisako “Chako” Higuchi, who was the first Asian-born golfer of either sex to win a major championship, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Hassiba Boulmerka, a runner and the first Algerian to win an Olympic medal, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. University of Southern California at Los Angeles softball coach Sue Enquist is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American gymnast Shannon Miller, who has seven Olympic medals, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Evelin Stermitz founds artfem.tv, an Internet television site, dedicated to showcasing women artists from around the world. Traveling on board Soyuz TMA-12 as a guest of the Russian government, South Korean astronaut Yi SoYeon becomes the third woman in the world to be her country’s first space traveler. Running for Vice President of the United States, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin becomes the first woman to represent the Republican ticket. When tennis-playing sisters Venus and Serena Williams face off in the women’s singles event at Wimbledon, Venus wins her fifth Wimbledon title. American race car driver Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 and becomes the first woman in history to win an Indy Car race. 2009 Barack Obama, the newly inaugurated Democratic President of the United States, revokes the Republi-



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can-initiated global gag rule, which withheld funding to any NGO that provided or advocated abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries, and restores American support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Nepal liberalizes its abortion laws, making the procedure more accessible.

President Barack Obama signs the Fair Pay Restoration Act into law. The law, which is named after Lily Ledbetter, who brought wage-discrimination charges against Goodyear, changes the time an employee is allowed to bring suit against an employer from 180 days after the first discriminatory paycheck was received to 180 days from the date on which the last paycheck from that employer was received.

Bahrain enacts Sunni Family Law, which is intended to improve the legal status of women. Feminists point out that the reforms do not apply to non-Sunni women.

Michelle Obama becomes the first African American First Lady in American history. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) becomes the first former First Lady to become a member of a presidential cabinet when she is selected as Secretary of State. Sonya Sotomayor becomes the first Hispanic American and the third female to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the prime minister of Iceland, becomes the first openly lesbian head of state in modern times. Career politician Dalia Grybauskaité is elected President of Lithuania. Rose Francine Rogombé, a former secretary of state for the Advancement of Women and Human Rights, becomes Acting President of Gabon. Forbes magazine names German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the World’s Most Powerful Woman for the fourth year running. The Falkland Islands, a British territory also claimed by Argentina, grants female suffrage. The Mexican national legislature decriminalizes firsttrimester abortions. In response, several states pass new antiabortion laws.

Indonesia passes new legislation making adultery punishable by stoning to death.

The world is outraged when Afghanistan passes a restrictive law that allows husbands to withhold food and sustenance from wives who refuse to comply with sexual demands. The law also grants full guardianship of children to fathers and grandfathers and requires that wives obtain permission from husbands to work. Taliban gunmen kill Afghani feminist Sitara Achakzai outside her own home in response to her fight for women’s rights. In the Congo, women launch a campaign to achieve justice for rape victims. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights holds the Mexican government responsible for the deaths of three women killed in 2001, stating that the government had failed to go far enough in eradicating the practice of “femicide,” murders motivated by gender hatred. American political scientist Elinor Ostrom wins the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her work on economic governance. Romanian German writer and humanitarian Herta Müller wins the Nobel Prize for Literature for producing novels such as Everything I Possess I Carry With Me, a tale of life under a repressive Communist regime. Australian American biologist and biochemist Elizabeth H. Blackburn wins the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, which she shares with Carol Greider and Jack W. Szostak, for her work on DNA and cell division. Her work has enormous implications for the study of fungal infections and cancer.

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American molecular biologist Carolyn (Carol) Widney Greider wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing the award with her former boss, Elizabeth Blackmurn, for work on chromosomes. After grossing more than $4.47 billion, Warner Brothers announces that the Harry Potter film series, based on the novels about a boy wizard by British author J. K. Rowling, have become the highest grossing series in the history of film. Israeli crystallographer Ada E. Yonath wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for her work on the structure of the ribosome. She is the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first Middle Eastern woman to win a Nobel Prize in the science fields. The Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the Affordable Health Care for American Act passes the House of Representatives but falters in the Senate. The amendment would have placed major restrictions on public and private insurance coverage of abortions. Actress Sandra Bullock wins the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy, a White mother who adopts African American future professional football player Michael Oher. American comedienne Mo’Nique wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of an abusive mother in Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Mo’Nique is the fourth African American female to win in this category. University of Tennessee Women’s Basketball Coach Pat Summitt cements her place in women’s sports history by claiming her 1,000th win. 2010 On January 21, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The epicenter strikes 16 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince, leading to an estimated 200,000 deaths. On February 12, Amy Bishop Anderson, an assistant biology professor at the University of AlabamaHuntsville who had been denied tenure, opens fire

during a faculty meeting, killing three faculty members and wounding three others. On February 27, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Chile, leaving an estimated death toll of just under 500 and triggering tsunami warnings as far away as Hawaii and Japan. More than half a century after the end of World War II, female pilots are belatedly honored for their service to the United States when they receive Congressional Gold Medals. Running for election on a platform that promotes anti-crime measures and free trade, Laura Chinchilla is elected the first female president of Costa Rica. Ecuador passes major reforms, upholding gender equality and providing penalties and enforcement for gender discrimination. The Dominican Republic ratifies a new constitution that provides for gender equality and pledges support for eradicating all forms of gender discrimination. Bolivia’s newly ratified constitution mandates “equal conditions between men and women.” In Bolivia, President Evo Morales achieves parity in his cabinet, appointing 10 males and 10 females to ministerial positions. Director Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first American woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director. Her movie, The Hurt Locker, which is about an elite American bomb squad operating in Iraq, also beats out Avatar, directed by her ex-husband James Cameron of Titanic fame, for Best Picture. UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, announces that globally six out of every ten women are physically or sexually violated over the course of their lives. A study released by the World Health Organization reveals that partner violence is pervasive throughout the world, ranging from 15 percent in urban areas of Japan to 71 percent in rural Ethiopia.



Working under the auspices of UNICEF, the United Nations Adolescent Girls Task Force announces that it has accelerated its efforts to protect the human rights of adolescent girls in developing counties, particularly those between the ages of 10 and 14. Doris “Granny D.” Haddock, the nonagenarian who walked across the United States to arouse the public about the need for campaign finance reform in 2000, is dead at the age of 100. NBC’s Universal Sports chooses Olympian alpine skier Lindsay Vonn as its Female Athlete of the Decade.

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Canadian hockey players shut out the United States in gold medal battles between both male and female teams in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Upon winning her 12th Grand Slam Championship, Serena Williams ties tennis legend Billie Jean King for the most wins by a female athlete. Oprah Winfrey and Discovery Communications launch the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) designed to provide entertainment, information, and inspiration to the American public.

Yu-Na Kim of South Korea wins the Gold Medal in Women’s Figure Skating at the Winter Olympics.

Elena Kagan is sworn in as the 112th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She is fourth female justice, and eighth Jewish justice.

Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic wins the first Olympic gold medal in speed skating for her country.

Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

A Abortion, Access to In 1994, the United Nations Population Information Network (POPIN) issued guidelines for improving the health of women around the world. In Paragraph 8.25, POPIN proclaimed that, while ultimate goals should focus on preventing unwanted pregnancies through family planning, all nations should ensure that women dealing with such pregnancies be provided with “ready access to reliable information and compassionate counseling” as well as access to safe abortions and follow-up care whenever necessary. The following year, the Beijing Platform for Action, the product of the Fourth World Conference on Women, issued a challenge to world governments, calling on them to “recognize and deal with the health impact of unsafe abortion as a major public health concern,” particularly among the “poorest and youngest who take the highest risk.” By 2008, 70 countries, which contained more than 60 percent of the total world population, were providing unrestricted access to abortion. Over the previous 12 years, 17 countries had removed legal restrictions on abortion. The nations that liberalized abortion laws ranged from the highly developed Switzerland to the African nation of Togo, which is one of the poorest nations in the world. At the same time, other nations, including the United States, restricted access to abortion, and countries such as El Salvador and Nicaragua virtually abolished all access to legal abortions.

Since the 1990s, abortion reforms around the world have generally focused on increasing access without expanding reproductive rights generally. In France, legislators extended the period of unrestricted access to abortion from 12 to 14 weeks and allowed minors to be accompanied by an adult of their choosing instead of requiring them to obtain parental consent. Legislators in India focused on providing greater access to safe abortions by placing oversight authority in the hands of the district rather than the state, making it easier for new clinics to open and giving local authorities more power to prosecute individuals operating illegal clinics. Lawmakers in Thailand liberalized abortion laws to allow medical personnel to perform abortions in cases of rape, fetal impairment, or threats to the physical or maternal health of pregnant women without fear of prosecution. Legal Changes to Abortion Access Women in many former Soviet Republics saw reproductive rights erode along with communism. In Poland, for instance, a liberal abortion law was overhauled in 1993, and access to abortion was restricted to instances where a woman’s health or life were threatened, when fetuses were impaired, or when a pregnancy was the result of rape. A 1996 revision to the law provided for abortions on social and economic grounds, but this law was declared unconstitutional the following year on the grounds that it violated the rights of the unborn child. Albania, on the other 1

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hand, rejected previous restrictions that provided access only to women who had been raped or who faced threats to their physical or mental health and to girls under the age of 16. The new law stipulated unrestricted access to abortion for the first trimester. Liberalized Access to Abortion Ten of the 17 nations liberalizing abortion laws since 1986 are located in Africa, where poverty and disease are common, and where both infant and maternal mortality rates tend to be high. As a point of fact, 47 percent of all maternal deaths take place in Africa, where 60 percent of rural women have only limited access to skilled attendants during delivery and where postpartum care is rare. In 2003, Benin legislators overhauled the existing law, which provided for abortions only to save a mother’s life, to extend access to women who were victims of rape or incest and to those faced with threats to their health or with fetal impairment. Burkina Faso’s abortion laws offered access only to women whose lives were in danger; access to abortion had been extended in 1996 to include victims of rape and incest, those whose health was threatened, and to women carrying impaired fetuses. In 2002, legislators in Chad backed away from a restrictive law offering abortion access only to women whose lives were threatened to enact a reform that provided access in cases where women’s health or lives were at risk and in instances where fetuses had been declared impaired. Before 2004, Ethiopia allowed abortions only when a mother’s health or life were threatened or in incidences of rape. A new law enacted at that time included exceptions for incest and fetal impairment and extended access to females who had not reached the age of majority, and to those who were physically or mentally disabled. Four years earlier, Guinea had expanded exceptions beyond rape, incest, fetal impairment, and threatened maternal health to include instances where a woman’s life was threatened. Before 2002, Mali restricted abortion access to women whose life was endangered, but the new law provided access to those who were the victims of rape or incest. South Africa’s laws provided no specific exceptions to bans on abortions until a new law was passed in 1996, granting unrestricted access for the first trimester and in limited instances thereafter.

Swaziland’s abortion laws were likewise restrictive, but amendments to the constitution in 2005 provided for legal abortions in cases of rape and incest, fetal impairment, threats to maternal health, and when unlawful intercourse had resulted in the pregnancy of a disabled female. In Togo, previous laws ignored abortions, but custom had declared it virtually unobtainable. In 2007, new laws were enacted to provide for legal abortions in instances of rape, incest, severe fetal impairment, and threats to the health or life of a mother. In Asia, only Cambodia, Nepal, and Bhutan have liberalized abortions laws since the 1980s. While Cambodia’s existing law provided abortion access only when a woman’s life was at risk, a 1997 law legalized access during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Nepal’s abortions laws were even more restrictive, providing no access to abortion at all. In 2002, the law was changed to allow unrestricted access during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and afterward in limited circumstances. Before 2004, abortion law in Bhutan was generally interpreted as providing for access only when a mother’s life was threatened. The new law extended access to victims of rape and incest and to women whose mental state were deemed “unsound.” In Japan, legislators attempted to erase a history of support for eugenics with a 1996 law that banned abortions on the grounds of fetal impairment. However, Japanese women may still obtain abortions for medical or socioeconomic reasons. In the Russian Federation, early abortions are legal, but grounds for abortion during the period covering the 12th to the 22nd week of pregnancy were reduced from 12 to only four by a law passed in 2003. Among the nations of South and Central America, Colombia and Saint Lucia have been the only two to enact laws that liberalized access to abortion in the last several years. In 2006, Colombia’s Constitutional Court overturned laws that banned all abortions. Subsequently, exceptions were added in cases of rape, incest, fetal impairment, and endangered maternal health. On the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, abortion laws restricted abortions to women who required medical or surgical treatment that interfered with continuation of a pregnancy. A new law passed in 2004 extended access to victims of rape and incest and to women whose physical or mental health was threatened. Two countries in this area have gone in the



other direction, making it more difficult for women to obtain abortions: in 1998, El Salvador passed new legislation banning abortion entirely; Nicaragua followed suit in 2006. European nations have also been faced with extensive battles over access to abortion, particularly in countries such as Portugal, where nearly 85 percent of the population is Roman Catholic. Before 2007, the law allowed abortions only when women’s lives or health were threatened or in cases of rape or fetal impairment. Reforms provided for unrestricted access during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and on specific grounds thereafter. Switzerland’s laws were more liberal than some other European nations, offering considerable leeway in defining health reasons that called for a pregnancy to be aborted. In 2002, access to abortion was greatly expanded with reforms that provided for unrestricted access during the first trimester and on specific grounds in later stages of pregnancy. Giving in to antiabortionists in 2000, Hungary passed new legislation that required all women seeking abortions to undergo counseling that pro-choice advocates have labeled “onerous and biased.” The Hungarian government now funds abortions only in cases of rape and threats to a mother’s life or health. In some countries, abortion laws have been changed at the state rather than the national level. In Mexico, for instance, laws permitting unrestricted access to abortion during the first trimester and providing for free abortions at public health clinics were enacted in the Federal District in 2007. Several other Mexican states have also passed laws permitting abortions on specified grounds. In Australia, changes at the state level were more liberal. Western Australia removed requirements providing access to abortions only for specific reasons in 1998, and the Australian Capital Territory decriminalized abortions entirely. The United States and Individual State Laws Nowhere in the world has the battle over access to abortion been waged more strenuously than in the United States, where access to abortion varies along lines such as race, class, geographic location, age, and duration of gestation. Through the Hyde Amendment, the U.S. Congress curtailed the use of federal Medicaid funds to procure abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or the endangerment of the woman’s life if she were to carry the pregnancy

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to full term since 1977. Abortion remains legal, in some form, in all states. Abortion policy implemented state by state greatly affects the lives of those women seeking abortion. Major obstacles in U.S. women’s access to abortion include state control, the cost of abortion, the ever-shrinking pool of abortion providers, physical proximity to abortion providers, crisis pregnancy centers, and violence in and near reproductive health facilities. The 1992 Supreme Court decision Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 505 US 833 found that while Roe v. Wade remained safe due to stare decisis, states could place restrictions on abortions that did not place an “undue burden” upon women. In the majority opinion, the court found that while several of Pennsylvania’s abortion restrictions did not place undue burden, which is defined as placing significant difficulties into the abortion process for women carrying nonviable fetuses, the spousal notification requirement did, and was struck down by the court. This issue of viability also changed from the court’s previous stance that viability began in the 28th week of pregnancy to an earlier 22 or 23 weeks, due to technological advances made since the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions in 1973. However, the court held that many of Pennsylvania’s abortion restrictions, including informed consent about the abortion procedure and any possible health risks or complications, parental consent for minors seeking abortions, a mandatory 24-hour waiting period before an abortion could be performed, and the reporting of certain information by facilities that provide abortions, were constitutionally sound. While this case was decided in 1992, it laid the groundwork for many of the current issues women face when seeking access to abortion services. At this point, most states impose certain restrictions upon abortion seekers. Current policy, decided on a state-by-state basis, includes the following figures: 35 states have parental consent or notification laws for minors seeking abortions; 19 states require that abortions be performed in a hospital after a certain point in the pregnancy. Nineteen states also require a second physician for all abortions past a point. In 38 states, laws require abortions to be performed only by licensed physicians. An equal number of states outlaw abortions past a certain point in gestational development, usually fetal viability,

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except for those cases where the pregnant woman’s life is put into danger by continuing the pregnancy. Sixteen states prohibit so-called partial-birth abortions, with only four states’ legislation applying only to postviability for the fetus. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia will only use state funds to cover abortions mandated by the federal government, such as in cases where the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. South Dakota refuses to fund any abortions except when the woman’s life is in danger, even though this flies in the face of legal precedent. Seventeen states pay for most medically necessary abortions for state Medicaid enrollees. Four states restrict even private insurance companies’ abilities to pay for abortion unless the pregnant woman’s life is at risk if she were to carry the fetus to full term. Forty-six states allow individual healthcare providers to refuse to participate in an abortion; 43 states allow institutions to refuse to perform abortions, and of these states, 16 only allow religious or private institutions to refuse abortion services. Seventeen states require that women receive counseling before procuring an abortion that has negative connotations. In nine of these states, women must be told about the fetus’s ability to feel pain. Six of these states require that women be informed about any possible linkage between abortion and breast cancer. In seven of these states, women must be informed of the long-term mental health consequences of abortion. Eight of these states require that women be informed about ultrasounds. (The science behind these studies is highly contested.) Twenty-four states require a waiting period between counseling and the abortion procedure; within the majority of these states, 24 hours is the allotted time. Financial Cost of Abortion The average cost for a surgical abortion conducted in the first trimester is between $300 and $900. Medical abortions, available only in the first seven weeks of gestation, cost approximately the same as surgical abortions, due to the combination of pills and multiple clinic visits. In the second trimester, the cost of abortion increases steadily along with how far the pregnancy has progressed. The cost for a late second-trimester abortion can easily reach $3,000. The majority of women pay out of pocket for their abortions. Some health insurance policies cover abortion.

Because very few states cover abortions for lowincome women, their access to abortion is severely limited. Additional costs may accrue for women who live in nonmetropolitan areas to procure an abortion because of travel expenses, and with the cost growing in those states that require a 24-hour waiting period with the addition of housing costs. Lost wages are another factor to consider when discussing the cost of abortion. The low number of abortion providers who perform late-term abortions often makes travel necessary for those abortions. Doctor Shortage and Distance Factor The number of healthcare providers who perform abortions has been decreasing steadily for decades now. Between 1982 and 2001, there was a 37 percent drop in the number of abortion providers in the United States. If these numbers hold steady, there could be a crisis due to the shortage of healthcare practitioners who will provide abortions. One change since 2000 is that increasing numbers of family practitioner physicians have been prescribing RU 486 for their regular patients. If this trend holds true, this could be a way to counter the difficulties non-metropolitan women face in accessing abortion services. Early intervention through Plan B, or emergency contraceptives, could also be a way to decrease the need for abortion while also improving the reproductive health justice of women living in non-urban places. Geographical proximity to abortion providers remains a serious problem in accessing abortions for many women in the United States. A large majority, 87 percent, of all counties do not have an abortion provider; 35 percent of U.S. women live in those counties. For these women, the cost of abortion is much higher when factoring in travel and accommodations. These additional costs may help to explain why the abortion rate for women living outside of metropolitan areas is half that of women who live near abortion providers. In recent years, pro-life organizations have begun operating crisis pregnancy centers. These centers are misleading in their purpose. They often entice pregnant women with the promise of a free pregnancy test. While they do provide free pregnancy tests, they also provide information designed to make women choose to carry their fetus to term. These services include sonograms, fetal representations, and misinformation about the effects of abortion.



Women who have turned to such a crisis center are subjected to videos and pictures of aborted fetuses, and otherwise pushed to “choose life.” These centers prey on pregnant women’s fears and manipulate their situation, providing the minimum support needed during pregnancy but leaving these women alone to rear their child or place the child up for adoption. Clinic Violence and the FACE Act Healthcare providers who perform abortions are frequent targets of antiabortion protesters. Pregnancy crisis centers also have pro-choice protestors. Outright violence has decreased in recent years, largely due to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by former president Bill Clinton in May 1994. The FACE Act was prompted largely by two shootings of abortion providers in 1993: the murder of Dr. Gunn and the attempted murder of Dr. Tiller. The FACE Act not only applies to freedom of choice in reproductive health services, but also protects citizens’ (including those who either work in or use reproductive healthcare centers) right to exercise their religious freedoms. FACE makes it unlawful to use force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because (s)he is or has been either providing or receiving reproductive health services. These same criteria are illegal in exercising their right to worship. The FACE Act also makes it unlawful to intentionally damage or destroy a place of worship or a place that provides reproductive healthcare. The penalties range from fines for first time offenders to a life term for repeated and egregious offenders. The federal government is the only entity that can file criminal charges through the FACE Act. FACE also protects the civil liberties of protestors. They are free to peacefully protest, which includes carrying signs, making picket lines, putting forth antiabortion materials, and singing hymns. Shouting is also allowed, with the stipulations that no threats are made and the level of sound does not exceed the legal decibel limit. FACE had a demonstrable effect on the levels of violence outside of clinics; however, as the abortion debate has once again been gathering momentum, the violence has resumed. In 2009, Dr. Tiller, an abortion provider who did not refuse to provide late-term

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abortions for women carrying nonviable fetuses, was shot and killed in his place of worship. However, the violence is not only among pro-lifers. Jim Pouillon, a pro-life protestor, was killed in 2009 outside a high school by a man who claimed to be offended by the images displayed by Pouillon. These murders brought to the forefront the question of rhetoric within the pro-life movement and also the effects of the visual propaganda displayed by pro-lifers. While FACE has made it easier for those who need to cross the picket lines to work or to receive reproductive health treatments, the often-present pro-life protestors remain a barrier to abortion in the United States. Some states have adopted policies requiring protestors to stay a specified distance from reproductive health service centers. Abortion providers in the Midwest report the most demonstrators. The threat of protestors only in being there is an obstacle for women seeking abortion. Access to abortion in the United States is in flux. The introduction of RU 486 into the abortion equation has changed how doctors view their role in abortion. If this trend continues, access to abortion will improve across the country. However, this does require having a family physician who is familiar enough with a woman to not send her elsewhere when she needs an abortion. The current healthcare debates will also impact women’s access to abortion, although it is much too soon to know how or if these changes will occur. See Also: Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion Laws, International; Abortion Laws, United States; Feminists for Life; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality; Pregnancy; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; RU 486. Further Readings Blasdell, Jennifer and Kate Goss. “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.” Washington, DC: National Abortion Federation, 2006. http://www .prochoice.org/pubs_research/publications/downloads/ about_abortion/face_act.pdf (accessed July 2010). Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Center for Reproductive Rights. Abortion Worldwide: Twelve Years of Reform. August 13, 2008. http://www .isiswomen.org/index.php?option=com_content&task =view&id=1080&Itemid=200 (accessed July 2010).

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Faúndes, Anibal and José Barzelatto. The Human Drama of Abortion: A Global Search for Consensus. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006. Finer, Lawrence B. and Stanley K. Henshaw. “The Accessibility of Abortion Services in the United States, 2001.” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health,, v.35/1 (January–February 2003). Fourth World Conference on Women. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. September 15, 1995. http:// www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/e5dplw.htm (accessed July 2010). Guttmacher Institute. “Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States.” http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb _induced_abortion.html (accessed July 2010). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status of Women in Over 140 Countries, 1997, 1998. New York: Random House, 1997. United Nations Population Information Network. “Conference 171/13: Report of the ICPD.” http://www .un.org/popin/icpd/conference/offeng/poa.html (accessed July 2010). U.S. Department of Justice: Civil Rights Division. “Freedom of Access to Clinics Act.” http://www.justice. gov/crt/crim/248fin.php (accessed November 2009). Jessica Wall Indiana University, Bloomington

Abortion, Ethical Issues of In both ethical and public debates, heated discussions occur about whether and under what circumstances abortion can be morally justified. Answers to this question are typically categorized as to whether individuals or governments are “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” Pro-life theorists defend the conservative view that abortion is morally unjustifiable, unless the woman’s life is in danger. Conversely, pro-choice theorists ascribe to a more liberal view that abortion is morally justifiable, particularly in the earlier stages of pregnancy. The ethical issues that arise when making decisions about whether to have an abortion or not include the status of the fetus, the right to life, autonomy, moral responsibility, motherhood, and the rights of an individual concerning their body. The ethics of abortion is

a particularly complex moral problem as it intersects with questions of biology, religion, the mother’s mental and physical health, the law, sociocultural norms, and the nature of women’s lives in contemporary society. Historically, discussions concerning whether abortion is morally justified have been connected to considerations of the biological development of the fetus. From a biological perspective, it is more common to justify abortions within the first six to eight weeks of pregnancy, before the embryo develops into a fetus. Further, in some contemporary societies, it is regarded as morally acceptable for a woman to take the “morning after” pill or “emergency contraceptive” within a few days of having unprotected sex. Nonetheless, some pro-life proponents and certain religious groups, in particular, think that a zygote or an embryo is a potential human being that has a right to life, and that any method terminating the pregnancy is morally unjustified. Questions concerning whether an abortion is morally justified tend to arise later in the pregnancy. If, for example, the fetus has reached viability and could survive outside the womb, to the morality of abortion becomes subject to dispute, although it is sometimes considered acceptable if carrying the fetus to term could result in the mother’s death. Although some pro-choice proponents believe that having an abortion in the first trimester has little moral difference than removing any other group of cells, once the fetus starts to develop, it becomes more human than when it is in the embryonic stages. The biological development of the fetus intersects with people’s position on the moral status of the fetus, and whether they think the fetus’s right to life trumps the mother’s right to life or vice versa. On one hand, pro-life theorists claim that abortion involves killing an innocent life and that the fetus has a basic right to life. On the other hand, some pro-choice theorists argue that it makes little sense to talk in terms of the right to life of the fetus (particularly in the early stages of the pregnancy) as it is first and foremost part of the mother’s body: it does not automatically have independent rights. Pro-life and pro-choice theorists are generally divided by whether and at what point in the pregnancy they think that a fetus is a potential human being. In 1973 the Roe v. Wade case ruled that a fetus should not be attributed the status of personhood. Rather, the ruling states that woman’s right to privacy



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Pro-life proponents and certain religious groups believe that a zygote or an embryo is a potential human being that has a right to life, and that any method terminating the pregnancy is morally unjustified.

and right to choose whether to have children or not overrides claims concerning the fetus’s right to life. Responsibility and Legal Considerations The ethical aspects of abortion connect to questions of consent and moral responsibility. For example, although a man is in part (at least causally) responsible for the fetus when he impregnates a woman, insofar as the woman has to carry the fetus to term at some risk to herself, she is often considered more morally responsible for the fetus than the man is. In cases where women have not consented to intercourse (e.g., when rape or incest has occurred), they cannot be held responsible for the pregnancy and abortion may be seen as morally justifiable. Some pro-choice theorists, like Catriona Mac­ kenzie, argue that choosing to have an abortion can sometimes be more morally responsible than carrying the child to term. For example, if the woman knows or suspects that she cannot provide sufficient

economic, social, and psychological support for the child; if she suffers from severe mental or physical illness; if she suffers from a serious illness like human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS); or if she has a history of addiction and substance abuse, then abortion can be morally justifiable. Questions of responsibility and consent also intersect with legal considerations. For example, in many states and countries, abortion is legal if the woman has been raped. This is significant given the prevalence of rape in many countries, and the increase in women becoming victims of the use of “date rape” drugs. Proponents and opponents of abortion largely generally agree that in extreme cases like rape or incest, it is ethical and justifiable for the woman to choose to abort. However, some pro-life theorists argue that even in extreme cases, the woman should opt for adoption rather than abortion, as the former does not involve ending a potential life while the latter does.

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Conversely, pro-choice theorists have argued that it can be less morally responsible to put the child up for adoption than to abort, as the child may suffer physical and emotional trauma from the adoption process. In general, the woman’s mental and physical health, as well as the nature of her social situation, is central to deciding whether abortion is morally justified. Questions concerning the mother’s psychological well being are complicated and similarly subject to dispute. Opponents of abortion claim that it causes psychological trauma and emotional suffering to the mother, and suggest that pro-choice theorists tend to underemphasize the maternal bond between mother and fetus. Proponents of abortion argue that having an unwanted pregnancy has similar potential to cause psychological trauma and suffering to both mother and child. Similarly, some pro-choice theorists have argued that there is significant psychological trauma associated with having an unwanted pregnancy and/ or finding oneself in a situation where legal, safe abortions are not available. In countries where abortion is illegal, there is often a greatly increased risk of harm and death from the illegally performed procedures. Decisions about the ethics of abortion are framed by social, religious, and ethnical norms. For example, in countries where unwanted pregnancies are frowned upon by the community, or where sex selection is promoted, women can be forced to abort whether they want to or not. Conversely, in countries or communities where abortion is illegal or opposed, women can be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Thus, questions of abortion are irreducible from questions of women’s autonomy.

potential person) lacks the relevant interest in its own future existence to be attributed the same moral status as the woman. Some hold the opintion that if a woman is denied the right to choose to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, it undermines her autonomy. Soran Reader goes so far as to claim that calling the abortion debate “a debate” reinforces the patriarchal norms that have historically framed discussions about abortion. The idea here is that because pregnancy is intimately connected to an individual woman’s situation and decision-making process, to debate it at all implicitly undermines her capacity as a competent, rational adult to make decisions about her body and her life. The relationship between women’s autonomy and abortion is less clear in cases of teen pregnancy, as teenagers may yet lack the capacities to make fully autonomous, rational choices. Proponents of abortion also argue that a woman has a right to bodily integrity: to decide what happens to her body and whether she wants to carry a fetus to term. Some pro-choice theorists have argued that the fetus’s moral significance is in part contingent on the women’s relationship to the fetus, and on whether she chooses to be a mother. In such accounts, the decision to abort or not cannot be reduced to decisions about the nine month gestation period. Rather, choosing to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy amounts to choosing not to be a mother where motherhood involves a life-changing decision and a commitment to provide long-term care and support for a child. In contemporary society, mothers are not just the primary caretaker, but are often in the workforce, and are sometimes the sole provider for the family.

Autonomy, Motherhood, and Bodily Integrity A woman’s autonomy—and her right to bodily autonomy—is central to discussions concerning the ethics of abortion. Pregnancy and childbirth are gender specific, and thus women’s rights to choose whether to abort or not generally supersede men’s rights. Autonomy is most commonly associated with an individual’s capacity for reflexive self-evaluation, and her ability to freely choose how to act and lead her life. The relevant capacities for autonomy are also connected to future self-concern, moral reasoning, and self-determination. Some pro-choice theorists argue that unlike a fully autonomous woman, a fetus (who is at best only a

Abortion in Contemporary Society Women often have to juggle their career with the demands of motherhood and caretaking. When deciding whether or not to have an abortion, women in contemporary society often need to take into account whether they will be able to provide for the child financially, socially, and emotionally; raise the child as a single parent; and protect the child from domestic violence and/or other threats. They may also have to factor in considerations like whether they are vulnerable to social injustice, war, environmental disaster, or economic recession, each of which may mean that if the woman has the option to abort the fetus safely, she is morally justified in choosing to do so.

Abortion, Late



Contemporary discussions of abortion also intersect with recent developments in embryonic stem cell research (where an embryo is cultivated in a laboratory to be used for medical research). There are heated debates concerning the similarities between the ethical issues raised by abortion and those raised by embryonic stem cell research. Some feminist ethicists argue that if the moral status of the fetus is tied to the nature of its relationship to the mother, then embryonic stem cell research is morally different from questions of abortion. Opponents of abortion, however, argue that stem cell research is unethical precisely because it shares moral features with abortion: just as abortion is considered immoral in this faction, so too is stem cell research. Pro-life theorists have also argued that stem cell research and the practice of screening for fetal abnormalities could increase abortions, as it increases the likelihood of sex selection and eugenics; however, this is widely disputed. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, International; Addiction and Substance Abuse; Rape and HIV; Roe v. Wade. Further Readings Bennett, Belinda, ed. Abortion. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004. Harman, Elizabeth. “How Is the Ethics of Stem Cell Research Different From the Ethics of Abortion?” Metaphilosophy, v.38/2–3 (2007). Olen, Jeffrey, Julie C. Van Camp, and Vincent E. Barry, eds. Applying Ethics: A Text With Readings, 9th Ed. Belmont, CA: Thompson Learning, 2007. Overall, Christine. Ethics and Human Reproduction. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987. Reader, Soran. “Abortion, Killing, and Maternal Moral Authority.” Hypatia, v.23/1 (2008). Satz, Debra. “Feminist Perspectives on Reproduction and the Family.” In Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). http:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/feminism -family/ (accessed May 2010). Tooley, Michael, et al., eds. Abortion: Three Perspectives. New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009. Jacqui Poltera University of Western Sydney

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Abortion, Late There is no agreement in the medical community about the definition of a “late abortion.” The great majority of abortions are performed during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, and most of the rest occur before the 21st week. For this discussion, therefore, “late” abortion is defined as any abortion performed after the 20th week of pregnancy. Abortions performed at this stage of pregnancy are more difficult and more potentially hazardous than those performed early in pregnancy. In the first trimester of pregnancy, the embryo is quite small—between the size of a thimble or a finger. In the early second trimester (from 13 to 20 weeks), the fetus is larger, but the uterus is still small enough that a woman may not be aware that she is pregnant. This is especially true for a woman with irregular menses, a woman who thinks she is menopausal, or a young adolescent unfamiliar with the signs and symptoms of pregnancy. By the time the pregnancy has advanced to 21 or 22 weeks, however, it is much more likely that she will be aware of the pregnancy. Terminating a pregnancy at 21 to 24 weeks is quite different than performing an abortion during the first six to eight weeks of pregnancy. The fetus is much larger in relation to the size of the uterine opening (the cervix) and it is surrounded by amniotic fluid. A critical complication in late abortion is being able to sufficiently open the cervix to permit expulsion or removal of the fetus without damaging the uterus. Another critical issue is preventing the amniotic fluid from entering the woman’s circulatory system. If this occurs, it could kill the mother. The second trimester is when some of the most dangerous, life-threatening conditions can arise during the course of the pregnancy. An example is preeclampsia, which, if untreated, can lead to eclampsia, a fatal combination of high blood pressure, kidney failure, liver failure, bleeding disorder, blindness, seizures, and stroke. Other complications appearing in the second trimester can include pregnancy-induced diabetes and hyperemesis gravidarum, the “uncontrollable vomiting of pregnancy,” which can be fatal. Serious fetal abnormalities or genetic disorders are most likely to be identified and diagnosed in the second trimester. These medical complications or fetal

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abnormalities account for a large proportion of decisions to have late abortions. Late Abortion Methods Techniques for performing late abortions have changed over the past 40 years, and late abortion has become progressively safer. One early technique required the introduction of a balloon (Foley) catheter into the uterus under sterile conditions. The balloon was inflated, and the distal end of the catheter (the part farthest from the woman’s body) was attached to a cord, at the end of which was a weight. The weight was suspended over the end of the bed in which the woman was lying, and the pressure of the balloon within the woman’s uterus was allowed to dilate (open) and efface (thin out) her uterus until the fetus could be expelled. The woman was immobilized during this treatment, which could last for many hours or days. Aside from the woman’s severe discomfort from pressure, traction, and immobility, there was also a high complication rate associated with this method of late abortion. Another method used at this time was a hysterotomy (a mini-C-section), in which incisions were made in the woman’s abdominal and uterine walls to remove the developing fetus. The vertical uterine incision usually associated with this operation put the woman at high risk of uterine rupture in subsequent pregnancies, and the operation itself had a high risk of death. From 1965 through 1990, various substances were injected into the pregnant second-trimester uterus to kill the fetus and cause the woman to go into labor. These included concentrated glucose solution, concentrated saline solution, concentrated urea solution, and various synthetic prostaglandin preparations. All of these methods were associated with a variety of serious and even fatal complications. At the present time, the method with the lowest complication rate in late abortion includes the following steps: an intrafetal injection of digoxin into the fetus; treating the cervix over two or three days with hygroscopic (water-absorbing) dilators to allow the cervix to open; introducing misoprostol (another synthetic prostaglandin) into the uterus; releasing amniotic fluid to reduce the risk of amniotic fluid embolism; gently inducing labor, causing the uterus to contract so that the fetus and placenta are expelled; and removing the fetus in some cir-

cumstances. However, as of 2010, there is no agreement in the medical community on the safest way to perform late abortions. See Also: Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion Laws, International; Abortion Methods; Roe v. Wade. Further Readings Hern, Warren M. Abortion Practice. Boulder, CO: Alpenglo Graphics, 1990. Hern, Warren M. “Second Trimester Surgical Abortion.” The Global Library of Women’s Medicine. http://www .drhern.com/secondsurg.htm (accessed May 2010). Paul, Maureen, Steve Lichtenberg, Lynn Borgatta, and David A. Grimes. Management of Unintended and Abnormal Pregnancy: Comprehensive Abortion Care. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Schoen, Johanna. Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Gender and American Culture). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Warren M. Hern University of Colorado

Abortion Laws, International Although it is considered a medical procedure, most countries in the world deal with abortion through the law, whether to restrict access to abortion or provide full access to abortion services. However, legal regulation of abortion, referred to in some countries as termination of pregnancy, varies widely throughout the world. The domestic legal regulation of abortion can be found in a variety of legal authorities, including the penal code, domestic constitutions, and case law. For example, in Swaziland the Constitution specifically provides women the right to abortion in cases where there is a serious threat to the mental and physical health of the pregnant woman, fetal impairment, or rape or incest. In contrast, in the United States, one of the primary sources of legal regulation of abortion is found in case law, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions. In general, legal regulation falls under two main categories: countries that provide for at-will abortion



and those that permit abortion in specific circumstances. The primary circumstances in which countries do permit abortions are to save the life of the pregnant woman, in cases of fetal impairment, to preserve the mental and physical health of the pregnant woman, in cases of rape and incest, and when needed for socioeconomic reasons. In addition, international and regional treaties provide specific legal rights to individuals within countries that have ratified the respective treaties that are relevant to abortion. Though these treaties may have limited applicability within domestic legal spheres, they remain critical to understanding the international legal context around abortion. It is hard to generalize the laws in such diverse parts of the world, but it is clear that most of South America, Africa, and the Middle East (with a few exceptions, such as South Africa, which provides for at-will abortion) permit abortions in specific circumstances. In contrast, much of Europe and North America, with a number of exceptions, does provide for abortion at will. However, throughout the world significant hurdles remain to accessing medical abortions, even in countries where the law permits at-will abortions. At-Will Abortion A number of countries legally provide pregnant women access to abortions without requiring them to provide a reason why they are seeking the abortion. These are often called at-will abortions, or abortion on request. In these nations, women only need to find a doctor who is willing to perform the abortion. In some countries, such as Albania, Belgium, and France, pregnant women are legally required to formally state that the abortion is necessary because she is in crisis. Practically, however, the requirement is a formality as long as the woman can find a doctor who is willing to perform the abortion. There is no country in the world that provides for complete, unrestricted abortion. Even in countries where at-will abortions are legally permitted, in general there are restrictions in place for pregnant women seeking abortions after the first trimester. After the first trimester, most countries require that a pregnant woman present a valid reason for the abortion. As of 2007, only three countries in Africa (Cape Verde, South Africa, and Tunisia) and two countries

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in Latin America and the Caribbean (Guyana and Cuba) permit abortion on request. A handful of countries provide for abortion on request in Asia. Most countries in Europe permit abortion on request. Abortion Under Specific Circumstances Most countries in the world permit abortions in specific circumstances. In some cases, countries will permit abortions in a range of circumstances; other countries have a limited number of grounds on which abortions can be performed. For example, in Zambia the law provides exceptions for a woman’s mental and physical health, fetal impairment, and socioeconomic reasons. In contrast, Malawi permits abortions only when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. Restrictions to accessing abortion even in cases where the exception is clearly provided for under the law can be limited because of rules requiring medical approval and other such hurdles. To Save the Life of the Pregnant Woman The most common ground on which countries permit abortions is when an abortion is needed to save the life of the pregnant woman. More than 60 countries in the world have a wholesale prohibition on abortion or permit it only when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. Many of these countries are in Africa and Latin America; Ireland remains one of the few countries in Europe that permits abortions only when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. The specific requirements for determining when a pregnant woman’s life is considered to be at serious risk vary from country to country, with a handful of countries providing a detailed list of conditions considered life threatening. In most countries with this exception, the decision whether to perform an abortion is left up to the treating physician. There are few countries that do not provide for an exception in a case where the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. In those countries that do fully restrict abortion, such as Chile, Malta, and El Salvador, an argument that the abortion was legitimate under the legal defense of necessity may be a possibility. Many countries where abortions are heavily restricted do, however, provide for abortions in cases where there is fetal impairment. The precise nature of the impairment needed to fall under this category is often specified under the law.

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Abortion Laws, International

Another common ground for permitting abortion is in the case of rape or incest. This is reflected legally in countries in a variety of ways. In some countries, abortion-related legislation specifically makes exceptions for cases of rape and incest; in other countries, abortions are permitted under the arguably broader provision of pregnancy as a result of a criminal offense. This latter provision could arguably include statutory consensual rape. Preservation of Physical and Mental Health In many countries, abortions are permitted when needed to preserve the physical health of the pregnant woman. What constitutes physical health varies among the countries. Countries that are part of the British Commonwealth, including those in Africa, are more likely to have a broader definition of health within the abortion context than civil law countries in Africa and Latin America. Some countries specifically provide for abortions when necessary to preserve the mental health of the pregnant woman. In many Commonwealth countries, mental health is defined as emotional distress caused to the pregnant woman or the other children in the family. In other countries, there is no specified definition of what constitutes mental health. In countries where exceptions are provided because of a woman’s mental health, abortion on this basis generally requires the approval of a medical professional. Furthermore, some countries do not explicitly define whether health includes mental health in addition to physical health. Arguably, this lack of clarity could mean that mental health is included as part of the broader definition of health, though it is not specifically mentioned. Socioeconomic Grounds A number of countries permit abortions for socioeconomic reasons, though the specifics of the socioeconomic grounds are rarely detailed in the law. The permission of abortion on socioeconomic grounds is provided for under the law in a variety of ways. In some countries, the law requires doctors to assess the health of the pregnant woman, including taking into account her social and economic environment, as in Barbados and New South Wales, Australia. In other countries, the need to take into account a pregnant woman’s socioeconomic circumstances is implied, as in Belize, where the law requires that a pregnant woman’s actual and rea-

sonably foreseeable environment be taken into account when assessing whether an abortion is needed for her health. Finally, in a few countries, such as Burundi and Ethiopia, a pregnant woman’s socioeconomic situation can be taken into consideration in sentencing. In some countries, abortions permitted for socioeconomic reasons in practical terms function as at-will abortions. However, in countries such as Zambia, which permit abortions for socioeconomic reasons, procedural and other access hurdles translate into very few woman obtaining abortions for socioeconomic reasons. International Law There is no specific international law regulating abortion. However, there are various international treaties that provide rights relevant to abortion. These treaties are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The relevant rights included in these treaties are the right to health and healthcare; right to equality; right to security of person; right to liberty; right to privacy; right to decide the number and spacing of children; right to be free from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; and right to life. At the regional level, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa requires all member states to take appropriate measures to protect the reproductive rights of women by providing medical abortions in cases of rape, incest, and sexual assault and where continued pregnancy puts the pregnant woman’s mental and physical health or life at risk. Though the legal regulation of abortion varies from country to country, it is clear that all countries regulate abortion through their laws, either choosing to provide for at-will abortion or specifying the circumstances under which abortions can legally be performed. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, United States; Maternal Mortality; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Roe v. Wade; Women’s Health Clinics. Further Readings Boland, Reed and Laura Katzvie. “Developments in Laws on Induced Abortion: 1998–2007.” International Family Planning Perspectives, v.34/3 (2008).

Abortion Laws, United States

Eser, Albin, et al. Abortion and the Law: From International Comparison to Legal Policy. The Hague, the Netherlands: TMC Asser, 2005. Rahman, Anika, et al. “A Global Review of Laws on Induced Abortion, 1985-1997.” International Family Planning Perspectives, v.24/2 (1998). United Nations Population Division. “Abortion Policies: A Global Review.” http://www.un.org/esa/population/ publications/abortion (accessed June 2010). Priti Patel Southern Africa Litigation Centre

Abortion Laws, United States The foundation of current abortion law in the United States is the 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, which held that a Texas criminal ban on abortion violated a woman’s constitutional right to privacy guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Under Roe, states had limited ability to restrict or regulate abortion during the first six months of pregnancy. In the last trimester, states could ban abortion, except when necessary to preserve the life or health of the woman. Federal and State Funding In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which excluded abortion from Medicaid coverage, except when necessary to save a woman’s life. This law was upheld in a series of Supreme Court cases. Over time, the U.S. Congress made some exceptions to the funding ban. At present, the federal Medicaid program mandates abortion funding in cases of rape or incest, as well as when a pregnant woman’s life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury. These restrictions also apply to federal employees, women in the military, and Native Americans using government provided health facilities. Currently, 32 states and the District of Columbia follow the federal standard, whereas 17 states use state funds to provide all or most medically necessary abortions, and one state provides abortions only in cases of life endangerment, in violation of the federal standard.

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Subsequent court decisions have allowed further funding restrictions. In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court held that a state may prohibit all use of public facilities and publicly employed staff for abortions. In Rust v. Sullivan (1991), the court held that the government may, as a condition of funding family-planning clinics, insist that recipients not recommend abortion, refer clinic patients to an abortion provider, or even mention abortion as a possible method of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. Another significant funding restriction is the Mexico City Policy, known by critics as the global “gag rule,” first adopted by Ronald Reagan in 1984. This policy required all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) receiving federal funds to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services, including providing advice, counseling, or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make abortion available. This policy has been consistently rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republican presidents. Restrictions for Minors States have also passed laws restricting minors’ access to abortion by requiring parental notification or consent to their daughter’s abortion procedure. The Supreme Court has upheld these laws if states also provide a judicial bypass procedure, by which minors can obtain court authorization for abortion without parental involvement if a minor can show that she is mature enough to make the abortion decision herself or that the desired abortion would be in her best interests. Currently, 35 states require some type of parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion. The Supreme Court opened the door to expanded state regulation of abortion in decision of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), which held that states may restrict abortion before viability, as long as they do not place an “undue burden” on the woman’s right to choose, which the court defined as a law that has the “purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” Under this standard, the court allowed several new restrictions on abortion, including an informed consent law requiring doctors to give state-scripted counseling to patients to discourage abortion, a 24-hour waiting period after

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Abortion Laws, United States

counseling, a requirement that minors must obtain informed consent of one parent by an in-person visit to the facility, and a requirement that abortion facilities must meet detailed reporting requirements. The only restriction struck down in Casey was spousal notification. Since Casey, many states have adopted these types of restrictions, including waiting periods and informed consent laws. New Laws and Restrictions Casey also opened the door to new restrictions, including bans on certain types of abortion procedures and expanded regulation of abortion. In the case of Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), the Court relied on Casey to strike down a Nebraska law banning the intact dilation and extraction abortion procedure because it did not have an exception in cases where the procedure was necessary to preserve women’s health. However, in 2003, Congress passed a similar ban, without a maternal health exception, and the law was upheld in the 2007 Supreme Court case of Gonzalez v. Carhart. Sixteen states have laws in effect that prohibit the dilation and extraction abortion procedure, four of which apply only to postviability abortions and 12 of which do not have a health exception. Eighteen states have targeted regulation of abortion laws, requiring facilities where abortions are performed to adhere to particular standards. Thirty-eight states require an abortion to be performed by a licensed physician, 19 states require an abortion to be performed in a hospital after a specified point in the pregnancy, and 19 states require the involvement of a second physician after a specified point. In addition, 38 states prohibit abortions after a specified point in pregnancy, most often fetal viability, except when necessary to protect the woman’s life or health. If Roe were to be overturned, 13 states have unenforced pre-Roe abortion bans, four states have passed “trigger laws” that would immediately ban abortion if Roe is overturned, and seven states have laws that express their intent to restrict the right to legal abortion to the maximum extent permitted by the Supreme Court in the absence of Roe. Abortion opponents have sought to pass abortion bans in several states. In 2006, South Dakota passed an outright abortion ban, with only a life endangerment exception, but voters repealed the ban by referendum. Other laws restricting abortion access include laws allowing healthcare

providers to refuse treatment (46 states) and restricting coverage of abortion in private insurance plans (four states). Twenty-one states allow the production of “choose life” license plates, 11 of which donate a portion of the proceeds raised to antiabortion organizations. Significant federal funds have been given to crisis pregnancy centers (of which there are over 2,500 in the United States today), which attempt to discourage women from having abortions. Several legal initiatives have focused on creating independent legal status for fetuses. In the fall of 2002, the United States government instituted a new rule to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), allowing “unborn children” to qualify for health benefits. In 2004, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act became federal law, allowing two charges to be brought against someone who kills a pregnant woman, one for the woman and one for the fetus. Bills defining life to begin at conception or granting rights to fertilized eggs have been introduced in several state legislatures recently. Protecting the Right to Choose There have been some legal initiatives to protect and expand women’s access to abortion. Seven states have laws that protect the right to choose abortion prior to viability or when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman. In 2004, members of Congress introduced the Freedom of Choice Act, which protects the right to abortion, but the act has never passed. In September 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved Mifepristone, or RU 486, also known as the “abortion pill,” an approval that antiabortion activists have sought to rescind. Protecting abortion clinics has been the focus of several legal initiatives. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act prohibits the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person who is obtaining or providing reproductive services. Fifteen states have passed similar laws. In the case of National Organization for Women v. Scheidler (1994), the Supreme Court allowed the use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against abortion clinic blockaders on the basis that they formed a national conspiracy to eliminate access to abortion clinics through the use of extortion and harassment, with the goal of driving clinics out of business.

Abortion Methods



The most recent abortion controversy arose in connection with the debate about national healthcare legislation. The Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House version of the national healthcare reform bill sought to prohibit coverage of abortion in a public option or in any private insurance plan that would have been part of the national healthcare exchange. The amendment was withdrawn in exchange for a presidential executive order placing federal funding restrictions on abortion consistent with the Hyde Amendment. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Freedom of Choice Act; Global “Gag Rule”; Roe v. Wade; RU 486. Further Readings Garrow, David. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Guttmacher Institute. “State Policies in Brief.” http://www .guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/index.html (accessed November 2009). Hull, N. E. H., William James Hoffer, and Peter Charles Hoffer, eds. The Abortion Rights Controversy in America: A Legal Reader. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Carrie N. Baker Berry College

Abortion Methods Methods of abortion have always been available to women, even in the earliest societies, but the methods that are now available are much safer. During the first three months of pregnancy, the abortion is performed by dilating the cervix (the opening of the uterus) with metal rods or other methods, then removing the embryo or fetus and placenta by vacuum aspiration (suction) through a plastic cannula. Later abortions are performed with a variety of techniques. Most of these techniques involve the use of medications that cause the uterus to contract and expel the fetus and placenta or control bleeding after the uterus is empty. The fetus is also removed by the use of instruments (“dilation and evacuation,” or “D & E”) following adequate opening, or dilation, of the cervix.

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History of Abortion Methods Although it cannot be known with certainty, women have probably been having abortions in some manner from the time of the earliest tribal societies. Anthropologist George Devereux’s classic study of abortion in traditional societies showed that women in most of the tribal societies he studied used abortion to control fertility. In classical times, women used various herbal concoctions to induce abortion, and in medieval times, women were known to use “slippery elm” sticks which, inserted into the uterus, would swell up and cause contractions resulting in abortion. In the Middle Ages, a mold on rye produced ergot, a powerful alkaloid that caused uterine contractions. Ergot was used by women in small doses to cause uterine contractions, especially to control hemorrhage after childbirth. In larger doses, women used it in hope of causing an abortion. In many tribal societies, abortions are caused by striking or jumping on the lower abdomen of a woman who is pregnant. Whether or not the woman requests this action to end a pregnancy, the violence can cause uterine rupture and immediate death. During the 19th and early 20th centuries in America, women famously used coat hangers, knitting needles, and other instruments to disrupt a pregnancy and cause an abortion. Other procedures by lay midwives included the placement of a balloon catheter through the uterine cervix and into the uterus. This was allowed to stay in place long enough to cause an abortion. All these techniques were and are inherently dangerous, especially when done under unsterile conditions. Perforation of the uterus by such an instrument could result in rapid death due to hemorrhage. Other traumatic methods of self-abortion have included putting lye or other caustic substance in the vagina, throwing one’s self down a flight of stairs, and taking toxic amounts of alcohol or other drugs. In Denver, in the late 1960s, a woman who was six months pregnant shot herself in the uterus to kill the fetus and then drove herself to the Denver General Hospital emergency room. Modern Abortion Methods With the advent of antibiotics and blood transfusion, it became possible to save the lives of women who had sought an unsafe illegal abortion or had attempted self-abortion. Physicians and lay practitioners alike learned to perform early abortions by dilation and

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Abortion Methods

curettage using modern surgical instruments. In a dilation and curettage (D & C), the cervix is dilated with a series of gradually larger metal rods that are tapered. Once the cervix is opened sufficiently to admit a curette, a spoon-shaped instrument whose tip is shaped like a loop, the sharp edge of the curette is brought along the wall of the uterus from the top (fundus) to the bottom (lower uterine segment just above the cervix). This stroke is repeated around the entire inner lining (endometrium) of the uterus until contents and lining of the uterus are removed. Mid-20th-Century Developments In the mid-20th century, the concept of using a vacuum aspiration procedure to remove the uterine contents in early abortion was introduced in the United States by a Yugoslav obstetrician-gynecologist, Franc Novak, and this became the procedure of choice in early abortion by the early 1970s. At about this time, physicians performing early abortions began using the stalk of a seaweed, Laminaria japonicum, to dilate the cervix instead of forcing the cervix open with steel rods. Laminaria had been used by the Japanese for this purpose for a long time, and the successful treatment of the Laminaria to make it sterile made it safe to use without a high risk of infection. The advantage of the Laminaria was that, after leaving it placed in the cervix for a time, it absorbs water from the woman’s body and produces a gentle dilation adequate for early abortion with less risk of perforation of the uterus or other damage to the cervix. The disadvantage is that it took hours, or even overnight, to produce a good effect. The disadvantages in time and expense have meant that few physicians or clinics use Laminaria at this time for cervical dilation. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the method used for second-trimester abortion was principally that of the injection of a hypertonic (concentrated) saline solution into the fluid surrounding the fetus in the uterus. This hypertonic saline method had the advantage of being highly effective since it killed the fetus and irritated the uterus, causing contractions and expulsion of the fetus. Injection of the saline solution was also accompanied by induction of labor using oxytocin, a naturally-occurring hormone that causes the uterus to contract. The principal disadvantage of the hypertonic saline was that it could kill the woman if it entered her circulatory system.

This meant that the injection would have to be accurately placed in the amniotic fluid and not in the placenta or uterine wall, but this was difficult since it was a “blind” procedure. Another disadvantage was that it didn’t always work. The fetus might be born alive, or with agonal movements, and sometimes the woman didn’t go into labor. If the placenta obstructed the opening of the uterus as it does in a placenta previa, catastrophic hemorrhage could occur while also preventing expulsion of the fetus. Another problem was that saline abortion could not be done until the 16th or later week of pregnancy when the amount of amniotic fluid was sufficient. There was a gap of three to four weeks between the 12th week and the 16th week when no abortion could be performed. Performing a D & C or vacuum aspiration abortion during this interval was considered too dangerous. In 1970, a synthetic prostaglandin was introduced for use in abortion. Prostaglandin is a naturally occurring hormone which assists in causing the cervix of the uterus to soften and open at the time of term delivery. Physicians discovered that injecting the synthetic prostaglandin into the amniotic fluid, giving it by mouth, or placing it in the vagina could cause an abortion in the early second trimester (after 13 weeks) of pregnancy. The use of prostaglandin appeared to be safer and more effective than saline abortion, and it soon supplanted saline abortion as the method of choice in terminating more advanced pregnancies. Unfortunately, numerous problems and complications associated with the use of prostaglandins in more advanced pregnancies appeared. Some women with asthma or other respiratory conditions were adversely affected by prostaglandins, and prostaglandins were associated with a higher risk of uterine rupture. In the mid-1970s, a study by Dr. Christopher Tietze showed that performing abortion with instruments by “dilation and evacuation” (D & E) during the interval between 13 and 16 weeks was safer than previously thought and was safer than requiring the patient to wait until a saline (or prostaglandin) abortion could be performed after 15 weeks. Soon after this, clinical studies were published that confirmed Dr. Tietze’s analysis. The innovation was accompanied by the use of a “serial multiple laminaria” dilation of the cervix using repeated treatments in which one set of Laminaria were removed and replaced by another set over

Abu Ghraib



a period of two or three days. This method, in which larger specialized instruments were used, made it possible to perform abortions on patients with much more advanced pregnancies with great safety. At the current time, this method of D & E abortion has supplanted both saline and prostaglandin techniques in second-trimester and later abortions. With the discovery of mifepristone (RU-486), it has been possible to initiate an early abortion during the first few weeks of pregnancy without the use of instruments or vacuum aspiration. Medical abortion now accounts for about 10 percent of all abortions performed in the United States. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion, Late; Abortion Laws, United States; Roe v. Wade; RU 486; Women’s Health. Further Readings Devereux, George. A Study of Abortion in Primitive Societies. New York: The Julian Press, 1955. Hern, Warren M. Abortion Practice. Boulder, CO: Alpenglo Graphics, 1990. Joffe, Carole. “Abortion in Historical Perspective.” In Paul, M., E. S. Lichtenberg, L. Borgatta, D. A. Grimes, and P. G. Stubblefield, eds., A Clinician’s Guide to Medical and Surgical Abortion. Philadelphia, PA: Churchill Livingstone, 1999. Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion From the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Sciarra, John J. The Global Library of Women’s Medicine. http://www.glowm.com (accessed March 2010). Warren M. Hern University of Colorado

Abu Ghraib Abu Ghraib is one of nine districts surrounding Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. It is recognized for its prison, where prisoners were abused under Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, and later, by members of the U.S. military. Several U.S. military personnel, including four women, have been identified as responsible for the abuse of Abu Ghraib detainees and three of the four

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women have been tried and punished for their participation. The United States returned control of the prison to Iraq in 2006. It was reopened as Baghdad Central Prison in 2009. Designed by American architect Edmund Whiting, the prison was built by British contractors in the 1960s. The prison occupies 280 acres and contains five compounds surrounded by a brick wall topped with barbed wire and 24 guard towers. The prison was under Iraqi control from 1970 until the end of Hussein’s reign in April 2003. Under Hussein, the prison housed individuals accused of crimes as well as those suspected of being political dissidents. Hussein’s political opponents were housed in the “special sentences” section of the prison and denied any outside contact. Prison overcrowding was a constant issue; the prison may have held as many as 60,000 prisoners at its peak. Torture was routine and thousands of prisoners were executed in Abu Ghraib’s gallows. In October 2002, Hussein declared amnesty for the majority of Iraqi prisoners; all but Abu Ghraib’s political prisoners were freed. Scandal and Scrutiny From 2003 to September 2006, the U.S. military managed the prison. Concerns about prisoner abuse emerged soon after U.S. takeover from groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, who visited the prison 29 times from mid- to late 2003. Worldwide attention to Abu Ghraib was garnered in late April 2004 when photographic evidence of detainee abuse first surfaced on the CBS 60 Minutes II television show, followed by the publication of the photographs in The New Yorker. The photographs, turned over to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command by Specialist Joseph Darby, depict U.S. military personnel participating in various forms of abuse. The pictures, and subsequent sworn statements given by detainees, reveal a range of abusive practices: “hooding” (putting a bag over the head of the detainee to disorient them and prevent them from breathing freely); prolonged exposure to loud music and extreme temperatures; forcing detainees to remain in uncomfortable positions for extended periods; intimidation by unmuzzled dogs; physical beatings; and denial of food, water, and sleep. Evidence also highlights sexualized forms of abuse of male detainees: being forced to parade nude, sometimes

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Action Heroes, Female

with women’s underwear over their heads; forced to simulate masturbation; and forced to simulate anal or oral sex with other detainees. Though the majority of detainees were male, reports also indicate abuse of the handful of female detainees. Suspected to be among the photographs not released by the U.S. government are pictures of a female detainee being sexually assaulted, and a female detainee forced to expose her breasts to male guards. Investigations of Abuse It is likely the remaining photographs of Abu Ghraib and other U.S. military prisons will not be seen by the public. In May 2009, U.S. President Obama reversed his decision to support the public release of the remaining photographs. In October, Congress passed legislation granting the Defense Secretary authority to deny their release. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court set aside the decision of the lower appeals courts to reveal the photos, citing the new legislation. Concern from the White House is that releasing the photographs would further inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger American troops. Multiple investigations of abuse at Abu Ghraib have been conducted. The first investigation, conducted by General Antonio Taguba, identifies several military personnel as bearing responsibility for detainee abuse, including four women: Specialist Megan Ambuhl, Specialist Sabrina Harman, Private First Class Lynndie England, and Brigadier General Janis Karpinski. Of the four, Harman and England appeared in multiple photographs and Ambuhl appeared in one. Ambuhl, Harman, and England were found guilty by military tribunals for their participation in the abuse (Ambuhl was found guilty for her failure to report or prevent the abuse). Harman and England were sentenced to six months and 3 years, respectively. Karpinski, the commanding officer charged with overseeing Iraq’s prisons in 2003, maintains she was unaware of the abuse. Karpinski was demoted from brigadier general to colonel on an unrelated charge. There are competing explanations of women’s participation in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. One explanation emphasizes the psychological problems of individual participants. Other explanations focus on Specialist Charles Graner as the ringleader and emphasize his use of his romantic involvement with both Ambuhl and England to pressure them to participate in the

abuse. Graner was sentenced to 10 years. Additional explanations include broader criticisms of military training that socializes recruits, male and female, to an aggressive and hypermasculine culture conducive to abuse. Finally, other explanations suggest that such abuse was condoned, if not encouraged, by members high in the military hierarchy. Abu Ghraib remains significant because it brought public attention to abuses suspected of occurring in U.S. military prisons operating throughout the world, including Guantánamo Bay, as a result of the U.S. Global War on Terror. In late 2006, the U.S. military closed Abu Ghraib and transferred its prisoners to other sites in Iraq. The Iraqi government began $1 million worth of renovations of Abu Ghraib in late 2008 and reopened the prison as Baghdad Central Prison in February 2009. The renovations include a museum dedicated to documenting Saddam’s crimes (but not those of its U.S. guards). At full capacity, the facility will house 15,000 inmates. See Also: England, Lynndie; Karpinski, Janis; Military, Women in the; Sex Offenders, Female; Sex Offenders, Male; Sexual Harassment. Further Readings Greenberg, Karen and Joshua L. Dratel. The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Karpinski, Janis. One Woman’s Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story. New York: Miramax Books, 2005. McAllester, Matthew. Blinded by the Sunlight: Emerging From the Prison of Saddam’s Iraq. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Elyshia Aseltine University of Texas, Austin

Action Heroes, Female Scholars have long debated if female action heroes— represented in comics, genre literature, cinema, television series, cartoons, and videogames as strong women, expert fighters, muscular, and independent,



but often emotionally fragile—are empowering for women or not. “Tough girls,” inspired by the classical portrayal of the Amazons, were already part of the imagination of modern culture when, in 1941, Wonder Woman, the Amazon super-heroine, made her appearance in comics strips. The introduction of this female action hero, as Mitra C. Emad has pointed out, was related to the social situation created by World War II, when U.S. women took jobs outside of the home and held responsibilities traditionally reserved for men. Subsequent shifts in the representation of action heroines have also been produced or influenced by economic, social and cultural changes. Films in the popular action genre proposed action heroines in the 1970s (such as those played by Pam Grier). Nonetheless, the most famous female action heros are those portrayed in Hollywood’s science fiction action blockbusters produced from the 1980s, as if, as some have noted, characters such as Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien (1979), Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in Terminator 2 (1991), or Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) in the Matrix (1999) could only exist in imaginary settings. American cartoon films have also presented outstanding female action heroes, who also act in fantasy settings, such as Mulan (1998), inspired by a traditional Chinese story, or the independent princess Fiona in Shrek (2001). Female heroines have long been present in Asian popular action films, especially in Hong Kong, but also in films such as the House of Flying Daggers (2004) by Ang Lee, where actress Zhang Ziyi plays a blind, skillful swordswoman. Japanese cartoon television series also introduced several female characters who fight as hard as men, for example, in The Rose of Versailles (1979–80). Many recent TV series have centered on female action heroes. These characters support, rather than challenge, the established structures of society, as they are often police women, as in Cagney and Lacey (1982–88), private investigators (the Charlie’s Angels trio in the late 1970s), or members of governmental agencies, as in The Bionic Woman (1976–78), Dana Scully in The X-Files (1993–2002), or Sidney Bristow in Alias (2001–06). Female Action Heroes and Patriarcy The main question that underlies the academic debate on female action heroes is if they are examples

Action Heroes, Female

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of resistance to patriarchy or, rather, if they instead perpetuate and reinforce patriarchal domination. Are characters such as GI Jane (1997), played by Demi Moore, or Nikita (1990) in the French film by Luc Besson, examples of empowered and self-directed women? Some scholars, such as Sherry Inness or Jeffrey A. Brown, tend to read positively the gender roles’ transgression that female action heroes perform by using violence and weapons. Several scholars have instead criticized the action heroine’s use of violence, as the stylized violence of her performance appears to be offered to the (male) viewer’s gaze, rather than aimed at empowering women. Yvonne Tasker, among others, has noted the sexualization of the action heroine’s body and translate the muscular bodies of heroines, an element with roots in the comic strip tradition, as a response to feminism and a way to contain women within patriarchal boundaries. Rikke Schubart draws on psychoanalysis in stating that the action heroine performs a masquerade, constructed to tell two different stories to male and female audiences. Carol Clover, instead, considers certain heroines as “men in disguise,” or “phallic women,” who do not represent, and are therefore not empowering, for women. Action heroines are indeed shown in male disguise and are often ascribed sexual ambiguity, especially in Asian films. Other scholars have noted the relative scarcity of nonwhite heroines, though, as Mary Beltrán has highlighted, Latina heroines, presented as “masculine” are now often represented in fantasy settings. Popular television series such as Xena: Princess Warrior (1995–2001), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), or La Femme Nikita also send mixed messages to viewers, as Mary Magoulick has pointed out, since all such characters present male fantasies, and move in a world controlled by masculine powers that determine their destiny. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Beltrán, Mary. “Más Macha: The New Latina Action Hero.” In Yvonne Tasker, ed., Action and Adventure Cinema. London: Routledge, 2004. Brown, Jeffrey A. “Gender and the Action Heroine: Hardbodies and the Point of No Return.” Cinema Journal, v.35/3 (1996).

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Addiction and Substance Abuse

Clover, Carol. Men, Women and Chain Saws. London: BFI, 1992. Emad, Mitra C. “Reading Wonder Woman’s Body: Mythologies of Gender and Nation.” The Journal of Popular Culture, v.39/6 (2006). Giukin, Lenuta. “Boy-Girls: Gender, Body, and Popular Culture In Hong Kong Action Movies.” In Murray Pomerance, ed., Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. Gender in Film at the End of the Twentieth Century. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Inness, Sherrie A., ed. Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Inness, Sherry A. Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Magoulick, Mary. “Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy.” The Journal of Popular Culture, v.39/5 (2006). McCoughey, Martha and Neal King, eds. Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Schubart, Rikke. Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970–2006. McFarland & Co., 2007. Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1993.

in Bulgaria, Poland, and Turkey (52 percent); Brazil and Mexico (53 percent); Canada, United States, and Cuba (58 percent); Bolivia and Peru (60 percent); Australia and Japan (77 percent); and Germany, France, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, and Ukraine (81 percent). Countries with the highest consumption also had the smallest differences between men and women; gender gap of 10 percent or less in Russian Federation, Ukraine, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. In another WHO report of developing nations, female consumers of alcohol reported drinking problems highest in India, Nigeria (an average of 8 percent of problems), and Uganda (14 percent). The lowest were in Costa Rica (4 percent), Brazil (3 percent), Sri Lanka (2 percent), and Argentina (1 percent). Most

Maria Beatrice Bittarello Independent Scholar

Addiction and Substance Abuse The number of women using and abusing substances has been gradually increasing since the 1990s, in some cases matching the rates of men (e.g., alcoholism among young adults) or surpassing them (e.g., higher drug use among women). The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) publish studies that evaluate substance abuse across nations; however, few provide a breakdown by gender. Worldwide, men consume and abuse more alcohol than women, but the differences vary within each country. In a WHO alcohol study of 14 subregions, the percentages of female drinkers were above 50 percent

Once women develop a drug problem, they are at greater risk for adverse effects, such as a faster rate of dependence.



of the drinking problems across countries are more prevalent before age 30. If gender patterns of alcohol use/abuse are applied, then countries with higher substance prevalence rates probably have higher percentages of women abusing these substances. In a UN report covering other substances (opiates, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines, and ecstasy), North American populations tended to abuse opiates, cannabis, and cocaine (listed in order of lower to higher percentages). African populations abused opiates, cannabis, and amphetamines. Central and South American populations abused cocaine, cannabis, and amphetamine. In the Caribbean, they abused cocaine and cannabis. Asia populations abused amphetamines and European populations abused ecstasy more than other substances. The increase of women’s substance abuse is primarily seen among younger women with the first onset of use occurring due to the desires to fit in with peers, impulse control problems during adolescence, escape from traumatic early life events, or introduction by a romantic/sexual partner who is currently using. Intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships, gender role expectations, physical and mental health status, and their physiology all are important components of women’s substance abuse. Women also have more incidents of comorbidity (co-occurring addiction with psychological disorders) as compared with men. These factors continue to be overlooked, minimized, or ignored by society, and in some cases by professional staff. Risk Factors Several studies indicate that being a woman buffers against developing alcohol/drug dependency (i.e., rates are still generally higher for men), but once women develop a problem they are at greater risk for adverse effects. These effects include a quicker time from the first use to the start of dependence, becoming more impaired compared to men with the same amount consumed, and reaching advanced stages of disease of the liver, heart, and brain at faster rates than men. Even when body weight is accounted for in the consumption of alcohol, women still have higher risks than men do. These differences are thought to be due to a woman’s body structure (i.e., alcohol becomes more concentrated). Also women’s different hormone activation in the body affects the

Addiction and Substance Abuse

21

metabolism rate, making women become intoxicated more quickly. In addition to greater physiological vulnerability, women tend to internalize their stressors and problems (higher rates of depression and anxiety) and use more coping strategies to avoid rather than manage their emotional symptoms, compared to men. Women often have emotional issues related to distress from physical and sexual abuse that may have begun early in life and often continues throughout their addiction. Women may use sex to trade for various resources, such as drugs and/or alcohol, which can contribute to being in unhealthy relationships and in situations that give their partners more opportunities to physically or sexually abuse them. Another set of risk factors associated with women’s substance abuse is being part of an underrepresented group. Several national and international studies define these groups as ethnic minorities within society, including the economically disadvantaged, such as homeless or working-class women, and nonheterosexual women. Women from ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic status share similar challenges, such as less access to resources, including healthcare (particularly in areas without a government-funded healthcare system), stereotypical reactions to their status within the society, and higher incidents of chronic life stressors (e.g., victimization and unstable forms of shelter). The few studies that have examined acculturation (adjustment to a new culture) patterns in the United States have shown a correlation to substance abuse. As one increases, so does the other, which might impact the successful treatment of ethnic (non-native) women. Examining the role of sexual orientation in substance abuse among women is an emerging focus in the 21st century. Lesbian and bisexual women are thought to be at greater risk for using and abusing substances because of their multiple minority statuses (e.g., being a lesbian Hispanic working-class woman) and the higher incidents of overt discrimination (e.g., homophobia and hate crimes). The type of substance used/abused varies in the different minority groups, but women in general lean more toward drugs than alcohol. Treatment Treatment formats have traditionally been modeled for and created by men, which has emphasized a confrontational style within a highly structured inpatient

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Addiction and Substance Abuse

setting; the addict is physically separated from everyone except for the professional staff and their addiction is directly challenged within a coed group format. This style can be viewed as threatening and nonsupportive by women addicts who may need to maintain some outside social networks (e.g., supportive family members and their children) and they may be uncomfortable addressing sexual behaviors or relationship issues in front of male staff members or clients. There are conflicting findings regarding whether women-only programs are equal to or more effective than mixedgender programs, especially because women typically start treatment with more problems and greater severity of addiction than men. However, given these challenges, several studies have shown that women can obtain positive outcomes from mixed-gender treatment programs. Alternative structures are needed that address the risk factors and barriers experienced by women addicts or alcoholics to help rebuild their lives without substances. Some alternative approaches involve a holistic set of procedures where the woman and her multiple roles are treated in an integrated fashion, instead of piecemeal, which separates her addiction from other aspects of her sense of self. These can be achieved through a program involving only women, or be embedded within mixed-gender programs where gender-specific and gender-sensitive techniques are intentionally incorporated. Gender-specific treatments for women involve programs that provide training on assertiveness, healthy relationships and family systems, parenting, nutrition, housing and employment opportunities, and referral for physical and mental health issues. Gender-sensitive treatment typically involves separating women in some manner (e.g., separate groups for women only or those who experience physical/sexual abuse; matching client with staff member; or having an all-female staff ). Barriers to Treatment Treatment centers are underutilized and often have few openings for women. The exceptions seem to exist where there are government mandates or incentives (e.g., funding for pregnant women). Other barriers for women include her own views on treatment, family members’ actions to protect women from outsiders, past experiences with professionals’ distain or stigmatization, lack of support from a using

spouse/partner, the appeal of the treatment program itself (e.g., cost, health insurance requirements, and absence of an all-female staff ), and the practicality of attending treatment (e.g., childcare arrangement and transportation). In a variety of U.S. and international studies, women’s substance abuse is associated with legal (similar to rates of men) and child custody issues (e.g., family services–related agencies requiring treatment). Women who voluntarily consider treatment on their own face comparable fears to those associated with law enforcement referrals. Studies have consistently shown that women experience lower self-esteem and self-efficacy, more shame and guilt about their use, are stigmatized and alienated more by their usage, receive less support from nonusing/using friends, more prejudice and discrimination from members of society, and suffer from fears of losing custody of their children. Each of these contribute to women remaining addicted. Although successful outcomes for women have been demonstrated across different types of programs, getting women into treatment seems to be one of the largest hurdles. Some researchers have proposed that women-only, gendersensitive, and gender-specific programs may address several of these concerns and thus attract more women into treatment. Feminist researchers argue that a woman’s substance use is viewed as a violation of her gender role. This violation results in a narrowing of her social network, such as reduced interaction with nonusing family and friends, and increased interaction with her romantic/sexual partner’s friends and other users. When women contemplate not abusing substances, they may lose all or a majority of their support network, and thus are at greater risk of being socially isolated compared with men in similar situations. When a woman addict or alcoholic becomes isolated, her thought processes may deteriorate, and she may become suicidal with continued thoughts of hopelessness. These factors becomes additional barriers when women wish to seek help and remain sober. Medical coverage continues to be a growing concern, especially in countries without a national healthcare system. In some states within the United States, if a person has a felony drug charge, that person is excluded from state health benefits due to their drug charge. Residential treatment programs tend to



Administrative Assistants/Office Managers

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be more expensive, and therefore more exclusive to wealthier patients or those with medical insurance, thus economically disadvantaged women may be limited in their treatment options (e.g., community/ government versus private/hospital programs). An interesting finding from research is that women from wealthier backgrounds are less likely to seek treatment, which may be due to factors mentioned earlier (e.g., higher expectations placed on them to maintain gender roles). Age is a consistent barrier for women. The younger a woman is, the more likely she will receive a diagnosis of substance use or abuse. However, several studies have shown that older women encounter mental and medical professionals who are reluctant to ask about substance abuse. This pattern is ironic because most studies show that women will seek out medical or mental health professionals first before considering specific substance recovery programs. When women do seek treatment, they may face the challenge of professional staff identifying their problems as primarily psychological (mental illness) and not substance abuse, or vice versa. This separation denies that a woman is a complex person who fills multiple roles and responsibilities; she is more dynamic than simply a substance user/abuser or someone with a mental illness. This continued compartmentalizing contributes to the revolving door phenomenon where multiple professionals are visited and referrals keep patients moving in a perpetual circle.

ing previous relationships and cultural environments without relying on avoidant strategies (e.g., slipping back into using alcohol or drugs).

Successful Treatment Support throughout treatment can incorporate three levels: emotional, instrumental, and cognitive (thought processes). Emotional support involves having someone to listen to a woman’s problems, believe in her, and help her to have the confidence that she can change and create a new life for herself (and her children). Support is needed to learn how to form new social networks with professional staff, role models within self-help groups, and reconnecting with family members. Instrumental support includes resources on housing, finding work, education, parenting, and healthy relationship skills, and providing vital services, such as transportation and childcare, to help women attend their treatment sessions. Cognitive support involves looking at a woman’s coping and problem solving skills in preparation for re-enter-

Patricia A. Marsh University of Central Missouri Tina M. Keith Independent Scholar

See Also: Crime Victims, Female; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Health, Mental and Physical. Further Readings Green, Carla A. “Gender and Use of Substance Abuse Treatment Services.” Alcohol Research & Health, v.29 (2006). Hecksher, Dorte and Morten Hesse. “Women and Substance Use Disorders.” Mens Sana Monographs, v.7/1 (2009). Kaskutas, Lee Ann, Lixia Zhang, Michael T. French, and Jane Witbrodt. “Women’s Programs Versus MixedGender Day Treatment: Results From a Randomized Study.” Addiction, v.100 (2005). The Office on Drugs and Crime. Global Illicit Drug Trends. United Nations Website. http://www.unodc .org/pdf/trends2003_www_E.pdf (accessed June 2010). Trulsson, Karin and Ulla C. Hedin. “The Role of Social Support When Giving Up Drug Abuse: A Female Perspective.” International Journal of Social Welfare, v.13 (2004). Walter, Henriette, K. Gutierrez, K. Ramskogler, I. Hertling, A. Dvorak, and O. Lesch. “Gender-Specific Differences in Alcoholism: Implications for Treatment.” Archives of Women’s Mental Health, v.6 (2003).

Administrative Assistants/ Office Managers Today’s administrative assistants, a position largely held by women (97 percent), may be the most important support position in the business world. This worker often serves as “office wife,” confidante, guard dog, and facilitator in addition to performing routine office tasks. Christopher W. Felt, author of What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up

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Administrative Assistants/Office Managers

the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook, contends that the administrative assistant to the alpha male, which he defines as “the great white shark of the ocean of business,” is the most powerful woman in a company because she knows more about the boss than anyone else in that environment. If she is loyal and efficient, she will keep his secrets and prevent his mistakes from becoming known to others. The power that an administrative assistant has may vary greatly according to the size of a company and length of an individual’s service. From the time women entered the business world, administrative assistants were known as secretaries; the women’s movement led to a re-examination of women’s roles and to a newly awakened recognition of the contributions of support staff to a company’s success. Thus, secretaries became known as administrative assistants. In 2008, there were 4.2 million jobs in the United States for secretaries and administrative assistants. Some 90 percent of those jobs were in the service industries. The United States Labor Department has predicted that between 2008 and 2018, the number of administrative assistants will increase by 11 percent. The median annual wage of these workers, excluding administrative assistants in legal, medical and executive positions who earn higher wages, was $29,050 in 2008. Workers at the higher end of the scale earned as much as $43,240, while employees at the lower end of the scale averaged $18,440. Unlike the administrative assistant who tends to work closely with a single boss, the office manager is generally responsible for a group of support people. She is likely to work closely with management, performing such tasks as hiring and firing staff, preparing payrolls and maintaining financial records. Average salaries range from $27,676 for office managers with less than a year’s experience to $54,914 for managers with more than 20 years experience. There is a high turnover rate among office managers, the result of firings, job hopping, and retirements. Office managers often become scapegoats when problems arise within companies, and they may take the blame if their employers make major mistakes. In the 21st century, many office managers are required to have college degrees, and potential employers look for individuals who have taken courses in organizational behavior, psychology, sociology, finance, and English. Accounting capabilities may be essential for office managers in

small companies. A large number of office managers use their positions as a stepping stone to careers as bookkeepers, bank assistants, or purchasing agents. Qualifications for administrative assistants tend to be less stringent than those for office managers. In the past, typing and shorthand were the chief qualifications. No longer. Today’s modern office requires what the U.S. Labor Department calls “extensive knowledge of computer software applications.” Job applicants must know a variety of programs including word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation design as well as have the ability to prepare reports and newsletters. Knowledge of basic computer skills is a given. Training may be achieved in high school, vocational and trade schools, or through employersubsidized classes, community colleges and even over the Internet. Many administrative assistants now have college degrees related to a specific field. The shift in job requirements was directly related to the redefinition of job responsibilities, and many administrative assistants now assume tasks once reserved for predominately male managerial and professional staff. At the same time, many administrative assistants continue to be responsible for scheduling, controlling access to a boss’s time, storing information, and performing general office tasks such as filing, answering phones, and opening mail. Some administrative assistants, such as those in the medical and legal professions, may perform and analyze highly specialized research. In large offices, a team of administrative assistants often work together to provide executive support. New technologies also have produced what is known as the “virtual assistant,” a person who works from home via the Internet, e-mail, and/or fax to perform tasks such as scheduling, data entry, writing letters and reports, bookkeeping, and desktop publishing. In the 21st century, the vast majority of administrative assistants and office managers continue to work 40 hours per week on a five-day schedule, but many companies have begun working with women who have families to provide more flexible work schedules through flex time, job sharing and telecommuting. About 18 percent of all administrative assistants/ office managers now work part time. See Also: Business, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Working Mothers.

Adolescence

Further Readings Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Secretaries and Administrative Assistants.” http://www.bls.gov/oco /ocos151.htm (accessed April 2010). Felt, Christopher V. What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. “Office Manager.” The Princeton Review. http://www .princetonreview.com/Careers.aspx?cid=103 (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Adolescence Adolescence commonly occurs between 12 and 18 years of age. However, for girls, it may begin before age 12, whereas for boys it may extend beyond 18. It is associated with rapid physical growth, body transformations (menstrual periods, growth of under-arm, body, and pubic hair) and intense emotional changes. Physically, today adolescent girls are maturating and enter puberty earlier than the previous female generations. Socially, they detach from parental models while the importance of social life increases. Bigger parent– child conflicts may occur in immigrant families, when adolescents adapt faster than parents and when the new values are incompatible with the native culture. The first theorization of adolescence as a life stage was Stanley Hall’s book, Adolescence (1904), where, following the German Sturm und Drang art movement, he linked adolescence with “storm and stress.” Subsequently, Margaret Mead argued, based on her (controversial) research in Samoa, that culture and upbringing, and not the very nature of adolescence, are responsible for adolescent’s distress and anxiety. Later, Jean Piaget provided cognitive and not cultural explanations. Today, many religious and secular coming-of-age rituals are preserved. Examples of religious rites of passage are Confirmation in Roman Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, and Anglican Churches; Gwallye in Confucianist societies (Korea); Bat Mitzvah in Judaism. Among the secular ceremonies, are the Quinceañera (in Latin American culture), “Sweet 16” parties (United States and Canada), Baile de Debutantes (Bra-

25

zil), Debut (Philippines), débutante balls (Australia and many countries). In Mexico, Panama, and Paraguay, the coming-of-age celebrations are rather a middleupper-class practice. In Japan, all 20th birthdays are celebrated during a January national holiday. In Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and areas of Transylvania, particular ceremonies are held at the end of high school. Other school-related ceremonies are in Vanhojen tanssit (Finland), Galas (France), and many more. “Adolescence” and “youth” are often used interchangeably, although they are rooted in different scholarly traditions. Adolescence is a concept drawn from developmental psychology. It is based on the assumption of common age-related characteristics. It uncritically links the social being with physical traits, assumed to be identical to an age group. Such views reproduce a normative and stereotypical image and are criticized for incorporating Western middle-class and gender biases. Youth is a concept used in sociology. It tends to allow consideration of other characteristics than age (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, social class, etc.). Sociology of youth tends to focus on young people’s relations with adults, institutions, and with the cultures they develop. Yet, age tends to remain a major category. For this reason, the approaches of youth as a life stage or age group have been challenged as adultocratic. Besides, according to Lynne Chisholm (1997), youth tends to be socially constructed as masculine and associated with disturbancy and ephebiphobia, or the fear of youth. Adolescence does not follow a linear trajectory, or a uniform rhythm. In developed societies, there is a tendency toward the prolongation of youth together with a destandardization or deregulation of youth transitions, according to Syka Kovacheva, Andreas Walther, and Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. The concept of “yo-yo-ization” of transitions between youth and adulthood has been proposed by Andreas Walther in order to capture the flexible movement between various social roles that are less age related (e.g., education, work, and the starting of family life). Different societies understand adolescence differently. Agrarian communities view it as a (short) transition between childhood and adulthood, whereas in industrialized societies adolescence is a socially recognized life stage in its own right. Yet, although at present, 86 percent of the largest-ever generation of young people, aged 10 to 24, are living in developing

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Adolescence

world, still, the attention is drawn to the adolescents living in Western developed countries. Adolescence in Western Societies One phenomenon largely associated to Western countries is eating disorders. Medical evidence shows that disordered eating usually begins during early adolescence and a main risk factor is an experience of physical or sexual abuse. In the United States, bulimia has a higher prevalence among girls from low-income families, more likely to be African American. Despite being associated with Western societies, increased evidences of eating disorders in the developing world may be attributed to the globalized media, but also to less studied local factors (e.g., urbanization, new cultural constructions of female body image). Adolescence is a precious market niche for age and gender-segregated markets of goods and media. Consumption is simultaneously an expression of identity and a factor that shape identity formation. Teen media is contributing to constructions of femininity that value body image, appearance and consumption. Today, youth cultures proliferated immensely and cannot be explained by previous theories on the rejection of the social system. They are maintained by leisure industries and contribute to adolescents’ self-definition. The increased use of Internet social networking sites generated debates on its value and benefits for adolescent girls. On the one hand, it appears that the Internet allows girls to claim power and assume more authority in the construction of a heterosexual relationship, according to Lynn Schofield Clark. On the other hand, there are recent concerns on the sexual advances, Internet-initiated sex crimes, and dating violence. Gender-based roles, stressors, poor body self-concept and negative life events are reported as responsible for the overrepresentation of depressive symptoms and anxiety among adolescent girls. Generally, there is a higher level of parental control exerted upon girls than upon boys and a relative gender bias in documenting girls’ risk-taking behaviors. In developing countries, pregnancy and childbirth related complications are the principal cause of death in girls aged 15 to 19, whereas in Unites States, 10 percent of adolescents of the same age became pregnant, followed by birth, abortion or miscarriage. Criminalization of abortion in many African countries endangers the health of many adolescents. The recent intro-

duction of the human papilloma-virus (HPV) vaccine for cancer prevention raised various reactions: from immediate vaccination to skepticism on its side effects, or misapprehensions of its role for fertility control. School-based immunization programs may be problematic in areas where housework or work is a serious deterrent to girls’ attendance. Issues in Conflict Zones Teen prostitution is a surviving strategy for some adolescents living on streets or in areas of conflict. Girl combatants are a severely under-researched group. Extreme poverty, malnutrition, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) orphanhood may push adolescent girls into prostitution in the context of increasing tourism and demand, (e.g., Tanzania, Kenya, Thailand and the Philippines). Abduction or trading of girls during armed combat involves forced prostitution or war rape (e.g., Angola, Burundi, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, the former Yugoslavia, and Turkey). At present, a cohort of “war babies” born following war rape of Muslim women during the mid-1990s Bosnian war is reaching adolescence in a context of social stigmatization. Adolescent girls may be trafficked for forced prostitution, bonded labor, domestic servitude, forced marriage, or begging. Trafficking increases the vulnerability to abuse (e.g., intimidation, isolation, physical force, and debt bondage, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including HIV, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions). At highest risk of being trafficked are adolescent and young women from minority ethnic groups who are disempowered and face economic exclusion and violence at home. Worldwide, there are several rendered cultural practices that endanger the health and autonomy of adolescent girls. Breast ironing (Cameron) is an induced form of breast reduction, performed by mothers with a heated item, for protecting adolescents from the risks of sexual attractiveness. Female circumcision (or female genital mutilation/cutting) is performed on girls until preadolescence in large African Muslim areas. Bride kidnapping is a practice in central Asia, the Caucasus region, and partially Africa. Besides, in several former Soviet countries, it has been reinforced recently as an expression of cultural identity and main-

Adoption



tained for economic reasons. Honor killing and, more recently, honor suicides in several Muslim cultures are ultimate forms of violence. Opinions on adolescents’ political activism vary: from a large perception on adolescents’ apathy, to claims that the very forms of political activism have changed (including now boycott campaigns and cyber-activism/ protests). Recent examples of youth activism are student-led protests in 2007 Burma, the so called “Twitter Revolution” in Iran in 2009, and in Republic of Moldavia in 2008, the demonstrations of Tibetan youth (2008), of French young people (2006) or the 2002 feminist movement “Ni Putes Ni Soumises” initiated by young French Muslim women against the suburbs’ gender-based violence. Despite the fact that most young girls and boys have positive social experiences and are striving to succeed in school or work, adolescence received a bad press. In recent years, society ceased to see young people as “the future” out of the concern for various socially constructed problems like teen pregnancy, adolescent crime, substance abuse, premature and unsafe sexuality, etc. The “fear of youth” informed legal decisions on reducing the age of criminal responsibility and various methods of surveillance and control (e.g., security systems, mobile phones, computer surveillance, metal detectors, and surveillance cameras). See Also: Child Labor; Children’s Rights; Eating Disorders; Internet Dating; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Arnett, J. J. Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006. Chisholm, Lynne. “From Unequal Opportunities to Equal Lack of Opportunities? Gendered Dimensions of Social Change and Youth in Europe.” Young, v.5 (1997). Clark, L. S. “Dating on the Net: Teens and the Rise of ‘Pure’ Relationships.” In Jones G. Steven, ed., Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998. Kovacheva, Syka. “Flexibilization of Youth Transition in Central and Eastern Europe.” Young, v.9 (2001). Walther, Andreas. “Regimes of Youth Transitions.” Young, v.14 (2006). Maria-Carmen Pantea Babeş Bolyai University

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Adoption Adoption is a form of fictive kinship in which an individual or a couple assumes the parental status of a child who is frequently not biologically related. In legal adoption, the biological parents relinquish all legal rights to the child; these rights are transferred to the adoptive parents. Because of the permanent and legally binding nature of adoption, the child is socially recognized as “belonging” to the newly constituted family unit and theoretically acquires the same status as the other family members, regardless of whether ties are established on the basis of biological reproduction or not. Formal adoption differs significantly from other forms of childcare in which the child is raised outside of the biological parent–child dyad, such as guardianship and crisis and voluntary fostering, as such lessformal care systems allow children to inherit from the biological parents, and the biological parents retrain the right to veto decisions taken by the foster parents. In fostering, a child may at any time be removed from the foster care parents, whereas removal from adoptive parents is improbable because of the legalities surrounding adoptive kin. The History of Adoption The history of adoption is a long one, dating back to the Roman Empire. In Roman antiquity, adoption was the mainstay of the aristocracy and served the primary purposes of strengthening political ties between wealthy kin groupings and providing a readily available pool of potential male heirs where no biological children existed who were able to assist in running estates. Although the emphasis on adoption during the Roman Empire was clearly founded on the expansion of the family, with strictly political motives, adoption recorded in other parts of the world during this period, such as in India and China, served the purpose of the continuation of religious and cultural rites that required male intervention; for example, ancestral veneration. The process of adoption, which was so prevalent in the Roman Empire, saw a stark decline during the medieval era. In the medieval period, strong emphasis was placed on biological genealogies, and ruling families who were unable to provide suitable evidence of a biological heir were frequently replaced. The move

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Adoption

A trend in contemporary adoption featured prominently in public debate is the adoption of children by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, and is only legal in certain countries.

toward the prominence of the biological child–parent dyad saw many children abandoned during medieval times; these children were frequently absorbed by churches, resulting in the establishment of the orphanage system. The increasing numbers of children in institutionalized care lead to the revival of the family as the “best-fit” model of care for destitute children. However, although adopted children increased familial status during the Roman Empire by providing oft-needed sons, children integrated into families during medieval times were most often absorbed for financial reasons; most notably, the provision of cheap labor. Despite the blatantly financial motives for adoption at this time, the reabsorption of children into families led to what is commonly heralded as the rise of the modern system of adoption. In the 19th century, activists concerned with child rights rallied around the notion that children should be integrated into families for reasons of sentiment,

rather than as a mechanism for providing cheap labor. This idea was increasingly accepted in the United States and was ratified in 1909, when the U.S. president of the time, Theodore Roosevelt, declared the nuclear family to be the most suitable institution for rearing orphaned and abandoned children. However, although familial adoption was accepted in the uppermost echelons of society, the sentiment of adoption did not gain widespread precedence until after World War II, when it became a natural option for unmarried mothers and couples who were unable to conceive. In modern adoption, in America, as in other parts of the world that have followed America’s lead, the best interests of the child are considered to be of paramount importance, and as a result, the process of adoption became shrouded in secrecy in the 1900s. The secrecy surrounding adoption served the purpose of protecting the rights of the child by making the adoptee a fully fledged, legally recognized member of a new family



once ties with the biological parents had been severed. This model of adoption has become the global norm. Modern Adoption In the contemporary era, placing a child for adoption occurs for a number of reasons, such as the death of the biological parents, the lack of financial wherewithal for the biological parents to raise a child, and parental pressure exerted on young biological parents to relinquish rights to the child. Adoptions in the present day occur between both related and unrelated kin. The primary reasons for biological kin adoption include parental death; the inability to care for a child because of age, medical conditions, and alcohol and drug abuse; and a child being formally adopted by a parent’s new spouse, which is commonly referred to as stepparent adoption. The most common reasons for choosing to adopt a child include the inability to conceive, maternal yearning, and the desire to provide a safe home to a child in need. Adoption today is divided into what are termed “open” and “closed” adoptions. Open adoption permits free-flowing communication between the child and the biological parents, which may include access to information about the child’s well-being and visitation rights. In open adoption, the adoptive parents retain sole responsibility for the child and are able to terminate communication as they deem fit. In the case of closed adoption, the adoptive parents may be given information that does not reveal the identity of the biological parents, such as ethnicity, medical history, and religious denomination, and the adoptive parents are in turn given limited information that does not specifically identify the biological parents. Withholding personal information stems from the ideal of secrecy surrounding adoption that arose with modern adoption. Although adoption has historically been limited to taking place within the borders of a country, a global trend has emerged that entails transnational adoption. Transnational adoption may occur through either a private or public agency, and the laws regulating international adoption vary significantly from one country to another. Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), war, and poverty have resulted in an increase in cross-border adoption, in which adoptive parents opt to adopt pri-

Adoption

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marily to provide a safe haven to a child in need. International adoption is also undertaken to secure access to a child who is of a similar ethnic origin, to speed up the adoption process by avoiding internal waiting lists, or to fulfill maternal desire by providing ready access to a child. Despite the fact that adoption is closely monitored and regulated in much of the Western world, adoption for financial gain is a growing trend, especially in the international adoption arena. Contentious Issues in Modern Adoption An issue that has been hotly debated in the modern era of adoption is that of transracial adoption. In America, as in many African countries such as South Africa, adoption experts have stated their preferences for placing a child in a family that shares the same racial background as the child. Reasons for this preference include culture, language, identity formation, and the issue of exceptionality. Informal fostering is a childcare practice that has been common across the African continent, and this culturally sanctioned practice has historically allowed for economic resources to be extended throughout the lineage, skills to be acquired, labor to be offered, companionship to be given, education opportunities to be exploited, and kin ties to be strengthened. Despite the growing number of children in need of care, permanent legally binding adoption is still not as common as informal fostering, and transracial adoption is regarded as a last resort only. A new trend that has emerged in adoption is embryo adoption, a process that allows women who are either unable to conceive or unable to carry to term the ability to form a bond with a child from the embryonic stage. Although embryos may be implanted in a woman who is unable to conceive, allowing her to experience pregnancy, women who are able to conceive but unable to carry to term may gain access to an embryo and, through a surrogate mother implanted with the embryo, experience the maturation of the fetus and the subsequent birth process. Embryo adoption is a contentious issue that has garnered both support, being regarded as an act of kindness and goodwill, and criticism, being viewed as interfering with the natural order. Another trend in contemporary adoption that has also featured prominently in public debate is the adoption of children by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. In certain countries or

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Advertising, Aimed at Women

states within countries, same-sex adoption is legal, whereas in other parts of the world, legislation has been introduced in an attempt to stop same-sex adoption. In Uruguay, for example, same-sex couples are legally permitted to jointly adopt a child, whereas in the United States, the legislation varies across states, with Arkansas having the most stringent laws in place to prevent LGBT adoption. Differing global and interstate adoption laws have led to numerous unresolved adoption cases. The highly publicized case of Baby Emma spotlights how differing state laws can determine legal parentage from varying perspectives. The biological parents of Baby Emma were unmarried at the time of her birth, and Emma was placed for adoption in Utah without the consent of her biological father. The case is one that places diverging state laws in conflict with each other and brings into question the rights of unwed fathers in gaining custody of their children. In this particular case, diverging state laws recognize different parties as having parental rights over the child, resulting in differing legal perspectives on who should rightfully raise Emma. Similarly, the Hansen case highlights the unresolved legalities surrounding international adoption. In the Hansen case, a Russian child was adopted by an American woman who later decided to return the child to Russia. The case caused a global furor regarding the binding rights and legal framework of both adoptive parents and adopted children. See Also: Abortion Laws, International; Childlessness as Choice; Convention of the Rights of the Child; Foster Mothers; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Pregnancy. Further Readings Chemezie, A. “Transracial Adoption of Black Children.” Social Work, v.20 (1975). Hollingsworth, Leslie. “Symbolic Interactionism, African American Families, and the Transracial Adoption Controversy.” National Association of Social Workers, 1999. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6467/ is_5_44/ai_n28741272 (accessed June 2010). Madhavan, S. “Fosterage Patterns in the Age of AIDS: Continuity and Change.” Social Science and Medicine, v.58/7 (2004). Melosh, Barbara. Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Rayside, David M. Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions: Public Recognition of Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Susan de la Porte University of KwaZulu-Natal

Advertising, Aimed at Women The goal of advertising aimed at women is to generate women’s interest in and action on a particular product, service, or cause. In the 21st century, women have emerged as the major consumer market for advertisers in terms of size and importance. Advertising targets women according to their demographic characteristics and psychographics—their lifestyles and values. Evidence from research, knowledge about popular culture, and consumer typologies help marketers hone their message. Focus and communication strategies engage women consumers. More companies are tailoring the message to women without identifying the product as being for women. They use multiple strategies to reach women consumers, such as the Internet and other technologies, product placement, giveaways, and cause marketing. The average American is exposed to about 5,000 messages per day. Advertising is everywhere—in print and broadcast media, on billboards, shopping and luggage carts, on Websites, and on public transportation. Advertising works by first exposing women to the message, getting women to consider the message, and influencing women’s attitudes and opinions toward whatever is being sold. Advertising is big business. Marketers spent an estimated $280 billion in advertising in the United States in 2005, about 48 percent of the $581 billion spent globally. More and more advertising dollars are being spent targeting women. A Major Market In the 21st century, women have emerged as the major advertising target in terms of size and importance. Growth in women’s economic and spending power is driving advertisers’ increasing recognition



of women as consumers. Women earn more than half the combined household income in most U.S. households. As women’s educational attainment increases, so do their earnings. U.S. women’s mean income grew about 63 percent from 1970 to the early 2000s, while men’s income was stagnant. Growing numbers of women are out earning their husbands. The majority of women manage their family finances. U.S. women make about two-thirds of all household purchasing decisions, including big-ticket items such as home furnishings, cars, and trucks. Important Perceptual Differences Companies are using findings from research and knowledge about popular culture to guide advertising aimed at women. Research has revealed significant gender differences in terms of how women think, how they decide what to buy, and how they respond to advertising messages. Research shows that men and women perceive things differently. Men excel at honing in on an image, whereas women have superior peripheral vision. Women are more sensitive to loud sounds. Women’s sense of smell is more acute. The most dramatic gender differences pertain to women’s greater sensitivity to touch. Differences in how women process and retain information and respond to verbal and social cues combine to influence their attraction to and purchase of products and services. Brain research indicates women read more into advertising messages than men do and think more emotionally about the message. When women listen, they use both sides of the brain, making them more susceptible to advertising messages. Survey research shows most women perceive products and marketing more holistically than men do. Women are also better at picking up on nuances and details. Combining the results of brain research and biochemistry with social research about gender, generational, cultural, and communication differences allows advertisers to tailor their messages specifically for women and to segment the women’s market even further. Segmenting the Market Marketers target advertising aimed at women to various segments or audiences based on demographic and psychographic factors. Demographic factors include characteristics such as gender, generational member-

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ship, socioeconomic status, geographic location, and culture. Psychographic factors are values and beliefs held by women in the target audience. Marketers use typologies—classification systems based on demographic and psychographic factors— to guide their advertising. These typologies reflect gender stereotypes about women and their values, motivations, and interests at different life stages. They also reflect gender stereotypes about women within the major cultural categories across the globe. Gender stereotypes are generalizations about the roles, characteristics, and attitudes of women. Typologies based on gender stereotypes reflect societal and cultural assumptions about women. By creating and using typologies, marketers can hone their message to the stereotypical female consumer within each typology. Roper Starch Worldwide, using the results of thousands of interviews focused on fundamental values and motivators of consumers in 35 countries, created six basic categories representing the adult global consumer, and by extension, the global female consumer. Strivers (estimated at 23 percent of the world’s population) live mostly in developing and developed countries. Typically middle age, their values include wealth, power, and status. Devouts (22 percent) live mostly in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. They hold traditional values, such as faith, obedience, duty, and respect. Altruists (18 percent) are generally older and well educated. Their motivators stem from their interest in social causes and political issues. Altruists live primarily in Latin America and Russia. Intimates (15 percent) are motivated by interpersonal relationships and are media-oriented. They live primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hungary. Fun Seekers (12 percent) are young and driven by adventure, excitement, and pleasure. They place value on appearance and spend their leisure time at clubs, bars, and restaurants. Creatives (10 percent) value knowledge and technology. They tend to be early adopters and avid consumers of media. Cultural and ethnic identity is another driver for segmenting the women’s market. Important cultural differences exist in terms of belief systems and values and brand loyalty and consumer tastes. Successful global campaigns aimed at women are aligned with the beliefs and values of women in the target country.

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The women’s market is segmented even further by generational values, life transitions and milestones, and culture. Marketers develop advertising approaches toward women in recognition of different core generational values. Women in Generation Y are sophisticated consumers skeptical of and skilled at ignoring traditional advertising content. They value collaboration and are open to trying new products and services. Generation X women value self-reliance and cynicism, and are hostile toward advertising hype. In contrast, baby boomer women value idealism, individualism, and empowerment. The conception of aging is changing in the 2000s, thanks to baby boomers who embrace technology, change brands, and love to consume goods and products. Advertisers are rethinking the upper age limits of the conventional adult consumer market of 18 to 49. The sheer number and purchasing power of baby boomer women will spur new advertising approaches to capture their dollars. Within generation segments, marketers hone in on the varied values and interests of working women, stay-at-home mothers, retired women, etc. The attitudes and behaviors of women within the same generation or socioeconomic background vary widely, thus marketers also targeting women in terms of social maturity. For example, marketers may segment the women’s market based on psychosocial stages of adult development. Women’s life transitions provide marketers with opportunities to establish new brand relationships. Further segmentation occurs based on product categories and consumer labels. Capturing Her Attention Research shows that women deliberate longer than men before making a purchase. Thus, marketers often create multiple opportunities for repeated messaging about a product or service. By cultivating the woman consumer, they win her loyalty and commitment. They focus on her values, such as community and connection, by using real-life stories and appealing to women’s sense of group affiliation. The reward is a consumer referral rate that is twice that of men’s. Advertising grabs women’s attention by focusing on important aspects of female gender culture, such as social values. By designing ads that focus on people rather than product, similarity rather than superiority, and community rather than competition, advertisers

capitalize on the importance most women place on community and connection. Advertising approaches focus on building a bond with the woman consumer by using actors that are attractive but not unrealistically so, and by portraying realistic situations that resonate with women. Advertising focuses on life and time factors, such as milestones, transitions, and women’s roles in the home and the workplace. Advertisers use focus strategies to convey the big picture about the product, using details to differentiate their brand or product. Communication strategies help to make the advertising message more personal and meaningful. Successful advertising strategies involve communications designed to motivate the consumer. Indulgence often serves as a marketing tool to motivate women to make purchases as rewards they’ve earned. Conveying the Message Approaches geared toward women consumers include visible marketing, transparent marketing, and hybrid campaigns. Visible marketing is designed for women only; the advertising message contains language and imagery that are unmistakably targeted toward women. Transparent marketing involves tailoring the message to the needs of the woman consumer, but not identifying the service or product as being for women. Hybrid campaigns involve visibly marketing certain products or aspects of products toward women within an overall transparent marketing campaign. The use of transparent marketing toward women is growing, and may represent the dominant approach in the future. Transparent marketing works best when the campaign has a narrow focus and reflects intimate understanding of the particular consumer group. Successful ads focus on the products context, define the brand, and are authentic. The growth and popularity of the Internet necessitated a shift from traditional print, television, and radio advertising. Companies use the Internet and other new technologies to get their message across to women and to tailor the message. Companies build brand loyalty by making sure their Website is easy to navigate. They make the Website appealing to women by emphasizing human images and stories. They give women choices in how they share and receive information. They place banners and spot ads on blogs



and Websites popular with women or the targeted segment of the women’s market. They use electronic marketing to observe the popularity of sites. Companies use self-discovery quizzes and polls, online advisory boards, and peer reviews as a way to connect to the customer and gain an edge in understanding the female consumer. Companies also create noncorporate Websites to create an international community of women. These Websites provide specific content geared to pique the interest of the target consumer, building brand loyalty in the process. Companies place targeted ads on online social networking sites such as Facebook and on portable devices, such as cell phone ringtones associated with products. As use of new technologies becomes widespread, advertisers create targeted messaging displayed on cell phones, iPods, and other mobile devices. Marketers also get their message to women through viral videos, which are funny, outrageous, or bizarre video clips that get broad exposure on the Internet by women who gladly share them with others through e-mail or instant messaging. Advertisers place short commercials on news and entertainment Websites, often requiring that the viewer watch the ad before accessing the desired content. Companies use new approaches to reach women, particularly younger women who have developed sophisticated marketing filters that screen out conventional advertising. They use more subtle approaches such as public relations campaigns, product placement and giveaways, and strategies to promote wordof-mouth referrals to reach advertising-savvy women. Companies get around negative perceptions of mass corporate brands by getting their products in the hands of pop culture icons who young women consider cool. They use product giveaways in bars and on city streets where young women congregate. Such word of mouth advertising works because women who are enthusiastic about new products will talk about them to others in their social networks. Companies target female early adopters through invitations to special events, discounts, samples, and coupons, all designed to create a buzz about the product. Cause marketing is a way for companies to promote their good deeds and enhance their image through advertising. Many companies partner with charitable causes that resonate with women to attract women consumers. Cause marketing grew 23 per-

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cent from 2005 to 2007, representing more than $1 billion. Breast cancer is a cause dear to women that many companies embrace. Research shows that older consumers appreciate socially responsible companies. Members of Generation Y, expecting companies to be socially responsible, often vote with their purchasing decisions. As research reveals new motivators for women consumers around the globe, and new technologies emerge to reach and engage the different segments of women’s market, advertising aimed at women will adapt and evolve. See Also: Advertising, Female Professionals in; Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Gender, Defined; Internet; Pink, Advertising and. Further Readings Barletta, Marti. Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market Segment, 2nd ed. Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2006. Gardner, Andrea. The 30 Second Seduction: How Advertisers Lure Women Through Flattery, Flirtation, and Manipulation. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2008. Johnson, Linda and Andrea Learned. Don’t Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy—and How to Increase Your Share of This Crucial Market. New York: American Management Association, 2004. Witter, Lisa and Lisa Chen. The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World—and How to Reach Them. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008. Keri L. Heitner University of Phoenix

Advertising, Female Professionals in When modern advertising developed in the United States in the late-19th century, the industry was open to a variety of enterprising individuals, including females. Since then, women have distinguished themselves in all facets of the business, creating original and profitable campaigns, and even heading important

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advertising agencies. By 2008, women comprised half of all employees in advertising and related professions. Nevertheless, agencies in the United States, England, and elsewhere remain bastions of gender inequality, particularly in creative departments, where men outnumber women more than two to one. Ironically, many of the females who have achieved career success in the field have done so through exploiting sexist stereotypes. Advertisements are among the most pervasive transmitters of cultural messages in modern societies, and limitations on women’s input into advertising may play a crucial role in perpetuating sexism. Social changes and repeated calls for industry reform may gradually bring equal opportunity to the field. Helen Woodward is emblematic of women’s early involvement in the field during advertising’s “progressive” era—moving up from stenographer at the Merill and Baker Agency around 1902 to becoming a copywriter, freelancer, and then in 1924, leaving the industry to write scathing critiques of it. Advertising Women of New York was founded in 1912 because advertising women at that time were barred from attending other ad clubs. The group has continuously supported the professional growth and advancement of women in communications, and, since 1997, have issued The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Awards to celebrate and embarrass advertisers’ depictions of women. By 1918, the J. Walter Thompson Agency had a separate department of female copywriters headed by Helen Landsdowne. Staffed predominantly by graduates of prestigious colleges, these women created ads for Pond’s, Crisco, and other women-oriented accounts that proved enormously profitable. Advertisers understood that females were making 85 percent of household purchasing decisions, and women creatives were able to communicate with this important audience. Ad women during this “progressive” period made use of stereotypes about feminine intuition to gain employment in creative positions. By exploiting this stereotype, women gained the freedom to escape the formulaic approaches that were prescribed to their male counterparts. Women early in the 20th century created new ad forms, including advertisements that imitated the look of editorial matter, and ads featuring endorsements by aristocrats and society women.

Even though significant agency revenue was attributed to women, they were often barred from positions of power such as deal-making or client contact roles. By the 1930s, many agencies limited top jobs to business school graduates, at a time when business programs excluded women. Women’s contributions were underplayed or even hidden from clients and the public. A pioneer, Landsdowne was rarely photographed, almost never gave speeches or wrote articles, and was generally kept out of the limelight until three years after her death, in 1970, when she was placed in the Advertising Hall of Fame. By the 1960s, some ad women were well known, including the glamorous Mary Wells, who entered the field as a fashion-advertising manager, worked as a copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach on the company’s breakthrough campaigns for Volkswagen and Avis Rent A Car, and went on to establish Wells Rich and Green in 1966, where she updated Braniff Airlines’ image. Wells, along with Mary Fillius, Jane Trahey, and Jo Foxworth helped bring the advertising industry into its golden age. Second Wave of Feminism Betty Friedan’s influential 1963 book The Feminine Mystique accused advertisers of promoting the role of women as servile and helpless to make them feel more dependent on advertised products. By the 1970s, a second wave of feminists attacked what they viewed as insulting depictions of women in American advertising. Many of them held sit-ins and threatened to boycott goods advertised in ways they saw as demeaning to women. Ironically, some of these campaigns had been created by women—such as the Clairol hair dye ads from Shirley Polykoff, which declared, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure,” and “If I have only one life to live, let me live it as a blonde.” The jury is still out on whether Polykoff ’s hugely successful hair dye ads empowered women to choose their hair color, or disempowered them by creating artificial beauty standards that linked women’s happiness to their attractiveness. This controversy is an example of advertising’s complex and intractable role in consumer culture. Polykoff ’s professional success did not conform to most feminist ideals, but it did open doors to more female creatives. When advertisers of the 1970s moderated their advertising approaches, it was partly



due to women within agencies working against both exploitive portrayals of females in ads and discrimination in hiring and promotion within the industry. Despite the industry’s claims to using scientific approaches to marketing, it has always depended on creative professionals’ subjective judgment to develop advertising concepts and to give form to these ideas. Then, as now, agency heads saw their businesses as largely subjective enterprises, and promoted associates whom they felt best about instinctively—men—rather than relying on objective criteria such as degrees or years of experience. Discrimination against women in advertising is consistent with a well-documented discriminatory culture in which racial minorities and workers over 40 years old are underemployed in copywriting and art directing. Creative departments are generally exempt from regular dress codes and business conduct, and a harddrinking “boys’ club” atmosphere is standard within top firms, where basketball hoops and foosball tablesare standard fare. Many female creatives find difficulty fitting into this culture, which is even more pervasive outside the United States. In top agencies, as few as one in 10 campaign proposals are chosen for presentation to clients. Female creatives cite intense competition as well as long hours, frequent night and weekend responsibilities, and lack of accommodation for childcare, as major impediments to promotion. Long-standing cultural prejudices against women as true creative geniuses—seen as egotistical, eccentric or petulant— may persist within advertising agencies. Agency heads also may be averse to promoting women into positions in which they routinely criticize and reject the work of male creatives. Some women have moved into creative director roles, though many of these have remained childless, or else raised families with help from fulltime nannies or stay-at-home husbands. Top roles for women have gradually expanded in advertising and other fields. By 1992, Charlotte Beers had become head of Olgilvy & Mather Worldwide. Beers became head of J. Walter Thompson by 1999, and then Under Secretary of State under George W. Bush. By 2000, women still had complaints about how few of them were promoted in creative departments in France, Brazil, and Hong Kong. Some women in the United States were bringing racial as well as gender diversity to the field, with African Americans Ann Fudge becoming head of Young and Rubicam in 2003,

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and Vida Cornelius moving from vice president and creative director at Doyle Dane Bernbach Chicago to become vice president and group creative director of GlobalHue in 2009. Nevertheless, inequities remain pronounced. So far, there is no concrete proof that the underrepresentation of women in creative departments is the main cause of sexual stereotyping and objectification in ads. However, this relationship is of great interest to feminists, media theorists, and psychologists. They continue to review recent findings on the effects of sexist advertising, which include damage to girls’ cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, and to women’s healthy sexual development. Other causes of sexism in advertising include sexist ads, which gain reader attention even among readers who find the material offensive. Additionally, since the aim of most ads is to persuade people that they are powerless without the advertised product, there may be limitations on how empowering ads will ever be. Even though females have created many ad considered sexist, the hope remains that when women reach positions of power in significant numbers, the tenor of adverting will change. More and more women are distinguishing themselves within the field. Susan Credle of Leo Burnett, Kerry Keenan of Young & Rubicam, Karen Kaplan of Hill Holiday, and Kris Kiger of R/GA are just a few examples of advertising women who are proving that, despite discrimination, there is room for women at the top. See Also: Advertising: Aimed at Women; Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Business, Women in; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Glass Ceiling; Management, Women in; Management Styles, Gender Theories; Media Chief Executive Officers, Female; Professions by Gender; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women; Working Mothers. Further Readings Mallia, Karen. “Creativity Knows No Gender But Agency Creative Departments Sure Do.” Advertising Age (August 21, 2009). Nixon, Sean. Advertising Cultures: Gender, Commerce, Creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage, 2003. Sivulka, Juliann. Ad Women: How They Impact What We Need, Want, and Buy. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009.

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Sutton, Denise H. Globalizing Ideal Beauty: How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Liz C. Throop Associate Professor, Georgia State University

Advertising, Portrayal of Women in The advertising industry can be viewed as a culture industry that engages a network of ideological and dominant institutions. This culture industry produces and reproduces mass culture, effectively homogenizing cultural products and audience identities. Advertisements are the material products of the advertising industry; more important, though, the advertising industry creates ideologies about gender, race, and class, thus reinforcing stereotypes about minority (or subordinate) groups in relation to the dominant social group. The messages in advertisements socialize people and mediate their reality; the advertising industry’s function thus carries economic, political, cultural, and social effects. Advertisements can be in many forms, such as print (in magazines or newspapers), television, radio, Internet pop-ups, and out of home (like billboards). The characterization of the advertising industry as a culture industry is reflected in its texts, whose central goal is to stimulate audience consumption of products and, thus, a capitalist lifestyle. The advertising industry produces and disseminates narrow ideals of femininity and gender roles, thereby communicating powerful messages about female behavior and appearance for members of Western culture. Use of Stereotypes Advertising employs stereotypes about individuals and groups so that its dominant ideas will be accepted as social norms by audiences. In her book Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, feminist Judith Williamson discusses the social role played by advertisements that seek to identify audiences with the ideological position connoted in the advertisement. Advertising presents

signs that are invested with meaning, these include words, images, and sounds, among others. The goal of signs in advertisements, Williamson argues, is to create a perceived difference between one product and another. The structure of advertisements is ideological, as it aims to attach meaning (especially desire) to attainable objects. Contemporary advertisements code meanings about female gender identity and beauty through representations of the body. Beginning in the 1920s, advertisements presented enticing portrayals of modernity. Historian Roland Marchand called them “social tableaux advertisements.” He noted that advertisers, as observers of popular culture, believed that consumers would prefer to see advertisements that reflected a higher social status than their own. Thus, the social tableaux reflected people’s social aspirations—not realities—and

Beginning in the 1920s, advertisements depicted an idealized life that could distort consumers’ views of reality.



employed pictorial images in which individuals could insert themselves. The advertisements created a depiction of modern life that distorted consumers’ views of reality and their aspirations. The representation of women in these social tableaux in the 1920s and 1930s portrayed them as adapting to modernity in two ways: through their power to purchase goods and through their power to shape and dress their bodies. The exercise of these powers became entwined with the representation of the female American dream. As Marchand notes, however, modernity was an ambiguous concept that did not afford for women to subvert their subordinate roles. Advertisers acknowledged women in this time period as America’s primary consumers, and the social tableaux characterized women as the “family G.P.A.” (general purchasing agent) or “Mrs. Consumer.” Yet, despite showing socially valued male executive talents (such as decision making through purchasing choices), women were not accorded equal power in relationships with men or a changed social role. Thus, the female power granted by the woman’s positioning as a consumer did not alter her subordinate role to her husband. In Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, historian William Leach offers a denigrating portrayal of the power of the modern woman in popular culture: the equation of a woman’s purchasing power with items purchased predominantly for the home (the archaic space of women), a portrayal that further reinforced the woman’s traditional role as a housewife. Focus on an Unattainable Appearance In addition, the social tableaux tied women’s leisure time to the modern pursuits of female self-expression (i.e., her appearance) that would make her an admirable partner for her modern husband. A modern lifestyle thus meant that her newfound time, courtesy of better home management, could be devoted to working on an appearance that would be valued by and cater to men. Along these lines, the advertisements prescribed the modern look, complete with advice on physical stance and fashion. They represented a female body that was distinct from the older, rounder generation of women. These bodies had fantastical and imposing proportions; more important, these physical depictions were associated with women of high social status. Although the modern female

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body originated in the realm of fantasy, the young, slim image signified that women were free in reality. However, this representation of a fashionably attired, young, and elongated body maintained the patriarchal relationship of domination-subordination. The post–World War II period was characterized by an economic boom. Women were no longer regarded by advertisers as the sole purchasing agent for the home, and market researchers identified that women’s buying decisions were motivated by their senses of smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing and by their personality traits such as intuition and irrationality. In Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture, media historian Stuart Ewen describes the home during this time as a place of corporate control over Americans’ daily life. The home supported a homogenization of female identity, offering women promises of happiness through passive ideological and material consumption of messaging in advertisements. Arising out of this cultural context was the influential feminist text, The Feminine Mystique, in which activist Betty Friedan exposed the social conditions that plagued 1950s American women (particularly the housewife). Friedan argued that advertisers/the patriarchy equated the power of women with their purchasing power, and she linked women’s struggle for identity to a consumer culture whose advertisements of housewives presented an empty sense of self. Friedan argued that consumer culture used women’s affluence to trap them in a false, unsatisfying selfimage that rendered them passive and situated them as caretakers of their family and homes. Since the 1960s, feminist social theorist Jean Kilbourne has been creating awareness about the objectification of women in advertisements. In Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, she argues that the images of women’s bodies that circulate in popular culture shape women’s subjectivities and the way that women are viewed in society. She argues that the role of women in advertising texts is only in relation to, and thus subordinate to, the desires of men. This viewpoint aligns with the notion of the “male gaze,” a concept put forth by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey who suggests that the female role in media texts is negative and involuntary. Action is reserved for the owner of the gaze (who is inherently male), while inaction is reserved for the

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object of the gaze (who is inherently female). Along these lines, Kilbourne argues that the objectification of women in advertisements connects to the use of sexual imagery, and this representation of women adversely affects women’s attitudes toward pleasure and desire. As Kilbourne notes, such imagery trivializes sex and relationships and promotes narcissism and consumption. A result of increasingly damaging media images of women is that they negatively impact women’s identity development: women feel less safe in their bodies, and women may feel a sense of disconnection from oneself and others. Negative Impact on Female Self-Esteem The important work of feminist cultural theorist Susan Bordo focuses on the influence of advertising on women’s body images (see Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body and Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images From Plato to O.J.). She argues that contemporary culture is characterized by the power of advertising images or “cultural images.” For Bordo, the intention that underlies the construction of advertising images, reminiscent of the social tableaux, blends fantasy and reality—that is, the images produce desire in audiences for fantasy and the desire to achieve that fantasy in reality. For her, the problem inherent in contemporary advertising is that its images serve as a blueprint for young girls’ views of their bodies. Bordo contends that women have absorbed these cultural ideologies and learned how to monitor their bodies to achieve the dominant ideology of female beauty. Because these powerful images constitute a desirable cultural norm, Bordo theorizes they have influenced girls’ self-esteem and may be attributable to the cultural crisis of eating disorders and body-image issues. There are conflicting meanings of agency (generally acknowledged as individual resistance to structural ideologies) regarding women’s current engagement with advertising and media messages. In Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, journalist Ariel Levy characterized the recent “raunch culture” as women’s embrace of hypersexualized representations of women as well as women’s self-presentations of female sexuality. Levy contends that these alleged sites of empowerment paradoxically support the patriarchal conceptualization of women as subordinate to men. Feminist media scholar Rosalind Gill

further cautions about the dangers of this attitude of female empowerment and sexual self-display in media images and in everyday life and how the portrayals of women in advertising have gone beyond notions of objectification to subjectification. The representation of women as hypersexual and desiring objectification, images that circulate in mainstream popular culture, are similar to pornographic images of women. For over half a century, manufactured advertising images of an unattainable female body have negatively impact the self esteem of girls and women, which is reflected in a sense of inadequacy in fulfilling their gender role. These images present a female body that has been constructed in the realm of fantasy ( by the advertising industry), and implies that women can achieve these bodies in reality. Actively challenging and educating women about how these advertising images exploit insecurities about female imperfection and the promise of fulfillment through the consumption of products is an important feminist project. See Also: Advertising: Aimed at Women; Body Image; Eating Disorders; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Pink, Advertising and; Pornography, Portrayal of Women in; Representation of Women. Further Readings Bordo, Susan. Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images From Plato to O. J. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Dell Publishing, 1983. Gill, Rosalind C. “Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising.” Feminism & Psychology, v.18/1 (2008). Gill, Rosalind C. Gender and the Media. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor Adorno. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, eds., Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.

Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity

Kilbourne, Jean. Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel. New York: Touchstone, 1999. Leach, William. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free Press, 2005. Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In Meenakshi G. Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, eds., Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. Williamson, Judith. Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. New York: Marion Boyars, 1984. Dara Persis Murray Rutgers University

Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity This entry outlines the history of affirmative action policy in the United States and discusses its current institutional design and enforcement, as well as its interaction with U.S. antidiscrimination policy. While some such policies have also been implemented in other countries, the United States has the earliest and most extensive version, particularly with regard to women as opposed to ethnic and racial minorities, and as such provides an important case study of how such policies might affect women’s relative standing to men. In the United States, equal opportunity implies equal treatment under a selection mechanism, and also implies attempts to equalize qualifications relevant to selection prior to entering the selection process. Thus, antidiscrimination policies can be seen as ways to ensure equal treatment. Affirmative action is a step beyond ensuring equal treatment through antidiscrimination policy measures. It is an activist approach to trying to increase the representation of historically underrepresented groups, whether in the workforce, in particular occu-

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pations, in higher paid, more prestigious positions, in the political system, or in higher education. As such, it is a more controversial policy than antidiscrimination policy, but it also holds the promise of enacting more radical change in society toward the ultimate goal of equalizing both opportunity and outcome for members of different groups. History Starting in June 1941 with Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802, a series of executive orders barred discrimination by federal contractors on the bases of race, creed, color, and national origin. In March 1961, John Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925 required federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” It specified further: “Such action shall include, but not be limited to, the following: employment, upgrading, demotion or transfer; recruitment or recruitment advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and selection for training, including apprenticeship.” It created the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and granted it the authority to impose sanctions, including contract termination, on noncompliers. This order is the foundation for affirmative action as we understand it through the present, and is also the origin of the term. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 established the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC), which enforces the federal laws prohibiting job discrimination. These include the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 of September 1965 strengthened enforcement by outlining in greater detail the procedures for determining compliance, the sanctions for noncompliance, and by establishing that the Department of Labor and the EEOC would coordinate in sharing relevant data and in enforcement of these laws. Johnson’s Executive Order 11375 in 1967 took the key step of extending affirmative action on the basis of sex. However, effective regulations enforcing this expansion did not reach full stride until after the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which

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strengthened enforcement of Title VII, giving the EEOC authority to litigate, and expanded its reach to educational institutions and government bodies (federal, state, and local) as well as to employers with as few as 15 employees (before it had been 25). In October 1978, Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order 12086 consolidated into the Department of Labor all of the different federal agencies’ contract monitoring functions related to equal employment opportunity provision. This expanded the purview of the Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance, originally established by the Secretary of Labor following Executive Order 11246. The renamed Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) collects relevant data and enforces the order and subsequent related orders and legislation. As women’s participation in higher education and in the workforce expanded in the late 1970s, politicians began to take a broader view of women’s participation in employment and how it might be assisted by government actions. Carter’s 1979 Executive Order 12138 created a National Women’s Business Enterprise Policy, which required each executive branch department and agency to “take affirmative action in support of women’s business enterprise in appropriate programs and activities,” including but not limited to “management, technical, financial and procurement assistance . . . business-related education, training, counseling information dissemination,” and “procurement.” Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 called for establishment of a federal Glass Ceiling Commission, to study “the manner in which business fills management and decisionmaking positions” and to prepare recommendations concerning “eliminating artificial barriers to the advancement of women and minorities” and “increasing the opportunities and developmental experiences of women and minorities to foster advancement of women and minorities to management and decisionmaking positions in business.” In March 1995, Bill Clinton called for a review of affirmative action, which was completed by two of his aides by July 1995, at which point he reaffirmed his administration’s support for affirmative action. The Glass Ceiling Commission’s report appeared in November 1995, bringing more attention to the issue of women and minorities’ progress up corporate career ladders, but not leading to additional legislation.

One of the final proaffirmative action moves during the Clinton administration took place in 2000, when the Department of Labor began an Equal Opportunity Survey. Surveyed federal contractors were asked to report not only employment data, but also compensation data by gender and minority status. This data was meant to be used to improve the OFCCP’s compliance audit procedures (i.e., deciding which contractors to audit). However, under the George W. Bush administration, the department first reduced the number of surveys (from 50,000 down to 10,000) and then, in September 2006, eliminated the survey altogether. While the Bush administration did not dismantle affirmative action, it did not expand its mandate either. Current Institutional Design and Enforcement Commentators often refer to the whole set of antidiscrimination laws and executive orders mentioned above as affirmative action. Using that broad definition, almost all employers and employees, save for those in the smallest firms, would be subject to affirmative action. A narrower view of affirmative action’s coverage would be to consider only Executive Order 11246 (as amended) and the related parts of the 1972 Equal Opportunity Act as embodying affirmative action (as opposed to antidiscrimination), and thus to consider only federal employees and those employers monitored by the OFCCP, namely federal contractors, as subject to its requirements. However, this would be inappropriately narrow in thinking about which firms have stated that they are following affirmative action principles in their employment practices. Many organizations that are not required to have an affirmative action plan nonetheless have them, to varying degrees of formality. In addition, government employees, who make up a large percentage of the workforce, are covered by these principles. Also, some states, counties, and cities have affirmative action statutes, with which contractors with those governments’ agencies are required to comply. Thus, out of the total U.S. workforce, a sizable proportion (about 28 to 40 percent) is in workplaces that are covered by either a required or voluntary affirmative action plan. Even if only private sector employers under OFCCP’s jurisdiction are considered as being subject to affirmative action, this covers a large number of



employers and employees—over 20 percent of the civilian workforce (about 29 million workers). These contractors need to have a written affirmative action plan detailing the “good faith” efforts they are undertaking to recruit, retain, and provide advancement opportunities for the covered groups. They are supposed to collect applicant flow data, keep applicant files/applications for a two-year period, use recruiting services and pipelines that will given them access to the covered groups, keep copies of all job advertisements, and indicate in all such advertisements that they are an “equal employment opportunity employer.” The OFCCP selects federal contractors for audit, partly at random but also currently focusing enforcement on firms practicing what it calls “systemic” discrimination. This approach is conducive to supporting the affirmative action part of OFCCP’s purview, as the pattern could include underrepresentation of women and minorities in the firm’s workforce as well as apparent low promotion rates of these groups to higher levels in the firm. A rough guideline for firms to consider regarding compliancy is the “four-fifths rule,” where a selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than 80 percent of the rate for the group with the highest rate can be regarded by the federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact on that group of the firm’s employment procedures. The majority of audited firms are found to be noncompliant. In addition, private employers with 100 or more employees and all federal contractors with 50 or more employees are required to file an annual report with the EEOC. About 50,000 employers, representing more than 55 million employees, file this report. The EEOC can investigate employers for violations of Title VII and the other antidiscrimination laws. Thus the price of not following affirmative action is the threat of a company’s having to undergo a compliance review, and the costs, trouble, and potentially unpleasant publicity that this entails. There is also the possibility of additional financial penalty relating to patterns uncovered during the audit, including back pay awards to applicants denied hiring or promotion. Studies support the view that affirmative action has had positive effects in expanding employment for women and minorities. There is also a fair amount of evidence in support of the view that affirmative action has had positive effects on earnings for women and

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minorities. These gains appear to have come with little ill effect in terms of measurable drops in quality of output or other indicators that would suggest a loss of efficiency in the economy from implementing affirmative action. In part this may be because the extent of, and thus the effect of, affirmative action compliance has not been that high. Or it could be that affirmative action actually improves efficiency if it overrides discriminatory impulses that were efficiency reducing. But it indicates that any dire concerns about constraints on competitive behavior appear unfounded. Outlook Assuming that we would like to expand further the representation of women (and minorities) in the workforce and in the better-paying, more secure jobs, there are a number of reasons to be optimistic regarding the continued role of affirmative action as an agent in effecting change. The main way in which affirmative action plan violations are identified is through looking to see if a particular firm’s workforce is out of line with the supposed availability of workers in the relevant labor market. If a firm’s workforce is not in line with the expected proportion of, say, women, then the only way that the firm can make up for this is by increasing the proportion of women, whether through increased hiring or increased retention of women (which may often involve promoting them more rapidly than men). Thus the firm is forced to practice affirmative action in order to reach parity with the overall labor market. This implies that affirmative action has a natural limiting range in how long it can be generally applicable. If all firms had workforces that were in line with the overall market availability of women, it would no longer be necessary to practice affirmative action in hiring (except to the extent that women and men might have different turnover rates). Indeed, the U.S. legal system, with the relative ease by which plaintiffs can bring discrimination suits in which one basis is disparate impact and another is disparate treatment, supports affirmative action even in firms not directly subject to OFCCP or other regulations. Therefore the fear of discrimination suits, which often range widely in topic from pay differentials to hiring differences to promotion differences, support the relatively weak direct suasion that OFCCP

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can bring by making firms not only accountable to the EEOC as well, but to private suits that can be brought under Title VII. The conditions in the United States provide a strong basis for optimism. The more interesting question is how affirmative action/equal opportunity will be expanded in other parts of the world under vastly different legal systems and social structures. This will be a challenge for the current century. In particular, some countries have taken the more forceful approach of imposing strict quotas, particularly regarding candidates for political office. The tension between the use of quotas and the use of more flexible programs will be one of the most important issues for resolution as equal opportunity approaches spread to more countries and situations. See Also: Business, Women in; Equal Pay; Glass Ceiling; Representation of Women. Further Readings Bergmann, Barbara. “The Continuing Need for Affirmative Action.” Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, v.39/5 (1999). Holzer, Harry and David Neumark. “Affirmative Action: What Do We Know?” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, v.25/2 (2006). Holzer, Harry and David Neumark. “Assessing Affirmative Action.” Journal of Economic Literature, v.38/3 (2000). Jacobsen, Joyce. The Economics of Gender, 3rd Ed. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell/Wiley, 2007. U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. http://www.dol.gov/OFCCP (accessed May 2010). U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. http:// www.eeoc.gov (accessed May 2010). Joyce Jacobsen Wesleyan University

Afghanistan Afghanistan is currently home to 33 million inhabitants, 99 percent of whom are Muslim (approximately 80 percent are Sunni Muslim while 19 percent are Shi’a Muslim). It is an ethnically diverse

country; major ethnic groups are Pashtun and Tajik with smaller portions of the population comprised of Usbek, Hazara, and other groups. Located in southern Asia, Afghanistan is known as the crossroads of central Asia. It consists primarily of rugged mountain and hillside terrain with smaller portions comprised of arid and semiarid plains. Major sources of revenue include agriculture and opium production. Democratic elections were held in both 2004 and 2009, yet the political system of Afghanistan remains unstable. The reconstruction process has been painfully slow and, consequently, women and girls continue to face significant challenges in relation to security/violence, poverty alleviation, education, and healthcare. Recent History For the past three decades, Afghanistan has been ravaged by conflict and war. A 1978 military coup by a communist group known as the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan was followed in 1979 by Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Various opposition groups, known as mujahideens, combined forces to combat Soviet troops. After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, in 1989, the mujahideen groups fought one another in a period of anarchy and civil war that lasted from 1989 to 1996. The most infamous mujahideen group, known as the Taliban (from the Pashto word for “student”), a devout group consisting of Sunni Pashtuns, emerged in 1994. By 1996, the Taliban took control of the country and instituted various restrictions that reflected a strict interpretation of Shari`a, (Islamic law). Although such restrictions affected all Afghanis, the Taliban was particularly harsh in its treatment of women. In 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United States launched a military campaign in Afghanistan, helping to oust the Taliban from power. In 2004, Afghanistan held its first national democratic election and adopted a new constitution. Since then, the Taliban has regained control of many rural areas. Security/Violence Security remains elusive in Afghanistan and violence is part of daily life. Armed conflict is a constant threat, torture persists, the country is littered with landmines, and the opium trade perpetuates a system of corruption and crime. Dangerous conditions



have forced many to abandon their homes and flee to neighboring countries. Despite constitutional guarantees against gender discrimination, tribal custom continues to dictate the role of women in Afghan society. Females are typically restricted to the private sphere and their basic human rights continue to be denied. Rape and other forms of sexual violence are widespread and women may be attacked in their homes, communities, or even in institutions such as detention facilities. Furthermore, Afghan law allows marriages to take place without a woman’s consent. Thus, females may be handed over to resolve tribal or family disputes, a practice known as baad. Furthermore, women who are victims of rape and sexual assault may be prosecuted for the offense of zina (adultery) under the Penal code of 1976. Because family honor is so closely bound to

A woman who leaves the house without a male relative to supervise her may be punished under Afghan law.

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the conduct of female family members, a female who leaves the house without a male relative (mahram) to supervise her or otherwise disgraces the family may be punished. Poverty Facing enormous external debt and with more than 50 percent of its population currently living in poverty, Afghanistan is one of the poorest and most economically unstable countries in the world. Jobs are scarce and nearly two-thirds of the population suffers from food shortages. The economic situation has been exacerbated by the global recession. Furthermore, recent droughts and hard winters have negatively impacted agricultural production. Women are economically reliant upon men. Women are legally entitled to work for wages, yet custom often prohibits them from doing so, particularly in rural areas. Widows are especially vulnerable to poverty because of limited opportunities to earn income and support their children. Female children are often regarded as an economic burden. Thus, fewer family resources are invested in daughters than sons. Despite laws that prohibit child marriage, a daughter may be married off at a young age so her parents may receive a dowry payment and so the girl will no longer be their economic responsibility. Some families sell their daughters into the global sex trade (human trafficking) in order to pay debts and survive. Education Boys and girls are educated separately in Afghanistan. The constitution guarantees access to education for all Afghan citizens, but many families refuse to send their daughters to school for fear that they will be attacked or kidnapped. Literacy rates remain among the lowest in the world and less than 15 percent of Afghani women can read and write. Less than half of young girls are enrolled in primary school (compared to approximately 75 percent of boys) and the education gap increases as students move on to secondary school and again in tertiary school (university). Lacking adequate facilities, many classes take place outdoors. Lack of supplies, lack of funding, and lack of female teachers all remain as ongoing challenges, as does the destruction of girls’ schools by members of extremist groups. Providing education to refugee populations has proven particularly challenging.

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Healthcare The average life expectancy for women in Afghanistan is 44 years. Cultural restrictions on birth control contribute to a birth rate of 6.7 live births per woman, the highest in the region, and many pregnancies end in miscarriage. Health concerns are aggravated by malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, and poor sanitation. Many parts of the country—especially rural areas—do not have even basic healthcare services. At present, Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world; approximately 50 Afghani women die each day from pregnancy-related causes. Few women have access to prenatal care and most births take place at home. Access to emergency obstetric care is limited, particularly for women in rural regions who must often travel for days to reach a medical center, clinic, or hospital. Existing facilities are plagued by unsanitary conditions, lack of trained personnel, and inadequate supplies. Many women do not seek care because of social customs that prohibit women from being treated by a male physician. The number of licensed midwives in Afghanistan has tripled since 2001, but affordable, accessible, and effective healthcare remains elusive for most women and girls in Afghanistan. See Also: Contraception, Religious Approaches to; Educational Opportunities/Access; Infant Mortality; Islam; Maternal Mortality; Rape in Conflict Zones; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan; Taliban; Veil. Further Readings Ahmed-Gosh, Huma. “A History of Women in Afghanistan.” Journal of International Women’s Studies, v.4/3 (2003). Ayub, Fatima, Sari Kouvo, and Yasmin Sooka. Addressing Gender-Specific Violations in Afghanistan. New York: The International Center for Transitional Justice, 2009. http://www.ictj.org/static/Asia/Afghanistan/ICTJA yub_AFG_AdressingGenderSpecificViolations_pa2009 .pdf (accessed March 2010). Brodsky, Anne E. With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: Routledge, 2004. Mojadidi, Sedika. Motherland Afghanistan. New York: Icarus Films, 2006. Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. http://www.rawa.org (accessed March 2010).

Skaine, Rosemarie. Women of Afghanistan in the PostTaliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan. http://www.rawa.org/temp/ runews/2009/08/12/silence-is-violence-end-the -abuse-of-women-in-afghanistan.html (accessed March 2010). United Nations Development Fund for Women. “Afghanistan.” http://afghanistan.unifem.org (accessed March 2010). Jillian Duquaine-Watson University of Texas, Dallas

African American Muslims Estimates place African American Muslims within the range of 30 percent to 40 percent of American Muslims, with African Americans accounting for the vast majority of Islamic conversions within America. The American Muslim presence can be traced to the transatlantic slave trade; however, evidence suggests that many Muslim slaves eventually assimilated into Christianity. It was not until the 20th century that African Americans began affiliating with Islam in larger numbers. African Americans belonging to mainstream Sunni and Shia communities are accompanied by participants in an array of heterodox Muslim groups and also in Sufi orders. The first African American proto-Muslim organization is thought to be the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), founded in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey, by Noble Drew Ali (1886–1929). Participants in the temple’s National Sisters Auxiliary, founded in 1928, commonly adopt a last name of Bey or El. The temple continues to attract participants, although in smaller numbers. In the 1920s, in Chicago, Illinois, a mission was established to preach Ahmadiyya theology, thought to be heretical by significant Muslim blocks. Ahmadiyyas forged alliances with urban African Americans around issues of racial oppression and poverty. Ahmadiyya Quran translations were widespread among African American Muslims; Ahmadiyya organizational



networks stressing worship, education, and service, became a model for other American Muslim groups. North America Ahmadiyyas remain linked to the organization’s transnational network, headquartered in Qadian, India. The Nation of Islam (NOI), founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1930 by W. D. Fard Muhammad (disappeared 1943), gradually became the largest of early African American Muslim institutions. Under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975), the nation gained national visibility, in particular through publishing and contributions to civil rights discourse. In the 1940s, they began prison ministry. And through a paramilitary wing and rhetoric of black separatism, Nation leaders including Louis Farrakhan (1933– ) came under heavy public scrutiny. The nation also included the popular figures of Malcolm X (1925–65) and Muhammad Ali (1942– ). Before his assassination, the former contributed to pushing nation affiliates toward mainstream Sunni Islam. Within the transnational context of Islamic revivalism, and amidst an influx of Muslim immigrants to the United States, a fraction of the nation shifted orientation toward mainstream Muslim theology and practice. Following the 1975 death of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, nation leadership was taken over by Elijah’s son, the respected Warith (Wallace) Deen Mohammad, (1933–2008). Imam Warith D. Mohammad founded the World Community of Islam in the West (1976), bringing his followers fully into the fold of Sunni Islam. The organization later became the American Muslim Mission (1978) and finally the American Society of Muslims (2002). It is the largest predominately African American Muslim group in the United States, commonly referred to as the Community of Imam W.D. Muhammad. The NOI continues on a smaller scale under the leadership of Minister Farrakhan. Active in public relations for the nation are Tynetta Muhammad, widow of Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and Khadijah Farrakhan, wife of Minister Farrakhan. Recently, Ava Muhammad (1951– ) and Donna Farrakhan Muhammad became recognized leading nation ministers at a time when the majority of Muslim groups in America do not yet recognize the formal leadership of women in mixed-gender congregations. “Mother” Clara Muhammad (1898–1972), wife of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was the brainchild of what is

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at present more than 30 Clara Muhammad Schools and affiliated programs nationwide that teach Islamic curriculum to youth. Offshoots of the Nation of Islam One of several NOI offshoots are the Five Percenters, also known as The Nation of Gods and Earths or Allah’s Nation. Originating in the 1960s in Harlem, New York, this loose association of individuals is represented by artists of notoriety within American hip-hop culture. This new generation is reminiscent of the handful of 20th-century prominent jazz musicians who affiliated with Islam. Also notable, Dar ul-Islam (House of Islam, founded in 1967), began as an African American offshoot of the Brooklyn, New York-based immigrant–run State Street Mosque and Islamic Mission of America. The original Dar ul-Islam, and others that followed, contributed to the spread of Sunni Islamic learning among African American Muslims. The Dar ul-Islam movement was disbanded in the 1980s, with many former members finding their way into Sufism, Shiism, and sectarian groups. African American Muslims have made vital contributions to the academic study of Islam. At present, scholars include Ihsan Bagby, Sherman Jackson, Aminah Beverly McCloud, and Amina Wadud. Prominent female community leaders include Aisha H. L. al-Adawiya, Salemah Abd al-Ghafur, al-Hajjah Khalilah Karim-Rushdan, Ayesha Mustapha, Margaret Sabir-Gillette, and Guendolyn Zohara Simmons. The first national Muslim-oriented sorority, Gamma Gamma Chi, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, was founded in 2005 by Althia Collins. In recent ethnographic accounts, Carolyn Moxley Rouse and Jamillah Karim note concerns for African American Muslim women, including feelings of estrangement from the larger Muslim community and from non-Muslim African Americans. Relations between the sexes are also discussed on levels ranging from the romantic to the theological. Anahita Rashidi and Shireen S. Rajaram together discuss African American Muslim women’s contemporary healthcare needs. Continuing to change American Muslim demographics are influxes of African immigrant Muslims from countries including Somalia, Senegal, and Ethiopia. See Also: Islam; Islam in America; United States; Wadud, Amina; Women in Religion.

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Further Readings Comez, Michael. Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. McCloud, Aminah Beverly. “African American Muslim Women.” In Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, eds., The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Mubashir Majeed, Debra. “Clara Evans Muhammad: Pioneering Social Activism in the Original Nation of Islam.” In Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, eds., The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Smith, Jane I. “Women’s Issues in American Islam.” In Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, eds., The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Celene Lizzio Harvard Divinity School

Aging, Attitudes Toward In 2005, the number of people over age 65 was 13 percent of the population of the United States. According to the Census Bureau, this number will soar to 72 million by 2030 and constitute 20 percent of the population. The U.S. Census Bureau also reports that worldwide the 65-and-older population is projected to triple by 2050 from 516 million in 2009 to 1.53 billion in 2050, constituting approximately 16 percent of the world’s population. Germany, Italy, Japan, and Monaco have the greatest percent of 65 and over in their populations. In these countries, this age cohort makes up 20 percent of the population and by 2050 it is likely that Europe will be the oldest region in the world with 29 percent over 65. In the United States, there were 78 million “boomers” born between 1946 and 1964 and similar to any other stage that this bubble has experienced they are profoundly affecting attitudes and actions toward aging not only in the United States but particularly around the world in developed and developing

nations as well. Boomers are on the run from aging, particularly trying to negate the blatant stereotypes that have haunted older men and women for more than 100 years in the United States. Because so many of the stereotypes still exist and because they are basically negative, the boomer cohort is conscientiously trying to deny that they are aging. Some of this denial works and some is a fantasy that camouflages the reality of getting older. Undeniably, though, there are changes in what mature people think of themselves, what they will need, and what services must be available. Stereotypes The entrenchment of ageism, particularly directed at women, has a long history in the United States. Ageism, a term originally defined by Robert Butler in 1975 is discrimination against older people merely because they are old, similar to racism because of skin color and sexism because of gender. Ageism is so pervasive in U.S. society that we hardly notice anymore the ridiculous way older men and specifically older women are portrayed in advertisements, greeting cards, and frequently on television and in the movies. Ageism also exists in nations that have experienced industrial and technological advances. Even in Asian cultures that have typically held older people in high regard, dramatic changes are occurring that marginalize older adults. As families become increasingly nuclear rather than extended, they become less supportive of the emotional and physical needs of their elders. In some instances, it is not due to a lack of respect for older people but rather an economic and structural framework (such as massive rural to urban population shifts or smaller family sizes) that negates focusing on the older individual and promotes the proliferation of negative stereotypes. The tainting of the image of older people already begins to appear in the United States in popular literature at the end of the 19th century creating and reinforcing the views that an older person should be portrayed as declining, feeble, and certainly not mentally alert. Adding further to the denigration of older people is the loosening of beliefs that the elderly are somehow more closely connected to the eternal. No longer do people fear some kind of retribution or revenge from their elders in the afterlife. Increasingly, developed societies depend more and more on



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Kingdom reports that older people are underrepresented on prime time television (particularly older women) and when older people are portrayed they are depicted by the use of negative stereotypes. Even in such formerly traditional cultures of Asia, it has become challenging to thwart negative stereotypes of the elderly and particularly the effects of poor selfimages adopted by the older population themselves. Repeatedly, older women are targeted as invisible, or “incapable of being seen.” To be invisible is to be either the recipient of a totally stereotypical view or actually not be seen at all. People, particularly men, frequently ignore older women because they are not young, not sex objects, and not capable of fulfilling their major function of reproducing. Often older women are invisible because women’s magazines deny their existence, airbrushing even mature women to make them look 15 to 20 years younger. In many instances, the older woman can only be visible if she is fulfilling a socially prescribed role as a grandmother.

As people live longer in cultures throughout the world, they will have a greater need for services, activities, and involvement.

science and technology and less and less on ancient beliefs channeled through the elderly. In Western countries, stereotypes of older people have continued unabated in print media and with the advent of movies and television. Even more pernicious views are promulgated. With such shows as Bewitched, All in the Family, Rhoda, and more recently Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, and The Sopranos, older women, especially, are portrayed as interfering and usually burdensome and a nuisance. They live in the past and are old fashioned, always lamenting about how much better it used to be. They are often frail, vulnerable, and isolated. Because they appear as foolish and childish, they are risible characters rather than ones to be respected. Commonly, we see older women (and men) as metaphors for disease, worthlessness, and dissatisfaction. The United

Denial of Aging It is not surprising that the boomer cohort in the United States is trying desperately to deny that they are aging because not only don’t they want to internalize the largely negative stereotypes of getting older but research indicates that positive self-views enhance longevity. There is both good news and bad news about their tenacious efforts to remain young. Unquestionably, people are living longer than ever. Thirty years have been added to the average American life span since 1900. After 65, a man can now expect to live 16.5 years longer and a woman can expect 19.5 years. On average, men and women now have 14 disability-free years after 65. Life expectancy for females is even higher than the United States in Japan (86.1 years), Hong Kong (85.1), Switzerland (84.2), Spain (84.2), Australia (83.6), and Sweden (83.0). There are widely used medicines for cholesterol and high blood pressure that help to prevent heart attacks and strokes until later years. In developed nations, deaths from heart attacks and strokes are occurring more in people’s 80s than in their 60s or 70s. There are disease-modifying drugs for ailments such as osteoporosis and interventions for colon and lung cancer. Not only can people feel healthier longer but they also have more money than their parents did at the same age. In the United States, they are also more

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highly educated than the previous generation with 25 percent of boomers holding a college degree. However, along with the good news are some warning signs that may alter a person’s ability to remain young. One area of concern is the growing obesity problem in the United States, with onethird obese and two-thirds of the population overweight. Obesity is increasingly becoming a problem in nations that have adopted American food choices such as fast foods. All the diseases associated with obesity as well as greater hearing loss from Walkmans, iPods (one in six boomers), dementia, arthritis, and drug-resistant bacteria may work against the eternal search for youth. Because there is no real elixir of youth yet (a 60-year-old body is still 60 years old), people turn to the external possibilities to remain forever young. Numerous media stars such as Sharon Stone and Michelle Pfeiffer in the United States promulgate the notion that if you maintain the right regimen you can hide aging. Consequently, there are billion-dollar businesses in plastic surgery, skin treatments, and exercise techniques mainly directed toward women. It becomes the woman’s fault if she is unwilling to look youthful. Television is replete with advertisements giving advice about how to stay young and vigorous. Any problems of aging can be medicalized, such as by taking estrogen. Adventure travel organizations promote active seniors who are hiking and skiing. The Over the Hill Gang, an organization for age 55-and-older skiers in the United States, has as its motto, “When you’re over the hill you pick up speed.” In 2009, Elderhostel, an educational travel program for seniors, renamed itself Exploritas. Thus, the new paradigm for aging becomes never to be old or especially never to act old. And yet, women and men as they age do have less stamina. Or if they want to work and/or need to work they may not be able to find a job because they’re competing with the young who are much more technologically adept than they are. All the conflicting messages may make older people feel worse about themselves because they blame themselves for not transforming their bodies to stop the aging process. Positive Developments Despite all the complexities, though, aging is and will be different in the 21st century. Countries around

the world will have to cope with an aging population that is more urban based. What will be their needs, their contributions, and their issues? Society, at this point, doesn’t quite know what do with older people and what role they should play. As people live longer in cultures throughout the world and become a greater proportion of each country’s demographics, they will make more demands for services, activities, and involvement. In the United States, boomers want more stimulation and more involvement than their parents did and will be attaining this through programs such as Osher Institute in universities throughout the United States, catering to age 55 and older learners. Programs are developing that also require mature individuals to commit to community involvement such as Sherry Lansing’s PrimeTime, which links the Los Angeles Unified School District with seniors who can teach their expertise. Rosabeth Kanter has a new program at Harvard University for older people who develop theses to change the world. And President Barack Obama, as part of the Americorps Bill, has allotted $5.7 billion for education awards to seniors. There is no question countries will be experiencing transformative times due to the increase in their older populations. Undoubtedly, the attitudes toward mature adults will continue to change depending upon their demands on resources. Their sheer numbers will force policy adaptations around the world. See Also: Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Grandmothers; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women; Women’s Magazines. Further Readings Freedman, Marc. Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life. New York: Public Affairs, 2007. Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997. International Federation on Aging Conference. http:// www.ifa-fiv.org (accessed June 2010). Pearsall, Marilyn, ed. The Other Within Us: Feminist Explorations of Women and Aging. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997. Myrna A. Hant University of California, Los Angeles



Albania Formerly a member of the Soviet Union, the southeastern European nation of Albania has a long history of foreign alliances. Since becoming independent in the early 1990s, Albania has been plagued with high unemployment (12 percent), extensive corruption, organized crime, and outdated infrastructures. Albanians (95 percent) dominate ethnically, and those of Greek origin make up the largest minority group. Some diversity exists in religion, but 70 percent of the population are Muslim. Women’s Rights: An Uphill Struggle Albania remains a male-dominated society, and in northeastern Albania, many males endorse the traditional Kanun code, which mandates male superiority. Since the 1990s, there has been some progress in women’s rights, but major discrimination of Balkan Egyptians, Roma (gypsies), and homosexuals continues. Forced marriages are still an issue in Albania, and according to a 2004 United Nations report, 8 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are married, divorced, or widowed. Fathers are given custody of children in four out of every five divorce cases. According to inheritance laws, wives may inherit 50 percent of property, but male family members are usually granted ownership of family-owned land. As a result of religious and cultural dictates coupled with economic pressures, many women are reluctant to exercise their rights. However, nongovernmental organizations, including some international women’s rights groups, are proving to be a valuable resource for women needing assistance. Although women can seek divorces, some are forced to continue residing in their former husbands’ homes because they cannot afford to live on their own. Prostitution is illegal, but trafficking and abduction for sexual purposes was not against the law until 2001. Albania still leads southeastern Europe in female trafficking. Rape is now illegal, but it often goes unreported because of the perceived dishonor to victims’ families. In 2005, a survey conducted by the United States State Department revealed that 64 percent of respondents reported had been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused. The following year, under pressure from the Women’s Legal Rights Project, the government expanded laws against domestic violence. Abortions

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are free at public hospitals, and women now have the right to sue for sexual harassment on the job. Economic and Health Metrics In 2009, Albania’s per capita income was reported at $6,200. Although 47 percent of Albanians live in urban areas, 58 percent of the work force are still involved in agriculture, largely in near subsistence farming. Fifty-seven percent of rural residents are female, and 70 percent of women who work are employed in agriculture. In rural areas, four out of five people live in poverty. Women are also disproportionately affected by unemployment, and they generally earn 20 percent less than males. Only 18 percent of business managers are female. Albania ranks 107th in the world in infant mortality, with a rate of 18.62 deaths per 1,000 live births. Female infants (18.15) have an advantage over males (19.05). That survival rate widens in adulthood, and females have a life expectancy of 80.89 years as compared to 75.28 for males. The median age for females is 30.6 years. Albanian women have a fertility rate of 2.01 children. Males (99.2 percent) are more likely to be literate than females (98.3 percent), but all Albanians typically attend school for 11 years. However, educational levels are lower in rural areas. In 1999, the Albanian National Women’s Report stated that although gender discrimination was illegal in Albania, many women continued to face obstacles when seeking employment, business, credit, health, and social services. Despite ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and a promise to improve women’s lives, feminists insisted that not enough had been done to address gender inequities. Women’s political representation has declined since the 1970s, when females occupied 20 percent of national legislative seats. In 2008, women held only nine of 140 seats in the People’s Assembly, and two women sat on the Council of Ministers. Women are also poorly represented at local levels. The attention paid to women’s issues in the 1990s produced mixed results. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Divorce; Domestic Violence; Government, Women in; Marriages, Arranged; Property Rights; Rape, Legal Definitions of.

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Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “Albania.” The World Factbook. www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/al.html (accessed February 2010). Ciuli, Diana. “Women in Albania: Opportunities and Obstacles.” Mediterranean Review,. v.3/2 (1996). International Fund for Agricultural Development. “Albania Gender Profile.” www.ifad.org/english/gender /cen/profiles/alb.htm (accessed February 2010). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status Of Women in 140 Countries. New York: Random House, 1997. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Albania.” Social Institutions and Gender Index. http://genderindex.org/country/albania (accessed February 2010). Post, Susan E. Pritchett. Women in Modern Albania: Firsthand Accounts of Culture and Conditions From Over 200 Interviews. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1998. United States Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Albania.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/ hrrpt/2008/eur/119064.htm (accessed February 2010). Women’s World. “Albania: Gender and Women’s Human Rights Issues.” Women’s World, v.36/30 (2002).

practicing Episcopalian, she discovered in adulthood that she was of Jewish heritage and that many of her Jewish relatives had perished during the Holocaust. She lived in Belgrade, Switzerland, and London before her family moved to New York and then settled in Colorado. In 1959, she married Joseph Albright and they had three daughters. Twins Anna and Alice were born in 1961 and Katherine was born in 1967. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1982 and she continued to raise her daughters as a single mother. She earned a B.A. in political science from Wellesley College (1959). She went on to attend Columbia University and earned an M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1976) in public law and government. In 1976, Albright was a coordinator for Maine senator Edward Muskie’s unsuccessful presidential campaign. She became his chief legislative assistant after the campaign and was asked to be a legislative liaison for the National Security Council. Albright became a research professor of international affairs and the

Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Albright, Madeleine Madeleine Albright is best known for her service as United States secretary of state. She was the first woman to hold this position. This was the highest federal government rank held by a woman at the time. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, she became a crucial figure in international relations, representing the interests of the United States. In the early 21st century, she continues to be involved in politics, education, and global economics. Born May 15, 1937, as Marie Jana Körbelova, she was the first child of father Josef Körbel and mother Anna. Her father, a Czech diplomat, sought political asylum for his family in the United States in 1948. Albright became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1957. Raised as a Roman Catholic but now a

As the U.S. secretary of state, Albright began a peace mission in the Middle East and worked on Israeli–Palestinian relations.

al-Faiz, Norah



director of women students in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1982, where she taught both undergraduate and graduate courses and worked to create programs that would provide women more opportunities in international affairs. She became the president of the Center for National Policy in 1989. In 1992, Albright was presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s senior foreign policy advisor before serving as the 20th U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997. President Clinton nominated her for secretary of state on December 5, 1996. The U.S. Senate unanimously voted to confirm the nomination. On January 23, 1997, she was sworn in as the 64th secretary of state and was the first female to hold this post. Her tenure as the U.S. secretary of state was held during the second Clinton cabinet from 1997 to 2001. As the secretary of state, Albright began a peace mission in the Middle East, including work on Israeli– Palestinian relations. She also supported the use of U.S. forces to prevent genocide in countries such as Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Rwanda, and supported the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. She was chair of the Council of Women World Leaders Women’s Ministerial Initiative until November 2007. In 2001, Albright created her own international consulting firm, Albright Group, LLC. She entered this venture in order to help establish a middle class in new markets and is involved in private fund management. Her expertise and international connections has allowed her to raise over $300 million to invest in emerging markets. During the Obama administration, Madeleine Albright would become a top informal advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and also a top advisor on national security for U.S. President Barack Obama. Albright would continue to serve on the Georgetown University faculty and on the board of several organizations, both educational and political. See Also: Economics, Women in; Government, Women in; Heads of State, Female; Representation of Women in Government, International; Representation of Women in Government, United States. Further Readings Albright, Madeleine. Madam Secretary: A Memoir. New York: Miramax Books, 2003.

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Albright, Madeleine. The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Albright, Madeleine. Read My Pins: Stories From a Diplomat’s Jewel Box. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Alishia Huntoon Oregon Institute of Technology

al-Faiz, Norah Norah al-Faiz is Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister for Women’s Education. She is the first woman to hold a cabinet ministry position in the country’s history. Her appointment was widely hailed as evidence of King Abdullah’s reformist goals, but some feminists, skeptical of how much power will actually be given to a woman, caution against seeing the appointment as the beginning of significant advances in women’s rights. al-Faiz also has been careful not to present herself as a challenger of Saudi conservatism. al-Faiz graduated from King Saud University in Riyadh in 1978 with a baccalaureate degree in sociology. She did graduate work in the United States, earning a master’s in education from Utah State University in 1982. She worked as a teacher in Saudi Arabia before moving into school administration. al-Faiz served as head principal of the girls’ section at Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Schools and as controller of education techniques at the Institute of Private Education under the Ministry of Education. Before her appointment to the new ministry position, al-Faiz was the director general of the women’s section at the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh, a position she had held since 2001. al-Faiz is married and has five children, two daughters and three sons. Reformers welcomed the appointment of al-Faiz to the highest position ever achieved by a woman in Saudi Arabia, but Wajeha al-Huwaider, writer and activist, suggested that al-Faiz’s appointment was a small step. Banned from publishing because of her championship of women’s rights, al-Huwaider noted that Saudi Arabia still maintains a guardianship system that requires women to have the permission of a male relative to work, travel, study, marry, or gain access to healthcare and other public services. In

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2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council urged the Saudi government to allow women these basic rights and not have agencies secure male permission on their behalf. al-Faiz’s early pronouncements signal that she expects to accommodate to the existing system. It was not until 2002 that female education was placed under the administration of the Ministry of Education, a move that sparked considerable protest from Islamic fundamentalists. Although al-Faiz said her position as deputy minister is an achievement for all Saudi women and expects women to have access to her office, she also has announced that she will wear a veil, use video technology to meet with male colleagues, and appear on television only with her minister’s permission. She refused to have a photograph taken for Time magazine when the publication named her among 2009’s most influential people in the world. She has said that her concern is with women’s education, and even within the parameters of that field, al-Faiz has refused to support the call for sports in girls schools. She has reiterated her belief in gradual reform and her unease with hasty action. See Also: Representation of Women; Representation of Women in Government, International; Saudi Arabia. Further Readings Cheney, Liz. “Norah al-Faiz: The 2009 Time 100.” http:// www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article /0,28804,1894410_1893847_1893841,00.html (accessed March 2010). Haque, Dr. Mozammel. “Education and Women in Saudi Arabia.” Islamic Monitor. http://islamicmonitor. blogspot.com/2009/04/education-and-women-in -saudi-arabia.html (accessed March 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Algeria After winning independence from France in 1962, the north African nation of Algeria was led by the National Liberation Front for three decades. The election of

1991 led to an insurgency that lasted until 1998, causing the deaths of more than 100,000 people. Since then, the Algerian government has been plagued with extensive unemployment (12.4 percent), a housing shortage, unstable infrastructures, and widespread corruption. Some 65 percent of the population is urbanized, and the economy is heavily dependent on industry (62.5 percent). With a per capita income of $7,100, almost a fourth of the population lives in poverty. There is neither ethnic nor religious diversity—99 percent of the population is Arab-Berber, and the state religion is Sunni Muslim (99 percent). The Algerian constitution stipulates that women are minors who need male protection, and wives are forbidden to venture outside the home without permission, thus restricting women’s abilities to work and travel. Despite this, the number of working women continues to rise. Men can divorce their wives at will, evicting their wives and children from the family home while retaining control over their children’s lives. Inheritance laws grant women only half as much as that given to men; however, some families circumvent the law by giving daughters money outright. In addition to inherent gender discrimination, Algeria has a major problem with domestic violence and trafficking. In 2008, women held only 30 of 389 seats in the national assembly, and there were just three women in the cabinet. Women continued to be active in party politics, however; for example, the Workers Party was led by a woman. Although nongovernmental organizations are required to register by law, unlicensed women’s groups continue to openly lobby for women’s rights. Extremist militants who have aligned themselves with al-Qaida have conducted an ongoing campaign of kidnapping and bombings. In response to political changes, Islamic influence has been steadily increasing in Algeria, and women are still bound by the 1984 Family Code, which is derived from Shari`a law. Because they are treated as minors, women rights are subjugated to those of male guardians. Technically, men can have up to four wives, but polygamy has become rare in actual practice. In 2003, some progress was made when the government agreed to expand women’s rights under an amended Family Code and appointed a Ministry of Women’s Affairs. However, women still need the consent of male guardians to marry, and they are forbidden to marry non-Algerian men.

Ali, Laila



Algeria has an infant mortality rate of 27.73 deaths per 1,000 live births. Female infants (24.45) have an advantage over boys (30.86) that continues throughout life, resulting in a life expectancy of 75.77 years for women and 72.35 years for men. The median age for women is 26.8 years. Algerians have a fertility rate of 1.79 children. With literacy, the advantage shifts to men, who have a literacy rate of 79.8 compared with 60.1 for women. Officially, all Algerians attend school for 13 years, but women now outnumber men in urban colleges and universities. Neither domestic violence nor spousal rape is illegal, and women who become victims of domestic violence receive little help from officials. Most cases are not reported because of social pressures and the need to provide a medical certificate before charges can be filed. Counseling is provided only by nongovernmental organization. Prostitution is a growing problem, and many young women have been kidnapped by militants and kept as sex slaves; the government has refused to cooperate with United Nations officials who have tried to intervene. Some progress has been made in the area of sexual harassment, however, which is now punishable by both imprisonment and fines. See Also: Domestic Violence; Shari`a Law; Trafficking. Further Readings Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Algeria.” www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/ag.html (accessed February 2010). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Social Institutions and Gender Index. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions: Algeria.” http://genderindex .org/country/algeria (accessed February 2010). Tripp, Alili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. U.S. State Department. “2008 Human Rights Report: Algeria.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /nea/119112.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

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Ali, Laila Laila Ali is an accomplished and undefeated boxer who currently holds both the Women’s International Boxing Association and the International Women’s Boxing Federation belts. Aside from her accomplishments in the ring, 5-foot, 10-inch and 160-pound Ali is the youngest daughter of boxing legend Muhammad Ali. As a tribute to her boxing icon father, Laila Ali is known as Laila “She Bee Stingin’” Ali. Ali is the most recognized female boxer nationally and internationally. Currently, she is the second boxer to hold the International Women’s Boxing Federal Super Middleweight title, the second to hold the Women in Boxing Association World Super Middleweight title, and the first woman to hold the World Boxing Council Female World Super Middle title. In addition to being a boxing champion, Ali is a humanitarian, reality television star, wife, and mother. Born on December 30, 1977, in Miami Beach, Florida, to her celebrated boxing dad, Ali grew up around boxing but was not always headed to the ring. It wasn’t until she was 18 that she saw a women’s boxing match on television and found her calling. Three years later, at 21, Ali made her boxing debut against April Fowler at the Turning Stone Casino Convention Center on the Oneida Indian Nation in Verona, New York. She won that fight, easily knocking out Fowler in the first round. After winning her next eight matches, Ali stepped out of her father’s shadow and proved to boxing fans and the general public that she was a boxer in her own right. She won her first International Boxing Association title after knocking out Suzette Taylor in 2002. That match also named her Fighter of the Month by Women Boxing Archive Network. One of the most anticipated matches in recent boxing history came with Ali’s fight against Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, daughter of the renowned fighter Joe Frazier, who was a fierce rival of Muhammed Ali. Many in the boxing world remembered the fierce rivalry of the two champions and viewed a match between their daughters as a grudge match between two great fighting families. In fact, the fight was called Ali vs. Frazier IV, a reference to the three boxing matches between their fathers. On June 8, 2001, Ali beat Frazier in an eight-round majority decision, firmly cementing the younger Ali in boxing history. The match was the first time in pay-per-view history that a women’s boxing

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fight was not only the main event but was shown to a sold-out crowd with more than 8,000 people in attendance. Ali remains undefeated, with a 24-match record, 21 of them as knockouts. Ali is about more than boxing. At 18, she was the owner and operator of a nail salon, and later attended Santa Monica College and earned a degree in business management before purchasing a shop selling balloons and Halloween masks. In addition, Ali uses her name and celebrity status to call attention to her charity work and fund-raising efforts. She is involved with the Women’s Sports Foundation, which encourages girls and women to actively participate in sports and physical activities. Ali has been active in helping to raise money for the organization and was named to their board of trustees. Further, Ali has partnered with Uncle Ben’s rice to coordinate the Fighting Childhood Hunger campaign. She’s also helped organize and cook for children of the Boys and Girls Club in the San Fernando Valley Kids Café. Ali publicly supports the American Diabetes Association in their efforts to curb childhood obesity and diabetes as well as ONE, a grassroots campaign of more than 2 million people committed to end poverty across the world. Ali is pursuing various other media opportunities spanning TV shows, commercials, video, and even a documentary. She is currently the host of the new American Gladiators TV and game show with famed wrestler Hulk Hogan, and she recently joined the cast of CBS The Early Show as a contributing correspondent. In 2007, Ali was on the wildly popular reality television show Dancing With the Stars where she made it to the finals and came in third. She was an early host of The N’s Student Body, a reality TV show featuring teenagers on their quest to live a healthy lifestyle, and appeared on an episode of the children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba. Ali has been featured in numerous commercials and advertising campaigns for such high-profile companies as the Got Milk? campaign, Adidas and Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion. As a fitness expert, Ali has appeared in many magazine articles relating her experiences and knowledge about health and fitness. In addition, Ali created a cardio workout video with another well-known boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard, that showcases her fitness skills. Most recently, Ali starred with her famous father in the documentary Daddy’s Girl.

In August 2000, Ali married her former manager, Johnny McClain. That marriage ended in divorce and she later married former NFL player Curtis Conway. She is a stepmother to three children and mother to a son, Curtis Muhammad Conway. See Also: Boxing; Reality Television; Sports,Women in. Further Readings Ali, Laila. Reach! Finding Strength, Spirit and Personal Power. New York: Hyperion Books, 2003. Montoya, Delilah. Women Boxers: The New Warriors. Houston, TX: Arte Público Press, 2006. Picket, Lynn Snowden. Looking for a Fight: A Memoir. New York: Dial Press, 2000. Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University

Alternative Education Alternative education is founded on feminist strategies among other theoretical models. In the 1970s, feminists challenged traditional education both for the gender inequalities practiced there and for its more masculine-oriented hierarchal structure. Since then, education has been critiqued from multiple perspectives, so alternative education takes many forms. Feminist pedagogy tends to challenge traditional teaching models and posits further that education should be used as a vehicle for empowering those who are oppressed by building community and developing leadership abilities. Gender Equality in Education In 1992, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) made a media splash when it published the report How Schools Shortchange Girls. The AAUW argued that conventional math and science curriculum, biased standardized tests and typical school environments do not account for girls’ special concerns and deprive them of equal access to education. A number of books released in the 1990s documented the psychological and educational neglect girls suffered in schools. They documented lower self-esteem among girls as well as higher depression



and they noted that teachers tend to call on girls less often in class and tend to give girls less and lower quality feedback. Nationwide, there is some indication that some early feminist concerns are more tolerated. Girls are being called on more and getting better quality and frequent feedback from teachers. There has not been much change in the structure of most mainstream educational institutions, however. Families interested in alternative education models still need to go elsewhere to find those alternatives. Nonetheless, since the mid-1990s, some writers have asserted that boys rather than girls are at a disadvantage in mainstream education as a result of the contemporary focus on girls. Christina Hoff Sommers’ best-selling 2000 book, The War Against Boys, laments that statistically boys are worse off than girls in a number of critical areas. Boys are behind girls in college enrollment; they are more likely to be suspended or expelled and drop out of school; they also are more likely to be designated for special education placement and diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Sommers blames feminists for attributing pathological disorders associated with male behavior. Other books blame schools for not meeting boys’ needs; boys brains, they argue, are constructed differently than girls. These accusations are curious because little has changed in most educational institutions. In mainstream education, classes still tend to be teacher centered; students take exams and are assessed at the end of the term with grades; competition is used as a motivating force such that students compete for grades, in athletics, and for any distinction a given school might offer; and discipline and punishment are de rigueur— students need to ask if they can go to the bathroom, they are not permitted to leave the building without school passes and they are threatened with in- or outof-school suspensions or even expelled for committing school infractions. These types of hierarchal, competitive, and punitive practices are more often associated with masculine behaviors and values. Thus, George Lakoff ’s model of political metaphors provides a relevant framework for looking at mainstream and alternative education. Lakoff, a linguist, laid out a groundbreaking theory of the differences between conservative and liberal thought in the United States. Characterizing the state as a figurative “parent” and citizens as “children,”

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Lakoff argues that ideologies of the conservatives and liberals (mainstream and alternative, respectively) are founded on different models of morality as applied to raising families. He calls these approaches the “strict father” and the “nurturant parent.” The strict father model is based on the notion that children need to learn right from wrong by setting strict rules for their behavior and enforcing them through punishment. By contrast, the nurturant parent model is founded on cooperation and interdependence. Its values relating to caring and interaction are most closely associated with femininity. In keeping with a liberal framework, Lakoff adopted the genderneutral term nurturant parent for this model. Alternative Models Families interested in alternative education need still to look outside mainstream education for an “alternative” to the strict-father model of education prevalent in schools nationwide. Alternative education varies in emphasis but is often framed around values more commonly associated with being feminine including helping students bond with one another, fostering cooperation rather than competition, and creating community. Discipline tends to be less punishmentoriented—alternative schools more often prioritize social services and other counseling or creative conflict resolution programs. For instance, Bank Street College of Education in New York City, which is world renowned for training teachers in alternative models of education focuses on helping teachers and students work collaboratively. The Bank Street School for Children elementary school focuses on teaching students to read critically by introducing texts from social justice leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.; athletics are noncompetitive; and students work in small groups as they explore their own curiosities and interests while simultaneously connecting with other students, teachers, and the external urban environment. Exams and grades are deemphasized and discipline is generally handled informally. Punishment is relatively rare. Creating community and support among students, teachers, and parents are hallmarks of their program. Mainstream schools in Denmark tend to be deviate even more significantly from mainstream education in the United States than this country’s own alternative schools. Students there tend to stay with the same

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class and teacher for their first six grades to foster connections among students and with a particular teacher; they are not assessed by grades or exams; they work with one another collaboratively in groups; and punishment is not used to foster discipline. Instead the relationship between parents and the teacher and the teacher and the students address issues relating to assessment, achievement, and order. Analysis of Alternative Education Writers like Christina H. Sommers would likely consider these alternative environments antimale in that they do not support competition, authority, or conventional models of discipline. She, like similar writers concerned about the impact of contemporary education on males, believes there should be more competition not less in schools and that students should be forced to grapple with more stress. She criticized, for instance, circle games and other cooperative activities when she appeared on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in April 2005. Sommers also writes that the anti-bullying programs that try to create more empathic relationships among children are shielding them too much from the challenges they need to face to develop self-reliance. In fact however, most American schools rely more on the strict-father model to contend with bullying. Zero tolerance policies are ubiquitous in mainstream education whereby students are suspended for even minor infractions associated with violence. More community oriented alternative anti-bullying programs are more often found in European countries where Norway first unleashed the five-track method and later the Zero Programme at the turn of the century—both of which focus on helping all people involved in bullying incidents (bully, victim, bystanders, teachers, parents); programs across the Atlantic tend to work to create more supportive school environments overall. In contrast to Sommers’ perspective, other writers contend that boys and girls both are having difficulties in school precisely because of the more masculine-oriented expectations there. Michael Kimmel, for instance, writes that boys are gay-bashed or nerdbashed for achieving academically. Names associated with performing well in school—such as “geek” and “bookworm”—don’t tend to confer masculinity status, and this contributes to boys avoiding academic success in favor of demonstrating their burgeoning manhood. Girls often get the message in more tra-

ditional environments that being attractive to boys is more important than being academically sophisticated; and both boys and girls often underperform academically to improve their social status. Alternative education offers an alternative to the conventional social, academic, athletic, and learning environments found in conventional schools. Ideally, alternative education creates an environment that supports boys and girls alike and helps everyone collaboratively work together to build knowledge, critical thinking, authentic connections, healthy self-esteem, as well as a love and passion for learning. See Also: Children’s Rights; Denmark; Educational Opportunities/Access; Feminism, American; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural. Further Readings Gurian, M. Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Klein, J. “America Is From Mars, Europe Is From Venus: How the United States Can Learn From Europe’s Social Work Response to School Shootings.” School Social Work Journal, v.30/1 (2005). Lakoff, G. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don’t. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Pipher, M. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002. Sadker M. and Sadker, D. Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls. Princeton, NJ: Scribner, 1995. Sommers, C. H. The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men. Princeton, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Jessica Klein

Adelphi University

Amanpour, Christiane Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s former chief international correspondent and host of the news show Amanpour, is one of the highest-paid, most recognized women in television news worldwide, following her more than two decades at CNN, spent covering nearly every major conflict, disaster, and event of



global significance. She has produced many in-depth documentaries for CNN, including God’s Warriors, about the three largest monotheistic religions, and Where Have All the Parents Gone?, about children orphaned by AIDS. Amanpour also held a contract with CBS from 1996 to 2005, providing five stories each year to the news show 60 Minutes. Amanpour was born January 12, 1958, in London to a British, Catholic mother and a Muslim, Iranian father. Shortly afterward, the family moved to Tehran, where Amanpour’s father was an airline executive. Amanpour has said that she and her three younger sisters had a privileged childhood. She began attending Catholic boarding schools in England when she was 11 years old. Her worldview changed drastically, however, when in 1979, her family was forced to flee Iran and her uncle died during the Islamic Revolution. At the time, Amanpour had been struggling to choose a career path. Although she had hoped to become a physician, she did not have the grades. Her younger sister had withdrawn suddenly from a journalism program, and when the school refused to refund the tuition, Amanpour enrolled in her sister’s place. After completing the program, Amanpour moved to Providence to study journalism at the University of Rhode Island. During summer vacations in England, she worked for BBC Radio’s The World Tonight. In Providence, Amanpour held an internship, working as a reporter, anchor, and producer with WBRU-Radio and working briefly as an electronic graphics designer for NBC-affiliate WJAR-TV. Amanpour graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts from the University of Rhode Island in 1983 and applied for a job at an organization that was nearly as new to journalism as she was—CNN. She was hired as a desk assistant and arrived in Atlanta with a bicycle, about $100, and a plan to become a foreign correspondent. When Amanpour was told that she was not broadcast material—her hair was too dark, her name too hard to pronounce, and her accent too foreign—she replied, “Just you wait.” Today, she tells students and aspiring journalists to find their way around the many “nos” they are likely to encounter at the start of their own careers. In 1985, just two years after starting at CNN, Amanpour helped the network with its series, “Iran: In the Name of God,” which won CNN its first Dupont Award. In 1989, Amanpour applied for an

Amanpour, Christiane

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opening at CNN’s bureau in Frankfurt, Germany, where she began as an international correspondent before volunteering to cover the Persian Gulf War. Amanpour quickly became known for her willingness to take physical and professional risks, continually placing herself and her sources in uncomfortable situations. Former president Bill Clinton did not hide his anger after Amanpour asked him, on camera, how he could “flip-flop” on the situation in Bosnia, and former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hung up during a live interview after she asked him a pointed question about suicide bombings. In 1998, Amanpour married James Rubin, then spokesman for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and they had a son, Darius John Rubin, in 2000. In September 2009, Amanpour began hosting Amanpour, based in New York. The 30-minute show was produced for about 240 million households worldwide, each day,

Amanpour has earned many awards, including four Peabody Awards, nine Emmys, and an Edward R. Murrow Award.

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on CNN International. A compilation from the best of that week’s shows was broadcast as one 60-minute program to U.S. audiences, airing on Sundays. In 2010, she left CNN to join ABC. Amanpour’s work has earned many awards, including four Peabody Awards, nine Emmy awards, two Polk Awards, three DuPont-Columbia Awards, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. Forbes has named Amanpour one of its 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2009, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II named Amanpour a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Amanpour also has received honorary degrees from the American University of Paris, Georgetown University, New York University, Smith University, Emory University, and the University of Michigan. The city of Sarajevo named Amanpour an honorary citizen. See Also: Film Production, Women in; Iran; Journalists, Broadcast Media; United Kingdom; Working Mothers. Further Readings Ferrari, Michelle. Reporting America at War: An Oral History. New York: Hyperion, 2003. Gutgold, Nichola. Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. Carolyn Edy University of North Carolina

AMBER Alert The AMBER Alert system is a method of informing the public about missing and abducted children used in the United States and Canada. The acronym AMBER stands for America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response. The more commonly recognized association is with Amber Hagerman, a 9-yearold girl who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas. The AMBER alert system began in the United States and spread to countries around the world where it’s known by other names, including Australia, France, Ireland, Malaysia, and the Netherlands. The system has been widely claimed to have saved lives, yet some believe that the information reporting the number of lives saved is skewed.

Children are taught to avoid strangers, but an abductor is often a relative or someone the child knows.

Amber Hagerman was riding her bike in a parking lot with her brother in Arlington, Texas, on January 13, 1996, when she was abducted. Eyewitness testimony reported seeing a man in a pickup truck drag Amber into his truck. The police were called and an investigation began immediately. The Arlington and neighboring communities searched for the missing girl for four days. Her body was found in a ditch, with her throat slit. Despite an arduous investigation and a $75,000 reward for information, Amber Hagerman’s abductor and killer has never been found. Her parents founded the People Against Sex Offenders organization (PASO) after their daughter’s death. The goal of PASO was to compel the Texas legislature into development tougher laws protecting children from sex offenders. The outcome of her parents’ efforts and congressional representation from their district was realized when then president Bill Clinton signed into law a bill the created the national sex offender registry list, which requires all sex offenders to register their address and give the community notice when sex offenders are moving into their area. Websites have also been developed to allow for a search by name, street, or within a particular zip code to locate registered sex offenders. An AMBER alert is essentially an electronic system that is activated when a child is believed to have been abducted. Pertinent information about the child and alleged abductor is distributed using various outlets. Examples of these



American Association of University Women

include LED billboards, highway and traffic condition signs, television and radio stations, satellite radio, and more recently e-mails and text messages on cell phones. There are also states that allow a display of the alert across the front of lottery terminals. To alleviate an abundance of false alarms, there have been activation criteria developed. The United States Department of Justice has established four conditions that should be met before issuing an AMBER alert. Those are that law enforcement officials have determined that abduction has occurred; the child in question should be under the age of 17; there should be risk of injury or death present; and there should be descriptive information of the alleged abductor and/ or their vehicle and the victim that would make it feasible that they could be located. While these guidelines have been put in place to maintain the integrity of the system, there remains some controversy over its actual effectiveness. Much of the controversy over the AMBER alert system stems from its reported success rate. Researchers have found that the alert system plays an insignificant role in the return of children. In fact, they claim that many of the cases where children were returned were usually a case of miscommunication between family members and custody disputes. Some claim that there can be no true statement of whether or not a life was actually saved in these cases as there is no way to know what might have happened. Proponents for a notification system for abducted children take issue with the number of false alarms or cases when the guidelines set forth by the U.S. Department of Justice were not adhered to. They are rightfully concerned that the public and surrounding community may become desensitized to the alerts if they are sent out too frequently, particularly via text and e-mail messages, thereby decreasing their effectiveness altogether. Still others worry that highway and street traffic boards may cause congestion and possibly vehicular accidents as drivers may become overly distracted. While some call for the AMBER alerts to be used sparingly, others believe that the guidelines are sometimes followed too strictly and may potentially lead to the death of a child. For instance, law enforcement officials not being able to confirm that the child is in immediate danger may result in those officials not issuing an AMBER alert, which may result in the injury or death to a minor.

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While there remains issues with the alert system that need to be addressed, there is evidence that the earlier law enforcement agencies and the community are aware of a missing child, the greater the likelihood that the child will be returned home and the less likely they will be hurt or murdered. This is but one tool of many to return abducted children home safely. See Also: Canada; Child Abuse, Victims of: Trafficking, Women and Children; United States. Further Readings Code Amber News Service. “The Web’s AMBER Alert System.” http://www.codeamber.org (accessed April 2010). Snow, Robert L. Child Abduction: Prevention, Investigation, and Recovery. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. “AMBER Alert. America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response.” http://www.amberalert.gov (accessed April 2010). Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University

American Association of University Women The American Association of University Women (AAUW), a not-for-profit organization, operates at the national, state, and local levels, with 100,000 members,1,000 branches, and 500 college/university partners nationwide. AAUW was founded in 1881, initially incorporated as the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, and then was named AAUW in 1921. Since its early beginnings, AAUW has served as an influential lobbying body furthering gender equity causes. AAUW’s mission, “to advance equity for women and girls though advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research,” captures the organization’s overreaching purpose and its historical roots. AAUW’s origins can be traced to skepticism common in the 1880s among America’s founding colleges regarding women’s place in the academy. Women’s early 1880s collegiate clubs, working to debunk a myth that higher education harmed women’s health, served

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as a precursor to AAUW’s charting. Operationalized among a small group of women who defied the odds by earning college degrees, AAUW has since extended a strategic platform to secure women’s and girl’s academic and civic rights AAUW’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C., ground its political footprint and its educational outreach work. Early AAUW initiatives included promoting the appointment of women to foreign service and advocating for women’s reproductive freedoms. In 1938, AAUW issued The Living Wage for College Women, a seminal document exposing sex discrimination in higher education. AAUW continues to publish important research on gender equity concerns influential to educational policy. The 1992 AAUW report, “How Schools Shortchange Girls,” exposed how girls in grades K–12 receive an inferior education to boys. Although its methodology and findings were subsequently challenged, the report nonetheless advanced concrete strategies to overcome these alleged shortcomings. More recently, Where the Girls Are (published in 2008), scrutinizes 35 years of educational practices, indicating socioeconomic climate as fundamental to children’s school success. Globally, AAUW holds permanent observer status with the United Nations, partners with CARE in fighting worldwide poverty, and assists AAUW branches in advocating the ratification of CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. AAUW transitioned to 501c3 tax-exempt status in 2009, enabling it to function as a charitable and educational corporation. Under its current governance structure, AAUW oversees the Educational Fund, Legal Advocacy Fund, and Leadership and Training Institute. The Educational Fund administers fellowship, grant, and research projects and sponsors educational symposia and conferences; the Legal Advocacy Fund provides financial assistance to persons litigating sexual discrimination in higher education; and the Leadership and Training Institute promotes campus action projects and gender equity initiatives to support AAUW’s philanthropic and educational purposes. AAUW asks all branches to donate funds to build Educational Fund and Legal Advocacy Fund awards, which they do willingly. In 2009, the Educational Fund granted women over $3 million in support.

AAUW membership is open to college/university partners and college students/graduates at or beyond associate level. AAUW’s Website-linked Dialog Blog and Facebook page mark some of AAUW’s progression in championing women’s still-pressing gender equity goals. See Also: College and University Faculty; Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, College and University; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Equal Pay; Professions, by Gender; Science Education for Girls; Science, Women in; Title IX; Women’s Colleges; Women’s Studies. Further Readings American Association of University Women. http://www .aauw.org/ (accessed June 2010). Edward, H. Clark. Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for Girls. Boston, MA: James R. Osgood, 1874. Solomon, Barbara M. In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986. Barbara LeSavoy The College at Brockport, State University of New York

American Girl Dolls The first American Girl Dolls debuted in 1986 and are the creation of Pleasant T. Rowland and the Pleasant Company; 13 years later, the Pleasant Company was acquired by Mattel. Originally, there were three dolls, each representing a different historical period in American history; today, there are nine historical dolls, representing the mid-1700s and continuing through the 1970s. The dolls from the 1700s are colonial girls who struggle to reconcile ideas of American independence with loyalty to England during the Revolutionary War and a Nez Perce girl who learns about trustworthiness and loyalty from a hero in her culture. The 1800s, are represented by a New Mexican girl who preserves tradition after her mother dies, a pioneer girl living in a new land with a new language, and a girl who escapes slavery during the Civil War. The girls of the 1900s are one who lives through the Great Depression and

American Idol



sees her father lose his job, a girl whose father is fighting in World War II, and a girl from San Francisco in the 1970s who is moving to a new town. Each of these dolls is sold with a storybook that details the historical events of the time period and each story is told through the perspective of the 9-year-old heroine. Building upon the success of the historical characters, the American Girl company launched a new Girl of the Year series, in 2001, to represent issues that girls face today. Each of these dolls is available for a year and is sold with a storybook and accessories related to the issue the girl is facing. The issues have ranged from helping behaviors, family conflicts, personal responsibility and loyalty, to environmental preservation, ethnic diversity, and bullying. American Girl also has the Just Like You dolls and Bitty Baby dolls, both premiered in 1995. The Just Like You dolls allow girls to build an American Girl doll with features that are similar to their own. Girls can choose the hair, eye, and skin color of the doll, along with accessories, outfits, and pets to accompany the doll that they have created. The Bitty Baby dolls are designed for girls aged 3 and older. These dolls come with a variety of skin and hair colors along with a storybook that focuses on themes like dressing, eating, and play. The American Girl brand extends beyond just the dolls. The first American Girl Place store was opened in Chicago in 1998. This opening was followed by stores in New York and Los Angeles. American Girl Boutique and Bistro locations were opened beginning in 2007 in four cities—Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Natick, Massachusetts; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. The stores offer movies related to the American Girl dolls, restaurants, and even a hospital where American Girl dolls can go to be repaired. Additionally, American Girl magazine was launched in 1992 and in 2004 the first American Girl feature film was released and since this time four others have followed. See Also: Barbie Dolls; Bratz Dolls; Hello, Kitty; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings American Girl. “Company History.” http://www.american girl.com/corp/corporate.php?section=about&id=2 (accessed November 2009).

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Stone, Tanya Lee. The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll’s History and Her Impact on Us. New York: Viking, 2010. Carrie L. Cokely Curry College

American Idol American Idol is a competition-reality television show created by Simon Fuller to discover the next musical talent in the United States. Inspired by the British series Pop Idol, American Idol debuted in June 2002 and entered its ninth season in January 2010. American Idol boasts a global following and remains one of the most popular reality television shows in the United States. Since its debut, the series has successfully launched the musical careers of a number of young women including season winners Kelly Clarkson (season one), Fantasia Barrino (season three), Carrie Underwood (season four), and Jordin Sparks (season six), as well as finalist Jennifer Hudson (season three). The American Idol program identifies the musical talent through a series of nationwide talent searches. Each year, up to 100,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 28 audition for a spot in the competition. Competitors are then narrowed down to 12 finalists who sing weekly for the votes of the U.S. public. Hosted by television personality Ryan Seacrest, American Idol showcases the contestants’ talent with weekly themed competitions intended to highlight musical ability, personality, and marketability within the music industry. Idol judges Paula Abdul (seasons one to eight), Simon Cowell (seasons one to nine), Ellen DeGeneres (season nine), Kara DioGuardi (seasons eight and nine), Steven Tyler (season ten addition), and Randy Jackson act as music industry experts and provide various critiques of the contestants’ performances. The final decision, however, as to who stays and leaves the competition is left to the viewership. At the conclusion of each show, viewers are provided a voting window of two hours where they have the opportunity to cast their votes via phone or text message. Results are revealed the following evening and the contestant with the lowest number of votes leaves the competition. The winner of American Idol

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receives a $1 million recording contract with a major record label and is managed by 19 Management. American Idol’s female contestants have enjoyed great success in the music and film industries. Clarkson won the first competition and continues to dominate the musical charts. She and Underwood remain the only two American Idol winners to sweep all three of the major music awards in one season, respectively the American Music, Billboard, and Grammy Awards. To date, Underwood is one of the best-selling contestants to emerge from the show. She has sold more than 9.6 million albums in the United States. Barrino, likewise, maintains a successful music, acting, and writing career. She recently published her memoirs titled Life Is Not a Fairy Tale, and after her lead role as Celie in the Broadway musical, The Color Purple, she was cast in the film adaptation of the play. Sparks’s debut album went platinum in 2007, selling 2 million copies in the United States and she received an American Music Award in 2008. Finalist Hudson won an Academy Award for her role as Effie White in the film Dreamgirls. She has also starred in the Sex and the City film and The Secret Life of Bees. American Idol forever transformed popular culture in its nationwide search for musical talent and neither the music industry nor reality television will ever be the same. See Also: DeGeneres, Ellen; Reality Television; Rock Music, Women in. Further Readings American Idol. http://www.americanidol.com (accessed June 2009). Barrino, Fantasia. Life Is Not a Fairy Tale. Forest City, NC: Fireside, 2005. Bednar, Chuck. Insights Into American Idol. Broomall, PA: Mason Crest, 2009. Emily Bent National University of Ireland

American Samoa American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States, administered by the U.S. Office of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs, that includes

some of the islands in the Samoan chain in the South Pacific Ocean. The United States acquired possession of American Samoa in 1899 in a treaty with Germany. The total land mass of American Samoa (popularly called simply “Samoa”) is 199 square kilometers, slightly larger than Washington, D.C. Samoa has a high standard of living, due in part to support by the U.S. government, with life expectancy of 70.8 years for men and 76.8 years for women. Literacy is near-universal at 98 percent for men and 97 percent for women. Essentially, all births are attended by trained personnel, but the infant mortality rate is high at 10.18 per 1,000 live births, as compared to 6.22/1,000 in the United States, but nevertheless lower than in many Pacific nations.American Samoa conducts most of its commerce with the United States, with tuna fishing and processing providing most employment. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 was $8,000 and unemployment is high at 29.8 percent, but efforts to diversify the economy are hampered by the islands’ distant location and the frequency of hurricanes. The population growth rate is 1.2 percent; a high fertility rate of 3.29 children per woman and birth rate of 23.31 births per 1,000 population (the adolescent birth rate is 36.3 per 1,000 women) is offset by a negative migration rate of minue 6.99 migrants per 1,000 population (among the highest in the world). Factors promoting outmigration include high unemployment and the fact that Samoans are American nationals and have the right of entry to the United States. Most of the population (90.6 percent) are Samoan, with minorities of Asians (2.8 percent), whites (1.1 percent), mixed races (4.2 percent), and other races (0.3 percent). Christianity is the predominant religion, with 50 percent Christian Congregationalist and 20 percent Roman Catholic; most of the remainder belong to other Protestant churches. Historically, American Samoa has been a maledominated society, but this is changing somewhat with urbanization, and now women constitute 41.7 percent of the nonagricultural labor force. Most positions of authority are still held by men, although some women own businesses and hold government posts: examples of the latter include Le’ala Elisara, Director of the Arts Council; Dr. Claire Poumele, Director of Education; Evelyn Vaitautolu-Langford, Director of Human Resources; and Dr. Leuga Turner, Director of Youth and Women’s Affairs. Samoa has never had a

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Amish women must wear plain and neat dresses, aprons, capes, and bonnets, as directed by the Ordnung. Women must keep their heads covered out of respect to God and to their husbands, and all Amish members are prohibited from posing for photographs.

female governor. Traditional Polynesian customs are still influential in home and family life, even in urban areas: a young married couple most often settles in the household of the parents of either the husband or wife, households tend to be large and include collateral relatives as well as the nuclear family, and economic and social activities are directed by a matai or family chief who is responsible for the welfare of the extended family. Theoretically, either men or women can be matai, but most are male. Domestic violence is outlawed but remains a problem. See Also: Christianity; Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Government, Women in. Further Readings American Samoa Government. “Executive Branch.” http:// americansamoa.gov(accessed April 2010). United Nations Statistics Division. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer. aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Amish The modern Amish culture descended from the Anabaptists of the 16th century, and their name comes from Jakob Ammann, an elder who separated from the Mennonite religion in 1693. The Amish arrived in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the largest populations settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, as well as Ontario, Canada. Women are expected to fulfill their traditional gender roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers and to exhibit domesticity, piety, and submission. Although some women work outside the home, change is slow and often not welcomed by the Amish. All Amish are expected to submit to the church’s authority through adherence to community rules known as the Ordnung or order, a choice made through voluntary adult baptism. Homemaking and childrearing are considered essential to Amish culture, as the home is the center of life and children ensure the culture’s continuation. The husband is the head of household, main breadwinner, and conduit with the church and the outside world. Women, however, may share in decision making and discipline within individual households.

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Women are excluded from becoming church officials and from community leadership roles, but they can participate in the church council. Women may not use artificial birth control or abortion. Women’s daily activities are shaped by their prescribed gender roles. Domestic tasks include food preparation and serving, dishwashing, laundry, ironing, canning fruits and vegetables, making jams and jellies, and sewing clothes. Women also help with farm chores, gardening, and family businesses as well as care for aging parents. There are increasing numbers of women working outside the home, most of them single or married with older children. A small but growing percentage also own small businesses, some of which are home based. When women work outside the home, common employment includes factory positions, domestic work, and food and crafts preparation such as quilting. Women’s daily lives also are shaped by Ordnung. Appearance should be plain and neat with genderspecific clothing. Women wear dresses and aprons, capes, and bonnets. The Ordnung mandates separation from the outside world and sets limits on the use of modern technology. Old Order Amish are stricter in this regard than New Order Amish, who allow the use of electricity, telephones, and tractors. Deviation brings criticism and may result in church probation. If reconciliation attempts fail, the individual faces excommunication and shunning. Contact with the shunned is regulated and many become estranged from their families. They may return to the church at any time by repenting and confessing their sins. Parents instruct their children in the Ordning as well as household, farming, and vocational skills, considering these more important to Amish daily life than a formal education. Children attend school only through the eighth grade. Courtship is limited and private within Amish society and couples may not live together before marriage. Adolescents experience the outside world in a coming-of-age ritual known as rumspringa. They hold jobs, date, attend parties, experiment with alcohol and smoking, and wear current fashions. Rumspringa ends when they decide whether or not to undergo adult baptism and permanently adopt the Amish lifestyle. Most adolescents choose to remain Amish. Those who leave often desire more options for their future while those who stay cite the benefits of

community belonging, low expenses, and the desire to raise their children within the Amish value system. See Also: Christianity; Crafting Industry; Homemaking; Religion, Women in; Rural Women. Further Readings Kraybill, Donald. The Riddle of Amish Culture. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Kraybill, D. B. and M. A. Olshan, eds. The Amish Struggle With Modernity. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994. Olshan, M. A. and K. D. Schmidt. “Amish Women and the Feminist Conundrum.” In D. B. Kraybill and M. A. Olshan, eds.,The Amish Struggle With Modernity. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994. Schmidt, Kimberly D. and Diane Zimmerman Umble. Strangers at Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Andorra Andorra is a very small (468 square kilometers), mountainous, and highly urbanized country located between France and Spain in southwestern Europe. The primary industries are tourism (80 percent of gross domestic product [GDP]) and banking. Andorra is a prosperous country and in 2007 ranked 14th in the world with a per capita GDP of $42,500. Life expectancy in Andorra is among the highest in the world, at 80.3 years for men and 84.8 years for women. Male and female literacy are both reported as 100 percent, and about equal numbers of men and women enroll in tertiary education. Andorra’s high standard of living and lack of an income tax attract many immigrants and it has a high rate of net migration (6.89 migrants per 1,000 population, 13th highest in the world). This offsets Andorra’s low birth rate (10.35 per 1,000 population, 166th in the world) and total fertility rate (1.33 children/ woman, 205th in the world) and gave the country a moderate growth rate of 1.135 percent in 2009.

Anglican Communion



Andorra is a parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage at age 18; women gained the right to vote in 1970 and to serve in public office in 1973. Today, women hold 25 percent of seats in the national parliament. Since 1993, the constitution has guaranteed equal civil rights for women and many are employed: in 2007, women constituted 46.6 percent of employees in the nonagricultural sector. The predominant religion is Roman Catholic, with small populations of Protestants, Muslims, and Hindus. The influence of the Catholic Church may be seen in the fact that Andorra does not recognize divorce and that abortion is legal only to save the woman’s life. However, since 2005 Andorra has recognized civil unions between same-sex partners, although samesex marriage is not legal as of 2010. The legal age of marriage for both men and women is 16. Andorra has a high standard of healthcare, which is reflected in excellent maternal and child health. Childhood vaccination rates range from 84 percent for hepatitis B to 99 percent for DTP (a compound vaccine protecting against diphtheria, pertussis or whooping cough, and tetanus). The infant mortality rate is 3.68 per 1,000 live births, ranking 211th out of 225 reporting countries. See Also: Abortion Laws, International; Civil Unions; Divorce; France; Government, Women in; Roman Catholic Church; Spain. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Andorra.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/an.html (accessed February 2010). World Health Organization. “World Health Report Statistical Annex, Annexes by Country (a-f ).” http:// www.who.int/entity/whr/2005/annex/indicators_ country_a-f.pdf (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is an association of churches around the world that are in communion with the Church of England. The worldwide Angli-

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can Communion membership is approximately 77 million. Included within the communion are the Episcopal Church of the United States, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Nippon Sei Ko Kwai ​( Japan), and more than 30 other ecclesiastical bodies. The late 20th century saw the communion’s greatest growth occur in Africa. Each of the “provinces,” as the national churches are called, is autonomous, determining such matters as who is eligible for ordination. The first decade of the 21st century was a time of increased tension within the communion, as schism was threatened over the ordination of openly gay clergy and the acceptance of women in the office of bishop. The Anglican Communion recognizes the ordination of deacons, priests, and bishops. Controversy has surrounded the ordination of women in each of these offices. In the 1960s, largely because of the effects of the feminist movement, women were ordained as deacons, although even this ordination created controversy. It was almost a decade later before the first female deacon was ordained at Canterbury Cathedral. In the 1970s, controversy centered on the ordination of women as priests: As early as 1971, the first women were ordained into the priesthood, but it was near the end of the decade before an official resolution advised churches that did not ordain women to do so. Some churches refused, and many believed female ordination would create a split within the communion. The debate next moved in the 1980s to the ordination of women as bishops. The worst fears of conservative members were realized in 1989, when the Anglican Church of New Zealand consecrated Penny Jamieson as the seventh Bishop of Dunedin. The ordination of Barbara Harris, an African American woman, as bishop by the Episcopal Church, USA, took place later the same year. Less than a decade later, more than 4,000 women priests and at least 10 women bishops were part of the communion. By the 1990s, with a majority of provinces ordaining women as priests and most accepting the ordination of women bishops in principle, if not in fact, the controversy seemed to have subsided. The storm broke again in 2003, however, when the election of a noncelibate gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire led four dioceses to break with the Episcopal Church and created dissension within the worldwide Anglican Communion. The 2006 election

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of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA—making her the only female primate in the communion—worsened tensions. Conservative bishops gathered in Jerusalem in June 2008 for the Global Anglican Future Conference, denying a break with the worldwide communion but calling for the formation of a new Anglican Church in North America and for relegating the Archbishop of Canterbury to history. Disaffected parishes in North America met the same month and formed the Anglican Church in North America. Two months later, Lambeth 2008, an assembly of bishops of the Anglican Communion, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was boycotted by approximately onethird of the bishops in the communion and ended with no resolutions and with growing fear of schism. The election of the Reverend Mary Glasspool, an openly lesbian priest, as a suffragan bishop in 2010 gave evidence that this fear was well grounded. Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, greeted the news that Reverend Glasspool would be consecrated by expressing regret and warning that the action carried implications for the place of the Episcopal Church within the Anglican Communion. See Also: Christianity; Religion, Women in; Schori, Katharine Jefferts. Further Readings “Covenant Aims to Mediate Disputes Within Anglican Communion.” Christian Century, v.127/2 (2010). Craston, Colin. “Women Bishops and the Anglican Communion Process.” http://www.fulcrum-anglican .org.uk/news/2005/20050709craston.cfm?doc=62 (accessed March 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Angola Although it is a state rich in oil and diamonds— Angola has one of the fastest growing economies in Africa and the world—reconstruction and conciliation are yet to be achieved after a long period of war (which ended in 2002). Poverty remains widespread,

and Angolan women bear the burden of the struggle for survival in the countryside, where the majority of people are. Thus, live births are 6.75 children per woman (2009), infant mortality is 117 per 1,000 births (205 for children younger than 5 years of age; 2005–10), and life expectancy at birth is low (43.3 for girls, 40.1 for boys; 2005–10). Development and gender equality remain a challenge, and the literacy rate for adults is 54.2 percent for women and 82.9 percent for men (2005–10). In 2007, 61 percent of Angolan women older than 15 years were human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive, which was the focus of much of female mobilization and political lobbying, in addition to opposition to violence against women. The Constitution of Angola (1992) grants equal rights for men and women in Article 18.1, and both penal and civil law offers provisions on gender equality (e.g., discrimination at work) and against domestic violence. In addition, the Código da Família (Family Law) is aimed at guaranteeing equality regarding marriage and offspring, as well as property ownership for both sexes. Angolan women have a relatively low level of legal protection in relation to family matters. The legal age of marriage is 18 years for both men and women; however, early marriage (age 15 years or younger for girls with parental consent) is prevalent, and young single motherhood is a relatively common occurrence—it is estimated that 36 percent of girls between 15 and 19 years of age are married, divorced, or widowed. Polygamy is banned, but such practice is widely accepted by society and seems to have increased considerably after 2002 as a result of almost three decades of war and the concurrent absence of men. Women’s workloads have increased enormously as a consequence, and so has violence against them. Several policies have been passed to protect family and children’s rights, to fight poverty and to grant gender equality as much as possible, such as the Plan of Action on Family Matters (2009), the Poverty Reduction National Strategy (2004 on), and the National Policy on Gender Equality (2002–05), among several others. As in many other African countries, women are granted equality before the law in many grounds; however, land distribution follows customary (traditional) law, which treats men more favorably. In addition, women’s rights to use land are more often than not overlooked, as in, for example,

Animal Rights



cases of displaced people being resettled, among many others. Women’s access to property other than land depends to a very large extent on their marriage status or regime. In a country in which more than 90 percent of farming is done at a family and subsistence level, and a majority of the population lives in rural areas, property access is quite relevant for women, as they are highly dependent on men and marriage to access land and to get job opportunities. The president and the Ministry of Family and Promotion of Women (Ministério da Família e Promoção da Mulher) have taken on the task of drafting the Law Against Domestic Violence, which had still to be passed in 2010. The draft of this law responds to local human rights and women’s organizations’ appeals, such as the Organization of Angolan Women. Although this organization has been a strong reference point in the women’s movement in Angola, many others have become quite visible in peace-building processes and gender equality lobbying in the 21st century. Some groups have been extremely important, such as Rede Mulher (Women’s Network), which is composed of more than 80 women’s associations and organizations working toward women in politics, education, and health. The initiative Mulheres Vivendo (Women Living) has created a platform of support for HIVpositive women and their families. At present, the Women’s Network also provides the Joint Gender Programme, promoted by the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Development Programme in conjunction with the Ministry of Family and Promotion of Women of Angola. See Also: Polygamy; Property Rights; United Nations Development Fund for Women. Further Readings Ducados, Henda. “Angolan Women in the Aftermath of Conflict, Conciliation Resources.” http://www.c-r.org /our-work/accord/angola/women-conflict.php (accessed June 2010). Martin, James W. Historical Dictionary of Angola. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2004. Oyebade, Adebayo O. Culture and Customs of Angola. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006. Soledad Vieitez-Cerdeño University of Granada

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Animal Rights The movement for animal rights is motivated by the belief that animals should be afforded the same rights as human beings. Historically, women have led the way on animal rights and they continue to be at the forefront of global movements for animal liberation. Early American feminists such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were connected to the animal-welfare movement and saw animal rights as the next step after women’s civil rights. When compared to men, rates indicate that women are more likely to be animal advocates. In congruence, more women are currently vegetarians and vegans than are men. Studies demonstrate that 68 to 80 percent of animal rights advocates are women. Animal rights encompass animal ethics, opposition to meat and dairy consumption, and opposition to animal use in the cosmetics, fashion, and science industries. Animal Ethics Alliances between advocates of feminism and animal rights have demonstrated the connection between sexism and speciesism or the belief that one’s own species is superior to other groups.They argue that to end violence against women, society must also end violence against animals. Ecofeminism, which is based on the belief that there is a relationship between the oppression of women and the domination of the environment, has demonstrated that women have historically been associated with animals. Society devalues animals and through a process of association women are devalued and treated as second-class citizens. Violence against animals has become normalized in society in the same way that violence against women is often ignored. Feminist animal rights activists also attack traditionally male social activities including hunting, fishing and grilling, arguing they rely on the subordination of animals and the glorification of violence against animals. Carol Adams and Ingrid Newkirk have led the way on animal rights activism. Newkirk cofounded the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980 and now serves as the organization’s president. She also is an author who has written numerous books and articles exposing the violent treatment of animals in laboratories and homes. PETA is the largest global

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animal rights organization with more than 2 million members and supporters. It creates ad campaigns that oppose the use of fur and leather in the fashion industry, the consumption of meat and dairy, hunting, bull fighting, and animal testing. PETA chose actress, comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as its Woman of the Year in 2009 for promoting her vegan lifestyle on her talk show and Website. Carol Adams has been at the forefront of feminist animal ethics. Her book, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, called attention to the important interconnections between animals and women. Adams developed the notion of the “absent referent” to explain why humans consume meat. For Adams, the absent referent describes how people are detached from the actual animal they consume by conceiving of it as meat, which allows them to continue to support the slaughter of animals. Therefore, if humans were connected to the animals they consume they would reduce their consumption of meat. Adam’s book traces the historical connections between meat consumption and the promotion of masculine identity. Her conclusion argues that vegetarianism and feminism go hand in hand. Some feminists have criticized rational and utilitarian approaches to animal rights, calling for the emphasis on care, compassion, and emotional bonding with animals to avoid the emotional distancing employed in a rational rights approach. Adams has argued for a feminist “ethic of care” regarding animal rights, which assumes that the ethical responsibility animals owe to humans is derived from the interconnectedness between life forms. Other animal rights theorists working in the feminist care tradition include Grace Clement, Lori Gruen, Cathryn Bailey, Josephine Donovan, and Catharine MacKinnon. Animal Consumption While some activists oppose the consumption of meat and dairy in all of its forms, others focus primarily on the horrors committed against animals at factory farms. Factory farms are environments where a high density of livestock is raised in a confined space, easily spreading disease. Animals are treated as commodities under this industrial system, which attempts to produce the most products from the animals at the lowest possible cost. Animals are generally kept indoors and confined to cages under this system and

fed large amounts of antibiotics to keep them healthy and to prevent the spread of disease from animal to human. Feminists compare the treatment of animals in factory farms to the exploitation of female labor throughout the international system, especially sweat shops. Women are the highest risk group for these health concerns because illnesses from tainted meat can be passed on to unborn children during pregnancy or to nursing babies. Factory farms have been the target of environmental justice movements for the large amount of waste produced, which can pollute the soil, waterways and local communities living nearby. Women lead environmental movements opposing these farms because they see protecting the community and the planet as vital to women’s liberation. Dairy and egg production also is a woman’s issue because of the abuse animals suffer under the factory-farming model. Reproducing female animals are particularly targeted under this model. Milk made by cows and eggs hatched from chickens are only produced by female animals. Feminists draw a connection between the control over reproduction of female animals in farming practices and the control over female human reproduction in politics. The females of the species suffer the most extreme forms of violence. Feminists argue that an egalitarian society will come about once all species are free from gendered violence. In the factory environment, dairy cows, bread specifically for their milk producing ability, are given hormones to increase milk production and overall reproduction. Recombinant Bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is a genetically engineered growth hormone that is used to increase milk production in animals. Concerns have been raised that these hormones pass into the human body when consumed and cause health issues for women such as an increased risk of developing breast cancer. Commercial Uses While women have led animal rights crusade, they also have participated in the oppression of animals. Industries that primarily market their products to women, specifically the fashion and cosmetics industry, rely on an array of exploitive practices toward animals to develop their products. Many cosmetic companies test their products on animals during research and development. The most common testing is done for eye shadows and soaps. Rabbits and guinea pigs



are used most often to test allergic reactions, toxicity and irritation levels in products. This testing can cause bleeding problems, pain and death. Cosmetic companies kill millions of animals every year testing their products. Animal products are used as ingredients in cosmetics, including carmine, collagen, elastin, keratin, tallow, and stearic acid. PETA has published a list of animal ingredients and their alternatives to help inform consumers about the ingredients in their cosmetic products. The fashion industry utilizes animal products in many of its products including the use of fur, leather and feathers. Millions of animals are killed every year in the service of producing clothing for women consumers. Criticism The animal rights movement has been accused of participating in misogyny, and PETA has been attacked for using sexist imagery in its ad campaigns promoting such rights. Some of the PETA ads have included naked women who claim they’d rather “go naked than wear fur.” Defenders of the campaigns maintain that the women freely participate in the commercials and demonstrate their commitment to the cause by going naked for the animals. However, PETA is still said to be promoting animal rights at the expense of women’s rights in many of their ads. Animal rights advocates also are opposed to animal testing which undermines the ability of science to pursue important developments in women’s healthcare. For example, Herceptin, a drug that has been shown to prolong life in breast cancer patients, was attacked by PETA for being developed through animal testing. Scientists argue that without the ability to test drugs on animals, treatments for breast cancer would be delayed and even undiscovered. Since breast cancer is a major health concern for women, opposing animal testing can harm women’s health. See Also: Cosmetics Industry; Nutrition; Reproductive Rights; Vegetarian Feminism. Further Readings Adams, Carol. The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum International Publishing, 2006. Donovan, Joesphine and Carol Adams. The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

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Newkirk, Ingrid. The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009. Nicole Richter Wright State University

Animal Trainers, Female In the 19th century, women were generally banned from circuses where most animal training took place, but by the turn of the 20th century, many women were engaged in training animals and pushing the gender boundaries of the day. Today, animal trainers are generally employed to teach riding, for security purposes, to entertain in public venues, teach animal obedience, or prepare animals to work with disabled individuals. In 2006, there were approximately 10,020 animal trainers working in the United States, and 70 percent of them were female. While some animal trainers may have only a high school diploma or an equivalency status, those who work with large animals are generally required to have bachelor’s degrees in fields such as biology, marine biology, or animal science. While the median average salary for trainers is $27,270, salaries run from $16,700 at the low end to $51,400 at the high end. One of the first female animal trainers was Mabel Stark, who joined the Al G. Barnes Circus in 1913 and began taming tigers. Over time, the notion that women could not handle animals dissipated, and women in clothing that was both scant and form-fitting graced circuses around the world. That practice continued into the 21st century, and females who train animals for entertainment often wear revealing clothing during performances. For instance, bikini-clad trainers regularly perform by swimming with baby tigers in a pool built specifically for that purpose at The Institute of Greatly Endangered Rare Species (TIGERS) in South Carolina. Job requirements are very different for females who work behind the scenes in jobs such as training zoo animals. Many of these women spend almost as much time educating the public as they do training animals. For instance, Cindy Hall, who is one of 14 women working for the Naples Zoo in Florida, spends her time training ocelots, feeding alligators, and conducting lectures and public education campaigns.

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Training animals is often a dangerous profession. In 2006, a Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo reached through the bars of her cage and grabbed her experienced trainer after an afternoon feeding. The female trainer suffered major injuries to both arms. In 2010, a killer whale at Sea World in Orlando, Florida, made international news after killing his trainer, 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau. Officials suggested that the incident was the result of the trainer’s accidentally falling into the tank. A witness disagreed, stating that the whale intentionally jumped up and grabbed Brancheau before shaking her violently. She was then dragged into the water, where she drowned. One of the most successful female animal trainers in the United States in the early 21st century was Ameera Diamond, who became known as the first African American animal trainer in the world. Working with the UniverSoul Circus, Diamond regularly performs a three-hour show with eight partly Siberian white tigers weighing approximately 600 pounds each. Her days are spent working with the tigers and honing her performance skills. She has trained the tigers to jump over one another, jump through fire hoops, and complete a complicated zigzag walk known as the bottlewalk. Diamond even spends her vacations with the tigers. Domestic animal training is heavily dominated by females; and a number of women have won international acclaim for training dogs and horses. Babbette Haggerty-Brennan, for instance, was involved in training the first Australian shepherd used in guide dog work. Haggerty-Brennan, who is the author of Women’s Best Friend: Choosing the Dog That’s Right for You, also has also trained dogs for work on several daytime drama shows on TV. Many trainers insist that women are aptly suited for the work because animals perceive them as less threatening than males. In horse training, both Jenine Sahadi and Alexis Berba have held their own against male trainers. Sahadi, who is married to trainer Ben Ceil, maintains that she has been accused of receiving help from male trainers by people who believe females are incapable of succeeding in the field. Despite these claims, Sahadi became the first female trainer to win the Santa Anita Derby in 2000 when the horse The Deputy won. Sahadi is now the highest paid female horse trainer in the United States. Barba became the first female trainer to have a horse place in a Triple Crown race as a result of a fourth place finish by Make Music for Me at the

Kentucky Derby in 2009. Barba’s horse was considered a potential contender for the 2010 Belmont Stakes, but ultimately Make Music for Me placed 10th. Female animal trainers have forged paths to individual and collective victory. They have proven that they will not be restricted by gender or discouraged by sexism. See Also: Animal Rights; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Horse Racing, Women in; Science, Women in. Further Readings Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), 2010–11 Edition. www.bls.gov/oco/ ocos168.htm (accessed April 2010). CNN. “SeaWorld Trainer Killed by Killer Whale.” http:// www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/24/killer.whale.trainer .death/index.html (accessed April 2010). Davis, Janet M. “Bearded Ladies, Dainty Amazons, Hindoo Fakirs, and Lady Savages.” http://www.circus inamerica.org/docs/janetdavislecture_rev.pdf (accessed April 2010). Spinski, Tristan. “Girrrrrrl Power Helps Tame Wild Beasts at Naples Zoo.” http://www.naplesnews.com /news/2010/apr/12/girrrrrrl-power-helps-tame-wild -beasts-naples-zoo/?partner_RSS (accessed April 2010). Strickland, L. N’zinga. “Ameera the Great and Her Big Cats!” New York Amsterdam News, v.94 (June 2003). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Anime Anime (pronounced ah-knee-may) is the Japanese word for “animation” but can refer to filmed cartoons produced in any country that mirror styles typically labeled Japanese, including narrative structures, character design, and aesthetics. Both historically and in the present day, anime has substantial ties to printed comic books, called manga (mah-n-ga) in Japanese. Contrary to most American assumptions, neither anime nor manga are genres exclusively for children; unlike in the United States, in Japanese cultural contexts, these forms might be used to tell stories for children, but they also might represent

Antifeminism



adult themes such as violence, sexuality, social discrimination, or historical events. In recent decades, there has been an increase in both popular interest in anime released in the United States—either legally through production companies or as unauthorized fan-subs—and in academic attention to the topic. Anime is a topic of particular interest in analyses of popular culture, gender, media studies, transnationalism, and Japanese studies. Anime is a topic of interest in women’s or gender studies because the style and content of the genre can be read as either reinforcing gender norms or fundamentally challenging them. Like other popular cultural formats, such as romance novels or pornography, anime relies heavily on gender norms but recent work on the topic casts ambivalence on the totality of power and control constructed through these representations. Some scholars have argued that representations of femininity within anime tend to construct women as other, desirable but not entirely human, or less agentive than male protagonists. Other scholars find anime to provide space for creative exploration, substantial social critique, and agency. Stylistically, anime are likely to represent female characters as tall, thin, big-breasted, wideeyed figures who might or might not be innocent to their own power and desirability. Many female characters can be seen to become more desirable precisely because they appear unaware of their desirability or sexuality, as seen in Sailor Moon, for example. Anime, and related manga, can be categorized into many subgenres, including mecha (mechanical), apocalyptic, romantic, adventure or sports stories. Of these subgenres, in gender studies literature, the category of “ladies comics” has received attention because it deals so directly with gender, and gendered norms in society. Also labeled “boy’s love” or “yaoi” comics, these stories center on deep love between two male protagonists. Although the characters are in love with each other the labels “gay” or “queer” rarely appear, and the figures are usually drawn with delicate features, fine bones, and flowing hair. Despite the male central protagonists, these stories are marketed toward and popularly consumed mostly by women. Many scholars have constructed theories to explain this pattern, and suggest that some (straight) female fans find particular romantic possibilities available only in same-sex partnering.

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Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away (2001) are examples of anime produced for children that became extremely popular in Japan and abroad. Akira (1988), a postapocalyptic story of genetic mutation and technology, remains one of the most popular manga and anime series. Evangelion (1997) and The Ghost in the Shell (1995) are more recent examples of the sub-genre. Representative examples of gender-bending in anime include The Rose of Versailles (1979), Fake (1996), and Loveless (2005). See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Hello Kitty; Japan; Manga. Further Readings Kinsella, Sharon. Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2000. Napier, Susan. Anime From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2005. Allison Alexy Lafayette College

Antifeminism In the early part of the 21st century, there are three central elements of antifeminism. These elements consist of (1) the idea that the feminist movement is over and has achieved its goals; (2) the assumption that the United States is in a “postfeminist” era that emphasizes individualism, not collective action; and (3) a push toward traditional gender roles immediately after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. These three interrelated aspects of antifeminism make feminism as a political movement seem passé and irrelevant and make feminists appear to be out of touch and complaining. The expression of each of these elements, as well as their cultural and political implications, is discussed below. Feminist Victory First, there is in American culture an assumption of feminist victory. The goals of the second wave feminist movement, from the late 1960s through the 1970s,

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have largely been achieved. The claim of this argument is that there has been sufficient progress toward equality, for instance in women’s paid employment, the recognition of sexual harassment in the workplace, and Title IX for girls’ education. Christina Hoff Sommers is one of the main purveyors of this point of view. She valorizes first wave feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony but regards presentday feminists as chronic complainers. She argues that there is no need for modern feminism because discrimination against women is largely in the past. In fact, according to this view, the real victims of gender discrimination today are boys and men. One of Sommers’ targets is the supposed “war against boys.” The war-against-boys rhetoric says that feminism brought attention to girls’ and women’s needs in education but in doing so feminists subordinated boys’ needs to the point that girls and women got ahead of boys and men. These authors’ argument is essentially (1) that girls have no need for any special attention because resources have already been spent on them and feminism has done what it has set out to do; and (2) the real victims are not girls and women but boys and men who are victims of feminist critique. Because the goals of feminism have been met, this argument goes, those women who continue to call themselves feminists or insist on a feminist movement, are judged either as innocuously passé, or, more harshly, as trying to get ahead of men—and thus as anti-male. It is in this element of antifeminism where one finds allegations of feminist “man-hating.” Because there is nothing left for women to complain about, feminists must have it out for men. Only isolated cases of overt gender discrimination against women are recognized. Today’s feminists who talk about gender inequality as a system face allegations of man-hating. To find a pattern of discrimination, as a systemic analysis of inequality would do, is to express hatred of men. Some scholars distinguish the backlash against second wave feminism from the current backlash of the early 21st century. In the old backlash, feminism was vilified as a false ideology to which women sacrificed their personal happiness (in marriage and motherhood) for the sake of abstract ideals of independence. In the new backlash, women’s equality is treated as a fact that no sensible person would deny, but feminism is made to seem ridiculous and passé in its insistence

on still talking about gender discrimination. The new backlash compromises feminism’s ability to critique economic and other gender divisions that still disadvantage women, and it reduces political consciousness and gender questions to personal stories, refusing to acknowledge structural problems. Why is the feminist victory discourse troubling? First, the claim of feminist victory denies the reality of many women’s and girls’ lives. Second, this discourse encourages young women to believe that they were born into a free society, so if they experience discrimination, it is an individual, isolated problem that may even be their own fault. This belief prevents any solidarity between women that was a feature of the second wave feminist movement. Individualism Antiactivism The second element of antifeminism is postfeminism. Postfeminism marks the depoliticization of feminist goals and an opposition to collective feminist action. There is an emphasis on individualism and consumerism as sites for women’s empowerment. Thus empowerment in the marketplace and in lifestyle choice has replaced the earlier political and intellectual work of feminism. Postfeminism coincides with the discourse of neoliberal capitalism that encourages women to concentrate on their private lives and consumer capacities as means of self-expression and agency. Mass media play a key role in all three components of anti-feminism discussed here. In terms of the emphasis on individualism and antiactivism, media undermine feminist objectives by placing the focus of women’s empowerment on self-transformation rather than social transformation. Postfeminist rhetoric acknowledges feminism in that feminism has been incorporated into political and institutional life. Drawing on a vocabulary that includes words like “empowerment” and “choice,” these elements are then converted into an individualistic discourse, and they are deployed in a new guise, not only in media and popular culture, but also by agencies of the state, as a kind of substitute for feminism. What is absent from these presentations is an understanding of dominant-group privilege and the old feminist requirement that men be prepared to relinquish some of their privileges and advantages in work and in the home, in order to achieve equality in the domestic sphere. Popular films such as Bridget



Jones’s Diary (2001), and later, The Ugly Truth (2009) and The Proposal (2009), reflect this antifeminist trend. The backlash against 1970s feminism attempted to frighten women into accepting traditional gender roles and identifying such roles as the only source of personal happiness. These films reflect a new backlash that recognizes that it is unlikely that women en mass will be forced back into the home, yet still tries to distance women from feminism and convince them that their lives should be focused around the heterosexual family, even if greater independence and outside work are expected. Like the first element of antifeminism, feminist victory, this process also says feminism is no longer needed. As Angela McRobbie notes, popular culture dismisses much of the feminist past, while also retrieving and reinstating some palatable elements of women’s liberation, such as sexual freedom, the right to consume alcohol, and economic independence (think of the popular television series and film, Sex and the City). This trend is seen in the increased popularity of pole dancing among suburban middle-class women as exercise and at-home entertainment for their male partners. The popularity of the Pussycat Dolls in the United States, the franchise dance troupe with a rotating cast made up of young women with sexually explicit dance routines, reflects this diversion from the politics of feminism. Feminism is evoked and claimed regarding sexual freedom, but then is quickly dismissed with relief— thank goodness it is permissible to once again enjoy looking at the bodies of women. How is feminism undermined using this element of antifeminism? According to Angela McRobbie this process occurs on one level through active vilification and negation at the cultural level that makes feminism unpalatable and repellent. The abandonment of feminism by women is amply rewarded with the promise of freedom and independence, most apparent through wage earning capacity which functions symbolically as a mark of respectability, empowerment, and entitlement. There is a kind of exchange, and a process of displacement and substitution: The young woman is offered a nominal form of equality, concretized in education and employment, and through participation in consumer culture and civil society, in place of what a reinvented feminist politics might have to offer. Indeed, recent empirical work on attitudes about feminism mirrors this anticollectivist

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trend. Young adults are less likely than other generations to believe that collective action is necessary to improve women’s status in society. Also, young adults fail to identify with feminism due to a definition of feminists as individuals who are active in the feminist social movement. A key feature of the neoliberal discourse that underpins postfeminism is the implanting of market cultures across everyday life (e.g., healthcare, incarceration, education), and the encouragement of forms of consumer citizenship that are beneficial only to those who are already privileged. Undoing the antihierarchical struggles of social movements is also a priority within the discourses of neoliberalism. An attack on disadvantaged social groups is masked by the prevailing and ostensibly nonracist and nonsexist language of self-esteem, empowerment, and personal responsibility. Postfeminism abandons the structural analysis of patriarchal power. It denies any system or structural forces that continue to oppress women and therefore undercuts any strategic weight of politicized feminist activism. Post–September 11 Retreat to Traditional Values It is difficult to minimize the effect that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, had on every aspect of American culture. Just as baby boomers recall where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, the present generation will remember where they were when they heard of the September 11 attacks. The third element of current antifeminism comes in the form of a push to retreat to traditional gender roles in reaction to the September 11 attacks. Susan Faludi, a journalist who wrote about antifeminism in her 1992 best seller Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women, has also written about the effect of September 11 on the retrenchment of feminism. Her book, The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America (2008) describes the many ways in which feminism was rolled back in the days, weeks, and months after September 11, 2001. For instance, shortly after the attacks, pundits, journalists, and celebrities who were critical of U.S. policies toward Arab and Muslim countries were shunned in the national press (recall the case of Bill Maher losing his television show Politically Incorrect). However, according to Faludi, a particular kind

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of fury was directed at women commentators such as writers Susan Sontag, Katha Pollitt, and Fran Lebowitz, who dared question U.S. policy. They were labeled traitorous, idiotic, and haughty. The presence of women op-ed writers and broadcast pundits decreased shortly after September 11. Women who did appear were conservative, antifeminist women such as Camille Paglia, Kate O’Beirne, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Peggy Noonan. The iconic images of September 11 provided by media were men as rescue workers, women as victims. Rescue workers who were women and victims who were men were missing from media images because they did not fit the traditional frame of male hero and damsel in distress. In the wake of the attacks New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush were represented as toughguy superheroes as were New York firefighters. In the weeks and months after September 11, the media wrote about the return to traditional values, with articles about single women who had placed careers ahead of matrimony but now were said to be looking for husbands. The widows of September 11 were shown in the media, while widowed men were invisible. Those women directly affected by September 11 were celebrated as grieving wives and mothers but only as long as they adhered to that prescribed role. When a group of September 11 widows known as the Jersey Girls began to question the script—by asking questions critical of the Bush administration and its handling of the aftermath of the attacks— they were marginalized in the press in favor of more easily digestible traditional women. Likewise, the documentary Women of Ground Zero, about women rescue workers, was criticized as antiman and antiAmerican because it did not follow the script of men as rescuers, women as victims. Media reported on the post–September 11 “nesting” tendancy by which people stayed home and avoided travel. There was even a post–September 11 trend in American cooking: “comfort food”—traditional white middle-class food characteristic of the 1950s such as macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes. By the 2004 presidential campaign, “security moms,” women who identified as mothers concerned about the safety of their children and the country, were constructed as a serious contingent for presidential candidates to court.

These post–September 11 trends, according to Faludi, illustrate the quickness with which progress toward civil rights and equality reverts to traditional patriarchal patterns of men as breadwinners/saviors and women as homemakers/moms. It is almost as if in the amount of time it took the twin towers to fall, much of the progress from the second-wave women’s movement was pushed aside for “old-fashioned” patriarchal values. When the country is under siege, at war progressive politics and civil rights are rendered capricious luxuries that distract from the constructed core values of masculine protection and female victim. These three elements of antifeminism in the early 21st century attempt to silence and marginalize feminists, making feminism seem unpalatable, and any kind of feminism movement invisible and irrelevant. Consequently, the transfer of feminist power to younger activists coming into consciousness is discouraged. See Also: Feminism; American; Gender, Defined; Gender Dysphoria; Political Ideologies. Further Readings Anderson, K. J. Benign Bigotry: The Psychology of Subtle Prejudice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Anderson, K. J. and C. Accomando. “‘Real’ Boys? Manufacturing Masculinity and Erasing Privilege in Popular Books on Raising Boys.” Feminism & Psychology, v.12 (2002). Bloom, L. R. “A Feminist Reading of Men’s Health: Or, When Paglia Speaks, the Media Listens.” Journal of Medical Humanities, v.18 (1997). Digby, T. “Do Feminists Hate Men?: Feminism, Antifeminism, and Gender Oppositionality.” Journal of Social Philosophy, v.29 (1998). Faludi, S. The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America. New York: Metropolitan, 2007. Genz, S. “Third Way/ve: The Politics of Postfeminism.” Feminist Theory, v.7 (2006). Houvouras, S. and S. Carter. “The F Word: College Students’ Definitions of a Feminist.” Sociological Forum, v.23 (2008). McRobbie. A. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: Sage, 2009. Sommers, C. H. Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Touchstone, 1994.

Antigua and Barbuda

Stillion Southard, B. A. “Beyond the Backlash: Sex and the City and Three Feminist Struggles.” Communication Quarterly, v.56 (2008). Vint, S. “The New Backlash: Popular Culture’s ‘Marriage’ With Feminism, or Love Is All You Need.” Journal of Popular Film & Television, v.34 (2007). Kristin J. Anderson University of Houston

Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda is located in the eastern Caribbean. Most of the population resides on Antigua. Over 90 percent of the population are black, the predominant culture is Creole, and Christianity is the predominant religion. Both cultural tradition and modern economic circumstances leave many women socioeconomically dependent on men. The increased public and political roles of women were exemplified in the 2007 election of the nation’s first female head of state; however, problems such as violence against women and sex trafficking are common. Marriages are both legal and common law. Another common form is the visiting union, in which an exclusive couple live separately. The 2004 fertility rate was 2.27 births per woman. The infant mortality rate is 16.25 per 1,000 live births. Many children are born out of wedlock. The law recognizes such children and prevents discrimination against them. Traditional socialization emphasizes male power and virility and both genders become sexually active at a young age. Domestic violence is common and many women do not utilize the national anti-domestic violence legislation out of an unwillingness to testify against their husbands. Living Conditions Parents and other relatives care for children at equal rates due to family situations or finances. Fathers do not aid in care for children born out of wedlock. There is a general lack of reliable childcare. Primary and secondary education is compulsory for all children from age 5 to 16. Preschool is also available. The school system suffers from a shortage of adequate supplies, facilities, and qualified teachers. The literacy rate is

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high at 89 percent. Internationally renowned female author Jamaica Kincaid, who was born in Antigua and Barbuda but now resides in the United States, has produced acclaimed novels, essays, and short stories on the islands’ lifestyle and history. The class structure still reflects the historical legacy of a racial hierarchy with blacks predominating the middle and lower classes. The population is mostly rural, close to 40 percent living in urban areas. Antigua and Barbuda has a national system of social insurance. Most people have adequate living conditions despite an overall shortage of housing, but issues include poor sanitation, lack of clean drinking water, and a poor healthcare system. There are state institutions for the elderly and infirm, and the nation has one private hospital. Life expectancy is 76.81 for women and 72.81 for men. Social problems faced by women in the islands as well as the rest of the Caribbean include widespread sexual violence such as rape, the sex trafficking, and commercial sex industries, and rising rates of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) among both women and girls. Many females remain socioeconomically dependent on males, although there has been slow progress in developing programs to improve economic opportunities for women. Creole women have traditionally worked outside the home in limited roles and women make up approximately half of the nation’s workforce. Key employers include government and public service, agriculture, industry, tourism, and related services. Over 80 percent of the workforce are employed in the service sector. Urban women are generally more economically and politically active than their rural counterparts. Most women work in the tourist and service industries, which are seasonal and consist of mostly unskilled, low-wage jobs. Women also work as artisans producing pottery, woodcarvings, baskets, and hand-woven cloth. There are no legal restrictions on women’s rights. Universal suffrage has been in place since 1940. Louise Lake-Tack was the first woman to be elected Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda in 2007. The state Directorate of Women’s Affairs was created to monitor the status of women. There is an increasing presence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that advocate for improved social services and women’s rights.

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See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Heads of State, Female; HIV/AIDS: South America; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Hausman, R., L. D. Tyson, and S. Zahidi. The Global Gender Gap Report 2009. Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2009. www.weforum.org /en/Communities/Women%20Leaders%20and%20 Gender%20Parity/GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010). Knight, F. W. and T. M. Vergne. Contemporary Caribbean Cultures and Societies in a Global Context. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Lewis, L. The Culture of Gender and Sexuality in the Caribbean. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). Marcella Bush Trevino Independent Scholar

Anxiety Disorders Anxiety disorder is a blanket term used to describe states of irrational fear and/or dread. Although anxiety can be a normal reaction to stress, when an individual’s mood is impacted negatively affecting one physical and emotional being, an anxiety disorder is thought to exist. Anxiety is the result of the body’s fight-or-flight reaction, which is the automatic response from perceived harm or attack. Anxiety disorders are often comorbid with other mental or physical disorders and are subject to flare-ups with stress and are typically diagnosed after six months of being present. Clinical depression has been thought to occur with anxiety disorders 60 percent of the time. Anxiety disorders also are believed to have a genetic component, thus running in families. The various types of anxiety disorders are believed to be the most frequently occurring of mental disorders. Anxiety disorders are detrimental to a person’s emotional and physiological being. Emotional symp-

toms of anxiety can include irritability, feelings of catastrophe, trouble concentrating, apprehensiveness, and restlessness. Accompanying physical symptoms often include heart pounding, shortness of breath, insomnia, sweating, diarrhea, and muscle tension. Six types of anxiety disorders are generally recognized: generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobias, specific phobias, post traumatic stress disorder, and panic disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) classifies anxiety disorders somewhat differently, using the following categories: panic attack, panic disorder (with and without a history of agoraphobia)—fear of a situation or place where escape may be difficult— agoraphobia (with and without a history of panic disorder), specific phobia, social phobia, obsessivecompulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, anxiety disorder due to a general medical condition, substance induced anxiety disorder, and anxiety disorder not otherwise specified. Generalized Anxiety Disorder Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is chronic anxiety (fear) that impacts a person’s ability to function as well as their happiness. This fear should be excessive—according to the patient—and should be disproportional to the actual danger or stress of the situation. GAD is a chronic disease. Symptoms may include nausea, worry, irritability, low energy, feelings of doom, sweating, and hypervigilance. GAD can be caused in part by genes, stress, and learned behaviors. It is slightly more common in women and tends to persist for many years. In fact, the DSM-IV-TR stipulates that at least six months of excessive anxiety and worry must elapse for diagnosis. Diagnosis usually includes a physical exam to rule out physical causes, such as hypothyroidism, heart disease, or menopause. A prescription review rules out pharmaceutical causes, called substanceinduced anxiety disorder by the DSM. Finally, a psychological exam must be conducted to determine pathology. This can be difficult because GAD often occurs with other psychological disorders. Treatment may include medications such as antidepressants, benzodiazepines and buspirone. Psychotherapy techniques such as behavioral cognitive therapy (BCT)

Anxiety Disorders may be used. Lifestyle changes also can prove effective. These may include exercise, nutrition, better sleep habits, and avoidance of alcohol.

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) consists of obsessions or compulsions, which reoccur and have a significant impact on an individual’s ability to function normally. Symptoms may include anxiety (fear), obsession (frequently repeated thoughts or feelings), and compulsion (desire to act inappropriately or without forethought). Sufferers may be observed repeating the same ritualistic behavior over and over, and they may report feelings of dread if they fail to continue the behavior. Little is known about the causes of OCD. Various scientists have postulated that OCD may be caused by head injury, genetics, learned behaviors, infections (specifically strep

throat). It is sometimes associated with Tourette’s syndrome or low serotonin levels. Diagnosis usually relies on psychological interviewing after physical and chemical causes have been ruled out. For diagnosis, the DSM-IV-TR requires presence of either obsession or compulsion, recognized as abnormal by the patient, which significantly impairs life function. Treatment usually includes therapy and medication. Common therapy will include cognitive behavioral therapy techniques such as exposure and response prevention, in which the patient gradually learns to respond appropriately to a triggering stimulus. Pharmaceutical treatment often includes one of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class of antidepressants. Like other anxiety disorders, OCD may respond better if combined with support groups, meditation or relaxation techniques, and family support.

A phobia is defined as an inappropriate, intense and irrational fear of an object or situation that poses no actual danger.

Phobia Approximately 10 percent of all people suffer from phobia at some time in their lives. Phobia is defined as an inappropriate, intense, and irrational fear of an object or situation that poses no actual danger. It is important to differentiate between phobia and rational fear, which is an appropriate response to actual danger. Symptoms may include panic, sweating, shaking, racing heartbeat, and inability to focus. Scientists are undecided about whether phobias are caused by genetics, trauma, learned behavior, or some other source. Females are twice as likely to suffer from phobia as men, and onset occurs most commonly during the teenage years. Phobias are frequently associated with substance abuse, as the person tries to mitigate the fear through self-medication. As with other anxiety disorders, diagnosis begins with ruling out physical factors such as thyroid disease or the effects of drugs. A mental health examination is then used to determine if the patient meets the diagnosis criteria. There are no measurement instruments for phobias. Medical treatment may included beta-blockers, antidepressants or sedatives. Behavioral treatment protocols often involve repeated exposure to the stimulus to desensitize the patient. Many clinicians also report success with CBT. In some cases, irrational fears can be prevented or minimized during childhood. Phobias are usually categorized as either specific phobias or social phobias.

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A specific or simple phobia is an inappropriate, irrational fear of a specific object, place, or situation. This type of fear is usually focused on a single stimulus, such as flying, snakes, or cramped quarters. Simple phobias can be categorized as natural environment, animal, situational, blood/injection, or other. Social phobia or social anxiety disorder (SAD) is experienced by approximately 15 million Americans, and is characterized by extreme fear of social situations, such as public speaking, meeting people, or socializing. More than simple shyness, SAD patients expect to be ridiculed or embarrassed if they do or say the wrong thing, and fear of being judged by others in everyday social situations. The diagnosis requires that the fear is significant and irrational. The situation must provoke anxiety that interferes with daily functioning, and it must be recognized by the patient as excessive for the situation. For children, the symptoms must persist for at least six months. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be defined as an anxiety disorder that results from a stressful or traumatic event, witnessed or experienced, which involved either great fear or actual harm. Stress disorders are unique in that a stressful event is required for diagnosis. Lifetime morbidity—the chance of the disease occurring in one’s lifetime—for PTSD is 7 to 8 percent among Americans. The probability that an American has had PTSD in the last 12 months is 3.5 percent. Women are two to four times as likely as men to experience PTSD, which is caused by a varying mix of trauma (length, severity, frequency) and individual predisposition (genetics, resilience, support network). The National Institutte of Mental Health categorizes PTSD symptoms into three groups: re-experiencing or intrusive memories, avoidance or numbing, and hyper-arousal or anxiety. Re-experiencing symptoms may include flashbacks and nightmares. Avoidance symptoms can cause the sufferer to literally avoid places or events associated with the trauma, or may include blocking of memories, loss of interest and guilt. Hyper-arousal symptoms include tension, inability to sleep and irritability. Depression, substance abuse, and other anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with PTSD, as do several somatic illness, such as hypertension and chronic pain. Treatment often includes both medication and

psychotherapy. As with many other anxiety disorders, therapists frequently employ CBT techniques, such as cognitive restructuring, exposure therapy, and stress inoculation (prevention). Panic Disorders Panic disorders are a group of disorders whose central feature is the panic attack. The panic attack, which is an acute episode that usually lasts about 10 minutes, causes the patient to suffer intense horror, fear, and a sense of foreboding. Physical symptoms of a panic attack are very similar to symptoms for an individual in real danger. These may include increased heart rate or palpitations, profuse sweating, weakness, faintness, and dizziness. The prominent feature differentiating a panic attack from rational fear is the absence of actual danger. The American Psychological Association reports that one in 75 Americans or 6 million people experience panic attacks, usually during the late teens or early 20s. Often these attacks are associated with the stressful transitions common to this time of life. If a person experiences numerous attacks or extended periods of fear causing an attack, this person may have a panic disorder. The DSM divides these conditions based upon whether agoraphobia is present. Unlike phobias, panic disorders stem from the fear of another attack, not an object or situation. The sufferer may fear an object or situation but only because he or she believes that things may cause an attack. Panic disorders can have similar comorbidities to other anxiety disorders, such as substance abuse and depression, making them difficult to diagnose. Panic disorders also can also lead to phobias, making diagnosis even more complicated. Treatment often involves psychotherapy and medication. The behavioral component of the therapy may be similar to techniques used in other anxiety disorders, such as interoceptive (desensitizing) exposure, relaxation techniques, or group therapy. Medical therapy might include any class of antidepressants or possibly a sedative. Anxiety disorders are a very important class of mental illnesses that affect a significant portion of the population, and cause serious suffering and life disruption. Their diagnosis can be complex because of their many accompanying morbidities, so a patient approach to diagnosis is required. There are many

Arab Feminism



effective treatments available, and if properly applied, these therapies can markedly improve a patient’s life. See Also: Depression; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Health, Mental and Physical; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Mental Health Treatment, Bias in; Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of; PostTraumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military; Postpartum Depression; Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. Further Readings American Psychiatric Association. “Answers to Your Questions About Panic Disorders.” http://www.apa .org/topics/anxiety/panic-disorder.aspx (accessed June 2010). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed,. Text Revision. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Publishing, 2000. The National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, National Institute for Mental Health. “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/ topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml (accessed June 2010). Jacqueline Parsons St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas

Arab Feminism Arab people are identified as such by their language, geography (Arab countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, and Yemen), and/or cultural identity. The term feminist, for the purposes of this article, refers to women who do something to change expectations for women, their roles, and their responsibilities. A term connoting feminism first appeared in the Arab world in 1909 with the publication of Al-Nisaiyat, a book collection whose title signifies something by or about women. By the 1990s, niswiyya, an unequivocal word in Arabic for feminism, began to circulate.

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Connection to Western Feminism The distinction between the East and the West has traditionally forced Arab women to choose between a cultural identity and a feminist self. The Western media tend to portray Arab women as oppressed by Islamic religious doctrine, calling specific attention to the veil and the harem, and some feminists argue that feminism is an import to the Arab world from the West and is not relevant for Arab women. However, Arab feminists’ understanding of niswiyya suggests that Arab feminism is quite important for Arab women. The veil (hijab in Arabic) means anything that hides, separates, and makes forbidden. In strict Islamic countries, the veil is sanctioned for women, whereas in other countries, women wear the veil for various political and personal reasons. Western feminists oftentimes claim that Arab women who veil, especially when not sanctioned to do so, cannot claim a feminist orientation; however, a more nuanced understanding of the situation reveals that Arab feminists sometimes veil because of their feminist orientation. Similarly, the term harem (hareem in Arabic) means “women”—the word is derived from the word haraam, which connotes something that is sacred, forbidden, and holy. Traditionally, Arab women have been secluded (or have secluded themselves) by living in harems, surrounded by other women. Western feminists worry that this female seclusion is another example of oppression and do not recognize the harem as a potential source of women’s strength and community-building. Major Contributors, Organizations, and Outlets Qasim Amin wrote The Liberation of Women in 1899 and was seen as the “father of Arab feminism” because of his claim that women needed education and liberation for Egypt to educate itself and liberate itself from British colonialism. Amin’s book sparked a feminist revolution that lasted until Gamal Abdel Nasser’s 1952 coup in Egypt. Huda Sha’rawi (1879–1900) is seen as the pioneer of Egypt’s women’s movement because of her creation of that nation’s first public protest for women when, on her return from a women’s conference in Rome in 1923, she threw off her veil at a Cairo train station and other women joined in. Sha’rawi’s public display allowed for many middle-class women in the Arab world to discontinue veiling. Today’s most noted Arab feminist (in the West) is Nawal al-Saadawi,

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a medical doctor and founder of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association. Her vocal opposition to female genital mutilation made her a target of Islamic fundamentalists. The threat from fundamentalists reached its peak in 1993, when al-Saadawi was put on a “death list” and fled to the United States. A number of feminist organizations have been created in the Arab world. The Egyptian Feminist Union was formed in 1923 by Sha’rawi and was the first explicit identification of Arab women’s feminism. Soon after, the Arab Women’s Union was formed in 1928, and since the 1970s (which was the United Nations’ Decade for Women), independent and quasi-independent women’s groups have formed in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Kuwait. Egypt, in particular, boasts several leading women’s organizations, including the New Woman’s Group, Arab Women’s Publishing House, the Alliance of Arab Women, the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women, Together, the Progressive Women’s Union, and the Society for the Daughter of the Earth. The 1980s and 1990s experienced a rapid increase in nongovernmental organizations in the Arab world. Women’s nongovernmental organizations addressed health, education, income generation, legal literacy, and gender-based violence. Feminist nongovernmental organizations have been lacking in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Between 1802 and 1940, Arab feminists produced and published poetry, fiction, nonfiction essays, and position papers that focused on women’s issues, women’s literature, and women’s rights. The Arabic press was a primary vehicle for discussing gender issues. In 1892, Hind Nawfal, a Syrian, created al-Fatat (“Young Girl”), and by 1940, more than 25 Arab feminist journals had been created, written, and owned by Arab women. These female-centered journals were produced in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, and even Baghdad. Feminist journalists later founded literary salons and women’s clubs to discuss issues important to them. In addition, the first pan-Arab television satellite station that targets Arab women audiences launched in 2002 to address women’s issues, and the numbers of women bloggers are increasing rapidly. There is little doubt that women’s effect on theater, music, dance, radio and television broadcasting, cinema, and blogs

have sparked new perceptions and understanding of Arab women throughout the world. Connection to Nationalism The connection between Arab feminism and Arab nationalism has been a recurring theme in Arab countries, including Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, and Palestine. In each of these countries, Arab women participated in the national independence struggle while also organizing feminist movements alongside the national movement. For example, Algerian women fought side by side with men against colonization before the independence struggle in 1954. Iranian feminists participated in the revolution of 1979 and in the Iran–Iraq war, which laid the foundation for the reformist movement and the 1997 election of President Khatami. Iranian feminists were perhaps most successful: Female reformists in the Iranian Parliament gained access to decision-making roles and promoted women’s activism. Similarly, in Iraq, women were able to legitimize their role in public life and demand education. Despite this connection between nationalism and feminism, in most Arab countries the priority was always on the liberation struggle. In many examples, after reformists gained independence, the nationalist discourse eliminated its “feminist” dimension. Pan-Arab Feminism In the Arab world, the 1860s to the 1920s was a period of “invisible feminism,” according to many scholars. When Arab women came together to help Palestinian women in their nationalist struggle, they began a significant form of pan-Arab feminism, although the roots of pan-Arab feminism date back to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq before 1938. In fact, the Egyptian Feminist Union played an important role in the institutionalization of pan-Arab feminism that was distinct from feminisms in individual countries. The 1980s centered on the heterogeneity of Arab women’s experiences and forced women to examine sexuality, socioeconomics, colonialism, and nationalism as important factors shaping Arab women’s lives. More recently, in 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development met in Cairo, where women discussed sexuality and female genital mutilation. Pan-Arab feminism remains an important agent of change for women throughout the Arab world.

Archery



Incumbent and Emerging Feminisms Egypt has maintained feminism for more than a century and has had a significant effect on pan-Arab feminism. Many early Egyptian feminists were middle- and upper-class women asserting their rights, but after the 1952 Egyptian revolution, all women gained the right to vote and receive an education. As Egyptian feminism increased throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the wearing of the veil steadily declined. Women started more sustained organizing in 1977 by creating small discussion groups that eventually became formal committees. In the early 1940s, the Palestinian women’s movement became more institutionalized, coordinated, and organized. The new woman construct was entirely class based, which helped a small, elite minority of Palestinian women but ignored the masses of peasant women, which was not uncommon. During the 1970s and beyond, Palestinian feminists formed classes to provide health education, home training, office skill development, and increasing literacy; they also formed work committees, organized marches, and established food cooperatives to produce food to ease the burden felt by the boycott on Israeli goods. Despite acceptance of Palestinian women by Palestinian men, the political representation of Palestinian women is behind their contributions to the national struggle for liberation. In Iraq, the first women’s organization, the Women’s Awakening Club, appeared after World War I and sought to expand and improve women’s education. The Iraqi Women’s Union was founded in 1945. In 1959, the Law of Personal Status was passed, which gave women uniform inheritance rights, equal divorce rights, and regulated child support. Iranian feminists were involved in the Iranian revolution, and 25 years after the Islamic Revolution, feminist readings and reinterpretations of sacred religious texts are now becoming popular, as are intellectual and cultural productions by women. There is a growing number of women’s organizations, institutes, and scholarship published in Iran, and these activities have helped to bridge the divide between Arab Islamic activists and Arab secular feminists. Although the reinstatement of the civil code based on the Islamic law limited women’s human rights following the Islamic revolution, women’s political rights remained intact. Not unlike other Arab countries, many women organizations in Iran are led by female kin of the ruling male

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elite, who are thus state connected and/or state controlled. Among the Gulf states, Kuwait has been the most successful in integrating women into public life, both through education and employment; however, women in Kuwait did not gain the right to vote and be elected until 2006. See Also: Egypt; Islam; Iran; Iraq; Kuwait; Lebanon; Palestine; Progressive Muslims (U.S.); Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan; Saudi Arabia; Syria; United Arab Emirates. Further Readings Badran, Margot and Miriam Cooke. Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Nouraie-Simone, Fereshteh. On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005. Jennifer Struve Towson University

Archery The first recorded association between women and archery concerns the Amazons. These symbolic images of strong women with bows and arrows cutting down their enemies can be traced to Greek mythology and to the historic chronicles of Herodotus (c. 495 b.c.e.–425 b.c.e.). One legend surrounding the Amazon warriors, which is particularly noteworthy, is that their archers would cut off their right breasts so that that would not interfere with the accuracy of their bow strings. They lived in all-female societies and spent their days in agriculture, hunting, and war making. In the mid-20th century, archaeologists uncovered what was viewed as proof of the existence of Amazons in the southern Ukraine through the discovery of female graves filled with swords, spears, daggers, arrowheads, and armor. The findings also indicated that these women had been habitual equestriennes and that many had been killed in battle. Since the late 20th century, American females have enjoyed archery and other sports due to the 1972 passage of Title IX of the Educational Amendments to

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the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title IX stipulates that federal funds would be withdrawn to any institution not granting female athletes opportunities commensurate with those of males. Archery became part of the Summer Olympic Games in 1900, and competitions continued to be held until 1920. Archery was reintroduced to the Olympics in 1972, and it was at that time that competitions were first held in the Women’s Individual category. The gold medal for that year was awarded to American Doreen Wilber. Team competitions were added in 1988. Unlike Amazonian archers, today’s female archers are well protected. They wear guards that protect their arms from abrasions and chest guards made of plastic or leather to prevent chest injury. American actress Geena Davis generated new interest in the sport in 1999 when she unsuccessfully attempted to win a berth on the 2000 U.S.Women’s Olympic team in Sydney, Australia. Of the 300 semifinalists, Davis came in 24th. Officials subsequently allowed Davis to participate as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Arrow Competition, a move that continued to focus public attention on women’s archery. After losing 160-120 in the 18-arrow alternate shot, Davis stated that she looked upon her participation as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. South Korea dominated women’s archery in every Olympics in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2000 in Sydney, Australia, Yun Mi-Jin won the gold, Kim Nam-Soon the silver, and Kim Soo-Nyung the bronze in the Women’s Individual competition. South Korea also won the team competition due to the combined efforts of Kim Soo-Nyung, Kim Nam-Soon, and Yun Mi-Jin. Four years later, South Korea again won gold (Park Sung-Hyun) and silver (Lee Sung-Jin), but Alison Williams of Great Britain carried home the bronze. South Korea did win the Women’s Team competition again with a team comprised of Lee Sung-Jin, Park Sung-Hyun, and Yun Mi-Jin. In 2008 in Beijing, China, the gold medal for Women’s Individual was awarded to Zhang Juanjuan of China, but South Korea managed to snag the silver and bronze, with medals going to Park SungHyun and Yun Ok-Hee, respectively. The two South Koreans teamed with Joo Hyun-Jung to win the gold medal for the Women’s Team competition. While American women have not won Olympic medals in archery this century, they have done

extremely well in other competitions. The top-ranked American female archer is Jennifer Nichols, who competed at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, and won first place in the United States National Indoor Championships in both 2007 and 2008. Janet Dykman, who is ranked second among American female archers, is one of the oldest competitors. She was 42 years old when she competed in her first Olympics in 1996, and competed in 2000. The United States Olympic Committee named Dykman Athlete of the Year in Archery each year between 1995 and 1998. See Also: Olympics, Summer; Sports, Women in; South Korea; Ukraine. Further Readings Eldred, Sheila. “The Secrets of Sports Science.” New Moon Network, v.5. (February 28, 1998). Gavora, Jessica. “A Field of Nightmares.” The Women’s Quarterly, v.31 (Spring 2002). 2008 Olympic Committee. “Archery.” http://en.beijing 2008.cn/sports/archery (accessed April 2010). Wilson, James. “Amazons.” Transitions, v.19 (June 30, 1999). Elizabeth Purdy Independent Scholar

Architecture, Women in In most countries, women constitute a small proportion of architects. Even in the United States and the United Kingdom, where women entered the profession over a century ago, they are still much underrepresented, especially at the upper levels. In both the United States and United Kingdom, in 2008, less than a fifth of licensed architects were female. Women now form larger proportions of students in architecture schools, with around 40 percent of all enrollments being female. However, the ratio of women falls steadily through the stages in the profession, from internships to licensing, and progressing to firm leadership. Women who do attain leadership of their firm typically do so either in small firms or as a sole practitioner. One early-21st-century estimate of the year when women in the United Kingdom will attain



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differences, with boys exhibiting tendencies for building and outdoor activity and girls decorating interiors. Others, such as Robert Stern, dean of Yale University’s Architecture School, argue that it is the difficulty of combining motherhood with a career that entails long hours and, often, international travel. Whatever the reasons for women’s low profiles, they are being overcome, and the number of women entering and succeeding in the profession is growing.

The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, was Zaha Hadid’s first design project in the United States.

parity in the profession of architecture if current rates prevail was 3000. The reasons for the relative paucity of women in the architectural profession are debatable. However, as Doris Cole pointed out, among Native Americans of the Great Plains, architecture was considered women’s work—it was they who built the tipis in which families lived. It was in the ensuing centuries that architecture became man’s work, and most cities in all parts of the world reflect men’s ideas of aesthetics, functionality, and economy. Various authors have noted that we live in a man-made environment, with consequences for both sexes, but particularly for women. The most commonly advanced reason for this gender imbalance is cultural conditioning—that women have been discouraged from entering professions such as architecture, engineering, and construction by societal expectations. Some argue that gender differences in spatial ability—males may have greater innate spatial understanding—have inhibited the entry of women into the profession. It also has been noted that even today, children’s play often shows stereotypic gender

Advancing Female Architects Various organizations in several countries seek to advance the status of women in architecture. In the United States, the Association of Women in Architecture was established in 1922, growing from a small group formed by women enrolled at the School of Architecture at Washington University (St. Louis), who were excluded from the men’s fraternity. During the 1960s, the association split into regional chapters. There are active groups today in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere. The associations provide educational programs, mentoring, mutual support, grants, and scholarships to women. A third of the associates of the American Institute of Architects are women, though only 14 percent of members of the American Institute of Architects who are licensed are female. In the United Kingdom, the Royal Institute of British Architects commissioned a study in 2002 to explore why women leave the profession. The report found working conditions that were not “family friendly,” paternalistic attitudes, tokenism, and difficulties in maintaining skills and professional networks during career breaks to be significant factors. The institute responded with various policy changes designed to support both women and men who have career breaks for family or recessionary reasons, for example. In 2009, the Royal Institute of British Architects elected its first female president, Ruth Reed. When asked whether she thought that her architecture was influenced by her gender she declined to agree, but she has noted that she had a private practice to facilitate childcare and would like to be seen as a role model for young female architects. Coincidentally, the same year, the Chartered Institute of Building (based in the United Kingdom, but working internationally) elected its first woman president, Li Shirong, who was educated partly in the United Kingdom but works in

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China. She felt that the implications of her appointment were more significant for reflecting China’s role in the global building industry than for her gender. Another ongoing controversy revolves around the question of whether buildings and cities would look different if designed by women rather than men. Some are convinced that there is such a thing as “male architecture,” with phallic towers and hard, block-like shapes, whereas “female architecture” tends toward flowing, rounded shapes and more decorative touches. Others dismiss these ideas, pointing to Frank Gehry’s “feminine” shapes and noting that award-winning female architects’ work is often indistinguishable from their male peers. Because most women architects have been trained in schools with a largely male professoriate and by male practitioners, however, it would perhaps be surprising if their designs were radically different from those of their male colleagues. The proportion of women in the faculty of architecture schools in the United States is currently around 25 percent, so this influence may change. It is, however, incontrovertible that in the early years of the profession, women architects were mainly confined to domestic designs, and it has been only relatively recently that major urban projects have been awarded to female architects. Efforts to increase the visibility of women in the profession date back more than a century. The Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 included an imposing Italian Renaissance Women’s Building designed by Sophie Hayden, who was trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This all-women project featured exhibits on women’s progress, including a library of 7,000 books written by women. The building was financed by Congress, and among the women who spoke during the exposition were Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone. Nearly a century later, a Women’s Building opened in Los Angeles to provide space for feminist artists, crafts, and theater. Among the artists working there was Judy Chicago. Renowned Women Architects Arguably the most renowned living woman architect is Zaha Hadid, who until 2010 was the only woman to have been awarded the Pritzker Prize—architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Hadid was born in Baghdad in 1950 and studied architecture in London before joining the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977. She has taught at

various universities in the United States, Germany, and Austria, and her 250-person firm (Zaha Hadid Architects) is in London. Hadid has won a number of international competitions, although some designs were never built. Among her completed projects are art galleries in Michigan and Ohio, a train station in Italy, and a science center in Germany. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in leading museums including the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Architectural Association in London. Her designs exhibit tectonic fluidity and dynamism, and in recent years they have been influenced by digital methods. She has designed at scales ranging from the urban, to interiors, to consumer products. Despite the fact that her base is, and has been, in London, she has received few commissions for buildings in the United Kingdom—a fact she attributes to not being part of the “brotherhood,” or the male-dominated architect’s network. However, her design for an aquatics center was chosen for construction in London for the 2012 Olympics. Denise Scott Brown, born in 1931 in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), has been an active architect for over four decades. Similar to Hadid, she received architectural training at the Architectural Association School in London before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, she studied at the University of Pennsylvania’s planning department and met and later married Robert Venturi, with whom she established the firm of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. Their influential book on Las Vegas accepted the rampant commercialism of that city’s laissez-faire capitalism and the car-dependence landscape of suburbia as it celebrated the innovative landscapes thus produced. Scott Brown has taught at the University of California–Berkeley, Yale University, and Harvard University and has led various urban design projects, as well as architectural projects in London; Toulouse, France; and Japan. Her book Having Words includes essays about being female in a male-dominated profession. She notes, for example, the impossibility of personal experience or probable consumer feedback by men designing public restrooms for women and describes some of the indignities she suffered from male colleagues even after her professional reputation was well established.

Argentina



Among the more overtly feminist women in the profession is Susanna Torre, who was born in Argentina, taught at Columbia University, and curated an exhibition titled “Women in American Architecture” in the Brooklyn Museum in 1977. Her book based on the exhibit provided an historical and contemporary survey of women in architecture. She was also a founding member of a valuable archive, the International Archive of Women In Architecture, which is based at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University but is also largely available online. A women architect who recently achieved global recognition is Kazuyo Sejima, who in 2010 won the Pritzker Prize with her professional partner, Ryne Nishizawa. Their work includes the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and the Christian Dior building in Tokyo. Sejima studied at Japan Women’s University and bases her work in Japan, as well as at Princeton University in the United States. In 2010, she served as the first female director of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Maya Lin, today best known for her minimalist sculptures and monuments, achieved wide recognition when, at only 21 years old and a student at Yale University, she won the design contest for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982. More recently, her designs have included the Museum of Chinese in America and a ground sculpture—Wavefield—at Storm King Art Center in New York. Sherry Ahrentzen, who has taught architecture at the universities of Wisconsin and Arizona, has focused much effort on including usually marginalized populations in design decisions, especially those related to housing. In 2009, she was given a career award by the Environmental Design Research Association for her lifetime achievements. She and other women architects are gradually changing both the profession of architecture and the appearance of the built environment. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Chicago, Judy; Landscape Architecture, Women in; Lin, Maya; Urban Planning, Women in. Further Readings Adams, Annemarie and Peta Tancred. “Designing Women”: Gender and the Architectural Profession. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

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Cole, Doris. From Tipi to Skyscraper: A History of Women in Architecture. Boston: MIT Press, 1978. Scott Brown, Denise. Having Words. London: Architectural Association, 2009. Torre, Susanna. Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1977. Toy, Maggie, ed. The Architect: Women in Contemporary Architecture. New York: Images, 2001. Briavel Holcomb Rutgers University

Argentina Argentina is the second largest country in South America. The dominant population is of Spanish or Italian descent, and the dominant religion is Roman Catholic. There is also an indigenous presence. Women enjoy full equality under the law, are highly educated, and well represented in business and politics compared with the rest of Latin America. Women are negatively impacted by continued gaps in pay, limited representation at the highest levels of business and politics, and the impact of recent economic instability. Argentina was 24th of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. The 2009 fertility rate was 2.3 births per woman. Skilled healthcare workers attend almost all births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 14 per 1,000 live births; the maternal mortality rate was 77 per 100,000 live births. Women receive 90 days of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of their wages, paid from a state and employer-contributed family allowance fund. Of married women, 65 percent use contraceptives; divorce is legal and increasingly common, despite the Roman Catholic Church’s objection to both practices. Most families are small and nuclear, although extended family members offer assistance and meet regularly for lunches or special occasions. Parents now both have legal authority over their children, although this was not the case in the past. Women perform most household chores and childcare. The use of nannies, babysitters, and daycare centers are also com-

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mon. Many large companies and trade unions provide daycare services for workers. Domestic abuse is a serious problem; however, the Argentinian government offers self-help groups for battered women that offer medical, legal, and psychological assistance. The population tends to be highly educated, with a literacy rate at 98 percent for both genders. There are both public and private schools, and both follow the standard, government-set curriculum. Education is compulsory for ages 6 to 14, with free preschool and higher education available as well. Adult education programs are common, with females making up the majority of students. Female school enrollment rates in 2009 stood at 98 percent for the primary level, 82 percent at the secondary level, and 76 percent at the tertiary level. Approximately 90 percent of the population is urban. The economic crisis of the early 2000s and subsequent slow recovery meant that many formerly middle-class women found their families among the so-called “new poor.” There is good access to healthcare, with most people utilizing a blend of Western and traditional medicine. Problems include a lack of skilled jobs, and growing rates of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), poverty, crime, and corruption. An increased emphasis on physical appearance has led to rising rates of dieting, plastic surgery, and eating disorders in women. The 2009 life expectancy was age 68 for women and age 62 for men. More than half, or 57 percent, of women participated in the labor force in 2009, with women comprising 45 percent of the paid nonagricultural labor force and 54 percent of professional and technical workers. Women are more likely to work at unskilled and low-paying jobs than their male counterparts. Gender gaps remain in average estimated earned income, which stood at $8,595 for women and $15,485 for men, and unemployment, which stood at 11.63 percent for women and 7.79 percent for men. Women still face discrimination and sexual harassment. Child labor is a problem despite legislation. Women have the right to vote and are constitutionally guaranteed equality. Women held 40 percent of parliamentary seats and 23 percent of ministerial positions in 2009. Argentina elected its first female president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in 2007. The National Council on Children and Families, as well

as nongovernmental organizations such as churches and trade unions, pursue women’s issues. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Government, Women in; Heads of State, Female; Machismo/ Marianismo. Further Readings Dore, Elizabeth and Maxine Molyneux, eds. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Navarro, Marysa. “Argentina: The Long Road to Women’s Rights.” In Lynn Walter, ed., Women’s Rights: A Global View. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Armenia Armenia is a landlocked Eurasian country of almost 3 million people, sharing borders with Turkey, Iran, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. In the 4th century, Armenia became the first country to formally adopt Christianity, and today over 90 percent of the population identifies with the Armenian Apostolic Church. Women have played key roles in Armenian history; “Mother Armenia,” a statue symbolizing the Armenian people, occupies a place of honor in the capital city of Yerevan. The World Economic Forum rated Armenia relatively low in gender equality in 2009. On a scale from 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality) Armenia got an overall score of 0.662 (90th of 134 countries). Armenia ranked 29th on educational attainment (0.999) and 56th on economic participation (0.671), but 123rd on political empowerment (0.044) and 133rd on health and survival (0.933). Armenia’s literacy rate is over 99 percent for both men and women, and more women than men attend tertiary education. Employment is common for women, who constitute almost half the nonagricultural work force. Armenia has low birth and fertility rates (12.65 per 1,000 population and 1.36 children per woman, respectively) and this, coupled with high outmigration (minus 4.56 migrants per 1,000 population),



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A 1915 photo of Armenian widows and orphans in Turkey, after the destruction of the Armenian population by the Ottoman Empire. Armenia had been under Ottoman rule since the early 16th century.

results in a slightly negative population growth rate (minus 0.03 percent in 2009). Life expectancy at birth is 69.06 years for men and 76.81 for women. Only 22 percent of women use modern methods of contraception, but abortion is available on demand. Under-five mortality has decreased since 1990, and in 2003 was 4 per 1,000 live births, while maternal mortality was 55 per 100,000 live births and stillbirths were 16 per 1,000 live births. Most births take place in health facilities and are attended by skilled personnel. Childhood immunization rates were over 90 percent for most childhood diseases, and polio has been eradicated in Armenia. Human trafficking is a serious problem in Armenia; the country is on the Tier 2 Watch List, which indicates lack of compliance with the Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act. This signifies lack of compliance with minimum standards to prevent human trafficking, and lack of progress in combating trafficking. Adults (both men and women)

are trafficked to Turkey and Russia for forced labor, while women and children are trafficked to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for sexual purposes. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Orthodox Churches; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Armenia.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/am.html (accessed February 2010). Migliorino, Nicola. (Re)constructing Armenia in Lebanon and Syria: Ethno-Cultural Diversity and the State in the Aftermath of a Refugee Crisis. Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, 2007. Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

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Art Criticism: Gender Issues

Art Criticism: Gender Issues In the 1970s and 1980s several feminist art historians questioned the methodology of the traditional art criticism that constructed an art history composed exclusively of male artists. In her 1971 essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Linda Nochlin called for a reconsideration of the artwork analysis methods to discover women’s artistic creations. This kind of feminist intervention in art history continued in the 1980s. In their 1981 book, Old Mistresses, Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock argued that throughout history art sustained male privilege through a gendered discourse in which Western masculine creativity was regarded as high art while female creativity expressed in decorative art, such as embroidery, was dismissed as mere craft. In a later essay, Pollock pointed out that the changes in art history should go beyond adding forgotten or excluded women artists to the existing male canon. For Pollock, the art critic reproduces the male-dominated art criticism that has excluded women artists and dismissed female creativity. Influenced by Marxist theory, Pollock suggested that there has to be a radical redefinition of the production and consumption of art. Besides the artist and the quality of art objects, the art critic should study the totality of social relations that form the conditions of the production and consumption of objects designated in that process of art. In this approach, the art is no longer just an object but a practice that is informed by gender and sexual difference issues. The interventions of feminist art critics such as Nochlin, Parker, and Pollock in the 1980s and even as early as the 1970s led to the formation of art criticism that is informed primarily by gender issues concerning the art. According to author and professor Gill Perry, gender art criticism can focus on several questions when analyzing a piece of work. These include authorship, the representation of gender difference mainly in case of nonabstract works, the reception of the work, and the gendering of the representation process. A gender sensitive approach can raise the question of whether the artist’s gender influences the interpretation of the work. If the work of art pictures different genders or sexualities, the critic can analyze the modes of representation. Perry has suggested that the

representation processes should be investigated by questioning whether particular painting techniques are more masculine or feminine. This question, however, can be part of a larger investigation on how the language of art and art criticism is gendered. The art critic also could take into consideration how her own gender influences her viewing of the art. The changes that occurred in art criticism circles from the early 1970s cannot be separated from the emergence of strong feminist art practice. The theoretical shifts that occurred throughout the 1980s and 1990s with the emergence of postmodernism and an increasing interest in Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, and queer theory also shaped the language of art criticism. One of the first important feminist art projects was Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, which was exhibited for the first time in 1979 at the San Francisco Museum of Art. The installation consisted of a triangular table covered with embroidered cloth and set with 39 places. Each place was dedicated to one important woman and included needlework design and ceramics decorated with images suggesting female genitalia. Perry wrote that the reception of this feminist art project exemplifies the debates of feminist art criticism. The questions remain: how can decorative arts and feminine art practices be reconceptualized to produce important aesthetic objects; and how can female artists reclaim the female body and their sexuality without reproducing imagery of male fantasies? Sexuality and the accompanying shift in feminine and masculine definitions popular in the 1980s and in the 1990s began a shift in the emphasis from equal rights and social gender constructions to sexual difference and the fluidity and instability of those relations. See also: Body Art; Chicago, Judy; Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago); Feminism, American; Gender, Defined; Queer Theory. Further Readings Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art and Society. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997. Deepwell, Katy and Pauline Barrie, eds. New Feminist Art Criticism: Critical Strategies. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995. Gornick, Vivian and Barbara K. Moran, eds. Woman in a Sexist Society, New York: Basic Books, 1971.

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Meskimmon, Marsha. Women Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics. London: Routledge, 2003. Nochlin, Linda. “Why There Have Been No Great Women Artists?” In Women, Art and Power and Other Essays. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988. Perry, Gillian. Gender and Art. London: Open University Press, 1999. Pollock, Griselda. Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and Histories of Art. London: Routledge, 2003. Pollock, Griselda and Victoria Turvey Sauron, eds. The Sacred and the Feminine: Imagination and Sexual Difference. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Zita Farkas Independent Scholar

Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview) In the current patriarchal system of hierarchies for capital gain, art by woman embodies their physical, social, political, environmental, psychological, and emotional state. The first decade of the 21st century for women artists is a culture of global interaction with much disparity among women’s circumstances. Some women artists assume a deliberate turn to selfdetermination, while others work to expose the economic, political, and social limits experienced in a particular time and place. War, poverty, illness, and the global warming have raged in the first decade in the new millennium. Globally, issues of significance to women visual artists include sexuality, domestic violence and rape, disenfranchisement, and poverty. Activist art by women in the 21st century take up these concerns and others. Cyberfeminist artists with a do-it-yourself (DIY) attitude use the participatory nature of Web applications to mobilize masses for social actions that disrupt business as usual. Contemporary examples include artist Coco Fusco, working with others in Operación Digna (2003), and the collective subRosa (1991–2010). Historically, social structures limiting women’s mobility, education, and networks with influential patrons, critics, and exclusion from influential exhibitions, events, and publications impeded women’s

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careers as visual artists. From the perspective of women visual artists, a niche opened since 2000 for their artwork, particularly if their art relates to women’s lives including sexuality, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, breast cancer, domestic violence/ abuse, rape, eating disorders, and aging. The feminist slogan, “The personal is political,” continues to be evident in visual art by women in their personal upclose views of their experiences. Examples of the personal politicized in artwork include Dánica Phelps’s 36 drawings of each step in taking a shower exhibited at the Zach Feuer Gallery in Chelsea in 2005. This series of drawings mock the male gaze epitomized in 20th-century paintings by men of women bathing that are exhibited at major museums. Another example is Hollis Sigler’s series of paintings in which her personal experiences are intended to raise political consciousness of breast cancer. She died of breast cancer in 2001, one month after receiving the distinguished artist award for lifetime achievement from the College Art Association. Today, art about gender aims to show the artificiality of hierarchical and binary constructions of man/woman (e.g., Catherine Opie’s photographs that disrupt conventional stereotypes in her 2003 series, Surfers; her 2004 series, Chicago; and her 2004–05 series, In and Around Home). Young women artists forging identities as artists in the 21st century confront conformity with a self-styling of femininity or participation in raunch culture (e.g., Nikki S. Lee’s photo/film projects of subcultures she enters, Amy Cutler’s narrative paintings of women working, Kate Gilmore’s video art, or the 2009 group show Goddess at the Under Minerva Gallery in Brooklyn). Artworks by women in the past decade often critique patriarchal political power structures from an intersectional perspective of gender, race, sexuality, and colonialism. For example, Sabba Saleem Syal’s mixed-media installation, A Contested Territory, continues the feminist strategy of the personal is political. Her work places her family’s history within the political history of Pakistan. Sight Unseen: Video From Afghanistan and Iran by Rahraw Omarzad and Seifollah Samadian, exhibited at the Asian Society Museum in Manhattan in 2009, explores spaces of contestation experienced in their lives. An art world tension between representation and abstraction is more conflated, or a confluence, rather

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than oppositional art world camps (e.g., Ingrid Calame’s tracings of stains and skid marks merge subjectivity of body movement and sensation as subject, process, and materiality). The confluence combines real-world experiences and the making of art with the world’s materials, technologies, and ideas. Sites of Women’s Art The Guerrilla Girls, a New York–based group of radical feminist artists, formed in 1985 in reaction to the art world’s exclusion of women artists from art history, major museum collections, influential exhibitions, and art careers. In 2000, some members formed Guerrilla Girls Broadband to use the Internet for feminist art activism. The Guerrilla Girls’ individual identity is protected through use of gorilla masks and pseudonyms of deceased women artists so they can raise awareness of inequitable practices in the art world without personal retaliation. Their 2005 book, The Guerrilla Girls’ Art Museum Activity Book, provides statistics that indicate that artworks by women continue to be underrepresented in museums. For example, 90 percent of solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art featured work by white male artists. Other New York museums have increased their inclusion of women artists such as the Whitney Museum of Art with 30 percent of its exhibitions featuring art by women. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), while still primarily a museum of art by men, has added art by women artists to its collections and programming, such as the 2006 midcareer retrospective of lesbian filmmaker Su Friedrich. The Guerrilla Girls were also invited to MoMA for the 2007 Feminist Future Symposium, which was sponsored as one of several of the Feminist Art Projects’ orchestration for a concerted presence of women artists in 2006 to 2007. Catherine Opie: American Photographer was a solo retrospective at the Guggenheim from September 26, 2008, to January 7, 2009, in the annex gallery rooms rather than along the spiral ramp, the exhibition space of featured artwork. Kitty Kraus (born 1976, Heidelberg, Germany) was invited to exhibit her experimental installations at the Guggenheim from October 9, 2009, to January 6, 2010. Kraus’s work visualizes entropy in that it literally shatters or dissolves during the exhibition. Jennifer Dalton’s 2006 installation, This Is Not News!, is a visualization with a room-sized bar graph

of lights of the ratio of men and women who have had solo gallery shows in Chelsea galleries in New York and in the Whitney Biennial in 2006. Clearly, the white lights, representing men, lit the room suggesting the continual gender disparity for women artists in receiving recognition in the most influential art world venues. In the 21st century, women artists are less disadvantaged than prior decades with entry-level recognition and inclusion in the cultural capital of art world politics, but the disparity in recognition is pronounced in the high-profile art world cultural capital exchange. Women artists have gained confidence in knowing their own success as artists regardless of adverse conditions for women in sustainable careers as artists, in part by creating sites for sharing their artwork outside influential art world gatekeepers. In 2002, Fusion Cuisine was an exhibition of international women artists at the Deste Center for Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece. Curator Rosa Martinez selected artworks representing a variety of strategies to radically reinvent the emotional, sexual, economical, and geopolitical distribution of power. The 2005 Venice Biennale was hailed as a feminist biennale. For the first time, since it began in 1895, two women, Mara de Corral and Rosa Martinez, were major curators directing the Venice Biennale that influences art and artists’ careers. They invited an unprecedented number of women artists who received more awards than the men who were invited to a venue that had been dominated by art and prizes by and for men. The Arsenale exhibition at the Biennale included art by Pilar Albarracin (Spain), Joana Vasconcelos (Portugal), Ghada Amer (Egypt), Louise Bourgeois (United States), Mona Hatoum (Lebanon), Semiha Berksoy (Turkey), Regina Jos Galindo (Guatemala), Emily Jacir (Palestine), Kimsooja (South Korea), Shazia Sikander (Pakistan), Paloma Varga Weisz (Germany), Valeska Scares (Brazil), and Mariko Mori (Japan). Other pavilions included art by Eya-Liisa Ahtila (Finland), Rebecca Belmore (Canada), Monica Bonvicini (Italy), Candice Breitz (Germany), Tania Bruguera (Cuba), Tacita Dean (United Kingdom), Marlene Dumas (Holland), Jenny Holzer (United States), Miyako Ishiuchi (Japan), Barbara Kruger (United States), Annette Messager (France), Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland), Kiki Smith (United States), Jelena Tomasevic (Serbia), and Rachel Whiteread (United Kingdom).



Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview)

Digital Multimedia Art Since 2008, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1987, provides Clara, an interactive database of 18,000 women visual artists. The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, established in 2007 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, is an exhibition and education facility dedicated to feminist art. It includes an ever-expanding online digital multimedia archive of feminist artist profiles from the 1960s to the present. Begun in 2008, artfem.tv is a cyberfeminist action to emphasize women’s feminist art on the international stage of the Internet. Performance, video art, sound art, and documentaries linked on artfem.tv deconstruct sex and gender in patriarchal systems. The Feminist Art Project (TFAP) intervenes in the erasure of women artists by stimulating public attention to feminist art by promoting diverse feminist art events, education, and publications, and by facilitating regional and international networks and programs. Significant exhibitions, which are part of the TFAP, include in 2006 and 2007 How American Women Artists Invented Postmodernism 1970 to 1975, curated by Judith K. Brodskey and Ferris Olin at Rutgers University; Global Feminisms, curated by Linda Nochlin and Maura Reilly at the Brooklyn Museum of Art; WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, curated by Connie Butler at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, One True Thing, curated by Dena Miller at A.I.R. Gallery in New York; From the Inside Out: Feminist Art Then and Now, curated by Claudia Sbrissa at the Yeh Art Gallery at St. John’s University in Queens; Re: Generation curated by Joan Synder and Molly Snyder-Fink shown at galleries in Brooklyn; and Women, Art, and Intellect, curated by Leslie King-Hammond at Ceres Gallery in New York. The Riot Grrrl feminist punk movement, which began in the 1990s, rejected ideals and sought to empower a DIY activist way of life and to hold an aggressively impassionate attitude toward self and others. Their self-published print-based zines of the 1990s and DIY activism is one of the forerunners of the issue-based DIY new media art by women that primarily uses the Internet as a medium, often as part of a collective, team, or group (e.g., Brainstormers, a New York City–based feminist collective, in their 2009 sound installation “May I Please

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Have a Sip of Your Power?,” which asks a repeating loop of questions in a computer-generated voice that address power inequities). Zines, and other print-based feminist publications and databases of women artists, have changed to online multimedia communications in the 21st century. For example, Visual Culture & Gender journal (Hyphen-UnPress) began in 2005, and M/E/A/N/I/N/G (Susan Bee and Mira Schor, editors) changed from print to online in 2000. Two international journals addressing the work of contemporary women artists and feminist theory were founded in the late 1990s: n.paradoxa, a biannual print-based journal founded in January 1998, and Feminist Art Journal, which was founded in December 1996. Using the Internet as art medium (i.e., Net art) has increased in the 21st century and is an area that women artists have contributed to in distinct ways from artistic roots in the 1970s women’s movement’s experiential installations and performance, a form of art in which the body is the medium. Net art involves new possibilities for participatory performance and co-creation of art (e.g., the 2003 cyberperformance Dress the Nation by Avatar Body Collision, a group of four women: Helen Varley Jamieson, Karla Ptacek, Vicki Smith, and Leena Saarinen). Net art has characteristics of intertextuality, nonlinearity, interactivity, and database aesthetics and is situated in communication and experience, not objects (e.g., Victoria Vesna’s Bodies INCorporated begun in 1996 and still continuing with people building virtual bodies). Careers in the visual arts include designers, filmmakers, cartoonists, animators, advertisers, architects, historians, curators, librarians, educators, therapists—and studio, fine, environmental, and craft artists. Some artists hold salaried jobs while others earn their livelihoods from selling art or from commissioned or sponsored art projects such as largescale environmental artworks (e.g., Lynne Hull’s 2008 Tres Artistas Ecoheroinas) or public artworks (e.g., Mary Beth Edelson, who creates small-scale public social spaces). Edelson collaboratively produced an International Artists Contract (Sweden, 2006) that can be downloaded from her Website and tailored as needed to provide equitable conditions for artists. Women are typically underrepresented and earn less than men in each of these visual art careers. For

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example, women cartoonists and animators are in fields dominated by men. Themes in Women’s Art in the 21st Century Since 2000, the themes that women are concerned with in their visual art are in part reflected in the titles of recent exhibitions. In 2009, A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art, curated by Martin Rosenberg and Susan Isaacs, includes 16 women artists whose work was organized into five themes: Image and Text (Superimpositions); Complex Geographies (Hybrids); the Female Body (Pushing the Boundaries); Childhood and Family (Relationships); and Accessories (Clothing and Related Objects). Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, has become an international hub for more than 5,000 professional artists. Open House: Working in Brooklyn, a 2004 exhibition of artworks by contemporary Brooklynbased artists include 87 women and 114 men artists from Aruba, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, Johannesburg, London, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palestine, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Trinidad, United States, and Venezuela. The ratio gap of women to men artists who are recognized as artists has begun to close. The themes that emerged for the curators in their survey conducted to select artworks created since 2000 for Open House include Fable, which critiques everyday situations through new narratives; Quest for Identity; Fear and Desire; Domesticity, which concerns societal inscriptions; Digital Metamorphosis regarding transformative experiences beyond physicality, Structured Environment, and Nature and Landscape. The popular tags for artworks of online databases of contemporary women artists provide insight into significant themes and how society labels the themes in looking at 21st-century art by women and in reading their artist statements. In November 2009, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Feminist Art Base included the following as the most popular labels of women’s art: abstract, activism, aging, AIDS, anonymity, appearance, appropriation, autobiographical, beauty, breastfeeding, body, childhood, China, collage, colonialism, craft, cross dressing, death, decoration, desire, drawing, embroidery, emotions, erotic, fabric, family, female, figurative, France, gaze, gender, global feminisms, goddess, history, humor, identity, imperialism, installation, interior space, internal

organs, Islam, Japan, landscape, language, Latina, Lesbian, life cycles, love, Mali, man, Marilyn Monroe, marriage, masculinity, memory, mixed media, motherhood, narrative, nature, New York, nude, painting, performance, photography, pink, political, pornography, portraiture, postcolonialism, power, pregnancy, printmaking, public art, queer, race, realism, red, relationships, religion, resistance, sculpture, self portrait, sexuality, social activist, Spain, spiritual, sports, stereotypes, still life, stitch, stories, strength, subversive, Sweden, tattoo, text, textile, thread, torso, toys, transformation, transgender, vessel, video, voyeurism, vulnerability, women’s work, and youth. As art historian Linda Nochlin summarized in her review of the 2005 Venice Biennale, “There is no style, theme, iconography, craft, or medium that can be identified as art by women in the 21st century. Yet self-referential themes of the body and social conditioning are gender revealing while difference is apparent in women’s art in the 21st century.” See Also: Chicago, Judy; Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago); Ecofeminism; Guerrilla Girls; Holzer, Jenny; Lin, Maya; Manga; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Pink, Advertising and; Plumwood, Val; Studio Arts, Women in; Walker, Kara; Women in Black; Women Make Movies. Further Readings Butler, Cornelia and Lisa Gabrielle Mark. WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. Los Angeles: MOCA and MIT Press, 2007. Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society, 3rd ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. Collins, Lisa Gail. The Art of History: African American Women Artists Engage the Past. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Fortnum, Rebecca. Contemporary British Women Artists: In Their Own Words. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Ganz, Nicholas. Graffiti Women: Street Art From Five Continents. New York. Harry N. Abrams, 2006. Gómez-Quintero, A., E. Raysa, and M. Pérez Bustillo. The Female Body: Perspectives of Latin American Artists, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls’ Art Museum Activity Book. New York: Printed Matter, 2005. Hopper, Kippra D. and Laurie J. Churchill. Women Artists of West Texas: A Celebration. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2010.



Association for Women’s Rights in Development

Kotik, Charlotta and Tumelo Mosaka. Open House: Working in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 2004. Reilly, Maura and Linda Nochlin, eds. Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art. New York: Brooklyn Museum and Merrell Publishers, 2007. Sigler, Holly, Susan Love, and James Yood. Hollis Sigler’s Breast Cancer Journal. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1999. Wark, Jayne. Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art. Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006. Yoshimoto, Midori. Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Karen T. Keifer-Boyd Pennsylvania State University

Association for Women’s Rights in Development The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) is an international membership organization that aims to strengthen the effect and influence of women’s rights advocates, organizations, and movements internationally. AWID was founded in 1982. Its members include both men and women who are researchers, activists, students, academics, businesspeople, policy makers, development specialists, and more. AWID offers both individual and institutional memberships. The association is a multigenerational, creative, future-orientated feminist organization whose work aims to build knowledge and understanding of the trends and institutions undermining women’s rights and the appropriate strategies to address them; create capacity building measures for and with women’s rights advocates, organizations, and movements; build alliances across differences based on age, gender, sectors, social movements, regions, issues, and communities; and influence international institutions and actors to strengthen their approaches to advance the rights of women worldwide. AWID has divided its work into strategic programs and initiatives, including Challenging and

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Resisting Religious Fundamentalisms, Where Is the Money for Women’s Rights?, Building Feminist Movements and Organizations, Women’s Rights Information, Influencing Development Actors and Practice for Women’s Rights, the Young Feminist Activist Program, and the AWID Forum. The association is a global organization with offices in Toronto, Canada; Cape Town, South Africa; and Mexico City, Mexico. The staff and board of directors are international. Although its work is aimed at empowered women all over the world, the main efforts of AWID are targeted toward the rights of women in the global south and eastern and central Europe. AWID works are published in English, Spanish, and French, as well as Arabic to a lesser extent. Funding for AWID is provided by a number of foundations and government agencies, including ActionAID International, the Canadian International Development Agency, Cordaid, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Global Fund for Women, Hivos, Irish Aid, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Open Society Institute, Oxfam America, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Novib (Netherlands), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the United National Development Fund for Women. In the United States, AWID is registered as a 501(c)(3) organization and is classified as a public charity under section 509(a)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code. AWID produces an annual report. An electronic copy of the latest report is available on the association’s Website at http://www.awid.org. AWID also publishes and provides a wealth of information and resources regarding women’s rights on the site. Every three years, the association hosts an international forum at which women’s rights activists from around the world gather. The most recent forum—the association’s 11th—titled “The Power of Movements,” was held in Cape Town in 2008. See Also: Global Feminism; Mexico; Religious Fundamentalisms, Cross-Cultural Context of; Transnational Feminist Networks; South Africa. Further Readings Association for Women’s Rights in Development. “From WID to GAD to Women’s Rights: The First Twenty

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Years of AWID.” http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and -Analysis/Library/From-WID-to-GAD-to-Womens -Rights-The-First-Twenty-Years-of-AWID (accessed June 2010). Batliwala, Srilatha. Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements. Cape Town, South Africa: Association for Women’s Rights in Development, 2008. Wilson, Shamillah, et al. Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation. London: Zed Books, 2006. Danai S. Mupotsa Monash University

Astronauts, Female An astronaut is a person trained for spaceflight and may serve in a variety of technical positions as a pilot or crewmember. Most astronauts are trained in scientific or technical fields, through either military or civilian programs. Although several nations have space research organizations and agreements, only three countries have launched manned spaceflights: China, Russia (former Soviet Union), and the United States. Of these countries, only Russia and the United States have sent female astronauts into space, although both men and women from other nations (such as England, France, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, Iran, and others) have flown on Russian and U.S. space flights. The Chinese space program is the newest (sending its first astronaut only in 2009), and it is expected to train its first female astronauts sometime in the next decade. International space programs began in the mid20th century when both the United States and Russia established government-run space agencies. Partially in response to Russia launching the Sputnik satellite in 1957, the United States moved forward with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. Russia won this part of the Cold War “space race” by sending the first person, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1961. Two years later, in 1963, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. The space race continued through the 1960s, and in 1969, the United States scored a victory when astronaut Neil Arm-

strong became the first person to walk on the moon. The Russian Mir space station was launched in 1986 and, in the post–Cold War era, many missions have focused on construction and operations at the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian female cosmonauts were therefore in space 20 years before the first (and most famous) U.S. female astronaut, Sally Ride, flew in 1983. Russia has since sent two more women into space: Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982 (also the first woman to walk in space in 1984) and Yelena Kondakova in 1994. Most of the first generation of U.S. male astronauts were trained as military jet pilots, an occupation from which U.S. women were generally excluded. In the 1960s, some women who had served as Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II petitioned for admittance into the astronaut program, but were denied by the U.S. Congress. It was not until the 1970s, when NASA began recruiting research scientists and engineers for the astronaut-training program that women finally entered training. The first class of six women chosen for NASA’s astronaut program were physician Anna Fisher, biochemist Shannon Lucid, electrical engineer Judith Resnik (who died in the Challenger shuttle explosion in 1986), physicist Sally Ride, physician Margaret Rhea Seddon, and geologist Kathryn Sullivan. Women in Space Many more women have been through the astronauttraining program than have had the opportunity to fly and been able to log significant numbers of hours in space. Although Shannon Lucid set a record in 1996 for the longest single spaceflight for any astronaut (male or female) with 188 days at the Mir space station, her record was later surpassed by U.S. engineer Sunita Williams who now holds the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman with 195 days spent at the ISS between December 2006 and June 2007. Other NASA female firsts include Eileen Collins as the first woman to pilot a space shuttle on a Discovery mission in 1995 and Peggy Whitson who, in 2007, became the first female commander of the ISS. Whitson also holds two space records as the woman astronaut with most overall hours in space, having logged more than 376 days in space total from her combined trips to the ISS, and as the woman with the most spacewalks, a total of six to date. In 2008, the United States sent



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was a matter of individual women being allowed the opportunity to prove themselves capable that paved the way for other women to enter the field. In astronautics, the presence of more women astronauts, but also more women as medical researchers and bioengineers, has led to more research on and comparison of the effects of space travel on female and male bodies. Scientists working with NASA and other space agencies are actively researching the effects of gravity, weightlessness, radiation, isolation, and deprivation on muscle response, bone health, immune response, fertility, mental health, and aging, all of which may affect women and men differently. See Also: Mathematics, Women in; Physics, Women in; Ride, Sally; Science, Women in.

Astronaut Nicole Stott in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit fit check at the Johnson Space Center.

its 50th woman into space, mechanical engineer and astronaut Karen Nyberg. Other non-U.S. and nonRussian women who have flown on international or cooperative space missions, as the first female or sometimes first astronaut from their nations, include British engineer Helen Patricia Sharman (1991), Canadian neurologist Roberta Lynn Bondar (1992), Japanese Chiaki Mukai (1994), French engineer and biologist Claudie (André-Deshays) Haigneré (1996), Canadian Julie Payette (1999), Iranian-born U.S. citizen Anousheh Ansari, the first private or civilian space explorer (2006), and Korean Yi So-yeon (2008). Women have worked within the space program as astronauts and as support researchers and engineers, as computer scientists, mathematicians, physicians, biologists, environmental scientists, physicists, and astronomers. Early opponents to women’s participation in astronaut programs often cited women’s physical limitations, as the training and space travel required grueling tests of strength and stamina. As in other physically demanding occupations, however, such as firefighting or military combat service, it

Further Readings American Astronomical Society Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy. “STScI/CSWA Survey Results 1992–2003.” http://www.grammai.org/astro women/allstats.html (accessed November 2009). Kevles, Bettyann H. Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space. New York: Basic Books, 2003. Nolen, S. Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race. New York: Avalon, 2002. Marilyn L. Grady University of Nebraska

Astronomy, Women in Women have historically been excluded from astronomy as a subject of study and a field of employment, and this remains partly the case today. Worldwide, it is estimated that women represent about a quarter of all professional astronomers. However, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the worldwide professional organization for astronomers, found that, in 2008, only 15 percent of its members were women, although this figure is rising. In many countries, such as the United States, the proportion of women in astronomy is higher than their proportion in physics overall, both among students and faculty. The proportion of women in astronomy depends to a large extent on the national context. The proportion

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of women among members of the IAU in 2008 varied from none to over a third, although it is worth mentioning that, in many countries, numbers were too small for statistics to be significant. In the European Union, the proportion of women among IAU members was higher than the 15 percent world average in Italy (25 percent), Bulgaria (25 percent), France (24 percent), Hungary (21 percent), and Ireland (20 percent). On the contrary, their proportion was below the world average in Germany (9 percent), Denmark (10 percent), and the United Kingdom (12 percent). In the United States, women represented 12 percent of IAU members and in Australia, 15 percent. The level of representation of women among professional astronomers also varies according to the seniority of the job, with the proportion of women in senior positions tending to be disproportionately small. In the United States, data from the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy published in 2003 showed a sharp decrease as the level of seniority increases: women represented 30 percent of astronomy graduates, but only 22 percent of postdoctoral researchers, 20 percent of assistant professors, 21 percent of associate professors, and 9 percent of full professors. In a similar vein, the Astronomy Decadal Review Demographics Survey, published in 2005 and conducted by the Australian Academy of Science, showed that, in Australian astronomy, women represented 37 percent of postgraduates, but only 10 percent of tenured staff. Worldwide, it is also very unusual to find a woman at management level in research institutes of astronomy. In countries where such data is collected, the presence of women at that level is close to none. Women astronomers also tend to remain in the background and their works not acknowledged to the same extent as men’s works. Biographies of women astronomers have been produced to highlight their contribution to the field, although the likes of Hildegard von Bingen and Maria Cunitz are yet to become household names in an equivalent way to the likes of Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler. The attribution in 1974 of the physics Nobel Prize to the supervisor of Jocelyn Bell for her discovery of the first radio pulsars when she was a postgraduate student is commonly used to illustrate the lack of acknowledgement faced by women astronomers (and women in science, more generally).

Important changes in the 1970s and the subsequent establishment of a more egalitarian gender contract in most of the Western world have meant that events such as the one experienced by Jocelyn Bell may have become more unlikely. Since the 1990s, “women in science” is on the agenda of many governments and international organizations, such as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the European Commission. In astronomy in particular, the 1992 Baltimore Charter for Women in Astronomy and the 2003 Pasadena Recommendations for Gender Equality in Astronomy have raised issues of gender equality in astronomy, with the former recommending some major changes in organizational practices, endorsed in 2005 by the American Astronomical Society Committee. More recently, a resolution was passed at the 2009 IAU General Assembly, backing the need to support women astronomers at all levels of the career ladder (Resolution B4, On Supporting Women in Astronomy). As part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, the “She Is an Astronomer” cornerstone project, which has similar aims, was launched. Understanding Women’s Place in Astronomy There is a dearth of research on the barriers to women’s entry and progression specific to astronomy. However, the explanations given for women’s relative exclusion and marginalization in science in general also apply to astronomy. These explanations include the social construction of gender, with science, and especially the disciplines of physics, usually associated with masculinity. As a result of this, girls may be deterred from going into the branches of physics, for example because of stereotypical career advice, peer pressure, or teachers’ and parental expectations. Other explanations have focused on the marginalization of women within science and their difficulties in progressing through the ranks. Such approaches, which sometimes draw on a feminist theoretical framework, have explained the marginalization and exclusion patterns of women in astronomy as a matter of gender discrimination against women. This may be because of institutional policies and practices biased in favor of men, who may be given more access to support, mentoring and networks, or because organizational cultures ignore the fact that women are more likely than men to be the main carer

Attainment, College Degree



for dependents and do not consider their needs. As for scientific occupations in general, astronomy is a field that demands long working hours, regular attendance at conferences, and, for some particular areas of the subject, taking part in lengthy campaigns of observations, all of which may be difficult to balance with raising a family. Similarly, astronomy requires a high level of geographical and institutional mobility, with astronomers often taking several postdoctoral positions. As a result, astronomers often do not get a permanent position before being well in their thirties, that is in the usual child-breeding years. Career breaks are also problematic in terms of keeping up to date with scientific and technological developments in the field of expertise. With men, in most heterosexual partnerships, being perceived as the main breadwinner and women the main carer, all of these factors are more likely to have a negative impact on women’s careers. See Also: Mathematics, Women in; Physics, Women in; Science, Women in; STEM Coalition. Further Readings American Astronomical Society Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy. “STScI/CSWA Survey Results 1992-2003.” http://www.grammai.org/astro women/allstats.html (accessed November 2009). Australian Academy of Science. “A Demographic Study of Australian Astronomy.” http://www.atnf.csiro.au/nca /WG1.1%20Report.pdf (accessed November 2009). International Astronomical Union. “Geographical Distribution of Individual Members.” http://www .iau.org/administration/membership/individual/ distribution (accessed November 2009). Marie-Pierre Moreau University of Bedfordshire Julien Malzac Université de Toulouse, CNRS

Attainment, College Degree In order to acheive full participation in the global knowledge-based economy of the present and future and to ensure development of prosperous world enterprise, all women must be positioned to obtain degrees

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in higher education. This article reviews past and recent findings regarding the status of international women in terms of college degree attainment. Some additional information relevant to the educational background and skills necessary for successful college preparation includes literacy rates and primary and secondary education completion rates, as these are vital indicators in the process that prepares women for attainment of higher education degrees. Modern economies in both advanced and developing countries must have a highly educated workforce of women in all leading areas of science and technology in order to prosper and grow in cutting-edge fields like bioinformatics, nanotechnology, neuroscience, neuromedicine, genetic engineering, behavioral economics, and many others. Having a college degree has been associated with higher lifetime income, more secure retirement, career flexibility, and the ability to achieve middle-class status or better. Robert Barro and Jhong-Wha Lee report that the wage differential in income of a college-educated individual compared to income of a person with only a primary (elementary education) is 240 percent. A recent U.S. Central Intelligence Agency publication, the CIA World Factbook, reports that countries with a higher percentage of population with college degrees have lower unemployment rates than those countries with less educational attainment. This suggests that a college degree may help reduce the risk of unemployment for women during a global economic downturn because those women prepared with a college education may represent a better match to everevolving technical, medical, scientifically advanced, and highly skilled jobs of the future. This, however, was not the case in Poland, where the economic downturn may have affected the population more broadly. It appears that there are exceptions to how well an advanced education can protect degree holders from the risk of unemployment. A possible drawback associated with college degree attainment for females relates to the tendency for many women to postpone childbirth until after degree attainment, which, in some cases, has been associated with reduced fertility patterns due to increased maternal age. Participation Rates In “Higher Education and Society,” a report written in 2000 by participants in an international conference

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sponsored by the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), it was reported that countries with higher per capita incomes had more participation in higher education overall; countries like Canada, the United States, France, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Finland showed the majority (over 50 percent) of their respective populations involved in obtaining some form of higher education. The lowest participation rates in higher education were in parts of Africa and the Middle East, Afghanistan, Soviet Georgia, and Pakistan. Historically, many countries have shown a pattern of men reaching more educational attainment, particularly at the college level, than women. This trend has balanced out or reversed direction in recent years throughout many countries. Males are now less likely to graduate than women from the most predictable pipeline to college—secondary education—in almost all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with a few exceptions: Turkey, Korea, and Switzerland. Literacy Literacy is a first step and a vital one in preparing young women with the necessary skills for successful college degree attainment. According to OECD statistics from 2008, worldwide, the highest rates of literacy in females were in Finland, Georgia, Greenland, and Luxembourg, which were all tied for first place. The lowest literacy rates were in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Afghanistan, which all ranked near the bottom. Extensive research by Barro and Lee, who compiled and studied survey and census data reports from both OECD and non-OECD countries, suggests the greatest improvement in literacy rates has been in developed or advanced countries that now report an overall literacy rate of 92.9 percent for 15- to 24year-olds. Contrast this finding with the literacy rate of 52.9 percent for that same age group in those same countries back in 1950. This dramatically demonstrates the significant progress that has been made in this area over the past 60 years. Developing countries need to focus on literacy programs for their populations in order for women to be better positioned to pursue all levels of education in preparation for college degree attainment. Developed and advanced countries may be able to share

resources with developing countries to help promote literacy efforts in developing countries. International partnerships or exchange programs to develop literacy volunteer programs based on successful, established programs and resource sharing are among potential solutions that can help address this area. Gender Gap Continues Global rates of college participation of younger populations are increasing, which will help the younger generation’s prospects for participation in advancing fields that will lead the world economy. In 2003, a report by OECD showed that the proportion of 20-year-old students in higher education was highest for Greece at 56 percent, followed by Belgium at 46 percent, France at 42 percent, Spain and the United States at 38 percent, Canada at 37 percent, and Ireland at 35 percent. Population age demographics of some of these countries may account for some of the relative difference in trends. Barro and Lee’s 2010 report on education statistics in 146 countries shows that females continue to lag behind males in average years of education where the ratio of females to males in developed countries for average years of education is 85.9 percent. Their report also indicates that in developing countries, the female-to-male ratio for average years of education is lowest in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and south Asia, where it is only 70 percent. Recent Trends Women are now overrepresented in college participation and degree attainment in the United States, especially in the liberal arts and education areas. This is not the case in other degree fields in the United States or for women in other countries, especially those with lower female participation rates in higher education compared to males, such as the Middle East and subSaharan Africa and south Asia as mentioned above. For example, in countries where women are not allowed to regularly attend school at or beyond elementary levels, they fall out of the system for achievement of literacy, elementary education completion, and secondary education entrance and completion, all of which are necessary steps for successful early college preparation. Women in advanced countries, however, continue to remain underrepresented in several key highly skilled professional degree fields including science, engi-



neering, and computer science, which typically lead to traditionally higher paid occupations and higher lifetime earnings potential. New global women in the STEM (Science, Technology, and Engineering) program exchange efforts may represent one of the ways to address these deficits in participation in science and engineering by women and other underrepresented groups on an international level. Increased mentoring of young women by women established in these fields is essential to increase successful degree completion in the sciences, technology, and engineering fields. According to OECD statistics, beginning in 2000 and up to the present in 2010, the rate of graduation overall from college has been level in the United States, although there are gender differences noted in certain fields where women are underrepresented, including engineering and computer science. However, the college graduation rate has recently doubled in Austria, Finland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, and Switzerland. Moreover, over onethird of students in the two dozen countries tracked by OECD have completed a college education at the tertiary type A level. Tertiary type A–level education refers to theoretically based programs that require a minimum of three years of full-time-equivalent study. These programs of study are designed to prepare students to further their education in professional areas such as medicine, dentistry, and other advanced fields and/or for advanced study with a research focus. The U.S. equivalent of a tertiary type A degree would be a master’s degree. Value of Postsecondary Education A 2010 article by Anthony Carnevale, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl showed the increasing value of postsecondary education for advancing upward mobility and higher lifetime earnings. Based on a method of comparative generations’ analysis in the United States, their study illustrated a trend that shows 26 percent of the middle class had a college education four decades ago. This is in contrast to the present in which 61 percent of the middle class now have college educations. The most recent international data has been reported by Barro and Lee in the previously mentioned report that involved an extensive census-/survey-based, global multiyear (1950 to 2010) study using a five-year interval, multicohort, cross-sectional com-

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parison of the educational attainment outcomes of the populations of 146 countries from age 15 and up. From this report, in relation to determining the value of progressive educational attainment, the estimated rate of return for each additional year of schooling ranges from 5 percent to 12 percent, and increases toward the high end of that range at the secondary and tertiary educational levels. Associated Benefits of College Degree Attainment Several researchers have reported information related to data supporting the finding that there are other benefits of educational attainment at advanced levels including reduced rates of mortality. It stands to reason that women with advanced degrees will be better positioned to obtain employment and be able to access healthcare more readily than those women without advanced degrees. Access to medical care and resources to pay for that care may potentially increase overall health status and longevity. With continually rising healthcare costs, it will take sufficient resources for women to be able to afford those expenses. Additional benefits for college degree attainment for women that are generally known but nonetheless are especially salient and should be noted relate to the fact that women tend to outlive men by a number of years (at least five in the United States for all nationalities as of 2004) according a 2007 report from the National Center for Health Statistics Health, United States. Once black or white women in the United States, of all nationalities, live to age 65, the report shows that they can expect to live another 19 to 20 years, making sufficient lifetime earnings necessary for a lengthy retirement period. Another important concern is related to the fact that many working women will lose varying periods of time for earnings accrual during pregnancy and childbirth and/or childrearing periods. Loss of earnings accrual can limit retirement resources significantly. These two realities make it more important for women to obtain college degrees and be able to obtain higher earnings to ensure greater lifetime earnings potential. Higher lifetime earnings potential made possible by a college degree can help address the fact that, in many countries, women may start out as the sole provider of their children. Additionally, many women will become single parents whether

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through divorce or widowhood and may also become the sole providers for their children’s emotional and economic needs. More Women With Degrees in Some Countries and Certain Disciplines In terms of educational attainment at the college level, several Western countries have reported growing rates of women obtaining their degrees. In the United States, by 2005, three out of 10 working women had college degrees according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The majority of those degrees are in liberal arts/social science areas. Sixty-eight percent of women in Canada, aged 25 to 44, had completed a postsecondary education in 2007. Prolonged education has one final advantage in terms of lower infant mortality according to a National Center for Health Statistics report from 2007. In the United States, for all nationalities, the percentage of live births was 26 percent for women of all nationalities for those with 16 years of education or more, and only 22 percent for women of all nationalities with less than 12 years of schooling. See Also: Attainment, Elementary School Completion; Attainment, Graduate Degree; Attainment, High School Completion; Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; STEM Coalition. Further Readings Barro, Robert J. and Jong-Wha Lee. “A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World, 1950–2010.” Working Paper 15902, National Bureau of Economic of Research. http://www.nber.org/papers/w15902 (accessed June 2010). Carnevale, Anthony, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl. “Helped Wanted: Projections of Job and Educational Requirements Through 2018.” A Report From the Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 2010. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Education at a Glance, OECD Indicators. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2002. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Education at a Glance 2007, Population that Has Attained Tertiary Education. Paris: OECD Statistics, 2007.

Task Force on Higher Education and Society. Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. Geneva: World Bank and UNESCO, 2000. Karen M. Wolford State University of New York, Oswego

Attainment, Elementary School Completion The numbers of children overall and girls in particular enrolled in and completing elementary or primary education have increased since the 1960s, although progress has remained uneven between countries and regions and gender inequities remain. Poverty was the most significant determinant of nonattainment in elementary school completion, followed by rural residence. Gender and membership in socially excluded groups were lower but were still significant determinants. Governmental and nongovernmental organization (NGO)–sponsored programs, such as the School Fee Abolition Initiative, continue to reduce barriers to female elementary and primary school completion worldwide. Gender parity in education is a crucial component to the elimination of gender inequities beyond the classroom. Elementary or primary school enrollment and completion have become key goals of many governments and NGOs worldwide. International statistics gathered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have revealed a rapid decline in the number of schoolage children not enrolled in primary or elementary schools since 2000, with the percentage of girls not attending down 24 percent between 1999 and 2004. These trends mark the continuation of a pattern of improvement that began in the 1960s. The biggest gains in numbers of children enrolling during this same period were found in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, with gains of 19 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Progress has been greatest at the elementary or primary level, with the largest educational gender gaps found at the secondary and higher levels. Gains in female enrollment are also found when just low-income countries are considered. In these countries, the percentage of girls enrolled at the pri-



Attainment, Elementary School Completion

mary level stood at 94 percent in 2004, up from 52 percent in the 1970s. In that same year, girls represented 48 percent of all elementary and primary school students, up from 38 percent in the 1970s. Statistics show that the countries with the highest rates of poverty have improved the primary level gender parity rate to 94 percent. Growth since the 1970s in Latin America and the Caribbean went from 82 to 99 percent, the Middle East and North Africa from 77 to 91 percent, south Asia from 62 to 80 percent, and subSaharan Africa from 51 to 60 percent. In certain parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, enrollment rates are actually higher for girls than boys. While overall elementary school enrollment rates have risen, uneven progress has left sizeable differences remaining among and within countries and between genders. The largest gender gaps were found in the regions of south Asia and north, west, and subSaharan Africa and countries such as Yemen, Iraq, India, and Benin. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, only 60 percent of girls were enrolled in school in 2004. Despite progress toward universal primary education, UNESCO estimated that there were still approximately 75 million children not enrolled in school worldwide in 2007, and girls still comprise just over half of these children. Hindrances to Enrollment and Completion Many girls in developing countries lack full access to elementary or primary school enrollment for a variety of reasons. Poverty is one of the largest single determinants of nonenrollment at the elementary and primary levels, with enrollment rates lower and gender inequities higher among the lowest income families. Many poor families cannot afford to pay school fees, or girls do not attend school due to the family’s financial need for children to work. The second largest and often related determinant is rural residency. Most schools are located in urban areas and rural children often must travel great distances to attend. Other hindrances to elementary school enrollment include rural residency and distance from schools, rising rates of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and the orphans it produces, endemic conflicts or natural disasters, and discrimination against socially disadvantaged groups based on class or caste, gender, religion, ethnicity, or physical disability. Those

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who belong to several disadvantaged groups experience even higher levels of nonenrollment. Many girls are not enrolled in school due to cultural or religious beliefs that women are less intelligent, should not be educated, or do not need an education to fulfill their traditional gender role. UNESCO 2007 figures showed that female members of socially excluded groups comprised close to 70 percent of all girls not attending school. Girls’ elementary and primary school completion rates have also improved, rising at a faster rate than boys’ completion rates. According to World Bank statistics, the universal primary education completion rate for girls stood at 70 percent in 2006, up from 57 percent in 1999. Female completion rates, however, are even lower than enrollment rates, as many girls who begin their education are forced to drop out before graduation. Many have to drop out if payment of school fees or distance becomes too great a burden on their families or the need to work arises. International Efforts Toward Universal Primary Education and Gender Equity Governments and NGOs have emphasized universal primary education, gender equity in education, and improved educational access and quality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The United Nations (UN) established a series of Millennium Development Goals, including gender parity in primary education and primary school completion for all children, in recognition of the importance of education to other aspects of development. Although many developing countries did not meet the initial 2005 deadline for gender parity, programs such as school fee abolition have resulted in steadily rising female enrollment, attendance, and completion rates. Governments and NGOs, such as the Forum for African Women Educationalists, have implemented a variety of local, national, and international educational programs such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Bank’s School Fee Abolition Initiative (SFAI), and the United Nation’s Education for All (EFA). These programs have increased global female elementary or primary enrollments and completion rates and demand for female education, especially within developing countries. Research studies in a variety of countries have positively linked female educational attainment at all levels with a variety

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of economic and social benefits. These studies have demonstrated that female education is among the most cost-effective and highest-yielding development efforts. Programs to increase access to elementary or primary education have utilized such methods as abolishing the school fees that many poor parents cannot afford or offering scholarships, providing stipends, conditional cash transfers, or using other fiscal incentives for increased female enrollment. Kenya was one of the first countries to abolish school fees under the SFAI program. Although Kenya’s SFAI experience resulted in initial problems, as schools were unprepared and ill equipped to handle the experienced enrollment surges, they adapted and now serve as a role model for other countries that seek to implement the initiative. Programs have also addressed other non-genderspecific constraints, such as conflicts, distance to schools, and health-related issues such as HIV/AIDS in addition to the gender inequities that prevent many girls from enrolling in or completing elementary or primary schooling. These inequities include social constraints based on the low priority traditionally given to female educational attainment due to lowered beliefs in the need for female education, lowered expectations for female intelligence or success, and religious or cultural beliefs that do not support female education. Programs have also emphasized the need to improve student retention, the overall quality of educational standards, systems, and instruction, to increase the relevance and value given to education, and to reduce gender inequities within the classroom. Goals have included the recruitment of more female teachers, better teacher training, and the use of gender-sensitive materials and methods of instruction. Programs have also sought to tailor female education to local needs, cultures, and religious beliefs through the development of country specific agendas in an attempt to gain more local community support for their efforts. Advocates for universal primary education and gender parity note that educational inequities result in and reinforce greater societal inequities once students leave the classroom. Female primary school attendance and completion has been a key goal of many government and NGO programs because of female educational attainment’s

positive impact on other development goals at the individual, family, and community levels. On the economic level, female educational attainment correlates to increased economic productivity, higher wages, family incomes, and savings rates, reduced poverty levels, increased female financial independence and decision making. Female educational attainment also results in increased female access to the labor, land, credit, expert assistance, and new technology needed to establish the female-owned micro-businesses that are rapidly arising in many developing countries. Gender-related social benefits include the increased value of women’s roles, increased female political participation and family decision-making responsibilities, and lowered rates of violence against women. Health-related social benefits include lowered fertility and child and maternal mortality rates, improved nutrition and health practices, increased knowledge and rates of protection against HIV/AIDS, and lowered rates of female genital mutilation. These benefits result spur development, improve individual, family, and community wellbeing, and help end the cycle of poverty and limited education, as children of mothers who completed their elementary or primary educations are much more likely to complete their own educations. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Global Campaign for Education. Further Readings Biklen, Sari Knopp and Diane Pollard. Gender and Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Jejeebhoy, Shireen J. Women’s Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behavior: Experience From Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. King, Elizabeth M. and M. Anne Hill. Women’s Education in Developing Countries: Barriers, Benefits, and Policies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press (for the World Bank), 1993. Lewis, M. A. and M. E. Lockheed, eds. Exclusion, Gender and Education: Case Studies From the Developing World. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2007. Lewis, M. A. and M. E. Lockheed. Inexcusable Absence: Why 60 Million Girls Still Aren’t in School and What to Do About It. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2006.

Attainment, Graduate Degree

Tembon, Mercy and Lucia Fort. Girls’ Education in the 21st Century: Equality, Empowerment, and Growth. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Attainment, Graduate Degree In a majority of countries, a graduate degree is a program of study that continues past a bachelor’s program. An example of a graduate degree is a master’s degree and/or a doctoral degree, both of which can be considered terminal degrees. A terminal degree is usually, though not universally, considered the highest degree to be attained in a given field. Examples of less common degrees from the United States and other countries that may be considered terminal are Master of Fine Arts, Juris Doctor, habilitation, and higher doctorates. Although an increasing number of women are entering graduate institutions for terminal degrees, they continue to fight the “glass ceiling,” to complete their degrees and find employment. The glass ceiling refers to biases in the workforce or education that prevent women and minorities from achieving positions of responsibility. A number of reasons are theorized to explain the difference between the number of women who are accepted to graduate programs and those that complete graduate programs throughout the world. Though women in general continue to have difficulty completing graduate degrees, women of color in the United States and women outside the United States bear the greatest burden in their attempts to continue their education. History of Women in Education Women have and continue to work hard for equal consideration with men. Prior to the 1900s, women known to achieve graduate degrees are few in example. This time is highlighted by individual firsts for women. A number of women represent the first women to attain various graduate degrees in the United States. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to achieve a graduate degree in medicine

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in 1849. Fifteen years later, Rebecca Crumpler was the first black woman to achieve this same degree. Lucy Hobbs was the first female dentist. While Arabella Mansfield was the first woman to practice law in Iowa, Ada Kepley was the first to graduate from law school in 1869. While these examples of firsts for women are important, they did little at the time to create true change for women in the United States or the world. Real societal change for women, however, can be attributed to several key events of the 1900s: the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1921, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, World War II, and the equal rights movement. The Nineteenth Amendment gave women of the United States the right to vote. During the civil rights movement, minorities fought for the equality denied to them since the Civil War. World War II provided women with an opportunity to do their part in support of the war by going to work in jobs vacated by the soldiers and gave women the opportunity to see themselves in roles other than wife, mother, teacher, or nurse. The equal rights movement allowed women’s voices to be heard with regard to equal pay for equal work and also ensured that women were given equal opportunities for work as men. These events gave an increasing number of women an entrée into educational institutions and degree programs that were male dominated. While women in the United States were making some headway, it would be many years before women in many countries outside the United States began to make the same strides in their education goals as well as in employment. Recent Trends in Education The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that the number of women in graduate school has exceeded the number of men since 1984 for both full-time and part-time students. While NCES also reports increases in minority students since 1976, there are not clear demographics related to the numbers of female minorities attending graduate school. Additionally there is no cumulative international data that represent the number of women in graduate programs from countries outside the United States. However, a word search for women and graduate school in the academic databases Academic Search Premier, Psych Info, and ERIC find an increasing number of articles describing the role of women from interna-

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tional countries and their quest for academic equality with their male counterparts. Trends in many countries tell a story of women fighting for equality, much like the women of the late 1960s and early 1970s. For example, some countries continue to retain the traditional values regarding women remaining in the home. Prior to 1990, countries like Greece had few options for women continuing to live in their country of origin to obtain an advanced degree. However, with the recent incorporation of online learning graduate programs, women from countries with more traditional values for woman’s role are now able to consider working toward a graduate degree while in the home. While not a perfect solution, as the demands of online education can still be quite rigorous, it gives these women the flexibility to work on a degree while still maintaining their traditional lifestyle. Countries like Sweden are attempting to address the inequalities of women in graduate education. Here, equal opportunity legislation states that in areas where one sex is underrepresented, recruitment to address the issue will be implemented. While this represents the willingness of the dominant culture in Sweden to create change, this policy regarding change does not include the voices of the women it seeks to help. Problems With Graduate Degree Attainment A number of problems deter women from completing graduate work. Women traditionally lack the mentorship needed to complete graduate work. Many times, women are unable to find female mentors who understand the issues that female graduate students face. Female faculty find themselves in growing demand due to growing female student populations and larger student/faculty ratios. Women, regardless of color, face the same challenges that men face when deciding to pursue a graduate degree. Like men, they struggle with the challenges of paying for school, balancing the demands of school and family, and ultimately finding a professional job. Unlike men, women globally tend to be the main caregivers to children and/or aging parents along with managing the home and perhaps maintaining a job apart from graduate school as well as the home. Additionally, women in many countries experience problems attaining a job after graduation, or they are unable to find advancement after finding an entry-level position. Today, few women are represented as senior

faculty members or administrators in graduate institutions around the world. While the United States reports more women than men in educational institutions, these numbers are not the case outside the United States. The culture of many countries continues to value males over females. For example, parents of children in many African countries deprive the family of necessities in order to send their male children on to high school with the intention of these sons continuing school in order to have the possibility to attain a terminal degree. Few females in these same countries are given the opportunity to continue their schooling, despite their interest in doing so. Most often, the girls are encouraged to marry and have a family. Should these girls later decide to attend school, they must gain the support of their husbands to continue their educations. While they may have consent to attend school, this support does not generally lend itself to also providing physical support like helping with childcare or daily chores around the home. Women in graduate programs struggle with issues of confidence regarding their own abilities. Additionally, women are more likely than men to show the lack of confidence. Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule explain that girls and women have more difficulty asserting their authority, considering themselves authorities, expressing themselves in public, gaining respect for their minds and ideas, and fully utilizing their talents. A possible reason attributed to this lack of confidence is related to many graduate institutions’ decisions to increase the enrollment of women and minorities by favoring enrollment of these populations, thereby providing a reason for the female graduate women to doubt herself. Women of color may struggle to identify with the majority group. Patricia Collins reports that these women have their own interpretation of oppression; they report different life experiences than the majority group and view their reality differently. This presents a problem when the graduate student of color attempts to find her way within the majority group paradigm. These women report not feeling heard by their peers or the teachers. While many may begin graduate school with the intent of creating a paradigm change, if the student is not heard, she may withdraw from the program. Students who are able to



bridge the gap find that while they may not overcome the views of their professors or peers, they have found that they have overcome the white myth that minorities are unable to excel in education. Ultimately, these issues can work against women and minorities in the completion of a graduate degree. One theory regarding the completion of graduation school compares women and minorities pouring into the educational system like water in a pipeline. When the pipeline works, these women and minorities, in theory, should begin their education in primary school, continue on to a secondary education, and then move into graduate work. If the system is working effectively, these women will complete the pipeline by gaining employment in their chosen field. Problems in the pipeline occur when the system has “leaks.” When the pipeline has a leak, then a growing number of women can enter the pipeline but this will not result in a growing number of women and minorities completing their graduate degrees. This same analogy also applies to women and minorities entering institutions of higher learning. While growing numbers may obtain entry-level positions, nontenured positions, or adjunct positions, few are able to break the educational glass ceiling of tenure and of positions of academic administration. Therefore, policy decisions in academics remain elusive concepts to many women and minorities. While there are problems that interfere with women and minorities attaining a graduate degree, the future remains hopeful. As long as the number of women entering graduate school continues to increase and these women grow in understanding regarding the issues that prevent them from completing their degree, this should translate into greater graduate degree attainment for women throughout the world. As these women grow in numbers, opportunities to replace older academicians will also increase. As these same women become emerging leaders in their academic institutions, they will ultimately make the policy decisions that can lead to true social change. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, College and University; Educational Opportunities/Access; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Mentoring; Women’s Colleges.

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Further Readings Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. Maton, Kenneth I., et al. “Minority Students of Color and the Psychology Student Pipeline: Disquieting and Encouraging Trends 1989–2003.” American Psychologist (February/March 2006). Puljak, Livia, Sanja K. Kojundzic, and Damir Sapunar. “Gender and Academic Medicine: A Good Pipeline of Women Graduates Is Not Advancing.” Teaching and Learning in Medicine, v.20/3 (2008). Vryonides, Marios and Chryssi Vitsilikas. “Widening Participation in Postgraduate Studies in Greece: Mature Working Women Attending an E-Learning Programme.” Journal of Education Policy, v.23/3 (2008). Williams, Meca R., et al. “Learning to Read Each Other: Black Female Graduate Students Share Their Experiences at a White Research I Institution.” Urban Review, v.37/3 (2005). Xu, Yonghong J. “Gender Disparity in STEM Disciplines: A Study in Faculty Attrition and Turnover Intentions.” Research in Higher Education, v.49 (2008). Julie Anne Strentzsch St. Mary’s University

Attainment, High School Completion Successful attainment of education helps predict whether women around the world will have overall well-being, and it is a strong predictor of economic success, not only for women but for their countries as well. Educational attainment is defined as the highest level of education completed, and includes primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. High school completion is a necessary step on the road to educational attainment and resultant economic success and is itself dependent on primary school success and literacy. However, completing a high school education does not hold the same guarantees or opportunities that it used to, in terms of finding future employment. Having a high school diploma is the norm in some countries. In the United States, for example, 85 percent of

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the population overall have a high school diploma, with women having higher rates than men. In other countries, high school completion rates are varied. In Australia, for example, compulsory education had been required through age 15 and is now age 16 (upper secondary level). As of 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) research shows that nearly 80 percent of the 25 to 34 age group have completed that level of educational attainment in Australia. In countries where high school completion attainment or equivalent vocational education has not been attained, there is a disadvantage in terms of being competitive in the labor market. This is most true in France, New Zealand, Ireland, and Australia (those without high school completion were 3.5 times more likely to be unemployed compared to those who had graduated from high school), whereas in Finland and Germany, there was no disadvantage, and in the United States, Spain, and Canada, unemployment was just as likely for those who had no high school degree as those who did. Statistics on High School Completion According to OECD statistics, the percentage of females who have completed at least upper secondary education in the 25-to-34-year-old age groups are Australia, 83 percent; Austria; 84 percent; Belgium, 83 percent; Canada, 93 percent; Czech Republic, 94 percent; Denmark, 86 percent; Finland, 92 percent; France, 84 percent; Germany, 84 percent; Greece, 80 percent; Hungary, 85 percent; Iceland, 72 percent; Ireland 87 percent; Italy, 72 percent; Korea, 98 percent; Luxembourg, 78 percent; Mexico, 38 percent; Netherlands, 84 percent; New Zealand, 82 percent; Norway, 86 percent; Poland, 93 percent; Portugal, 52 percent; Slovak Republic, 94 percent; Spain, 70 percent; Sweden, 92 percent; Switzerland, 88 percent; Turkey, 31 percent; United Kingdom, 75 percent; United States, 89 percent. The overall European Union (EU) female secondary education attainment rate was 83 percent compared to the OECD average, which was 80 percent for the 25-to-34-year-old age group. This trend is much higher than for the respective EU and OECD age group averages for women 55 to 64, whose grade 12 completion rates were 53 percent for EU and 52 percent for OECD countries. In the 25-to-34 age group,

educational attainment for females (grade 12 secondary completion rates) in partner countries was Brazil, 51 percent; Chile, 64 percent; Estonia, 90 percent; Israel, 88 percent; Russian Federation, 93 percent; and Slovenia, 94 percent. For the majority of these countries, public education provides the schools that are the primary place for women to obtain upper secondary education. The majority of women attend these schools full time. Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region countries believe that the right to education is important for women. For some countries, that education has been emphasized at the primary level, which has been said to be universal in this region. Educational quality can be a problem in terms of developing a competitive work force for the future. Gender gaps in secondary education are improving in terms of enrollment. Overall 2003 UNESCO statistics for the MENA region show the following: females in secondary enrollment are at 62 percent, and males are at 71 percent. For Jordan, females outnumber males in secondary enrollment at 89 percent, compared to 86 percent for males. The same is true in Palestine: females enrolled in secondary education are 86 percent, and males 80 percent; and in Qatar, the female rate is 92 percent, and 86 percent for males. In Iran, the rate is 75 percent for females, compared to 81 percent for females, and in Iraq, the female rate is 29 percent, and male rate is 47 percent. Countries that have invested in education more recently, such as Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria, have experienced improved economic development. The country with the lowest reported enrollment rate for women compared to men was Yemen, with 25 percent of women enrolled at the secondary level, and 69 percent of the men enrolled at this level. Actual educational attainment rates were difficult to find for this region, and may be higher than the 2003 data might suggest, as those statistics are now outdated. Access to education for females can still be deadly in some areas where more conservative elements reign. Competitive Job Market Just having a high school diploma may not be enough to succeed. Georgetown University estimated that by 2018, the number of jobs that will at least require two years of college will outpace supply. According to the report, “in 1970, for example, nearly 75 percent

Attorneys, Female



of those workers considered to be middle class had not gone beyond high school in their education; in 2007, that figure had dropped below 40 percent.” On the other hand, with the economic downturn, lower paying jobs due to the recession, women with degrees beyond high school may find themselves presently overqualified for some positions. This may not be true in countries like Australia, which has proven to be robust in the current recession, and has an overall unemployment rate of just over 5 percent. Having a high school education does help with first employment opportunities, but having only a high school degree may severely limit upward earning potential for most individuals. Women who have had to drop out of school for various reasons will go back and earn their GED or high school equivalent, which will allow them to go into a trade school or other nonprofessional jobs that require at least a high school education. With increasing international competition for jobs, and without at least some college education or a two-year college degree, women may find themselves in dead-end positions with limited employment prospects for the future. See Also: Attainment, College Degree; Attainment, Elementary School Completion; Attainment, Graduate Degree; Educational Opportunities/Access. Further Readings Steinberg, Jacques. “Employers Increasingly Expect Some Education After High School.” New York Times (June 15, 2010). http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15 /job-requirement (accessed August 2010). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Education at a Glance, 2009.” http:// www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/25/43636332.pdf (accessed August 2010). Roudi-Fahimi, Farzaneh and Valentine M. Moghadam. “Empowering Women, Developing Society: Female Education in the Middle East and North Africa.” Population Reference Bureau (November 2003). http://www.prb.org/Publications/PolicyBriefs /EmpoweringWomenDevelopingSocietyFemale EducationintheMiddleEastandNorthAfrica.aspx (accessed August 2010). Karen Wolford State University of New York, Oswego

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Attorneys, Female In contrast to nursing, social work, librarianship, or teaching, all of which have traditionally been viewed as female occupations, the legal profession in the United States has been considered nearly exclusively a male domain. The early practice of excluding women from the male-dominated legal profession continued well into the early to mid-20th century. Achieving Equality for Women in Law The last state to allow a woman to practice law was Alaska, which admitted Mildred Herman in 1950. From these beginnings, the present day achievements of women attorneys make it evident that women lawyers have made significant progress. Women in the legal profession have experienced dramatic growth to an apparent full integration into the practice of law. Just the sheer numbers would support this view, as 50 percent of law students are women, and one third of practicing lawyers are female. But the numbers of female law students and attorneys alone do not tell the complete story about how they fare in the legal profession. Women lawyers are not yet close to achieving equality in all aspects of the profession. Since the 1990s, women have comprised half of all law students, yet only 15 percent are partners at law firms. This situation has been termed the 50–15–15 problem, as it is has been over 15 years that women comprise 50 percent of all law students, but only 15 percent of law firm partners. As a response to this phenomenon and other data showing unequal achievement in the law, and to better understand and improve gender fairness in the legal system and the profession, the American Bar Association (ABA), as well as many states and the federal courts, have since established commissions to study the status of women in the profession. Thus, the legal profession has turned its gaze inward to analyze women’s performance and the obstacles they face in the practice of law. The ABA created the Commission for Women in the Profession to “to assess the status of women in the legal profession, identify barriers to advancement, and recommend to the ABA actions to address problems identified.” This commission has examined the status of women practicing law and “found persistent gender discrimination throughout the legal profession.”

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Women Lawyers in the United States Overall, women comprise 47.1 percent of all law school graduates, and 45.7 percent of law firm associates. According to the ABA, women account for 31 percent of the 1,180,386 attorneys licensed to practice law in the United States This means that there are over 343,000 women in the legal profession in the United States, but the number of women aged 29 to 34 who are practicing law has decreased considerably in the last 20 years. Female attorneys comprise 15 percent of Fortune 500 company chief executive officers and general counsels. Nationwide, women comprise 20 percent of all law school deans and 19.2 percent of all law firm partners. As of 2010, 26 percent of U.S. state judges and 22 percent of federal judges are women. Twenty state supreme courts are headed by female chief judges. However, two states (Indiana and Idaho), have no women on their highest state courts. The evidence that has been emerging indicates that although women are entering the practice of law at high rates, they are failing to reach the higher levels within the profession, for example, law firm partnerships, judicial appointments, and law school deanships. In particular, the “glass ceiling” phenomenon has impeded women’s progress in the legal field. An example of such a glass ceiling is evidenced in the low numbers of female partners at large law firms. This greater presence of women in the profession has led to what is characterized as the “no problem problem”—that the situation of women in the legal profession is improving or already has improved on its own. The “no problem problem” is based on the concept that the status of women in the legal profession will improve over time within the profession with no additional action or efforts. The statistics compiled below show there has been some improvement, but and that further action is needed, as the number of women reaching the highest levels in the legal profession has remained stagnant. Female Attorneys Globally Globally, the experiences and progress of women lawyers still vary considerably. For example, in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas chief justice ordered Palestinian women lawyers to wear headscarves and dark clothes to court. Following resistance by the Gazan Bar Association, the order was rescinded.

In the case of Saudi Arabian women lawyers, they are currently not able to appear in court. According to the Saudi Ministry of Justice, the Saudi judicial system will eventually have female lawyers representing women in court. When this happens, female attorneys will be issued a restrictive type of license that will only give them access to some areas of the court. Allowing female lawyers in the courtroom responds to the fact that many Saudi women would-be litigants give up their rights because they do not feel comfortable giving details of their case to a male attorney. When female lawyers are able to represent women, they will not have any contact with men, and will be placed in separate courtrooms. It remains to be seen if female lawyers will be able to appear before Saudi judges when representing women clients. In Iran, 65 percent of all higher education students are women, and women account for 30 percent of the workforce. Iranian women are allowed to be lawyers, but not judges. The most notable female attorney in Iran is Shirin Ebadi. She was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts for democracy and human rights, especially in the struggle for the rights of women and children. In other countries, such as Canada, the situation is similar to women lawyers in the United States. Historically, women were excluded from the legal profession and first won entry into the field in 1895. It was not until 1942 that all provinces removed the legal barriers that prevented women from practicing law. The contemporary patterns of inequality for Canadian women in the legal profession show that female attorneys make up between 22.9 to 36.4 percent of the labor force, depending on the province; and that they are underrepresented in the private practice of law. The barriers for female Canadian attorneys also include sexual discrimination and disadvantage in their applications for articles (apprenticeships) and initial jobs. Women lawyers also have decreased partnership prospects while in private law practice, and experience substantial gaps in salaries compared to their male counterparts. Finally, Canadian female lawyers report lack of accommodation in law practice for family matters, as well as lack of flexibility to obtain part time work and lack of adequate maternity leave arrangements. In the United Kingdom, women lawyers have progressed to increased representation in all areas of legal

Australia



practice, but there are still fields where women lawyers are underrepresented and marginalized. In particular, at all levels of the judiciary, there are very few women judges. However, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, created in October 2009, counts with one woman, Lady Brenda Hale, among its 12 members. Australian female lawyers still lag in their goal of higher status legal employment, even though women account for 50 percent of all law students. The proportion of female lawyers declines steeply when moving up the legal hierarchy from law clerk (63 percent female) to judges and magistrates (9 percent female) at the top. Similarly, in New Zealand, over half of all legal students (55 percent) are women, but they are very poorly represented in prestigious areas of law. Thus, they work more often as government employees that as attorneys in the private practice of law. Female attorney concerns such as work/life balance arise for German women lawyers, who if they are mothers, have to contend with derogatory terms such as rabenmutter. German female lawyers were expelled from all legal functions during the Nazi regime and while there has been improvement following educational reform in the 1970s, to the point that half the new entrants to the judiciary and civil service (including public prosecutors and advocates) are women, the German legal educational system is almost exclusively male. They comprise about a quarter of all practicing lawyers. The issues that affect female lawyers disproportionately include income differentials, lack of power and opportunities, the dual burdens of work and family. These issues as well as the question of whether the legal profession and legal education will change with the presence of women are still open questions that are being researched by scholars to this day. See Also: Glass Ceiling; Judges, Female; Law Enforcement, Women in; Management, Women in. Further Readings Berger Morello, Karen. The Invisible Bar: The Woman Lawyer in America: 1638 to the Present. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Harrington, Mona. Women Lawyers: Rewriting the Rules. New York: Penguin, 1993. Mossman, Mary Jane. The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law and the Legal Professions. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2006.

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Schultz, Ulrike, and Gisela Shaw. Women in the World’s Legal Professions. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2003. Stiller Rikleen, Lauren. Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Legalworks, 2006. María Pabón López Indiana University

Australia After centuries of habitation by Aboriginal settlers from southeast Asia, Australia, which lies between the Indian and South Pacific Oceans, was claimed by the British in 1770. The six states created over the following centuries formed the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. In the early 21st century, almost 90 percent of the population has become urbanized, and per capita income has reached $38,500. Three-fourths of the work force is engaged in service industries. Australia now ranks second in the world on the United Nations Development Programme’s list of countries with Very High Human Development. Ninety-two percent of Australia’s population is white, and 7 percent is Asian. One percent of the population is either Aborigine or belongs to another ethnic group. Most of the people are either Catholic or Protestant, but many religions are represented in Australia. Females in Australia experience a high rate of gender empowerment. Almost from the beginning of its history as a commonwealth, Australia granted the vote to white women. In the 1960s, suffrage was extended to Aboriginal women, along with Aboriginal men, through a constitutional amendment. In the 1980s, Australia began passing a series of legislative acts designed to improve the status of women, including the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984 and the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act of 1999. The infant mortality rate is 4.75 deaths per 1,000 live births, and Australia ranks 196th in the world in this area. Female infants (4.4) have an advantage over male infants (5.08). Australia ranks sixth in the world in life expectancy (81.63 years); and in this area also, females (84.14 years) maintain an edge over males (79.25 years). The median age for Australian women is now 38.1 years.

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On the average, women currently produce 1.78 children each. In general, Australian women are eligible for one year of unpaid maternity leave. As Australia’s population growth rate has continued to decline, the government began debating the advisability of paid maternity leave, with an eye toward encouraging Australians to expand their families. Conservatives bewailed the fact that women were too often choosing careers over families, and Liberals argued that more should be done to support working mothers. Since 2001, Australia has provided a Baby Bonus, which applies to all children under the age of five, to all individuals who have children either by birth or adoption or who have legal responsibility for eligible children. This bonus is claimed each year when taxes are filed. Ninety-nine percent of the population over the age of 15 is literate, and there are no differences in male and female literacy. Between 1993 and 2003, the percentage of females obtaining undergraduate degrees rose from 55.9 to 57.3 percent, and the percentage of females pursuing postgraduate degrees rose from 50 to 51.5 percent. During that same period, female participation in the labor force also continued to climb. In the 1990s, women averaged an 18 percent participation rate in the Australian Parliament. By 2003, women comprised 26.5 percent of Australia’s parliament and a third of positions on Commonwealth government boards. Five years later, women held 67 seats in the 226-member Parliament, and four of 20 Cabinet ministers were female. One state premier was female, and two women sat on Australia’s High Court. The first female to hold the position of governor-general also took office in 2008. The previous year, an Aboriginal female had become the highest-ranking Aboriginal of either sex in the national government. Reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that one in three women has been the target of physical violence at some point in their lives, and one in five has been the victim of sexual violence. With a rate 40 times higher than that of whites, violence against women was particularly evident among Aboriginals. After declaring domestic violence an issue of national concern, Australian governments at all levels joined in the Partnerships against Domestic Violence initiative to combat crimes against women. The Indigenous Family Violent Grants Programme was established to deal with issues specific to the

Aboriginal community. Another element of the program dealt with an extensive media campaign to call public attention to the issue. In 2001, Australia established the National Initiative to Combat Sexual Assault. Three years later, the government announced its Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons. Australian Women’s Issues Other Australian laws also deal with issues specific to women. Abortion is legal with some restrictions throughout Australia. Rape, including spousal rape is illegal, and rape laws are strictly enforced. Sexual harassment is illegal in Australia under the Sex Discrimination Act, and there has been a move in recent years to amend the act to protect nursing mothers from discrimination. On the other hand, prostitution is legal in some Australian states, and there are incidences of prostitution in other areas. Some states regularly dispatch healthcare workers to monitor the health and treatment of prostitutes. In addition to initiatives taken at the national level, various states and regions have also instituted programs and policies designed to promote gender equity. For instance, both the Office for Women in South Australia and the Women’s Policy Office in Western Australia are engaged in generating effective gender-inclusive policies. See Also: Domestic Violence; Government, Women in; Prostitution, Legal; Working Mothers. Further Readings Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Dever, Maryanne and Jennifer Curtin. “Bent Babies and Closed Borders: Paid Maternity Leave: Ideal Families and the Australian Population Project.” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, v.13/2 (2007). Government of South Australia, Office for Women. “Gender Analysis Project.” http://www.officefor women.sa.gov.au/index.php?section=1082 (accessed February 2010). U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Australia.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /eap/119033.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar



Australian Aboriginal Artists Contemporary Australian aboriginal art is derived from a long aboriginal tradition of using nature and culture to produce artistic works. Aboriginal artists employ rock art, bark painting, leaf painting, sand painting, sand sculpture, wood sculpture, wood carving, and body decoration to convey their messages and depict their unique culture. Aboriginal handcrafts also provide an avenue for combining creativity with profitability, and artistic skills are used to create uniquely aboriginal clothing and items such as boomerangs, weapons, and tools. Some early aboriginal artists were successful at producing works that employed Western art styles, but by the late 19th century, most aboriginal artists were intent on reflecting Australian aboriginal culture in their productions. Australian aboriginal women have added distinct contributions to interpreting both contemporary and traditional culture in 21st-century art. Some of the more successful female Australian aboriginal artists have been Melissa Craig Jingalu, Sally Morgan, Joanne Currie Nalingu, Liddy Napanangka Walker, Emily Pwerle, and Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty. One of the most celebrated female Australian aboriginal artists is Melissa Craig Jingalu, a member of the Bunjalung Yaagal tribe, who spent her early years fighting racism. Her first step toward realizing her dream of becoming an artist was taken when she worked as a manager’s assistant at Mullumbimby Art Gallery. She graduated from high school in 1990 at age 15 years. A year later, she was accepted into the Fine Arts Department at Cairnes College of Tafe for Aboriginals and Islanders. By 1995, she had become a semifinalist for young Australian of the year. Known for her vibrant watercolors that use gouache on paper, Jingalu’s fame soon reached international proportions. She is celebrated for works such as Dancing Dolphin, Ant Mountain, My Home, and Nights Moonglow. Sally Morgan is an Australian aboriginal artist and a writer. Born in 1951, Morgan grew up believing that she was from India; she learned in 1966 that she was actually an aborigine. In 1987, she published My Place, which chronicled her search for an identity. Her work as an artist has earned her international fame, and her productions, which include Outback, are exhibited around the world. In addition to her work promoting human rights, Morgan serves as the

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director of the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Indigenous History and Arts. Joanne Currie Nalingu, who hails from the Maranoa region of South West Queensland, never studied to be an artist. She began painting on her own in 1988 and soon developed the unique style that allows her to create brilliant landscapes depicting Australian rivers and deserts. One of her most outstanding contributions has been the creation of an enormous glass wall for Coolangatta Tafe College. Liddy Napanangka Walker, who was born in 1925, spent her early years in Australia’s bush camps. As a young adult, she took on various service jobs to support herself and did not start painting until the 1980s, when she joined the newly established Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association. Her works depict the traditional Australian aboriginal art

Traditional bark paintings are made by Australian Indigenous artists on flattened bark from trees like the stringybark tree.

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form of Dreaming, in which artists attempt to portray their connections to aboriginal history and culture through their art. Walker contends that she paints the Dreaming of her father and grandfather. Her works have been exhibited in the United States, France, Germany, South Korea, and India, as well as Australia. Born in 1922, Emily Pwerle grew up near Alice Springs. She also has been celebrated for her use of Dreaming symbols in her artwork. Her Paintings of Awelye are depictions of women engaged in the act of being women as they conduct business and participate in aboriginal rituals such as painting one another’s bodies with ochers, charcoal, and ash in symbolic designs. Men are always banned from Awelye ceremonies. Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty is an award-winning artist who was born at Tennant Creek in 1972. Although she trained to be a teacher at Deakin University, she also began pursuing her dream of becoming an artist. Her first exhibition was held in Sydney in 2006. The following year, Grandpa Harry’s Canoe garnered honors at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Tyalmuty’s paintings have sold for up to $200,000. From October 9, 2009, to January 10, 2010, the National Museum of Women in the Arts demonstrated American fascination with Australian aboriginal art through the Lands of Enchantment, Australian Aboriginal Painting exhibition in Washington, D.C. Aboriginal artists with works included in the exhibition were Dorothy Napangardi, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Abie Loy, and Regina Wilson. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Australia; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Kngwarreye, Emily. Further Readings “Aboriginal Art Online.” http://www.aboriginalartonline .com/art/urban.php (accessed April 2010). Evans, Mike, ed. Defining Moments in Art: Over a Century of the Artists, Exhibitions, People, and Events That Rocked the World. London: Cassell, 2008. Ioannides, Annabelle. “Jingalu: A Personal Journey.” Colorado Woman, v.11/8 (1996). National Museum of Women in the Arts. Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters. London. Scala, 2006 Elizabeth Purdy Independent Scholar

Austria Austria is a federal republic and member of the European Union (EU) situated in central Europe. In 2009, Austria had 8,355,260 inhabitants, 4,287,213 (51.3 percent) of which were women. As in other EU countries, gender equality is provided on a legal level, while on a social level, inequalities persist. This entry presents facts and statistics on the situation of women in Austria, including education attainment, employment, health, and forces affecting women’s status in society. Differences in education levels between men and women have decreased in the past three decades. In 2007, education levels in the population aged 25 to 64 were distributed as follows: 13 percent of men and 24 percent of women had compulsory school level only; 74 percent of men and 62 percent of women had secondary education level; 13 percent of men and 14 percent of women had tertiary education level. Regarding recently attained education levels, women have been catching up. For example, the majority of people achieving school-living exams (Matura) have been women for the past 20 years. Since 2000/2001, the same is true for students graduating from university. However, women’s share in academic careers decreases after graduation: currently, there are more men than women finishing doctoral studies. Proceeding to the level of university professors, women’s share diminishes further to 14 percent. The employment rate for women aged 15 to 64 was 66 percent in 2008 (men: 79 percent). The Austrian labor market is highly segregated. Women in work are strongly concentrated to a small number of occupations, and they are overrepresented in parttime employment and low-qualified jobs. In 2008, 42 percent of employed women were working part time (men: 8 percent). Seventy percent of employees doing unskilled labor in the private sector were women, as opposed to only 41 percent of employees with highly qualified jobs and only 27 percent of managerial employees. The gender pay gap (the average difference between men’s and women’s hourly earnings within the economy as a whole) in Austria is higher than the EU average. Women’s gross full-time earnings per year amount to 79 percent of men’s. If part-time work earnings are included, women’s gross yearly earnings amount to only 59 percent of men’s.



Women in Austria currently have a life expectancy of 83 years (men: 77.6 years; data of 2008). Life expectancy is thus higher than the EU average for both sexes. Seventy-three percent of women independently of age classify their health status as good or very good (men: 78 percent). In all age groups, more women than men complain about health problems. Health problems most often reported by women are spinal conditions, followed by migraine/headache, arthritis, and allergies. Main causes of death among women are cardiovascular diseases, followed by cancer and diseases of the respiratory tract. Since World War II, Austria has experienced many years of political coalition between the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ) and the Conservative People’s Party (Österreichische Volkspartei, ÖVP), which has strongly influenced Austria’s social policy. The interplay of these two forces led to many compromises between traditional and progressive approaches within the fields of women’s policy and family policy. Attitudes on women’s roles are also influenced by the Catholic tradition, with 74 percent of people in Austria (including the population without Austrian citizenship) being Roman Catholics, and several large political parties explicitly supporting Christian values. Recent changes affecting women’s status include the implementation of civil partnership registration for homosexual couples in 2010, and changes in parental leave regulations aiming at facilitating returning to the labor market and raising men’s utilization of parental leave. See Also: Education, Women in; Equal Pay; Health, Mental and Physical; Parental Leave; Part-Time Work; Professions by Gender; Same-Sex Marriage. Further Readings Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Familie und Jugend (Federal Ministry for Economy, Family and Youth). http://www.en.bmwfj.gv.at/EN/default.htm (accessed January 2010). Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. “LMF1.5: Gender Pay Gaps for Full-Time Workers and Earnings Differentials by Educational Attainment.” http://www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/29/63/38752746.pdf (accessed January 2010). Statistik Austria. “Frauen und Männer in Österreich. Statistische Analysen zu Geschlechtsspezifischen

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Unterschieden.” (Women and Men in Austria. Statistical Analyses on Gender-Specific Differences.) Vienna: Bundeskanzleramt-Bundesministerin für Frauen, 2007. Karin Sardadvar University of Vienna, Austria

Auto Racing, Formula One Formula One racing consists of a series of automobile races held from March through November. Historically, the season included mostly European sites, but in the 21st century, the races have become more fully international. The 2010 season includes races in Bahrain, Australia, Malaysia, and Brazil. A Formula One race is the elite among automobile races, featuring cars that cost multiple millions of dollars that are built according to a formula determined by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, which limits engine size and determines overall body design. From car design to driving, Formula One racing is a man’s world. The women who have infiltrated this world are few in number, and their recognition has been minimal. The first Formula One race was held in 1947. It was more than a decade later that Maria Teresa De Filippis became the first woman to compete in a Formula One Championship race, finishing tenth in the Belgian Grand Prix. She entered six more races and qualified for three that counted toward the championship title. Seventeen years after De Filippis, Lella Lombardi entered racing history as the first woman to score a World Championship point (literally half a point) in a Formula One race. British Olympic skier Divina Galica and Aurora Formula One champion Desire Wilson entered but failed to qualify in Formula One races, as did Giovanni Amati in 1992. Amati, the last woman to race in Formula One, complained about the all-male environment; from drivers to journalists, she found they belonged to a closed club. It has been 18 years since a woman has entered a Formula One championship race. Speculation was rife that Danica Patrick, the highest-qualifying and highest-finishing female in Indianapolis 500 history, would end the drought in 2010, but the speculators

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were wrong. German Touring Car star Susie Stoddart has expressed a desire to drive in a Formula One race. Sarah Fisher, the youngest woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500, was also the first woman in the 21st century to drive a Formula One car, albeit in a test. Alice Powell, who at age 16 years was winning championships, has announced her ambition to be the first British woman to compete successfully for the Formula One title. The door may be closed, but a company of young women are poised to open it. Some women have earned a place in less public positions in the Formula One world. Diane Holl has been with the Ferrari Design and Development team since the 1980s. Other women in technical jobs include Elf technician Valerie Jorquera, Goodyear tire engineer Janet Melia, and electrical engineer Sharon Hopkins. However, women in technical positions are still the exception, and women in administrative positions are even rarer. Greater numbers of women can be found in Formula One jobs that are more traditionally female. Di Spires, who has worked in Formula One hospitality/catering since 1978, acknowledges that when she started, her field was the only way women could find a job in the rarified world. Public relations is another field in which Formula One employs women. Predictably the largest group of women involved with Formula One is composed of models. Some are employed by team sponsors to publicize the link between the racing team and the sponsor. Others, such as the “grid girls,” are merely decorations whose presence serves as a foil for Formula One’s masculine image. See Also: Patrick, Danica; Professions by Gender; Sports, Women in; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Formula 1. “FIA Establishes Women & Motor Sport Commission.” (April 2010). http://www.formula1 .com/news/headlines/2010/4/10703.html (accessed April 2010). Hobbs, Rebecca. “Women in Motorsport.” http://www .rh-pr.co.uk/34.html (accessed April 2010). Saward, Joe. “Girls in Formula 1.” http://www.grandprix .com/ft/ft00178.html (accessed April 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Auto Racing, NASCAR The emergence of women as an influential segment in sports can be found in all components of the sport industry. From a growing and influential portion of the fan base to top-level managerial positions in leading sport organizations, the impact of women is more evident than ever. Perhaps nowhere in the sport industry has the dramatic growth of a female presence been more evident than in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Although NASCAR is frequently viewed as a “male sport,” it has a lengthy history of openness and inclusion for women. As early as 1949, NASCAR recognized the potential benefits of including women, when legendary owner, the late Bill France, Sr., recruited Louise Smith as a driver. During her career, Smith won more than 38 NASCAR sponsored events and was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. Following Smith’s breaking of the gender line, other females have participated as NASCAR drivers. Notable female drivers were Janet Guthrie during the late 1970s and Erin Crocker during the early part of the past decade. Today several women are competing to drive full time in NASCAR. In 2009, Indy-car sensation Danica Patrick signed a two-year contract with JR Sports and drove in NASCAR’s National Series beginning in 2010. Patrick teamed with NASCAR legends Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Rick Hendrick, whose cars won the NASCAR Cup Series title from 2006-2009, as well as champion drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson. Chrissy Wallace, niece of NASCAR legend Rusty Wallace, also signed a contract to drive in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series in 2010. The ramifications of Wallace and Patrick decision to drive in the NASCAR circuit will undoubtedly bring additional attention and potential sponsorships to the popular sport. NASCAR’s promotion of female involvement has not focused solely on the development of female drivers. Research estimates indicate that between 35 percent and 42 percent of all NASCAR fans are females. These figures, approximately 30 million fans, represent a higher female fan base than the National Football League or Major League Baseball. Financial projections indicate that female fans will spend in excess of $250 million dollars annually on NASCAR licensed products.

Aviation, Women in



NASCAR is also frequently acknowledged as having the largest number of females in high-profile, decision-making positions ranging from team owners to track presidents. For example, Lesa France Kennedy, CEO of International Speedway, was named “The Most Powerful Woman in Sports” by Forbes magazine in 2009. Kennedy was named President of ISC in 2003 and promoted to CEO in 2009, directing an organization that generates over $750 million annually. NASCAR offers women a multilayered, multifaceted avenue for involvement. From emerging female drivers to its growing female fan base to sport management, the face and makeup of NASCAR is rapidly evolving. For a sport that has been traditionally viewed as a men’s only sport, it is now evident that NASCAR is for everyone. See Also: Auto Racing, Formula One; Patrick, Danica; Sports, Women in. Further Readings Mulhern, Mike. “Women in NASCAR: A Second Look.” Lynchburg News & Advance (April 22, 2008). http:// www2.newsadvance.com/lna/sports/motor_sports /article/women_in_nascar_a_second_look/4132 (accessed October 2009) Murphy, Emily. “NASCAR Not Just for Boys Anymore. USA Today (July 2, 2004). http://www.usatoday.com /sports/motor/nascar/2004-07-02-women_x.htm (accessed October 2009). Durrett, R. “The Women of NASCAR.” Dallas Morning News (November 4, 2007). http://www.dallasnews. com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/110407dnsponas carwomen.3afdcab.html (accessed October 2009). Andy Gillentine University of Miami

Aviation, Women in Women began breaking gender barriers in flight in 1910, when Bessica Raiche became the first female aviator. Eighteen years later, Amelia Earhart became the first woman in history to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. During World War II, female air pilots came into their own by filling in for male pilots

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(who were allowed to fly in combat). Recognition of those female pilots’ contributions to the American role in World War II was delayed until 2010, when they finally received the Congressional Gold Medal. Female pilots were still breaking records in the 21st century, and in 2001, Polly Vacher of the United Kingdom became the first woman in the world to fly around the world in a small plane. In 2007, there were some 7,100 registered female commercial pilots, 800 of whom were captains. Unlike the female pilots of World War II, female pilots serving in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 21st century are actively involved in fighting the enemy. Although they are barred from ground combat, these women serve as bomber pilots, navigators, tanker pilots, weapons officers, and support crew. By 2004, 519 women were serving as U.S. Air Force pilots, making up 3.8 percent of the total. More than 4 percent of navigators were female, and more than 600 women worked as crew members. In 2006, Major Nicole Malachowski of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) became the first female on the USAF Air Demonstration Squadron, more commonly known as the Thunderbirds. In February 2009, a flight crew of four African American women made history as the first allblack female flight crew in American history. Flying an ASA flight from Atlanta to Nashville, the team included Captain Rachelle Jones and flight attendants Diana Galloway and Robin Rogers. The event, which took place during Black History Month, occurred entirely by coincidence. First officer Stephanie Grant stepped in when the individual initially assigned to the crew became ill. It was only when the four women met up onboard that they realized the historic import of the flight. Recognizing Women in the Field Each year, Women in Aviation International recognizes the contributions of women to the field. These pioneers in women’s aviation history continue to inspire one another, as well as young girls and women who desire to take flight. In 2010, Women in Aviation International recognized Alice du Pont Mills, Trish Beckman, Vice Admiral Vivien Crea, Suzanna DarcyHennemann, and Kathy Sullivan. These women, who are representative of the many women in aviation in the 21st century, are having a direct effect on public opinion concerning the capabilities of female

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airline pilots. Mills was honored for her service during World War II, in which she taught instrument flight to Navy airmen and female ferry pilots. Beckman, who served 28 years in the U.S. Navy, testified before the Senate to argue for the advisability of allowing women to fly combat missions. Her credentials include becoming the first woman to qualify as a crewmember in the F-15E program. She now flies commercial planes for Boeing. Vice Admiral Vivien Crea has made history throughout her aviation career. As a member of the U.S. Coast Guard, she became the first female to ever serve as a military aide to the president. She was also the first female to command a U.S. Coast Guard station, the first female executive assistant to the commandant of the Coast Guard, and the first woman to become a rear admiral and a vice admiral. In addition, she was the first woman in U.S. history to become the second in command of the military force. In 2008, she became the first woman to ever receive the Ancient Albatross—an honor reserved for members of the Coast Guard who have been on active duty for the longest period. Similar to Beckman, Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann now works for the Boeing Company. She serves as the company’s chief training pilot, teaching some 700 instructor pilots, and has six other female pilots in her employ. She has also broken important ground for women in the field of aviation. She was the first woman to ever captain a 747-400, the first woman to captain a 777, and the first female test pilot to work on both production and experimental flight testing. On November 10, 2005, Darcy-Hennemann and her crew broke the distance record in the 661,000-pound weight class by flying a 777-200LR from Hong Kong to London. Kathy Sullivan is both a pilot and an astronaut. A member of the first space shuttle class for astronauts, she became the first American female to walk in space and has flown on three other missions, spending more than 520 hours in space. She is a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve and has served as the chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She is currently the director for the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs of Ohio State University. See Also: Astronauts, Female; Military, Women in the; Professions by Gender.

Further Readings Douglas, Deborah G. American Women and Flight since 1940. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 11 Alive (Atlanta, Georgia). “First All-Black Female Flight Crew Flies to Nashville.” http://www.11alive.com/life /story.aspx?storyid=127470&catid=37 (accessed April 2010). Russo, Carolyn and Dorothy Cochrane. Women and Flight: Portraits of Contemporary Women Pilots. New York: Little, Brown, 1997. Women in Aviation International. “WAI Hall of Fame.” http://www.wai.org/resources/pioneers.cfm (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Azerbaijan Located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, Azerbaijan is bordered by the Caspian Sea, Russia, Georgia, and Armenia. It is one of the oldest oil-producing countries in the world. The majority of its 8.2 million residents are Turkic and Shi’ite Muslim. Azerbaijan was the first secular republic in the Muslim world, and the first Muslim nation to grant women suffrage. Separating from the Soviet Union in 1991, after 80 years of Russian and Soviet rule, Azerbaijan established a constitution with separation of powers and a presidential system. As have many former Soviet republics, the newly independent country has suffered from economic and political crisis. From 1988 to 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia were at war over territory. As a result, 300,000 women and 185,000 men were displaced from Armenia and became refugees in Azerbaijan. War and political instability created poverty rates as high as 80 percent. Even though the government has established an election process, human rights organizations do not consider the country free and democratic because of the authoritarian rule and human rights abuses of its president. About 95 percent of its residents are Muslim, and many cultural and family traditions are influenced by Islam. While there are no legal restrictions on women’s rights, and they have equal access to education, patriarchal culture has limited women’s public roles and economic opportunities.



Traditional culture has discriminated against women. In rural areas, women can face public ridicule if they appear in public unaccompanied, or even drive. The tradition of “family voting” allows men to cast votes on behalf of their wives or other female members of their households. Chauvinistic stereotypes still dominate the culture. The shame of divorce could lead a woman to commit suicide or even excuse a man from murdering his wife rather than permitting a divorce. Sexism also prevents women from holding high-level positions in government and corporations, and there are no laws against sexual harassment. Women earn an average of 70 percent of what men make for similar jobs. While there was a woman appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, women comprise less than 10 percent of parliament. Most women work outside the home, but have no protection for equal wages and little advancement. Refugee women experience an especially harsh existence. Those who live in camps face hunger, disease, and lack of maternal and child healthcare. Twenty percent of refugee children cannot attend school because of lack of funds. The United Nations targeted Azerbaijan’s domestic violence as the number one problem for Azeri women, reporting that abuse was a common experience for women. Because it is culturally taboo to talk about, few women are even aware of their rights not to be physically abused. The Women’s Rights Monitoring Group estimated that 35 percent of Azeri women have been beaten by a male relative. Women would face public ridicule if they reported such abuse, and often the police frowned upon it as well. Spousal rape is considered a private family matter. Women in rural communities often do not even have police to turn to, and have no recourse when they are sexually violated. Bridal kidnappings still occur in rural areas, often in conjunction with rape.

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Rape is illegal, but few women report rapes because their communities often cast blame on the female victims. Rape victims are considered soiled or dishonored, and some turn to suicide rather than face societal scorn. The government also has no programs, shelters or outreach for victims of rape. In the culture, rape is a taboo subject, so women get little emotional, psychological, or financial support. Women’s rights activists such as Novella Jafarova have started women’s organizations to help Azeri women and pressure the government to enact gender equity and domestic violence laws. In order to enforce any laws, however, Azeri women need to address the patriarchal social customs that restrict women’s lives. See Also: Divorce; Domestic Violence; Islam; Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined; Suicide. Further Readings Griffin, Nicholas. Caucasus: A Journey to the Land Between Christianity and Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Nfa, Farideh H. Azeri Women in Transition: Women in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. London: Routledge, 2002. Ro’i, Yaacov. Islam and the Soviet Union. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Swietochowski, Tadeusz. Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Tohidi, Nayereh Esfahlani. “Soviet in Public, Azeri in Private: Gender, Islam, and Nationality in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan.” Women’s Studies International Forum, v.19/1,2 (1996). Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

B Bachelet, Michelle In January 2006, Michelle Bachelet (1951– ) was elected as the first woman president of Chile. Her leadership immediately reformulated what government would look like under her administration, as she appointed 10 women and 10 men to her cabinet. Her previous post was as the Defense Minister, the first woman to fill that position, not only in Chile but in any Latin American country. Hailed in 2008 by Time magazine as number 15 on its list of most influential people, Michelle Bachelet had long been active politically with the Socialist Party. She endured a period of exile to return home, serve in the democratically elected administration of President Ricardo Lagos, and to be democratically elected to the presidency herself. Bachelet’s education includes studies in medicine and military strategy. She graduated as a medical doctor, planning to use her skill to improve the deplorable medical conditions in Chile as a result of neglect by the Augusto Pinochet regime. Bachelet’s father, General Alberto Bachelet, served in President Salvador Allende’s administration and was captured following the bombing of the La Moneda Palace by the coup which brought Pinochet into power in September 1973. Her father was imprisoned and tortured; he died in March 1974 of a heart attack while still in jail. Active in the Socialist Party, Michelle Bachelet worked against the Pinochet regime, aiding those

who spoke against it. Eventually, she and her mother were kidnapped and tortured by the secret police in January 1975, then released into exile, where they fled first to Australia and then East Germany. In 1979, Bachelet returned to Chile, continued her medical studies, and graduated in 1982. The Pinochet regime was still in power, making her employment difficult. However, she did receive a scholarship enabling her to specialize in pediatrics and she found work in a medical facility that treated children who were victims of torture. When democracy was restored in Chile in 1990, she continued to work as a medical professional. She was eventually encouraged to run as a city–county council member in Santiago and to join the Socialist Party’s Central Committee. She worked on Lagos’s successful presidential campaign in 1999, and was appointed to head his administration’s Ministry of Health in 2000. Bachelet’s efforts as Minister of Health significantly restructured Chile’s healthcare system. Thanks to her organizational skill and input from businesses, patients, healthcare professionals, and other stakeholders, she put forward the Rights and Responsibilities of all Persons in Healthcare bill, a National Commission on the Protection of the Rights of Mental Health Patients, a Friendly Hospital Plan, and new programs for women’s health issues, mental health issues, nutrition awareness, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) patients. She decreased 119

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The president of Chile, Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria, on Chile’s Independence Day: September 18, 2009.

wait time for appointments, increased access to healthcare, and created special facilities for children and seniors. In 2002, Bachelet was appointed as President Lagos’s Minister of Defense. Perhaps because of her success in modernizing healthcare, she was called upon to work with the military and police to similarly update those sectors. Her appointment surprised many, given that she was the first woman to lead a defense ministry in all of Latin America. She achieved success in strengthening the military. She developed equal opportunities for women. Her Ministry of Defense created relationships with other defense ministries throughout Latin America, and it worked on eliminating land mines and mine fields within Chile. Bachelet also worked to advance reconciliation efforts throughout the country, commemorating the 13th anniversary of the Pinochet ouster. In late 2004, Bachelet resigned her Defense Ministry post to run for president. In the first round of

elections, she received 46 percent of the vote, and stood for election in a second round with her nearest competitor. After the second round votes were counted, she received nearly 54 percent of the vote and was elected Chile’s first female president, who did not succeed her husband. Her term as president ran from March 11, 2006 to March 11, 2010. In the 2005 election, women in the lower house filled 15 percent of the seats, and 5 percent in the upper house. While Chile ranks in the lower half of all countries when it comes to women’s political representation, Bachelet’s leadership has done much to tip the balance, promising to lead Chile toward a more just, inclusive, and equitable future. As she declared in her victory speech: “Because I was the victim of hate, I’ve consecrated my life to turning hate into understanding, tolerance, and why not say it—love.” She explained the remark in an interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: “It’s the idea of how we’re able to build bases in our society where tolerance, understanding of diversity, integration, and not discrimination will be the main policies . . . . I’m speaking not only of reconciliation—even I don’t use that word—I use another word in Spanish, that’s called reencuentro—it’s not reconciliation.” The word means more like “recoming” and it forms the basis of her leadership as she has reformed healthcare to increase access, restructured the military to re-emphasize partnerships, and reconfigured leadership to value the contributions of all people. See Also: Chile; Heads of State, Female; HIV/AIDS: South America; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings PBS. Interview With Michelle Bachelet. Elizabeth Farnsworth. Online NewsHour With Jim Lehrer (January 25, 2006). http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb /latin_america/jan-june06/chile_1-25.html (accessed November 2009). “The World’s Most Influential People.” Time (April 30, 2009). http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007 /article/0,28804,1733748_1733757_1735593,00.html (accessed November 2009). Kristina Horn Sheeler Indiana University, Purdue University

Bahrain



Bahamas The Bahamas is an island nation in the Atlantic Ocean, north of Cuba and southwest of Florida. This prosperous country earns major income through tourism, banking, and financial management and provides basic social and health services to all its population. In 2009, per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated at $29,800, which is the second highest among Caribbean nations, and less than 10 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Most of the population (85 percent) is black, the remainder white (12 percent) and Asian or Hispanic (3 percent), and most Bahamians identify themselves as Christians. The World Economic Forum rated the Bahamas relatively high in gender equality in 2009. On a scale from 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality), the Bahamas got an overall score of 0.718, ranking 28th among the 134 countries rated. The Bahamas ranked highly on educational attainment (1.000, 1st), health and survival (0.980, 1st), and economic participation and opportunity (0.826, 2nd) but lower on political empowerment (0.066, 109th). Literacy is approximately equal for men (94.7 percent) and women (96.5 percent). Women constitute almost half of the labor force and a higher percent of females age 15 and older (87.4 percent) are employed than men in that age group (81.6 percent). Women hold 12 percent of the seats in the lower house of the Bahamian Parliament and 53 percent of the upper house and women have served as both president of the Senate and speaker of the House of Assembly. In 2002, Dame Ivy Leona Dumont became the first female governor-general of the Bahamas, serving until 2005. Because of a high fertility rate (2 children per woman) and moderate death rate (1.16 per 1,000 population), the population growth rate is just under 1 percent annually. Although expectancy at birth is 67.5 years for men and 72.4 years for women, because of the high birth rate the country has a young age structure, with almost 26 percent of the population age 14 or younger. The Bahamian government has promoted birth control because of the high fertility rate and an estimated 60 percent of women age 15 to 44 use some form of contraception. Almost all births take place with the assistance of skilled personnel. The infant mortality rate is 14.84 per 1,000 live births

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and maternal mortality is 60 per 100,000 live births. Save the Children ranked the Bahamas 10th on its Mothers’ and Women’s indexes in 2009 and 9th on its Children’s Index among 75 Tier II or Less Developed Countries. Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a serious problem in the Bahamas and an estimated 3 percent of adults are infected, the highest percentage in the Western Hemisphere. Women account for about one-quarter to one-half of the people infected with HIV, and in 2004, AIDS became the leading cause of death for Bahamians (male and female) age 20 to 44. See Also: Contraception Methods; HIV/AIDS: North America; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Heads of State, Female; Trinidad and Tobago. Further Readings Craton, Michael and Gail Saunders. Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People: Volume Two: From the Ending of Slavery to the Twenty-First Century. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.save thechildren.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp _hd_pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Bahrain As an island country in the Persian Gulf with 1 million residents, Bahrain has played an important role in Middle East trade since ancient times. Bahrain is a constitutional monarchy, and has a strong middle class and a fast growing economy due to its oil resources. A 2001 census reported that 81.2 percent of the population were Muslim (Shia and Sunni) and 9 percent were Christian, with the remaining 9.8 percent practicing other religions. In 2009, Bahrain’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated at $38,800.

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The World Economic Forum rated Bahrain low in gender equality in 2010, ranking 110 out of 134 countries rated. Although human rights groups consider Bahrain a model for the region due to its civil rights, freedom of religion, press, and speech, as of 2008, the Kingdom of Bahrain did not have laws criminalizing violence against women, be it domestic violence, violence in the workplace, or in public places. In 2009, the government passed the Family Law, a national plan for advancing the status of women. While Bahrain already had comprehensive medical care, and Bahrain women have one of the highest life expectancies in the developing world at age 77, women had few opportunities outside the home. The Family Law seeks to increase the number of women in higher education and in the business world. Cultural traditions have been a big impediment to women’s progress, and the new plan also highlights the rights of women in the marriage contract. Bahrain has been impacted by the spread of fundamentalist Islam. In 1981, an Islamic group with ties to Iran staged a failed coup attempt. In 1994, a group called the Islamic Front organized an uprising, which included stoning female marathon runners for indecent attire. However, they were not able to gain control of the government and King Hamad was able to institute change that promoted women’s rights. Women’s groups in Bahrain continue to press for the advancement of women in politics, education, and employment opportunties. Women have become active in Bahrain politics. In 2002, women gained the right to vote and women entered high levels of government. In 2004, Dr. Nada Haffadh became the first female minister, as Minister of Health, and Lulwa Al Awadhi became head of the Supreme Council for Women. Bahrain’s Haya bint Rashid Al Khalifa, a woman’s right advocate in her own country, became the first women to become president of the United Nation’s General Assembly. She was only the third woman in the world to serve in this capacity, and the first woman from the Middle East. Other wellknown feminists include Ghada Jamsheer, who continues to pressure the government for women’s rights. Women activists want changes in several areas to ensure women’s equal status and protection. Currently, decisions on divorce and child custody are made in religious courts by Shari`a judges. Women want Bahrain to establish family laws that protect women, rather than

leaving it up to local Shari`a judges. Women also are demanding changes to the nationality laws. If a Bahrain woman marries a foreign man, she cannot pass down citizenship to her children. Activists also insist reforms to provide social security for women. Several women’s rights organizations exist in Bahrain, most notably is the Women’s Petition Committee which is working on all of these issues. Women’s groups have also been responsible for focusing attention on education and economic empowerment. Nongovernmental agencies have developed literacy campaigns, with a focus on educated women so they can gain employment to be selfsufficient. Microfinance loans have enabled women to start their own businesses. Lack of access to childcare has also been an impediment to economic opportunities, and women’s groups have helped develop daycare centers. Women are playing an increasingly vocal and prominent role in Bahrain public life and politics and continue to fight for gender equity. See Also: Divorce; Financial Independence of Women; Islam; Shari`a Law. Further Readings Alsharekh, Alanoud. The Gulf Family: Kinship Policies and Modernity (SOAS Middle East Issues Series). London: Saqi Books, 2007. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck and John L. Esposito, eds. Islam, Gender, and Social Change. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997. Lawson, Fred H. Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy (Nations of the Contemporary Middle East). New York: Westview Press, 1989. Zahlan, Rosemarie Said. The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Quatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1999. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

Bangladesh One of the most populated countries in the world, the subject of women in Bangladesh has been a longstanding and contested. Among the poorest Asian countries, Bangladesh is situated in the Indian sub-



Among millions of others in Bangladesh, Shavala lives on $1 a day, struggling to feed her two children.

continent in a riverine terrain that serves as the floodplains for the Himalayas. Traditionally, people in this country engaged in agriculture but urbanization and outmigration has increased rapidly over the past three decades. The population is primarily Muslim, an estimated 12 percent of communities are Hindu and 3 percent are Christians, Buddhists, and others. The ratio of males to females in Bangladesh is 105.6 males per 100 females, in 2008. This low proportion of women reflects various setbacks in the status of women throughout south Asia. In recent years, gender related statistics have shown substantial improvements for women, but the condition of women remains problematic in many domains. Rural female literacy was 20 percent, half of that of males at the turn of the millennium. By 2004, it rose to 46 percent, the primary gain being made by females aged 15 to 24 whose literacy has reached 71 percent

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in 2008. Very few women continue their education up to the tertiary level. As a result, their prospects for work are not very good. More than three-quarters of women work as unpaid family labor in agriculture. Less than a tenth are self-employed and few are contract workers. In urban areas, women are better represented in the labor force with half the women who work being paid employees. However, only two out of five women work in the formal sector, primarily in ready made garments, while most women work in the informal sector, as vendors selling food and clothes or hiring themselves out as domestic help. Occupational segregation remains high, women working in the occupations mentioned as well as in nursing, teaching, and self-employment financed through microcredit. Girls are vulnerable to trafficking and often work as child laborers, and even as child prostitutes. Indicators such as fertility and the male–female infant mortality gap have improved vastly over the last four decades. However, health expenditures per capita reflect the low incomes in the country, with women getting far less access to healthcare than men. Bangladesh is one of the few countries where female life expectancies are lower than men’s. Families feed the male members better and first. The child marriage rate is one of the highest in the world. Many girls are married by the age of 15, and their families must pay a dowry. Maternal mortality rates remain very high at 440 per 100,000, with trained attendants present at only one-third of births. Improvements in education or health indicators are attributed to the activities of development organizations in the country. Bangladesh has seen a large amount of socioeconomic development experimentation, with a web of donor funded nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the country. In addition, women’s issues have become part of the larger national discourse of development. In 1978, Bangladesh was one of the first developing countries to establish a Ministry of Women’s Affairs. The two policies that were used heavily to influence the status of women are NGO-based microcredit programs and the government’s education policy of providing incentives to families to send girls to school. Microcredit has been used for entrepreneurial activities ranging from raising livestock to textiles; much of this credit is also used to meet family cash needs for consumption or children’s marriage costs.

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Women’s Rights Participation in the political process is fairly low, even though women have increased access to political representation and there are strong advocates for women at the national level. In 1997, women were given reserved seats to be elected to local government. Very recently, women have run for elections and become elected over and beyond the reserved seats. Rural justice is meted out by an informal court system consisting of village elders; women are rarely represented in these, and stories abound of gender discriminatory verdicts even at the present time. Women generally do not own or manage property. Muslim and antiquated Hindu inheritance laws favoring sons are still prevalent and most property decisions are made for women by male relatives. Women’s grooms are selected by their families, typically by their fathers. Even when they work, women’s earnings are 21 percent less than men’s earnings. Violence against women is quite high and has changed from more private forms of domestic violence to harassment, acid throwing, and rape as women’s participation in the public realm has increased. Dowries were not prevalent in the 1960s but have become more of a norm over time, with a likelihood of violence against the bride occurring when monetary demands have not been adequately met. There are widespread social movements directed against female violence and dowry, but their efforts have been unable dispel these problems. Bangladesh’s rich fabric of NGOs draws on an even wealthier tradition of women’s movements. Feminists such as Begum Rokeya Sultana have long sought women’s self-determination and Muslim female leaders have joined hands with Hindu and tribal communities during the anticolonial struggles. That particular tradition remains alive and there are many strong women’s groups that are committed to and actively work for women’s rights at many levels. See Also: Domestic Violence; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality; Nongovernmental Organizations Worldwide. Further Readings Asian Development Bank. Women in Bangladesh. Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2001. Feminist Theory. “Feminism in Bangladesh.” http://www .cddc.vt.edu/feminism/ban.html (accessed April 2010).

Women’s United Nations Report Network (WUNRN). “Bangladesh: Combating Impunity of Acid Attacks, Rape, Gender Violence.” http://www.wunrn.com /news/2008/02_08/02_04_08/020408_bangladesh.htm (accessed April 2010). Farida C. Khan University of Wisconsin, Parkside

Banks, Tyra Tyra Lynne Banks (1973– ) is an African American talk show host, actress, singer, writer, and former model. Banks was born in Inglewood, California. She began modeling at the age of 15, and soon she became an international supermodel. At a very young age, she started doing print and runway work for major brands in fashion, advertisement, and the food industry. Banks appeared on the covers of leading fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, and Vogue. She was also the first African American model to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Banks started her acting career in the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1993. Later, she appeared in a number of television series, movies, and music videos. In 1998, Banks published Tyra’s Beauty, Inside and Out, a book to advise young women on beauty and style. Although she was already a popular media personality, Banks’s first major television project was America’s Next Top Model, a reality television show launched in 2003. Tyra Banks is the creator, host, head judge, and executive producer of the show in which a number of young women compete to start a career in the modeling industry. After the immense success of the show, Banks retired from modeling in 2005 to focus on her television career. That year she launched The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime talk show that she hosted and produced. In 2008, Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for the show. As a young African American woman who has attained fame, wealth, and success and who supports other women, Banks become a role model for young girls in the United States and abroad. She is also popular among the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) community, particularly gay

Barbados



men. In 2009, she was given Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s Excellence in Media Award for her strong commitment to creating public awareness about the lives of gay and transgender people on her talk show. Banks’s popularity is also related to the approachable and endearing personality she portrays on the show. There are also controversial issues about Banks and her work. Although Banks founded her TZONE (Tyra Zone) foundation in 1999 to help girls deal with their insecurities, particularly about their bodies, and she speaks out against eating disorders on her shows, America’s Next Top Model has been criticized for promoting an unhealthy body image and for subjecting the contestants to forms of violence in front of the camera. See Also: Celebrity Women; Fashion Industry, Theoretical Controversies; Film Actors, Female; Reality Television; Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition; Supermodels; Winfrey, Oprah. Further Readings Blackstock, Claire M. C. “Entertaining the Gods, Appeasing Ourselves: René Girard’s Theories of Sacrifice and Reality TV’s America’s Next Top Model.” The Journal of Religion and Theatre, v.6/2 (2007). Hill, Anne E. Tyra Banks: From Supermodel to Role Model. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 1992. Rudy, Jessica. “When Worlds Collide: Tyra Banks and Spheres of Performance.” http://www.allacademic.com /meta/p261273_index.html (accessed July 2009). Silverman, Stephen M. “Ellen DeGeneres, Tyra Banks Win Daytime Emmys.” http://www.people.com/people /article/0,,20208186,00.html (accessed July 2009). Rustern Ertug Altinay Independent Scholar

Barbados The island nation of Barbados, located northeast of Venezuela in the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the world’s most densely populated nations, with blacks forming a substantial majority of the population. Christianity is the predominant religion. Increasing educational and employment opportunities have left women less

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economically dependent on their husbands and adult children. The predominant Creole culture is a synthesis of British and West African traditions. Barbados ranked 21st of 134 countries according to the World Economic Forum’s “2009 Global Gender Gap Report.” Common relationship unions include visiting unions, in which a couple lives apart, as well as common law and legal marriages, with common law marriages predominant. Traditional socialization emphasizes male power and virility and both genders tend to be sexually active at a young age. Childbearing was traditionally a woman’s investment in her future, as she relied on her children for future support but improved educational and employment opportunities have lowered birth rates. The 2009 fertility rate was 1.50 births per woman with an infant mortality rate of 11 per 1,000 live births and a maternal mortality rate of 16 per 100,000 live births. Skilled healthcare practitioners are present at almost all births and the national insurance system provides 12 weeks of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of wages. Domestic violence is a growing problem despite the passage of a Domestic Violence Law in 1992. Families range from nuclear to extended households with family responsibilities traditionally divided by gender. Many women run households as men emigrate overseas for employment opportunities. Education is free and compulsory for all students from age 5 to 14. Female attendance rates at the primary and secondary levels are above 90 percent and 73 percent at the tertiary level. The literacy rate for both genders is equally high at 99 percent. Despite overpopulation and overcrowding, Barbadians have one of the Caribbean’s highest standards of living and life expectancy is relatively high at 68 for women and 63 for men. There is a free national social security and healthcare system, but the high ratio of people per doctor means that many rely on home remedies. Problems include widespread sexual violence and human trafficking, substance abuse, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and the difficulty of caring for an aging population. Gender Gaps Many women work outside the home and women constitute 49 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce in 2009. Key employment sectors include

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industry, education, tourism, and service, with women making up just over half of professional and technical workers. Gender gaps still exist in terms of estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which stands at $12,894 for women and $20,139 for men, and unemployment rates, which stand at 10.5 percent for women and 8.92 percent for men. Barbados has universal suffrage. Women hold 10 percent of parliamentary seats and 28 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. Nongovernmental organizations like the Caribbean Women’s Association monitor women’s rights. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Hausman, Ricardo, Laura D. Tyson, and Saadia Zahidi. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2009. http://www.weforum .org/en/Communities/Women%20Leaders%20and% 20Gender%20Parity/GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010). Knight, F. W. and T. M. Vergne. Contemporary Caribbean Cultures and Societies in a Global Context. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Lewis, L. The Culture of Gender and Sexuality in the Caribbean. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Barbie Dolls Prior to Barbie’s debut, most toy dolls were made to look like babies or young children. Reportedly, Ruth Handler was inspired to create a new kind of doll after watching her daughter, Barbara, and her friends, playing with paper dolls. The girls gave their dolls adult clothing and roles, inspiring Handler to create a threedimensional adult-figured dolls for preteens to play with. During a trip to Europe in the mid-1950s, Han-

dler found a Lilli doll, shaped as a curvaceous adult. The Lilli doll was based on a working-class comic strip character that was not above using her beauty to attract men for material wealth. Lilli was originally marketed to adults, although children played with her as well. Handler believed that there was an opportunity in the toy market to create a similar doll for children to play with in the United States. Handler convinced the directors of Mattel, a company she cofounded, along with her husband Elliot, that an adult doll for children to play with would be profitable. The directors were not initially enthused about the idea. Handler’s vision was realized when Barbie was unveiled at the Toy Fair in New York City in 1959. After years of development, Handler redesigned the doll with the help of an engineer, Jack Ryan, who worked on the shape and production of the doll. She hired Charlotte Buettenback Johnson, a fashion designer, to create the detailed, lifelike wardrobe for Barbie. The doll was marketed as a teenage fashion model; in this role Barbie was cast as having a fun, upscale and glamorous life without being overtly sexy. Although some parents were critical of the doll’s adult body, a careful marketing campaign devised by Mattel appealed to both children and parents alike, making Barbie a top-selling toy within a few years of her debut. Mattel used focus group marketing techniques to hone in on the tastes and preferences of the doll’s target audience, preteen girls and their mothers. Barbie dolls were one of the first toys to be mass marketed on television, a successful strategy by Mattel that was soon adopted by other companies. Mattel has resisted providing a lot of information about Barbie’s history. Instead Mattel prefers to leave her back-story open, allowing children and adults to engage in imaginative play with her. This trend continues today, as the doll’s packaging includes information about the character she is portraying or the profession she is designed to represent, but little else. Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken, was introduced in the 1960s. The doll was named after the Handler’s son, Kenneth. Barbie and Ken have had a long relationship, but were never married. To keep Barbie’s image of a glamorous, carefree lifestyle part of the fantasy surrounding the doll, Mattel has not included marriage and children as part of her story. In 2004, Mattel announced at a press conference that Barbie and Ken had parted ways. Barbie celebrated her 50th anniversary in 2009



with great fanfare in the media and celebrations hosted by Mattel and devoted fans. Barbie remains one of the most popular toy items in the world, and can be purchased in over 150 countries. By the 1990s, Mattel estimated that three Barbie dolls were purchased every second somewhere in the world. Barbie and Popular Culture The Barbie doll has taken on a life of its own in popular culture. Since the doll’s introduction to consumers as a teenage fashion model, she has had more than 100 careers, ranging from a doctor, businesswoman, rock star, airline stewardess, fashion designer, nurse, race car driver and a solider. Mattel has created Barbie dolls commemorating characters from children’s fairy tales, television shows, cartoons, and films. Mattel also created an international collection, featuring dolls in native costumes from every corner of the world. Consumers can purchase pets, housing,

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furniture, cars, and of course clothes for every imaginable occasion for their Barbie dolls. Barbie’s franchise empire has expanded into licensed accessories and clothes for children to wear, and other toys, such as coloring books, films, novels, board games, and videos games. Academic studies of Barbie cross the boundaries of childhood and adult play, consumerism, beauty standards, sexual identity, and gender politics. Barbie presents an interesting case study in popular culture as one of the most beloved and demonized toy products ever created. The criticism extends to the fantasy play focused on materialism and appearance encouraged by Barbie products. Although Mattel has produced Barbie dolls dressed as doctors, astronauts, and even as the president of the United States, the most popular dolls and products revolve around shopping and fashion. Advocacy groups, parents, and scholars have criticized the doll for presenting

Barbie dolls are also marketed to adults who grew up playing with them. These 2005 Pink Label Collection Zodiac dolls were, according to Mattel, “inspired by the 12 astrological signs, representing the mystique and ongoing appeal of the zodiac.”

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an unrealistic body image for women and girls to imitate. Parents and critics bemoan the limited beauty standards represented by Barbie dolls. Although Mattel has created Barbie dolls to symbolize various ethnicities and nationalities, the doll’s shape, hair, and facial features remain virtually the same, although the skin tone, or rather tint of color in the plastic, change in the ethnically diverse models. The first black doll to be part of the Barbie doll line was Francie in 1966. Francie was replaced within a few years with Christie, who remained on the market until the mid-1980s. It was not until the 1980s that black dolls were named “Barbie.” These dolls were cast from the same pattern as the white Barbie doll. Mattel released the Shani dolls in 1991, with light, medium, and dark skin tones, designed to signify different shades of African American skin tone. Mattel has also been criticized for linking the Barbie doll with political and social trends for profit. For example, during the 1980s when sales of the doll were lagging, Mattel released a new advertising campaign for Barbie with the slogan “We Girls Can Do Anything.” The slogan provided a clear link to the newly won rights for women and girls from the second wave of the women’s movement, but packaged in a palatable manner for mainstream consumers, with Barbie as a spokesperson for women’s empowerment. Barbie fans are as devoted as critics are of the doll’s shortcomings. Collectors of Barbie dolls may spend thousands on a rare, mint-condition doll and accessories. Some Barbie devotees turn their admiration for the doll into reality by dressing like the dolls or undergoing cosmetic surgery to emulate her physical appearance. Barbie conventions are popular annual events across the world at which novice and seasoned collectors can purchase collectable items, preview new products, participate in fashion shows, and network with others. Barbie’s popularity can be seen in cyberspace. While Mattel’s holds the copyright to the official Barbie Website, fans have created hundreds of YouTube channels and Facebook pages dedicated to the doll. Although U.S. sales have either declined or rose moderately in the early 21st century, global sales rose 12 percent from 2009 to 2010. Barbie continues to be one of the most sought-after toys, coveted by young girls due to the open-ended, fantasy play allowed by the doll and her interchange-

able wardrobe. Although other dolls relatively new to the toy market, such as American Girl dolls and the Bratz Dolls have risen in popularity, for many, Barbie continues to be the queen of the toy aisle. See Also: American Girl Dolls; Body Image; Bratz Dolls; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings Bell, Mebbie. “There’s Something About Barbie.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, v.20/2 (2004). duCille, A. “Black Barbie and the Deep Play of Difference.” In Morag Shiach, ed., Feminism and Cultural Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pearson, Marlys and Paul R. Mullins. “Domesticating Barbie: An Archaeology of Barbie Material Culture and Domestic Ideology.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology, v.3/4 (1999). Rand, Erica. Barbie’s Queer Accessories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. Rogers, Mary. Barbie Culture. London: Sage, 1999. Marcia Hernandez University of the Pacific

Bariatric Surgery Bariatric surgery or weight loss surgery is one solution to obesity. This approach recognizes the limitations of diets and traditional weight loss programs. While the early use of bariatric surgery in the United States dates back to the 1950s, at that time, the surgery often resulted in complications. The procedure became more common in the 1970s with the development of gastroplastry (stomach stapling). Complications of this procedure also became known as it was used more frequently, and it was replaced by gastric bypass procedures and banding procedures as the two most common types of weight loss surgery today. Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) is the most commonly used surgical procedure to treat morbid obesity in Europe, Australia, and South America To undergo this surgery, the patient must be substantially overweight, often defined by a prospective patient’s body mass index (BMI), a measure that takes into account both height and weight. The BMI must



be above 40 for the surgery to be recommended if the patient does not have serious medical conditions that would be helped by the surgery. If the BMI of the patient is between 35 and 39 with associated severe medical problems such as diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol, surgery is also appropriate. Many health insurance plans also require proof of failed prior attempts at other weight loss approaches before they will pay for the surgery. Bypass procedures are designed to reduce food intake and are complex procedures generally performed under general anesthesia. There are two main types practiced today: Roux-en-Y-gastric bypass (traditional and laparoscopic) and biliopancreatic diversion bypass. Roux-en-Y is the more commonly performed procedure, with around 140,000 procedures completed in the United States in 2005. In both techniques, a small stomach pouch is created to curb food intake, by closing off a portion of the stomach. A part of the small intestine is attached to the stomach pouch so that food can bypass the duodenum. Most patients spend two to three days in the hospital for the main surgical procedure, and one to two for the laparoscopic procedure. Both bypass procedures restrict food intake and reduce hunger to promote healthy weight loss. Generally, two to five weeks of recovery are required. Most weight loss occurs within the first year. Gastric banding is a newer procedure and promotes weight loss through restriction in food uptake. A small silicone band filled with saline solution is placed around the upper portion of the stomach pouch, and stapled into place, reducing the capacity of the stomach. Surgery generally takes only an hour, and often requires either no hospital stay or a single night. Recovery is short, and often as little as a week of restriction from normal activies is required, with minimal discomfort from the surgery itself. As the band and stomach adjust, refills of saline solution become necessary for the band to maintain its effectiveness, resulting in frequent doctor office visits. While this procedure generally has a faster recovery time and is less expensive, it does not lead to the most rapid weight loss of the procedures, and is generally more successful in patients who have less weight to lose to obtain an ideal weight (such as 50 pounds), whereas gastric bypass surgery is more successful in patients who need to lose 100 pounds or more.

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A third, newer procedure is gastric sleeve restriction. This approach is recommended for people who are too overweight to have banding surgery and too overweight or sick to safely undergo gastric bypass surgery, since sleeve restriction is a faster, less invasive approach. A surgeon removes about 60 percent of the stomach, generally with a laparoscopic procedure. Gastric bypass surgery may then be performed after a patient has lost a determined amount of weight. All of these procedures require that a patient also be motivated to lose weight, because the patient is ultimately in control of his or her food intake and must follow a restricted diet. Exercise and nutrition counseling are required by most practices. While the surgery is successful for most patients, there are side effects. If patients do not monitor their food intake and take proper vitamin supplements, malnourishment is a possible concern. If patients eat too much or too rapidly, or eat the wrong types of foods, patients may become ill, with what is known as a “dumping” syndrome, in which patients may have to vomit, or become ill or shaky after eating. The rate of morbid obesity is higher in women than in men (7 percent versus 3 percent), and women are more likely to undergo bariatric surgery. Almost 80 percent of bariatric surgery patients are female, and 35 percent are under the age of 40. Currently, the surgery is more common among Caucasions. While appearance may be a motivating factor for some patients, quality of life is also important for many. Obesity can limit physical mobility, which would likely improve with weight loss. For others, chronic health problems such as hypertension and diabetes may improve to the point that medication for these problems may no longer be required. These health improvements have contributed to the fact that more health insurance companies are beginning to pay for weight loss surgery. In the United States, Medicare will now cover the surgery, as will Medicaid in some states. See Also: Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Health, Mental and Physical; Health Insurance Issues. Further Readings Meana, M. and L. Ricciardi. Obesity Surgery: Stories of Altered Lives. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2008. Miller, F. P., et al. Bariatric Surgery. Beau Bassin, Mauritius: Alphascript Publishing, 2009.

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Schauer, Phillip R., Bruce D. Schirmer, and Stacy Brethauer Minimally Invasive Bariatric Surgery. New York: Springer, 2007. Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld Arizona State University

Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is a French virologist, head of the Retroviral Infection Control Unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and a Nobel laureate. She, along with her colleague Luc Montagnier and the German researcher Harald zur Hausen, received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their part in the identification of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Some experts believe that Barré-Sinoussi’s role in the discovery of HIV, which is responsible for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), has been obscured by the controversy surrounding the competing claims of the better-known Montagnier and American virologist Robert C. Gallo. However, Barré-Sinoussi was the first scientist in the world to isolate the HIV virus, and her work continues to focus on the virology of HIV. Born on July 30, 1947, in Paris, France, to Roger and Jeanine (Fau) Sinoussi, young Françoise developed an interest in plants and animals from an early age. Once she began school, it was clear that the biological sciences were the subjects she found most compelling. Although no one in her family worked in medicine or research, she had determined by the time she entered university that she would pursue either science or medicine as a career. The death of a young cousin from leukemia awakened a particular interest in cancer research in her, and while still a student, she worked at the laboratory of Jean-Claude Chermann, researching the role of retroviruses in cancer. After earning a master’s degree in biochemistry from Paris’s University of Sciences in 1971 and a doctorate from the Pasteur Institute in 1975, she became a fellow of the National Science Foundation and performed research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where she worked on the genetic restriction of mouse retroviruses. She returned to the Pasteur Institute in the late 1970s, accepting a series of teaching and research posi-

tions. During the 1980s, she began collaborating with Montagnier, working to isolate a cause for AIDS. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognized AIDS in 1981, but it was Barré-Sinoussi and Montagnier and their team who discovered the virus responsible for the disease. Barré-Sinoussi was the first author of the publication that reported the discovery of the retrovirus, later named HIV. The discovery was fundamental to all the advances that followed in diagnosing, treating, and preventing the spread of AIDS. The Nobel Committee recognized this pivotal contribution when they awarded the Nobel Prize to Barré-Sinoussi and Montagnier in 2008, citing the role of their discovery in both the prevention and treatment of AIDS, the substantial decrease in the spread of the disease, and the increased life expectancy among patients with access to treatment. Barré-Sinoussi speaks with pride of the advances made in preventing mother-to-child transmission of AIDS, and her commitment to providing treatment access to people living with HIV in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia remains strong. She has coauthored over 200 scientific publications and participated in over 250 international conferences on AIDS. She has also worked as a consultant to the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Her work has been recognized by countless awards within her own country, including the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1996. International recognition, in addition to the Nobel Prize, includes the King Faisal International Prize of Medicine (Saudi Arabia) in 1993 and election to the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2007. See Also: France; HIV/AIDS: Europe; Science, Women in. Further Readings Pincock, Stephen. “Françoise Barré-Sinoussi Shares Nobel Prize for Discovery of HIV.” Lancet, v.372/9647 (2008). WITI Hall of Fame. “Francoise Barre-Sinoussi.” http:// www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/2006 /fbarre-sinoussi.php (accessed March 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University



Basketball, College Women’s collegiate basketball has grown from its humble beginnings in the gymnasiums and physical education programs at women’s colleges to become the most visible and popular college team sport for women in the United States. With a rich history and vibrant future, it continues to inspire considerable spectator and participation interest. Although women’s college basketball was riding a wave of increased popularity as the 1990s ended and a new century began, similar battles continue to be fought in athletic departments. Prior to Title IX, nearly 90 percent of women’s collegiate teams were coached by women. Although the legislation was a boom for female participation, female coaches of women’s collegiate basketball teams steadily have been replaced by men. In 1990, 72.2 percent of women’s collegiate basketball teams at the Division I level were coached by women. A decade later, the number has dropped to 69 percent. In 2010, the number of female coaches dips to 47.5 percent at the Division II level and 54.8 percent in Division III basketball. Overall in college sports, only 42.6 percent of women’s programs are led by a female. Concerning salary, the average salary for a Division I men’s basketball coach was $409,600, more than double the $187,300 salary average for women’s basketball coaches. Regarding budget and scholarship money devoted to women’s sports, the numbers still lag behind their male counterparts. Overall, women athletes receive only 45 percent of scholarship dollars, nearly $166 million less than male athletes. This is compounded by the inequitable amount of resources dedicated to athlete recruitment, because only 33 percent of recruitment budgets are earmarked for women’s sports. Overall, women receive only 36 percent of athletic operating resources, a figure that amounts to $1.5 billion less than money spent on men’s athletics. While women athletes fight for visibility, media coverage still remains scarce on major networks. Studies have shown that major newspapers devote 11 percent of sports coverage to women’s sports. On ESPN’s premiere show, SportsCenter, in 1999 and 2004, only 2 percent of telecast time was devoted to women’s sports. In their 2003 “NCAA College Hoops Preview,” ESPN magazine featured 65 men’s teams and only eight women’s squads.

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A Decade to Remember At the end of the 20th century, women’s basketball was flying high. Guard Sue Bird led the University of Connecticut’s (UConn’s) Huskies as they ran through the regular season with only one loss on their way to a national championship. The 2000–01 season was dominated by the performance of Jackie Stiles of Southwest Missouri State. While her team lost in the semifinals to Purdue University, she ended her career with 3,393 points, becoming the all-time leading scorer in women’s college hoops. The University Notre Dame finished the season 34–2 on the way to the program’s first championship. On the heels of increased viewership following the championship tournament, the NCAA and ESPN brokered a new agreement to broadcast women’s college basketball beginning in 2003. The 11-year deal registered at $160 million including broadcast rights to other sports. UConn Rolls From 2002 to 2004, the center of the women’s basketball world was UConn, and its star was Diana Taurasi. The Huskies dominated to the tune of three straight titles, winning 139 games during Taurasi’s college career. The 2002 NCAA Championship game was a watershed moment for women’s college basketball. The clash between UConn and Oklahoma University was watched by 5.6 million viewers, at the time garnering the largest viewership for a college basketball game—men’s or women’s—in ESPN history. The 29,619 spectators in attendance also marked the largest crowd ever to watch a collegiate women’s game. The following year, UConn continued its dominance, becoming the only team to win a national championship without a senior on the roster. UConn’s clash with Tennessee in the 2003 final would be repeated the following year, with the Huskies once again beating the Lady Vols for their third straight title. The 2004 title game earned the highest ratings for any basketball game in ESPN history. New Stars Emerge as Records Fall The 2005 tournament saw the end to UConn’s three consecutive titles, as Baylor University edged Michigan State University (MSU) 84–62. Kim Mulkey-Robertson became the first women to win a championship as a player (Louisiana Tech, 1982) and as a head coach.

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The 2005–06 season saw Tennessee coach Pat Summitt pick up her 900th win, making her the first college basketball coach, male or female, to reach that milestone. The NCAA tournament began with much hype as the Oklahoma University freshman became the first college player, male or female, to record more than 700 points, 500 rebounds, and 100 blocks in a season, leading Oklahoma to a number two seed in the tournament. Later that year, she would be the first freshman named to the Associated Press All-American First Team. The 2006 tournament would be the first since 1999 without UConn or Tennessee reaching the Final Four. In a dramatic overtime game, University of Maryland captured the program’s first championship in a thrilling win over Duke University. Senior Seimone Augustus made history winning back-to-back Wade Trophies as the leader of Louisiana State University (LSU). Maggie Dixon: Triumph and Tragedy One story line that grabbed significant attention during the tournament was Army’s new head coach, Maggie Dixon. Hired just 11 days before the start of the 2005 season, Dixon guided the program to a 20–11 record, capturing the Patriot League championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Sadly, the story of Maggie Dixon would take a tragic turn. Less than a month after Army was eliminated from the tournament, Dixon collapsed and died of a heart condition at the age of 28. Conflict and Controversy The 2006-2007 season saw Tennessee return to its championship ways, claiming their first title in a decade with a 34–3 season. Candace Parker was named the tournament’s outstanding player, as the Lady Vols beat Rutgers 59–46. However, the biggest story of the season did not originate on the court. That year, Don Imus garnered condemnation for his comments concerning the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Labeling the women “nappy-headed hos,” Imus was fired and the comments brought to light the issues surrounding the challenges of African American women and athletes. The story transcended the sports page, becoming headline news across the United States. Moreover, LSU coach Pokey Chapman resigned after it was alleged that she had an inappropriate

relationship with a player. Chapman had led LSU to three consecutive Final Four appearances. Allegations became public as LSU was preparing for their championship run. While it must have been a distraction, the Tigers returned to the 2007 Final Four despite the controversy. As the decade drew to a close, the continual battle between the Lady Vols and UConn Huskies continued to play out. The 2008 Final Four saw Candice Wiggins lead Stanford University to an upset of Connecticut and a meeting with the Lady Vols. Tennessee ended Stanford’s season, cruising to a 63–48 victory in the tournament final. A year later, UConn would return to the Final Four following an undefeated 39–0 record on their way to their fifth championship of the decade. The Huskies won all 39 games by double digits, including the NCAA final against Louisville, 76–54. See Also: Coaches, Female; Sports, Women in; Women’s National Basketball Association. Further Readings Drape, Joe. “College Basketball: A More Grounded Women’s Game Is Gaining.” New York Times (March 18, 2004). Grundy, P. and S. Shackelford. Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Lannin, Joanne. A History of Basketball for Girls and Women: From Bloomers to Big Leagues. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing, 2000. Steen, Sandra and Susan Steen. Take It to the Hoop. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Press, 2003. Women’s Basketball Online. “Timeline.” http://womens basketballonline.com/history/wbbtimeline.html (accessed November 2009). Annemarie Farrell Ithaca College

Bat Shalom Bat Shalom (Daughter of Peace), the Jerusalem Women’s Action Center, is a grassroots Israeli feminist peace organization dedicated to social justice, equal-



ity, and sustainable peace. Bat Shalom was founded as part of the Jerusalem Link and functions within Israeli society to foster fundamental societal changes. Israeli and Palestinian women actively participated in a process of sociopolitical change within the context of peace, which brought about a transformation of the power structure regarding gender roles. These significant changes led to organizational efforts that culminated in dialogue at the first International Women’s Peace Conference, held in Brussels in 1989. Out of this conference evolved the concept for the Jerusalem Link, which was registered as a nongovernmental organization in 1993 and launched in 1994. The Jerusalem Link is composed of two women’s organizations, Bat Shalom on the Israeli side, and the Jerusalem Center for Women (JCW) on the Palestinian side. Bat Shalom is located in West Jerusalem, and the JCW in East Jerusalem. Bat Shalom also has a branch in the northern city of Afula. The Jerusalem Link is a centralized organization established as a peace link between Israeli and Palestinian women and not as a protest movement. As part of the Jerusalem Link, the organizations share a set of political principles and work together to carry out joint programs geared toward just and sustainable peace and human rights in the region, as well as the resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The Jerusalem Link serves as a base for cooperation, coordination, and mutual support, while independently, each center maintains its organizational and executive integrity. Each center strives for the advancement of women within their respective societies. The Jerusalem Link was established at a time when peace activism was connected to governmental policies and the women’s movement had already become part of national agenda. This phenomenon was a result of the efforts led by Women in Black and the Coalition of Women for Peace. Bat Shalom is composed of a wide gamut of women, ranging from activists to Knesset members, and works in coalition with more than 100 women’s peace and antioccupation initiatives around the world. Initially, all of Bat Shalom’s projects dealt with creating connections between Israeli and Palestinian women, promoting coexistence and equality. Recently, however, Bat Shalom has opposed Jewish settlements and called for their dismantling, has launched several appeals for international intervention, advocated a

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two-state solution, and together with the JCW, presented various joint declarations. See Also: Israel; Judaism; Palestine; Peace Movement; Women in Black. Further Readings Bat Shalom: Women With a Vision for a Just Peace. http:// www.batshalom.org (accessed December 2009). Cockburn, C. From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis. London: Zed Books, 2007. Fay Cashman, G. “Women Forge the Links for Peace at Pre/ Post Oslo Dialogue.” Jerusalem Post (January 13, 1995). Golan, Daphna. “Peace Is a Feminist Issue.” California: Stanford’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender Newsletter, v.23/2 (1998). Greenblatt, T. “Women Peace and the United Nations:” Speech at the UN Security Council on May 7, 2002. http://www.fire.or.cr/mayo02/batshalomeng.htm (accessed December 2009) Kamal, Z. “Give Peace a Chance: Women Speak Out.” Archives of the CCLJ. Brussels, Belgium. September 18–21, 1992. Paulette Schuster Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Beach Volleyball/Volleyball In 1895, American William G. Morgan, the physical director of the Holyoke, Massachusetts Y.M.C.A. invented the game of volleyball. By blending the elements of basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball, he sought to create a game for predominantly middleaged male business executives who desired to play a sport with less physical contact than basketball. Until the mid-1900s, volleyball was an activity primarily enjoyed by and reserved for males. During the 1920s, families in Santa Monica, California, participated in a modified version of volleyball while at the beach. Beach volleyball celebrated the “beach-surf lifestyle” as male surfers from Waikiki beaches in Hawaii played beach volleyball when surfing conditions were not optimal. The sex appeal and youthful image associated with beach volley-

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ball emerged in the 1960s when U.S. President John F. Kennedy and even the Beatles took notice and watched beach volleyball games in Los Angeles. By the 1970s, men’s and women’s professional volleyball leagues began to form. The Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) recognized beach volleyball as an official discipline in 1986. A year later, the first men’s world championships were held in Rio de Janeiro, and six years later in 1993, the first women’s championships occurred. Women beach volleyball athletes faced significantly more struggles than males in order for their sport to be viewed worthy of international play. Olympic Debut The popularity of beach volleyball increased when it appeared at the Olympics in Atlanta 1996 for the first time. The event remains one of the most popular spectacles at the Summer Olympics and epitomizes celebrating beach-centric culture. Olympic beach volleyball matches involve loud contemporary music and dancing female cheerleaders in bikinis to keep the spectators’ interest during breaks in match play. Prior to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, controversy arose over the uniform regulations for women athletes mandated by the FIVB and the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. The rules stated that women players were required to wear bikini bottoms (or a full piece high-cut bathing suit), while male players were required to wear knee length slightly baggy shorts. The president of the FIVB, Ruben Acosta, defended the bikini bottom decision as an attempt to make the game more appealing to spectators. Feminist scholars have questioned the rationality of such a uniform regulation and have argued that the rule perpetuates sexual objectification of elite women athletes. Because of the uniform regulations, women beach volleyball players are often photographed in mainstream media images in highly sexualized positions. Additionally, research indicates that many elite beach volleyball players have suffered injuries from overtraining their abdominal muscles and others have even had breast enhancements to ensure that they look appealing in their uniforms. Beach volleyball culture seems to be surrounded by sexualization, for instance, the Xbox video game—Extreme Beach. Players choose from a pool

Female beach volleyball athletes struggle with the perception that their sport is not worthy of international play.

of characters, all of whom sport bikinis; furthermore, gamers can enter a secret code in order to maneuver the characters to strip down and play naked. Despite these controversies, beach volleyball remains very popular at the Summer Olympics. See Also: Coaches, Female; Sports, Women in; Olympics, Summer; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Brooks, Christine. “Using Sex Appeal as a Sport Promotion Strategy.” Women Sport and Physical Activity Journal, v.10 (2001). Couvillon, Arthur R. Sands of Time: The History of Beach Volleyball. Hermosa Beach, CA: Information Guidelines, 2002.

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Fédération Internationale de Volleyball. “Athens 2004 Olympic Games Beach Volleyball Specific Competition Regulations.” http://www.fivb.org/EN:42 (accessed October 2009). Charlene Weaving St. Francis Xavier University

Beauty Pageants Beauty pageants or beauty contests are competitions where female contestants are judged primarily on their physical appearance. Although some pageants assess nonphysical characteristics such as personality, intelligence, and talent, the main criterion is physical attractiveness. A panel of judges typically selects the pageant winner who is then crowned as a “beauty queen.” The first American beauty pageant was held in 1854 by P. T. Barnum, an entertainer and circus founder. However, the pageant was likened to a side show and it quickly closed down due to public protest. In the late 19th century, newspapers began hosting photo-based beauty contests. Soon after, the first “bathing beauty pageants” took place and ultimately became a regular part of summer beach life in an effort to draw tourists to beaches across the country. Miss America, which continues to run today, was borne of these earlier beach-centered pageants. First held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1921, Miss America incorporated both physical and mental judging criteria and included both an evening gown showcase and a talent show. It was not until World War II, when beauty queens were recruited to sell bonds and to entertain troops, that mainstream America began to warm to the idea of beauty pageants. These changing sentiments led to the emergence of a number of smaller U.S. pageants in the 1950s. Contests flourished as a means of promoting local events and products. During this same time period, beauty pageants became popular on college campuses. In 1926, the first international beauty pageant was held in Galveston, Texas. The contest, known as the International Pageant of Pulchritude, attracted contestants from all over the world. The winner, crowned “Miss Universe,” earned publicity along with a $2,500 cash prize. The pageant was discontinued in 1932,

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largely due to the financial strain of the Great Depression, but also because several religious and women’s groups pressured organizers to stop the pageant because they considered it distasteful to women. Today, international competitions are held regularly including the Miss World competition (founded in 1951), Miss Universe (founded in 1952), Miss International (founded in 1960), and Miss Earth (founded in 2001). Estimates indicate that nearly 700,000 pageants occur globally each year. The newest form of beauty pageant is strikingly similar to the newspaper photo-based contests of the 19th century. Albeit Web-based, these new pageants allow a vast number of contestants to enter who are then judged by Website visitors who directly select winners. These modern beauty pageants permit nontraditional contestants to compete, including men, transgendered individuals, people with disabilities, and plus-size women. Controversies and Critiques Despite controversies surrounding beauty contests, beauty pageants have received minimal scholarly attention. Some feminists argue that beauty pageants objectify women, reinforce the idea that women should be valued primarily for their appearance, and perpetuate unrealistic and culturally specific notions of beauty. Modern critics contend that beauty pageants reinforce the idea that women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance. In pageants, women’s bodies are paraded as sex objects and their physical bodies are judged and assigned a numerical value in a variety of categories such as “swimsuit” and “evening gown.” Even when some pageants include measures not based entirely on appearance, unattractive contestants are very unlikely to win regardless of how intelligent, prepared, talented, or charismatic they are. As such, some feminists oppose beauty pageants on the grounds that they objectify women’s bodies and treat women’s bodies like commodities, primarily for heterosexual male viewing pleasure. Pageants also create and reinforce hegemonic beauty norms. As critical “race scholars” argue, cultural ideals utilized for judging are white middleclass standards of beauty that exclude racial or ethnic minorities. Beauty queens still largely fit Western ideals of beauty by conforming to narrow beauty scripts. Pageants perpetuate a thin white ideal and

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put tremendous pressure on women to pursue an unattainable “beauty myth” by spending immense amounts of time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling, and other aesthetic enhancements. Some women even succumb to eating disorders or voluntarily undergo risky cosmetic surgeries in an effort to achieve this beauty ideal. In this way, beauty queens become symbols and tools of female oppression because, as feminist Jo Freeman had wrote, “All women were made to believe they were inferior because they couldn’t measure up to Miss America beauty standards.” Thus, not surprisingly, some of the more visible pageants have been accompanied by protest and controversy. Perhaps the most well-known protest occurred at the 1968 Miss America pageant. Because of its wide publicity, this protest is often credited with putting the feminist movement on the map and marking the visible beginning of second wave feminism. The protest was organized by New York Radical Women, a women’s liberation group, and included hundreds of feminists from all over the country. These feminists came together to show how all women are hurt by pageants, arguing that the contests promoted the idea that the most important thing about a woman is how she looks. Protesters asserted that the pageant espoused male chauvinism, commercialization of beauty, racism, and the widespread oppression of women. They engaged in a wide variety of activities and demonstrations including crowning a live sheep Miss America, tossing objects of female oppression (such as highheeled shoes, bras, and curlers) into the garbage, releasing stink bombs, displaying large banners, and making noise with songs, shouts, and chants including “Ain’t she sweet? Making profits off her meat!” There have been other controversies. In fact, two women’s organizations threatened to send suicide squads to the 1996 Miss World contest in Bangalore, India and the 2002 Miss World competition was moved at the last minute from Nigeria to England due to anti-pageant rioting that killed hundreds. Opportunities, Choice, and Empowerment Some pragmatic feminists, however, support beauty pageants, noting that they provide some women with a means of livelihood, an opportunity for advancement, and an avenue of empowerment. (The Miss American pageant is the largest provider of college

scholarships for women in the world today.) These feminists downplay the objectification of women, arguing instead that pageants showcase women as men’s intellectual equals, capable of independent rational thought and independent moral deliberation. The Miss Earth pageant best lives up to these claims, selecting a winner based primarily on her ability to be an effective ambassador of the earth, her attitude, and her natural beauty. Notably, this contest excludes women who have undergone cosmetic surgery. Other feminists do not take issue with pageants because they claim that there is nothing wrong with a woman who wants to display her beauty. These feminists argue that beauty and femininity are assets, rather than liabilities, and claim that beauty contestants are proud women who are unafraid of the world and their own femininity. Additionally, some feminists denounce the general feminist critique of beauty pageants and their contestants. They point out that feminism should ideally promote equality and free choice. Subsequently, women should not be criticized or condemned for the choices they make, including the choice to participate in beauty pageants. Furthermore, there have been instances where beauty pageants have been beneficial to entire groups of women. For instance, one researcher profiled a group of black female garment workers in South Africa who transformed a seemingly banal beauty pageant into a cultural event for self-empowerment, solidarity, and trade union democratization. Despite disagreements among feminists about both the real and symbolic meanings of these pageants, many feminists view these contests as one small part of a larger system of oppression that emphasizes physical attractiveness. Cultural and social structures pressure women to conform to beauty norms, commodify women and their femininity, reinforce race and class divisions, and privilege Western ideals of beauty—all of which marginalize nonconforming bodies. See Also: Beauty Pageants (Babies/Young Children); Beauty Standards, Cross Cultural; Body Image; Diet and Weight Control; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Stereotypes of Women; Supermodels. Further Readings Alegi, Peter. “Rewriting Patriarchal Scripts: Women, Labor, and Popular Culture in South African Clothing

Beauty Pageants (Babies/Young Children)



Industry Beauty Contests, 1970s–2005.” Journal of Social History, v.42/1 (2008). Ballerino, Colleen, Richard Wilk and Beverly Steltie, eds. Beauty Queens on the Global Stage: Gender, Contests, and Power. London: Routledge, 1996. Craig, Maxine Leeds. Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Freeman, Jo. “No More Miss America!: 1968–1969.” http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/MissAm1969.html (accessed April 2010). Merino, Noel, ed. Beauty Pageants. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press. 2010. Tice, Karen W. “Queens of Academe: Campus Pageantry and Student Life.” Feminist Studies, v.31/2 (2005). Watson, Elwood and Darcy Martin. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” Journal of Popular Culture, v.34 (2004). Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Samantha Kwan Jennifer L. Fackler University of Houston

Beauty Pageants (Babies/ Young Children) In order to explain the effects of these contests, the history of beauty pageants will be addressed to give a cultural and social context. Second, the history of beauty pageants for babies and children will be discussed. Finally, some of the negative influences of these contests on younger children will be discussed using social learning and construction of reality theories. The History of Beauty Pageants The history of beauty pageants can be traced to 1920s, although some scholars believe they began in the 1850s, and some even argue that beauty pageants originated in ancient Greece. On a surface level, pageants were designed to celebrate women’s beauty and their place in society, they clearly objectified women’s bodies and created stereotypes about accepted beauty ideals. Including Miss America, Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss International, and Miss Earth, there

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are thousands of beauty pageants around the world. Although most of these pageants involve women, pageants judging male beauty, such as Mr. Universe, Mr. World, and Manhunt International have existed since the 1990s. It is important to recognize that these pageants are considered cultural and media events and are sponsored by dozens of organizations or commercial companies. Therefore, they occupy an important role in the entertainment industry (both socially and economically). It can also be argued that these pageants not only objectify human bodies, but capitalize on them by putting them on display. Pageants for Babies and Children Pageants for babies, toddlers, and children were created in the 1960s. Unlike other beauty pageants that are known internationally, baby or child beauty pageants are more common in the United States and the United Kingdom (UK); therefore, this new growing phenomenon remains limited to American or Anglo cultures. According to an article published by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), the American phenomenon of children’s beauty pageant has spread to the UK. The visibility or invisibility of these pageants elsewhere perhaps suggests the level of commoditization of youth or children cultures in other countries. Most of these pageants consist of a program of modeling swimwear, casual wear and other costumes, and a talent portion. More than 100,000 contestants between the ages of 2 and 12 participate in these contests each year. Most of these pageants are focused on female children, although boys and young men do compete as well. Typically, the children are judged based on their overall appearance, including hair styling, makeup, and attire, their capability in completing the regimented steps and methods of presenting themselves onstage, their talent in dance, singing, gymnastics, or other skills, and their poise and confidence. These are often referred as “the complete package” by the judges. There are no rules or regulations that prescribe how the pageants must be run; therefore, the rules are set by each contest promoter. It is important to address that these beauty pageants are exempt from U.S. federal child labor laws. Even though children are expected to “work” (learning their choreograpy, practicing their dance routines, and rehearsing for

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the show can be considered work), the organizers do not address these chores as work. Although, in traditional sense, these children do not receive any income from these pageants, they are often awarded prizes and gifts.Important questions arise concerning these pageants, including why they are so important to the parents (mainly mothers), what pageant involvement teaches children, and what type of realities are constructed through these pageants. Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen (2001) is a documentary on child beauty pageants that attempts to answer some of these questions. The documentary focuses on the lives of beauty pageant participants by showing the powerful and sometimes destructive web of ambitious mothers, determined and clueless children, and beauty pageant organizers. Obviously, parents play a paramount role in their children’s participation in these contests, however, they are not the only ones to blame for any negative consequences. Media outlets and pageant organizers share equal responsibility when it comes to constructing a reality to American children about beauty ideals and gender roles. One of the mothers filmed in the documentary believes that her 5-year-old daughter has what it takes to be a winner. She claims that she will do what it takes, including working three different jobs, to have enough money to enter her daughter into pageants across the country. She is by far not the only mother to share this belief. Because most of these pageants are focused on female children, it is often thought that they objectify their bodies by prematurely dressing them in sometimes sexualized clothing, teaching them sometimes suggestive and inappropriate routines, having them wear hairstyles, wigs, prosthetic teeth, and makeup that would be worn by women, and by putting them on display. It should be noted that mothers are willingly participating in the process of objectifying their children. Impacts of Pageants The murder of 6-year-old U.S. pageant participant Jon Benet Ramsey in 1996 brought children’s beauty pageants into a harsh spotlight. Jon Benet’s body was found in the basement of the family home after being taken from her bed on Christmas Eve. Reports from the time described the child as “a painted baby, a sexualized toddler beauty queen,” and implied that her

participation in these pageants had led to her murder. Suspects included her parents and friends of the family. The Ramsey family was cleared from suspicion in 2008, and the case has yet to be solved. Social learning theory suggests that children learn about who they are, their gendered identities, and their cultural practices by observing their parents and their immediate surroundings. By imitating what is around them, they start learning what to do, how to be, and what is acceptable. Therefore, the children who participate in these pageants learn to value beauty and the value of certain beauty ideals, embody these ideals, and perform assigned gender roles to make their families happy. Therefore, from an early age, children are brought up to value certain ideals, practice certain beliefs, and perform certain roles. By imitating others, female children often construct a sense of identity and reality about what it means to be a woman or young female in their culture. It can be argued that beauty pageants for children and babies contributes greatly to the construction of this reality, which gives a false, delusional, or distorted idea about the potential meanings, representations, and performances of gender identities and female sexualities. By encouraging their children to take part in these pageants, parents also negatively contribute to the construction of gender roles and performances of femininity. Therefore, the role and impact of these pageants and the role of parents in this process should be carefully examined to understand how young children construct a reality about themselves. The power of these experiences often leave long-lasting and irreparable damage on children. See Also: Beauty Pageants; Gender, Defined; Little League. Further Readings Anderson, Susan, Robert Greene, and Simon Doonan. High Glitz: The Extravagant World of Child Beauty Pageants. Brooklyn, NY: powerHouse Books, 2009. British Broadcasting Corporation. “Baby Beauty Queens.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvf60 (accessed September 2009). Cookson, Shari. Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen. HBO, DVD. May 13, 2001. Nusbaum, Kareen. “Children and Beauty Pageants.” http://www.minorcon.org/pageants.html (accessed September 2009).

Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural

Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Press, 2010. Ahmet Atay University of Louisville

Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural Cross-cultural beauty standards, mainly applied to women, and societal perspectives and behaviors attendant to women in today’s world affect gender equality along the important dimension of physical appearance. Members of a society are greatly influenced by social dictates, or social influences. Women (and sometimes men) are denied or afforded social opportunities, primarily economic opportunities, based on their physical appearance. Employment, marriage-ability, educational achievement, and social networks (such as club memberships) are dependent upon adhering to current beauty standards. Crossculturally, we are subject to the coercion of socially imposed beauty standards and these standards may be unachievable due to our native cultural makeup. This is not to say that nonwhites, for example, Africans, African Americans, or Asians cannot be successful (well-employed and well-connected) members of society. It is to say that if people are subjected to evaluation on their appearance for social opportunities, they are far better off if they have features that are not “too ethnic” or too visibly astray from the ideal westernized Caucasian appearance. So, there is cultural coercion to assimilate, or to deny “otherness.” The focus is as much on cultural issues as it is on gender. Men are subject to social appearance directives, but usually not as often or with the same degree of pressure. As one illustration, women, cross-culturally, engage in more numerous and more drastic attempts at appearance alteration, including surgery. Pressure on Women to Be Beautiful Women are exponentially more pressured than men to appear a certain way. This “certain way” means beautiful, of course and, globally, there is a lot of consensus on what constitutes “beauty” and what features define being beautiful. Subjectivity is much over-

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rated when discussing beauty standards. It has long been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; if so, then beholders agree on beauty. Cross-culturally, we favor small, narrow noses versus flat, wide noses; wide, open, and large eyes versus small eyes; high prominent cheekbones but not “big faces” (as they are known in Asia) with large, wide jaws; full but not too-full lips; long, thin limbs; tallness; northern European coloration (light hair, blue eyes, etc.); and full breasts perched atop a thin body. Almost universally, women are expected to have narrow hips and smallish, round buttocks rather than wide, fleshy hips and buttocks. And all women everywhere are subject to standards of youth versus agedness, healthful appearance (clear skin, abundant hair, white and plentiful and straight teeth) versus evidence of disability, old age, and weakness. These standards are standards regardless of genetic, national, socioeconomic, or ethnic traits. On the whole, symmetry of facial and bodily features and a healthy appearance are universal signs of physical attractiveness. One evolutionary reason for healthy and young looks being favored in women has to do with fecundity. This argument rests upon the ability of the woman to be sexually active and to produce viable offspring, presumably traits that would be appealing to men. However, this argument doesn’t hold up in present times so much as in less-advanced times since surgery and other medical practices can correct appearance problems (indicators of poor health and postfecundity). However, having a youthful, healthy, and “beautiful” appearance does prevail as a primary door opener to social opportunities in all societies. Moreover, cross-culturally, all women, regardless of genetic makeup, are somehow supposed to appear white. The lengths to which we go to achieve crosscultural beauty standards are surprising perhaps, and certainly dangerous and expensive. Culture Influences Beauty Ideals While there is a great deal of consensus on what constitutes female beauty, it is also true that there are cultural variances on the definition of beauty. In other words, the dominant culture in any society determines what good looks are and are not. Some cultures elongate the woman’s neck by encircling it with brass rings, insert lip plates, and paint the woman’s teeth as signs of beauty. Other cultures seek out women for

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Skin color is often used as a means of identifying us racially and is a significant part of how some people determine attractiveness, but skin color is a poor method of categorizing people by race.

features that those in the Western world would denigrate, such as droopy breasts. There are few but notable exceptions to the rule that thin is always preferable. Odd as it may seem since Brazil is the home to many supermodels, Brazilian culture has long (at least internally) valued a guitar-shaped woman’s body. Traditionally, the idealized feminine form in Brazil was a woman’s body with a slender bust and waist and ample buttocks. Women were and are encouraged to be fleshy. But Brazilian women who once valued (because Brazilian men and Brazilian culture broadly valued) large hips and buttocks are now reducing, naturally or not, their sizes, thus reflecting the mostly worldwide adoration of thin bodies for women. Other cultures have not followed the mostly global trend toward at least fretting about being fat, and these cultures instead revere fatness. In South Africa, a trim figure is regarded as a sign of illness, with women,

especially, who are encouraged to be fat. Many indeed are fat and are not in the least bit worried about it. A hefty girth has long been a sign of well-being among black South Africans, where a slim woman is the subject of unpleasant gossip. In South Africa, “a big woman is good and a bigger woman is better.” In a study of the aesthetic appeal of female fatness among the Islamic Azawagh Arabs of Niger, fatness is considered such a beautiful and desirable trait in women that young girls (age 5 and 6) are forcibly fattened by an appointed female authority figure in the family. Fatness in this Islamic culture is closely associated with womanliness. In becoming fat, Azawagh Arab women cultivate an aesthetic of softness, stillness, and seatedness, which is in direct opposition to the aesthetic of men that valorizes hardness, uprightness, and mobility. Female fatness among these Islamic Arabs, in total opposition to what most cultures think, provides women with power; their fat-



ness proves that they are in command of their own lives. An alternative interpretation is that because these women are fat, they are less mobile, with immobility being seen as a good thing in this culture. The woman will stay put if she is fat, and that may be the true reason why this male-dominated culture values fatness in women. Men of Greek, Italian, Eastern European, and African descent, influenced by their distinctive cultural heritages, may be more likely to find female voluptuousness appealing. If we look more globally and historically, many cultures have admired expansive women’s bodies and appetites. However, increasingly since the 1980s, the universality of slender ideals is equated with beauty and success, signaling a decline in cultural and sociopersonal aesthetic diversity. Globalization of Beauty Ideals The agreement about attractiveness has increased as time progressed, with the probable best explanation for this consensus being the globalization of visual images. Through television, movies, magazines, billboards, and other visual media, our (the world’s) standards of acceptable and unacceptable looks are homogenized because we, internationally, are presented with a restricted image of what is beautiful. Northern European standards of attractiveness apply across all societies, including African and Asian ones, such that tall, slender, white, blonde, light-eyed, and flowing hair features are the standards against which we are all judged. Consider the example of department store mannequins. It may be surprising to the untraveled reader to see white mannequins with Caucasian features in a Ginza (Tokyo) department store. There are very few whites in Japan, on the whole, or in department stores in particular, but Japanese standards for beauty are white northern European standards. It is not possible for Japanese women to “live up to” these unreachable expectations: no amount of skin whitening or eye rounding (the number one cosmetic surgery in Japan) will make them appear Caucasian. Yet Japanese women are encouraged to be white. As the world becomes smaller through globalization, we are not a global community with diverse standards. We remain a collection of highly distinct cultures but with a limited range of acceptable appearance standards. Our strictures on acceptable/

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unacceptable looks, perhaps always narrow and strict, have narrowed and become stricter. Those who are not or do not appear to be white, northern European are defined as the “Other,” and they are pressured to do all that they can to appear homogeneous and assimilated into a culture that is not naturally theirs. Cultural Markers of “Otherness” Skin color is one of the most obvious ways that people vary. It is also a false but primary way of classifying people into genetically distinct “races.” Skin color is a very poor method of categorizing people by race because skin pigmentation is environmentally adaptive to solar conditions and a product of evolution by natural selection. That is, skin color tells us about the past environments in which our ancestors lived, but skin color tells us nothing about racial identity. Nonetheless, skin color is used popularly as a means of identifying us racially, and it is also a significant part of what determines attractiveness. Blondes are preferred not necessarily because of their hair color but because of their light skin, which often corresponds to having blond hair. Light-skinned women are preferred universally by men in African, Japanese, and other societies. Light skin, for women, grants privileges, both romantically and professionally. Due to global marketing, the social desirability of white or lighter skin is being promulgated throughout more and poorer countries. This is an unhealthy trend because it includes people living in equatorial regions, where dark pigmentation provides important protection against high levels of ultraviolet radiation. Not only is skin lightening destructive healthwise, it is societally destructive because, in multicultural countries, aggressive marketing of skin-lightening products has also promoted the spread of colorism by promoting the ideal of lightness. Stratification by skin color, or “colorism,” is a longstanding legacy in European cultures. The preference for light-skinned people has existed among the peoples of Africa and Melanesia (generally dark-skinned people) long before contact with light-skinned Europeans. From this, we know that even without experience with white people, the equation of whites with social status was already present. Stratification by skin color has been evident as a predictor of educational attainment, occupational status, and income with this pattern of colorism occurring among dark-

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skinned people such as Mexicans, South Americans, and Asians as well as African Americans. In Latin American societies, for instance, Eurocentric favoritism is extended toward people of mixed indigenous Latin and European blood (mestizos) who, as expected, have a lighter complexion. Darker complexioned Mexican Americans with more indigenous First Nation (Native Indian) features are more socially disadvantaged. They earn less pay and attain less education. The same is true for Asian Indians. The preference for light skin within the African American community did not end with the civil rights movement and the “Black is Beautiful” sentiment, as they took place in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Skin tone among African Americans continues to effect social stratification. There was an interesting reversal taking place at the time, though, and it persists to a small degree contemporarily: during the U.S. racial awakening was a greater acceptance of, and even preference for, darker complexions among nonwhites. During the 1960s and 1970s, dark skin coloring served to unify nonwhite races, with some African Americans exhibiting intraracial colorism such that darker skin, as evidence of unmixed racial heritage was considered superior and light-skinned co-ethnics were considered inferior because of their mixed ancestry. As with interracial colorism, intraracial colorism is a form of discrimination. And the present though limited existence of intraracial colorism does little to explain the prominent practice of skin bleaching by African Americans and by Africans. The phenomenon of intraracial and interracial colorism is puzzling and complex. We can be too black or not black enough. We can be too Chicano or not Chicano enough. Colorism, in other words, proves the antithesis of the simplistic appearance-relevant arguments such as white skin is better than dark skin. Skin color is not the only dimension along which we are stratified. Other racially charged appearance features include hair texture, eye shape, lip thickness, eye color, nose shapes, and other phenotypical features. African Americans with straight or “good” hair, for instance, for centuries have placed higher in the social hierarchy than those African Americans with nappy, kinky, or “bad” hair. Among Asians, there is prejudice across the several cultures (Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese, for example) and this prejudice is often made visible by

judgments about physical appearance. The Japanese have long manifested an entrenched and hateful bias against the Chinese and Koreans and, judging from visual depictions of these despised groups as found in graphic novels, the Chinese and Koreans are not only unintelligent, depraved, and without substantial culture, they are physically far less attractive than the Japanese, who are phenotypically indistinguishable from Chinese and Koreans. The cartoon drawings of Japanese by Japanese are drawn to appear more Caucasian than they, in reality, appear. Globalization and Cross-Cultural Alterations Globalization has forced a homogenized sameness in beauty standards, such that we find Iranian women in large numbers getting Anglicized noses, and Asian women undergoing eyelid surgery to gain a more open and “American” look to their eyes. We are becoming more alike in terms of skin color, with the advent of skin lightening. These trends toward homogeneous beauty are worrisome due to the doubts that they bring up regarding identity and other sociopolitical issues. Nevertheless, health risks and economic issues also play a large role in cross-cultural physical appearance and neither are necessarily aimed at enhancing beauty. Instead, there is a trend toward global homogeneity but away from adhering to beauty standards, in an attempt to advance financial profits. To explain, the United States is exporting high-fat and obesityinducing foods to other cultures, many of them with the “thrifty gene” that disallows metabolizing highfat foods. The trend, then, is toward non-Americans becoming fat like Americans. This is a special problem for Mexicans, Asian Indians, Malaysians, and other Pacific Islanders who are exposed to U.S. highfat food exports. Usually, the intersection between economics and beauty go in the direction of advancing both economic stability and homogenized beauty. The desire on the part of Asians living in the United States to appear more Caucasian is directly shaped by the notion of fitting into a niche of an acceptable “American” physiognomy. Eyelid surgery on the epicanthal fold among Asians was and is performed for economic reasons, per the intersection between racial ideology and capitalist consumer culture. Indeed, economic conditions greatly affect appearance-changing



behaviors. In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), after the death of Mao Tse-tung and the commensurate social liberalization, there was a vast increase in cosmetic surgery, largely a consequence of the increased affluence of the Chinese population. In the 1990s in the PRC, eyelid surgery was and remains the most popular cosmetic surgery performed. We find that the major reason for westernizing surgery is the pursuit of power: economic power (the ability to increase one’s income) and social network power (for example, marriage-ability). In other homogenizing trends, cookie-cutter plastic surgery has made us look alike, with the same high cheekbones, full lips, open eyes, etc., that constitute “beauty.” With money and surgery, it seems, beauty is possible even as we become indistinguishable from each other. Regardless of the palette with which we begin, through surgery, cosmetics use, and other alterations, we are cross-culturally beginning to look more alike. Ethnic Surgery Ethnic surgery is not new. Since the turn of the 20th century, people in the United States and Europe have used cosmetic surgery to minimize or eradicate physical signs that they believe mark them as the “Other.” In the 19th century in central Europe, the “Other” was the Jew. At the end of the 19th century in the United States, cosmetic surgery became a widespread practice resulting from large-scale immigration. The Irish immigrants had their “pug noses” reshaped. Jews, Italians, and others of Mediterranean and eastern European descent likewise underwent rhinoplasty. After World War II, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and Asian Americans have had their eyelids altered to appear more Caucasian. In Rio de Janeiro, women had their pendulous breasts reduced because large breasts were associated with the lower classes, with lower class associated with being black. At the end of the 19th century, altering the African American nose became a chief concern of U.S. cosmetic surgeons, occurring along with other race-denying procedures such as hair straightening and lip thinning, as took place at the beginning of the 20th century. In Saudi Arabia, plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures have in recent years become prominent in a culture where religion covers every facet of life— even those body parts covered from head to toe. The

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Islamic religion, which usually forbids alterations to “God’s creation,” has not proved a barrier. Liposuction, breast implants, and rhinoplasty are the most popular procedures requested by women; men also want rhinoplasty and secondly hair implants. Both genders want noses that look less Arab, often hoping to emulate celebrities. An immediate question is why traditional Arab women would want these cosmetic changes when they are almost completely covered. Answers to this question are they travel outside their culture and want to look good, uncovered; they want to look good among women and at women’s gatherings; and they want to look good to their husbands. Leg-lengthening surgery, such as Chinese women (mostly) and men undergo, adds a few inches of height at the risk of permanently crippling the patient, and at a cost of about $6,000–$7,000. The procedure involves breaking the long bones in the legs, the legs are then places in braces, and the patient is required to turn plastic dials on the contraptions four times per day to winch their broken bones apart with the idea being that the bones will knit in an elongated form. It takes 15 days to grow one centimeter, or less than half an inch, of new bone. The legs and feet can become horribly warped and twisted, and the weakened bones can break. The purpose of this gruesome procedure, according to those who undergo it, is to get better jobs and to attract better marriage partners, since China, like much of the world, values height. In sum, if white northern European features are the standard against which we are all compared, regardless of our natural appearance, it is hardly surprising that individuals with features that mark them as the “Other” (nonwhite or non-northern European) would want to hide the visible clues that stigmatize them. Cosmetic changes permit us to become “ethnically anonymous.” According to one perspective, plastic surgery is undertaken by women and nonwhites as a means of equalization: it is not just a matter of vanity, even if the surgery is purely aesthetic rather than corrective. Instead, minorities who undergo plastic surgery are engaging in equality discourse, which celebrates individuality leading, presumably, to a kind of equality. That is, we may undergo plastic surgery in order to be socially acceptable, and this purpose (to be socially acceptable) is nothing to be ashamed of and has nothing to

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do with the frivolities usually associated with cosmetic surgery. If women and nonwhites are to gain or retain social power, surgery is a tool by which to do that, in the same manner that obtaining extra training and education is a tool for advancement. On the other hand, cosmetic surgery can also represent a capitulation to the cultural norms that victimize women and ethnics in the name of beauty. Social Resistance and Appearance Diversity There is the occasional, culturally and politically meaningful, backlash. We saw it in the Black is Beautiful movement. We saw it in the Vietnamese reaction to U.S. occupation during the Vietnam War, when assimilation was the order of the day, followed by backlash upon U.S. withdrawal. After 1975, following the U.S. removal from Vietnam, westernizing plastic surgery declined markedly, notably eyelid epicanthal fold surgery and breast augmentations, which were prominent procedures during the Vietnam War. Now, in contemporary Vietnam, the pendulum has swung again and plastic surgery is back to westernizing noses (increasing the size of noses to make them more European-looking), breast augmentations, and eye-rounding surgeries. How the future woman will deal with imposed beauty standards is unknown. Without a grand leap forward in social progress, there is no indication that women will be better able to resist socially imposed beauty standards. In everyday mainstream news, we read that women in all cultures continue to be subject to appearance bias in order to get or retain employment, such as has been the case with Chinese women who are subject to beauty-pageant ordeals hoping to gain jobs as flight attendants and teachers. We see signs in our everyday existence, such as visual advertisements messaging that tall, thin, northern Europeans are the ideal to which we must aspire. The barriers are understood (whole industries devoted to appearance competition as represented by fashion, cosmetics, weight-loss, surgery, and other looks-altering industries), but it has not been determined as to how we halt the bias against people based on their appearance. As long as we are punished and rewarded for possessing certain features, we will (most of us) do all in our power to respond to cross-cultural demands to be “beautiful” according to biased cross-cultural standards.

See Also: Breast Reduction/Enlargement Surgery; Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Cosmetics Industry; Diet and Weight Control. Further Readings Berry, Bonnie. Beauty Bias: Discrimination and Social Power. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Blum, Virginia L. Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Davis, Kathy. Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Etcoff, Nancy. Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty. New York: Anchor Books, 1999. Gilman, Sander L. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Herring, Cedric, Verna M. Keith, and Hayward Derrick Horton, eds. Skin/Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the “Color-Blind” Era. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004 Jablonski, Nina G. Skin: A Natural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Bonnie Berry Independent Scholar

Belarus Even after Belarus gained independence as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it maintained close political and social ties to Russia. Since 1994, Belarusians have lived under a strict authoritarian government that limits civil liberties. The Belarusian economy is described as “market socialism.” The per capita income is $11,600, and more than half of all workers are employed in services. According to official reports, 64 percent of all the unemployed are female. Because of this and the persistent wage gap, females are disproportionately represented in the 21 percent of the population that lives in poverty. Nearly threefourths of the population is urbanized. Ethnically, 81.2

Belgium



percent of the population is Belarusian, and 11.4 percent is Russian. There is little religious diversity, and 80 percent of Belarusians are Eastern Orthodox. According to their constitution, the Marriage and Family and Civil Codes of 1999, the Labor Code of 2000, and the Criminal Code of 2001, women have equal rights in Belarusian society. In reality, many women struggle for recognition economically, socially, and politically. Belarus ranks 177 in the world in infant mortality (6.43 deaths per 1,000 live births). Female infants (5.36) have a considerable advantage over males (7.45). This advantage continues throughout life, and women have a life expectancy of 76.67 years, compared to 65.95 years for males. The median age for women is 41.6 years. Women have a fertility rate of 1.24 children. Officially, males (99.8 percent) are slightly more literate than females (99.4 percent), but in fact rates of female illiteracy are high in some areas. Belarus ranks 39th in the world in educational spending, and the people are generally well educated, with females outranking males in pursuing higher education. However, the area does experience a problem of girls dropping out of school. The government signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and created the National Council on Gender Policy in 2000. However, women’s rights groups believe that subsequent legal forms have not adequately addressed gender inequities. They express concern about declines in the status of women’s health because of limited access to health services, the use of abortion rather than family planning, teenage pregnancies, declining maternal health, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including the human immunodefficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Belarusian women may marry at 18 years of age, although pregnant females as young as 15 may also marry. A 2004 report issued by the United Nations stated that 6 percent of females between the ages of 15 and 19 were married, divorced, or widowed. Despite laws against violence against women, rape, sexually motivated murder, sexual harassment, and trafficking remain major problems. In a 2002 CEDAWconducted survey, one-third of all Belarusian women admitted to having been victimized by domestic violence. Most rapes still go unreported because of fear of reprisals and social stigmatism. A National Action

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Plan adopted early in the 21st century created programs designed to assist victims of violence, and a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide similar services. Belarus’s Marriage Code gives parents equal rights and responsibilities in relation to children, and females have equal access to property and inheritance. Prostitution is considered an administrative rather than a criminal offense, and evidence suggests that prostitution rings operate in government-owned hotels. The number of women in politics has increased, in part because of a quota system used for representation in the National Assembly. In 2008, there were 35 women in the 110-member Chamber of Representatives, and 19 women on the 56-member Council of the Republic. Among the 39-member Council of Ministers, only one was female. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Belarus.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/bo.html (accessed February 2010). NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women. http:// www.niew.gov.my/niew/index.php?option=com_doc man&task=cat_view&gid=151&Itemid=60&lang=en (accessed February 2010). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Stats of Women in 140 Countries. New York: Random House, 1997. Social Institutions & Gender Index (SIGI). “Gender Equality and Social Institutions: Belarus.” http:// genderindex.org/country/belarus (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Belgium Belgium is a technologically advanced country of over 10 million people in northern Europe. Belgian citizens enjoy a high standard of living, with a per capita Gross

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Domestic Product (GDP) of $36,900, and low inequality Gini index of 28, 120th among 134 countries reporting. Belgium is a secular country, although historically the Roman Catholic Church has been influential in Belgian society, and today about 75 percent of Belgians identify themselves as Roman Catholic. The World Economic Forum rated Belgium relatively high in gender equality in 2009. On a scale of 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality), Belgium got an overall score of 0.717, 33rd among the 134 countries rated. Belgium ranked highly on political empowerment (0.243, 29th) but lower on health and survival (0.979, 55th), economic participation and opportunity (0.653, 64th) and educational attainment (0.991, 71st). Literacy is almost universal, at 99 percent for both men and women.Women constitute more than half of students enrolled in tertiary education. Women constituted over 45 percent of the nonagricultural work force in 2005. Great differences in employment exist according to a woman’s age: 57.8 percent of women aged 15 to 64 were employed in 2006, but only 29.2 percent in the 15 to 24 age category, versus 81.4 percent for ages 25 to 34 and 73.8 percent for ages 35 to 54. Mothers are entitled to 15 weeks of maternity leave, and receive 82 percent of their salary for the first 30 days, dropping to 75 percent after that. Fathers are entitled to 10 days of paternity leave. As of 2009, the retirement age for both men and women was 65 (it was previously 60 for women, and 65 for men). Suffrage is universal and compulsory at age 18. Women hold about 35 percent of the seats in parliament and 23 percent of ministerial positions. Abortion is available on demand in Belgium, and in 2003, the abortion rate was 7.5 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years. Over three-quarters of Belgian women aged 15 to 49 report using contraceptives. The birth rate (10.15 per 1,000 population) and fertility rates (1.65 children per woman) are typical for technologically advanced countries, and Belgium has a relative high net migration rate of 1.22 migrants per 1,000 population, giving it a slightly positive population growth. Belgian citizens enjoy a high standard of healthcare and social services. Life expectancy at birth is 75 for men and 82 for women. Childcare is subsidized and regulated, and accredited early education services are provided to over 80 percent of 4-year-olds. Child poverty is under 10 percent, and most children aged 3 to

4 years are enrolled in preschool. Nearly all births are attended by skilled personnel, and both the under-5 mortality and maternal mortality rates are low, at 2 per 1,000 live births and 10 per 100,000 live births respectively. In 2009, the international organization Save the Children ranked Belgium 13th on its Children’s Index, 17th on its Mother’s Index, and 22 on its Women’s Index. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Childcare; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Arblaster, Paul. A History of the Low Countries (Palgrave Essential Histories). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Belgium.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/be.html (accessed July 2010). Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years“ http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Belize Belize is located on the Yucatán Peninsula and its residents are mainly of the Hispanic, Creole, Maya, and Garifuna cultures. Christianity is the predominant religion. Belize ranked 88th of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Women enjoy legal equality but suffer from limited educational and employment opportunities and high rates of violence against women. Many also endure poverty and inadequate living conditions. Society places a high value on church marriages. Fertility rates are high and infant mortality rates have been declining, resulting in large family sizes. The 2009 fertility rate was 3 births per woman with an infant mortality rate of 14 per 1,000 live births and a



maternal mortality rate of 52 per 100,000 live births. Illegitimate births are not uncommon and high adolescent fertility rates are a concern. Women receive 12 weeks of paid maternity leave at 80 percent of their wages through either the state social security system or their employer. About 56 percent of married women use contraceptives. There are strict divorce requirements. Common family types include nuclear families, extended families, and single-parent families, with most of the latter being female-headed and urban. It is common for women to defer to their husbands. Domestic violence is a problem. Although education is compulsory through age 14, many children do not attend school beyond the primary grades. Female attendance rates are 98 percent at the primary level, 70 percent at the secondary level, and 4 percent at the tertiary level. The 2009 literacy rate stood at 77 percent for both genders. Life expectancy is 62 years for women and 58 years for men.

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Women in the Workforce Women’s lifestyles depend on their socioeconomic class. The population is approximately half urban and half rural. Class stratification in urban areas is based largely on skin color while class stratification in rural areas is based largely on ethnic group membership. Common problems include poor sanitary conditions, malnutrition, limited access to healthcare, cardiovascular disease, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, high urban crime and unemployment rates, and violence and discrimination against women. There is a social assistance program for women over age 65. Women constitute 38 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 50 percent of professional and technical workers. Women represent a large percentage of teachers at all levels of education. Other key employers include service, agriculture, and industry. Gender gaps still exist in terms of estimated earned

Pageant leaders at the Punta Gorda, Belize Garafuna Day celebration. Although education is compulsory in Belize through age 14, many children do not attend school beyond the primary grades.

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income in U.S. dollars, which stood at $3,817 for women and $9,476 for men, and unemployment rates, which stood at 18.6 percent for women and 8.4 percent for men. Minimum wage is not high enough to maintain an adequate standard of living. Women as well as men have emigrated in search of better employment opportunities. Although there are no legal barriers preventing gender equality, women in Belize are underrepresented in most spheres of public life, including politics and religion, and face discrimination. Women have the right to vote. Women hold no parliamentary seats and 18 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. Government programs support women’s educational and economic empowerment. There is a Women’s Bureau of the Ministry of Labor and Social Services as well as a United Democratic Party National Organization of Women (UPNOW). See Also: Domestic Violence; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; HIV/AIDS: South America; Poverty; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. McClaurin, Irma. Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996. World Health Organization, “World Health Report Statistical Annex, Annexes by Country (A-F).” http:// www.who.int/entity/whr/2005/annex/indicators _country_a-f.pdf (accessed February 2010). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Benin Benin is one of the smaller countries in West Africa and also one of the world’s poorest countries, qualifying for debt relief in 2000. Through its high dependency on agricultural export products and falling world market prices, Benin has difficulties escaping the poverty trap. Life in Benin remains mostly rural,

and traditions prevail. Many different ethnic groups live in the country, where they settled at different times and migrated from neighboring countries. With a population of almost 8,500,000 inhabitants, the growth in real output of around 5 percent in the past seven years has been offset by rapid population growth of around 3 percent per year. The economy of Benin remains underdeveloped and dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade. Extreme poverty remains endemic and continues to be concentrated in rural areas. On average, each woman gives birth to more than six children; Benin has one of the highest death rates for children younger than 5 years—estimated by the United Nations Human Development Report to be 98 deaths per 1,000 live births. Although the constitution provides for equality for women in the political, economic, and social spheres, women experience extensive societal discrimination, especially in rural areas, where they occupy a subordinate role and are responsible for much of the hard labor on subsistence farms. In urban areas, women dominate the trading sector in the open-air markets. Violence and abuse of women are considered a family matter, even though the government has put some measures into place to protect women against violence through legal sanctions and amendments to the penal code. There is also a great disparity between boys’ and girls’ school enrolment rates. One prominent reason is the custom of vidomegon, whereby poor, often rural families place a child, primarily daughters, in the home of a more wealthy family in the cities; in exchange, the child typically works for the family. Although the practice is ostensibly intended to give an education to the child, the situation frequently degenerates to forced servitude. Vidomegon children may be subjected to poor working and living conditions, may be denied education, and are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including trafficking. Toda,y the practice is one of the major reasons why only one in four school-age girls in Benin ever attends school. Nor is enrollment the whole story, because of the persistent challenge of girls dropping out of school. Another obstacle to girls’ education is early marriage: If girls do get to attend primary school, they are often withdrawn before they finish to work as unpaid laborers for their extended family, to be married off, or to have children.

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Girls are the most vulnerable segment of society and the most affected by gender-based violence. The global economic downturn will have particularly damaging consequences for girls worldwide because it will have a significant effect on the trade of domestic workers with neighboring countries, where thousands of young girls will face exploitation and abuse. See Also: Child Labor; Domestic Violence; Nigeria. Further Readings United Nations Development Programme. “Human Development Report 2009.” http://hdr.undp.org/en /media/HDR_2009_EN_Complete.pdf (accessed June 2010). United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. “Fifteen-Year Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in Africa.” http://www .uneca.org/acgd/beijingplus15/documents /implementation-BPOA.pdf (accessed June 2010). United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and African Union and African Development Bank Group. “Assessing Progress in Africa Toward the Millennium Development Goals, 2009.” http://www.uneca.org/acgd /Publications/MDGR2009.pdf (accessed June 2010). G. Fornengo University of Turin

Bhutan Bhutan is a small, Buddhist-majority country in the Eastern Himalayas which transitioned to being a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy in 2008, and whose leaders and thinkers have pioneered the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an alternative indicator of development. In 2006, 37.7 percent of the labor force was female, and the life expectancy of women at birth was 66.85 years. Women are almost half the population of under a million people. Most people live in rural areas, engaged in agriculture and related activities, with women participating equally. However, the significant trend of rural–urban migration has resulted in a more traditional gendered division of labor in the cities. Women in urban areas (as opposed to rural women) have

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higher levels of literacy and better health facilities but own less property. Compared to other countries in the region, women in Bhutan present a contrast: they don’t take their father’s name on birth or husband’s name upon marriage, they own and run businesses, rural land is often registered in women’s names, the inheritance systems are matrilineal (a man may have to work in the household of the prospective wife), and there is no dowry. There is some prevalence of polyandry, alongside the more common polygamy, but there is little social stigma associated with divorce and women have a significant degree of sexual freedom, a rarity in south Asia. No legal discrimination exists against women; there are some customary practices (such as wearing of the national dress—kira for women and gho for men—to government offices) which affect men and women equally. Nonetheless, there are traditional gender hierarchies that associate men and women with different social activities and reward them differently, for example, female weavers and male archers. Patriarchal norms controlling women are stronger in the south of the country due to the Hindu religious ethos there, while problems compounded by alcoholism and poverty are more predominant in the east. In the formal political arena, women are a minority, although addressing this issue is gaining momentum with ongoing discussions in the media (e.g., about the benefits of quotas for women in parliament). Also, debates over the Constitution resulted in amendments to use a gender-neutral language (he/she). In 2008, about 30 percent of 19,516 civil servants were women. There are no women ministers in the current government cabinet, four of 47 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the National Assembly (the lower house) are women, all belonging to the ruling party (DPT or Druk Phuensum Tshogpa). In the politically unaffiliated National Council (the upper house), the candidate (Pema Lhamo) who won with the largest vote margin was a woman. Bhutan is a signatory to two United Nations’ programmes, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). International Women’s Day is marked every year. Women play an active role in media, constitutional bodies, and civil society organizations: for example, novelist in English (Kunzang Choden), Managing Director of the national Bhutan Broadcasting

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Service (Pema Choden), head of the Anti-Corruption Commission (Neten Zangmo). There is a National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC). The royalty of Bhutan (such as wives and sisters of the monarchs) have been pro-active in social welfare organizations, including those concerned with women’s rights and empowerment, like the National Women’s Association of Bhutan (NWAB), set up in 1981, or Respect, Educate, Nurture, and Empower Women (RENEW), set up in 2004. This latter organization focuses on sexual assault and domestic violence victims, who may otherwise suffer in silence. 233 domestic violence cases were recorded in Thimphu hospital in 2007. Raising consciousness on gender issues is often linked to development partners (such as UN agencies) and there is a enlightened domestic trend of progressive change in direction and scope of laws. A wider collection of gender-segregated statistics is called for to enable more targeted policy on women’s issues. See Also: Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Government, Women in. Further Readings National Portal of Bhutan. http://www.bhutan.gov.bt/ government (accessed April 2010). Royal Government of Bhutan. “Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC).” http://www.gnhc.gov.bt (accessed April 2010). United Nations. “Bhutan Harmonizes Spectrum of Domestic Laws With Women’s Anti-Discrimination Convention. Creates First Ever Scheme for Gender Equality. Expert Body Hears.” http://www.un.org /News/Press/docs/2009/wom1741.doc.htm bt (accessed April 2010). Nitasha Kaul University of Westminster

Bhutto, Benazir Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) was a Pakistani politician and the country’s first female prime minister. She served as prime minister twice, between 1988 and 1990, and 1993 and 1996.

Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, speaks to the press during a 1989 state visit to the United States.

Bhutto was born into a wealthy landowning family and was the daughter of Pakistan’s first democratically elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. After attaining her primary education in Pakistan, she achieved a Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College at Harvard University. Thereafter she went on to study at Oxford University. In 1986, she married Asif Ali Zardari, with whom she had three children. After completing her education abroad, Bhutto returned to Pakistan in summer 1977 to gain experience working for her father’s government. Following the turbulence caused by the elections that year, in July, General Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and put him under house arrest. The former prime minister was charged for murder of a political opponent and during the years of the trial, Bhutto and her brothers became involved in the opposition movement. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed in April 1979 and after years in and out of house arrest and prison, in 1984, Bhutto went into exile in London. While living in exile Bhutto was sworn in as chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1984. She was chosen as a leader by the senior party staff,



as they considered her an appropriate symbol, who would lay no claims to power. In reality she proved to be a strong and ambitious leader campaigning zealously for the elections in 1988, while being pregnant with her first child. In these elections, which followed the accidental death of General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto’s PPP managed to win through coalition making and compromising with the military. In order to keep her hold of the power, Bhutto had to negotiate with the military leadership and the president. Another major obstacle resulting from the election was the opposition provincial government in Punjab, the most populous and wealthy province. The largest party in the province and its leader, Nawaz Sharif, challenged the government on all issues. Bhutto, on her part, endeavored to undermine and destabilize the opposition, as well as the president, a strategy which proved ill-fated for her future support. In October 1989, the government managed to defeat a motion of nonconfidence. This highlighted the problems the Bhutto administration faced internally, and which escalated during the subsequent year up to her dismissal on August 6, 1990. New elections were carried out and Nawaz Sharif took over as prime minister. During Sharif ’s government, Bhutto affiliated herself both with the president and the prime minister in order to destabilize the government. A power struggle between the president and Sharif resulted in the dismissal of both in 1993 and in October 1993 Bhutto was elected prime minister. This period in government was immersed in agitation and conflicts. The Bhutto family was split when Benazir Bhutto’s brother, Murtaza, returned from exile and proclaimed being the true heir of their father. Their mother, Nusrat Bhutto, supported him and thus both of them were expelled from the party. Also Sharif initiated a campaign to undermine the government; the government, on its side, reciprocated by harassing the opposition. In addition, sectarian violence blossomed around country. Consequently, many PPP workers turned disillusioned and withdrew their support. The Bhutto government was accused for corruption, misrule, and nepotism, which resulted in its dismissal; to avoid trials on corruption Bhutto went into exile abroad. The charges of corruption and money laundering against Bhutto and, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, were initiated by the Sharif government after Bhutto’s first term in office and the couple remained under scru-

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tiny after Bhutto’s second term. Bhutto and Zardari claimed it was a political setup and, even though Zardari has spent several years in prison, none of them had been proven guilty. In autumn 2007, President General Pervez Musharraf and Bhutto agreed that all charges against Bhutto and Zardari would be dropped as long as Bhutto would return from exile, participate in the national elections and support Musharraf’s cooperation with the U.S. government in the “war on terror.” Musharraf, then, would resign as army chief but remain as civilian president. Only a couple of months after her return to Pakistan, on December 27, 2007, she was assassinated at a PPP rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Bhutto stirred up fervent emotions inside and outside of Pakistan. Her supporters viewed her as a tormented and castigated daughter of a martyr. She was believed to bring hope and justice after a dark era of dictatorship. Others perceived her as power hungry and arrogant, especially considering the violent history of her family. At the time at her appointment in 1988 there were some grumbles about having a woman ruling an Islamic country. Just before the elections a Saudi sheikh had issued a fatwa announcing that a state with a female leader would not prosper. Moreover the Jurisprudence Committee of the Islamic Conference was planning to discuss whether it was compatible with Islamic law to have a woman leading an Islamic country. The Bhutto establishment, however, managed to avert this obstacle. Bhutto herself endeavored to project a pious Islamic image through wearing the headscarf and emphasizing her arranged marriage with Zardari. Internationally, she was often regarded favorably, mainly due to her vocal defense of democracy, human rights, and gender equality. Disregarding the questionable nature of Bhutto’s achievements in these areas while in power, many will remember her courage and persistence. See Also: Government, Women in; Islam; Pakistan. Further Readings Ahmed, Mushtaq. Benazir: Politics of Power. Karachi, Pakistan: Royal Book Company, 2005. Akhund, Iqbal. Trial and Error: The Advent and Eclipse of Benazir Bhutto. Dhaka, Bangladesh: The University Press, 2000. Bhutto, Benazir. Daughter of the East: An Autobiography. London: Simon & Schuster, 2007.

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Bhutto, Benazir. Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Emma Brännlund National University of Ireland, Galway

Biology, Women in The sciences, in general, are male-dominated fields, and biology is no exception. In 2002, only 34 percent of American students who earned undergraduate degrees in science were women. The percentage was even lower for women graduating with a doctorate in science: 22 percent. Over the years, women have struggled to be allowed to study and research in the biological sciences, and their efforts have met with occasional successes, often followed by years of frustration and exclusion. The history of women in biology is similar to the histories of women in many other fields. However, in biology, one particular woman’s talents were recognized as early as the 12th century. Biology’s Female Pioneers The first female biologist recognized in print was Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179). Von Bingen was an expert on the healing powers of plants, animals, trees, and stones. She also wrote extensively about natural history. Her prominence in the historical record is not just an indication of the significance of her contributions; women who achieved early fame were usually famous due to factors other than their scientific skills. Conversely, there must have been many brilliant women in earlier centuries whose work went completely unrecognized, often to be ascribed to a male scientist. Unfortunately, there is no record of another significant female biologist until the 14th century. Alessandra Giliani lived in Bologna, Italy, in the 14th century and helped pioneer anatomy sciences. She assisted Mondino de Luzzi, often credited with being the father of anatomy, in preparing dissections for study and writing the definitive anatomy text of the time. Giliani is credited with inventing the technique of injecting various liquids into the vessels of the body to reveal their structures, a technique that is still used in biology labs currently.

Two prominent women biologists were born in the late 1700s: Jeanne Villepreux in France, and Anna Atkins of Great Britain. Villepreux is recognized as the inventor of the aquarium, which she used for definitive studies of mollusks. Atkins, similarly, applied a new technology to the study of biology. She used photography, at that time little more than impressions on light-sensitive paper, to illustrate her exhaustive books on natural history. The 19th century saw a significant increase in the prominence of female biologists. Mary Lua Adelia Davis Treat (1830–1923) wrote 76 scientific articles and five books. She discovered numerous new insect and plant species, and collaborated with Charles Darwin in researching carnivorous plants. Julia Barlow Platt (1857–1935) of Vermont, United States, was a pioneering embryologist and neurobiologist. She received a master’s degree from Harvard University, then was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in biology in Germany, in 1899. Nettie Marie Stevens (1861–1912), another Vermont native, received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr in 1903, and became one of the leading geneticists of her time. Agnes Robertson Arber (1879–1960) was a famous British botanist, and was the first woman botanist elected as a fellow of the Royal Society. And finally, Roger Arliner Young (1899–1964) was the first African American woman to receive a doctorate in zoology. Young not only juggled research and teaching responsibilities, she also had the responsibility of caring for her mother, who had significant special needs. She received her master's in biology from the University of Chicago in 1926, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. She taught at several universities, and served several times as substitute chair of the Department of Biology at Howard University. Nobel Prizes The rise to prominence of female biologists in the 20th century can be fairly well described by examining the history of the Nobel Prize. Forty women have won the Nobel Prize since its inception in 1901, and 10 of those have won in Physiology or Medicine. Unfortunately, although Marie Curie had won her second Nobel by 1911, a woman biologist did not win the prize until 1947, when Gerti Cori (1896–1957) won the prize for her work in glycolysis. Then another



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A Centers for Disease Control microbiologist inserting a rack of boxes containing biological stocks into a liquid nitrogen freezer for storage to aid the study of highly infectious viruses, many of them causing hemorrhagic manifestations in humans.

30 years passed before four women won the prize over an 11-year period. In 1977, Rosalyn Yalow won for her work in radio-immunoassays. Then in 1983, Barbara McClintock won for her work with mobile genetic elements. McClintock's story is a classic; her work went unrecognized for decades, and when it was finally corroborated, she received the prize at age 82 for work she had done many years earlier. Similarly, the 1986 winner, Rita Montalcini, received the award at age 77, six years after her retirement. Gertrude Elion received the award at age 70, five years after her retirement; her pioneering work on cancer drugs was an astonishing achievement. In 1995, the Nobel went to Christiane NüssleinVolhard, a German woman working at the Max Planck Institute. Nüsslein-Volhard and her team were recognized for their pioneering work on the genetic control of early embryos. The 2004 Nobel

went to Linda Buck for her discovery of olfactory receptors, the basic units of the sense of smell. In 2008 the Nobel Prize–winning team included Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and made an astounding discovery, the human immunodeficiency virus. The next year, 2009, may have represented an even higher pinnacle for women and the Nobel; the prize was awarded to two women, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider. Interestingly, Blackburn, Buck, and Barré-Sinoussi were born within a year of each other, in 1947–48. Another premier researcher on the HIV virus (although not a Nobel winner) was Flossie Wong-Staal, the first scientist to clone the virus. She was also born in 1947. Clearly, the recognition (if not necessarily the actuality) of women's accomplishments has followed an ever-steepening curve, as evidenced by the chronology of the Nobel. Looking beyond the Nobel,

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the first half of the 20th century can probably best be represented by one woman; Rachel Carson, the universally recognized inventor of the modern-day science of ecology. It is hard to believe that Carson died in 1962; her work still carries a heavy influence. Carson's greatest gifts were her many books and articles, which brought numerous environmental issues to the forefront of public discussion. During the last half century, women have emerged to be leaders in biological research, writing, and teaching. Perhaps the woman who best exemplifies the successes for the last 50 years is Mary Leakey, who made her first major discovery in 1948 and continued to contribute to science until her death in 1996. Although she can be considered to be a paleontologist, Leakey has clearly made major contributions to our understanding of evolutionary biology, with her discoveries of the proto-human species Australopithecus, Homo Habilus, and others. Female Biology Studied Louann Brizendine, M.D., is a groundbreaking female neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the founder of the world's first Women's Mood and Hormonal Clinic and author of the book The Female Brain, published in 2006. In her book, Dr. Brizendine discusses how the female brain is wired differently than a male's brain and how hormones significantly impact the human female through her life span, from pregnancy to menopause. Dr. Brizendine has discussed how female biology was virtually ignored in laboratory research studies until recent years. Apparently, because females have significant fluctuation of hormones throughout the menstrual cycle, this was interfering with traditional scientific research. Dr. Brizendine has given equal time to both genders in her writings; she published The Male Brain in 2010. Barriers Remain in the Biological Sciences Despite the high-profile successes of many women in all the sciences, prejudices and barriers remain. In a 2010 study sponsored by the American Association of University Women, it was asserted that in order for a female academician to receive the same recognition as a man, she must publish on average three more papers in major journals, or up to 20 more papers in minor publications, than the

man. Currently, female college professors are 3 to 5 percent less likely to obtain tenure than their male counterparts, according to a National Science Foundation study in 2004. And finally, a 2010 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that exit rates for women from science and engineering fields are up to 60 percent higher than the loss rates for men. The study cites lower pay and fewer promotion opportunities as the primary reasons given by exiting women. Society continues to cheat itself out of a priceless resource as long as society fails to encourage women and girls to enter and stay in scientific fields. One can only imagine what discoveries or breakthroughs have already been missed when a woman decided not to enter science or left early because of discrimination. Hopefully, the stories of pioneering women of the past and present will serve as inspiration for tomorrow's girls, and they will refuse to give up on a scientific career. See Also: Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise; Education, Women in; Feminism on College Campuses; Medical Research, Gender Issues in; Physicians, Female; Professional Education; Professions by Gender; STEM Coalition. Further Readings Brizendine, Louanne. The Female Brain. New York: Broadway Publishers, 2007. Forsburg, S. L. Women in Biology Internet Launch Pages. 1997–2007. http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~forsburg/bio .html (accessed July 2010). Matyas, Marsha Lakes and Ann Haley-Oliphan. Women Life Scientists: Past, Present, and Future, Connecting Role Models to the Classroom Curriculum. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society, 1997. McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries. New York: Citadel Press, 1998. Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey. Women in Science: Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988. Rosser, Sue V. Women, Science, and Myth: Gender Beliefs From Antiquity to the Present. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Jacqueline Parsons St. Mary's University



Birth Defects, Environmental Factors and

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It is important to understand the connection between the environment and the creation of life, which is key to a healthy population.

Birth defects affect everyone. Having a healthy baby is the reality for many parents while others face parenthood with a child born with a defect. According to the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program (CBDMP) one in 33 babies are born with birth defects. Some of the causes are linked to the mother’s actions (i.e., drinking, smoking), while others are caused by environmental factors unrelated to a mother’s behavior or habits. The role of environmental factors on birth defects has many implications for policy development, implementation, women’s rights, and advocacy—for more than just reproductive justice measures. This issue is important to help ensure the safety and security of life and birth of a child. Understanding the causes of birth defects will help women take care of their bodies and help them to deliver healthy babies. The March of Dimes reported that 120,000 children are born with birth defects each year. There are two types of birth defects: structural, which is related to the physical and salient defects like a missing body part or an altered limb; and functional, which means either the defect is sensory, degenerative, metabolic, or related to the nervous system, which includes brain issues.

Environmental Factors An environmental factor is defined as a contributor to a child being born with a birth defect. This contributing force could be a hazardous waste area existing located close to home, a partner who smokes, the inhalation of paint fumes, exposure to too much carbon dioxide, or the lack of access to clean air and water. The CBDMP conducted a study on environmental factors and birth defects. The study highlighted four air pollutants linked to ventricle septal defects, heart and pulmonary defects, and chromosome abnormalities. The pollutants are carbon dioxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter. Carbon dioxide comes out of cigarettes and car exhausts; ozone is a product of a variety of pollutants that have a chemical reaction to sun exposure; and nitrogen dioxide becomes a problem when emissions from automobiles and industrial areas combined with the air, which affects the lungs. Generally, chemicals and solvents are not thought of environmental factors or potential birth defects. The CBDMP has reported that pregnant women should be cautious about exposure to certain chemicals. Solvents can be found in gasoline, spray paint, nail polish remover, and cleaning products, while colorants can be found in metallic and organic dyes. Exposure also can occur during cosmetology, fabric dyeing, or painting. The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1974 by Congress to help prevent health conditions linked to contaminated water sources. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that there were 170,000 public water systems distributing clean water in the United States. The CBDMP reported that nitrates in the drinking water can affect the health of the fetus and the mother. For example, the CBDMP Website said that “women whose drinking water contained nitrate levels below Maximum Contaminant Levels or MCL had a higher risk for anencephaly”—the absence of a large part of the brain and skull. There are a number of communities around the country that are categorized as superfund sites. The superfund is a government program dedicated to

Importance of the Topic The successful birth of a child weighs heavily on the health, social, and environmental conditions the mother is exposed to before and during her pregnancy. Environmental factors could include air pollution, exposure to chemicals and solvents, drinking water, and proximity to hazardous waste sites as well as social and economic factors, among others. Overall, people are not fully aware of the consequences of their actions, disregarding the impact of the rising world population, war regions, extreme poverty—as defined by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals—and lack of education and awareness about environmental effects on health. Not to be overlooked is the direct impact of environmental issues on mothers that cause birth defects. This issue is at the heart of many debates, most notably reproductive justice, food justice, and environmental protection movements.

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cleaning up abandoned waste sites. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response implement the superfund and the cleaning of the sites. The CBDMP interviewed 2,000 mothers who lived near hazardous sites to determine the range of consequences that could occur from exposure. Their study found that women who resided near the superfund site during the first trimester of the pregnancy had a greater risk for birth defects, including heart abnormalities, neural tube defects, and cleft lip or palate. Neural tube defects alter the development of the brain and spine, which are commonly associated with spina bifida and anencephaly. In addition to physical and environmental factors, social and economic issues also can contribute to birth defects. Reproductive justice advocates argue that individuals from low-income backgrounds as well as women of color are at greater risk of birth defects because of their social conditions. For example, The Women’s Foundation of California reported in November 2009 that regulators failed to protect Californian’s from pesticides linked to cancer, reproductive harm and other illnesses in the central valley. In West Oakland, juvenile asthma has been associated with the area’s large port in Oakland as well as to the community’s proximity to industrial and manufacturing industries.

due to environmental factors will decrease only with increased community-based education targeted to atrisk populations—which will have the added benefit of increasing the number of healthy children.

Affecting Change In March 2010, Harvard University hosted a panel discussion that focused on the environmental consequences regarding maternal health. The panelists included Lani Blechman, operations assistant of Civil Liberties and Public Policy at Hampshire College, and Trina Jackson of Roxbury, Massachusetts– based Alternatives for Community and Environment. They stressed the importance of low-income groups speaking out and participating in community decisions about the construction of power plants in their neighborhoods. Low-income women and their families are disproportionately exposed to toxins in the environment due to their proximity to polluting industries located in their communities. Overall, women face health challenges during pregnancy and birth; and for women of color and residents of lowincome communities, the challenges are greater than they are for their wealthy counterparts. Birth defects

Crystallee Crain California Institute of Integral Studies

See Also: Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Issues, Women and; Health, Mental and Physical; Infant Mortality; Pregnancy; Water, as Women’s Issue. Further Readings California Department of Public Health. “California Birth Defects Monitoring Program.” http://www.cdph.ca.gov /programs/cbdmp/Pages/default.aspx (accessed April 2010). Cook, K. “Environmental Justice: Woman Is the First Environment. Reproductive Justice Briefing Book: A Primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change.” http://www.sistersong.net/documents (accessed April 2010). Kassuba, Sherree. “Environmental Causes of Birth Defects.” http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum /units/1982/7/82.07.07.x.html. (accessed April 2010). Underwood, A. “Panel Discusses Link Between Maternal Health and Environment.” The Harvard Crimson (March 11, 2010). http://www.thecrimson.com/article /2010/3/11/health-toxins-jackson-reproductive (accessed April 2010).

Bisexuality In a provocative New York Times article, published July 5, 2005, Benedict Carey reported on the results of a study disputing whether “true bisexuality exists” as a “distinct and stable sexual orientation.” Bisexuality, an identity constituted by sexual attraction to both sexes, has long been one of the most difficult to define sexual identities. In a binary system of sexual orientations, individuals can—in some ways—be defined as either homosexual or heterosexual, according to the person with whom they are currently in a relationship. Because bisexuality implies an individual’s sexuality is malleable and contingent, the category has been mar-



ginalized in both heterosexual and homosexual communities, often labeled by both groups as a phase. In the same Times article, the author describes some gay men as stating, “You’re either gay, straight, or lying.” Defining bisexuality and positioning it in a historical context demonstrates the crucial role that this sexual identity category has played—and continues to play—in conjunction with women in today’s world. Issues surrounding bisexual history and activism, bisexuality’s relationship to other sexual identity categories, the related problems of bi-phobia and bisexual erasure, and the relatively recent emergence of bisexual representations in popular culture demonstrate that bisexuality is tied to many issues surrounding women’s sexual, social, and ideological lives. Definition Like other marginalized sexualities, bisexuality is difficult to define and depends—in many ways—on broader issues surrounding the definitions of gender, sex, and sexuality, but on a most basic level, the term refers to sexual behavior and/or attraction to both sexes. Bisexuality has historically been thought of as a natural state that people repress because of heterosexism. Kate Millett famously stated that “Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality.” The etymology of bisexuality indeed proves Millett’s point. Since its entry into discourse in 1859 in Robert B. Todd’s The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, bisexuality has been invoked to describe something that is liminal and untenable: not a sexual orientation or a body with a particular anatomical structure but rather something that is both and neither at once, always already contingent to and reliant on fixities of the binary sex-gender system. In 1892, C. G. Chaddock first used bisexuality to designate sexual orientation, noting: “Careful investigation of the so-called acquired cases makes it probably that the predisposition also present here consists of a latent homosexuality, or, at least, bisexuality.” John Bancroft has more recently suggested a “weakening of the polarization of homo- and heterosexuality” that should mark bisexuality as “more a part of the human experience.” The word bisexual initially pointed to biological and anatomical structures. In 1824, Samuel Taylor Coleridge suggested that the “original man” was “bi-sexual,” a label that hearkens more toward what we now classify as an intersexed

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body than a bisexual identity. By 1914, bisexual had become a classificatory term for sexuality and sexual orientation. The American Medical Journal explains, “By nature all human beings are psychically bisexual, capable of loving a person of either sex.” This definition draws an explicit connection between psychic state, essentialism, and love that has typically been at the center of some of the controversy surrounding the definition of bisexuality as a sexual identity. Jennifer Baumgardner has drawn attention to the complexity and potential faultiness of current definitions of bisexuality, primarily on a practical level. She notes that “sexuality is not who you sleep with, it’s who you are. It doesn’t change according to who is standing next to you”. Bisexuality has been situated in the framework of a hetero/homo system of sexual orientations, in which bisexuality is always something that is slippery and changeable rather than fixed or clearly identifiable. Moreover, as Baumgardner implies, critics tend to think that sexuality ends when one picks a partner, suggesting that being in a relationship with either a man or a woman makes bisexuality, in effect, transform into either a heterosexual or homosexual bond. Of course, gender identities and sexual orientation that further vex the gay/straight dichotomy—such as genderqueer, genderfuck, asexuality, and gender fluidity—draw attention to the theoretical gaps between gender, sex, and sexuality, and the concept of sexual fluidity has in some ways shifted gender theory away from bisexuality, which does depend upon the acceptance of stable genders, sexes, and sexualities; however, bisexuality forms a major category of sexual identity. Alfred Kinsey’s surveys of sexuality in the 1940s and 1950s revealed that about 46 percent of the men and 12 percent of the women interviewed described sexual experiences with both sexes. More recently, a 2002 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 1.8 percent of men and 2.8 percent of women ages 18 to 44 identify as bisexual. The difference between these numbers suggests a clear distinction between experience and identity. That is, people might have sexual relationships with both sexes but still identify as straight or gay. History Behavioral scientists began noting bisexual attraction and considering the role that this attraction plays in

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the development of sexual identity during the 19th century. Research during the 19th and 20th centuries tended to suggest either that bisexuality does not exist or that everyone is truly bisexual. Enfolded in these contradictory descriptions is a shared—and central— problem in analyses of bisexuality, which is that bisexuality’s existence or lack thereof depends upon physical, psychological, moral, and ideological assumptions based on the heterosexist structures that regulate discourse about sexual orientation. Three major theorists of bisexuality whose work remains influential are Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and Fritz Klein. With his Three Essays on Sexuality (1910), Freud introduced the concept of innate bisexuality. He argued that humans are born bisexual but develop monosexual identities through the complicated interweaving of external and internal factors that engender psychological development and push bisexuality into latency. Based in large part on the fallacy that human beings all go through an intersexed period in the early stage of development, Freud’s theory suggests an anatomical predisposition to bisexuality that his radically countered by a push toward monosexuality. Despite many of the problems in Freud’s work caused by his now out-of-date information about anatomy as well as by his ideological context, he notably offers a version of sexuality in which bisexuality is identified as a normal part of sexual development—not as something that should be criminalized. Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) reported that 46 percent of men engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activity. Using the Kinsey Scale, he developed ways of describing individuals’ sexual histories or episodes in an individual’s sexual life at a specific time. This scale ranges from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual), with the variable “x” representing asexuality. Kinsey disliked the use of the term bisexual as a marker of sexual identity and typically used the word to note mixed-sex anatomies because the word implied a biological origin of bisexuality rather than a psychic one: “Until it is demonstrated [that] taste in a sexual relation is dependent upon the individual containing within his anatomy both male and female structures, or male and female physiological capacities, it is unfortunate to call such individuals bisexual.” Kinsey went further in his analysis to suggest that “Males do not represent two discrete populations,

heterosexual and homosexual.” As a publicly heteronormative man who engaged in sexual relationships with other men, Kinsey in some ways offered a new and visible model for bisexuality—but again, as Baumgardner’s comments above indicate, a tension existed for Kinsey in sexual self-presentation or identity and sexual practices. Fritz Klein contributed the pivotal study The Bisexual Option (1978) to sexuality studies, and he created the Bisexual Forum in New York; he founded the Bisexual Forum in San Diego in 1982, and later started and became the editor of The Journal of Bisexuality. In 1998, Klein founded the American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB) to support research and education on bisexuality. Klein’s multidimensional Klein Sexual Orientation Grid measures the complex fluidity of sexual orientation by expanding on Kinsey’s zero to six scale. Included on the grid are not only overt sexual experiences but also attractions, fantasies, emotional preferences, lifestyle, and identification in an individual’s past, present, and hypothetical ideal future. The scale drew crucial attention to the ways in which all of these interlocking variables can change over time for individuals and for groups. He drew the conclusion that sexuality defies rigid, well-defined categories; still, he worked throughout his life as a bisexual activist. Activism Klein’s presence in and support of bisexual activism proved a crucial part of bisexual inclusion in larger lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) activist movements. Notoriously problematic as a term of mobilization (see the issues surrounding bi-phobia and bisexual erasure below), bisexuality has been recognized as a significant component of LGBTQ activism for many years. In this brief overview of bisexual activism (and also, below, of bisexuality in the popular media), female bisexuality is foregrounded, despite the obvious importance of male bisexuals from Kinsey and Klein to Jonathan Ames, Patrick (formerly Pat) Califia, Michael Chabon, Andy Dick, and Stephen Donaldson. Robyn Ochs founded the Boston Bisexual Network in 1983 and the Bisexual Resource Center in 1985. She currently edits the Bisexual Resource Guide, and she edited an anthology Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World. Ochs specializes in coalition



building. Frequently headlining academic conferences but also appearing in the popular media on television shows like Donahue and in magazines including Seventeen and Newsweek, Ochs received the Susan J. Hyde Activism Award for Longevity in the Movement from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Sex educator and activist Loraine Hutchins coedited the anthology Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out (1991), which brought together the voices of 76 bisexuals. Hutchins cofounded BiNet USA and the Alliance of Multicultural Bisexuals. She has published articles on sexuality in essay collections and journals, including Beth Firestein’s Becoming Visible: Counseling Bisexuals Throughout the Lifespan (2008). Firestein, a psychologist who focuses on bisexual and transgender issues, has offered seminal research on the ways that bisexuals internalize social prohibitions and tension related to their choice of sexual partners. Her research suggests that many bisexuals force themselves to fit into either heterosexual or homosexual labels—an internal tension that replicates the external problems connected to bisexual identity (for example, issues of visibility, labeling, group inclusion/exclusion, biphobia, and bisexual erasure). Her research has engendered new therapy methods that address the unique issues bisexuals encounter. Noted as a “Third Wave” feminist activist and coauthor of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (2000) and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (2005), Jennifer Baumgardner drew attention to the intersections between bisexuality and feminism with her book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. Baumgardner, a former editor of Ms. magazine, created the I Had an Abortion project. Her prominence as a Third Wave feminist has been key to her activism about sexuality; Look Both Ways reconciles—and draws attention to tensions among—feminism and bisexuality as personal and political identities. Relationship to Other Sexual Identity Categories Because bisexuality simultaneously depends upon and disrupts the hetero/homosexual binary, its relationship to other groups interested in LGBTQ activism and to categories of gender and sexual identity more broadly is often complex. Because it originally denoted mixed-sex anatomy, the word bisexual has

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retained for some a confusing proximity to what is now referred to as intersexuality (formerly hermaphroditism). This association between mixed-sex anatomy and bisexual desire led to some of Freud’s theories, mentioned above, and also engendered Kinsey’s reluctance to embrace the term bisexuality. But bisexuality now marks a sexual orientation that is separate from biological anatomy. Bisexuality is often used interchangeably with ambisexuality, a term that demarcates a somewhat wider set of associations (clothing may be ambisexual, for example, but the term also denotes sexual attraction by or attractiveness to both sexes). The relatively recent introduction of the terms genderqueer, intergender, and genderfuck to demarcate gender identities that fall outside the gender binary problematize easy correlations between sex, gender, and sexuality, making a label of bisexuality much less tenable than it is for two persons who clearly identify as male or female. The concept of sexual fluidity, a trend in which women move freely from homosexual to heterosexual relationships, both allows for and complicates bisexuality as a sexual identity. Lisa M. Diamond’s book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire (2008) addressed the possibility that love and desire do not correspond to heterosexuality or homosexuality. Instead, desire is often gender blind; sexual orientation is not fixed or stable. Although the concept of sexual fluidity suggests that many women have bisexual desires, the concept also unworks the idea of a stable sexual identity in such a way that makes identification as a bisexual tricky. Bi-Phobia and Bisexual Erasure The term bi-phobia serves as an indicator of the fear, distrust, and aversion projected on bisexuality and bisexuals. Bi-phobia can target individuals or social groups. Bi-phobia is often the result of negative stereotypes that adhere to bisexuality and also to the related problem of bisexual erasure. Two of the most common negative stereotypes about bisexuality are (1) that it does not exist; and (2) that bisexuality implies and is even inseparable from promiscuity. The first of these stereotypes relates to the issue of bisexual erasure, a tendency to omit bisexuality from history, the media, and other discourses. Bisexual erasure can, in its extreme, manifest

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as a denial of the actual existence of bisexuality. For example, a historical description of a bisexual’s life might refute or challenge the individual’s bisexuality by arguing that the individual really loved either men or women (i.e., recuperating someone as either a gay or straight individual, not acknowledging the complexity and range of a subject’s sexuality but instead locating “true” sexuality at one point, in one relationship, or in one phase of the subject’s life). The problem of linking bisexuality with promiscuity directly correlates with popular culture. In pornography as well as in popular culture, bisexuals are frequently represented as sexually insatiable; their desire to have sex with men and women is implied to be the result of such insatiability. On an even more pragmatic level, because sexual orientation is (for many people) thought of as being defined by the person or people one sleeps with, bisexuality often wrongly implies promiscuity and defiance of monogamy. People assume that to be bisexual, one is always sleeping with both men and women—and if one is not, one has “chosen” either a heterosexual or homosexual life (hence the relationship between bi-phobia, stereotypes, and bisexual erasure). Bisexuals are also stereotyped as being sexually confused, incapable of settling on one person, and (for female bisexuals) really being either lesbian or straight. These stereotypes and tensions emerge in the relationship between bisexuality and straight culture, but bisexuals also occupy a liminal spot in relation to LGBTQ culture and to political movements like feminism. For example, Naomi Weisstein suggests that the early years of the women’s liberation movement, 98 percent of WLMers “were bi, at least in the sense that we all started out with the usual exclusively het behaviors. Only after 1970 did most of us ‘go gay.’ One’s former relationships with men continued in a whole lot of cases.” Individuals who might otherwise self-define as bisexual can feel compelled to take on a posture of homosexuality because it corresponds more directly to a larger set of political imperatives. Bisexuality in Popular Culture Despite the issues of bi-phobia and bisexual erasure, many authors, actors, and other celebrities have identified (or have been identified) as bisexual. Some include Billy Joe Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Djuna Barnes, Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bernhard, Leonard Bernstein, David Bowie, Marlon Brando, Nell Carter,

Margaret Cho, Joan Crawford, Kurt Cobain, Marlene Dietrich, Ani DiFranco, Eve Ensler, Greta Garbo, Alec Guinness, Marilyn Hacker, Lorraine Hansberry, H. D., Anne Heche, Angelina Jolie, Janis Joplin, June Jordan, Frida Kahlo, Florence King, Christian Lacroix, Courtney Love, Margaret Mead, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anaïs Nin, Cynthia Nixon, Joan Osborne, Camille Paglia, Edith Piaf, Cole Porter, Carol Queen, Ma Rainey, Lou Reed, Barbara Stanwyck, Michael Stipe, Gore Vidal, Alice Walker, and Rebecca Walker. The popular media most often succumbs to the stereotypes surrounding bisexuality, especially in terms of the myth of bisexual promiscuity. Films like Basic Instinct (1992) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) highlight a character’s bisexuality largely to suggest mental instability and a tendency to use sexuality rather than to develop healthy romantic relationships. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, television shows such as Friends, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sex in the City, and The O. C. have helped to normalize bisexuality and to represent it as a healthy option for sexual orientation and identity. The musician Ani DiFranco has been a beacon for bisexual women in particular: she has boldly and publicly described the difficulties of having her sexual identification theorized and judged. Singers like Jill Sobule and Katy Perry have, more playfully, suggested what is often termed bi-curiousness in their songs, both titled, I Kissed a Girl. Here as elsewhere in discourses of bisexuality, it remains clear that sexuality as a political stance is uncomfortably bound up—for bisexuals—in a context that also necessitates changeability, fluidity, and playfulness. Practical Aspects Homosexuality has become more socially acceptable in many countries, but bisexual individuals continue to be classified as unstable individuals who are unwilling to admit to their true social orientations. A 2008 Australian study of 60 bisexuals, 40 women and 20 men ranging in age from 21 to 66, revealed that many of them felt isolated from their communities, causing them to remain silent about their real sexual preferences. Many respondents felt that they had been rendered invisible because neither the heterosexual nor the homosexual community truly accepted them. They were often accused of being afraid to own up to their actual sexual orientations. Female bisexu-



als stated that assumptions about their sexual preferences were often situational. Heterosexuality was mistakenly assumed whenever they campaigned for women’s rights, but they were mislabeled as lesbians when they campaigned for gay and lesbian rights. A number of respondents felt pressured by lesbians to admit to their homosexuality, and they were accused of betraying their lesbian sisters if they chose to have sexual intercourse with the opposite sex. When reporting on the Australian Study of Health and Relationships, researchers concluded that bisexuals were more likely than heterosexual, lesbian, or gay respondents to suffer from depression and to admit to feeling suicidal. Studies involving bisexuals in the United Kingdom and the United States have also revealed that many bisexuals are faced with mental health problems because of this lack of social acceptance. Facing Discrimination Bisexuals in some countries continue to describe widespread incidences of official discrimination. For instance, in summer 2010, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on an unofficial LGBT street picket that took place in St. Petersburg, Russia. Both female and male participants carried LGBT flags and signs proclaiming such statements as “Peter the Great was bisexual.” The activists insisted their picket was the result of ingrained homophobia in Russia. Officials responded by arresting the picketers, charging five of them with staging an unsanctioned event and the rest with hooliganism. That same month, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) Europe announced that Russia and the Ukraine were at the bottom of their “Rainbow Europe Country Index.” Other nations receiving low rankings included Armenia, Belarus, Cyprus, Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, and Turkey. At the other end of the spectrum, Sweden was named as the European country that best demonstrated inclusiveness and respect for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals by passing laws banning discrimination, hate crimes, and hate speech and enacting laws that recognized equal ages of consent and same-sex partnerships and parenting rights. The other top-ranked countries were Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain. Discrimination against bisexuals may become lifethreatening in intolerant countries. However, some LGBT scholars, including Sean Rehaag, argue that

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many bisexuals seeking refugee status are met with rejection because officials fail to classify them as political refugees. According to international law, refugees eligible for political asylum include those who are in fear of being persecuted because of their religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinions. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees states in its “Guidelines on Gender Related Protection” that “political opinions” may include those concerning acceptable gender roles. Courts around the world have used Ward v. Canada (2 SCR 689, 1993) to determine the construction of “a particular social group.” In this Canadian Supreme Court decision, Justice Gérard La Forest held that such groups were defined according to their innate characteristics, participation in voluntary associations chosen for reasons fundamental to each individual’s basic human dignity, and the historical existence of said groups. La Forest specifically stated that groups defined according to particular sexual orientations were included in his classification of eligible groups. In 2000, a Mexican bisexual successfully sought asylum in Canada because of repeated beatings by the police. Studies have revealed that female bisexuals continue to be more successful than males in obtaining refugee status in Canada. In 2006, for instance, more than half of all of female bisexual applicants were successful, but only a third of male bisexuals obtained entry. Few refugee claims in the United States have involved bisexuals, but in Hernandez-Montiel v. Immigration and Naturalization Service (225 F.3d 1084, 2000) the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit posited that defining sexual minority refugee law only on the basis of heterosexuality and homosexuality was possibly too restrictive. In the United States in 2010, a cadre of strange bedfellows expressed their support for passage of the Uniting American Families Act, which is designed to reform immigration laws to pave the way for families to remain united, irrespective of such characteristics as sexual orientation. In addition to representatives of LGBT groups, supporters of the act included the Episcopal Church, the Family Equality Council, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, Union for Reform Judaism, and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Unlike the

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United States and Canada, Australia has a history of considering bisexuals eligible for political asylum, going back to a 1997 decision by the High Court of Australia. However, few bisexual claims have been filed in Australia. Because of society’s inability to transcend the belief that all individuals must be either exclusively heterosexual or homosexual, bisexuals continue to be mislabeled, misunderstood, and mistrusted. See Also: Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Gender, Defined; Heterosexism; Homophobia; Lesbians; LGBTQ; Sexual Orientation; Sexual Orientation: Scientific Theories of Causation; Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: United States. Further Readings Baumgardner, Jennifer. Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Carey, Benedict. “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited.” New York Times (July 5, 2005). http://www .nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/05sex.html?_r=2& pagewanted=1(accessed August 2009). Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Basic, 2000. Kinsey, Alfred. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948. McLean, Kirsten. “Silences and Stereotypes: The Impact of (Mis) Constructions of Bisexuality on Australian Bisexual Men and Women.” Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review, v.4/3 (2008). Pitts, M. and M. Couch. “Bisexuality and Health Psychology—Strange Bedfellows?” Health Psychology Update, v.14/2 (2005). Rehaag, Sean. “Bisexuals Need Not Apply: A Comparative Appraisal of Refugee Law and Policy in Canada, the United States, and Australia.” International Journal of Human Rights, 13/2,3 (2009). Wockner, Rex. “Group: Sweden Is Europe’s Gay-Friendliest Country.” Between the Lines News, v.1822 (June 3, 2010). Emily Bowles Lawrence University

Black Churches The term black church refers to that which gave shape to the religious experiences of many blacks in America, originally combining African religious heritage with European Christianity. In the 18th century, many blacks converted to Christianity and developed their own style of “slave religion” Christian theology. As blacks have received political freedom, they have also formed a unique Christian identity of faith in God’s deliverance from oppression. As the black church engages social justice issues today, these theological foundations continue to shape the black church identity. History The black church, originating from the religious, cultural, and social past of blacks, gave structure and identity to millions of enslaved Africans in America. As 17th-century slave codes prohibited blacks from church membership, they incorporated their African religious heritage into European Christianity to create a slave religion. Based on several commonalities between slave religion and the Great Awakening, black conversion to Christianity skyrocketed, and blacks influenced mainstream Christianity through revival-style music, preaching, and total immersion baptism. Revivalists preached spiritual equality and fostered integration of churches. Methodist and Baptist missionaries heavily evangelized southern plantations. Slave owners feared that converted slaves would demand their freedom, so many white ministers preached the “Curse of Ham,” that whites were ordained as authorities over blacks. (The “Curse of Ham” refers to the story of Noah after the flood, in the book of Genesis, wherein Noah cursed his son Ham, and all of Ham’s lineage thus, “. . . a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”) Many slaves created an “invisible institution,” a secret black church that emphasized God’s deliverance and Christian freedom. Southern slaves resonated with the Baptist denomination because of its reduced requirements for ministry leadership, decentralized church government, and emphasis on individual conscience. Methodism attracted blacks nationwide, and its centralized structure widely promoted spiritual equality. Itinerant Methodist evangelists mobilized black men and women as preachers and preached Christian abolitionism.



In Philadelphia in 1794, Richard Allen formed the first independent black church, Bethel Church, and the first black denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). The more progressive African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ) split from the AME; both denominations flourished throughout the north. During the Second Great Awakening, black churches functioned as community centers providing education, meeting space, opportunities for benevolence and activism, and basic material needs. Since Emancipation, the black church refers to any primarily African American church or any church belonging to a black denomination (AME, AMEZ, Christian Methodist Episcopal, National Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention of America, National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Church of God in Christ, or Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellow-

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ship). Black churches have created unique worship and preaching styles. During the Great Migration to northern urban cities in the early 20th century, the Church helped millions of black migrants as they sought economic opportunity in the industrial boom. The black church has grown the most in the 20th century through the Holiness and Pentecostal Movement. Holiness churches believe in Spirit-anointed sanctification faith, which emotionally reaffirmed congregants of God’s grace. The Pentecostal Movement began in 1906 with the Los Angeles Azusa Street Revivals and grew rapidly and interracially. The Church of God in Christ (COGIC), founded by two Baptist-turned-Pentecostal black preachers, is currently the leading Pentecostal denomination, in part because of its rejection of social engagement. COGIC promotes biblical literalism, revival-style worship, sanctification, and speaking in tongues. The Holiness

Churches In black neighborhoods often create a sense of social belonging and unity. Black churches in the New York neighborhood of Harlem have renovated abandoned buildings to create housing for residents and have opened their own schools.

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and Pentecostal Movement is the only interracial black church movement. Civil Rights The black church provided an important emotional support for the dehumanizing effects of slavery and racial oppression. In the early 20th century, most black church pastors preached middle-class values and moral uplift, the idea that black moral excellence would achieve social equality, rather than condemnation of racism because of fear that such preaching would incite black retaliation against whites. However, some radical preachers boldly preached rebellion against white supremacy. AME Bishop Henry McNeal Turner condemned American imperialism and preached in support of women’s suffrage, women’s ordination, and the Back-to-Africa movement. The civil rights movement (1954–1968), largely led by black pastors, advocated for full equality and opportunity for blacks. After the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) U.S. Supreme Court decision, blacks began a massive nonviolent resistance campaign for desegregation. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to national prominence when he led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Montgomery Improvement Association, primarily made of black church members, launched a more than one year boycott of city buses, resulting in a Supreme Court decision against segregated buses. King created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 to mobilize black churches to support a nonviolent civil rights movement. SCLC orchestrated several marches and standoffs in segregated cities, the most famous of which occurred in Albany, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Selma, Alabama. In the early 1960s, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), primarily college students, staged sit-ins and voter registration drives. The SCLC mentored SNCC in its nonviolent approach, and in 1963, the SCLC and SNCC co-organized the March on Washington, in which King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Black ministers provided local and national leadership throughout the civil rights movements. These religious leaders voiced the experiences of blacks and led black church members to join their campaign for equality and justice. The charismatic style of black preaching proved a powerful medium for gaining support for the movement among blacks and whites.

These ministers mobilized hundreds of lay leaders and solidified racial equality as a central teaching of the black church. Black Liberation Theology and Megachurches Many black church leaders have condemned white churches for complacency in opposing racial injustice. Beginning in the late 1960s, James Cone expressed this religious discontent as Black Liberation Theology, which focused on specific passages of scripture, namely the Exodus narratives and the life of Jesus, to advocate black liberation from social, political, economic, and religious bondage. Cone compared America to Egypt and claimed that God was working for black liberation and was black. Jeremiah Wright has recently received intense criticism for preaching black liberation. In the late 20th century, black megachurches emerged, most of which are conservative, evangelical, and preach prosperity gospel, including T. D. Jakes’s The Potter’s House, and Tony Evans’ Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, and Creflo Dollar’s World Changers Church in Atlanta. Other black megachurches are famously progressive, including Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and Cecil Williams’s Glide United Methodist Church in San Francisco. While both types of black megachurches share a wide spectrum of ministries, emphasize spiritual fellowship, are largely suburbanized, and have an authoritative preaching and church administration, they are becoming increasingly divided between social justice theology and the prosperity gospel. Women in the Church African American women have played a critical role in the ministry and survival of the black church, yet the black church has been historically sexist. Richard Allen hesitantly supported the ministry of preacher Jarena Lee, though the AMEZ embraced women in ordained ministry beginning with Julia Foote in 1894. Baptists have likewise suppressed the ministry of women, though Nannie Helen Burroughs valiantly created Women’s Day, in which women lead the entire worship service. Women also pioneered much of today’s missions movement following the Second Great Awakening. Men have since assumed leadership of these women-driven institutions and have used them to raise capital rather than affirm the ministry of women.



During the civil rights movement, black church emphases on freedom, justice, and equality empowered women to find places of leadership in their churches and communities. Church auxiliaries, largely founded and operated by women, ministered to the poor, conducted public speaking, and managed their own money. Women networked with each other, and these auxiliaries nurtured women’s leadership abilities. The civil rights movement associated Christian practice with confronting social injustice, and this precedent paved the way for black women to move for their own freedom. Moreover, the movement inspired an entire generation to interpret the scriptures’ mandates to care for others as a call to activism for social justice. Civil rights workers Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer were two of many women whose leadership influenced such changes in the black church. A black branch of feminism, womanism, opposes the extreme prejudice against black women posed by racism, sexism, and classism both within the black church and within American society. Womanism promotes self-determination and community activism for social justice transcending race, gender, and economic class. Many black denominations continue to deny women ordination or the right to preach. However, in 2000, Vashti Murphy McKenzie was named a bishop of the AME Church. Many women pastors, including Renita Weems, Cheryl J. Sanders, and Suzan Johnson Cook, continue to press for women’s equality within the black church. See Also: Christian Identity; Christianity; Evangelical Protestantism; Ministry, Protestant; Religion, Women in; Womanism; Womanist Theology. Further Readings Floyd-Thomas, Stacey, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Carol B. Duncan, Stephen G. Ray, Jr., and Nancy Lynne Westfield. Black Church Studies: An Introduction. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007. Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Lincoln, C. Eric and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African-American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.

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Raboteau, A. J. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African-Americans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Courtney Lyons Baylor University

Blogs and the Blogosphere By 2000, the availability of blog host sites like Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress, and LiveJournal, made keeping a blog, short for weblog or web log—an online journal with dated entries—easy for people who do not possess Web coding skills. Women create and produce content with blogging tools, and many advance beyond online diaries to self-publish their platform to a broad audience as well as create communities. Women’s blogs range from the personal to the political. In 2003, there were 4.12 million blogs. Over 90 percent were maintained by people under the age of 30, with women having a slight edge over men in the practice. The highest rated blogs are male-dominated, yet scholars agree that there are more women bloggers overall. Ideally the blogosphere (the world of blogs and blogging) provides a positive democratic space, a public sphere, where everyone expresses themselves. Bloggers participate in communities and create conversations by commenting on posts and cross-linking or creating blogrolls. Gendered behavior online falls into traditional forms. Equality has not occurred in the blogosphere and a neutral space where women’s voices would have as much authority as men’s is an unrealized ideal. Differences in communication styles contribute to the inability of men and women to communicate well online and gender segregation is the norm. The absence of strong women’s voices in the blogosphere comes down to the perception that men write about politics and women write about the personal. The problem is that both arenas are defined too narrowly. Many political blog are filters and provide links to what the blogger found and do not contain original content. The majority of blogs are personal journals expressing the writer’s thoughts and daily activities. Fifty percent of journal bloggers are female. They offer greater levels of self-revelation than do men. Additionally,

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they tend to mix genres while male bloggers stick to one topic exclusively. The Blog as a Social Platform Several of the earliest women bloggers worked in information technology and were responsible for establishing blogging platforms, as well as advancing standards and guidelines in the burgeoning space. Meg Hourihan is a cofounder of Pyra Labs, the company that produced Blogger. She blogged on Megnut. com from 1999 until taking a hiatus when her son was born. The subject matter of her blog was general and then focused on food for many years. Upon her return to blogging, in 2009, her content returned to its original broadness with coverage of several lifestyle topics. Mena Benjamin Trott developed Moveable Type for her personal blogging while she was unemployed in 2001. Rebecca Blood’s blog, Rebecca’s Pocket covers “media literacy, sustainability, web culture, and domestic life.” She wrote one of the first books about weblogs, The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog (2002) and parlayed her blogging into publishing and speaking about blogs. “The first single-editor libraryoriented weblog” was created by Jessamyn West in 1999 and is regularly updated today. Other early bloggers are Mimi Smartypants, a quirky hypochondriac who displays great wit; Meredith L. Patterson; Virginia Postrel; and Listen Missy. The oldest blog directory on the Web was compiled and managed by Brigette Eaton. The events of September 11, 2001 spurred the creation of a vast number of blogs. It also marked the profusion of media and political sites which added to the diaries, techie tips, and news already in existence. The definition of weblog changed, too. Previously it meant a list of links that the blogger visited over the course of a day. After 9/11 the blog’s identity evolved into a Web journal commenting on news and current events that criticizes the media, politicians, etc. Megan McArdle started recording her thoughts in her blog Asymmetrical Information as a result of her location a few blocks from the World Trade Center. She was hired by the Economist to write for their print magazine and three years later became the magazine’s writer for its blog Free Exchange. Heather Armstrong coined a term for when blogging about your company gets you fired, “dooced.”

Dooce started in February 2001 and about a year later she was fired from her job because she included stories on her blog about people with whom she worked. Like other women bloggers, the focus of her blog changed as she aged and changed careers, married, and became a mother. The success of her blog supports her family and became a full-time job for Armstrong and her husband in 2005 when the ads she ran on her blog allowed him to quit his job. The blogosphere allows women to create projects around their interests. For example, in August 2002 Julie Powell embarked on the Julie/Julia Project, a weblog in which she cooked all the recipes in Julia Child’s book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. After the blog gained a large audience, Powell wrote a book based on her blog which was adapted into a movie Julie and Julia (2009) starring Meryl Streep. Maud Newton started blogging about books, culture, and politics in November 2002. Her eponymous blog garnered mention across major media like the New York Times, the Guardian, and the New Yorker. Jessa Crispin founded a litblog, Bookslut in 2002. Its eventual success let her support herself by writing and editing content at the site. Jeralyn Merritt, a criminal defense attorney, founded her blog TalkLeft the same year and her commentary provided criticism of the Bush administration during election years. In December 2002, Elizabeth Spiers founded Gawker.com a New York media gossip weblog. Blogging Topics In 2003, bloggers delved into topics like fashion, mothering, the gentle arts, but much attention focused on the role of sex and money in politics in Washington, D.C. Wonkette, founded by Ana Marie Cox commented on Capital Hill politics and policy matters but gained notoriety when she outed Jessica Cutler as “Washingtonienne,” a Washington, D.C., staffer who accepted money for sexual favors from Bush administration officials. She reportedly earned $250,000 for her satirical novel Dog Days, based on life in Washington, D.C. Cox also served as the token woman political blogger among predominantly male bloggers covering the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Meanwhile, Cutler sold a novel based on her blog and life, Washingtonienne: A Novel for a reported $300,000. Sexual innuendo plays an important role as



a topic for women bloggers. Cox’s Wonkettee was notable for it and Bitch Ph.D. uses sexual situations in her explorations of marriage, gender, and power. Craft, knitting, mommybloggers, and foodies joined the blogosphere in 2003. These topics represent the communities in which the majority of women post blogs and create communities. Food blogger Clotilde Dusoulier grew popular her writing about all things food-related in Chocolate and Zucchini. Pim Techamuanvivit quit her day job in the San Francisco Bay area to pursue a career in travel and food writing after Chez Pim gathered a large audience that launched her into writing for the New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, and Bon Appétit, as well as a stint as a judge on Iron Chef America. The Budget Fashionista, a fashion blog, earned Finney six figures, a lifestyle book about fashion, and media appearances on NBC and CNN. Another fashion and entertainment blog, Go Fug Yourself, was established by Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks. Other women who have gained prominence over the years in the blogosphere who started in 2003 are Ellen Simonetti, Jen Chung, and Aliza Sherman. Blogging grew more mainstream by 2004. Research showing that people high in openness to new experiences and/ or high in neuroticism were likely to blog, as well as adopters of new technology. That year women accounted for 4 percent of political blogs. The Presidential election brought the power of blogging to national attention and politicians, political consultants, candidates, and news media explored ways to use these tools for outreach and to affect public opinion. Political entrée to the practice lent blogging authority as part of the news media. Ann Althous, a law professor, blogged about in intersections of law, politics, and popular culture. Feminists like Susie Bright and Jessica Valenti, the founder of Feministing, joined the fray. In 2005, BlogHer was founded by a group of women who wanted to establish a conference for women who blog. Its mission grew to include creating opportunities for the more than 15 million women it reaches to “pursue exposure, education, community, and economic empowerment.” Clearly, blogging was recognized as a viable alternative to traditional career paths for women. The ability to run a business from home granted expanded opportunities to stay at home mothers and disabled women.

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Leslie Morgan Steiner wrote On Balance, a Washingtonpost.com blog about work–family balance between 2006 and 2008. Over two years time and 500 columns she grew into one of the most popular mommybloggers online. Parents, especially mothers, used blogs to connect with family and friends scattered across the nation. Grandparents at a geographic distance from their grandchildren had better insight into the daily life and milestones that they missed out on. Recognizing the need for contemporary topics written about, by, and for women, Slate.com launched XX Factor in fall 2007. Despite the increased numbers of women bloggers, the blogosphere can be unsafe. Kathy Sierra, who wrote the blog Head Rush, was insulted and criticized by readers. Those threats grew into promises of sexual and other kinds of violence. She stopped blogging as a result. A culture of abuse exists online targeting women journalists and bloggers. Sierra’s experience brought the issue to national attention, which spurred development of a Bloggers Code of Conduct. Time magazine inaugurated its Best Blogs list in 2008. Only three of 25 were created by women: The Huffington Post (1), Gawker (12), and Reverse Cowgirl (25). The Huffington Post was ranked the 28th most popular news site in 2008. Ironically, Arianna Huffington’s blog bylines are only 33 percent written by women. Women’s voices were historically silenced by corporate media, but there is hope that the blogosphere will open more opportunities for women, though tensions between old media and new bloggers ran high by 2009 when bloggers were blamed for the decline and precarious state of newspapers across the United States. See Also: Crafting Industry; Cyber-Stalking and Internet Harassment; Entrepreneurs; Fashion Industry; Huffington, Arianna; Internet, Nontraditional Careers, U.S.; Stay-at-Home Mothers; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Blood, Rebecca. The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Kline, David and Dan Burnstein. Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture. New York: CDS Books, 2005.

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Rosenberg, Scott. Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What it’s Becoming, and Why It Matters. New York: Crown Publishers, 2009. Rebecca Tolley-Stokes East Tennessee State University

Body Art To conform to norms of femininity, the female body has been adored, beautified, and customized to the ideal shape and look. Reclaiming the body from these oppressive regulatory methods was one of the most important agendas of feminism in the 1960s and the 1970s. Women started to use certain types of body art as a form of self-expression through which they could reclaim their bodies. Other body arts, however, are ways of adorning the body to conform to Western beauty ideas. Body art incorporates a versatile field of personal adornment procedures and modifications such as body painting, makeup, tattooing, scarification, branding, piercing, body sculpting, and gender transformation. These forms of body art can be divided into two groups: normative beauty expectations that eroticize the female body for the male gaze such as body painting, certain kinds of tattoos and piercing; and rebellion against social norms that includes such procedures as earlobe stretching, scarification, and branding. Normative Body Art Techniques The most used body painting method is makeup. The primary purpose of makeup is to make women feel that they look attractive by accentuating and shaping the lips, eyes, and cheekbones. However, when used by transvestites, gay men, male punks, New Romantics, and Goths, makeup no longer expresses social conformity but rather constructs a nonnormative sexual identity or an expression of rebellion. Body painting also can be used to paint pictures or whole paintings on the body. In this case, the skin is a surface for projecting fantasy. When applied to women’s bodies, the paintings eroticize certain body parts. If the work covers the whole body, the painting becomes a second skin. Lasting longer than regular body paint-

ing, mehndi design consists of a variety of symbols. Traditionally practiced in north Africa, southeast Asia and the Middle East, mehndi has been practiced in Western countries mostly for decorative purposes. Mehndi consists of symbolical designs and inscribes the body with meaning and offers the opportunity to embed the body with spirituality. Once considered to be outrageous, tattoos and piercings have been incorporated into the mainstream culture. Previously shocking, today tattoos have gained larger acceptance and become mere accessories. Some women use tattoos of butterflies, flowers, stars, or other beautiful drawings on their ankles, shoulders, or lower backs to boost their erotic side. Similar to tattooing, piercings of the eyebrow, navel, and the nose also have become acceptable techniques of self-adornment. These tattoos and piercings

Applying henna designs, known as Mehndi, is an ancient form of body art in the Asian subcontinent.



have gained sexual connotations conforming to heterosexual norms. Politicized Body Arts Certain types of tattoos and piercing still have a shocking effect on onlookers. Bodies covered with tattoos and radical piercings, such as of the nipple and genital areas, present bodies that express subcultural identities including homosexuality, cyberpunk, or sadomasochism (SM). Besides extreme forms of tattooing and piercing, scarification, earlobe stretching, branding, and subdermal implants are ways to altering one’s body. Many of these body alterations are rooted in indigenous cultures where they have symbolic meanings and are part of different rituals. For example, scarification is a practice used in Africa. It involves the cutting of the skin with a sharp tool to produce keloiding in different forms. In the case of branding, the design is created by burning the skin with a heated metal. Body modifiers also make use of the latest technologies as in subdermal implants in which a material is placed under the skin to create a three-dimensional effect. Body modifiers consider the alterations they produce in and on their bodies as symbolic acts through which they reclaim their own body. The body is freed from the Western regulatory beauty and sexual norms and it becomes a limitless field of experimentation and exploration. Besides its connections to indigenous rituals, body modification as a body art movement has its roots in the political activities of subcultural groups of the 1970s and the 1980s such as queer activism, punk, New Age spiritualism, pro-sex feminism, and performance art. These groups combated Western social and cultural norms. For example, queer activism made visible alternative sexualities while pro-sex feminism promulgated the idea that women should explore and take control of their sexualities. Punks expressed their disregard of society by their hairstyle, leather boots and jackets, and use of makeup. All considered the body a field of battleground and a tool through which they could express their personal values and approaches to life. Feminist performance artists such as Carolee Schnee­mann, Hannah Wilke, Yayoi Kusama, and Annie Sprinkle exposed the sexuality of the female body in obscene and vulgar ways, upsetting and thus undermining the sexualizing male gaze. Others

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reclaimed the body by exploring the symbolic power of body alterations such as smearing, burning, and skin cutting. These performances resembled rituals of passage in which the woman’s body was freed from oppressive social norms. With body art, the physical body becomes a source of self-definition and selfexploration through which a new self is created. Self-Actualization The body politics involved in body modifications is well summarized by Cordelia, who appears in Ted Polhemus’s 1996 book, The Customized Body, illustrated by Housk Randall. For Cordelia, piercing was not a fashion accessory. For her it represents a symbolic act through which she regains ownership of her body. According to Cordelia, “My body wasn’t mine until I claimed it through piercing. I didn’t do it for fashion.” The character enjoys experimenting with her body: “I like modifying and re-creating my body in many ways; this is exciting.” Cordelia uses these experimentations to define herself as “somewhere between a man and a woman.” The same desire to own one’s body is expressed by the women interviewed by author Victoria Pitts-Taylor in 2003. The women who underwent the painful ritual of scarification claimed that through these rituals they asserted their authority over their own bodies. These rituals, often performed among supportive friends, are regarded as a rite of passage. Before the body modifications, their body was an object of abuse. After inscribing particularly those body parts that were abused such as breast, genitals, and lower abdomen, the self-body relationship is transformed. The body is returned to its rightful owner. One of the women, Elaine, described her body modification as a process through which she was “brought back” to her body. Some of the women interviewed by Pitts-Taylor were members of lesbian SM communities. Spectacular body marks are part of the practices used by several sexual subcultures, such as radical gays and lesbians, trans gender individuals and leather people. Queering the body is an exploration of erotic and sexual expression. At the same time, it “reflects a politicized aesthetics of deviance, where overt bodily display is seen as a powerful affront to essentializing norms,” wrote Pitts-Taylor. Body art incorporates diverse methods of presenting and marking the body. For women, some of the body

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arts are ways of accessorizing their physical selves by making their bodies desirable objects for men to appreciate. For others, such body arts as radical tattooing, piercing, scarification, and branding have strong personal and highly political meanings that allow women to reclaim control of their bodies and at the same time rebel against the patriarchal rules of society. For these women, body art is a vehicle for self-expression that also builds different subcultural communities. Body art is defined on a personal level by the individual who chooses to undergo the modifications, and is viewed by society in a larger context as either a conforming, fashionable accessory or a rebellion against social norms. See Also: Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Body Image; Feminism, American; Queer Theory. Further Readings Clinton, Sanders and Angus D. Vail. Customizing the Body: The Art and Culture of Tattooing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. Fabius, Carine. Mehndi: Art of Henna Body Painting. New York: Random House. 1998. Groning, K. and F. Anton. Decorated Skin: A World Survey of Body Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001. Hewitt, Kim. Mutilating the Body: Identity in Blood and Ink. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997. Hudson, Karen L., ed. Chink Ink: 40 Stories of Tattoos and the Women Who Wear Them. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2007. Jones, Amelia. Body Art: Performing the Subject. London: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Mifflin, Margot. Bodies of Subversion: The Secret History of Women and Tattoo. New York: Juno Publishing, 2001. Osterud, Amelia Klem. The Tattooed Lady: A History. Golden, CO: Speck Press, 2009. Pitts-Taylor, V. In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Polhemus, Ted. Hot Bodies, Cool Styles: New Techniques in Self-Adornment. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Polhemus, Ted and Housk Randall. The Customized Body. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1996. Vergine, Lea. Body Art: The Body as Language. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000. Zita Farkas Independent Scholar

Body Image The term body image refers to how people think and feel about their bodies. It can be healthy or unhealthy and will probably change a few times over the course of one’s life. Body image develops as a result of various influences, including personal experience, how individuals physically perceive themelves, and feedback one receives from their environment. Responses from the environment include how people are treated by others as well as socialization from the multiple cultures that influence every person such as family, ethnicity, religion, and social class. General societal influences like the media also impact how people perceive themselves. There have been varying images of the “ideal body” throughout history and across cultures. A healthy body image is marked by a realistic perception and acceptance of one’s size and shape. This type of person is comfortable with what she sees in the mirror, has a sound sense of self-worth, and generally likes herself. This also is a reflection of congruence between how one thinks of their body and sociocultural expectations about how one should look. An unhealthy body image typically includes shame and/or anxiety about how one looks. There may be comparison with others, or with the idealized cultural norm regarding how women should look. This person may or may not have a realistic understanding of her body size and shape. It is important to point out that one’s body image does not necessarily reflect how closely a person mirrors the idealized norm for size and appearance. Just because there are enormous pressures on women to look a certain way or face social rejection does not mean she sees herself as others do. Women who are considered physically attractive by others may still have an unhealthy and negative body image. This is a reflection of the complex relationship between cultural expectations, socialization, physical attributes, and personal experience in the formation of one’s body image. Origins of Body Image Ideals Throughout the world, women are socialized to believe in a cultural definition of female attributes. From the time a girl is born, she is told which clothes are appropriate for her to wear, what kind of hairstyle is fitting for a female; which toys to play with or



activities to undertake; how much to help the family with household duties and responsibilities; and many other specifically female messages. If the girl is privileged enough to be educated, she is expected to focus on certain types of studies rather than others. When the female enters the workforce, regardless of her age or education level, she is relegated to certain types of work and expected to engage in certain behaviors, but not others, while doing that work. Thus, women worldwide are considered subservient to men, expected to care for others throughout their lives, and when allowed to work outside of the home, tend to be relegated to professions that help others. The overarching force behind these phenomena is colonialism, which tends to bring with it patriarchy, heteronormativity and classism. Colonialism has affected most, if not all, of the world and, even though there are sometimes shifts in global powers, the idea that select, very rich and powerful nations control the rest of the world seems to stay the same. Colonialism has historically favored rich, heterosexual men with light skin. There are complex historical processes at work in each culture that has experienced colonization, but the fact remains that rich, light-skinned, presumably heterosexual men have been dominating the public and personal spaces of almost every culture around the world for hundreds of years. Patriarchy requires that men are separate from women so that privileged men may maintain control over everyone else (i.e., women and unprivileged males). Heteronormativity, or the assumption that everyone is or should be heterosexual, helps maintain patriarchy such that there are two distinct sexes, man and woman, and every woman needs to be paired with a man. The end result is that men with privilege remain powerful while women tend to be considered subservient to them and feel pressure to conform to societal standards to be accepted by men, affiliate with at least one male, and thereby acquire some measure of power in a system that would otherwise render a woman invisible. Almost universally around the world, women’s bodies are treated with less respect than a man’s. Whether the discussion is on pregnancy, contraception, abortion, or childbirth; rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, or sexual terrorism; how much women are paid relative to men for the same work; or even if women are allowed to work outside the home, vote, or hold

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office, the fact remains that women are objectified in patriarchal systems that reign worldwide. Some cultures want women to be unseen, so they must cover all or most of their body when in public. Other cultures think a woman should put her body on display for men, so skimpy and revealing clothes are considered attractive. Some cultures dictate women to have long hair while others demand that women have no body hair. Regardless of the details, for all of these socialization processes, women are forced into rigid, stereotypical categories and only considered socially acceptable if they conform. The Idealized Image The idealized image of a woman in the Western world is someone who is light-skinned, able-bodied, young, extremely thin, and presumably heterosexual. In the transgender community, where a person’s gender identity does not “match” the identity typically associated with their biological anatomy, there are still stereotypical rules about what kind of appearance and behavior can “pass” as female. In these circles, wearing wigs and makeup, as well as taking hormones to raise one’s voice or developing larger breasts are preferred; and Facial Feminization Surgery or Gender Reassignment Surgery are all options to help someone live and “pass” as a woman. Historically, each culture has their own idealized image of what a women is but the homogenizing force of colonialism has replaced local standards with Western preferences of beauty in almost every country worldwide. This is occurring in different ways around the world. In Asia, it means women should have larger breasts, thinner legs, and wider eyes. In Africa and Latin America, it means a thinner body with fewer curves and lighter skin. In the United States, Western Europe, and Australia, there is a continued focus on being thin with “white” skin. In all of these countries, a woman must be heterosexual and able-bodied to be fully accepted in society. The consequence of not living up to this image varies but usually includes some form of social rejection, from inability to make friends, form romantic partnerships or even find employment. Overall, the idealized image of how a woman should look remains untouched across age, social class, educational level, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and even nationality, no matter who is enacting these roles.

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Perpetrators of Body Image Ideals It used to be that the ideal body varied across culture around the world. Today, colonialism and globalization have resulted in the imposition of the colonizer’s preferences. Western images of the ideal woman, delivered worldwide through colonization, the Internet, and other types of media, has infiltrated most of the socalled industrialized world. This affects each country differently, but the fact remains that all women are told consistently and incessantly by the media and other socializing influences how to look if they want to be considered socially acceptable. In fact, there seems to be a direct relationship between the presence of Western media and a woman’s body image. In general, greater exposure to Western media leads to greater dissatisfaction with one’s body. This is happening worldwide as women try to look more Western. The medical community, including cosmetic surgery specialists and the diet-weight loss industry all contribute to the conforming pressures of Western culture. Constructs such as height-weight charts arbitrarily impose standards that the research community has consistently determined are incorrect because they do not account for muscle mass, bone structure or other important factors related to a person’s body shape. Still, they are widely used and health professionals often tell patients to change their behavior to conform to the chart’s numbers. Many people who are overweight experience discrimination by medical professionals, who spend less time with them overall and often assume they are unhealthy because of their weight or appearance. The diet and exercise industry is a multibillion dollar business in the United States alone that sells the idea that one should look a certain way to be healthy and happy. What they do not say is that most diet fads do not lead to increased health, and that one may lose weight but it may be muscle instead of body fat. Again, what ends up being sold to the consumer is the idea that their body needs to be changed in some way to be socially acceptable. Cosmetic surgery sells a similar message but with the added promise of a “quick fix” to physical imperfections. This industry continues to grow exponentially each year in many countries around the world. Body image may seem like a superficial phenomenon but it is consistently related to one’s sense of selfworth. From infancy, data show that people who are considered attractive get more positive attention from

their parents and other people in their environment. This means that they are interacted with more as children and are more likely to be considered intelligent, capable and successful academically and vocationally. As adolescents and adults, attractive people generally have more friends, engage in more dating and peer interactions, and tend to be hired more quickly, even in a job that is not based on one’s appearance. When one understands this, it is not hard to see why some people are willing to engage in risky or unhealthy behaviors in an attempt to be considered more attractive or socially acceptable. Consequences of an Unhealthy Body Image Dissatisfaction with one’s body is found among the majority of women in the West. It also is spreading around the globe as women are increasingly compared to the Western image of beauty and blame themselves if they don’t measure up. This is more pronounced in affluent areas where people live a more Western lifestyle (i.e., consumerist, individualistic). Affluent Asian females living in westernized areas like Hong Kong or Tokyo have the highest levels of body dissatisfaction in the world. Women in the United States and Australia are a close second followed by western Europe. Women in Latin and South American countries have body images in the mid-range, except for Argentina, which has a greater European influence. Women in the Middle East and Africa have the lowest dissatisfaction with their bodies but this is changing in nations like Israel and South Africa, as they adopt a more Western lifestyle. Results of Poor Body Image There are many consequences to dissatisfied body image. The almost universal consequence is a lowered sense of self-worth, which can negatively impact the pursuit of one’s goals, general sense of happiness in life, belief that they deserve to be treated well by others, and more. Many people do not feel worthy of attempting to make friend with others, which can lead to social isolation, depression, and decreased opportunities for realizing their academic, career or life goals. Others are so dissatisfied with their bodies that they are willing to go to extreme measures to achieve the so-called “ideal” body. Poor body image is the number one predictor of who develops an eating disorder. The growing num-



bers of eating disturbance seem to point to women who are unhappy with their bodies. Some women binge and purge (i.e., eat normal or large amounts of food and then get rid of the food by throwing up, using laxatives, or other means); others starve themselves; and a number engage in a combination of the two. Some women over exercise, causing physical harm to their bodies by overly taxing their system. Many women use substances, both legal or illegal, to affect their weight, either by curbing hunger, helping remove food from their bodies, or furnishing them with the energy to exercise without eating very much food. These behaviors are unhealthy and they can lead to nutritional deficiencies, electrolyte imbalances, physical problems, and even death. Eating disorders were once characterized as a Western problem that affected higher class, white females. Now it is a problem found in women of all classes across the world. In fact, Medellin, Colombia, is considered the world capital of eating disorders. While the United States still holds the record for annual number of deaths due to eating disorders, Japan currently is in second place with various European, Asian, and Latin American countries following. Both South Africa and Israel continue to record increases in eating disorders. While specific symptoms vary by culture, the entire world has seen a sharp increase in the number of people suffering from eating disorders in an attempt to conform to the Western image of beauty. The only areas that seem to be spared from this sweeping body image movement are Middle Eastern countries that do not allow Western influences into the culture. There also has been an increase in cosmetic surgery worldwide among women with the means to afford the procedures. A steadily increasing number of people choose to undergo cosmetic surgery to change their appearance so that they look more like a thin, light-skinned woman with long, thin legs, a long nose, and a curvaceous bust line. This suggests that many women are dissatisfied with their bodies; these facts also point to how much physical appearance is tied to a sense of self-satisfaction. The procedures requested tend to vary by nation. In Asian countries, where many women are already thin, the most common requests are eyelid restructuring and leg slimming procedures to look more Western. In the United States, Latin America, and Africa, women tend to

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request procedures that will make their breasts larger or firmer, and their skin look younger and thinner. Brazil is considered the cosmetic surgery capital of the world, though Thailand is the world leader in male-to-female sex changes. The United States has long been a leader in cosmetic surgery, but other countries that have historically denounced cosmetic surgery, such as Japan, China, and Korea, are quickly coming on board. The high price tag associated with these procedures leads many people to travel to other parts of the world where it is cheaper. This has led to an exponential increase in cosmetic surgery in places like South Africa, New Zealand, India, and Turkey, among other nations. It may be unfair to argue that increasing rates of eating disturbance, excessive dieting and exercise, drug use, and plastic surgery are directly tied to poor body image. Women have been altering their bodies throughout time to conform to the local standard of beauty. Chinese women bound their feet, Victorian ladies wore corsets, women removed ribs to have smaller waistlines, and other practices around the world demonstrate the impact of social expectations on women over the centuries, if not millennia. What seems to be increasing is the reach of colonialism and influence of a globalized media. With a global economy comes the transmission of idealized images. Society should consider this: what needs to happen for women to be accepted for who they are, rather than how well they fulfill the fantasies of men in power? Various feminist theories and, more recently, Queer Theory, have already started this discussion. What is clear is that if people have social support from people who care about and accept them for who they are, their body image is more likely to be healthy and there are decreased risks of developing negative consequences related to poor body image. See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward; Bariatric Surgery; Breast Reduction/Enlargement Surgery; Cosmetic Surgery; Diet Industry; Eating Disorders; Gender Reassignment Surgery. Further Readings Atkins, Dawn, ed. Looking Queer: Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities. London: Haworth, 1998.

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Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Grogan, Sarah. Body Image: Understanding Body Dissatisfaction in Men, Women and Children, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008. Martin, Courtney E. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body. New York: Free Press, 2007. Savacool, Julia. The World Has Curves: The Global Quest for the Perfect Body. New York: Rodale, 2009. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Geneva Reynaga-Abiko University of California, Merced

Bolivia Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America that shares borders with Peru, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil and shares control of Lake Titicaca with Peru. The population is split among two indigenous groups, Chechua (30 percent) and Aymara (25 percent); mestizo or mixed ancestry 30 percent; and white (15 percent). Over 90 percent of the population identify themselves as Roman Catholic, most of the remainder as Protestant. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, due in part to a history of political unrest. In 2009, the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $4,600 put Bolivia in the middle third of reporting countries, but inequality is extreme: Bolivia’s Gini Index of 59.2 is the 7th highest in the world and an estimated 60 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Bolivia is the world’s third-largest cultivator of coca (used to create cocaine and heroin) and is also a transit country for illegal drugs. In 2009, the population of Bolivia was almost 10 million. Despite a negative net migration index, a high birth rate (25.8 per 1,000 population) and fertility rate (3.2 children per woman) gave the country a growth rate of 1.8 percent. The population structure is typical of a developing country, with a low median age (21.9 years in 2009) and over 35 percent of the

population age 14 or younger. Life expectancy at birth is 64.2 years for males and 69.7 years for females. Status of Women Literacy is lower for women (80.7 percent) than for men (93.1 percent). Although an even number of boys and girls enroll in primary school, about 6 percent more boys attend secondary school. In 2007, women held about 17 percent of the seats in Bolivia’s lower house of parliament and 4 percent in the upper house. Almost 60 percent of Bolivian women age 15 and older are employed, as compared with over 80 percent of Bolivian men age 15 and older. Overall, the male/female ratio is almost even, but men and women are not distributed equally throughout the country. In 2001, there were 91.9 females for every 100 males in rural areas versus 106 females per 100 males in urban areas. Abortion is legal only to save a woman’s life or to preserve her mental and physical health. In 2004, almost 60 percent of Bolivian women reported using contraception, but only 34.9 percent used modern methods of birth control. Many people in Bolivia have limited access to healthcare, which is reflected in poor maternal and child health outcomes. For instance, in 2000 the maternal mortality rate was 420 per 100,000 live births and the infant mortality rate was 51 per 1,000 live births for females and 60 per 1,000 live births for males. The international organization Save the Children ranks Bolivia 44th among 75 Tier II or less developed countries on its Women’s Index, 44th on its Mothers’ Index, and 50th on its Children’s Index. See Also: Drug Trade; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Indigenous Women’s Rights, Bolivia; Poverty; Roman Catholic Church; Wars of National Liberation, Women in. Further Readings Dore, Elizabeth and Maxine Molyneux. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Hepburn, S. and R. J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.save thechildren.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109 _hp_hd_pub (accessed February 2009).

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United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). World Health Organization. “World Health Report Statistical Annex, Annexes by Country (A-F).” http:// www.who.int/entity/whr/2005/annex/indicators _country_a-f.pdf (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Bollywood Generally agreed to have entered popular usage in the mid-1970s and often attributed to filmmaker Amit Khanna, the term Bollywood combines Hollywood with Bombay, the anglicized name for the western Indian city now known as Mumbai. Despite the protests of critics who prefer the term Indian film industry, Bollywood remains a popular term because it evokes the cultural particularities for which Hindi cinema is best known, including the Mumbai-based film industry, which features Indian actresses who have set the standards of beauty throughout south Asia for the past 50 years; the three-hour-length melodrama format, often featuring tales of forbidden love, and at least four music and dance interludes; and a visual aesthetic characterized by bright colors, elaborate costumes, idealized gender stereotypes of passive women and heroic men, and stylized gestures with roots in ancient south Asian styles of performance. Bollywood film production is dominated by men, but its actresses have a degree of fame and wealth far exceeding the vast majority of women in south Asia. Bollywood films draw many of these characteristics from nautanki—traveling shows that circulated throughout north India before the advent of cinema and television technologies. Based on reenactments of Hindu epic literature, particularly the Ramayana and Mahabharata, this style of performance featured many of the elements common to Bollywood films today, particularly in terms of highly stratified gender roles, themes of duty and obligation to family members, and, above all, the conversion of disorder into order through the almost-inevitable happy ending.

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Contemporary Bollywood films have their roots in the introduction of cinema technology to India during the British colonial period (c. 1858–1947). Regular showings of English-language films took place in Mumbai from the late 1890s, and by 1900, Parsi entrepreneurs F. B. Thanalwala and R. G. Phalke were among the first to begin making films with Indian content, including the first film about the city, Splendid New Views of Bombay (1900). India’s first story film, Pundalik (1912), followed the nautanki tradition of narrating the life of a Hindu religious figure as a form of secular entertainment, which remains a popular film format today. Movie theaters and film censors emerged in 1918 with the passage of the Indian Cinematograph Act, although the film industry continued to be a site of stigma for women because it involved public appearances in front of men outside the family. Early actresses often came from tawaif (hereditary courtesan) families who could no longer support themselves through patronage from wealthy families. Other actresses came from families that were from communities that were not Hindu or Muslim. For instance, the first major Hindi film production, Shakuntala (1919), told the story of a female heroine from the epic Mahabharata and starred American actress Dorothy Kingdom. Many other actresses were Anglo-Indian (of mixed English/Indian heritage) or Jewish, such as Sulochana, whose real name was Ruby Mayers. Sulochana starred in a number of films throughout the 1920s that dealt with the difficulties women faced in the workplace, such as Telephone Girl (1926), Typist Girl (1926), and Wild Cat of Bombay (1927). There were numerous other actresses like her, all of whom were either foreign or came from marginalized groups in India, such as Fearless Nadia, an Australian woman known for her stunt performances. By the early 1930s, several Hindi film production companies were vying with one another, and the Bollywood genre began to take more concrete shape. Films such as Daulat ka Nasha (Money Is a Drug, 1931) and Kisan Kanya (Village Maiden, 1937) set the precedent for numerous future films of a genre that superficially purported to “expose” an unfortunate (and usually sexualized) social condition, such as the plight of widows or low-caste women, while titillating their predominantly male audiences in the process.

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Bollywood films ranked as the eighth-highest earner among all Indian industries, employing over 40,000 people, with 1,496 theaters, including 500 touring cinemas by 1940. This burgeoning industry became institutionalized in the 1950s with the emergence of actors and performers who remain iconic figures today, such as Raj Kapoor, Nargis, and Lata Mangeshkar. Indian cinema first gained international acclaim with the release of Bengali-language filmmaker Satjajit Ray’s Pathar Panchali (The Song of the Road, 1955), which won six European film awards. By this time, the Indian film industry had largely become self-sufficient, with its own technicians, producers, and performers. One of the greatest markers in the history of Hindi cinema is the release of Mughal-e-Azam (The Emperor of the Mughals, 1960), which was 15 years in production and cost over $1 million to make. The film was the well-known story of Anarkali, a Mughal courtesan sentenced to death by entombment for flirtatiously glancing at the son of her patron. It combined poetry and history on an extravagant scale with an all-star cast and remains a classic and much-beloved film. A number of films produced throughout the 1960s used Mumbai itself as a central theme, and the city and its most famous industry remain inseparable for many south Asians. Examples of such films include Shahar aur Sapna (City and Dream, 1963), in which a poor young couple unsuccessfully searches for a home of their own, and Gumrah (Lost, 1964), in which Bombay is depicted as an immoral place where married women are led astray. Several rather selfreflective films also emerged in this period, including Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (Hero, 1966), which commented on the personal dilemmas created by fame, with reallife Bengali icon Uttam Kumar cast in the lead role. Many films in the late 1960s and early 1970s began to feature song-and-dance sequences set in prominent locations throughout western Europe. Although completely unrelated to the plot, these musical interludes added a sense of exotic glamour to familiar dilemmas that were by this point very familiar to Indian viewers, such as suitability for marriage and moral dilemmas surrounding courtship. A vibrant print media chronicled the lives of well-known Hindi film performers from the late 1960s onward in meticulous detail. Magazines such as Filmfare and Stardust emerged during this period and continue to be popular with south Asians and those in the diaspora.

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, almost 800 Hindi films were being made each year in Mumbai, although the south Asian diaspora became an increasingly popular topic by the end of the decade. This stems in part from the vast socioeconomic changes India underwent beginning in 1991, when a balance-of-payments crisis spurred the implementation of the International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment policies that privileged foreign investment, and thus opened an enormous range of new consumer and lifestyle choices for urban Indians. By the late 1990s, Hindi films began to diversify substantially, catering to different markets with unique tastes and desires; this trend is likely to continue. Female filmmakers remain a small minority, yet many young women still highly covet roles as actresses in films and aspire to the adulation film stars receive in the world’s second most populous nation. See Also: Celebrity Women; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Gandhi, Sonia; Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints; India; International Monetary Fund; Pakistan. Further Readings Dwyer, R. Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Ganti, Tejaswini. Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Indian Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2004. Susan Dewey Indiana University, Bloomington

Bosnia and Herzegovina The statistical data for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is not reliable because there was no census after 1991. Nevertheless, the relevant United Nations agencies have some projected data. According to these data, there are approximately 3.8 million people living in BiH, half of which are women, out of which 35 percent are employed. Even though there are a greater number of educated women than educated men (20 percent of women compared to 17 percent men have attended higher educational institutions), they earn 20 to 50 percent less than men. In addition to these data, the situation of women in BiH can be best illustrated with the fact that women

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are disproportionately affected by at least two transitions that BiH has entered. The first transition started in the late 1980s and is understood as the political and economic transition (from the socialist system). The second transition is the transition from the war into the post–war society that started with the signing of Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995. These transitions have affected women in such way that previously secured social and economic rights and support systems were lost (health, pension, social security, and childcare systems are barely functional). The war between 1992 and 1995 enormously victimized women. Women who survived genocide may have lost their male family members or were survivors of sexual violence. In many places elderly, displaced, or refugee women were the only ones that returned to their empty villages. The post–war period marked a significant increase in trafficking of women. In respect to the legal framework, the Constitution of BiH prohibits gender discrimination; the Gender Equality Law was adopted in 2003 and as a consequence gender mechanisms were established (state Gender Equality Agency and two of this entity’s Gender Centers). Most of the forms of the violence against women, including domestic violence, have been criminalized, but this has not yet resulted in a decrease in violence against women. The political representation of women is very low. In 2010, in the Parliament of BiH only 5 women (11.9 percent) are delegates in the House of Representatives, while 13 percent of women are delegates in the House of Peoples. The Council of Ministers has no female ministers and only two women are deputy ministers. Women are trying to make their voices heard through their participation in nongovernmental organizations. Significant numbers of women activists are working in the academia and in the fields of cultural production trying to articulate the sociological, cultural and theoretical frameworks for gender equality in BiH. See Also: Domestic Violence; Rape in Conflict Zones; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Arsenijevi´c, Damir, et al. “Women Writing in Red Ink: Women’s Writing and Socio-Political Change in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.” In Elisaveta Blagojevi´c, et al., eds., Gender and Identity: Theories

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From and/or on Southeast Europe. Belgrade, Serbia: Women’s Studies and Gender Research Center, 2006. Dzumhur, Jasminka. “Bejining +15 Regional Review Meeting. Geneva, November 2009. UNDP Panel Discussion on Enhancing Women’s Political Participation.” http://europeandcis.undp.org/uploads /public1/files/Dzumhur.doc (accessed June 2010). Husanovic, Jasmina. “The Politics of Gender, Witnessing, Postcoloniality and Trauma: Bosnian Feminist Trajectories.” Feminist Theory, v.10/1 (2009). G. Mlinarevic University of Sarajevo

Botox Botox is a brand name for botulinum toxin type A (botulinum), a neurotoxic protein. The substance is commonly used for the reduction of facial wrinkles. In the United States, in 2008, botulinum was administered more than 5 million times—a quadrupling since 2000. Botulinum injections made up about half of the 10.4 million “minimally invasive” cosmetic surgery procedures reported by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in 2008. Worldwide, across various demographics and ethnicities, it is the most common cosmetic surgery treatment; women make up approximately 91 percent of its users. This entry traces the history of botulinum, its administration, side effects, and cultural implications. Botulinum toxin is a naturally occurring poison found in decomposing meat. While the contraction of botulism from contaminated food can be fatal, when highly diluted and purified the toxin has therapeutic uses. British scientist Arnold Burgen discovered in 1949 that botulinum blocks neuromuscular transmission and can be injected directly into muscles to cause temporary paralysis. He undertook experiments to test the substance’s efficacy in treating tics, spasms and other neuromuscular disorders. Botulinum was approved for therapeutic use in the United States or conditions of the eye, such as uncontrollable blinking, in 1984. It was later noted that the wrinkles of patients were lessened; in 2002 the drug was approved for use in treatment of facial lines. It has since been aggressively

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marketed as a wrinkle treatment by its U.S. manufacturer, Allergan Pharmaceuticals, under the trade name Botox. Botox has become a household name and is one of the most widely recognized prescription medicines in the world. Hence, botulinum is often conflated with Botox, although the product is also produced by other companies under the labels BTXA, Botutox, Estetox-A, Refinex, Novotox, Canitox, QuickStar, Linurase, Dysport, and Neuronox. Botulinum is part of a suite of nonsurgical cosmetic surgery procedures and is administered, usually without anesthetic, via a very fine needle into multiple points on the face. It takes about four days for the effects to be seen. Side effects can include temporary flu-like symptoms, headaches, hematoma, bruising, drooping eyelids, and double vision. Some scientists maintain that botulinum has not been used long enough to accurately determine its carcinogenic or long-term effects. Botulinum injections diminish the appearance of wrinkles on the face, especially those around the eyes, on the forehead and between the eyebrows. As with other cosmetic surgery, it is most often used by women aged 40 to 54. However, it is also marketed to the public as a means of avoiding the development of wrinkles in a preemptive manner. The product can cause a “frozen” or “plastic-” looking face, and is often criticized for the way it diminishes the range of facial expressions available, especially to actors. Botulinum’s effects last about 120 days. It is dispensed in glass vials that each hold enough liquid for several injections. In 2008, the average cost of a botulinum treatment in the United States was $500. The substance has a four-hour life once a vial is opened but not all recipients need an entire vial. To address this discrepancy some patients and surgeons host “Botox parties,” where the cost is shared between multiple recipients. These gatherings, held in clinics or in private homes, have become part of the popular mythology around Botox. A Botox party, for instance, was featured in the pilot of the Nip/Tuck television series. Botox parties are indication of how cosmetic surgery, once kept secret and hidden, is, in the early 21st century, far more acceptable: even a status symbol. The parties are controversial in part because of the likelihood of alcohol being imbibed while undergoing a medical procedure. In 2008, they were banned by the United Kingdom’s General Medical Council.

Botulinum’s effects are evident on the faces of many high-profile women, especially celebrities. However, as with other cosmetic surgery, it is still rare to publicly admit using the product. Along with all cosmetic surgery, botulinum is changing perceptions of how ageing is managed and of “acceptable” standards of femininity and beauty. See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward; Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Cosmetics Industry; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Our Bodies, Ourselves; Representation of Women. Further Readings Carruthers, A. and J. Carruthers. “BOTOX Treatment for Expressive Facial Lines and Wrinkles.” Current Opinion Otolaryngol Head Neck Surgery, v.8 (2000). Cooke, Grayson. “Effacing the Face: Botox and the Anarchivic Archive.” Body & Society, v.14 (2008). Gilman, Sander. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Haiken, Elizabeth. Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Jones, Meredith. Skintight: A Cultural Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2008. Misra, Peter. “The Changed Image of Botulinum Toxin.” British Medical Journal, v.325 (2002). Meredith Jones University of Technology, Sydney

Botswana The Republic of Botswana is often described as a flourishing multiparty democracy with a growing economy. However, women are still inadequately represented in high political and decision-making positions. In addition, despite the country’s economic growth, there has also been an increase in poverty and social inequality. The relatively small population of 1.84 million has both a high per capita income, estimated at $13,300 in 2008, and one of the world’s highest human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection rates. The national prevalence rate among adults

Botswana aged 15 to 29 years is 24 percent. Women have an increased risk for HIV infection, and men aged 15 to 24 years experience an HIV prevalence rate of 5.7 percent, whereas women of the same age group experience prevalence rates of 15.3 percent. Botswana has had a developed institutional framework to advance gender equality since the 1980s and has ratified several international and regional instruments regarding women’s civil, political, socioeconomic, and cultural rights; for example, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Although the Constitution entitles men and women to equal fundamental rights and freedoms, accessing those rights depends on the application of common or customary law. The state reserves the right to confine rights on the basis of sex on “reasonable grounds,” often meaning that customary laws that discriminate against women continue to be reinforced.

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The 2004 Abolition of Marital Power Act, which abolished the common-law principle of marital power, reducing women to minor status, is one measure that has been implemented to address gender inequality. However, this act, too, has its flaws. The act does not define marriage, and therefore lacks universal application, as it only applies to civil marriages. Most women are married customarily, effectively meaning that marital power still applies. Since the 1980s, Botswana has been the world’s principal producer of diamonds, and mining is its most important industry. Tourism is also significant to the economy, although agriculture provides a livelihood for the majority of people. Because the country has a dual legal system, women have limited ownership rights in relation to access to land and property, compromising women’s rights and economic opportunities. Social attitudes and legislative structures are conservative regarding nonheteronormative sexual practice. For instance, in 1998 the penal code further criminalized same-sex sexual activity by extending the law to criminalize same-sex activities between women. In 2002, Gender Links and the Media Institute of Southern Africa reported that women only accounted for 16 percent of known news sources. Bessie Head, one of Africa’s most prominent writers, moved to Botswana in 1964 as a refugee and was given citizenship in 1979. She died in Botswana in 1986. Her three major novels, When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power were written during her time in Botswana. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; Marriage; Property Rights; Sexual Orientation-Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States.

Botswana confines rights based upon “reasonable grounds,” so that laws that discriminate against sex are still reinforced.

Further Readings Alexander, Elsie. Beyond Inequalities 2005: Women in Botswana. Harare, Zimbabwe/Gaborone, Botswana: Southern African Research and Documentation Centre, 2005. Griffiths, Anne. “Women’s Worlds, Siblings in Dispute Over Inheritance: A View From Botswana.” Africa Today, v.49/1 (2002). Leslie, Agnes Ngoma. Social Movements and Democracy in Africa: The Impact of Women’s Struggle for Equal Rights in Botswana. London: Routledge, 2006.

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Upton, Rebecca, L. “‘Women Have No Tribe’: Connecting Carework, Gender, and Migration in an Era of HIV/ AIDS in Botswana.” Gender and Society, v.17/2 (2003). Danai S. Mupotsa Monash University

Bowers, Marci Dr. Marci Bowers emerged in the first years of the 21st century as one of the premier surgeons performing sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) in the United States and the world. She performs SRS at Mount San Rafael Hospital in Trinidad, Colorado, continuing the practice in sex-change surgery begun there by Dr. Stanley Biber in 1969. Their work has made Trinidad a mecca for those men and women seeking to transition, that is, to align through surgery their sex and their gender identity. Born Mark Bowers in 1958, Dr. Marci Bowers had known from her childhood that her male genitalia did not align with her gender identity as a woman. She began transitioning about 1996. In 2003, at the invitation of Dr. Biber, she joined him in Trinidad and began working with him on sex reassignment surgeries. By the summer, she had succeeded him in the practice, becoming the first American transsexual surgeon to perform SRS in the United States. A Wisconsin native, Marci Bowers attended the University of Wisconsin before going on to receive her medical training at the University of Minnesota where she completed her studies in 1986. She did her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle where she initially practiced at The Polyclinic and, since 2002, at Seattle Reproductive Healthcare. Dr. Bowers worked solely in obstetrics and gynecology in Seattle until she joined Dr. Biber in Trinidad, Colorado. Since then, she has divided her career between her practices in Washington and Colorado. Dr. Biber was among the first surgeons, along with physicians at both the Johns Hopkins and Stanford university medical centers, to perform SRS in the United States. Using the penile inversion techniques originally developed by the French gynecologist, George Burou, at his clinic in Casablanca during the

1960s and 1970s, Biber passed his techniques on to Dr. Bowers who has continued to make innovations in the complex surgery of converting penis and scrotum into vagina and labia, in particular the use of the glans in clitoral construction. Dr. Bowers also performs her surgeries in line with the Standards of Care set forth by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly the Harry Benjamin Institute, of which she is a member. In 2009, Dr. Bowers began using her SRS expertise to perform innovative reparative gynoplasty for African and Middle Eastern women who have been subject to female circumcision, a severe mutilation of female genitalia. She began working in this area in France with Dr. Pierre Foldes, a urologist, supported by the Clitoraid Foundation. She brought her work back to the United States where she has initiated reparative gynoplasty in her clinic in Trinidad. In particular, she has worked to rebuild not only labia but the clitoris as well, restoring feelings of “wholeness” to women and the potential for sexual pleasure. The recipient of numerous awards, Dr. Bowers is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology. She is also on the board of the Ingersoll Gender Center and the advisory board for the Midwives’ Association of Washington State as well as a member of WPATH, the European Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. See Also: Female Genital Surgery; Gender, Defined; Gender Dysphoria; Gender Reassignment Surgery; Medical Research, Gender Issues; Physicians, Female; Transgender; Women’s Health Clinics. Further Readings Conant, Eve. “The Kindest Cut.” Newsweek (October 20, 2009). http://www.newsweek.com/id/218692 (accessed June 2010). Jackson, Chris. “The ‘Transational’ Dr. Marci Bowers.” Lavender Magazine: Minnesota’s GLBT Magazine. http://www.lavendermagazine.com/archives/issue-340 /the-%E2%80%9Ctransational%E2%80%9D-dr-marci -bowers (accessed October 2009). Marci L. Bowers, M.D. http://marcibowers.com (accessed September 2009). Mark Reger Limestone College



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Boxing Referred to as the “sweet science,” evidence suggests that the sport of boxing has existed since early civilization. Boxing was a sporting competition in the ancient Olympic games and continues to have a strong sport presence in modern times. Boxing is a dichotomous sport, as it has various facets of appeal and disdain. In its malign, the sport has been identified as being an excessively brutal activity with controversial connections to gambling and organized crime. Boxing displays gender differences and inequalities that have shaped its development in our culture. The sport has been directly linked with gender ideology, as scholars have denoted the intrinsically masculine nature of the activity. Boxing is an exciting and captivating sport. Along with the associated excitement, there are various trepidations associated with boxing; primary concerns include the inherent risk of injury or death. With such serious apprehensions, one may wonder why individuals, both participants and spectators, would choose to partake in a sport that has been described as “blood thirsty” and “barbaric.” Boxing is an anomaly in regard to socially accepted forms of athletic participation in the United States. The sport gained mainstream appeal when the U.S. government endorsed boxing as a means to develop self-discipline and to prepare soldiers for combat during the early 20th century. Throughout the course of modern history, however, the sport experienced various controversies and criticism that damaged its appeal and acceptance as a reputable form of competition. Inherently tied to masculinity and brutality, questions can be raised as to why women would want to participate in such a brutal, violent sport. Ironically, it was the threat of violence that motivated women to participate in boxing during the latter half of the 20th century. Boxing became a sport women could learn to protect themselves from the threat of male predators or abusive spouses. Furthermore, the women’s liberation movement and Title IX of the Educational Amendments allowed greater access to the sport of boxing. Following a series of lawsuits, the United States Amateur Boxing Federation and USA Boxing began sanctioning women’s matches in 1993. In 1997, USA Boxing hosted the first official Women’s National Championship, followed by the inaugural World Championships in 2001.

Boxing displays gender differences and inequalities that have shaped its development in modern society.

Boxing and Mainstream Culture The sport of boxing has made household names of noted pugilists such as Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, and Oscar De La Hoya. Although boxing has been a sport predominated by males, female boxing participation has grown in popularity in recent times. Women boxers have also found their way into mainstream media. Laila Ali has been the most recognizable face of professional women’s boxing over the past decade. She initially was known for being the daughter of legendary fighter and cultural icon Muhammad Ali. She went on to become a trailblazer in the ring who has brought the sport of women’s boxing to unprecedented heights. Ali has also managed to be a crossover star. In addition to boxing, Laila has been featured on Dancing With the Stars and hosting American Gladiators, which demonstrate her versatility as an entertainer and celebrity. Although Ali has been the sports brightest star, she has not had a professional fight since 2007. While she has taken time off from boxing to start a family and pursue other public ventures, her absence has left a major void in the women’s professional boxing scene. Other female boxers have been celebrated in the media for reasons related to their sporting skill. For example, Lucia Rijker gained notoriety due to her role

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as the final counterpart of Hillary Swank’s character, Maggie Fitzgerald, in the film Million Dollar Baby. Mia St. John, a successful boxer, is commonly referred to as the “Boxing Bunny” for her appearance in Playboy magazine. Christie Martin, another prominent boxer, became the first woman pugilist to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Million Dollar Baby One of the most visible portrayals of professional women’s boxing came in the form of the 2004 Academy Award–winning film Million Dollar Baby. This film starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Hilary Swank offered a spotlight to the world of women’s boxing; as well as some of the issues and challenges associated with the sport. In the film, the primary antagonist Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Swank) seeks to pursue a career in professional boxing. She seeks the tutelage of crotchety gym owner Frankie Dunn (played by Eastwood) who provides training for some promising young fighters. The film chronicles the relationship between the “old school” guiding force that reluctantly allows “a girl” to train in his gym. Ultimately, Maggie defies the odds to be the best female fighter in the world. Current Status In addition to the loss of the visibility and star power that Laila Ali’s presence brought the sport, women’s boxing has continued to be impacted by other impediments. The sport of boxing in general has had to contend with the emergence of mixed martial arts (MMA). The arrival of MMA has splintered viewer interest and taken away from the visibility of boxing and its revenue sources such as pay-per-view (PPV) dollars. MMA has also experienced the growth in female participation. In particular, in regard to women’s MMA involvement, the emergence of Gina Corano has positioned her with a well-built degree of celebrity, making her the face of the sport. Despite recent setbacks, women’s boxing shows signs of maturing as a legitimate sport. Throughout the world, approximately 120 countries sponsor women’s boxing programs. It is estimated that 3,000 women are registered boxers with USA Boxing annually and in August 2009, the International Olympic Committee announced women’s boxing would be included in the 2012 Summer Games. Approximately

2,500 U.S. women boxers are expected to compete for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team. See Also: Ali, Laila; Olympics, Summer; Sports, Women in; Stereotyping Women; Xtreme Sports. Further Readings Fields, Sarah K. Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sports in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Laila Ali. “History.” http://www.lailaali.com/history (accessed July 2010). USA Today. “Women Boxers Hope to Send Message to IOC.” http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/ summer/2009-08-11-womenbox_N.htm (accessed July 2010). USABoxing.org. “The Evolution of Women’s Boxing.” http://usaboxing.org/pages/1033 (accessed July 2010). Women Boxing Archive Network. “Chronological Events that Occurred in Women’s Boxing.” http://www.women boxing.com/historic.htm (accessed July 2010). Woodward, Keith. Boxing, Masculinity and Identity: The ‘I’ of the Tiger. London: Routledge, 2007. Jason W. Lee University of North Florida Elizabeth A. Gregg Jacksonville University

Brady, Sarah In March 1981, White House press secretary James S. Brady was seriously injured in the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. In the wake of her husband’s injury, Sarah Brady became a leading advocate of gun control in the United States and a fierce opponent of the powerful National Rifle Association. In 1985, she joined Handgun Control, Inc., the largest gun control lobbying organization in the United States. Four years later, she became chair of the group, lobbying members of Congress and campaigning actively for political candidates who supported gun control legislation, regardless of their political affiliation. In 1991, Brady took on the additional role of chair of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, an organization committed to reducing gun violence

Bratz Dolls



through education, research, and legal advocacy. Her years of activism culminated in President Bill Clinton’s signing into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required a five-day waiting period and background check upon the purchase of a handgun. In her determination to see more sweeping changes to the way guns are bought and sold in the United States, Sarah Brady has continued her advocacy. Not even a bout with lung cancer and semi-retirement have weakened her commitment to the cause of gun control. Born Sarah Jane Kemp on February 6, 1942, in Missouri, Brady grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, the daughter of a homemaker and an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After her graduation from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1964, Sarah taught school for four years but then left the classroom to work as an assistant to the campaign director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. While she was employed by the committee, she met James Brady, whom she married in 1973. Sarah Brady served as a congressional aide before accepting a position as director of administration and coordinator of field services for the Republican National Committee. By the time her husband was named Ronald Reagan’s White House press secretary, Sarah Brady had resigned from her work with the Republican National Committee to care for the couple’s only son, James Scott Brady Jr., who was born in 1979. Gun Control Advocate The Bradys were enjoying life among the Washington elite, but a bullet from a .22 caliber revolver in the hands of John W. Hinckley Jr. changed their lives forever. James Brady was left paralyzed. Sarah Brady encouraged her husband through his struggles to adapt to life in a wheelchair. The advocacy that made her the name the public most associated with gun control began three years after her husband was wounded when Congress was debating the repeal of provisions to the Gun Control Act of 1968. When she contacted Handgun Control Inc. to ask how she could help, she was given the task of writing letters to members of Congress. Later, she began lobbying on Capitol Hill and eventually became the organization’s most prominent speaker. It took seven hard-fought years from the time the Brady Bill was introduced to the 100th Congress in

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1987 until President Clinton signed the bill into law on November 30, 1993, in a ceremony attended by James and Sarah Brady. The battle made a political Independent of Sarah Brady for whom the issue of gun control had become far greater than partisan loyalties. She spoke at the National Democratic Convention in 1996, and she and her husband endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign. In December 2000, the boards of trustees for Handgun Control and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence renamed these organizations the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in tribute to James and Sarah Brady. Earlier that same year, Sarah Brady, a smoker for much of her life, had been diagnosed with stage III lung cancer. Her chances of surviving for five years were less than 30 percent. In her memoir, A Good Fight (2002), she recounts her battles to care for her husband, to reform the nation’s gun laws, and to beat the odds in her own fight against cancer. Brady, who still serves as chair of the Brady Campaign and the Brady Center as well as on the board of trustees, continues her fight on all three fronts. See Also: Cancer, Women and; Gun Control; Million Mom March; Political Ideologies. Further Readings Brady, Sarah with Merrill McLoughlin. A Good Fight. New York: Public Affairs, 2002. Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Biographies: Sarah Brady.” http://www.bradycenter.org/about/bio /sarah (accessed March 2010). Nisbet, Lee. The Gun Control Debate. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 1991. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Bratz Dolls MGA Entertainment, Inc. introduced the Bratz dolls in 1991. Initially the sales for the Bratz dolls were low, and parents were reportedly reluctant to purchase the dolls due to their provocative clothing and streetwise demeanor. However, within a couple years of

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their debut, Bratz were gaining popularity as Barbie sales slightly declined. Bratz gained popularity among 7- to 10-year-old girls quickly; although Barbie sales remained strong, this age group was once the mainstay of Barbie’s market. Departing from the sales model set by Mattel’s Barbie with one doll serving as the leading product, the original line of the Bratz consisted of four dolls, Chloe, Jade, Sasha, and Yasmin. Each was given equal status in the marketing campaigns. MGA Entertainment designed the Bratz dolls as multicultural and multiethnic friends, which proved to be a sound decision to market the doll to a wide range of groups. Like their counterparts in the toy market, the Bratz dolls have been scrutinized and analyzed by scholars, parents, and child advocate groups for being too mature and sexual. The dolls have large heads, long hair, with heavily made-up eyes and lips. Bratz dolls are clothed in tight fitting shirts, short skirts often with fishnet stockings and high heels. Some scholars have noted the sexualized look of the multiethnic and multicultural dolls as a dangerous way to sell diversity to young children. Compared to the relative wholesome look of Barbie and the American Girls dolls, Bratz dolls have been described as “hooker chic.” The Bratz share some similarities with their rivals in the toy market, including a wide variety of merchandise available for purchase such as clothing, pets and housing for the dolls. Bratz brand clothing is also available for children to wear. The merchandise for the dolls revolves around fashion and shopping prompting concerns that Bratz dolls promote the message of empowerment through consumerism to girls. A liveaction film inspired by the dolls, Bratz: The Movie, was released in 2007 to unfavorable reviews and poor box office sales; however, the popularity of the dolls remained high. With the rise in popularity of Bratz dolls and products, sales of other dolls, most notably Barbie, once the undisputed favorite among young girls and preteens, dropped. Mattel filed a lawsuit against MGA Entertainment, Inc. in 2004 citing copyright infringement and breach of contract. Mattel claimed that the Bratz doll sketches by Carter Bryant were developed while Bryant worked at Mattel, and therefore all Bratz products belonged to the company. The trial took several years, with Mattel ultimately winning a $100 million settlement for breach of contract and copyright infringement. A judge also

ordered MGA Entertainment to cease production of the Bratz dolls. The court battle continued after the jury’s verdict and judge’s decision as MGAEntertainment’s lawyers stated the other Bratz dolls developed after the original four should not be included in the court’s decision. The Bratz line continues to be produced by MGA, and the line has expanded to over 30 different models, including babies and boy dolls. Despite the legal battles and the criticism of the dolls as highly sexualized, Bratz dolls continue to be a favorite of young girls and preteens. See Also: American Girl Dolls; Barbie Dolls; Body Image; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings American Psychological Association. “Report on the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls,” http://www .apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx (accessed November 2009). Associated Press. “Barbie Beats Bratz Dolls in Legal Battle.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/04/ national/main4647827.shtml?source=RSSattr=World _4647827 (accessed November 2009). Duncum, Paul. “Aesthetics, Popular Visual Culture, and Designer Capitalism.” International Journal of Art & Design Education, v.26/3 (2007). MGA Entertainment, Inc. Website, http://www.mgae .com/default.asp (accessed November 2009). Marcia Hernandez University of the Pacific

Brazil The lives of women in Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world, have been marked by intersections of social class, ethnicity, geography, and gender. Added interplay between conservative and liberal forces enacting economic, political, social, and cultural changes has created a diversity of Brazilian women’s conditions and identities that demonstrates the rising power of the female against sexism and domination. The Portuguese first arrived in Brazil in the 1500s, with the intent of exploiting the country’s natural



resources. By mid-16th century, colonizers in Brazil had established the practice of trading in African slaves to supply labor to increasingly profitable industries such as sugar cane. Through three and a half centuries of slavery, those African women who survived worked in the fields; as marketers in the towns and cities; in domestic work as servants, nannies, cooks, cleaners, and washerwomen; and as sex workers and cheap providers of biological reproduction of the enslaved labor force. Widespread intercourse between European men and native women (and later African women) came to be perceived as sexual libertinage and a threat to the constitution of proper families to settle in the colony. A Jesuit priest wrote to the king of Portugal requesting that white women—orphans and even prostitutes and criminals—be sent to Brazil. The court complied. European women were regarded as valuable consorts of men of similar backgrounds and helped settle the country. White women in the casa grande (mansion) and African women in the senzala (slave quarters) both were subject to the rulings and desires of the patriarchs, often with the blessing and meddling of local priests. Such women developed strong connections and deep rivalries—often of a sexual nature—which made for a troubled mistress–slave relationship. In addition to members of the white/black caste system, nonpropertied whites and mestizos of all types, born from mixing between groups—mulatto (white and black), cafuzo (black and native), and caboclo (native and white)—made up Brazil’s growing population. Indigenous people—barely recognized as human—escaped by refusing assimilation or inhabiting inaccessible hinterlands. Until the 20th century, they were not integrated into the nation. Immigration and Health The increasingly economically inefficient slavery system was abolished in 1888 with the help of King Pedro II’s oldest daughter, Princess Isabel. In 1889, the Portuguese–Brazilian monarchy, which had been in power since Brazil’s independence in 1822, fell. The Empire of Brazil became the Republic of the United States of Brazil—a country in need of workers. From the mid-19th century through the 1920s, women and men immigrated from Europe (Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and most other countries);

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from the United States, as groups of disgruntled Southerners reopened for business in São Paulo State after the Civil War; from Asia (Japan, China); and from the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine). The Jews who had lived in Brazil from the start, fleeing persecution under the Spanish Inquisition, continued to immigrate in waves. From the nation’s beginning, peoples from many nations have never stopped seeking to establish themselves in Brazil. Immigration has changed the composition of Brazil’s population and its women, with continued interethnic intercourse and assimilation seen against the backdrop of the steady transformation of the capitalist economy from primarily agrarian to commercial, industrial, and service-based. In 2000, there were 86.2 million women, representing approximately 51 percent of the population. About 80 percent lived in urban areas. Almost 40 percent were girls and teenagers younger than 19 years, and 32 percent were aged between 20 and 40 years, for a total of 72 percent of women of child-bearing age, representing the nation’s youthful population. Almost 46 percent of Brazilian women consists of women of color—extrapolating from general population indicators, almost 54 percent considered themselves to be white, 39 percent pardas (brown), 6 percent black, and .5 percent yellow (Asian descent) or indigenous. Being of African descent puts a woman’s health at risk in a variety of ways. Discrimination affects her body image, self-concept, and self-esteem. She is subject to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and sickle-cell anemia, which affects pregnancy and delivery adversely. She is six times more likely to develop toxemia at delivery. As a result of poverty, she is likely to suffer from nutritional deficiencies and live in polluted environments. Her life expectancy is 66 years compared with a white woman’s 71 years. Women of means in Brazil have access to world-class doctors and facilities, but most Brazilian women have to do with poor clinics, where available. Despite these conditions, infant mortality has decreased from 47 to 19 per 1,000 from 1990 to 2007 as the Ministry of Health continues to address startling differences in services by social class and ethnic background in the different regions. Demographic, economic, and regional factors also affect women’s life conditions and cannot be ignored. There are fewer women (48 percent) than men in the northern region, Amazonia, which is scarcely

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populated and occupies almost half of Brazilian territory; it is a frontier of economic exploration. The stillpoorer northeast region has exported workers, mostly men; the 23 million women living here represent 53 percent of the population—the highest sex ratio imbalance (and the highest rate of infant mortality). The central-western region has slightly 2 percent more women, including the Federal District, where women make up a large share of public service workers in the capital, Brasília. In the more developed southeastern and southern areas, the sex ratio is balanced. Employment One of the most significant phenomena in Brazil at the turn of the 21st century has been the increased participation of women in the labor force, following a jump from 29 percent of the economically active population in 1976 to 43 percent in 2002. In 2007, the rate of employment is about the same, but the unemployment index for women was 12 percent—four points greater than that for men. Women’s greater activity rate does not mean an increase in formal employment (understood as jobs regulated by contracts that afford benefits such as social security and retirement). Most Brazilian women work in service occupations. The majority of service workers—between 82 percent (in the Federal District) to 94 percent (in Piaui State), and an average of 87 percent for Brazil as a whole—are employed in domestic service, often informally, under conditions not too far removed from slavery, despite regulation. Almost 60 percent of domestic workers are black or brown women from low-socioeconomic strata. In the southeast region, 38 percent of economically active women hold formal jobs—the highest percentage in Brazil. Of formally employed women, only 37 percent are black, with women of Asian descent and white women holding better jobs. This shows the familiar pattern of double discrimination by gender and ethnicity. The oppression triples when low-socioeconomic background is taken into account. In terms of compensation, Brazilian workers generally receive nonliving wages with regional variations. Brazilian women receive less still, commanding about 71 percent of men’s pay across all occupations. Only 18 percent of employed women make more than 10 times the minimum salary compared with 42 percent of men who do so.

Education Although work and pay are dismal for Brazilian women, and still worse for women of color, the conditions in education look brighter. Women have continually achieved higher levels of education than men. In 2002, women obtained 58 percent of high school and 63 percent of college degrees, though they concentrate more in social studies (education, arts and humanities, social services, and health) and less in the scientific fields (mathematics, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Higher levels of education for women have yet to be translated into employment and pay gains; less-schooled men may still get the job and better pay. In addition, the glass ceiling also limits women’s advancement to corporate and government higher-level management positions. Politics Women’s difficulties a primed to decrease in light of recent expansions in political power. In 2009, 10 of 81 Brazilian senators are women. Of 531 state representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, 46 are women from different parties, including five elected through the Brazilian Communist Party, which called its first national conference on the woman question in 2007. In the administration of the Worker’s Party President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dilma V. Rousseff holds the highest-ranking cabinet office as Chief of the Casa Civil. Women also head two ministries, Environment and Tourism and Special Secretaries, Promotion of Policies for Racial Equality and Women’s Policies. The latter oversees the National Council for Women’s Rights, serves as clearinghouse for research on women, and implements the National Plan for Women’s Policies and programs: Pro-Equity for Women; Women Against STDs and AIDS; Gender and Diversity in Schools; Women Building Autonomy in Civil Construction; and Work, Crafts, Tourism and Women’s Autonomy. The Special Secretary for Women’s Policies and state and local governments present issues that women in government are addressing, including improving living conditions, combating violence against women and children, and trafficking of women. On October 31, 2010, Brazilians elected their first female head of government, Dilma Rousseff from the ruling Workers’ Party. Rousseff has been a guerrilla, a torture victim, an economist, an energy minister, and the president’s chief of staff.

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See Also: Equal Pay; HIV/AIDS: South America; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Barman, Roderick J. Princess Isabel of Brazil: Gender and Power in the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Fundação Carlos Chagas. “Mulher. Séries Historicas.” http://www.fcc.org.br/mulher/series_historicas/ghgm .html (accessed January 2010) Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, “Página Inicial.” http://www.ibge.gov.br/english (accessed January 2010). Kellog, Susan. Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women From Prehispanic Period to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Saffioti, Heleieth. Women in Class Society. New York: Monthly Review, 1980. Secretaria Especial de Políticas para as Mulheres. “Página Inicial.” http://www.presidencia.gov.br/estrutura _presidencia/sepm/ (accessed January 2010). Simões, Solange and Marlise Matos. “Modern Ideas, Traditional Behaviors, and the Persistence of Gender Inequality in Brazil.” International Journal of Sociology, v.384 (2008). Wolf, Joel. Working Women, Working Men: São Paulo and the Rise of Brasil’s Industrial Working Class 1900–1955. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. Tania Ramalho State University of New York at Oswego

Breast Cancer Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. Survival rates are not uniform and vary by geographic location. The greatest number of breast cancer patients are in North America, northern and western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and in the South American countries of Uruguay and Argentina. Incidence rates in most southern and eastern European countries are low to intermediate, and throughout Africa, Asia, and most of Central and South America they are relatively low by comparison. Despite the lower incidence rates within low- and middle-income

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countries relative to their high-income counterparts, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that nearly 70 percent of all breast cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Incidence rates have been rising steadily around the globe in recent decades, increasing the cancer burden worldwide. The geographic distribution of breast cancer incidence and mortality illustrates important patterns related to wealth, culture and health infrastructures among developed and developing countries. High incidence rates strategically illustrate the importance of breast cancer as a women’s health epidemic and the need for public, scientific, and financial investment in the illness. As breast cancer has become more public, especially in the United States since the early 1990s, some statistics—particularly those that generate fear—have dominated the public imagination and furthered the common sense message that early detection vis-à-vis mammography screening saves lives. Incidence, Morality, and Risk Trends in breast cancer incidence and mortality reveal crucial geographic variations as well as an overall increase in breast cancer. Similar patterns exist, for example, in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In the United States, breast cancer rates have increased about 1 percent per year since the 1940s, and by more than 40 percent from 1973 to 1998. Similarly, Canadian incidence rates rose nearly 30 percent from 1969 to 1999. Annual increases of 1 to 3 percent were recorded in Finland and the Netherlands, and between 1971 and 1987 six former regions of the Soviet Union charted gains from 2 to 4 percent. In New South Wales, the incident rate for breast cancer rose steadily in the early to mid-1980s, and in 1995 were nearly 50 percent higher than they were in 1983. Mortality also increased in these regions from the 1950s through the 1980s but leveled off in several northern European countries, Australia, New Zealand and for white women in the United States and Canada. In general, women under age 50 saw greater declines in mortality than did older women. Although breast cancer has been relatively rare in many Asian countries, Japan has seen rising incidence rates and, to a lesser degree, growing mortality rates since the mid-1980s. Numerous studies point to increased

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risks associated with a Western lifestyle, although environmental exposures are increasingly linked to breast cancer. In general, there is considerably less cancer data in many developing countries. The data that is available shows lesser but increasing degrees of incidence and mortality. Most Latin American countries have intermediate rates of breast cancer and mortality, though these rates have been increasing at a pace double that of such nations as Cali, Colombia, and Puerto Rico from the 1970s to the 1990s. Mortality has risen substantially in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. Although incidence and mortality rates are low in most developing Asian countries, between 1968 and 1992 higher rates were recorded in India particularly among the Chinese in Singapore, with average increases of 3.6 percent per year. Mortality rates increased in China from 1987 to 1999 and nearly doubled in Taiwan and Hong Kong from the 1960s to the 1990s. For all of Africa, breast cancer ranks second to cervical cancer, but remains the most common cancer in North Africa and in urban sub-Saharan regions such as Abidjan. This also was the case in Zimbabwe until recently overtaken by the heightened health burden of AIDS. Incidence rates also doubled in Nigeria and Uganda from the 1960s to the 1990s. The differences in breast cancer incidence between developed and developing countries can be explained in part by exposure to lifestyle related risk factors, such as postmenopausal obesity from the Western diet coupled with limited exercise, alcohol consumption, and reproductive factors that prolong women’s exposure to naturally occurring estrogens. These reproductive factors contribute to the early onset of menstruation, late menopause, late age at first childbirth, and shorter breastfeeding schedules. As developing countries adopt these more Western behaviors, the risk of developing breast cancer may increase. In addition to these risk factors age, inherited genetic mutations, use of hormone replacement therapy, and a previous history of cancer of the endometrium, ovary, or colon may increase a woman’s overall risk for developing breast cancer. However, the known risk factors account for only 30 percent of breast cancer cases. Modifiable factors such as body mass, physical inactivity and alcohol consumption only explain a small fraction of breast cancer incidences. Similarly, only 5 to 10 percent of

women diagnosed with breast cancer have inherited a mutation in the known breast cancer genes. Seventy percent of breast cancer cases are not attributable to the known risk factors, few interventions reduce risk and none prevent breast cancer. New research focuses on the likelihood of environmental links to breast cancer to explain the majority of cases. While lifestyle factors may explain some of the increases in breast cancer in the developing world, the death toll in low- to middle-income countries is clearly attributable to a lack of healthcare infrastructure, the high costs of diagnosis and treatment, and the fact that many women do not know they have breast cancer until later stages of the disease when symptoms are visible. The WHO promotes cancer containment in terms of national programs that focus on a comprehensive system of prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. However, the organization does recognize limitations to prevention through modifiable health behaviors as well as barriers to early detection through widespread mammography screening of populations. Several scientific controversies must be taken into account to reduce the cancer burden. Data from the United States provide context to current debates about disease classification, mammography screening and the threat of over diagnosis and over treatment. The Disease Classification Controversy The term carcinoma refers to cancer, that is, malignant tumor. Cancer, broadly defined, is a disease of abnormal cell growth, which occurs in some organs or tissues of the body at different rates, and may either be contained in a single mass (tumor) or may spread to other locations in the body (malignancy). It is the combination of abnormal cell growth and the ability to spread (metastasis) that makes cancer dangerous. The assessment of just how dangerous a particular cancer may be is based on a disease classification system. There are critical differences in the classification of breast cancer based on whether abnormal cells appear in the ducts (tubes that carry milk to the nipple) or the lobules (glands that make milk), and more importantly, whether these abnormal cells have the capacity to metastasize. The specific constellation of these features helps to categorize nine different breast conditions, some of which are referred to as carcinomas or cancers. Because metastasis is what makes cancers



life-threatening, abnormal cells that lack the capacity to spread are not really cancers at all. This important distinction has caused confusion and controversy about how to diagnose and treat the collection of conditions commonly referred to as breast cancer. The most important characteristic among breast cancer types is whether they are “in situ” or “invasive.” The term in situ means “in place” and specifies a tumor that is confined to the immediate area where it began. If a cluster of abnormal cells is restricted to the ducts, it is called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). If the abnormal cells are restricted to the lobules, they are called lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS). Both conditions are asymptomatic and are nearly always nonpalpable (cannot be felt by hand). The abnormal cells do not invade surrounding breast tissue or spread to other parts of the body. About 23 percent of all breast cancer diagnoses among U.S. women are categorized as the in situ types. Of the 250,230 new cases of breast cancer in 2008, the National Cancer Institute estimated 67,770 in situ cases. Invasive or infiltrating breast cancer signifies abnormal cells that originate in the lining of the ducts and invade nearby breast tissue and are known as Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. The cancer that starts in the lobules and breaks into nearby breast tissue are Invasive Lobular Carcinoma and they have the capacity to invade blood and lymph vessels and spread to other parts of the body. These are the breast cancers that

A physician performs a needle biopsy to determine whether a breast lump is a fluid-filled cyst or a solid tumor.

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are life threatening. For at least one-third of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, the disease does eventually spread. While 75 percent of recurrences happen within five years, 25 percent occur after the five-year period. The invasive types represent the majority of breast cancers in the United States (77 percent), totaling about 182,460 cases in 2008. After disease classification, “staging” is used to determine cancer’s level of threat. Stages are based on the size of the original tumor, the amount of lymph node involvement, and whether the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. On average, 61 percent of invasive breast cancers are diagnosed as stage 1 (localized to the primary site); 31 percent are diagnosed at stage 2 or 3 (when the cancer has spread beyond the primary site or to regional lymph nodes, but not to other organs); and 6 percent are diagnosed as stage 4 (when the cancer has spread beyond the primary site to regional lymph nodes or to other organs of the body such as the lungs, liver, bones, or brain). The later the stage, the more life-threatening is the cancer. Only about 35 percent of patients who are metastatic at diagnosis (stage 3 or 4) tend to live five years or longer. The in situ cancers, however, are always classified at stage zero and have a five-year survival rate of about 100 percent. By definition, they are contained to the primary site, do not spread, and do not tend to become cancer. For the in situ types, the term carcinoma is a misnomer. There is strong consensus that LCIS is neither a cancer nor a pre-cancer. More accurately, it is referred to as lobular neoplasia, a collection of abnormal cells in the milk-producing lobules of the breast. It is a “marker” of increased risk. About 25 percent of patients diagnosed with LCIS develop breast cancer sometime in their lifetime. Since it is unknown which of these women may develop breast cancer, and which ones may not, the treatment for LCIS focuses on how to reduce future risk. This typically includes dietary changes, drug treatments such as hormone therapy, and/or increased medical surveillance for the duration of the person’s lifetime. Because LCIS is a marker of increased risk, the extreme measure of surgically removing both breasts may be considered a reasonable treatment option for some women. DCIS is not a cancer either, but it may be a precursor to breast cancer or a risk factor for developing breast cancer sometime in the future. The National

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Breast Cancer Coalition, an umbrella of more than 600 organizations in the United States, recommended changing the name to atypical hyperplasia to more accurately reflect this distinction. Studies suggest that only 20 to 25 percent of women with untreated DCIS would ever go on to develop breast cancer within the next 25 years. That is, 75 to 80 percent of women with DCIS would not. While DCIS does increase breast cancer risk, the risk is quite low—about the same as a woman without breast cancer who had a late first pregnancy. As with LCIS, it is unknown which women with the condition will ever get breast cancer. Even though DCIS is not a life-threatening cancer, most people diagnosed with DCIS tend to receive the same treatment as those diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer— surgery, radiation, and mastectomy. Age, Mammography Screening, and Mortality Reduction The inaccurate disease classification of the in situ breast cancers has fueled controversy about how to diagnose and treat breast cancer in general. Specifically, the stage-zero “cancers” have furthered the commonsense idea that finding breast cancer early is crucial for reducing mortality. This would make sense if the stage zero in situ types actually had the capacity to become a later stage breast cancer. But, this is not the case. Finding stage zero breast cancers has not translated to a reduction in late-stage disease. Instead, the rise in stage zero diagnoses has obfuscated critical evidence about the benefits of mammography screening. Breast cancer incidence in women age 40 and above has been increasing at a faster rate since 1982, yet the majority (80 percent) of diagnoses occur in women over age 50. Only 15 percent of cases occur in women age 40 to 50, and just 5 percent occur in women under age 40. Although they are not in the high-risk category (only 1.5 per every 1,000 women in their 40s) the American Cancer Society, many medical professionals, and most public service campaigns have been, since the 1970s, recommending annual mammograms for women beginning at age 40 (sometimes as early as age 35). The idea is that screening women who are younger would lead to early diagnosis when breast cancer is more treatable, thereby reducing mortality.

For decades, reports in medical journals have identified major problems with mammography screening, such as insufficient data about accuracy, benefit and long-term effects of radiation exposure. Though contested, these screening recommendations have become standard protocol. Interventions such as mammography have been studied in randomized controlled trials, which assess the benefits and risks of screening for specific groups of people. In randomized controlled trials, participants are randomly assigned to groups. The experimental groups receive a screening procedure with a predetermined frequency. The outcomes of the experimental groups are then compared to those of control groups that did not receive the procedure. Seven clinical trials conducted between 1963 and 1982 have analyzed the impact of screening mammography on mortality reduction. To evaluate the quality of the trials and the evidence they produced, there have been several systematic reviews (meta-analyses) of these trials, all of which have shown that reductions in mortality resulting from mammography screening are quite variable, and fairly modest. The Cochrane Review, first published in the Lancet in 2000 by Gøtzsche and Olsen, analyzed seven major randomized controlled trials on mammography screening that involved more than 500,000 women. After assessing the quality of the studies for agreed-upon standards for well-conducted and reliable research, the researchers concluded that there was no reliable evidence to justify mass screening. In fact, the two trials, which were used the most sound methods, did not find a reduction in breast cancer mortality compared to the poor-quality trials that did—25 percent mortality reduction after 13 years. In 2006, Gøtzsche and Nielsen updated the Cochrane analysis. Similar to the earlier findings, the trials that had the soundest methods provided no statistically significant reduction in breast cancer mortality; the trials that exhibited flawed methods showed a mortality reduction of 35 to 40 percent. The researchers concluded that screening, at best, decreased the risk of death by about 15 percent for women ages 50 to 69, while increasing the risk of over diagnosis and over treatment by about 30 percent. Corroborating the Cochrane conclusions, in 2002 the Humphrey Review concluded that the absolute benefit of mammography screening on mortality was



only 16 percent (similar to Gøtzsche and Nielson’s 15 percent). It also concluded that biases in the trial design could statistically eliminate or even produce that reduction, calling into question the reliability of the findings. In 2006, the Armstrong Review included 117 studies in addition to the original trials, and focused on the effects of screening for women ages 40 to 49. The researchers found a wide range of estimated mortality reduction, from 7 to 23 percent. They also determined that false positives (positive mammograms which, upon biopsy, did not show the presence of cancer) were 20 to 56 percent, leading to subsequent increases in unnecessary procedures. Given the uncertainty of mammography’s benefit in reducing breast cancer mortality, the risks associated with screening were an important consideration. Mammograms frequently provide insufficient information to reach clear conclusions about the presence of tumors, and suspicious areas on a mammogram may or may not indicate cancer. The risk of having a false positive during routine yearly screening is about 10 percent. By the time a woman has had 10 mammograms, she will have a 50 percent chance of being told her results are abnormal. The high rate of false positives means that the biopsies were not necessary for the majority of women who had them. In addition, mammograms miss 25 to 40 percent of tumors that actually are cancerous. These are called “false negatives.” Mammograms can be inaccurate for many reasons including the ability of the X-ray to clearly capture the image, uncertainty about how to interpret suspicious areas on the image, differences in the ability of radiologists to assess the images accurately, and the rate of tumor growth. Mammograms are better able to “see” through fatty tissue than through dense tissue. Since premenopausal women generally have denser breasts, mammograms are less accurate for these women than for postmenopausal women. This is why mammograms are far less accurate for women under age 50. On the other hand, mammograms are very good at seeing calcium deposits even in dense breasts. Calcium deposits (microcalcifications) are common in women, especially as they age; they are common in benign breast conditions, and also may form around dead cells in the stage zero breast cancers (DCIS and LCIS). Thus, the increase in mammography screening

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has led to a parallel increase in the diagnosis of in situ breast conditions. Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment The detection of abnormal tissue that will never become symptomatic (e.g., DCIS and LCIS) is referred to as “overdiagnosis.” The rates of DCIS have increased from 1 to 2 percent of all breast cancers 20 years ago to 17 percent in 1997, and 23 percent in 2005. The more than 23,000 cases diagnosed in 1992 were 200 percent higher than would be expected based on trends from 1973 to 1983. By 2008, that number more than doubled again to more than 57,000 cases. Until the 1980s, when mammography use expanded widely, DCIS was rarely found (because it is nonsymptomatic and nonpalpable). Screening mammography is largely responsible for the ever-increasing diagnoses of the stage zero breast cancers, the types that are not technically breast cancers at all. Overdiagnosis leads to overtreatment. Seventy percent of DCIS remains harmless for a lifetime, and the long-term survival rate is nearly 100 percent regardless of treatment. Yet, DCIS is diagnosed more frequently and treated more aggressively in the United States than anywhere else in the world. In 2002, 26 percent of DCIS patients were treated with mastectomy. Other treatments included lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy such as Tamoxifen. Because DCIS does not cause symptoms and is not likely to progress to invasive cancer, then the risks associated with surgery, radiation damage, anxiety about risk, side effects of systemic therapy, and increased medical costs, may outweigh the benefits of treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges the lifetime risk of developing cancer increases with radiation exposure from X-rays. A person who undergoes more X-ray exams has an accumulated radiation risk. A person who received X-rays at a younger age has a greater risk than those who are older. And women are at a higher lifetime risk than men for developing cancer from radiation after receiving the same exposures at the same ages. According to the FDA, a mammogram is comparable to three months of exposure to natural background radiation. An 80-year-old woman who had a mammogram every two years from the age of 40 will have been exposed to an additional five years of radiation in her lifetime.

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The environmental breast cancer movement has been instrumental in questioning why women are exposed to overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and increased radiation from mammography when the evidence of mortality reduction due to screening is sorely lacking. In November 2009, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force of the Department of Health and Human Services recommended against routine screening mammography in women 40 to 49 years, and biennial (instead of annual) screening mammography for women 50 to 74 years. It remains to be seen whether professional and advocacy groups, as well as the medical system will take the evidence-based protocol into account. See Also: Cancer, Environmental Factors; Cancer, Women and; Medical Research, Gender Issues; Pink, Advertising and. Further Readings American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts and Figures 2008. Atlanta, GA: American Cancer Society, 2008. Bray, Freddie, Peter McCarron, and Maxwell D. Parkin. “The Changing Global Patterns of Female Breast Cancer Incidence and Mortality.” Breast Cancer Research, v.6/6 (2004). Gray, Janet, ed. State of the Evidence 2008: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment. Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action. San Francisco, CA: Cooperative Printing, 2008. Ley, Barbara. From Pink to Green: Disease Prevention and the Environmental Breast Cancer Movement. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009. Love, Susan M. Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2005. National Breast Cancer Coalition. “Fact Sheets.” http:// www.stopbreastcancer.org/index.php?option=com _content&task=blogcategory&id=38&Itemid=178 (cited November 2009). Sulik, Gayle. Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women’s Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Welch, H. G. Should I Be Tested for Cancer?: Maybe Not and Here’s Why. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Gayle Sulik Independent Scholar

Breast Reduction/ Enlargement Surgery Breast enlargement and reduction surgeries are classified under the general category of mammoplasty within the field of cosmetic surgery. Breast enlargement surgery (more commonly referred to as breast augmentation) involves the insertion of an implant between the breast tissue and the chest muscles, or underneath the chest muscles, for the purposes of increasing the size of the breast. Breast reduction surgery (less commonly referred to as reduction mammoplasty) involves the removal of breast tissue and skin for the purposes of decreasing the size of the breast. Breast enlargement and reduction surgeries raise two significant issues within the field of cosmetic surgery concerning informed consent and the often arbitrary distinction between “cosmetic” surgeries and “reconstructive” surgeries. While breast enlargement and reduction surgeries are performed worldwide, statistical information about the prevalence of both is lacking about areas outside of North America (and the United States more specifically). This is primarily because surgeons who perform breast surgeries might not be plastic or cosmetic surgeons, and thus may not belong to a national cosmetic surgery association (or, alternatively, there may be no national cosmetic surgery association). Breast Enlargement Surgery Breast enlargement surgeries are very popular in North America, and in the United States, breast augmentation is currently the most commonly performed cosmetic surgery. Although the number of breast augmentations performed in the United States declined by 12 percent between 2007 and 2008 (due to an economic recession), the overall increase in breast augmentation procedures between 2000 and 2008 was 45 percent. Women choose to undergo breast enlargement surgeries for a variety of reasons, including dissatisfaction with breast shape and size, occupational purposes, loss of one or both breasts due to mastectomy, and sex reassignment surgery. Because there are no laws in North America that limit who can claim the title of plastic surgeon, and thus any person holding a medical degree can operate a plastic surgery practice, there are a range of economic options for women seeking breast



augmentation depending on the individual surgeon’s qualifications, prestige, and geographical location. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Western doctors unsuccessfully experimented with fat and liquid paraffin injections to augment body parts, including women’s breasts, although this was not a commercially viable project at that historical moment. Countless other substances have been unsuccessfully implanted in the breast to make it larger during the early to mid-20th century, from wool to ivory to glass and also several synthetic substances (most popularly Silastic rubber implants and liquid silicone). It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that surgeons began to experiment with saline and silicone implants, and that breast augmentation gained a wider public acknowledgment, although not acceptance. The implants that women receive today are most commonly silicone envelopes filled with either saline or silicone gel, and can be circular, teardrop-shaped, or shaped to fill in areas hollowed out by a lumpectomy. A recent breakthrough in silicone implant technology is the cohesive gel implant, or “gummy bear implant,” which is a solid but malleable piece of silicone that will not rupture. Surgeons make an incision most commonly in the fold underneath the breast, but sometimes in the armpit or around the nipple, and very rarely in the navel (this is a new technique that is not commonly performed), and insert the implant into a pocket created by the surgeon either above or underneath the chest wall. Silicone implants are manufactured pre-filled, and so they require a larger incision than saline implants, which are filled with sterile saline after they are inserted into the body. Potential risks and side effects of breast augmentation include severe reactions to general anesthesia and pain medication, excessive bleeding, loss of sensation in the breasts and nipples, formation of hard painful scar tissue around the implant that must be manually broken down (encapsulation), the rupture or migration of the implant, and excessive scarring. Silicone implants are particularly controversial due to their perceived effect on women’s body image in breast-obsessed American culture and their potential risks. Silicone implants are considered to look and feel more natural than saline implants, and are thus desired by many women considering breast implants. In 1992, the Food and Drug Administra-

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tion and Health Canada severely restricted the use of silicone implants due to a lack of information about their potential long-term risks and rising anecdotal accounts of systemic illness. Many of these women launched lawsuits against surgeons and manufacturers of silicone implants alleging that they were misled about the risks of silicone implants and did not give their full informed consent as a result. However, after conducting clinical trials that could not establish a link between silicone implants and systemic illness, in 2006 Allergan and Mentor were granted licenses in Canada and the United States to market their silicone implants. Breast Reduction Surgery Breast reduction surgeries are less popular than breast enlargement surgeries in North America, although the number of breast reduction procedures has increased by 5 percent in the United States between 2000 and 2008, and breast reduction surgery is the third most common reconstructive plastic surgery according to the American Society for Plastic Surgeons. Women undergo breast reduction surgery due to dissatisfaction with the size and appearance of their breasts, and pain in the neck, shoulders, and back. Because breast reduction surgery is commonly classified as a “reconstructive,” and thus medically necessary surgery, women are often able to receive some medical insurance coverage for this surgery. This means that in countries with public health insurance especially, breast reduction surgeries can be popular. Men obtain breast reduction surgery as well for gynecomastia as well as sex reassignment surgery, although men are more likely to receive medical insurance coverage for the former and self-finance the latter. Breast reduction surgeries were performed as early as the 16th century in Europe, but they were not a common part of surgical practice until the late 19th century. Techniques for breast reduction surgery have been relatively consistent in the 20th century. While surgeons occasionally perform liposuction to reduce breast size, most commonly they create a vertical or keyhole-shaped incision from the fold underneath the breast to the nipple. Surgeons remove the nipple to reposition it in a higher location on the breast, and also remove breast tissue and a small amount of skin from the lower breast, creating a lifting effect in addition to the reduction. Risks and side effects of breast

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reduction surgery include severe reactions from general anesthesia and pain medication, excessive bleeding and scarring, severe pain, and loss of sensation and ability to breastfeed. Furthermore, as women’s breast development can continue into their mid-20s, when younger women undergo breast reduction surgeries their breasts often return to their original size several years after their operation. Breast reduction surgeries are considered more socially acceptable than breast augmentation, as they are understood to be medically necessary and reconstructive, rather than cosmetic. However, there is evidence to suggest that many women strategically emphasize neck, back, and shoulder pain in their surgical consultations to obtain insurance coverage for the procedure. Interestingly, one of the most frequent comments women make about their breast reduction surgeries is that they are excited about purchasing clothing and lingerie that fits properly. While it is likely that there are some women who experience pain because of large breasts, the pain explanation supports the argument that breast reduction is reconstructive and thus entitled to insurance coverage. See Also: Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Pornography, Portrayal of Women in. Further Readings American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “2008 Quick Facts.” http://www.plasticsurgery.org/Media/stats/2008-quick -facts-cosmetic-surgery-minimally-invasive-statistics .pdf (accessed December 2009). American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “Cosmetic and Reconstructive Procedure Trends.” http://www.plastic surgery.org/Media/stats/2008-cosmetic-reconstructive -plastic-surgery-minimally-invasive-statistics.pdf (accessed December 2009). Gilman, Sander. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Haiken, E. Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Jones, Meredith. Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery. New York: Berg Publishers, 2008. Rachel Hurst St. Francis Xavier University

“Bridezillas” The term bridezilla is a combination of “bride” and Godzilla, describing a bride whose pursuit of a perfect wedding has no bounds. Bridezillas are commonly described as selfish, greedy, obnoxious, spoiled, and prone to spontaneous fits of rage. The Website Bridezilla.com’s definition, however, opts for words like “attractive,” “confident,” and “not mediocre,” suggesting that bridezillas simply demand nothing less than excellence. The first-known citation of the term was in the Boston Globe in 1995. Numerous stories on the subject have since been featured in various media. Television shows, including WEtv’s Bridezillas, portray what can happen to a woman somewhere between “will you marry me” and “I do.” According to their portrayal, bridezillas exhibit three typical qualities: having high standards and expectations, wanting to be a princess for the day, and being a “bitch.” As a concept, the term bridezilla allows women to perform multiple identities, pursuing traditional gender roles and expectations while simultaneously experiencing a status of power and control. Some argue that in showing little regard for the actual marriage and focusing instead on a single day, the bridezilla’s pursuit of perfection is meant to compensate women for a lifetime of potential boredom, misery, and neglect. The concept holds serious implications regarding the portrayal of women today. For instance, the pursuit of a perfect wedding day draws women into the enormous bridal industry. This has led to the view of bridezillas as possessing a “false consciousness”: they are obsessed with preoccupations of female beauty and romance, wishing to have them at any cost. The concept also appears to transcend class and financial status, although it must be noted that one’s ability to achieve wedding perfection is determined by their degree of agency as a consumer. Some perspectives suggest that bridezillas are in fact self-possessed and rational consumers and are not victims of their weddings. These perspectives view the consumer practices of brides as agentive, and even productive. Others pay attention to the hegemony of the media industry in constructing weddings as the ultimate life goal for women. This fantasy extols the images of the bride as a physical object, and a wedding as a venue

Brockovich, Erin



in which women are expected to display their femininity to others and are granted the temporary status of a celebrity. As women are also expected to take on the major responsibilities of overseeing their weddings, they have to become “superbrides” to make all the necessary financial arrangements, run errands, and ensure that every detail is accounted for. This point highlights the split in labor, as the same expectations are not stereotypically placed on grooms. Grooms who do participate usually do so in a secondary capacity. Furthermore, although the wedding day lasts a day, its production takes months—a timeframe that highlights the ephemeral nature of women’s work in general. The bridezilla can therefore be viewed as the result of the social expectations of modern brides to play two contradictory roles: that of both a rational project manager and an emotional fantasizer. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Marriage; Wedding Industry.

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While working as a file clerk for the law firm Masry & Vititoe, and with no previous legal experience, Brockovich found medical records that led to an investigation that eventually established that the health of numerous individuals who lived in the Hinkley area of California in the 1960s to 1980s had been severely compromised by exposure to the toxic chemical chromium 6, which had leaked into the groundwater and poisoned the local water supply. The case was centered on the Hinkley Compressor Station, which was part of a natural gas pipeline connecting the San Francisco Bay area, constructed in 1952. Between 1952 and 1966, the company used chromium 6 in the cooling tower, which led to some of the wastewater seeping into the groundwater, affecting a large area near the plant. Brockovich co-led the case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and in 1996, $333 million in damages to more than 600 residents of the Hinkley area was paid by the utility company—the largest toxic injury settlement in U.S. history. Brockovich

Further Readings Adrian, Bonnie. “Bridezilla Consciousness.” Journal of Women’s History, v.18/4 (2006). Engstrom, Erika. “Creation of a New ‘Empowered’ Female Identity in WEtv’s Bridezilla.” Media Report to Women, v.37/1 (2009). Otnes, Cele C. and Elizabeth H. Pleck. Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Spaemme, N. and J. Hamilton. Bridezilla: True Tales From Etiquette Hell. Salado, TX: Salado Press, 2002. Danai S. Mupotsa Monash University

Brockovich, Erin Erin Brockovich (born June 22, 1960) is an environmental activist and public speaker who was instrumental in constructing a groundbreaking legal case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California in 1993. Acclaimed Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh directed the film version of Brockovich’s story, Erin Brockovich, in 2000.

Erin Brockovich has received numerous awards and honors for her work in protecting the environment.

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continued her legal work and went on to participate in other antipollution cases, including a lawsuit that listed 1,200 plaintiffs and alleged contamination near Pacific Gas and Electric’s Kettleman Hills Compressor Station in Kings County, California, along the same pipeline as the Hinkley site. The Kettleman Hills suit settled the case in 2006 for $335 million. In 2000, Steven Soderbergh directed the film version of Brockovich’s legal battle with the Pacific Gas and Electrical Company, Erin Brockovich, which highlighted both Brockovich’s legal triumph and her personal challenges. Released in March 2000 by Universal Studios, the movie starred Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, and Aaron Eckhart. The release of the film, to great critical and commercial success, led to numerous awards and nominations, including five Academy Award nominations and one win for Roberts in the Best Actress category. Roberts also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for best actress for her portrayal of Brockovich. Soderbergh was nominated for an Academy Award for best director. The film’s central concern and the majority of discussion surrounding Brockovich and the Hinckley case was focused on the portrayal of Brockovich as a strong, independent, and feminine woman and single mother who, despite a lack of formal legal training, managed to succeed in winning such a groundbreaking case. The film also examines issues of class, gender, and the environment situated within the larger framework of Brockovich’s story. Since the release of the film, Brockovich became an initially reluctant public figure who has since hosted her own television shows including Challenge America With Erin Brockovich on ABC and Final Justice on Lifetime. In 2001, she published “Take It From Me!: Life’s a Struggle but You Can Win,” which became a best seller. In the book, ostensibly a self-help book, Brockovich provides readers with motivational strategies and tips that led her to discover certain aspects of her own personality that have allowed her to face both personal and professional challenges. Brockovich continues to work on environmental cases and assisted in the filing of a lawsuit against Prime Tanning Corporation of St. Joseph, Missouri, in April 2009. The lawsuit claims that waste from the production of leather, containing high levels of hexavalent chromium, was distributed to farmers in northwest Missouri to use as fertilizer on their fields.

The chemical is believed to be a potential cause of an abnormally high number of brain tumors around the town of Cameron, Missouri. Brockovich is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting and is currently working as a consultant for the New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos exposure. Brockovich is in demand for her lectures and talks across the United States and internationally. Erin Brockovich has received a number of awards and honors for her work with the environment. See Also: Attorneys, Female; Celebrity Women; Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Issues, Women and; Environmental Justice. Further Readings Brockovich, Erin and Marc Eliot. Take It From Me!: Life’s a Struggle but You Can Win. New York: McGrawHill, 2001. Brueckner, Martin, Dyann Ross, and Erin Brockovich. Under Corporate Skies: A Struggle Between People, Place, and Profit. North Fremantle, Australia: Fremantle Press, 2010. Zager, Norma. Erin Brockovich and the Beverly Hills: Greenscam. New York: Pelican, 2010. Kirsty Fairclough University of Salford

Brundtland, Gro Harlem Gro Harlem Brundtland is one of the former prime ministers of Norway, and has had a long career as a leader on public health and environmental issues. Brundtland began her career in medicine, earning a medical degree from the University of Oslo in 1963 and a Master’s of Public Health from Harvard University in 1965. After working as a public health physician in Norway, she went on to a position in Oslo’s Board of Health, where she focused on children’s issues, and then served as director of health services for the Norwegian public school system. She served as minister for environmental affairs for five years and, in 1981, was elected Norway’s first female prime minister (and its youngest, taking office at the age of 41).



Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway, and director-general of the World Health Organization until 2003.

Brundtland served as prime minister for more than 10 years, first during a brief term in 1981 and then returning for two subsequent terms from 1986 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1996. As prime minister, she upheld Norway’s Act on Gender Equality and had one of the highest percentages of female cabinet members during her tenure. Brundtland’s background in medicine and her years of work in Norway on the connections between public health and the environment led to an invitation in 1983 for her to chair the newly formed United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development. The Brundtland Commission, as it became known, focused on the role of the international political community in promoting sustainable development and published its report, Our Common Future, in 1987. The environmental issues raised by the report informed the later United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (or Earth Summit), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In May 1998, Brundtland was named director-general of the World Health Organization—a position she

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held until 2003. During her tenure at the organization, she focused on a broad platform of global public health issues, including violence, economic issues, natural disaster relief, tobacco addiction, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and maternal and infant health and mortality worldwide. She was recognized by Scientific American as the 2003 Policy Leader of the Year for her response to the sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. Brundtland has also been a recognized leader in global human and women’s rights, and in 1995 she attended and gave an address at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China. Brundtland is a member of several international leadership organizations focused on development, the environment, global politics, and human rights, including the Council of Women World Leaders, the Club of Madrid (an independent organization of political leaders and former leaders of democratic nations, founded in 2001), and the Elders (a group founded in 2007 by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and others that focuses on peace and human rights issues). Since 2007, Brundtland also has served as a special envoy for climate change for the United Nations. Brundtland has been the recipient of numerous international awards for her environmental leadership, including the Third World Prize (1988), Indira Gandhi Prize (1988), Onassis Foundation’s Delphi Prize (1992), Charlemagne Prize (1994), World Ecology Award (2001), Albert Medal of the Royal Society (2005), Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal (2008), and the very first Earth Hall of Fame Kyoto Award (2010). See Also: Heads of State, Female; Norway; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Brundtland, G. H. Madam Prime Minister: A Life in Power and Politics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Smith, M. H., et al. Foreword by G. H. Brundtland. Cents and Sustainability: Making Sense of How to Grow Economies, Build Communities and Revive the Environment in Our Lifetime. London: Earthscan, 2010. Tiffany K. Wayne Independent Scholar

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Brunei Darussalam The constitutional sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, which has been ruled over by the same family for six centuries, is located in southeast Asia along the South China Sea. After a period of regional influence between the 15th and 17th centuries, the country’s status in the area declined in response to infighting, European imperialism, and piracy. Between 1888 and 1984, Brunei was a British protectorate. After achieving independence, Brunei continued to amass wealth from petroleum and natural gas deposits and from extensive overseas interests. By 2009, per capita income reached an estimated $50,100, making Brunei the ninth richest country in the world. Brunei ranks 30th among the United Nation’s Development Programme’s list of countries with very high human development. Today, three-fourths of Bruneians live in urban areas. The majority ethnic group is Malay (66.3 percent), but 11.2 percent of Bruneians are Chinese. Brunei’s official religion is Muslim (67 percent), but Buddhists (13 percent) and Christians (10 percent) are also represented. In the highly traditional society of Brunei where divorce is generally unacceptable, women have historically had few rights. Under Qur’anic law, they lack rights of inheritance and child custody. According to the country’s Nationality Act, women are also denied rights of citizenship. Because Brunei is an absolute monarchy, neither males nor females have the right to vote except in village elections. While voting in village elections is required for males, it is optional for females. In the 21st century, many women continue to wear the tudong, the traditional Islamic head covering. The median age for females is 27.8 years. Despite its wealth, Brunei ranks 144th in the world in infant mortality, with a rate of 12.27 deaths per 1,000 live births. Female infants (9.75) have a considerable advantage over male infants (14.68). This health advantage continues throughout life, and female life expectancy is 78.07 years as compared to 73.52 for males. Overall, Bruneian women have a fertility rate of 1.91 children per woman. The fertility rate of females aged 15 to 19 is approximately 28 percent. The country ranks 145th in the world in fertility. More than 99 percent of all births are attended by skilled health professionals.

Brunei ranks 59th in the world in educational expenditures. Although males and females have an equal school life expectancy of 14 years, female literacy rates are lower (90.2 percent) than those of males (95.2 percent). Despite this, the number of women pursuing higher education is steadily growing. Bruneian women began to assert themselves in the late 20th century. In 1997, Princess Masna, the sister of the Sultan, became the second-ranking official in the Ministry of Affairs, and two other females were appointed to the Ministries of Education and Culture, Youth, and Sports. Between 1999 and 2005, 26 percent of legislators, senior officials, and managers and 44 percent of professional and technical workers were female. Although large numbers of women have entered the workforce, their salaries continue to lag far behind those of males. In 2005, for instance, estimated earned income for females was only $15,658 as compared to $37,506 for males. Many Bruneian women serve in noncombat positions in the military. Women have repeatedly been victims of minor domestic assault in Brunei, and the government has identified assault against female domestics as an area of major concern. The penalty for this offense is a jail term of one to two weeks. If the offense results in a serious injury, punishment may also include caning. However, female domestics, particularly foreigners are often reluctant to report abuse, which may also include being forbidden to leave their employers’ homes on their days off. A wife who is beaten by her husband may now use that action as grounds for divorce. See Also: Divorce; Domestic Violence; Military, Women in the; Pregnancy. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Brunei.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/bx.html (accessed February 2010). NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women. “Brunei.” http://www.niew.gov.my/niew/index .php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid =145&Itemid=60&lang=en (accessed February 2010). “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997; Brunei.” WIN News, v.24/2 (Spring 1998).

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World Economic Forum. “Brunei.” http://www.weforum .org/pdf/gendergap/ggg08_brunei_darussalam.pdf (accessed June 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Buddhism From its Indian context, Buddhism spread worldwide for over 2,500 years through trade, royal patronage, migration, scholarly study, and travel. Currently, about 350 million people or 6 percent of the world’s population identify themselves as Buddhist, with Mahayana the largest tradition. Besides Mahayana Buddhism, the other main schools are Theravada and Vajrayana. However, Vajrayana also is regarded as a form of Mahayana Buddhism and is said to provide a faster path to Buddhahood or enlightenment. In addition, there are organizations or individuals who identify themselves as nonsectarian Buddhists. While Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions each have their distinctive features the traditions also share commonalities such as the acceptance of the Four Noble Truths. These state that life is unsatisfactory, that suffering is due to desire and attachment, that there is a solution to this state, and that following the Noble Eightfold Path includes having the right understanding, action, and mindfulness that suffering can end. Buddhism also coexists with other local religious traditions. The monastic institution is an important feature in Buddhism, but it is marked by gender bias as the ecclesiastical authority in the Theravada and Vajrayana tradition is yet to recognize women’s ordination as bhikkhuni (the female counterpart of bhikkhu or monk). In contrast, there is a strong bhikkhuni presence in the monastic order in Mahayana Buddhism even as male dominance still exists. Schools of Buddhism and Local Culture Theravada is the main Buddhist tradition in southeast Asian countries of Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Sri Lanka. However, Mahayana is dominant in east Asia and Vajrayana in the Himalayas. The various schools of Buddhism also are found

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in the West. In Australia, the Mahayana tradition has the most Buddhist followers. Distinctively, Theravada means the Teaching of the Elders and is regarded by its adherents as being the pristine form of Buddhism. Its Pali Canon, “Tipitaka” (Three Baskets), is organized into three sections: Vinaya (monastic discipline), Sutta (discourses of the Buddha), and Abhidhamma (special teachings). The goal of a Theravada Buddhism is to be “arahat” or enlightened. The quickest way to achieve this state is by being a bhikkhu, who keeps 227 precepts or Buddhist ethical conduct. He also dedicates his life to Buddhist teachings. In Thailand, however, people generally aspire to make as much “merit” as possible so they can achieve a better rebirth. Merit can be gained by listening to the Buddha’s teachings and by making offerings to monks. The most meritorious gesture one can make is to become an ordained monk, which will ensure his parents’ rebirth in heaven. In Buddhist doctrine, the highest stage is not to be reborn or to achieve enlightenment. The practice of Buddhism in Thailand co-exists with the belief in animism. In the compound of Thai houses and monastery, spirit houses exist to protect its inhabitants. Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes the “bodhisattapath,” or the way to attain perfect Buddhahood or full enlightenment for one’s self and for countless beings. In addition to Maitreya or future Buddha—that is accepted by Theravada Buddhists as a bodhisattva or buddha—there are other bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism, for example, Avalokitesvara, Tara, Manjusri, and Ksitigarbha. In Buddhist history, the most venerated and popular bodhisatta is Avalokitesvara, which embodies compassion. In China, it is known as Kuan-yin and referred to as “Goddess of Mercy.” Women pray to Kuan-yin for children. From its initial representation in the male figure, the iconography of Kuan-yin gradually takes on the female form. Scholars have attributed one of the possible reasons due to the influence of the existence of female deities in Chinese folk religion and Taoism that have fused into the Kuan-yin bodhisatta. Together with Buddhism and Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese folk religion form Chinese religion. As a subset of Mahayana Buddhism, the Vajrayana tradition also venerates bodhisattas. However, Vajrayana presents the quickest path to enlightenment with its more powerful methods. The Vajrayana tradition

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also is referred to as Tantric Buddhism and is based on texts known as Tantras. It incorporates meditative practices, rituals, and mantras. The most well-known mantra is “Om mani padme hum,” or “O the Jewel in the Lotus,” which associated with Avalokitesvara. A mantra is chanted to aid in the visualization practice of a particular Buddha or bodhisatta to cultivate the spiritual qualities embodied by the figure. In this tradition, the spiritual master plays a very important role to initiate a disciple, provide guidance in the practices and to pass secret teachings. There are several ordination lineages with the Gelugpa being the most famous. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is from this order. The order also is known as Yellow Hat, derived from the hats worn by its members. Another order is the Karma-pa, which is divided into Red Hat Karma-pa and Black Hat Karma-pa. Similar to Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, the monastery is an important institution in Vajrayana Buddhism. In Asia, it is part of the cultural tradition to support monasticism. In the West, outside of the Asian community, the culture to support the monastic community does not exist. Consequently, these monastics will have to find a way to support their livelihood in addition to dedicating themselves full time to the spiritual path.

Women enter a temple in a traditional Buddhist ceremony in South Korea. There are about 350 million Buddhists worldwide.

Buddhism and Gender According to the Buddha, gender is irrelevant to gain enlightenment, as both women and men have the possibility to reach this state. In practice, gender discrimination exists in Buddhist institutions and countries. In Thailand, the Buddhist ecclesiastical authority does not recognize ordination of women from the lowest level as “samaneri” or novice to the highest as bhikkhuni. Nonetheless, since bhikkhuni ordination was restored in Sri Lanka in the late 20th century, Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, previously Chatsumarn Kabilsingh—an associate professor of philosophy and religion in Thammasat University—became the pioneering Thai woman to travel there for novice and full ordination early in this century. Another milestone was achieved in 2009 as temporary ordination for women was conducted for the first time in Thailand at Bhikkhuni Dhammananda’s monastery. Ordination for women challenges the social construction of “femininity” as only receivers of merit can reconstruct it to include fields or sources of merit. Mothers do not have to wait for their sons to get ordained to ensure their rebirth in heaven; daughters have this avenue open to them, too. This has the possibility of neutralizing the emphasis on the status of sons in the family because they can be ordained and their sisters cannot. Furthermore, in Thailand there is the belief that being born a female is a lower birth status due to an inadequate store of merit compared to natural position of being born a male. Because of this discrepancy, women diligently make offerings to monks to increase their store of merit. However, this notion is not accepted by all Thais and is challenged for having no basis in Buddhist teaching. Efforts to enable bhikkhuni ordination are ongoing in the Vajrayana tradition as well. Organizationally, the international Buddhist women’s association, Sakyaditha or “Daughters of the Buddha,” tirelessly persevere to restore or establish bhikkhuni ordination in tradition and in countries where it is not yet recognized. As advocates for gender equity in Buddhism, Sakyaditha’s work is similar to that of the Women’s Ordination Conference, which campaigns for women’s ordination as priests and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church. Similar efforts have effected change in Judaism’s reform movement that pioneered the ordination of female rabbis. Members

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of Sakyaditha cut across the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions and are from both Asia and the West. Their latest initiative is to hold the 12th Sakyaditha Conference in Singapore in June 2011, which will promote networking, cooperation, and empowerment among Buddhist women as well as highlight issues of concern. As for the Mahayana female monastic order, it continues to thrive. In Taiwan, the numbers of female monastic significantly outnumber men; they are well-educated with tertiary education as well as showing remarkable leadership as abbess of a monastery. Nonetheless, in her research on Taiwanese bhikkhunis, Wei-Yi Cheng noted that gender bias is still observable, for example, during public functions where male monastic sit in front and female monastic sit in the back. Furthermore, the extent to which a bhikkhuni would kneel to pay respect to a bhikkhu in observance of the first of the Eight Special Rules differs. For most it is only observed in temples and for some bhikkhuni it is only practiced in the Buddha Hall. This diversity in Buddhist practice is not exclusive to Taiwan because in Thailand, not all Thai consider women of inferior birth; also, everyone is not against the restoration of bhikkhuni ordination. See Also: Chinese Religions; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Rabbis, Female; Religion, Women in; Women’s Ordination Conference. Further Readings Buddhist Studies. “Number of Buddhist Worldwide.” http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/bud _statwrld.htm (accessed April 2010). Cheng, Wei-Yi. Buddhist Nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka. London: Routledge, 2007. Ito, Tomomi. “Ordained Women in Yellow Robes: An Unfamiliar ‘Tradition’ in Contemporary Thailand.” In Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Out of the Shadows: Socially Engaged Buddhist Women. Delhi, India: Sri Satguru Publications, 2006. Tsomo, K. L. “Introduction.” In K. L. Tsomo, ed., Bridging World’s: Buddhist Women’s Voices Across Generations. Taipei, Taiwan: Yuan Chuan Press, 2004. Suat Yan Lai University of Malaya

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Bulgaria The nation of Bulgaria is situated in the southeastern part of Europe. It is a former Communist country and now a member state of European Union, since 2007. Bulgaria has a population of about 7.3 million, 71 percent of which live in urban areas. The average life expectancy for women is 76 years, and literacy rate is 98 percent. The realities that Bulgarian women have to face at the beginning of the 21st century are common to most of the women of the postcommunist countries which undertook the transition from a totalitarian regime and central planning to democracy and market economy. The entire political and economic setting of Bulgaria was shaken by these political and economic changes and as a result the roles and positions of women, both in the public and the private sphere, were challenged. Equal rights for men and women are guaranteed by national legislation. These legal provisions are reinforced by the compulsory compliance to the equality mechanisms of the European Union. The number of legal cases of gender discrimination had been small, but these had increased from 2008 through 2010 as a result of a growing awareness of women of their individual rights. A telling example in this sense is the suit against the Defense Ministry initiated by two women on the grounds that women have no right to serve in the National Guards. The healthcare system in Bulgaria is a mix of public and private funding, with a mandatory health insurance. The state expenditure on healthcare is about 7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Prophylactic health screenings for diseases that affect women are mandatory. Abortion is legal and the percentage of abortions per number of pregnancies has decreased from 45 percent in 2000 to 34 percent by 2006. The transition to a market economy has raised a critical issue of “feminization of poverty” all across the central and eastern European countries. This problem is still far from being solved in Bulgaria. Even if the pay gap has closed to the European Union average—of about 15 percent—the wages are still among the lowest in the European Union. There is a 10 percent employment gap between men and women and about 60 percent of those who seek a job are women. The sectors of the economy

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where women are mostly concentrated are textiles and clothing, leather and fur products, education, healthcare and social work, financial intermediation, and hotels and restaurants. Traditionally, Bulgarian women perpetuate the role of housekeeper carrying out housework on behalf of the entire family. This situation remained virtually unchanged during the 60 years of the Communist period. At present, women still face the double burden of the labor market and the unpaid family work, as policies for work–life balance are still to be implemented. The average age when women marry is 24 years, versus that of 28 years for men. There are low numbers of women in the upper layers of bureaucracy and the number of women in politics is far from being balanced. Still, in comparison with other countries of the region, Bulgaria has a relatively higher political mobilization of women’s interests and has a high number of visible women. It is worth noting that the Party of Bulgarian Women had an important electoral success in the 2001 elections. This party has ruled in a government coalition and contributed toward increasing descriptive representation of women in politics. Then two Bulgarian women were appointed as national representatives in the European Union Commission, in 2007 and in 2009. Not least, after a period of 130 years, Sofia, the capital city, has a women mayor again. See Also: Equal Pay; Health, Mental and Physical; Representation of Women in Government, International; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Daskalova, Nadezhda. “Women’s Participation in Labour Market Remains Unequal.” Institute for Social and Trade Union Research, 2002. http://www.eurofound .europa.eu/ewco/2008/05/BG0805049I.htm (accessed December 2009). United Nations Women Watch. http://www.un.org /womenwatch/directory/statistics_and_indicators _60&PageNo=2.htm (accessed December 2009). Yachkova, Mirolyuba. The Family in Bulgaria at the Turn of the Century: Prerequisites, Analyses and Forecasts. Sofia, Bulgaria: ASSA-M, 2002. Angela Movileanu University of Siena

Bullying in the Workplace Bullying behaviors in the workplace pose a significant threat to both individual livelihood and corporate profits. According to one study, each incident of bullying can cost an employer approximately $14,600. This cost is a direct result of absenteeism—up to 87 percent of victims miss workdays due to both illness and a presumed effort to avoid their tormentors. In addition to missing work, the victims of workplace bullying report greater incidence of a wide range of health complaints. Above and beyond the loss in productivity, employers face potential legal costs if the victims file formal complaints. This entry reviews research on the context and consequences of workplace bullying, and on effective strategies for reducing these behaviors. Harassment in the Workplace Bullying is typically defined as prolonged, repeated harassment directed against a less powerful target. In the workplace, these behaviors may include threats to professional status (e.g., public criticism), threats to personal status (e.g., physical threats), isolation (e.g., withholding information), work overload, excessive monitoring, or removing responsibilities. In some cases, bullying in the workplace can take the form of sexual harassment or even physical violence. According to one large-scale study, incidence rates of workplace bullying over a five-year period ranged from 17 percent in the hotel industry to 36 percent in the teaching industry. This variation between different industries suggests that bullying is heavily influenced by the work environment. In fact, researchers have argued persuasively that the power dynamics of “corporate culture” are largely to blame for the current epidemic of workplace bullying. This connection between power and bullying is also supported by studies examining the characteristics of workplace bullies. Males are more likely to bully their coworkers than women, and bullies tend to be older than their victims. However, both males and older employees tend to be higher up the office hierarchy, so these associations with bullying are likely to be artifacts of status differences. The evidence is mixed as to whether men or women are more likely to be the targets of bullying. One study found no gender difference in reports of bullying over a six-month period, but more reports of bullying by



women over a five-year period. This apparent contradiction might reflect a gender difference in the tendency to notice, remember, or report incidents of victimization. Taken as a whole, this literature suggests that power differences, rather than gender, best predict the targets of bullying. Workplace bullying appears to be a worldwide phenomenon. According to one review, prevalence rates appear to range from 2 percent among union members in Norway to 53 percent among part-time students in the United Kingdom. However, in practice, it is difficult to draw real conclusions from these differences in prevalence rates, because they usually reflect variations in methodology. While some researchers make use of the strict definition presented above, others allow for a broader—and thus more inclusive—definition of bullying. Likewise, researchers often differ in the time frames they present to their participants. In fact, the 2 percent prevalence rate in Norway reflects those bullied “weekly,” and the 53 percent prevalence in the United Kingdom reflects those “ever subjected to acts of bullying.” At the present time, more research is needed before comparisons can be drawn between countries. Lifelong Pattern of Victimization Although workplace bullying is a relatively new area of study, a large body of research has documented the consequences of being bullied during adolescence. These consequences suggest disruptions in stress and emotional processing, including increased depression, anxiety, suicide risk, and conduct disorders. Although bullying tends to decrease with age, research suggests that there is a subset of people who are chronically victimized throughout school and into college and adulthood. In fact, one study by Peter Smith and colleagues suggests that the victims of workplace bullying were also the targets of bullies during adolescence. Workplace bullying can add an additional layer to the stress of bullying, because it threatens both social connections and an individual’s source of livelihood. Research has linked workplace bullying to a range of both physical and psychological health problems, including cardiovascular disease, sleep problems, chronic fatigue, stomach problems, difficulty concentrating, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts. The common thread behind all of

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these problems is that all are commonly seen in individuals exposed to chronic stress. Some studies have reported that women experience more severe consequences as a result of workplace bullying. This may reflect differences in the work environments of men and women, and/or differences in the reporting of health complaints. In any case, it is also worth noting that this gender difference runs counter to the school bullying literature, which typically finds similar consequences in male and female victims. Options to Reduce Workplace Bullying Given the cost of workplace bullying to both individuals and organizations, it is natural to think about ways to reduce or eliminate the phenomenon. A recent book offers suggestions for both individuals and organizations. Individual targets should be aware that there is a range of options for dealing with the problem such as confronting the bully directly, filling complaints, or leaving the organization entirely. The choice of one strategy over another seems to depend on a mix of a target’s goals and his or her perception of procedural efficacy—as in, why bother filing a complaint if nothing will change? At the organizational level, the key is to implement policies that change the workplace climate. The guiding principles for organizations echo recommendations for reducing school bullying. First, organizational leaders must actively disapprove of bullying and actively support victims. This attitude helps to send the message that bullying is not tolerated. Second, leaders must send the message that supervisors are aware, watching, and ready to intervene, which also helps to create a climate of zero tolerance. See Also: Business, Women in; Health, Mental and Physical; Midlife Career Change; Professions by Gender; Sexual Harassment; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Griffin, R. S. and A. M. Gross. “Childhood Bullying: Current Empirical Findings and Future Directions for Research.” Aggression and Violent Behavior, v.9/4 (2004). Olweus, D. Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1993. Rayner, C., H. Hoel, and C. L. Cooper. Workplace Bullying: What We Know, Who Is to Blame, and What Can We Do? London: Taylor & Francis, 2002.

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Salin, D. Explaining Workplace Bullying: A Review of Enabling, Motivating, and Triggering Factors in the Work Environment. Helsinki. Finland: Meddelanden Working Papers, 1999. Smith, P. K., M. Singer, and H. Hoel. “Bullying in the School and the Workplace: Are There Any Links?” British Journal of Psychology, v.94/2 (2003). Matthew L. Newman Arizona State University

Burkina Faso The landlocked, Sahelian country of Burkina Faso, with a population of 15.8 million, is one of the most densely populated countries in West Africa and one of the poorest in the world. A 2009 United Nations Human Development Report places Burkina Faso 177th of 182 countries ranked. The major religions are Islam, indigenous beliefs, and Christianity (approximately 50 percent, 40 percent, and 10 percent, respectively). Burkina Faso’s accession to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women came into effect in 1987. Since then, much of the country’s national legislation has been harmonized with that of the convention and other international agreements relating to the rights of women, and a wide range of legal instruments and bodies have been implemented to improve the position of women, including the Individual and Family Code and the Ministry for the Advancement of Women. The former espouses the principle of nondiscrimination and equal rights for men and women. However, positive changes in the institutional and legislative arena regarding the promotion and protection of women’s rights has generally not been followed by a similar positive change in popular attitudes. Particularly in rural areas, there is a large gap between legislation and the day-to-day lives of women in Burkina Faso. Most women are not aware of their rights, and the largely patriarchal dictates of traditional societies are the accepted morality for both men and women. For example, in matters of inheritance, although Burkinabe law stipulates that the surviving spouse is the absolute heir, in reality the widow’s inheritance right is usually ignored by

the deceased husband’s relatives, who may refuse to grant her legal custody of the children and access to the estate. Although overall literacy rates are very low in Burkina Faso, women’s disadvantaged status in society is further reflected in the extremely high rate of illiteracy among women (only 12.5 percent of adult women are literate compared with 29.4 percent of men) and in the perpetuation of many traditional practices harmful to women’s health and well-being. These include underage and forced marriage, levirate (the practice whereby a widow is obliged to marry a relative of her deceased husband), tolerance of domestic violence, and female genital surgery (FGS), a traditional practice involving the alteration or removal of the external female genitalia. Despite the 1996 ban on FGS and the establishment of a national committee to address the practice, the rate of FGS in Burkina Faso still stands at 73 percent. Women’s participation in public life and access to the labor market is hampered by the difficulties they face in gaining access to land, credit, and basic social services. Although there are a number of women’s associations working with the support of the state and development partners to develop income-generating activities for women (e.g., petty commerce and livestock farming), socioeconomic and cultural factors continue to result in a restriction of opportunities for Burkinabe women. See Also: Convention to End Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Female Genital Surgery, Types of. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Burkina Faso.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/uv.html (accessed June 2010). Convention to End Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). “Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Combined Fourth and Fifth Reports of States Parties.” CEDAW. Burkina Faso, CEDAW /C/BFA/4-5, 2004. Máire Ní Mhórdha University of St Andrews



Burundi Burundi is a landlocked African country that is bordered by Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Burundi has been ruled by kings since the 16th century, even while under control by different European empires. Burundi officially declared its independence in July 1962 and established a constitutional monarchy. However, the nation also has been plagued by political and ethnic strife similar to its neighbor Rwanda. Insurgency and civil war have erupted since the nation’s founding, and although the new nation tried to balance rule between the rival ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsis, they never achieved a peaceful balance. In the 1960s, in response to the Hutu insurgency in Rwanda that killed many Tutsi, Burundi Tutsi seized control of the military and police. In 1972, Burundi experienced a genocide: In

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the city of Bururi, most of the civilian and military Tutsi were killed. When Tutsi gained control of the government, they killed 200,000 to 300,000 Hutu. In the 1990s, Burundi was deeply enmeshed in a civil war; the Rwanda genocide in 1994 added fire to the Burundi Hutu–Tutsi conflict. The decade of civil war that followed displaced over 50,000 people, and killed about 300,000. United Nations peacekeepers have had a presence in Burundi and negotiated a new transitional government and constitution. The generation of instability has greatly affected the status of women, who live in a culture of violence and fear. Women participated in the United Nations peace process, and the nation’s new constitution guarantees that 30 percent of Parliament be women, as well as 7 of the 20 ministers. However, having such political voice has not yet helped women’s status. The culture of war has created a violent society that uses rape as a form of

A woman in Burundi carries her baby on her back in the traditional African method. Burundi was involved in a decade long civil war, which greatly affected the status of women, who still live in a culture of violence and fear.

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intimidation and tool of combat. The threat of violence and rape has kept women from working in agriculture, which would help them rise out of poverty. Because of the nation’s civil unrest, 80 percent of households own firearms, and armed rape is common—women report that armed robberies often involve rape as well. Adding to the problem, it is culturally taboo for women to talk about rape, so little is done to keep women safe. As a result, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has become a significant problem in Burundi. Many families are headed by widows because of the country’s constant warfare. Because women cannot inherit property, most of these families live in extreme poverty, with few economic opportunities. Women have turned to prostitution to survive. Their daughters frequently drop out or never begin to attend school to help support their families. Because of the constant threat of sexual violence, many women think prostitution is safer than being on their own, where they are more vulnerable to rape. Mass rapes over the last several decades also have crippled many women, who now live in a constant state of fear. Warfare has also created a culture of violence in which men feel they have the right to beat their wives. There are many nongovernmental organizations attempting to address the status of women in Burundi, through education, economic opportunities, and AIDS awareness. Burundi women need protection and stability to lift themselves out of poverty and violence. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; Rape, Incidence of; Rape in Conflict Zones. Further Readings Farr, Vanessa. “The Importance of a Gender Perspective to Successful Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Processes.” http://www.unidir.org/pdf /Gender/5 percent20Farr.pdf (accessed June 2010). Farr, Vanessa, et al. “Gender Perspectives on Small Arms and Light Weapons: Regional and International Concerns.” http://www.bicc.de/publications/briefs /brief24/content.php (accessed June 2010). Krueger, Robert, et al. From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi: Our Embassy Years During Genocide. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007. Lemarchand, Rene. Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Uvin, Peter. Life After Violence: A People’s Story of Burundi. London: Zed Books, 2009. Monica Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

Business, Women in In furtherance of all human rights of women and the achievement of sustainable economic development, the importance of empowering women is recognized. L. Mayoux defines empowerment as a process of change in power relations that is both multidimensional and interlinked. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) defines women’s (economic, social, and political) empowerment through five components: women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and determine choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; their ability to influence the direction of social change. These five components are particularly applicable in work, where women’s economic empowerment can be achieved by targeting initiatives to expand women’s economic opportunity; strengthen their legal status and rights; and ensure their voice, inclusion, and participation in economic decision making. Expanding women’s economic opportunities means more and better jobs for women across a wider range of sectors; a business climate that supports women in starting and growing businesses and building their management and entrepreneurial skills; a financial sector in which commercial banks and microfinance institutions provide women with effective access to a range of financial services and products tailored to their needs including especially credit and savings instruments; in times of high food and fuel prices, greater livelihood security for women, especially in rural areas and vulnerable environments. Micro and small enterprise (MSE) development for women is promoted as a key intervention for women’s economic empowerment by governments and by international and European development agencies since the 1990s. Although women take part in medium and large businesses,



MSEs mainly represent women entrepreneurs’ productive activities. Entrepreneurship development for women is also among the measures proposed in the Beijing Declaration, Beijing Platform for Action 1995, the Program of Action of the World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995, at the Millennium Summit held in 2000 (Millenium Development Goals), the 2005 World Summit (Resolution 60/1), and in Resolution 1558 (2007) on Feminization of Poverty by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1979 obliges signatories to undertake actions to ensure gender equality in both the private and public spheres and to eliminate traditional stereotyped ideas on the roles of the sexes. In the United States, European Union (EU) member countries, and the developing world, governments and the private sector have been actively promoting a greater role for women entrepreneurs in business and economic growth. The EU provides female entrepreneurs with specialized training and support through the European Social Fund. The EU Women’s Entrepreneurship Portal encourages Europe-wide networking among female entrepreneurs. As part of its ongoing strategy to increase the number of female entrepreneurs in the EU, the commission launched the European Network of Female Entrepreneurship Ambassadors in 2009. Members will share experiences, compare notes, and serve as role models to inspire women to become entrepreneurs across the 27-member EU. International organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), International Trade Center (ITC, Geneva), UN Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); financial institutions such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC); and donors such as Development Cooperation Ireland (DCI) are also paying significant attention to women’s entrepreneurship development. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the ILO’s International Training Center (ITC-ILO) in Turin, Italy, have been involved in promoting and assisting businesswomen for many years.

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A team dedicated to working on issues related to Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Gender Equality (WEDGE) was created within the ILO’s Small Enterprise Development Program (SEED) in 2001. It has been working closely with ITC-ILO on a number of training initiatives. Statistics on Women in Business There has been rapid expansion of women’s entrepreneurship since the 1980s. Statistics should be treated with caution, and the expansion of women-owned businesses or self-employment in itself says very little about the conditions of entrepreneurship, the reasons why it is occurring, and the benefits or costs for women. Most studies only consider women-owned businesses and do not include women co-entrepreneurs or women’s participation in family enterprise management. Many of the studies are undifferentiated by class and background apart from female-headed households, particularly the studies in Europe and the United States. There are few comparative studies of female and male businesses, and little information exists on business operation and levels of success over time. Also, women entrepreneurs are found in the informal or marginalized sector that is very active in developing and transitional economies. Informal economic activities and their related incomes and outlays often escape statistical reporting. In some countries, such as the United States, the growth in the number of women-owned businesses is far outpacing the overall growth of new businesses. The most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that between 1997 and 2006, businesses that are fully owned by women or in which women own a majority interest grew at nearly two times the rate of all U.S. firms. During this same time period, employment among women-owned firms grew 0.4 percent. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that womenowned (or majority-owned) firms consisted of an estimated 10.4 million privately held firms, which accounted for 40.2 percent of all businesses in the country. Furthermore, industry growth for womenowned businesses between 1997 and 2006 in the retail sector was 130 percent (1.1 million firms). On average, women make up 30 percent of the entrepreneurs in the EU. The entrepreneurial activities of women vary considerably across sectors. According to the overall summary of replies received,

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the large majority (87.4 percent) of women entrepreneurs across Europe have micro enterprises, with 1–9 employees; 10.1 percent have small companies (10–49 employees), 2 percent have medium-sized companies (50–249 employees), and 0.5 percent have large companies (over 250 employees). Female entrepreneurs are generally more represented in services than in manufacturing and construction. However, the European indicators on female entrepreneurs, divided by sector, sometimes rely on nonharmonized national data and must be interpreted carefully. Starting from a low base, the Arab region has witnessed a faster increase in women’s share of economic activity than all other regions of the world between 1990 and 2003—by 19 percent as opposed to 3 percent worldwide. It is estimated that women make up onequarter to one-third of the total business population worldwide. However, their presence in international markets is weak. In the agricultural sector, however, approximately 41 percent of women and 57 percent of men are self-employed. Diversification Among Women in Business Women entrepreneurs constitute a growing share of micro and small enterprise owners. They are, however, not a homogenous group. Women in business are often self-employed—full time or part time—with or without employees or are the partner/shareholder of a business. Self-employment—with a few employees or without employees— and micro and small businesses can be home based. Women’s self-employment has often been promoted and is often preferred by women themselves because of the possibility of working from home and thus combining income-earning activities with unpaid domestic work. For many women, particularly in south Asia, waged work outside the home in agricultural production has not been an option because of social status concerns. This situation does not apply to higher-status professional work or work in factories. The possibilities of telecommuting in Northern industrialized countries—made possible by advances in technology—is often the preferred work pattern. However, where working at home is forced on women because of mobility restrictions rather than part of a conscious lifestyle choice, incomes are likely to be very low. In Europe, the increasing focus on socially responsible growth, including a commitment to the welfare

state and the promotion of social forms of enterprise, promises to open up new opportunities for women entrepreneurs. Policies to stimulate micro and small enterprises, combined with equal opportunities policies, have helped to create a more favorable environment for women’s entrepreneurial development. In the United States and Europe, active women’s organizations and organized gender lobbies within the administration are able to ensure attention to at least the concerns of some women entrepreneurs, particularly at the level of legislation. The majority of women, particularly poor women in the South, begin their enterprises to cope with costs of household subsistence and inadequate male contributions to family survival. These women are locked into low-investment, low-growth, and lowprofit activities, not only because of limited markets and enterprise opportunities in poor economies, but also due to gender inequalities in accessing resources, skills, markets, and labor. These in turn are a result of gender discrimination in macro-level policies and institutions that reflect and reinforce gender inequalities in power at the household level. In the South, existing studies indicate that, particularly for poor women, constraints have been exacerbated rather than alleviated by neoliberal policies promoting export-led growth. What little social services and welfare provisions previously existed have been reduced. The benefits of micro and small enterprise development for women themselves in terms of economic empowerment, wellbeing, or social and political empowerment cannot be assumed. Obstacles to Women in Business Although gender inequality is extremely variable— both between and within cultures—women entrepreneurs face gender-based barriers to starting and growing their businesses including discriminatory property, matrimonial, and inheritance laws and/ or cultural practices, limited mobility, representation, and an unequal share of family and household responsibilities. These factors, combined with social exclusion based on gender, mean that women entrepreneurs are in a less favorable position compared to men when it comes to accessing, for example, commercial credit from formal financial service providers, more lucrative markets (rather than the tradi-



tional local markets), technology, and information to establish and grow their businesses. The importance of access to credit is identified as a major barrier to entry into self-employment throughout the world. Women setting up businesses encounter varying degrees of difficulty in obtaining capital, collateral, and fair lending terms. Microfinancing One of the most popular forms of economic empowerment for women is microfinance, which provides credit for impoverished women who are usually excluded from formal credit institutions. Mayoux highlights the three recognized models of microfinance programs: 1. Financial self-sustainability: This is the most popular model and used by donor agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, and the United Nations. It provides microfinance services to a large number of poor women, specifically targeting small entrepreneurs, by setting interest rates to cover costs, enabling separate accounting from other interventions, expanding programs to obtain economies of scale, and decreasing costs of delivery through the use of groups. 2. Poverty alleviation: This model focuses on small savings and loan provisions to aid consumption and production. 3. Feminist empowerment: This model is based on examples of some of the earliest microfinance programs in Bangladesh and India, focusing on gender equality and women’s human rights through microfinance, and empowering women economically and socially. Offering women a source of credit has been found to be a very successful strategy for alleviating poverty because it enhances the productivity of one’s own small enterprise and the income-generating activities in which one invests. The most successful of these schemes—the Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), and the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India—have served as models for other programs worldwide.

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But recently, many academics argue that these programs are not effective in fully empowering women. They believe that there is a lack of substantial training and support services and a need to provide women with greater ownership and control in the programs. Critics contend that microfinance programs only marginally increase access to income and that they have a limited impact on household decision making. They argue that many of these programs have not been able to move women into profitable nontraditional forms of entrepreneurship and that most of the women involved in credit savings programs remain in low-value traditional work in the informal sector; thus they have limited involvement in more profitable commercial markets. It is suggested that microfinance projects tend to equate women’s poverty with income, not sufficiently emphasizing the inequality in relationships and institutions. This is underscored in the study conducted by Malhotra et al., which highlights the historical and developmental context of a woman’s place in society and the importance of “fundamental structural matters involving family, social and economic organization.” Thus, critics have drawn attention to the need to focus on the structural factors that perpetuate the economic marginalization of the poor. M. Khan stresses the importance of wage employment over credit for women. His findings show that wage employment helps to promote economic and social empowerment, providing women with more stability, a collective workplace, and more control over their income. He also emphasizes its ability to assist in expanding a woman’s mobility by providing her with different life experiences beyond her home environment so that she is able to gain bargaining power, meet her practical needs, improve the quality of her life, and address her long-term goals. On the other hand, there is now universal agreement, at least in official policy statements, that legal reforms of access and control over property and incomes are a central part of an enabling environment for women in the economy and these inequalities need specific treatment in regulatory frameworks for micro and small enterprises and financial institutions. Legal change also needs to be accompanied by publicity to raise awareness and appropriate support for women wishing to assert their rights through changes in legal institutions and support for

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women’s movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Women’s Business Associations The expansion of female entrepreneurship, coupled with women’s increasing gender awareness and the increasing influence of women’s movements, has led to the formation of women’s business associations of various types in Africa and south Asia as well as the United States. These have increased the visibility of women in economic decision making, although their influence is still far from equal to that of men. Les Femmes Chefs d’Entreprises Mondiales (FCEM) is an international women’s business organization created in France in 1946. The FCEM has NGO status with the UN and consultative status with the EU and the ILO. It has 35 member countries. The International Federation of Women Entrepreneurs (IFWE), established in 1994 as an offshoot of the World Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (WASME). IFWE represents women business owners in more than 20 countries and also has NGO status with the UN and consultative status with the ILO. The International Business and Professional Women’s Association (BPWA) aims to bring together women in business to help them achieve their business goals. Can-Asian Business Women’s Network is a CIDAfunded project operating in Canada, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The Women Leaders’ Network is a group of high-profile women academics and representatives of the private sector and women’s unions and associations in 18 APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) countries. See Also: Entreprenuers; Financial Independence of Women; Grameen Bank of Bangladesh; Property Rights; Self-Employed Women’s Association of India. Further Readings Cheston, S. and L. Kuhn. “Empowering Women Through Microfinance” (2002). http://www.micro creditsummit.org/papers/+5cheston_kuhn.pdf (accessed June 2010).

Eurochambers Women Network. “Women in Business and Decision Making: A Survey on Women Entrepreneurs” (2004). http://www.eurochambres.be /women/index.htm (accessed June 2010). Franco, A. and K. Winqvist. “Statistics in Focus. The Entrepreneurial Gap Between Women and Men.” Eurostat (2002). http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/cache /ITY_OFFPUB/KS-NK-02-011/EN/KS-NK-02-011 -EN.PDF (accessed June 2010). Goetz, A. and R. Sen Gupta. “Who Takes the Credit? Gender, Power and Control Over Loan Use in Rural Credit Programs in Bangladesh.” World Development, v.24/1 (1996). Gonzalez, K. “Women-Owned Businesses Change How Business Is Done.” Burkisa (July 2, 2009). http://www .bukisa.com/articles/116025_women-owned-businesses -change-how-business-is-done(accessed June 2010). Jalbert, S. E. “Women Entrepreneurs in the Global Economy” (2000). http://www.cipe.org/programs /women/pdf/jalbert.pdf (accessed June 2010). Khan, M. “Microfinance, Wage Employment and Housework: A Gender Analysis.” Development in Practice, v.9/4 (1999). Malhotra, A, S. Schuler, and C. Boender. Measuring Women’s Empowerment as a Variable in International Development. Geneva: International Center for Research on Women and the Gender and Development Group of the World Bank, 2002. Mayoux, L. “Microfinance and the Empowerment of Women: A Review of the Key Issues.” Social Finance Unit Working Paper 23. Geneva: ILO, 2000. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for the Advancement of Women. “2009 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development Women’s Control Over Economic Resources and Access to Financial Resources, Including Microfinance.” New York: United Nations, 2009. United Nations Population Information Network, UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “Guidelines on Women’s Empowerment.” http://www.un.org/popin/unfpa/taskforce/guide /iatfwemp.gdl.html (accessed June 2010). Kadriye Bakirci Istanbul Technical University

C Caesarean Section, Rates of A caesarean section, also known as a c-section, is considered a major surgery. It is an abdominal surgery used to deliver an infant through an incision in both a birthing woman’s abdomen and uterus. This procedure is currently being used at a high rate during the childbirth process and is therefore a relevant issue for women today. There has been a recent increase in the rate of caesarean sections and several possible explanations exist for this increase. The procedure also has multiple effects upon women. While caesarean rates fell between 1989 and 1996, they have increased dramatically in the United States within the last 10 years, with an increase of over 50 percent. Currently, between one in four and one in three childbirths in the United States occurs via a caesarean section, representing an increase of 400 percent in the last 15 years. In 2007, the caesarean section rate increased by 2 percent to approximately 31.8 percent of all childbirths. Factors Playing Roles in Increase of Procedure According to the World Health Organization (WHO), caesarean section rates have increased beyond the recommended level of 15 percent in many countries, almost doubling in the last decade, particularly in developed nations such as Australia, France, Germany, Italy, North America, and the United States. The WHO also reported a c-section rate increase in less wealthy

countries, such as Brazil, China, and India. This was the 11th consecutive year where an increase is indicated. Medical factors play a role in the increase of caesarean sections. Side effects of commonly used labor interventions have been found to be associated with an increase in the likelihood of the use of a caesarean section. For instance, labor induction among first-time mothers increases the risk of a caesarean. The use of continuous fetal monitoring has also been linked to higher rates. It has been found that women with certain medical circumstances, such as a fetus in a breech position, or a history of a previous caesarean section, are not being offered the option of a vaginal birth by their doctors. Several nonmedical, social factors are also linked to the increase in the rate of caesarean sections. The philosophy of individual doctors and the type of training doctors and nurses receive play a role. A growth in the desire for a pregnancy to be convenient for the doctor and the patient has influenced the rates. A small amount of women are scheduling planned caesarean sections often for reasons of convenience. A rise in the fear of litigation among doctors also serves to increase the caesarean section rate. The increased financial gain associated with performing a caesarean compared to a vaginal birth may also be influencing the rate. In 2005 the average rate charged for a caesarean section without complications was $12,544, whereas the average fee for a vaginal birth without complications performed in a hospital was $6,973. Peer pressure from a 211

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culture that condones the use of caesarean sections is also a factor. Furthermore, limited knowledge about the potential negative side effects of a caesarean section serves to trivialize the procedure. While the U.S. rate of caesarean sections has increased for all age groups, rates vary among populations of women. Rates are higher for women who have private medical insurance, are older, have higher levels of education, and are in a higher socioeconomic position. Among various racial and ethnic groups in the United States, in 2006 the rate of caesarean section was highest for non-Hispanic blacks, followed by non-Hispanic whites, and then by Hispanic women. Positive and Negative Outcomes A caesarean section can be a lifesaving procedure for the birthing woman and/or the baby. However, several negative outcomes are associated with the procedure. Psychological effects, such as guilt, fear, anger, and postpartum depression are common consequences. Complications have been shown to increase with the use of a caesarean section. One-half of all women who have the procedure suffer complications. Some of the associated risks include blood loss and hemorrhage, heart and lung complications, incisional endometriosis, complications from using anesthesia, blood transfusions, hysterectomy, a reduced rate of establishment of breastfeeding, and chronic complications associated with scar tissue, such as pain during sexual intercourse, pelvic pain, and bowel problems. Other long-term negative effects are associated, including an increase in the odds of infertility, miscarriage, and ectopic pregnancy. The maternal mortality rate is approximately two to four times that of women with vaginal births. See Also: Abortion Methods; Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital; Childbirth, Medication in. Further Readings Jukelevics, Nicette. Understanding the Dangers of Cesarean Birth: Making Informed Decisions. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Wagner, M. Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Jessica Sippy Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Cambodia The Kingdom of Cambodia is located in mainland southeast Asia. Its ethnic population groups include the majority Khmer as well as Vietnamese, Cham, and Chinese. Buddhism is the predominant religion, but there are also Christians and Muslims. There is a strong emphasis on kinship, marriage, and family. Women enjoy full legal and political equality, but their access to the highest political and economic positions is restricted by traditional views. Many also suffer from violence, poverty, and inadequate living conditions. Cambodia ranked 104 of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Marriage and family are the social norm. Arranged marriages are common, but children are not obligated to accept their chosen partners. Society is hierarchical and one’s status plays a significant role in one’s choice. The practice of paying bride wealth is also still common. Polygamy was legally outlawed in 1993, but mistresses or additional wives remain common and socially acceptable. The 2009 fertility rate was 3.2 births per woman. Forty percent of married women use contraceptives. A skilled healthcare practitioner is present at less than half of all births. The 2009 infant mortality rate stood at 65 per 1,000 live births, and the maternal mortality rate stood at 540 per 100,000 live births. Employers provide 90 days’ paid maternity leave at 50 percent of wages. Most families are nuclear but other family arrangements are common as well. Husbands and wives jointly make most major household decisions, although deference to males is still evident in practices such as the preparation and serving of meals. Family subsistence farming predominates in rural areas. Both genders participate in family subsistence farming with tasks traditionally divided by gender. Women’s household and farming responsibilities include transplanting, laundry, mending, housecleaning, marketing, and overseeing family finances. Such labor divisions are not always strictly followed. Domestic violence rates are high and rural village women have little legal protection. Divorce is possible but socially carries a stigma. Most girls receive a primary-level education but few receive additional education. Female school attendance rates are 87 percent at the primary level,

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ers often work in poor conditions for low wages. A gender gap still exists in terms of average estimated earned income, which stands at $1,392 for women and $1,858 for men. Women have the right to vote and are slowly expanding their small role in the political arena. They hold 16 percent of parliamentary seats and 7 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. Women are also excluded from religious leadership. Some nongovernmental organizations that operate in Cambodia have worked to improve women’s status. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Marriages, Arranged; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children.

A meeting in a village commons in the Takeo province of Cambodia. Women are slowly expanding their role in politics.

Further Readings Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Wagner, C. Soul Survivors: Stories of Women and Children in Cambodia. Berkeley, CA: Creative Arts, 2002. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

32 percent at the secondary level, and 4 percent at the tertiary level. As a result, a gender gap exists between literacy rates, with females attaining only a 67 percent rate, compared to 86 percent for men. Cambodian culture places great emphasis on social etiquette that dictates personal interactions based on status, familiarity, and gender. Traditional codes govern behavior and those for women are strict. Public physical contact between genders is largely taboo. Trafficking in women and children for the sex trade is a problem. Most live in poverty and life expectancy is low—age 49 for women and age 46 for men. Seventy-seven percent of women participate in the labor force. Women comprise 44 percent of paid the nonagricultural workforce and 33 percent of professional and technical workers. Key employers are wet rice agriculture, tourism, artisan crafts, and a small, undeveloped industrial sector. Women teach at all educational levels, but most are at the primary level. Foreign-owned garment factories that produce clothing for export are increasingly common and employ a mostly female workforce. Garment work-

Cameroon The West African country of Cameroon was formed in 1961 by the merging of two former colonies, French Cameroon and part of British Cameroon. Cameroon is a mid-range country in terms of income and development, but Cameroonian women lag behind men in access to education, healthcare, and employment, as well as legal protection. The Gross Domestic Product in Cameroon in 2009 was estimated at $2,300, ranking the nation 180th in the world but in the mid-ranks of sub-Saharan African countries. However, this income is unevenly distributed, and almost half the population is estimated to live below the poverty level. Cameroon’s population was almost 19 million in 2009 and has the very young age structure typical of developing countries, with a median age of 19.2 years and almost 41 percent of the population aged 14 years or younger. The fertility rate is high, at 4.33 children per woman, as is the birth rate,

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at 34.1 births per 1,000 population—both numbers are in the top quintile of reporting countries. Cameroon’s population is over 99 percent African. About 40 percent of the population is Christian, another 40 percent follow indigenous beliefs, and 20 percent are Muslim. Many rural areas are ruled by the customary law of the ethnic group residing there, some of which allow polygamy or consider women the legal property of their husbands. Women’s rights advocates argue that domestic violence is common but is rarely prosecuted. Rape also appears to be common, with 20 percent of women in a 2009 survey reporting having been raped; a separate study revealed that few reported cases are prosecuted, and almost none result in conviction. Male literacy is estimated at 77 percent and female literacy at 59.8 percent. As of 2005, girls made up about 45 percent of enrollment in primary school, 44 percent of those enrolled in secondary school, and 39 percent of those enrolled in tertiary education. However women were far less likely to be employed, and in 2001 they made up just 22.2 percent of the nonagricultural employment sector. Women hold about 10 percent of seats in the National Assembly and cabinet posts. Abortion is legal in Cameroon only in cases of rape or incest, or if necessary to preserve the woman’s life or mental and physical health. Just over a quarter of women aged 15–44 years in Cameroon reported using contraceptives in 2004, but only half of those reported using modern methods (e.g., the birth control pill). Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/ AIDS) is a major problem in Cameroon, with an estimated 5.1 percent of adults infected—the 15th highest percentage in the world. Risk of other infectious diseases is high as well, and Cameroon has low life expectancy for both men (52.89 years) and women (54.52 years). Maternal and child health is generally poor, and Save the Children ranks Cameroon 71st among 75 less developed countries on its Mothers’ Index, and 69th on its Children’s Index. Human trafficking is a major problem in Cameroon, with women and children trafficked for forced labor and sexual exploitation both within Cameroon and from and to other nations. Cameroon is on the Tier 2 Watch List for human trafficking, indicating not only lack of compliance with minimum standards

to prevent human trafficking but also failure to prosecute traffickers, monitor the number of victims, or increase efforts to combat trafficking. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; Rural Women; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). U.S. Department of State. “Cameroon.” http://www .state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61558.htm (accessed March 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Campaign for Female Education Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) is a global organization that focuses on the education of young women to eradicate poverty in Africa. Begun in 1993 by Ann Cotton, with a pilot project in Moyo, Zimbabwe, CAMFED has now extended its work to rural Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, and Tanzania. In 2006, it contributed to the education of more than 309,000 children. CAMFED’S major premise is that the education of girls will lead to the increased production of wealth in Africa, as educated women are able to earn up to 25 percent more than their uneducated peers. It also believes that the education of women will lead to sustainability, as educated women marry later, have fewer children, and are three times less likely to become human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive. CAMFED’S funding structure is set up to see girls’ education through primary school to secondary school, and also to assist them to become economically independent on reaching adulthood. As a consequence, the organization’s investment in women’s education spans from elementary education through

Canada



adolescence to adulthood. At the elementary level, CAMFED provides a “safety net fund” for primary schools, which allows schools to provide essential needs for impoverished students to attend classes, such as school uniforms, shoes, and medical funds. At the secondary school level, an overwhelming number of female students drop out when the fees become too expensive for their families, or when the schools are too far away to walk to. Boys are traditionally favored at the secondary school level, as they are perceived to have more potential to earn good wages later on and because they are able to travel farther without the same amount of personal risk. To amend this, for the young girls that CAMFED sponsors, the organization provides fees and all school supplies needed. If the school is too far away, CAMFED also sponsors costs for boarding and provides a CAMFED-trained mentor for the young girl. Once the young girl graduates secondary school, CAMFED provides the structures that encourage the young woman’s economic independence. Young graduates from CAMFED are given microcredit, training, and peer support to run their own enterprises. They are given nonreturnable grants to begin their own businesses and are encouraged to start by addressing the needs of the local community, such as poultry rearing, building telephone booths, and market gardening. The graduates of CAMFED also become part of the alumnae network Cama, the members of which provide mentoring for their younger peers. CAMFED’S success can be measured by a 2007 study in Zimbabwe that shows that the CAMFED alumnae are marrying at an average age of 21.8 years—much later than the rural norm. In addition, these young women are marrying men of their own choice, rather than out of need. Since CAMFED began, the organization has branched out in a number of ways. A branch of filmmaking, the Samfya Women Filmmakers, has developed to get African women to visually represent their own lives. In 2008, CAMFED also began the 10,000 Women program with Goldman Sachs, which supported partnerships with universities around the world to create flexible business and management programs to educate women around the world in business. See Also: Educational Opportunities/Access; “GirlFriendly” Schools; Poverty; Poverty, “Feminization” of.

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Further Readings Cotton, Ann and Richard Synge, eds. Cutting the Gordian Knot: Benefits of Girls’ Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cambridge, MA: CamFed, 1998. Kristof, Nicholas D. and Sheryl WuDunn. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. New York: Vintage, 2010. Sutherland-addy, Esi. Gender Equity in Junior and Senior Secondary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2008. Adeline Koh Independent Scholar

Canada Canada consistently ranks in the top five of the nearly 200 countries evaluated by the United Nations Development Index and Gender Development Index. As of 2001, one in five Canadian women was born abroad; 58 percent of new arrivals come from Asia and the Middle East. Most Canadian women (82 percent) claim French or English, the country’s official languages, as their native tongue. The next most popular language is Chinese (3 percent). As in other developed countries, birth rates have plummeted since the 1950s, divorce rates have gone up, and substantially more women are likely to have a university degree. Today, women make up 57 percent of full-time university students—up 20 percent since the 1970s. Compared with men, however, women are still less likely to be elected to public office, and their average employment earnings are about 70 percent less. Economic and Social Factors One of the most significant social trends in Canada is the rise of women in the paid workforce. Women make up 47 percent of the total workforce, and 70 percent of women with children younger than 5 years work outside the home (compared to 37 percent in 1976). Women are more likely to live on a low income than men, and they make up nearly all the heads of low-income single-parent families. Senior women are the least likely to live on a low income, although their incidence of poverty has dropped sharply since the early 1980s.

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Since the 1990s, men have been increasingly involved in unpaid household labor; today, they shoulder about 40 percent of the burden. Marriage rates have fallen significantly in the last decades. One notable change is the rise in common-law marriages. Today, 20 percent of women aged 25–29 years are in common-law partnerships, and 37 percent are married legally. Aboriginal and Visible Minority Women Aboriginal women are 3 percent of the total female population and live mainly in the prairies and the territories. Aboriginal women are more likely to live in poverty and are four times more likely to be violently assaulted than other Canadian women. Native women’s groups have drawn attention to this imbalance and have argued that laws such as Bill C-31 (1985 Amendment to the Indian Act), created by male-controlled band councils and the federal government, perpetuate legislation that discriminates against Native women. Yet aboriginal women also lead their communities as band chiefs and educators. A notable native politician is Nellie Cournoyea, who was the first aboriginal woman premier when she was elected premier of the Northwest Territories in 1991. Aboriginal women, such as actress Tantoo Cardinal and singers Susan Aglukark and Buffy Sainte-Marie, are known throughout Canada. In 2006, the federal government dedicated Women’s History Month to aboriginal women. Fourteen percent of Canadian women identify as members of a visible minority, of whom 62 percent live in either Vancouver or Toronto. The largest blocks of minority women are Chinese (26 percent), south Asian (22 percent), and black (17 percent). Women in visible minorities are well educated. In 2001, 21 percent of visible minority woman had a university degree compared with 14 percent of other women. They are, however, slightly less likely to be employed outside of the home. Women in Politics Canada has strong antidiscrimination laws regarding gender, most notably in the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A government organization, the Status of Women in Canada, works to ensure that gender dimensions are taken into account in the development of policies and programs. Canadian women have not, however, been well represented in political positions of power. Only 21 percent of elected Members of Parliament are women. Canada has had one

female prime minister, Kim Campbell, for a short, 9-month term in 1991. Symbolically, however, Canada’s head of state is female (Queen Elizabeth II), and the queen’s representative (appointed by the prime minister) is Haitian-born Canadian Michaelle Jean. In the Supreme Court, three of nine justices are currently women, and Beverley McLachlin has held the post of chief justice since 2000. Women of Note Canadian women’s organizations across a broad political spectrum have been funded federally since 1973, although this support decreased in the 1990s. Canadian feminists underline that federal funding does not mean they support government policy but does give groups legitimacy and guarantees them a voice in policy deliberations. Women’s organizations have focused on “equal rights” (rather than special privilege to obtain equality of outcome), primarily as related to economic issues. Canadian feminists generally see their movement as a “success story” (particularly in comparison with the United States) because they have succeeded in passing substantial equal rights legislation and in keeping women’s issues in the public eye. Women’s feminist history in Canada is normally divided into a “first wave” (c. 1890–1925) and a “second wave” (post-1965). The standard historical narrative has Anglo women heading early developments, followed by Francophones (e.g., the vote was granted to Anglo women in 1918, but Quebec withheld this right until 1940). Some Quebec feminists now dispute this “lateness” narrative, arguing that their history must be seen in its own context. Since 1965, Quebec has become a leader in Canada in terms of women’s rights and public involvement. In 1986, the Multicultural History Society of Ontario published the pioneering Looking Into My Sister’s Eyes about the role of minority women as part of the Canadian “mosaic.” Since that time, Anglo-Canadian scholarship has become more aware of the role of racism and exclusion in its own history. Yet “Two Solitudes” persist in the Franco/Anglo divide: Quebecois feminists have criticized Anglo women for refusing to accept Quebec as a nation of equal importance to Canada, and Anglo feminists have accused their Quebec counterparts of privileging their nationalist agenda over the women’s movement. Many Canadian women are renowned entertainers including ballerina Evelyn Hart, singer Shania Twain,

Cancer, Environmental Factors and



actresses Pamela Anderson and Sandra Oh, and comedian Catherine O’Hara. Internationally respected authors include Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood, and books written by Canadian women such as Gabrielle Roy (Bonheur d’occasion) and Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) continue to sell copies worldwide. Perhaps the most famous living Canadian woman is Celine Dion, a Quebecois singer who is one of the world’s top-selling female vocalists. In Canada, Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman in space, also holds an important place of honor. Holidays Canadians celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May, and Women’s History Month in October. The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women is December 6. This date is particularly significant for Canadians because it marks the remembrance of the 1989 École Polytechnique Massacre in Montreal, when a gunman murdered 14 women. It is marked by vigils, discussions, and reflections on violence against women. See Also: Global Feminism; Government, Women in; Household Division of Labor. Further Readings Cook, Sharon A., et al., eds. Framing Our Past: Canadian Women’s History in the Twentieth Century. Kingston, Canada: McGill-Queens University Press, 2001. Epp, Marlene, et al., eds. Sisters or Strangers? Immigrant, Ethnic and Racialized Women in Canadian History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Hamilton, Roberta. Gendering the Vertical Mosaic: Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Society, 2nd ed. Toronto: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2005. Sauve, Roger. “Men and Women in Canada 2005— National and Provincial Trends.” http://peoplepatterns consulting.com (accessed June 1020). Statistics Canada. “Women in Canada: A Gender-Based Statistical Report,” 5th ed. Ottawa, Canada: Statistics Canada, 2006. Strong-Boaz, V. and A. Clair Fellman, eds. Rethinking Canada. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. Hillary Kaell Harvard University

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Cancer, Environmental Factors and There are different opinions on what factors actually cause cancer: genes, lifestyle choices, or the environment. When considering environmental factors of cancer, pollutants and toxins come into play. Toxins, in particular, contribute to an individual’s cancer risk. Cancer also may be the result of a combination of all three factors. Women are affected by a variety of cancer types, especially those specific to women: breast, cervical, endometrial, ovarian, uterine, vaginal, vulvar, and gestational trophoblastic tumors, quick-growing growths that occur in a woman’s womb. Women’s health activists and cancer researchers are not onlyinterested in understanding what causes cancer but also what makes some types of cancer more common in women. All cancers have highly debated causal factors. In other words, it remains unclear why some people exposed to the same environment will develop cancer when others will not. The environment as a cause of cancer has been difficult to determine. It is more commonly believed, researched, and proved that genes and lifestyle or behavioral choices are the main factors in a person’s cancer risk. Therefore, when trying to understand the causes of women’s cancer, a woman’s choices are examined. Lifestyle Lifestyle choices are associated with cancer-causing factors and commonly advocated by government agencies like the National Cancer Institute and private organizations such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Lifestyle and behavior are individual choices women can make that may affect their risk of cancer. For example, a woman’s choice to delay pregnancy until later in life may increase her chances of getting cancer. Other lifestyle choices that may affect a woman’s cancer risk include diet, alcohol consumption, exercise, breastfeeding, and use of hormonal birth control. Feminist health advocates have critiqued this perspective for focusing too much on women’s individual choice, which inadvertently blames women for their cancer. In addition, by focusing on individual women’s choices as cancer contributors, debate and research is deflected away from societal causes like

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the environment. Moreover, there is not a clear scientific consensus that all of these lifestyle choices truly affect women’s risk of cancer in significant ways. For example, the notion that lifestyle choices such as diet can reduce a woman’s risk of cancer has less evidence. Heredity Another way of understanding what causes cancer is understanding a person’s family history and genetic makeup. Genetic predisposition for cancer is gaining popularity, and breast cancer, in particular, has been thought to have links to a breast cancer gene. Genetic tests known as the BRCA1 and BRCA2 are tests women can choose to get to find out if they hold a mutated form of the BRCA1 gene. The test helps determine the probability that a woman may develop cancer. The knowledge gained from such a test can allow her to make a more informed decision regarding possible preventive measures such as mastectomy or more frequent screenings. Genetic testing such as this is only recommended for women who have a considerable family history of breast and ovarian cancer. Environmental toxins are the primary causes of genetic mutations that can be detected by the BRCA tests. The test for genetic predisposition to cancer cannot disprove the influence a woman’s environment has on her risk of getting cancer. Environmental Contributors For discussion purposes, the word environment means conditions outside the body and their contributions to cancer. For example, tobacco use is a cause of lung cancer. This example demonstrates the common medical knowledge that some aspects of the environment contribute to cancer. A person’s exposure to toxins also may contribute to women’s cancer risk. For example, exposure to asbestos can increase the risk of cancer. The government reports that exposure to more than 200 substances may cause cancer, including pesticides, solvents found in paint thinners, dioxins produced from waste incineration, and vinyl chloride that is often found in factories producing plastics. An individual’s workplace and home can often increase their risk of being exposed to the just identified environmental factors that cause cancer. Where a woman works and lives in relation to environmental pollution can affect her likelihood of getting cancer, too. In the United States, particular communities have higher

incident rates of women with cancer and corresponding higher mortality rates. This has been true in the Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Long Island, New York; and the San Francisco Bay area of California. There are studies that have shown links between increased organochlorines (industrial chemicals) and higher rates of breast cancer. Corporations have little financial incentive to reduce their contribution to environmental degradation. Moreover, weak domestic and international laws make it unlikely that corporations will engage in practices that reduce the number of chemicals that negatively affect the environment and increase women’s risk of cancer. There are some states attempting to regulate the environmental toxins found in products commonly used by women, such as cosmetics and beauty products, which may be linked to cancer. States such as California are legally requiring cosmetic companies to report the ingredients used in their products, especially if some may cause cancer. This practice encourages transparency so that researchers may investigate personal beauty products as possibly increasing women’s risk of cancer. Unfortunately, environmental causes of cancer have received a lot of criticism and have been difficult to prove. Environmental pollutants suspected of causing cancer have been highly controversial and largely absent from the mainstream breast cancer movements like the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the Avon Foundation for Women, as well as the National Cancer Institute. These organizations, which are responsible for the majority of funding for cancer research, do contribute in part to the research agenda. As a result, most research on women’s cancer focuses mainly on individual physiological causes of cancer. While breast cancer research has focused less on behavioral and environmental causes, research exists on these factors. However, much of the research that focuses on the environmental causes of cancer has been a result of women’s activism in communities with higher rates of breast cancer, such as Cape Cod, the San Francisco Bay area, and Long Island. Women living on Cape Cod have higher rates of breast cancer than in other areas of Massachusetts. Organizations such as the Silent Spring Institute is researching the possible environmental causes of this including contaminated drinking water, use of pesticides, and land use. These



communities have articulated the view that higher rates of cancer exist because of environmental toxins and polluted water supplies. Many studies that have tried to prove the link between environment and cancer have been inconclusive. Determining a causal relationship between the environment and cancer is difficult to prove scientifically because there are so many possible variables. In addition, many studies only are able to focus on particular chemicals. In addition, studying the environment’s role in cancer requires long periods of time to understand exposure, and many studies are unable to do this. Moreover, various studies have yielded contradictory results. Some studies conclude that the environment is a factor whereas others do not and this makes reaching a scientific consensus very difficult. Hazardous waste sites are examples of how environment can affect a community’s air and water and in turn a woman’s concer risk. Hazardous waste sites often contaminate the community’s drinking water. The link between living near a hazardous waste site and or chemical plant and cancer have been most pronounced in the Long Island and New Jersey areas. Activists on Long Island are responsible for convincing the government to investigate the relationship between environment and breast cancer to explain the unusually high numbers of women with cancer in this suburban New York community. The Long Island study investigated two possible environmental causes of cancer: hydrocarbons and organochlorines. The Long Island study proved no significant link between organochlorines and breast cancer and a very minimal relationship between hydrocarbons and cancer. The Long Island study was unable to prove that environment is a factor in cancer risk. Despite the results of the Long Island study, women across the United States remain convinced that the environment does play a part in causing cancer. Cancer Prevention and Detection Women are encouraged to visit their obstetrician/ gynecologist regularly for pap smears and checkups to increase the chances of early detection. In addiction, vaccines for human papillomavirus such as Gardasil have been developed to reduce women’s risk of cervical cancer. Women are urged to do self-screening exams, get mammograms and to make positive lifestyle choices to reduce their risk of breast cancer.

Cancer, Environmental Factors and

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Early detection through self-screening exams is one of the most important ways women can catch cancer early in its development, treat it, and fight the disease. Cancer is treated primarily through drugs, surgery, and chemotherapy. There is a great deal of medical research that focuses on cancer treatment. However, cancer prevention is equally as important. By focusing on the environmental causes of cancer, the focus turns to disease prevention. Activism In addition to research studies, women with cancer are writing about the possible links between environment and cancer. Significant works include Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Sandra Steingraber’s Living Downstream. These books explore the theory held by many women with cancer that environment plays a role in their disease. Specifically these two books have been very influential in the women’s health activist community. Women’s health–based activism has been prominent in the United States for some time and focused on reproductive health and access to better healthcare, as well as increased knowledge and awareness of women’s bodies. The women’s health movement has advocated on behalf of women to improve women’s lives. Specific activism is associated with breast cancer and has largely been focused on increasing funding, research, and awareness of the causes of breast cancer. The mainstream breast cancer movement has focused on raising money through “pink” campaigns where a portion of a product’s proceeds go to breast cancer organizations and funding. In addition, the breast cancer movement has organized walks such as the Relay for Life and the Walk/Run for the Cure. In addition to this mainstream activism, women are organizing to raise awareness of environmental factors attributed to breast cancer risk. Environmentalbased cancer activism has been more pronounced in some regions of the U.S. especially in the San Francisco area, and other regions such as Cape Cod and Long Island have seen a great deal of activism geared toward understanding environmental factors of cancer. Organizations such as the Silent Spring Institute, Breast Cancer Action and Toxic Links Coalition have organized around the premise that the environment affects women’s risk of cancer. These organizations focus on corporate responsibility for polluting the

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environment and thereby contributing to the incidence rates of women’s cancer. These activists also focus on shaping the research agenda to include the study of environmental causes of cancer. See Also: Breast Cancer; Cancer, Women and; Health, Mental and Physical; Health Insurance Issues; Pink, Advertising and; Reproductive Cancers. Further Readings Brown, Phil. Toxic Exposures. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Carlson, Rachel. Silent Spring, with an introduction by Al Gore. Boston: Houghton, 1994. Eisenstein, Zillah. Manmade Breast Cancer. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Klawiter, Maren. The Biopolitics of Breast Cancer. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Potts, Laura. “Mapping Citizen Expertise About Environmental Risk of Breast Cancer.” Critical Social Policy, v.24/4 (2004.) Steinberg, Sandra. Living Down Stream. Reading, MA: Wesley Publishing, 1997. Kristen Abatsis McHenry University of Massachusetts, Boston

Cancer, Women and Cancer, defined as a range of diseases characterized by the proliferation of abnormal cells that spread beyond their usual boundaries, is the third largest killer of women after heart attacks and strokes. The change in one single cell that may initiate a cancer may stem from inherited genetic factors, external agents, or some combination of both. Cancer cells may also metastasize, that is to say, invade adjoining parts of the body and spread to other organs. Metastases are the major cause of death from cancer. Global Burden of Cancer Estimates show that noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) including cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, digestive diseases, mental disorders, conditions related to injuries and violence, and cancer will account for nearly 80 percent of the global

burden of disease by 2020. Such trends will manifest globally, particularly in large countries facing rapid aging of their populations. It is estimated by the World Health Organization that cancer killed 7.6 million people in 2005, and 75 percent of those deaths occurred in low- and middleincome countries. That number is expected to rise to 9 million by 2015 and is projected to rise to 11.5 million by 2030. Changing consumption patterns, the result of globalized marketing and trade of many consumer goods, as well as rising disposable incomes in countries in the global south has led to increased consumption of tobacco and alcohol, to the replacement of vegetables and fruits with high-fat/low-fiber foods, and reduced physical activity. The effects of these changes have already become visible in terms of rising levels of lung and other tobacco-related cancers. An estimated 60 percent of cancer patients live in developing countries and deaths from cancers such as lung cancer occur at comparatively earlier ages on average in the countries of the global south than in those in the global north because effective treatment is generally not widely available and prevention has often not been prioritized. In areas such as the Western Pacific region, an estimated 90 percent of the 3.5 million new cancer cases that occur each year are found in the socalled developing countries of the region. Cancer Rates Among Men and Women Rates of cancer are estimated to be 30 percent to 50 percent higher among men than among women, a difference largely attributable to the higher rates of lung cancer among men. While lung (1.3 million deaths/year), stomach (803,000 deaths), liver (610,000 deaths), colorectal (639,000 deaths), and breast cancer (519,000 deaths) cause the most cancer deaths each year worldwide, rates differ greatly when it comes to the most frequent types of cancers found in men and women. Among men, global deaths from lung, stomach, liver, colorectal, esophagus, and prostate cancer are the most frequent; breast, lung, stomach, colorectal, and cervical cancers predominate among women. Although cancer rates may be higher among men than women, the disability adjusted life years (DALYs) lost by women are 1.22 times those for men. Furthermore, in terms of reproductive cancers alone, women lose seven times more DALYs than men.

Cancer, Women and

Table 1: Age-Adjusted and Nonweighted 2002 DALYs by Sex Cause Breast Cancer

Males

Females

M/F Ratio

F/M Ratio

44,483

11,733,351

5,840,667

5,399,893

1.08

0.92

702,842

607,265

1.16

0.86

Pancreatic cancer

2,112,858

1,782,346

1.19

0.84

Stomach cancer

9,576,685

6,171,105

1.55

0.64

Esophagus cancer

5,266,748

3,049,496

1.73

0.58

Bladder cancer

1,913,556

964,949

1.98

0.50

Liver cancer

9,409,480

4,208,880

2.24

0.45

Trachea, bronchus, lung cancers

15,232,399

6,687,840

2.28

0.44

Mouth and oropharynx cancers

4,751,823

1,991,476

2.39

0.42

Colon and rectum cancers Melanoma and other skin cancers

0.00 263.77

Source: adapted from Gita Sen, Piroska Östlin, and Asha George. Unequal, Unfair, Ineffective and Inefficient Gender Inequity in Health: Why It Exists and How We Can Change It. Final Report to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, September 2007.

Health Disparities: Global North Versus Global South In recent years, a great deal of the epidemiological and public health literature has focused on health disparities among world populations. Generally speaking, disease burdens have been found to be higher among groups of people who have historically been deprived of resources, power, and status. With respect to health disparities, the research has found that such populations bear a higher proportion of disease burdens due to lower levels of education, higher levels of exposures to environmental hazards, a general lack of access to healthcare, and the lower quality of services available to those populations when they are actually able to access such services. The double burden of women who live in the economically poorer regions of the world is evident when we look at statistics such as the incidence of the most common cancers among women (Table 2). As we can see from Table 2, wom-

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en’s rates of cervical cancer in the global south account for the overwhelming majority of cases found around the world. As we will see from our discussion below of the cancers that occur most frequently in women, women’s lack of access to services such as mass cytological screening in the poorer regions of the world due to their prohibitive cost contributes to lower survival rates among women with cervical cancer in those areas because the disease is usually detected only at the more advanced stages. In recognition of these constraints, alternative methods based on visual examination of the cervix such as visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) are currently being investigated. Usually performed by nurses or other paramedical health workers, VIA consists of naked-eye examination of the 3 to 5 percent acetic acid–swabbed uterine cervix without any magnification, with illumination provided by a bright source of light. Recent evidence suggests that VIA has similar sensitivity to cervical cytology, albeit with lower specificity. Since the outcome of the VIA test is immediately available, it reduces the amount of time women must devote to screening procedures. It has also been found to be cost effective because it decreases the direct medical cost of screening for both health systems and their patients.

Table 2: Incidence of Most Common Cancers Among Females for 1990 (in thousands) 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

LESS DEVELOPED

WORLD Breast

Cervix

Colon/Rectum

Stomach

Lung

Source: “Women and the Rapid Rise of Noncommunicable Diseases.” NMH Reader, No. 1, January 2002.

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Globally, important gains have been made in expanding services for breast cancer, especially in higher-income countries. As mentioned earlier, however, survival rates among those with the disease are generally much higher in women possessing higher socioeconomic status due to greater opportunities for early detection and better access to care. In a study of late-stage diagnosis of breast cancer among patients in the Philippines, for example, economic factors were identified as a significant determinant of late diagnosis. Echoing the results of this research, a breast cancer study in two urban hospitals in Malaysia found that women presenting at the hospital that served lower socioeconomic populations were more likely to present with larger tumors at a later stage (with 50 to 60 percent of newly diagnosed breast cancers found to be at stage three or stage four) than did women at a hospital serving a more affluent area (where only 30 to 40 percent of cases were found to be at stage three or four). Lung cancer ranks first for men and women in high-income countries, overtaking breast cancer in

Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ninety percent of lung cancer is generally attributed to smoking, making it one of the most preventable forms of cancer. Additionally, as the cancer with the highest mortality rate, it contributes considerably to many of the deaths that could be avoided by preventive strategies. Although many women do not smoke as much as men do, differences in the biology of male and female lungs may be implicated in the convergence of lung cancer rates because women are more vulnerable to the effects of cigarette smoke. Specifically, women develop lung cancer with lower levels of smoking compared to men, and growing evidence suggests that the health consequences of smoking may be worse for women than for men. For instance, women develop lung cancer earlier than men despite the fact that they often start to smoke later and smoke less. Furthermore, women are at greater risk of developing the more aggressive small cell lung cancer, of which adenocarcinoma is more common. Estimates suggest that women who smoke three to five ciga-

Lifestyle and behavior, such as smoking, are individual choices women can make that may affect their risk of cancer. Studies show that although overall women do not smoke as much as men do, they are more vulnerable to the negative effects of cigarettes.



rettes per day might double their risk of lung cancer, while men must smoke six to nine cigarettes per day to double their risk. These results, however, are still a matter for debate. Other efforts to explain women’s greater vulnerability to the effects of smoking have focused on women’s greater tendency to smoke low-tar cigarettes and to inhale deeper and smoke faster than men. Biology, specifically women’s sex hormones and reproductive status, also might play an important role. At the same time, however, researchers say that increases in smoking among women still account for the majority of this convergence in rates. As smoking rates in women continue to rise quickly in most parts of the world, it is becoming apparent that cancer of the lung may be the most common cancer in women worldwide in 20 to 30 years, unless effective action is taken. Another important source of the high rates of lung cancer among women in the global south is their frequent exposure to indoor air pollution. In China, for example, two-thirds of women diagnosed with lung cancer are nonsmokers, suggesting other possible causes. Supporting such a link is a study by N. Bruce, R. Perez-Padilla, and R. Albalak that found a link between exposure to coal smoke at home and higher rates of lung cancer among women in that country. Stomach Cancer. Once the second most common cancer worldwide, stomach cancer has dropped to fourth place, after cancers of the lung, breast, and colon and rectum. Tremendous geographic variation exists in the incidence of this disease around the world. The highest death rates are recorded in Chile, Japan, South America, and the former Soviet Union. Rates of the disease are highest in Asia and parts of South America and lowest in North America. In the United States, the American Cancer Society estimates that 21,130 cases of gastric cancer will be diagnosed in 2009 (12,820 in men, 8,310 in women) and that 10,620 persons will die of the disease. Among different ethnic groups, Asian American women have the highest rates for new cases of stomach cancer compared to women of all other groups, with rates of stomach cancer almost three times higher than those in women categorized as white. Colorectal Cancer. Colorectal cancer is the fourthmost-common form of cancer occurring worldwide, with an estimated 783,000 new cases diagnosed in

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1990. Worldwide, this cancer affects men and women almost equally, representing 9.4 percent of all incident cancer in men and 10.1 percent in women, with about 401,000 new cases in men annually and 381,000 in women. The number of new cases of colorectal cancer worldwide has been increasing rapidly since 1975 (when it was 500,000). A recent study by Rebecca Siegel et al. (2009) analyzed data in 13 surveillance, epidemiology, and end results cancer registries to report on colorectal cancer incidence trends from 1992 through 2005 in the United States. Although a recent, accelerated decline in colorectal cancer incidence rates has been attributed to the increase in screening rates among adults 50 years and older, Siegel et al. found that incidence rates of colorectal cancer per 100,000 young individuals (ages 20–49 years) increased 1.5 percent per year in men and 1.6 percent per year in women during this time interval. Among non-Latina/o whites, for example, rates increased for both men and women in each 10-year age grouping (20–29, 30–39, and 40–49 years) for every stage of diagnosis. The increase in incidence among non-Latina/o whites was predominantly driven by rectal cancer, for which there was an average increase of 3.5 percent per year in men and 2.9 percent per year in women over a 13-year study interval. Cervical Cancer. Cervical cancer remains the second most common cancer among women worldwide with about 500,000 new cases and 250,000 deaths every year. Approximately 500,000 cervical cancers are diagnosed yearly, particularly among poor and women who have borne more than one child in developing countries. More than 200,000 women die each year from the disease. As mentioned earlier, cervical cancer now accounts for more new cases of cancer in developing countries than any other type of cancer. An estimated 80 percent of deaths from cervical cancer occur in developing countries. Among women in low- and middle-income countries, the majority of cervical cancer cases are caused by infection with a subtype of human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted virus that infects cells and can lead to precancerous lesions and invasive cancer. Consequently, important efforts are being devoted to the development of safe and effective HPV vaccines to prevent and treat cervical neoplasia. Elsewhere, in places such as South Africa, where cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer for mortality for women, increases in

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precancerous lesions in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive women have also been reported. In countries such as India, the prevalence of cervical cancer has been found to be higher among poor and rural women than among those who are better-off and live in urban areas. In a recent study of women in India, where cervical cancer is the leading malignancy in women with about 90,000 new cases reported annually, and where in more than 90 percent of these cases, the lesions are in an advanced stage by the time the patient seeks medical care. Cancers in these late stages are disfiguring and painful. Additionally, the treatment required is often mutilating and survival rates are low. In the aforementioned study, a new type of elongated magnifying glass that illuminates and magnifies the cervix was used to detect 77 percent of cases of confirmed early cervical cancer, offering a valid method of screening for cervical cancer in countries that cannot afford cytological screening. See Also: Birth Defects, Environmental Factors and; Breast Cancer; Cancer, Environmental Factors and; Health, Mental and Physical; Infertility, Incidence of; Our Bodies, Ourselves; Pink, Advertising and; Poverty; Reproductive Cancers; World Health Organization. Further Readings Anglin, Mary K. “Whose Health? Whose Justice?: Examining Quality of Care and Forms of Advocacy for Women Diagnosed With Breast Cancer.” In Amy J. Schulz and Leith Mullings, eds., Gender, Race, Class, and Health: Intersectional Approaches. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006. Arredondo, Gabriela F. “Of Breasts and Baldness: My Life With Cancer.” In Angie Chabram-Dernersesian and Adela de la Torre, eds., Speaking From the Body: Latinas on Health and Culture. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008. Bradley, Patricia K. “Breast Cancer in African American Women.” In Catherine Fisher Collins, ed., African American Women’s Health and Social Issues. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. Bruce N., R. Perez-Padilla, and R. Albalak. “Indoor Air Pollution in Developing Countries: A Major Environmental Health and Public Health Challenge.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization, v.78/9 (2000). Fredericks, Carrie, ed. Breast Cancer. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press/Gale Cengage Learning, 2009.

Jacobs, Miriam and Barbara Dinham, eds. Silent Invaders: Pesticides, Livelihoods, and Women’s Health. London; New York: Zed Books in association with Pesticide Action Network UK, 2003. Klawiter, Maren. “Chemicals, Cancer, and Prevention: The Synergy of Synthetic Social Movements.” In Monica J. Casper, ed., Synthetic Planet: Chemical Politics and the Hazards of Modern Life. New York: Routledge, 2003. National Cancer Institute. “Methods for Measuring Cancer Disparities: A Review Using Data Relevant to Healthy People 2010 Cancer-Related Objectives.” http://seer .cancer.gov/publications/disparities/measuring _disparities.pdf (accessed July 2010). Siegel, Rebecca L., Ahmedin Jemal, and Elizabeth M. Ward. “Increase in Incidence of Colorectal Cancer Among Young Men and Women in the United States.” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention Online, v.18/6 (2009). http://cebp.aacrjournals.org (accessed July 2010). Turkington, Carol and Mitchell Edelson. The Encyclopedia of Women’s Reproductive Cancer. New York: Facts on File, 2005. “Women and the Rapid Rise of Noncommunicable Diseases.” NMH Reader, No. 1 (January 2002). http:// whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2002/WHO_NMH_02.01.pdf (accessed July 2010). Danielle Roth-Johnson University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Candomblé Candomblé is an indigenous Afro-Brazilian religion with a strong matriarchal focus that is passed down from mother to daughter, having originated among African slaves brought to Brazil by the Portuguese during the transatlantic slave trade from the 1530s onward. The earliest forms of kandombele, a Kikongo word meaning “prayer,” were unwittingly aided in the mid-1700s when the pope declared that Africans had souls. This strengthened the process of syncretism in which slaves converted to Catholicism but preserved African religion by embedding it within Christian practices. This accounts for the important association of African orishas, or deities, with Catholic saints. Because Candomblé allowed slaves to imag-

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ine autonomous identities distinct from their existence as chattel, it subverted the dominance of the slaveholding class by constantly reasserting African culture. Candomblé became the historical backbone of Afro-Brazilian cultura, and its political and social dimensions continue to influence Brazilian society and popular culture; it generated samba, and is a primary influence on Brazilian food, arts, and dance. During slavery the majority of Africans taken to Brazil were from Igbo, Yoruba, Dogon-Peuhl, EweFon, Kongo, and Bantu ethnic groups, mainly from Mozambique, Mali, Nigeria, Congo, and Angola. Although deliberately separated from family, kinship, and language communities as a means of limiting possibilities for rebellion, similarities of faith enabled Africans to build new cultural literacies on the foundations of previous knowledge. New World Africans shared belief in an inspirited universe, privileged the remembrance of ancestors, and adapted the practices of their traditions, including music, drumming, song, dance, ceremony, food preparation, healing, herbalism, midwifery, and systems of extended family. As Candomblé coalesced, it anchored the social organization of the slave community, allowing slaves to imagine a resilient African subjectivity despite being brutally objectified as mere property. As a defiant underground practice that survived European efforts to suppress all vestiges of black social groups, Candomblé supported a libratory politics of preserving African cultural in order to resist slavery and colonialism. Candomblé was the foundation of Brazil’s maroon outposts and quilombos, remote villages where escaped slaves, freedmen, Natives, and sympathetic whites organized militant resistance to slavery. Women priestesses and devotees of Candomblé were prominent in such resistance movements. Women as Spiritual Leaders Women were crucial to the formation and survival of Candomblé. Iyalorishas (“mothers of the mysteries”) or female priestesses also known as mães de santo (“mothers of the saints/gods”) are central figures in Candomblé, as are female devotees and primary orixás such as the goddesses Yemonja, OyaYansa, and Oxum. The mães de santo govern, teach, and advise in matters both sacred and secular, serving as leadership in the terreiros, or “houses,” that are the primary places of meeting and worship for

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each distinct congregation of practitioners within the larger Candomblé community. Casa Branca, founded in 1830 in Salvador de Bahia is regarded as the first formal terreiro, the “headquarters” and historic heart of Candomblé. Many of the founders were originally members of the Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death of the Catholic Church of Barroquinha. In addition to roles as healers and spiritual advisors, women in Candomblé also became community activists, leading efforts to end persecution and police repression through the 1970s when the religion was fully legalized. Candomblé is now practiced worldwide including the United States, Mexico, South America, Europe, and Asia. See Also: Brazil; Portugal; Religion, Women in; Santería. Further Readings Cohen, Emma. The Mind Possessed: The Cognition of Spirit Possession in an Afro-Brazilian Religious Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Harding, Rachel. A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Stam, Robert. Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Veloso, Caetano. Tropical Truth: A Story of Music & Revolution in Brazil. New York: Da Capo Press, 2002. Voeks, Robert. Sacred Leaves of Candomblé: African Magic, Medicine, and Religion in Brazil. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Valorie Thomas Pomona College

Cape Verde The Republic of Cape Verde is a country archipelago made up of 10 islands located in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the population (78 percent mixed of African and European blood) can be found concentrated in Santiago. In African countries such as Cape Verde, national poverty reduction programs have been key entry points to address women’s economic needs. Thus, the United Nations Development Fund for

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Women in Cape Verde have fought for their rights through advocacy, lobbying, and action.

Women partnered with the government in Cape Verde (as well as Burundi, Liberia, and Rwanda) to integrate a gender perspective into the national strategy in 2008. Women of Cape Verde have fought for their rights through advocacy, lobbying, and action, especially after several legal changes propitiated by the international and the African political arena. In fact, the Cape Verdean government has ratified the Banjul Protocol (1987), the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women (2003), and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality (2004) of the African Union or the Maputo Protocol (2007), aimed at promoting gender equality in African countries. The constitution of Cape Verde (1992) grants equal rights to men and women, and the penal law (Código Penal) has classified physical abuse since 1997. A posterior revision of the Código Penal (2007) added psychological abuse and cruelty as crimes against women. Cape Verde has advanced gender in public policies since 2001, such as Plano Nacional para a Igualdade e Equidade de Género (PNIEG) I (2001– 05), PNIEG II (2005–09), and PNIEG III (2009–11). PNIEG II and III outline the lines on gender equality promotion and advocate for effective and visible participation of women in all grounds of the coun-

try’s development. Those programs also contemplate research in poverty, violence based on gender, education, health, and so on, which is particularly important to the Instituto Cabo-verdiano para a Igualdade e a Equidade de Género (ICIEG) or Institute for Gender Equity, as well as other women’s organizations and associations. Women’s empowerment is at the center of all public policies, including the increase of opportunities for women in professional education, women’s literacy, women’s entrepreneurship, or integration of the female informal sector into the market. Violence based on gender is one of the main challenges to women in Cape Verde. A recent governmental report (2005) showed that 21 percent of Cape Verdean women are victims of violence. The ICIEG, which is the main national mechanism for equality, together with the Network of Female Parliamentarians, has drafted both the Equality Law (Lei de Paridade) and the Law of Violence Based on Gender in coordination with the Ministry of Equality of Spain. The ICIEG is the most important governmental organ to promote women and their rights in the absence of a specific ministry, and was founded in 1994. The most important thing about ICIEG is that belongs to the Cabinet of the Prime Minister and the Administration of the State and coordinates actions with women’s networks such as Rede de Mulheres Parlamentares, Rede de Mulheres Economistas, and Associação Cabo-Verdiana de Mulheres Juristas, along with international agencies (the United Nations Development Fund for Women, for instance), and with several nongovernmental organizations and other women’s associations and organization. See Also: Burundi; Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Liberia; Rwanda; Spain; United Nations Development Fund for Women. Further Readings Carter, Katherine and Judy Aulette. Cape Verdean Women and Globalization: The Politics of Culture, Gender, and Resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. ICIEG. Mulheres e Homens en Cabo Verde, Factos e Números. Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Nacional de Estadística de Cabo Verde and United Nations, 2008. Soledad Vieitez-Cerdeño University of Granada



Cartoonists, Female The worlds of the cartoon, comic book, and the graphic novel have historically been dominated by straight, white men. The representational misogyny of the contemporary superhero comic genre has historically created little room for female authors and artists, eventually helping to create a girls’ market in comics, still mostly drawn by men, in the 1950s. However, since the rise of the underground comics movement in the 1960s, cartoons, comics, and graphic novels have created more space for women to become involved not just as readers, but also as artists and authors. These shifts in representation continue today. Diversity, Representation, and Authorship As more women became cartoonists, artists, and authors, women in comics transitioned from being represented as sexualized objects to taking on more diverse, realistic, and heterogeneous representations in the genre. Women cartoonists subsequently began to engage with more diverse story lines by drawing and representing their own and other women’s experiences in semiautobiographical and autobiographical story lines. Many of these have focused on femininity and the diversity female experience, identity, and sexuality. Jennifer Camper, whose portrayal of women’s diverse experience has appeared in a wide range of queer comics, but comes to the fore in Juicy Mother (2005; 2007), her anthology which includes a variety of queer comic authors, representing a range of masculinities, femininities, and sexualities as an alternative to the straight world of comics writ large. Among the artists featured is Alison Bechdel, American author of the long-running, Dykes to Watch Out For since 1983, and author of award-winning graphic novel, Fun Home (2006). Bechdel’s work is noteworthy for both form and content innovations: her comic series and subsequent published collections are some of the most comprehensive, long-running, and diverse representations of lesbians in the comic book world. This series, and her graphic novel, both address the diverse experiences of lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women from comedic and semiautobiographical, historical, and political vantage points. Lynda Barry, whose work won the Eisner Award in 2009, is an artist, cartoonist, and author whose work

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represents not only abstract personal experience but also a diverse range of women’s and especially young girls’ and adolescents’ identities and experiences in the contemporary U.S. context. Her work in comics, notably Ernie Pook’s Comeek, and her popular and award-winning graphic novels, What It Is and One! Hundred! Demons! are decidedly outside the mainstream—her belief in the power of the image, and her idiosyncratic writing/drawing/creating method connect her representation of emotional and personal experiences with the page in ways more associated with the studio arts than the comic book or graphic novel genres. What It Is is primarily an exploration of her technique, which hinges on bigger philosophical questions as well as image-making and representational techniques that have been credited with expanding the genre. Like Barry, Carol Tyler, author of Late Bloomer (2005), not only helped define the early underground women’s involvement in comics but went on to anthologize women’s contributions as authors and artists in comics. Her work on the power of autobiography, story and women’s life trajectories and the place of creativity in women’s identities can be seen as an outgrowth of Barry’s forays into narrative style and the primacy of personal experience. These artists and others laid the foundations that allowed for Marjane Satrapi’s mainstream success with the Persepolis series, whose autobiographical, candid tone and stark black-and-white design mark a radical departure from the brightly colored, hyperaction-oriented superhero cartoons that began to define the genre in the 1950s. Similarly, Barry, Tyler, and others created conditions to facilitate women’s work in alternatives to black and white, sequential frames. Women working in a range of media have blurred the boundaries between cartoons as sequential art and the world of the picture book and other forms of visual media. Many women work within the recognizable conventions of the political or editorial cartoon, like Roz Chast’s familiar work as seen in the New Yorker, and Lauren Weinstein’s homage to the archetypal comic book and its attendant conventions. Still others have transformed the comic utterly by incorporating nonsequential page structures, paint, ink, and even collage, as seen in recent work from cartoonists like Genevieve Castree, Anke Feuchtenberger, and Jenni Rope.

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Future Directions for Women Cartoonists Despite the increasing numbers and influence of female cartoonists, visibility remains an issue: women are still drastically underrepresented as authors and overrepresented as essentialized, usually scantily clad objects in comics. Just as the Guerrilla Girls 2004 assessment of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed 5 percent of the artists were female, while 85 percent of the nudes depicted in the museums holdings were female, the same trend has been historically true in women’s participation as editorial or political cartoonists. Jen Sorenson of Slowpoke Comics recently found that in a commentary on recent controversial New Yorker cover art, reporters from the Columbia Journalism Review talked to 10 well-known editorial and political cartoonists, none of whom were women. Despite the large numbers of female cartoonists, visibility is still an issue. The underground/emerging world of comics has been propelled to greater visibility with the advent of Web comics. Similarly, online organizations like Friends of Lulu work to increase women’s readership, authorship and general participation in cartoon culture and production through networking, mentoring and continuing education. Dedicated Webzines, such as SequentialTart, serve to increase women’s visibility in comics and other spheres by featuring articles, interviews, comic art, and other work created by women artists and authors. See Also: Anime; Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Gender Defined; Manga. Further Readings Madrid, Mike. The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy and the History of Comic Book Heroines. San Francisco: Exterminating Angel Press, 2009. Robbins, Trina. From Girls to Grrlz: A History of Women’s Comics From Teens to Zines. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999. Robbins, Trina. Great Women Cartoonists. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001. Robinson, Lilia. Wonder Women: Feminisms and Superheroes. London: Routledge, 2004. Sally Campbell Galman University of Massachusetts

Casaro Nascimento, Adir An education professor at Don Bosco Catholic University, Adir Casaro Nascimento received her doctorate in education from State University Paulista Julio de Mesquita Fiho in 2000. Her thesis addressed the issue of indigenous education in Brazil, where, according to the Brazilian National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), there are some 460,000 aboriginal Indians spread across 225 communities designated for their inhabitance and another 100,000 to 190,000 living in other areas of Brazil. Dr. Casaro Nascimento, who began working with Brazilian aboriginals in the 1980s, has been particularly interested in the experiences of these indigenous students as they interact with intercultural environments. In 2004, she published Indian School: Stage of the Differences, which has been influential in changing the ways in which aboriginal students are taught. Educational Programs for Indigenous Peoples of Brazil She has also been involved in a number of projects relating to general issues of indigenous education and ethics in research and has served on various committees; however, she is most often recognized for designing and implementing the Guarani courses on aboriginal education to educate teachers about working with aboriginal students. She sees this work as a way to empower women while improving educational experiences for aboriginal students and allowing them to continue to embrace their own cultures after entering greater society. Because agricultural classes are regularly taught in secondary schools in Brazil, she has also promoted the practice of teaching students agricultural methods that serve to protect the environment. Since 2006, agroecology has been taught at the secondary level with the intention of encouraging students to share their newly acquired knowledge with others and promote the concept of food security in Brazil, thus providing many aboriginals with the tools for ending the cycle of dependence on government handouts that have supported them for generations. More than 50 percent of Brazilian aboriginals live in poverty. Their homelands have often been taken over to provide agricultural, mining, and development resources for the majority population. As a result, the aboriginal people often lack access to basic

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necessities such as healthcare and educational opportunities. Aboriginal leaders blame the government for failing to fulfill its promise of providing aboriginal children with intercultural and bilingual education as stipulated under the Directives for a National Policy of Indigenous Scholastic Education. Under pressure from Adir Casaro Nascimento and other reformers, the government agreed in 2008 to add facilities to educate an additional 19,000 aboriginal students to supplement the 2,332 schools for 165,000 students now in existence. As part of the Guarani curriculum developed by Adir Casaro Nascimento, for the first two years, students are taught entirely in Guarani. The switch to being taught entirely in Portuguese, Brazil’s official language, is made gradually. The curriculum also provides for discussions on regional geography in which aboriginal students interact with community elders. In 2006 at Don Bosco Catholic University, Adir Casaro Nascimento introduced Teko Arandú, which means “Living in Wisdom.” It is a five-year training course designed to provide technical assistance to the predominately female student body. As a result of the efforts of Adir Casaro Nascimento and other reformers, the number of aboriginal students in Brazilian schools has increased dramatically. See Also: Brazil; Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Indigenous Women’s Issues. Further Readings Drogus, Carol Ann. Activist Faith: Grassroots Women in Democratic Brazil and Chile. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Osava, Mario. “Brazil: Guarani Education Empowers Women Leaders.” http://ipsnews.net/news.asp? idnews=41352 (accessed April 2010). Osava, Mario. “Lack of Land Rights Is Killing Indigenous Children, Say Activists.” http://ipsnews.net/interna .asp?idnews=27858 (accessed June 2010). United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2009-Brazil.” http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic ,463af2212,49749a152,4a66d9be41,0.html (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

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Catholics for Choice Founded in 1973, Catholics for Choice or CFC (originally called Catholics for a Free Choice) is a nongovernmental organization that promotes reproductive rights, reproductive healthcare, and sexual well-being for all. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., CFC’s mission and goals are based on a unique combination of progressive Catholicism, feminist ideology, and a social justice agenda. CFC’s agenda addresses a broad range of issues that fall under the dual umbrellas of reproductive rights/health and sexual rights/health. It asserts that public policy regarding reproduction and sexuality should not be based on religious ideology but, instead, on democratic ideals. Consequently, CFC stands in stark opposition to the Vatican on a variety of issues. With numerous education campaigns and partnerships across the globe, CFC endeavors to promote a diverse, dynamic, democratic public discourse on matters of reproduction and sexual health. Through international partnerships, it also seeks to increase awareness of the ways in which the rights of marginalized groups (including women, those living in poverty, and homosexuals) are systematically denied under official church policies. Issues that are central to CFC’s agenda include abortion, contraception, reproductive health technologies, public policy, gender equality, homosexuality, and access to reproductive healthcare, among others. Through education campaigns, research, and activism that centers on active engagement in public discourses and debates, the organization forwards a liberal religious ideology that centers on the concept of conscience. In essence, CFC argues that individuals must follow their own conscience or internal moral compass, even when their conscience does not coincide with official church doctrine. Thus, although the Vatican forbids abortion and the use of condoms and all other forms of contraception, CFC believes that since various Catholic teachings stipulate that individuals are to follow their own conscience in regard to such matters, contraception should not be forbidden. In addition, the group argues that doctors, pharmacists, hospitals, and other health providers that fail to provide a full range of reproductive and sexual health options to patients are, in fact, denying such patients the opportunity to exercise their conscience.

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Patriarchal Establishment Despite its grounding in Catholic tradition, the organization is quite critical of the Catholic Church. It regards the Vatican as a patriarchal establishment that perpetuates hegemonic public policy. CFC is particularly critical of what it regards as the Vatican’s fundamentalist stance on reproductive choice and how that stance denies women control over their own reproductive lives. The organization believes that the church has transformed from a spiritual entity into a primarily political one, citing parental consent laws, mandatory waiting periods, pro-life demonstrations, and efforts to ban sex education in schools as evidence of this transformation. Furthermore, Catholics for Choice asserts that Vatican policy on such issues does not coincide with the values of most contemporary Catholics or with the reality of their lives. Current Contributions and Campaigns At present, CFC maintains several active campaigns. The first, “Prevention Not Prohibition,” aims to educate the public about diverse views on contraception and high rates of contraceptive use among Catholic populations. It also promotes access to safe, reliable, affordable contraceptives for all. The second campaign, “Condoms4Life,” targets both heterosexual and homosexual populations and promotes responsible sexuality through the use of condoms in order to reduce the risks associated with HIV/AIDS. Next, the “See Change” campaign seeks to change the status of the Holy See in the United Nations and assign it the same nonvoting status assigned to other religious entities and nongovernmental organizations. Finally, through “Catholics in Public Life,” CFC provides resources to public officials to help them stay informed about comprehensive reproductive and sexual healthcare and encourage politicians to promote these in the political sphere. CFC collaborates with religious and political organizations throughout the world. It is a member of the Women-Church Convergence, an alliance of feministminded, progressive Catholic organizations in the United States that combat sexism and racism within the church. It also partners with organizations in Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Latin America. CFC publishes a biannual magazine, Conscience. It also regularly publishes reports on reproductive/sexual health issues and issues frequent “action alerts” to inform pro-choice Catholics about these issues.

See Also: Abortion, Access to; Nuns, Roman Catholic; Priesthood, Roman Catholic; Religion, Women in. Further Readings Banerjee, Neela. “Backing Abortion Rights While Keeping the Faith.” New York Times, http://www .nytimes.com/2007/02/27/us/27choice.html ?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22Backing%20 Abortion%20 Rights%20While%20Keeping%20the%20 Faith%22&st=cse (accessed May 2010). Belden Russonello and Stewart Research and Communications. “Catholic Attitudes on Condoms in the Prevention of HIV and AIDS.” Washington, DC: Catholics for Choice, 2007. Catholics for Choice. “In Good Conscience: Respecting the Beliefs of Health-Care Providers and the Needs of Patients.” Washington, DC: Catholics for Choice, 2008. Catholics for Choice. “Truth and Consequence: A Look Behind the Vatican’s Ban on Contraception.” Washington, DC: Catholics for Choice, 2008. Hunt, Mary E. “Women-Church: Feminist Concept, Religious Commitment, Women’s Movement.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, v.25/1 (2009). Pope Paul VI. “Humanae Vitae: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Paul VI.” http://www.vatican.va/holy _father/paul_vi/encyclicals (accessed May 2010). Jillian M. Duquaine-Watson University of Texas at Dallas

Celebrity Women Since the mid-1960s, scholars from history, media and cultural studies, and sociology have converged around the study of celebrity. The landmark 1961 book by historian Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, defined celebrity as a “human pseudo-event,” and later academics placed their discussions of celebrity culture within this context. Interest in the topic of celebrity emerged slowly, having its roots in literature that theorized about the Hollywood star system. Books on celebrity began to emerge in the 1990s, perhaps attributable to work in the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies where scholars were examining the relationship between audience use (or subversion) of commodities and the shaping of



cultural ideologies. Two of the most frequently cited books include sociologist Joshua Gamson’s Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America in 1994 and media theorist P. David Marshall’s Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture in 1997. At the turn of the 21st century, two books emerged that offer elucidating analyses on the power of celebrity in culture and its production by the news media: sociologist Chris Rojek’s 2001 Celebrity and historian Charles L. Ponce de Leon’s 2002 Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890–1940. In different ways, scholarship deals with the phenomenon of celebrity as an aspect of our self-identity and collective identity. Celebrity women as a subset of the study of celebrity engage issues of woman achieving social status (and social power), financial independence, and serving as role models for appearance and behavior for female audiences. More important, celebrity women are also media constructed commodities that serve as sites for audience identification. Along these lines, stereotypes about gender, race, and class are often reinforced in the representation of celebrity women. The current media landscape that is rife with reality television programs emphasize that the everyday woman can— and should desire to—become a celebrity woman. This goal may create conflict for women in the shaping of their personal and social identities. Ancient Roman and Greek Traditions Scholarship on celebrity generally agrees that it is a construct with roots in ancient Greece and Rome. At that time, famous people were associated with greatness approaching mythological proportions. They were perceived as directly descended from the gods. Rojek’s analysis of the etymology of the term celebrity suggests that modernity shifted the meaning from fama to celebritas, signaling the move from an authoritarian to a democratic government and from a religious to a secular society. These terms also reflect a difference in the meaning of the individual who is labeled famous or a celebrity: fama was associated with being “godlike,” while the term celebrity actually derives from the “fall of the gods.” Braudy offers an analysis of the early nature of the relationship between the individual and fame, arguing that the famous mirror is constantly shifting

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the meaning of the individual within society. People who become famous symbolize the social, political, and economic values of their time and the famous person must be different enough to be unique but not so different as to pose a challenge to the values he or she signifies. To be famous, then, means to have a conflict between being an individual and being a representation of the current cultural values. The attempt to find a balance between identity as an individual and as a member of society is faced by both the ordinary citizen and the famous person. Audience members who consumes representations of celebrity therefore shape themselves with personal and social identities that they can aspire to or transgress society’s values with. For female audiences, the knot formed by identity and celebrity is intensely tangled. As research in feminist studies (particularly feminist media studies, cultural studies, and psychology) has shown, the consumption of celebrity, especially by women and girls regarding their body image, relates to one’s sense of self. Shallow media representations of the female celebrity, whose ultra-thin body expresses her identity and desirability as a woman, have established a role model for the body that girls and women aspire to have in order to be. Their struggle manifests in the loss of self-esteem; on the severe end, they fall victim to the epidemic of sometimes fatal eating disorders. In Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, feminist cultural theorist Susan Bordo paints a compelling portrait of the relationship between female audiences and celebrity women, whereby the bodies of celebrity women serve as role models for women to emulate. In current celebrity culture, the overall images of celebrity women—as powerful social symbols—reflect a desirable position that connotes empowerment as financially successful women who are not bound by the home or by traditional notions of gender roles. Two very financially successful celebrity women are Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey, who have developed lifestyle brands and are considered to be media moguls with immense cultural power. Identity and Celebrity Historically, identity and celebrity are bound with issues of individualism and power. Braudy targets significant social, economic, and political shifts in the

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17th century as the turning point for a fresh notion of the individual. The rise of printing, literacy, and other technological advances resulted in the knowledge that kings, or those in power, could be overthrown. Individuals thus realized that no one possessed an intrinsic superiority or authority; anyone with the desire and ability could gain control of social power. The achievement of social power by the everywoman, then, is communicated as attainable via the position of the celebrity woman. A noteworthy example of a celebrity woman with a rags-to-riches story is pop star Britney Spears. Through her determination, hard work, and talent, Spears escaped her rural southern roots and has become one of the most successful female celebrity women in recent history. In addition, her financial success affords her to support her parents and she has been able to purchase them homes in more affluent areas. Spears’s social power is also reflected in her ongoing popularity; emerging on the popular culture stage in the 1990s, audiences have followed her—and supported her as a commodity by purchasing Spears-branded goods—for more than a decade through her ups and downs. After media documented psychological and personal problems, Spears rebounded as one of the best-selling acts of the late 2000s, and has continued to achieve top album sales and sold-out tours. She has maintained incredible cultural relevance by being on the cover of celebrity magazines like Us Weekly, women’s fashion magazines like Elle, and discussed on celebritycentered television programs like The Insider and Entertainment Tonight. Journalistic Devices on Celebrity In 1961, Boorstin conceived of the celebrity as a “human pseudo-event,” that is, “a person who is known for his well-knownness.” The human pseudoevent epitomizes an “ambiguous truth” that is coded with entertainment value and whose authentic meaning (and person) is difficult to decipher. That is, he viewed the celebrity as a media construction that was separate from the authenticity of an individual identity but rather a public image that served the function of stimulating fantasies for audience consumption. In fact, around the turn of the 20th century, savvy individuals (often politicians) and journalists were able to create an identification of the public with their stories

through innovative journalistic techniques and strategies. This type of communication about public figures was generally characterized by emotional narratives constructed for self-promotion. Devices such as intimate photographs and interviews helped to portray human-interest subjects as similar to their audience. The subtext communicated that if members of the audience had talent, luck, or personality, they, too, might become celebrities. Journalistic techniques and strategies permitted the audience to transgress the privacy of the famous and to pursue the fulfillment of their thirst to know more. These journalistic techniques are still reflected in popular mass media celebrity magazines, such as People and Us Weekly. In addition, celebrity women are dissected by individuals who create their own celebrity gossip blogs. There are many blogs that are dedicated specifically to covering celebrity women. These include blogs that focus on the appearance of celebrity women (the fashion of and the weight of celebrity women) and on following celebrity mothers. In addition, social networking sites such as Twitter allow celebrities to communicate, seemingly directly, with their fans, and keep their fans up to date on the details of the celebrity woman’s life. Pop singer and actress Miley Cyrus had been a frequent Twitter user; however, upon deciding to delete her account, Cyrus’s fans rallied online for her return to the site. Media technology has created a new sort of interaction whereby female audiences can feel more involved in the lives of celebrity women than ever before. Before technology and the subsequent media culture, mythological heroes served as role models for ordinary citizens and were perceived as the embodiment of greatness. By the mid-20th century, new values had displaced the mythological archetype of the hero as a role model. Occasional stories of greatness were reported, but the 1959 publication of Celebrity Register signaled that greatness has taken on a nonheroic meaning. The mass media was creating a situation in which coverage of personalities was favored over coverage of achievement. As a result, people who deserved fame for heroic acts were juxtaposed with those who were rewarded for their name recognition, thus denigrating accomplishments and people with substance. One notable example of this type of celebrity is Paris Hilton, a socialite and hotel heiress who initially



garnered immense media attention for simply being in the public eye (rather than by promoting a project, such as a movie or a music album), assuming the role of a media personality. Hilton achieved her entry into mainstream popular culture through the release of a sex tape featuring her ex-boyfriend. Although Hilton subsequently developed and promoted projects, such as reality television shows, books, movies, and perfumes, she has often been discussed in the media more for her after-hours partying at clubs and for her romantic relationships. The media has documented her legal troubles, such as multiple instances of driving under the influence of alcohol and time in jail. Hilton was been the topic of a documentary, Paris, Not France, that aired on MTV in 2009. This text examined Paris as a contemporary icon, and also touched on the conflicted meanings of being a celebrity woman in contemporary media culture. Role of Media The media, with the complicity of public relations and a willing public, thus stripped the qualities of greatness from its celebrities. This process produced a “synthetic” image, a human pseudo-event lacking genuineness that would please the public. The celebrity was “fabricated on purpose to satisfy our exaggerated expectations of human greatness. . . . His relation to morality and even to reality is highly ambiguous.” This idea of celebrity and the representation of the “real” currently takes on a new level of meaning regarding both media production and audience consumption. Today’s media culture is rife with reality television programs and Internet sites (like YouTube) that further blur the boundaries between public and private spaces. It gives any person with technological savvy immediate visibility and the ability to create his or her own celebrity. This environment makes Boorstin’s prescient statement that “anyone can become a celebrity, if only he can get into the news and stay there” even more incisive. Reality television starlets pose a unique challenge to women’s sense of self- and collective identity. By merging “real” people with celebrity, a new synthetic image of women was born. The celebrity women who compose the cast of the MTV reality program The Hills may serve as an example. These young women—who audiences met as teenagers and have followed into their early 20s—are presented as everyday people who have

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had the fantastic opportunity to be documented on television. Their “real” identities before the program reflect a desirable social status for many people, as they lived in the upper-middle-class area of Laguna Beach, California. These women, pre-celebrity, had financial access to seemingly any expensive good that they desired. Postcelebrity, these women have access to seemingly all social events (read: Hollywood hot spots) that they desired. More, their appearance—which upholds the dominant ideal of female beauty as thin, young, and generally blonde—is reported on in glossy celebrity magazines alongside celebrity women like Madonna who have achieved their status through their projects. These woman also achieve financial power; it has been documented in celebrity journalism that some members of the cast of The Hills make over a million dollars per year as a salary for being on the program. Many of the cast members use the program as a springboard for their own projects. Lauren Conrad, the lead character of The Hills for five seasons, launched a fashion line that appeared in Mercedes Benz L.A. Fashion Week in March 2008. However, Conrad appears on the program as a fashion student, not as someone who has her own fashion line. This example shows how a “real” celebrity woman’s identity is not fully presented in media texts, and complicates audience perception of celebrity women who are presented, particularly in reality television, as open about every aspect of their lives. Scholarship on celebrity also examines the experience of celebrity by the audience. Celebrity is sustainable because it is a cultural sign through which audiences actively negotiate the relationship between media representations and the self. People invite celebrity into their lives because they fulfill some aspect of their wishes and desires. Audiences may therefore experience a fulfillment of their self- or collective identity through celebrity, as the celebrity holds the power “to represent the active construction of identity in the social world” and helps the “audience-subject” to comprehend the meaning of that world. For many, the desired experience of the individual living in contemporary celebrity culture is to live, even vicariously, in the limelight. There is currently, then, a strong desire in many individuals to become a celebrity woman. Many of these women seek to be on reality television programs; such programs include America’s Next Top Model (produced and hosted by former supermodel

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Tyra Banks) and Bridezillas. For women and girls who are not selected on a reality television program, some achieve somewhat of a celebrity status through a role as a “camgirl.” These individuals use Web cameras as a vehicle of self-expression. While some women use the Internet for therapeutic self-expression, others use it as an opportunity to self-display. Girls’ use of media technology and their self-construction as a celebrity woman also raises questions about their role in fashioning themselves as desiring subjects versus choosing their own subjectification. In addition, while achieving this celebrity status may be a positive role for some girls, it may also lead to personal struggles around identity, particularly in cases where one’s self-representation online is different from her identity offline. The role of the celebrity has been interpreted as a highly mediated construction, blending the desire by the celebrity and the media to present a particular public persona and the wish by the audience and the media to reveal the celebrity’s private self. So, if individuals seek to become a celebrity, it may mean a disconnection from her authentic sense of self, as a celebrity is viewed by many scholars as a media construction for the empowerment of others, not oneself. The lure of celebrity underscores the commodification of the girls themselves, as a celebrity’s central role in media culture is as a commodity. The notion of celebrity, then, suggests a complicated interaction of individual and social power, and brings up questions of agency in regards to celebrity culture and media messages. Celebrity is a profound part of the capitalist structure, a billboard for consumerism. And while audiences may understand that celebrity is manufactured and functions as cultural capital, that does not prohibit them from experiencing pleasure (alone or socially) from its products. However, the power of the celebrity industry relies on its ability to reveal and conceal the machinery of celebrity production, simultaneously allowing for audience commentary and exclusion. The celebrity is a site of meaningful discussion about our social, economic, and political values. The role of the celebrity woman in society is complex for both the individual who achieves the status of celebrity and for audiences. The current media landscape that is full of reality television programs seemingly offers a democratization of celebrity—that is, the achievement of social status through mass audience recognition. Reality television programs present people of varying race, gender,

and class positions, furthering opening up an apparent level playing field for anyone to become a celebrity. However, the reinforcing of stereotypes and the construction of celebrity identities that may differ from the “real” person raise questions about this sort of “democracy” as a way for female equality. For feminist theorists and writers, discussions about and critiques of the representations and roles of celebrity women, as well as notions of democracy and gender, are valuable to understand individual and social identity development in contemporary celebrity culture. See Also: Banks, Tyra; Body Image; “Bridezillas”; Internet; Madonna; MTV; Reality Television; Stereotypes of Women; Stewart, Martha; Winfrey, Oprah. Further Readings Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Atheneum, 1972. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Braudy, Leo. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Gamson, Joshua. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Ponce de Leon, Charles L. Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890–1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Rojek, Chris. Celebrity. London: Reaktion Books, 2001. Dara Persis Murray Rutgers University

Censorship Gender-based censorship remains a major problem around the world, even in the 21st century. Censorship targeted specifically toward women includes regulation concerning advertisements for female



products, laws about how females may dress, and regulating pornography and various artistic mediums like literature, painting, and film. While everyone can be subject to censorship, typically censorship affecting women only serves as a means of controlling them and provides them with little voice, whether personal, political, or social. Censoring Advertising One of the most common ways women suffer from censorship concerns the female form and advertising. Advertisements often targeted by censors focus on women’s undergarments and menstrual products. The Middle East remains one of the strictest environments for women, as demonstrated in numerous examples of censorship. One of the most conservative examples of censorship regarding female undergarments recently occurred in the Gaza Strip, when the Hamas Islamic movement instituted a strict set of regulations concerning female underwear, which has been banned from shop windows. Mannequins baring lingerie have also been outlawed from storefronts. The United States remains much more lax about advertising lingerie, but still encounters problems with censorship. Though advertisements for the lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret run freely on many channels, in 2010, executives from the FOX and ABC networks censored a commercial from the plus-size clothing chain Lane Bryant. Censors claimed that the large women in the commercial showed too much cleavage; running advertisements by Victoria’s Secret in which models had smaller breasts (and therefore less cleavage) did not suffer from censorship. These examples of censorship prevent women from celebrating their sexuality. A related subject concerns recent advertisements in the United States by Kotex. Network censors forbid scriptwriters to include the word vagina in their series of commercials for the U by Kotex campaign. As Megan Lustig reports in “Women’s Wednesday: Censoring the V-Word,” instead of using the anatomical terminology for female genitalia, Kotex had an actress in their commercial use the phrase down there to refer to the vagina. Even so, several networks also refused to air that commercial. This example of censorship perpetuates mystifying female anatomy. When appropriate terms cannot be used to refer to body parts openly, censors encourage women to feel embarrassed and ashamed of their bodies and womanhood.

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Censorship and Pornography The most controversial issue involving women, their bodies, and censorship is pornography. Many assume that all women favor censoring pornography because the industry capitalizes on objectifying women. Many pieces of pornography also celebrate violence against women, degrading women, and placing in women in subservient roles. While many women do campaign for censoring pornography much more strictly, certain factions of women, like those in the Feminists Against Censorship Organization, argue that pornography should not be censored further than it already is. Women against censoring pornography believe that sexual freedom is an important right for all women, no matter how they choose to express that freedom. Denying sexual freedom or awareness (like in the U by Kotex ad campaign) promotes women who are uneducated and unfulfilled in topics about sex. Furthermore, women against censoring pornography also value women executives and filmmakers in the industry because they provide viewers with a woman’s perspective in an industry dominated by males in power. Regulating Women’s Attire In contrast to acts of censorship stemming from women wearing too little clothing, women have also been censored by being required to wear certain items of clothing. While explicit laws in Saudi Arabia require women to remain completely covered with veils, shawls, and other garments, many other Muslim countries still implicitly require that women dress modestly, by means of garments including a head covering (known as a hijab), a face covering or veil (known as a niqab), and a burka (a garment that cover a woman’s entire body). The censorship of women via these pieces of clothing has stirred controversy in recent years, prompting discussions about whether the Qur’an requires women to cover themselves or if laws about clothing simply remain in place to censor women’s appearance and freedom. Censorship and Music Women have also been censored for their involvement in the arts. For instance, female music artists have also been common targets for censorship, mainly in countries in the Middle East and Africa. In some Middle Eastern countries, women are forbidden from

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Censorship of women remains a 21st-century issue worldwide, and can target everything from advertising, laws regarding women’s appearance and clothing, and regulating artistic works such as literature, fine art, and filmmaking.

becoming music artists, and in Africa, one woman in particular has been censored for her desire to question the political practices of her country in her lyrics. The Website Freemuse: Freedom of Musical Expression reports incidents of musical artists who have been censored for their choices. Many of the reports on the site concern Middle Eastern countries. In early 2010 in Herat, Afghanistan, the Morality and Knowledge Association fought to ban all women from the airwaves. Supporters say that hearing women speak and sing on the air leads to societal corruption. Similarly, third-place finalist Lima Sahar of Afghan Idol also was forced into a life of exile after receiving countless death threats for choosing to pursue her dreams of being a famous singer. Women are also banned from singing and playing music in public in Iran, where, in February 2010, a concert by Iranian singer Homayoun Shajarian was banned because several members of his band were women. In Africa, the female Zimbabwean musician Viomak has

seen her music censored because her work often protests contemporary government practices and advocates for social justice. The censorship of women in music deserves special attention since women are literally and figuratively silenced; their needs are ignored and, instead, male voices dominate already-patriarchal cultural institutions and movements. Censorship and Fine Art A recent case of censorship and art involves Dorota Nieznalska, a Polish woman. Nieznalska’s work Pasja (2002) included a large cross with male genitalia at its center; behind the cross a video of a man lifting weights played. Pasja represents Nieznalska’s views of Christ’s passion, and emphasizes the role of men and their pain. Officials leveled criminal charges against Nieznalska for the work, which they considered blasphemous. Several of her forthcoming exhibits were canceled as the case went to trial and into a series of multiple appeals. Nieznalska was finally acquitted



in 2009. The censorship of her work represents the conservative mind-set that often stifles female artists who explore masculinity in daring ways. Censorsing Authors Female authors have also suffered attacks since the start of the 21st century. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, for instance, was one of the most attacked and banned books of 2000 and in the years immediately following. Rowling’s books, which focus on the experiences of a boy in a world of wizards and magic, have unsettled some readers, who believe the series promotes witchcraft. Thousands of copies of Harry Potter books have been burned and shredded, and critics call Rowling a witch; some of her opponents even claim that Rowling wrote the novels to recruit Satan followers. While Rowling simply shrugs off these attacks, other female writers who dare to write their stories face much harsher consequences. Rajaa Alsanea, the Saudi Arabian author of Girls of Riyadh (2005), still receives death threats (even after moving to America). Her novel explores the life of a young woman in Saudi Arabia, a country in which women are often censored into silence. Another Saudi Arabian author, Badriya Al-Bishr, has seen her work banned, but she recognizes that the steps she takes— and the challenges she must overcome—make writing for future female authors more acceptable, common, and respected (see Sabria Jawhar’s “The Real Abuse of Saudi Women” for more of Al-Bishr’s reflections on writing). Some women writers are censored because the fictional worlds they create are discordant with reality; other women are censored for defying cultural expectations and creating awareness of major problems plaguing women in their respective countries. Censoring in the Film Industry Another artistic arena in which women have been censored includes the film industry. As Ibrahim Al-Marashi notes in “Feminism and Censorship in an Islamic Republic: Women Filmmakers in Iran,” an essay in Valentine Moghadam’s collection From Patriarchy to Empowerment: Women’s Participation, Movements, and Rights in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, some of the most censored female filmmakers share common roots: they are Iranian. Women like Marziyeh Meshkini, Samira Makhmalbaf, and Tahmineh Milani have all seen their

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work censored by heavily patriarchal governing institutions. Meshkini’s film, The Day I Became aWoman (2000), chronicles the stories of three Iranian females at different stages in their lives (one a child, another a woman, and the other, an elderly woman) and their struggles in battling conservative stereotypes for women in their country. The film was banned for raising questions about the strict expectations for women in Iran. Samira Makhmalbaf, another female Iranian filmmaker, has also had her work banned. In the documentary Joy of Madness (2003) about her making of the 2003 film At Five in the Afternoon, which asks questions about the status of women in a post-Taliban era, In the film, Makhmalbaf wore a headscarf that did not appropriately cover her. She told Nicole Mowbray of the New Statesman in an interview that she did not wear an “insufficiently modest” scarf on purpose but that she did not feel remorse for her actions because after one woman breaks a traditional expectation for females, it becomes much easier for others to do so as well. Tahmineh Milani, the most prolific of Iranian feminist filmmakers, has faced some of the worst ramifications from her work. Several of her movies have been censored and banned, including her film The Hidden Half (2001), in which Milani analyzed and criticized fundamentalist political groups. In an interview with Richard Phillips of the World Socialist Website, Milani revealed she knew the possible consequences of making a film about Iranian politics—which are always fluctuating—but she felt she needed to make the film to honor all those who had been exiled or even killed while raising awareness about the same issue. Though the government initially approved The Hidden Half for release, Milani was jailed shortly after its release; Milani’s film was accused of supporting subversive groups. Milani was eventually released, but her imprisonment remains a reminder of the way in which women who hope to create awareness about significant cultural problems and issues face censorship of their work, and sometimes even harsher consequences. More often than not, censorship is used to suppress women. In very strict cultures, like Saudi Arabia, censors operate under the guise that extreme acts of censorship concerning women preserve their culture from immorality, and even protect women from danger. Censors know that awareness leads to growth and change, so continually masking major problem-

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atic issues related to women typically relegates them to situations and conditions that cannot be changed. Without exposing the truth, women’s lives and their status cannot be changed for the better. See Also: Afghanistan; Antifeminism; Arab Feminism; Iran; Iranian Feminism; Iraq; Islam; Islamic Feminisms; Poland; Political Ideologies; Religion, Women in; Religious Fundamentalisms, Cross-Cultural Context; Saudi Arabia; Taliban; Veil. Further Readings Byrd, Cathy and Susan Richmond. Potentially Harmful: The Art of American Censorship. Atlanta: Georgia State University Press, 2006. Freemuse: Freedom of Musical Expression. http://www .freemuse.org/sw305.asp (accessed August 2010). Jawhar, Sabria. “The Real Abuse of Saudi Women.” http:// www.arabisto.com/article/Blogs/Sabria_Jawhar/The _real_abuse_of_Saudi_women/64694 (accessed August 2010). Lustig, Megan. “Women’s Wednesday: Censoring the V-Word.” www.spectrumscience.com/blog/2010/03/31 /womens-wednesday-censoring-the-v-word (accessed July 24 2010). McClellan, S. “Lane Bryant Says TV Networks Censored Saucy Spot.” Brandweek www.brandweek.com/bw/ content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i406 2457efae56fa38ef10807894cc53d (accessed July 2010). Moghadam, Valentine M., ed. From Patriarchy to Empowerment: Women’s Participation, Movements, and Rights in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2007. Mowbray, Nicole. “Samira Makhmalbaf.” New Statesman (October 17, 2005). http://www.newstatesman.com /200510170014 (accessed July 2010). Petley, Julian. Censorship: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2009. Phillips, R. “Iranian Director Tahmineh Milani Speaks With WSWS.” World Socialist Web Site (September 29, 2006). http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006 /mila-s29.shtml (accessed July 2010). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Pornography and Censorship.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries /pornography-censorship/#2.2.3 (accessed July 2010). Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR), which achieved its independency from France on August 13, 1960, has had a very unstable history, evidenced by several coups and internal disputes. Progress has been observed only in the last few years, with significant improvements in its governance and human rights record. The government’s commitment to human rights was also reflected in the adoption of a national policy on the promotion of equality in 2005. A family code designed to strengthen women’s rights had been in place since May 1998, but several conflicting customary laws prevail. The CAR is one of the world’s least developed countries, with approximately 4.3 million inhabitants. A landlocked country, the nation is overwhelmingly agrarian, with more than half of the population, and the vast majority of women, living from subsistence farming. Female land laborers face added difficulties accessing loans due to a lack of financial guarantees and access to land titles, which also affect their capacity to initiate agricultural activities and generate income. The 2004 Constitution recognized that all Central Africans, without regard to sex and other considerations, are equal in economic, political, and social spheres; however, in practice, women are treated as inferior to men both economically and socially and significant discrimination persists. As is the case in other countries in Africa, there is a significant difference in the conditions of women’s lives in cities— namely Bangui—and women who live in rural areas. Some discriminatory habits and traditions have proved to be more resilient in rural and remote communities, despite improvements in the urban areas. Such is the case with female genital mutilation, which despite being banned in the country in 1996, is still performed in certain rural areas. Polygamy is legal, although this practice faces growing resistance among educated women. There is a 20 to 25 percent difference between the registration of boys and girls in primary school, and in literacy rates between men and women in the 15-to-24 age bracket. At the university level, men outnumber women at a ratio of 1:3 or 1:4. This gap is much wider in rural areas. In regards to health, women face higher rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and are more prone to the risk of other infectious diseases.

Chabad Movement



According to some sources, the CAR has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths in the world, and a significant number of them are linked to unsafe abortion, which is prohibited by law. The CAR leaves much room for improvement in terms of the unmet need for prenatal care and access to contraception. Significant underreporting and inadequate data collection methods mean it is impossible to estimate the rate of violence against women. Finally, the gender gap is overwhelming in state institutions: only 11 out of 105 members of Parliament and four out of 22 ministers are women. At the local government level, there are only six female mayors as compared to 66 male ones. Similarly low ratios are found in judiciary and other high-level civil servants, such as registrars and notaries. See Also: Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered. Further Readings Development Partner Consultation for the Central African Republic. “Central African Republic: Development Partner Consultation.” http://www .scribd.com/doc/269638/Gender-inequality-in-the -Central-African-Republic (accessed July 2010). United Nations Development Group. “MDGs Report Card: Central African Republic.” http://www.undg .org/docs/8865/2007-CAR--MDG-report.pdf (accessed July 2010). José-Miguel Bello y Villarino Independent Scholar

Chabad Movement The Chabad movement is a Hasidic movement among Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Known collectively as the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, members follow the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was the leader of the movement in its most recent incarnation in the United States from 1940 until his death in 1994. Although the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the Rebbe’s teaching are complex, the fundamental

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mission of “Chabadniks,” as members are known, is to bring non-Orthodox Jews back to more Orthodox religious observance through gentleness, kindness, and the emphasis of the beauty of religious life. By reigniting the spiritual spark within individual Jewish souls, Chabadniks hope to make a holier world, and thereby encourage the coming of Moshiach, or the Jewish messiah. The term Chabad, which stands for wisdom, comprehension, and knowledge (from the Hebrew words Chochmah, Binah, and Da’at, the consonant initials of which spell out Chabad), provides outreach to Jews all over the world in the form of synagogues, schools, summer camps, soup kitchens, foster homes, and other relief, rehabilitation, and community centers in over 900 cities worldwide. The Chabad emissaries, or Schluchim, who do the everyday work of running this far-reaching network, are typically young, married couples who are sent out into the world to Chabad centers worldwide, many of which are in challenging locations with very few Jews. In addition to responsibilities in the community, couples are encouraged to have large families, as per the biblical injunction to “be fruitful and multiply.” With these large families, most averaging between five and 10 children, come concerns of financial difficulty and the necessity of parental self-sacrifice. However, Chabad teachings emphasize that every child is a blessing, and that the joy of raising a child to Torah-observant, productive adulthood more than outweighs the potential difficulties inherent in bearing, raising, and providing for large numbers of children. Women’s Participation Chabad is unique in that women Chabadniks occupy positions of relative public prominence. The Rebbe explicitly encouraged wives to accompany their husbands as Chabad emissaries and to work beside them as codirectors in outreach. However, there are boundaries to women’s participation; for example, they are typically expected to attend only to those outreach concerns located specifically within the feminine realm. However, unlike fiscally and workplace-oriented mainstream culture, the domestic realm is relatively privileged in the Chabad movement. Women might offer women’s discussion and support circles, instruct on how to keep a kosher kitchen and home, give advice

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on childrearing, or teach about women’s responsibilities in following the laws of family purity. Meanwhile, women are not expected, nor are they permitted in many cases, to attend to other religious matters. These may include leading religious services, performing rabbinical or ritual tasks, or reading from and praying before the Torah. Most Ultra-Orthodox women are protective and proud of their sacred gender-specific roles in family and religious life and have no interest in fulfilling men’s commandments. In fact, much of Orthodox teaching emphasizes that women, as creators of life, are already close to the divine and are not, therefore, required to pray and study. Men, meanwhile, must labor to achieve what women do naturally, and therefore have much more stringent religious requirements set before them. However, critics suggest that Chabad’s mission to encourage religious observance would be more successful if women and men alike could choose the type of observance—be it reading from and handling the Torah or keeping a kosher kitchen—irrespective of their sex. Chabad encourages active engagement from women and men, but with its definitive boundaries between the sexes (both literally and figuratively), it makes no claims about being egalitarian in a modern sense. For women and men who are interested in a nongendered religious participation, Chabad may be a poor fit, and from a feminist perspective, interpreting the restrictions and/or boundaries imposed on women’s religious participation remains a source of tension and debate both inside and outside Chabad communities. Family Life Although some feminist critics take issue with women’s restricted participation, others focus primarily on the laws of family purity, which are often misinterpreted to suggest that women are unclean and that their monthly visit to the mikveh, or ritual bath, is an archaic ritual rooted in misogynist beliefs about menstruation and the female body. According to many Ultra-Orthodox women, the mikveh and connected laws of family purity exist as a way for women to have a sacred space of their own, time to themselves to reflect, and a way to connect more authentically with their husbands and families. Family life, and by extension the role of the wife and mother, is of great importance in the Chabad move-

ment. Mothers are responsible for teaching their children to live Torah-observant lives and to encourage prayer and reflection at home. According to Chabadniks, the laws of modesty, or tznius, are designed to emphasize and protect the inherent respect for and the sacredness of women by dictating the covering of married women’s hair and encouraging modest standards of dress for girls and women alike. Again, some critics interpret the relative stringency of tznius as a masculinist mechanism to restrict and control women, but as is the case of many Muslim women who wear hijab, most women in Chabad affirm the practice of hair-covering and modest dress as a part of the complex ecology of identity and observance that privileges the feminine, not a restriction imposed by husbands, fathers, or other male authority figures. See Also: Judaism; Progressive Muslims; Religion, Women in; Veil. Further Readings Bronner, L.L. “From Veil to Wig: Jewish Women’s Hair Coverings.” Judaism, v.42/4 (1993). Drake, C. “A Faith Grows in Brooklyn.” National Geographic, v. 209/2 (2006). Fishkoff, S. The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of ChabadLubavitch. New York: Random House, 2003. Greenberg, B. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. Greenberg, B. “Orthodox, Feminist and Proud of It.” In E. Kurzweil, ed., Best of Jewish Writing. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003. Ravitz, J. “An Orthodox Feminist Revolutionary.” Moment, v.34/1 (2009). Sally Campbell Galman University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Chad Chad, a former French colony in central Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. The country’s development has been hampered by a series of civil wars since independence in 1960, as well as by internal corruption and the spillover of warfare from neighboring countries. Islam is the most common

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religion (53.1 percent), followed by Catholicism (20.1 percent), Protestantism (14.2 percent), and animist religions (7.3 percent). Chad’s 2009 per capita gross domestic product was estimated to be $1,500; 80 percent of the population is estimated to live below the poverty level. Most people live on subsistence agriculture and raising livestock—processes disrupted because internal warfare forced them to become internally displaced persons. Chad also harbors many refugees from the conflicts in the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan and from conflicts in the Central African Republic. Life expectancy in Chad is quite low, at 44 years for men and 47 years for women. Basic health and social services are not available to many people—a fact reflected in low rates of literacy (40.8 percent for men, 12.8 percent for women) and poor health outcomes, including one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, at 98.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. The international organization Save the Children ranks Chad near the bottom of all countries on its Mothers’ Index, Children’s Index, and Women’s Index, indicating the country does a poor job delivering basic health and social services even in comparison with other impoverished, developing countries. Chad’s fertility rate is among the highest in the world at 5.31 children per woman, resulting in a population growth rate of 2.1 percent despite low life expectancy resulting from high outmigration plus high rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection (3.5 percent of adults), lack of basic healthcare, and ongoing civil warfare. The combination of poverty, corruption, and lack of a stable government creates conditions that favor the abuse of women. Local customs often allow practices such as polygamy, forced marriage, child marriage, and female genital mutilation. In addition, although the Chadian Constitution prohibits discrimination against women and provides stiff penalties (up to a life sentence at hard labor) for rape, such laws are seldom enforced. Women are often reluctant to report abuse, including rape because of the extreme stigma associated with being a victim of this act—a married woman may be abandoned by her husband, and a young girl may find it difficult to get married if it is known that she has been a rape victim. A 2009 report by Amnesty International reports that refugee women in Chad face a constant threat of

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rape and other violence. Threat of sexual assault prevents many young women from attending school in the camps, and individuals who commit rape or other violence against women enjoy nearly total impunity not only because of the difficulty of providing security in refugee camps (and even more so when women leave the camps to gather firewood, a traditional female role) but also because of the extreme stigma rape carries for the victim and the disinterest of officials in carrying out an investigation. Chad is on the Tier 2 Watch List of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons of the U.S. Department of State and is a site of child trafficking for forced labor, involuntary servitude, and sexual exploitation. See Also: Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of; Islam; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Amnesty International. “No Place for Us Here: Violence Against Refugee Women in Eastern Chad.” London: Amnesty International, 2009. http://www.amnesty .org/en/library/asset/AFR20/008/2009/en/a6cc4610 -016f-439b-987d-4cb128679751/afr200082009eng.pdf (accessed June 2010). U.S. Department of State. “Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.” http://www.state.gov/g/tip (accessed June 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Chase, Cheryl Cheryl Chase is the pen name of Bo Laurent. Laurent was born on August 14, 1956, in Manville, New Jersey. She is known for being an American intersex activist. In 1993, she founded the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) using the name Cheryl Chase. ISNA was focused primarily on medical reform of care for children, but also served as a support group for adults. In 1997, she produced Hermaphrodites Speak!, the first documentary film featuring individuals with intersex conditions speaking openly about their personal experiences.

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In 1998, Laurent wrote an amicus curiae brief (a “friend of the court” brief ) for the Colombian constitutional court, which was then considering a ruling on surgery for a 6-year-old boy. In 2000, ISNA was honored with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission’s Felipa de Souza Human Rights Award, which honors human rights activists and organizations. Laurent has written a number of published articles, primarily under the name Cheryl Chase, on the subject of intersexuality Laurent was one of two adults with intersex conditions who participated in creating the 2006 Consensus Statement on intersex standard-of-care concepts for best clinical management of disorder(s) of sex development (DSD). This group of 50 international experts and patient advocates developed a new standard of care for people diagnosed with “intersex” conditions. Not only did the consensus focus on quality of life, a patient-centered model, and an interdisciplinary team approach to healthcare, but it also proposed a change in terminology. The statement introduced the term disorders of sex development, or DSD. Laurent argues that there were a number of reasons for this change. First, while the term intersex has worked to unify many individuals in terms of political rights and action, it has also been viewed as too politically charged by many parents and healthcare professionals alike. Some of these individuals further view the term intersex as stigmatizing. Second, there was often little agreement by healthcare workers on which conditions fell under the label intersex, which distracted from more important issues. Finally, while only a small percentage of all patients with a DSD are assigned to the wrong sex, the word intersex is often construed in the media in precisely this sensationalized way. DSD is also more obviously a medical term, which was seen as the easiest way to communicate about medical care. DSD also labeled the condition rather than the person. ISNA began to use the term disorder of sex development alongside the term intersex. Although the statement set up patient-oriented care, these standards were not necessarily being implemented in hospitals. In 2007, the ISNA, headed by Laurent, sponsored and convened a national group of healthcare and advocacy professionals to establish a nonprofit organization charged with making sure the new standards for appropriate care were known

and implemented. In March 2008, Laurent helped form Accord Alliance to promote comprehensive and integrated approaches to care that enhance the health and well-being of people and families affected by disorders of sex development. In 2008, ISNA closed its doors and Laurent became a patient representative on Accord Alliance’s Advisory Board. In August 2008, Laurent received her Master’s in Organization Development from Sonoma State University. Her work at Alliance currently focuses on organizational effectiveness consulting. See Also: Health, Mental and Physical; Intersex; Social Justice Activism. Further Readings Chase, Cheryl. “‘Cultural Practice’ or ‘Reconstructive Surgery’? US Genital Cutting, the Intersex Movement, and Medical Double Standards.” In N. Ehrenreich, ed., Reproductive Rights: A Critical Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Chase, Cheryl. “Hermaphrodites With Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism.” In M. Himley and A. Fitzsimmons, eds. Making Critical Space: A Reader. Syracuse, NY: Longman Publishing, 2007. Hegarty, Peter and Cheryl Chase. “Intersex Activism, Feminism and Psychology.” In I. Morland and A. Willox, eds., Queer Theory. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Laurent, Bo. “Intersexuality–A Plea for Honesty and Emotional Support.” In W. L. Williams and Y. Retter, eds., Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States: A Documentary History (Primary Documents in American History and Contemporary Issues). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. Stacy Weida Indiana University

Chastity Pledges The chastity pledge or virginity pledge is an influential aspect of American culture with significant impacts on the lives of adolescent girls and young women today. An estimated 2.5 million teens and



young adults have taken the chastity pledge and committed to sexual abstinence until marriage, including pop culture stars Miley Cyrus, Jordin Sparks, and the Jonas Brothers. Yet despite the popularity of chastity pledges, the program continues to spark debate and controversy among critics and supporters of abstinence-only education, particularly with regards to their effectiveness in preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) contraction, or sexually transmitted infection (STI) contraction. Current research on chastity pledges offers contradictory results at best. The first chastity pledge program emerged in 1993 from a Southern Baptist Church and was aptly titled, True Love Waits (TLW). This particular chastity program sought to challenge teens and young adults to remain sexually abstinent with the public signing of commitment cards, but the program also utilized religion, faith, and morality to motivate abstinence. The national and international success of the TLW program sparked the establishment of similar virginity initiatives such as the Silver Ring Thing (SRT). SRT uses rock-style concerts and events to appeal to teens, while simultaneously adhering to the Christian faith-based abstinence message. At the conclusion of SRT events, teens publicly commit to abstinence and then adorn a silver “purity” ring on the ring finger of their left hand. The ring symbolically represents their pledge to sexual abstinence, but it also acts as an identifiable cultural symbol, which marks them as part of the chastity pledge movement. Further cultural markers include bracelets and necklaces, as well as attendance at any number of chastity events such as purity balls (or dances), summer camps, and concerts. Teens also participate in Internet-based community chats and make online virtual pledges. Popularity, Support, and Criticism The popularity of chastity pledges among teens and young adults is reflected in American popular culture. Popular discourses around sexuality and virginity are constantly in flux; however, the public endorsement and support of chastity pledges by teen celebrities like Cyrus, Sparks, and the Jonas Brothers acts to shift discussions of virginity and make it “cool” to say no. The effectiveness of chastity pledges in preventing teen pregnancy and STD contraction continues to

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be debated by critics and supporters of abstinenceonly education. This debate is further challenged by the often-contradictory research results on chastity pledges as an exclusive prevention method. Supporters of chastity pledges argue that sex education gives teens the wrong message about sex and assumes that all teens are sexually active. Abstinence-only supporters stress adhering to moral systems that justify saying “no” to sex and advocate the belief that sex belongs within marriage. They contend that pledges assist teens (especially girls) in developing self-esteem and self-respect. Furthermore, by encouraging teens to remain sexually abstinent, they argue that pregnancy and STD contraction rates are reduced because teens wait until marriage to engage in sexual activity. Critics of chastity pledges argue that it sets unrealistic standards for adolescents, particularly with regards to the normative assumption that sex only occurs within a marriage and is only for married individuals. They critique the reliance on images of romantic and heterosexual love and its associated traditional gender roles for girls and boys. Without adequate sex education, critics contend that pregnancy and STD rates will increase because teens do not have access to prevention information if and when they become sexually active. Moreover, chastity pledges may lead to unrealistic relationship standards, early marriages and subsequently higher divorce rates. Critics argue that teens need to be given information on how to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs, in addition to discussing the positive impacts of abstinence. Current research supports many of the claims made by both chastity pledge supporters and critics. Research confirms that pledges delay first sexual activity by an average of 18 months; however, it provides that most teens break their abstinence commitment before marriage and are also more likely to practice unsafe sex. Similarly, STD contraction rates remain equal between pledging and nonpledging teens, which researchers argue is a result of unsafe sexual practices by pledging teens, including oral and anal sex. Yet studies further maintain that the pledge culture does offer teens a unique support system and an identifying community, associated with positive self-esteem. However, they caution that the increasing popularity of chastity pledges actually counteracts their effectiveness and meaning to

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teens. Overall, chastity pledges appear most effective with religiously minded younger teenagers. See Also: Contraception, Religious Approaches; Purity Balls; Sex Education, Abstinence-Only; Sex Education, Comprehensive; Teen Pregnancy. Further Readings Bersamin, M. M., et al. “Promising to Wait: Virginity Pledges and Adolescent Sexual Behavior.” Journal of Adolescent Health, v.36/5 (2005). Brückner, Hannah and Peter Bearman. “Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and First Intercourse.” American Journal of Sociology, v.106/4 (2001). Lifeway: True Love Waits. http://www.lifeway.com/tlw (accessed October 2009). Silver Ring Thing. http://www.silverringthing.com (accessed October 2009). Emily Bent National University of Ireland, Galway

Chatrooms A chatroom is an Internet-supported forum that allows users to interact with each other in real time. Although chatrooms primarily use words to enact dialogue, Web cameras or graphics can sometimes enhance chat experiences to set moods or create atmospheres. Women who use chatrooms most frequently employ them to maintain existing relationships (especially from a long distance), meet romantic partners, engage in role-playing games, or seek support for problems they may not be able to engage others about face-to-face. While females and males tend to interact in chatrooms in a communicatively similar manner, women particularly use emoticons such as smiley faces to express themselves. Despite the advantages of chatrooms for women, media sources often scrutinize or represent them as highly sexualized and filled with male predators. It is common for friends, family, and lovers to talk with each other while at work, home, or traveling through the use of chatrooms or instant messenger features (sometimes called chatters). In addition, women and men both seek new connections, usu-

ally romantic- or hobby-based, through chatrooms or other online real-time forums. Women seeking a dating or sexual partner often initially meet through online dating sites, but then move the conversation to chatters as a way of screening individuals for potential face-to-face meetings. Female Online Presence Is Growing Although it is impossible to tally how many women use online chatting features, social media scholars believe that men use interactive Web technologies slightly more than women. Women are increasingly engaging in traditionally male chat outlets such as online gaming and role-playing. They continue to use already-female-dominated chatrooms that discuss personal issues such as pregnancy, rape, breast cancer, or lesbianism—noting that online interaction about such issues is less intense, minimizes embarrassment, allows them to feel more open to themselves and others, and also provides access to new acquaintances who have faced similar experiences. Chatrooms also allow women opportunities for sharing workplace experiences or to voice political opinions that may otherwise be muted because of gender bias. Despite the advantages online chatrooms provide women, stigma continues to surround both the mechanisms and those who use them. Television programs such as To Catch a Predator paint a world where men are waiting to take sexual advantage of young women, and a variety of television programs or movies depict women who use chatrooms as victims of cyber-stalkers or mentally unbalanced individuals who cannot cope in their physical worlds. Research also indicates that while individuals feel it is okay for them personally to meet others online for dating and friendship, they continue to judge others who may take the same actions. Studies show, however, that relationships initiated through chatrooms can be as healthy as face-toface initiated relationships and that chatrooms, overall, pose no additional risk to individual well-being. See Also: Computer Games; Cyber-Stalking and Internet Harassment; Health, Mental and Physical; Internet; Internet Dating. Further Readings Baym, Nancy K. Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010.

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Whitty, Monica T. “Liar, Liar! An Examination of How Open, Supportive, and Honest People Are in Chat Rooms.” Computers in Human Behavior, v.18/4 (2002). Witmer, Diane F. and Sandra Lee Katzman. “Online Smiles: Does Gender Make a Difference in the Use of Graphic Accents?” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, v.2/4 (1997). Wolak, Janice, et al. “Online ‘Predators’ and Their Victims: Myths, Realities and Implications for Prevention and Treatment.” American Psychologist, v.63/2 (2008). Jimmie Manning Northern Kentucky University

Chemistry, Women in Women remain a minority in chemistry as in other male-dominated fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, despite the achievement of gender parity in participation and achievement in the sciences at elementary and secondary education levels. This gender gap increases as females ascend the educational and career ladder, in what researchers often term the “shrinking” or “leaky pipeline.” Causes include gender stereotyping and lowered expectations for female success, family responsibilities, and limited mentoring and networking opportunities. A number of organizations have arisen to attract more women to the field and improve working conditions. Women in Chemistry Studies Significant progress has been made in increasing the number of female students enrolled in science courses at the secondary school level. The participation and achievement of girls in sciences at the elementary and secondary levels have achieved parity with boys in most industrialized countries, but lags further behind in many low-income and developing countries. Gendered expectations as well as gender differences in student attitudes toward and interest in the sciences, however, begin to emerge even among young girls. Gains at the earlier educational levels largely have not translated to significant enrollment increases at the higher education level. The disparities are even greater for the physical sciences, as most women

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pursue majors in the life sciences. The percentage of female chemistry majors and chemistry degree recipients has increased since the late 20th century, but a substantial gender gap remains. The gender gap among chemistry majors and degree earners remains among the highest in all disciplines at the college and university level and widens even further at the graduate level. Pioneering women in chemistry in academia, such as Marie Daly, Mary Lyon, and Emma Perry Carr, helped modernize chemistry teaching in higher education and attract female students to the discipline, but gender parity remains elusive. U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) research found that in 2005 in the United States, women earned 43 percent of bachelor’s degrees in the physical sciences but only 27 percent of doctorates. At the Ph.D. level in chemistry, the percentage of women degree earners rose from 20 percent in 1985 to 34 percent in 2005. In Europe, women comprise 56 percent of all higher education graduates, but are a minority of graduates in the sciences and other male-dominated fields. Educational researchers have found that girls and women in chemistry and other traditionally maledominated courses often have different classroom experiences, expectations, and treatment than their male counterparts, whether conscious and overt or unconscious and subtle. On the other hand, Asian women may experience cultural expectations and stereotypes expecting them to be more adept in science and mathematics. At the graduate and postdoctoral levels, women may either be unwilling to commit to or drop out of lengthy and time consuming programs due to family considerations or are negatively impacted by the belief that this will occur. Women in Chemistry Professions Career opportunities in chemistry within academia include faculty and research positions at all educational levels, as well as museum positions. The gender gap appears, however, once reaches higher education. According to the NSF, women in the United States comprise the majority of teachers at the elementary and secondary levels as well as those at twoyear and junior colleges. Women chemistry faculty members are a minority, and are disproportionately represented in nontenure-track positions such as adjunct professors.

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The gender gap among chemistry majors and degree earners is among the highest in all disciplines of higher education.

In the United States, women comprised approximately 12 percent of all tenured and tenure-track chemistry professors at leading doctoral and research universities in 2003. In 2006, women represented 31.7 percent of all faculty, 20.6 percent of all full professors, 32.9 percent of all associate professors, and 39.4 percent of all assistant professors. In Europe, women account for only 14 percent of all full professors. The percentages are even smaller for minority women. Career opportunities in chemistry outside of academia include a variety of industry and government occupations, with governments employing larger percentages of women. Many women chemists chose industry over academia due to the perception that it is more family friendly. Women have increased their numbers in industry, but a large gender gap remains here as well. Women comprised 26 percent of nonacademic science and engineering positions in 2005, more

than doubling their percentages in 20 years. Eurostat figures showed that women comprised only 29 percent of European scientists and engineers in 2004. According to NSF statistics, women in the United States comprise 27 percent of all those employed in science and engineering careers, 21 percent of all those employed in business and industry careers, and 27 percent of all those employed through the federal government. Chemical & Engineering News reported that women held only just over 8 percent of all executive titles and comprised just over 12 percent of all directors of 42 publicly traded chemical companies surveyed. Ellen Kullman, chief executive officer (CEO) of DuPont, was the first female CEO of a major chemical company. Many researchers feel that female students are less likely to enter chemistry and other science fields because of the lack of female role models in either academia or industry, or because of traditional gender stereotyping that views the sciences as male fields, even if social pressure has become subtler. Women in academia struggle with the difficulty of maintaining a work–life balance, as taking extended time off for maternity leave or family reasons can jeopardize ongoing research or other projects. They may also bear more duties or scrutiny due to their minority status and have fewer mentoring or networking opportunities. In both academia and industry, women chemists tend to hold lower salaried or prestige positions which affect their lifetime earnings and advancement opportunities. Women in chemistry have formed a variety of organizations dedicated to closing the gender gap by attracting more women to the field and by aiding those women already in the field at all levels. U.S.based organizations include the Committee on the Advancement of Women in Chemistry (COACh), the Women Chemists Committee (WCC) of the American Chemical Socety (ACS), Iota Sigma Pi, the national honor society for women in chemistry, and various Women in Chemistry university groups, as well as the Association for Women in Science, Graduate Women in Science, and National Research Council Committee on Women in Science and Engineering, International organizations include Women in Global Science and Technology, the European Platform of Women Scientists (EPWS), the Helsinki Group on women and science, and the EU Women in Science and Technology group.

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Goals of these groups include eliminating gender inequities, increasing the representation of women at all levels of chemistry, and advising women in the field, as well as at universities, institutions, and organizations. Programs and services include socialization, networking, and mentoring opportunities along with workshops, conferences, and other professional development opportunities. Broader organizations, such as the American Association of University Women, also pursue many of the same issues. See Also: College and University Faculty; Education, Women in; Physics, Women in; Science, Women in; Science Education for Girls; STEM Coalition. Further Readings Adamuti-Trache, Maria and Lesley Andres. “Embarking on and Persisting in Scientific Fields of Study: Cultural Capital, Gender, and Curriculum along the Science Pipeline.” International Journal of Science Education, v.30/12 (2008). American Association of University Women. “Under the Microscope: A Decade of Gender Equity Projects in the Sciences.” http://www.aauw.org/learn/research /all.cfm (accessed July 2010). Congressional Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology Development (CAWMSET). “Land of Plenty: Diversity as America’s Competitive Edge in Science, Engineering and Technology: Report of the Congressional Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology Development.” Arlington, VA: CAWMSET, National Science Foundation, 2000. DeWandre, N. “Women in Science: European Strategies for Promoting Women in Science.” Science, v.295 (2002). Domush, Hilary. “Women in Chemistry.” Center for Contemporary History and Policy. http://thecenter .chemheritage.org/?p=91 (accessed July 2010). Etzkowitz, H., et al. Athena Unbound: The Advancement of Women in Science and Technology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Gabel, Dorothy. Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning. New York: Macmillan, 1994. Grinstein, Louise S., Rose K. Rose, and Miriam H. Rafailovich, eds.Women in Chemistry and Physics: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993.

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Hall, Linley Erin. Who’s Afraid of Marie Curie? The Challenges Facing Women in Science and Technology. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2007. Hinkle, Amber S. and Jody A. Kocsis, eds. Successful Women in Chemistry: Corporate America’s Contribution to Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. James, Abigail Norfleet. Teaching the Female Brain: How Girls Learn Math and Science. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2009. Monosson, Emily. Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Morse, Mary. Women Changing Science: Voices From a Field in Transition. New York: Insight Books, 1995. Sheffield, Suzanne Le-May. Women and Science: Social Impact and Interaction. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Wilson, Robin. “The Chemistry Between Women and Science.” Chronicle of Higher Education (May 26, 2006). http://chronicle.com/article/The-Chemistry-Between -Women-/33155 (accessed July 2010). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Chicago, Judy Judy Chicago is an American artist originally from Chicago, Illinois. Her most significant artworks are The Dinner Party: A Symbol of Our Heritage, The Birth Project, Resolutions: A Stitch in Time, and The Holocaust Project. She is also a feminist educator and intellectual. Judy Chicago was born Judy Sylvia Cohen on July 20, 1939. By 1970, Chicago had changed her name from Judy Gerowitz (her married name) to Judy Chicago; she advertised her new name in the magazine Artforum, with a picture of her posing as a boxer. Her parents, Arthur Melvin Cohen and May Levinson, were of Jewish immigrant origins, but they embraced secular idealism. Arthur Cohen’s idealistic Communist principles were an inspiration to Chicago, and she was devastated at the death of her father in 1953 when she was only 13 years old. Her father’s championing of sexual equality would later inspire her feminist projects. Inspired by early success at the Chicago Art Institute’s high school division, Chicago studied at the

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University of California–Los Angeles from 1960 to 1964. During this period, Chicago met and married Jerry Gerowitz, but he committed suicide in 1963. She would later marry twice more. Her second husband was the sculptor Lloyd Hamrol, whom she married in 1969. They separated by 1976. Her present husband is the photographer Donald Woodman. Important Works Chicago’s most famous work is The Dinner Party: A Symbol of Our Heritage (1974–79), which traces a symbolic history of women in Western civilization. The artwork features a triangular banquet table laid with dinner places, each designated for an eminent woman in history. The embroidered place mats and ceramic plates take on vulvar forms. The Dinner Party is often referred to in discussions about female iconographies in art. Inspired by 1970s feminism, in this piece Chicago employs the universal language of the goddess to create abstract and stylized representations of female bodies, especially female genitalia. The Dinner Party is significant in its use of vaginal forms, or what Chicago terms central core imagery, which offers an alternative to the phallus. Following from the embroidered place mats in The Dinner Party, needlework has played a significant role in Chicago’s work. In her needlework projects, Chicago draws on the traditional image of sewing as a woman’s art form, but she also creates a community of empowered women by employing female needleworkers to decorate her feminist motifs. For The Birth Project (1980–85), Chicago designed images of childbirth inspired by the testimony of mothers. Later, these images were embellished by needleworkers from the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Resolutions: A Stitch in Time (1994–2004) again drew on a community of skilled women stitchers, but needlework was used here to embellish Chicago’s paintings. The overall aim of this piece was to reframe English proverbs because, according to Chicago, they usually offer only a narrow, white, male, Eurocentric perspective. In recent collaborations, Chicago has turned to issues that are beyond the specificity of gender, although they are still related to the abuse of women. One such collaboration was The Holocaust Project (1985–93), in which Chicago turned to the question of her own Jewishness, combining her paintings with Donald Woodman’s photography. Chicago and

Judy Chicago’s art has been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

Woodman treat the Holocaust as the apex for issues surrounding the human condition, the idea being that the artists are “carriers of empathy.” Chicago also wanted to address the interaction between sexism and racism in the Holocaust. Feminist Art Education Although she is primarily a practitioner of art, Chicago is also a renowned educator. During the 1970s, she set up a female art class at Fresno State College, California, and it was here that she coined the term feminist art education. Chicago brought her feminist art program to a greater audience when collaborating with the American painter Miriam Shapiro at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. Team teaching with Shapiro, Chicago helped to coordinate the installation Womanhouse (1972) in a Los Angeles mansion, and in 1973 she set up a pioneering feminist studio workshop in Los Angeles. In developing these educational programs, Chicago sought to undermine the assumption at the time that it was impossible to be a woman and

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an artist—her pedagogy was gendered. More recently, however, Chicago’s mentoring has been made available to both women and men, with her priority being to create artwork that reworks personal experience, with a particular focus on the content. Part of being an educator, for Chicago, is bringing understanding to why women’s art is significant and finding an audience that can see beyond the high, male-centered art that is the focus of art classes and journals. As a consequence, Chicago has written extensively about her life and struggles as an artist in numerous publications, such as her autobiography, Beyond the Flower. Altogether, Chicago might be described not only as a feminist artist but also as a feminist intellectual. See Also: Art Criticism: Gender Issues; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Body Art; Body Image; Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago); Education, Women in. Further Readings Chicago, Judy. Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1982. Keifer-Boyd, Karen. “From Content to Form: Judy Chicago’s Pedagogy With Reflections by Judy Chicago.” Studies in Art Education, v. 48/2 (2007). Levin, Gail. Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artist. New York: Harmony Books, 2007. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Judy Chicago: An American Vision. New York: Watson Guptill, 2000. Rizvi, Urma Z. and Murtaza Vali. “The Fertile Goddess at the Brooklyn Museum of Art: Excavating the Western Feminist Art Movement and Recontextualizing New Heritages.” New Eastern Archaeology, v.72/3 (2009). Through the Flower. http://www.throughtheflower.org (accessed April 2010). Zoë Brigley Thompson University of Northampton

Chicana Feminism Feminism may be defined as an ideology that critiques and resists patriarchy—the institutionalized, social subordination of women by men. Although ideological differences exist among women who identify as

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feminists, challenging sex inequality and the systematic oppression of women remains a common struggle for most feminists. In general, the term Chicana refers to a U.S.-born woman of Mexican descent who possesses a sociopolitical consciousness of her status as a nonwhite, historically working-class woman living within the U.S. dominant culture. As with feminist women, Chicanas encompass diverse ideologies, and some Chicanas choose not to identify themselves as feminists. Other labels often used for Chicana women, such as Latina and Hispanic, may also be challenged and vehemently resisted by some Chicanas. Early Chicana Feminism Historical evidence has been documented to reveal women’s participation in revolutionary and political movements throughout Latin America even before the 20th century. What is known as Chicana feminism emerged out of several sociopolitical struggles in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, called the Chicano Movement, or El Movimiento. In response to social inequalities faced by Chicanos in the United States, ranging from inadequate funding of urban schools that served predominantly Chicanos, to what was viewed by the Chicano community as a disproportionate number of Chicano men being drafted and killed in the Vietnam War, to the struggles of Mexican farmworkers, led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, Chicana activism in these protest movements is evident. However, as Chicana activists in the Chicano Movement articulated in their emerging feminist consciousness, women’s lack of visibility and secondary leadership roles became a source of conflict among Chicano men and Chicana women within the movement. Early Chicana feminist thought within the movement largely critiqued the sexism of Chicano activists. While male Chicano activists protested both the racial and economic subordination of Chicano people, many Chicanos did not place gender as another mode of oppression that occurred alongside racial and economic oppression. Chicanas within the movement thus began to frame early components of Chicana feminism—a critique of what they viewed as an inherent contradiction of movement politics, which challenged racial and economic oppression yet reinforced traditional, unequal gender roles between women and men. This contradiction resulted in feelings of

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disillusionment and discontent with the Chicano Movement, leading some Chicana feminist activists to create gender-specific publications in the form of journals, magazines, and newsletters to provide an outlet for Chicana feminist discussions. Journals such as Regeneración and El Grito Del Norte featured writings by now well-known early Chicana feminists Anna Nieto-Gómez, Marta Cotera, and Enriqueta Longeaux y Vásquez, among others. However, even among early Chicana feminists, some crucial, ideological differences existed. For example, Anna Nieto-Gómez used labels such as “Loyalists” and “Feminists” to define what she saw as two strands of women activists in the movement. For Nieto-Gómez, a Loyalist was described as a Chicana who did not challenge the sexism of her male activist counterparts because of her belief that fighting sexism would distract or otherwise threaten the main purpose of the movement: racial and economic equality. Nieto-Gómez defined feminists as Chicanas like herself who believed that Chicana feminist thought could only strengthen the Chicano Movement and that fighting sexism faced by Chicanas both in the dominant culture and in Chicano culture was necessary in the liberation of all Chicano people. Another significant ideological difference began to resonate during the emergence of Chicana feminism— that of whether Chicanas should actively participate in the Women’s Movement, which advocated for an end to patriarchal oppression of women. Although some Chicana feminists believed that Chicanas could strengthen the Women’s Movement because of their unique experiences and backgrounds, many Chicana feminists resisted participation, choosing instead to align themselves with other women of color activists such as African American women and Native American women who were active in their own respective civil rights and protest movements. A major point of conflict for Chicana feminists and Women’s Movement feminists was the criticism made by many Chicanas that the Women’s Movement largely was dominated by college-educated, middle-class, Anglo women, and thus that this feminist discourse reflected narrow views held by this group of women. In addition, Chicana feminists such as Marta Cotera accused leaders of the Women’s Movement of being racist and classist and

ignoring the needs of women of color who faced other forms of oppression alongside gender oppression. Another early prominent Chicana feminist, Enriqueta Longeaux y Vásquez, declared in one writing that she was a “Chicana primero” (“Chicana first”), articulating a sentiment shared by some Chicana activists that their ethnic identity and loyalty took precedence over gender identity. Contemporary Challenges Chicana women’s critiques of the Women’s Movement, coupled with their discontent with the Chicano Movement, are fundamental components of Chicana feminism that are still practiced and theorized today. On the one hand, contemporary Chicana feminists challenge the universality of the term woman, which implies that all women are inherently the same, while simultaneously openly critiquing sexism or machismo within their own family units and culture. Chicana feminist thought emphasizes the impossibility of separating gender from social class, sexuality, and race. Chicana lesbian feminists have further challenged homophobic, heterosexist undertones of early Chicana feminists and contemporary feminists who frame a Chicana feminist discourse that marginalizes lesbians and the unique issues that affect them. The late Gloria Anzaldúa’s 1987 publication, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, is considered by most Chicana feminists and scholars to be a landmark in the field of Chicana Studies and contemporary feminist theory. This publication chronicles a historical, Chicana feminist account of “The New Mestiza,” a contemporary descendant of Mexican indigenous peoples and the Spanish conquistadores, who succeeded in conquering and colonizing most of present-day Latin America, including parts of the southwestern United States. Borderlands is written from Anzaldúa’s perspective as a Chicana, Tejana, feminist, lesbian woman who, according to the author, navigates on a daily basis the literal and symbolic borders constructed by the Mexican and dominant cultures. For Anzaldúa, the New Mestiza is a master at crossing and challenging these social borders by the very fact of her mestizaje, or mixed-culture heritage. A main component of the New Mestiza’s task, according to Anzaldúa, is her need to eradicate binaries of race, sexuality, and gender that perpetually imprison Chicana lesbians and other women of color.



Contemporary Chicana feminist writers such as Cherrie Moraga and Ana Castillo continue in Anzaldúa’s feminist tradition by constructing a Chicana feminist agenda that calls for resistance to and critique of the simultaneous modes of oppression that Chicanas face; namely, homophobia, racism, sexism, and classism. For Chicana feminism to be useful for contemporary Chicana women, according to feminists such as Moraga, Castillo, and others, there must be a fundamental understanding that there is no single, unified Chicana experience, but rather, feminism must acknowledge the diversity of women even within a single ethnic group such as Chicanas. In addition, the contemporary Chicana feminist writers Anzaldúa, Moraga, and Castillo have used the three maternal figures of the Mexican/Chicano culture, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Malintzin/ La Malinche, and La Llorona as focal points of revision. La Virgen de Guadalupe is considered to be the patron saint of Mexico and its descendants as a result of her appearance to a converted Mexican Indian in the 16th century on Tepeyac, just outside presentday Mexico City. La Malinche, as she is known today, was the indigenous translator and guide to Hernán Cortés and mother of his child—often regarded as the first mestizo child. La Llorona (“The Weeping Woman”) is the Mexican folkloric figure who, according to legend, drowned her children in a river and is thus heard and seen wandering near bodies of water, weeping and calling for her dead children. According to Chicana feminist writers, these three well-known cultural, historical, and mythic figures have been used by Mexican patriarchy to define women’s sexual and maternal behavior along the binary of good/bad, with La Virgen symbolizing a seemingly “perfect,” unattainable image, and La Malinche and La Llorona symbolizing the “bad,” traitorous, overly sexualized mothers. However, these maternal figures function for Chicana feminist writers as symbols of strength and survival—preeminent symbols of Chicana feminism. Rather than reinforce patriarchal interpretations of these three figures, contemporary Chicana feminists such as Anzaldúa, Moraga, Castillo, and others trace the pre-Columbian heritage of La Virgen and construct La Malinche and La Llorona as feminist mothers. Contemporary Chicana feminists have also theorized feminismo transfrontera (transnational femi-

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nism), defined by literary scholar Sonia Saldívar-Hull as a feminist consciousness that recognizes sociopolitical connections to women in Latin America. This feminist ideology uses examples of political, feminist movements led by Latin American women to demonstrate common struggles faced by Chicana and other Latina women living in the United States. See Also: Critical Race Feminism; Feminism, American; Working Mothers. Further Readings Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. García, Alma M., ed. Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. New York: Routledge, 1997. Saldívar-Hull, Sonia. Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Cristina Herrera California State Universite, Fresno

Chief Executive Officers, Female The 2000s have been an exciting time for women, as they have seen remarkable progress in a number of fields, professions, and jobs. The early years of the 21st century have seen an increase of women senators and governors, and women in other leadership positions in politics. Although many glass ceilings remain in place, others have begun to crumble, and this is certainly true in the corporate world. Compared with the beginning of the 1990s, when treating women differently than men was more acceptable, women began to close the wage gap. In one area of business in particular—that of the chief executive officer—women have made great strides, taking the helm of more major corporations than at any other time in American history. Much has changed since Katherine Graham of the Washington Post and Marion Sandler of Golden West Financial, in 1972 and 1973, respectively, broke the glass ceiling in the corporate world. At the end of 2009, there were a dozen large corporations that

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boasted a female chief executive officer. These women led many corporations such as Xerox, Pepsi, Western Union, Sara Lee, Kraft Foods, Avon, and Pearsons. Moreover, women have become a much more integral part of big business as globalization has rewritten the rules of American business. Historical Perspective Historically, women engaged in commerce have been relegated to domestic work, childrearing, and small, entrepreneurial enterprises. This was in step with then-current notions of “appropriate spheres” for men and women. The domestic arena was a woman’s domain, and men were supposed to handle the public sphere, including earning a paycheck, engaging in commerce, participating in politics, and anything else deemed to fall under this purview. There have been some notable exceptions to this exclusionary view: Estée Lauder, Madam C. J. Walker, and Martha Stewart are some of the most well-known businesswomen of the past 100 years. Their successes, however, tended to revolve around women’s issues. Despite the exclusion of women in all facets of business, using their wits and creativity, women have found ways to affect both business and politics. Toward the end of the 19th century, women, using the domestic sphere as a gateway into public affairs, began to exercise their political savvy in response to the inequality of the Gilded Age. Joining forces with liberal men in the Progressive Era, women such as Ida B. Wells, Margaret Sanger, and others agitated for prohibition, contraception, education, suffrage, and inclusion in the nation’s business community. Part of their concern was that, given the large numbers of Americans moving from rural communities to big metropolitan areas, women were being exploited. An ever-transforming America demanded that women take a more proactive role in the workplace. As young boys and men were drafted, or volunteered, for service in World War I, American industry was deprived of an adequate workforce. In response, women eagerly joined the war effort by leaving the home and entering the traditionally male-centered domain of wage labor. Once the war ended, women were expected by and large to return to the home, if possible, so the returning men could resume their “rightful” place as the wage earners and primary providers for the family. This continued into the World War II years. However,

this second war would forever change the dynamics of gender politics in the workplace. World War II brought hundreds of thousands of women into the workplace. The Allied powers’ fight against the Axis nations inspired not only the civil rights movement but the fight for women’s rights as well. Women were not all eager to return to domestic bliss following the war’s conclusion—indeed, the massive transformation of the American economy prompted women to reconsider their options. The daughters of these women—baby boomers—moved aggressively to seek full citizenship rights, and this second wave of feminism led countless women to enter the workforce. In addition, those women would not only aspire to become wage earners but also sought to climb the corporate ladder. By the 1960s, women entered American colleges and graduate and professionals schools in greater numbers than ever before. The civil rights movement, and the modern feminist movement’s imitation of it, spurred women not only to agitate for relief from sexism and second-class citizenship but also to seek an education and entrance into the corporate world. By adopting many of the tactics from the civil rights movement, by the end of the 1970s women were no longer relegated to positions such as clerical workers or domestic laborers or low-level wage earners. They were, rapidly, becoming doctors, lawyers, politicians, bankers, and businesswomen. Critical changes in both state and federal law encouraged these developments. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade sex discrimination, and 8 years later, in 1972, Title IX prohibited discrimination not only in the funding of women’s athletics but also in educational funding as a whole. Despite the backlash against women, and minorities in general, originating out of the rise of conservatism during the Reagan era, economic forces, personal need, and changing social norms provided for more opportunities for women to become a vital ingredient in the business world. Despite women’s growing importance, gender politics stymied efforts for equality in the workplace. Sexual harassment, disparities in pay—sometimes gross disparities—and resistance to full equality were among a few injustices women experienced in the workplace during the 1990s. In addition, legitimate social science research has shown that during the 1990s and the 2000s, although some aspects



of life have improved, women have to contend with more than workplace issues. Domestic issues, such as doing the majority of the household chores and the lion’s share of the parental responsibility, are often ascribed to the challenges facing women in the workforce. Staggering difficulties within both the workplace and the larger society have continued to create obstacles for women in the first decade of the 21st century. Nonetheless, there were notable differences and improved opportunities that provided hope for greater equality and success. The 2000s In 2000, women occupied the position of chief executive officer at three Fortune 500 companies, and nearly 100 Fortune 500 companies had no women with in their corporate ranks. In the years 2000 to 2010, the number of women heading major corporations reached a record high at 15 (in 2010). This level of progress was encouraging, but it helped obscure deeper problems associated with career advancement. For instance, some networking opportunities, which are critical to professional development and opportunity, often remained off-limits to women. Old habits and coarse behaviors, such as visiting strip clubs and trips to golf courses, often deprived women of opportunities to further professional ambitions by enforcing a male-oriented environment. Sexism is a factor that has continued to relegate women to the lower rungs of the corporate structure, and those who did succeed in reaching the highest ranks in the business world all too often did so while leaping over immense obstacles. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, as of 2008, women aged 16 years and older made up more than 72 million workers or persons searching for work. Further, although women made up nearly 48 percent of the workforce—a number projected to reach more than 50 percent by the end of the second decade of the 21st century—the most prominent occupations for women continue to be secretaries and administrative assistants; registered nurses; elementary and middle school teachers; cashiers; retail salespersons; nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides; first-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers; waiters and waitresses; receptionists and information clerks; and bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, according to statistics from the Labor Department. At the same time, however, the Labor Department’s

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statistics demonstrate that women “accounted for 51 percent of all workers in the high-paying management, professional, and related occupations.” This was encouraging news, as if women were not assuming the highest positions in the corporate world, they were at least making serious headway in tearing down the glass ceilings that had historically held them back. Several women have been able to achieve stunning success in the world of business. Martha Stewart turned her popular ideas into a multimedia empire during the 2000s. Although she had been a household name as far back as the late 1980s, her professional interests greatly accelerated during the early 2000s. A former stockbroker, Stewart was able to parlay a small catering business that she started in 1972 into a huge conglomerate comprising television programs, publishing, a magazine, the Internet, merchandising, and public relations. Her company, Martha Stewart Living Omni media, went public in 1999 to great fanfare. Another woman who has enjoyed even greater success is the undisputed leader of daytime television, Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey has dominated her field for more than 25 years. Similar to Stewart, Winfrey has created an entertainment and media empire that includes her iconic television show, a magazine, multiple business investments, a presence on the Internet, a production company, and a plethora of other interests. She is arguably the most powerful and wealthiest woman in the history of the United States. So great is her influence that Winfrey was able to provide a major boost to presidential candidate Barack Obama in his then seemingly quixotic run for the White House. As an African American woman in business, where there are few contemporaries or equals, Winfrey has transcended both race and class in a way few others can. Other female chief executive officers have also built incredible careers through hard work, luck, and tenacity. One noteworthy example is Carly Fiorina, formerly the chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard. During her reign she proved that women can be just as tough, smart, and successful as any man. Fiorina began her career in 1980 with AT&T, then moving to Lucent, becoming a rising star. As a result of her efforts, Hewlett-Packard hired her to become its chief executive officer and chairman in 1999. Her tenure was tumultuous because of declining share prices and internal disagreements with key figures over the

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direction of the company, but her six years at the helm of Hewlett-Packard demonstrated the importance of increasing the number of female chief executive officers at other companies that had been long considered male-centric. In 2009, America had its first African American female Fortune 500 chief executive officer when Ursula Burns was named chief executive officer of Xerox. In fact, she had been preceded by another woman, Anne Mulcahy, who had retired the same year. Although white and Asian women have had greater success in climbing the corporate ladder, black women and other women of color have had greater difficulty in reaching the highest rungs of the corporate world. Racism, sexism, and lack of opportunity have conspired to limit the potential of these women. Burns’s rise was a major breakthrough for women of color. After 30 years with Xerox, Burns is considered a success, and Xerox appears to be thriving heading into the next decade. Conclusion These profiles are of just a few of the most prominent women in business. Despite changing social norms, greater enforcement of the laws and acceptable rules of behavior, and more opportunities, women remain woefully behind their male counterparts in reaching the pinnacle of corporate power and influence. Too often many women are relegated to “women’s work,” excluded from networking and business opportunities, and subjected to a double standard in the workplace that criticizes them both for being unfeminine if they are tough and overly emotional if they are not stoic. It has been for many women a catch-22 situation. Although there is considerable room for growth, the first decade of the 21st century has delivered a glimmer of hope for the cause of gender parity in the corporate world. See Also: Glass Ceiling; Politics, Gender; Women in the Workplace. Further Readings Fortune. “Fortune 500 Women CEOs.” Fortune (April 7, 2010). http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010 /fortune/1004/gallery.fortune500_women_ceos .fortune/index.htmll (accessed April 2010). Gunelius, Susan. “New U.S. Women in Business Statistics Released by Catalyst.” October 27, 2009. http://www

.womenonbusiness.com/new-us-women-in-business -statistics-released-by-catalyst (accessed April 2010). U.S. Department of Labor. “Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2008.” Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Government Printing Office, 2009. Daryl A. Carter East Tennessee State University

Child Abuse, Perpetrators of Child abuse is a relational disorder. Physical abuse and neglect most often occur during childhood transitional periods, such as the postnatal period, early childhood and early adolescence, which are often marked by family instability. The dynamic influence of stress related to social and economic deprivation also affects the risk for child abuse. Sexual abuse is influenced by family factors and stress. However, unlike physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse is premeditated. General Characteristics of Perpetrators Intergenerational transmission of child abuse is common but not inevitable. Though estimates vary, approximately 30 percent of parents who were abused and neglected in childhood will victimize their own children, with the likelihood of abuse increasing with the severity of the parents’ own maltreatment in childhood. There tends to be a type-to-type correspondence for transmission of child abuse to the next generation; that is, the physically abused are more likely to physically abuse, and parents who were neglected as children are more likely to neglect. Parents who abuse alcohol and other drugs are nearly three times as likely to abuse their children and more than four times as likely to neglect their children than other parents. Parents who abuse drugs and alcohol often grew up in homes where their parents abused alcohol and drugs. The effects of alcohol and drug use in contributing to child abuse are intensified by the parent’s underlying personality traits. People who become drug abusers tend to share a range of similar personality traits, some that contribute to their likelihood of addiction. Such traits include low frustration tolerance, impulsive behav-



ior, self-centeredness, emotional isolation, feelings of inadequacy and emotional deprivation, as well as depression. These traits can negatively affect parenting capacities. Substance-abusing caregivers tend to spend relatively little time engaged with and supervising their children, and they are prone to feeling dissatisfied as parents. When they do interact, drugabusing mothers are likely to engage with their children less sensitively, showing a lack of empathy or reflection. Substance-abusing parents are particularly difficult to engage in treatment, which results in a higher instance of child abuse. Less than a tenth of parents who abuse their children suffer from a severe psychiatric disorder (e.g., paranoid schizophrenia). However, perpetrators are more likely to suffer from personality disorders or depression, and to have a history of learning difficulties or mild mental disability that interferes with their caregiving abilities. Biological children of parents with heritable psychiatric disorders may have an elevated genetic vulnerability for developing mental illness and therefore may be particularly susceptible to the effects of abusive or neglectful parenting. When a psychiatric illness is present, better insight into one’s psychiatric condition is associated with more sensitive mothering behavior and lower risk for child abuse. Clear insight into a psychiatric disorder can lead to a better recognition of signs of relapse, better acceptance of treatment and overall improved outcome. In contrast, mothers with major mental illness who have unrealistic expectations of maternal caregiving relationships are at greater risk for child abuse. This is especially true when children are expected to provide a parent with support and comfort. Though not a common mental disorder, Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a condition where the relationship between parent psychopathology and child maltreatment is perhaps the most obvious. This is a form of child abuse in which a parent, usually the mother, fabricates the existence of illness in her child (usually under the age of 6) by either inducing the actual illness or exaggerating existing symptoms. There is a 30 to 60 percent overlap between child abuse and domestic violence in families. More physical abuse and domestic violence is reported in families where fathers abuse drugs or alcohol and where fathers have been arrested or convicted of offenses related

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to nondomestic violence than in families where this is not the case. Child neglect and domestic violence occurs more in single-parent households than in families where parents are unmarried in families where fathers are not biologically related to all children, and in families where mothers have a history of drug and alcohol abuse and/or mental health problems. Most research focuses on the male as the perpetrator of violence against women and children, which is a typical pattern. However, some research suggests that female victims of domestic violence are sometimes the perpetrators of child abuse. Women who are victims of domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their children physically than women who are not abused. It has been suggested that since mothers of domestic violence are fearful of their partners, they redirect their anger toward their children by overdisciplining them in an effort to control behavior and protect them from what they perceive as greater abuse from their partner. There is also evidence that children in families of domestic violence are more likely to be neglected, perhaps because mothers give all their attention to the abusive partner to appease and control the level of violence. It’s interesting to note that in families where severe domestic violence occurs, more mothers show a lack of responsibility for the supervision of children, and fathers physically abuse their children less often since the father’s focus for violence was directed toward the mother. Specific Characteristics of Physically Abusive Parents Parents are the primary perpetrators of most physical child abuse. Physical abusers of very young children are more likely to be mothers, while abusers of older children are predominately, though not exclusively, thought to be fathers. Single parents are more likely to physically abuse, although it is possible that this statistic is not a function of raising children alone but rather a function of the high rates of poverty and stress in such families. Typically, physically abusive parents have difficulty controlling their anger, demonstrate hostility and rigidity, have a lack of tolerance with frustration, exhibit low self-esteem, rarely show empathy, and engage in substance abuse. They also have unrealistic expectations for and negative perceptions of their

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children. They view parenting as stressful and dissatisfying and exhibit a number of deficits in child management skills. Physical abusers are more likely to live in dangerous interpersonal, family, and community environments. For example, the probability that a mother will physically abuse her children is associated with three predictors of decreasing importance: being assaulted by her own mother as a child, living with an abusive partner, and having previously lived with an abusive partner. Perpetrators of physical abuse on children tend to be physiologically hyper-responsive to childrelated stimuli. For example, comparisons reveal that although both abusive and nonabusive mothers respond to a crying infant with increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure and skin conductance, abusive mothers display greater increases in heart rate. In addition, only abusive mothers showed the same increased physiological reaction in response to a smiling infant, suggesting that abusive parents may view their children as stressful and aversive, regardless of how the children behave. It may be that the heightened physiological reaction influences the way the parent cognitively processes or perceives the child’s behavior or the way a parent subsequently reacts to a child. Specific Characteristics of Neglectful Parents Parents are the primary perpetrators of child neglect, with mothers significantly more likely than fathers. However, it is not uncommon in two-parent families for only mothers to be labeled neglectful. These results may reflect the general social attitude that mothers, more so than fathers, are seen as responsible for meeting the needs of their children. Single-parent homes and homes where mothers have a greater number of children during their teen years are considerably higher for neglect. Severe developmental delays of parents also have been thought to contribute to child neglect. Parents who are physically neglectful tend to be socially isolated, suffer from pervasive emotional numbness, feelings of hopelessness, and a sense of futility and apathy. This invariably leads to a caregiving environment that is characterized by both material and emotional poverty. Indeed, neglectful mothers report greater depressive symptoms, impulsive behav-

ior, low self-esteem, little empathy, and parental stress at higher levels than do non-neglectful mothers. Neglectful parents are typically unresponsive to the child’s needs or distress and they lack emotional involvement with their child. These parents generally interact less with their children; when they do interact, their interactions are less positive. They engage in less verbal instruction, show less nonverbal affection and empathy, and exhibit little warmth with their children. There also is evidence that neglectful parents behave negatively with their children, issuing commands and engaging in verbal aggression. Specific Characteristics of Sexual Abusers The age of perpetrators of sexual abuse varies widely, although most develop deviant interests prior to 18 years of age. The majority of perpetrators are male, and they represent all ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups. Most child sex offenders know their victims, whether inside or outside of the family. Perpetrators may have experienced abuse in their lives, observed or been aware of abuse of other family members. In addition, perpetrators of sexual abuse often lack the social skills and interpersonal intimacy required for the development of empathy, possibly contributing to sexually abusive behavior. As a group, these offenders are more likely to have significant social and relationship problems, including social isolation; difficulty forming close, trusting relationships; low self-esteem; and emotional immaturity. Sexual predators typically suffer from various personality disorders related to immaturity and interpersonal adjustment. Sexual offenders of children usually meet the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV) criteria for pedophilia, defined as sexual activity or sexually arousing fantasies involving a prepubescent child (generally 13 years of age or younger) by someone who is at least 16 years old and a minimum of five years older than the child. Some pedophiles are sexually attracted only to children (exclusive type); and others are also attracted to adults (nonexclusive type). Persons who commit pedophilia may limit their activities to incest involving their own children, stepchildren or other relatives, or they may victimize children outside their families. Sexual offenders seldom resort to violence nor do they force a child’s compliance; rather, they are attentive to the child’s needs and strive to gain the child’s



affection and loyalty, reducing the chances that the victim will report the sexual advances. Sexual activity typically only takes place after a period of “grooming,” with a gradual indoctrination. This behavior highlights that sexual offenders of children are sophisticated and calculating. Although a minority of women have been identified as perpetrators, this phenomenon may be more common than data suggests due to lack of reporting. Only recently has research been directed toward women who sexually abuse children; in the past, it was not believed that women would behave in this way toward children. This view is reflected in the low rates of sexual abuse by women in official statistics. Female abusers commit all types of sexual offenses, including noncontact and exploitive acts, against children of all ages. There may be parallels between the age of her victims and the age at which the offender was abused. Females appear most likely to abuse a child known to them, often from their immediate family. There is some evidence that suggests mothers commit sexual abuse toward girls less often than toward boys. Other types of child abuse, particularly physical abuse or neglect, coexist when females sexually abuse, especially if the abuser is in a major caregiving role. When mothers engage in sexual abuse with their children, they may be able to disguise abusive acts as childcare, as it is likely to be subtle and difficult to distinguish from routine caregiving practices. For example, mothers are more likely to engage in acts that are less likely to be reported, such as fondling, sleeping with the child, caressing him or her in a sexual way and, in the case of incest between mothers and sons, exposing her own body and keeping the child tied to her emotionally with implied promises of sexual payoff. Women may be more likely to sexually offend with a male. Some of these women are coerced by men into sexually abusing children and may be victims themselves. However, the extent of male coercion of female offenders is unclear, as women also abuse in the absence of a male offender. Some women may seek out men with whom they can sexually abuse children. There is a very small number of women who sexually abuse children while in a psychotic or disassociated state, typically those diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

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See Also: Domestic Violence; Pedophilia Online; Sex Offenders, Female; Sex Offenders, Male. Further Readings Banks, Heather and Steve Boehm. “Substance Abuse and Child Abuse.” Child Welfare League of America: Children’s Voice Article (September 2001). Corby, Brian. Child Abuse: Towards a Knowledge Base, 3rd ed. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2006. Ford, Hanna. Women Who Sexually Abuse Children. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2006. Hartley, Carolyn Copps. “The Co-Occurrence of Child Maltreatment and Domestic Violence: Examining Both Neglect and Child Physical Abuse.” Child Maltreatment, v.7/4 (2002). Hartley, Carolyn Copps. “Severe Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment: Considering Child Physical Abuse, Neglect and Failure to Protect.” Child and Youth Services Review, v.26 (2004). Howe, David. Child Abuse and Neglect: Attachment, Development, and Intervention. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Jimseok, Tim. “Type Specific Intergenerational Transmission of Neglectful and Physically Abusive Parenting Behaviours Among Young Parents.” Child and Youth Services Review, v.31/7 (2009). Saradjian, Jacqueli and Helga Hanks. Women Who Sexually Abuse Children: From Research to Clinical Practice, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 1996. Denise Vallance York University

Child Abuse, Victims of The term battered child syndrome was first used in the 1960s to describe physical child abuse. At that time, it was believed that this phenomenon applied to a minor portion of the population. In 2006, substantiated child abuse victims ranged from 9.7 to 12.1 in North America. Child neglect accounts for almost two-thirds (65 percent) of all documented cases of child abuse in the United States followed by physical abuse (16 percent) and sexual abuse (9 percent). Psychological abuse is not looked at individually as it is central to all child abuse.

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General Characteristics of Victims of Child Abuse Children living below the poverty line are at the greatest risk for child abuse. Physical is 12 times more common in poor families, while neglect is up to 18 times more common in poor families. In contrast, the incidence of sexual abuse occurs among all strata of society. Incidents of abuse related to racial differences are believed to be a function of the disproportionate impact of poverty, stress and disadvantaged minority children and their families. Indeed, children of African American, American Indian, and Alaskan Native descent, as well as children of multiple races have the highest rates of victimization compared to children from Caucasian and Hispanic families. Family structure also plays a role in child abuse. Children from single-parent families are twice as likely to be abused compared to children who live with two parents. Children living with only a father are more at risk for physical abuse than those living with only a mother. Children of reconstituted families also are at a higher risk for abuse. Vulnerable children also may be at greater risk for abuse. An association has been found between maltreatment and birth complications, such as low birth rate and premature birth. As well, children who are chronically ill, behaviorally and/or emotionally disordered, or who have physical or developmental disabilities (or multiple disabilities) also are at greater risk. Children with disabilities pose higher emotional, physical, economic, and social demands on their families, which may increase the risk of abuse by caregivers with limited, social or community support. Children with disabilities are considered easy targets because their impaired communication skills may prevent them from disclosing abuse. Studies to date have been unable to assess the extent or rate of abuse among children with disabilities or to determine whether disabilities were present before the abuse or were the direct result of maltreatment. While children of all ages can be victims of abuse, younger children are the most common victims of physical abuse and neglect. Nearly half of all physically abused children are under the age of 8. Half of reported child neglect victims are under 5 years of age, the majority being under just 1 year of age. Children in these age ranges appear to be the most vulnerable and suffer the most significant consequences, such as

“failure to thrive,” which is a condition characterized by a cessation in growth. Serious injuries and fatalities from neglect also are more common for younger children than for older children. In North America, roughly, a one-third of neglected children eventually die from neglect. Sexual abuse is more common among older age groups (over the age of 12). Overall, the rate of victimization declines with increasing age except for sexual abuse. In most forms of child abuse, boys and girls are almost equally affected. With sexual abuse, though, girls account for the majority of reported victims. Experts believe, however, that boys may be abused more often than data indicates because boys appear to be less likely to report sexual abuse. Boys and girls are both more likely to be abused by someone they know and trust than by a stranger. Short-Term Outcomes for Victims of Child Abuse Children who experience abuse are more likely than their nonabused peers to exhibit myriad of physical, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional problems during childhood, which puts them at risk for continued challenges in adolescence and adulthood. The increased severity and duration of abuse as well as the exposure to multiple forms of abuse increases the likelihood of a more negative outcome for children from the time of abuse to adulthood. The persistence of childhood difficulties into adulthood may contribute to the intergenerational transmission of abusive behavior. In the last 20 years, evidence in the area of neuroscience has revealed how the emotional trauma associated with child abuse can negatively impact brain growth and development, which can result in enduring delays in all aspects of child development. Children who experience the stress of physical or sexual abuse focus their brains’ resources on survival and on responding to threats in their environment. Children who endure the chronic stress of neglect (e.g., remaining hungry, cold, scared, or in pain) will divert their brains’ resources to survival mode. Chronic activation of certain parts of the brain involved in the fear response, such as the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis, means that other regions of the brain, such as those involved in complex thought, cannot be activated and become unavailable to



the child for learning, which impedes the development of cognitive and social skills. Chronic activation of the HPA axis also can affect a child’s general functioning and health since it regulates metabolism, immunity, and memory. Early experiences of trauma can interfere with the development of the subcortical and limbic systems, which can result in extreme anxiety, depression, and difficulty forming relationships with other people. There are a number of adaptive mental and physical responses to trauma, most notably physiological hyperarousal and dissociation. When a child is exposed to chronic traumatic stress, his or her brain creates physiological, emotional, and behavioral patterns of the fear response where the response becomes almost automatic. This reaction takes the form of hyperarousal or dissociation. When the brain has adapted to a world that is unpredictable and dangerous, in response, the child may become hyperaroused and focused on threatening nonverbal cues or the child may tune out and withdraw into a dissociative shell. While this adaptation may be necessary for survival in a hostile world, it can become a behavioral pattern that is difficult to change even if the environment improves. Hyperarousal response is associated with symptoms of hyperactivity, anxiety, impulsive acts, and sleep problems, while dissociative response is associated with inattention, anxiety and depression. Hyperarousal is most common in older children and in males, and forms of dissociation are more common among younger children and females. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common short-term symptom of trauma related to child abuse. With this condition, the victim experiences intense emotion and helplessness due to confrontation with events that involved the threat of death to self or others. Recently, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) was recognized by the psychiatric community as a condition that results from chronic exposure to extremes of social and/or personal trauma, such as cases of long-term child abuse. Specifically, C-PTSD is thought to arise from a prolonged state of victimization where the person is held in a state of captivity, either physically or emotionally, with no means for escape. While PTSD may be temporary, symptoms of C-PTSD may continue for years. Most children with C-PTSD may meet the criteria for an array of childhood psychiatric disorders.

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Each disorder reflects a limited aspect of the traumatized child’s complex self-regulation and interpersonal impairments. Long-Term Outcomes for Victims of Child Abuse Problems related to C-PTSD (behavioral, physiological, and neuroendocrinological) may extend from childhood through adolescence into adulthood. Complex trauma exposure results in a loss of the core capacities of self-regulation and interpersonal relatedness leading to lifelong problems, specifically, those that place them at risk for further trauma exposure and other physical and psychological issues. These issues can include relationship problems, revictimization, sexual adjustment, health issues, criminal activity, addictive behaviors, chronic mental illness, and suicide. Both childhood physical abuse and neglect negatively affect the ability of females and males to establish and maintain healthy intimate relationships in adulthood, and both genders report higher rates of cohabitation versus marriage, abandonment, and divorce rates compared to those who have not suffered abuse. Abused and neglected females are also less likely than other females to have positive perceptions of current romantic partners and to be sexually faithful. In general terms, adolescents and adults with a history of physical abuse and exposure to domestic violence between parents are at increased risk of developing interpersonal problems related to their own acts of aggression and violence. Childhood victimization leads to increased vulnerability for subsequent revictimization in adolescence and adulthood. Abused and neglected individuals report a higher number of traumas and victimization experiences than nonabused individuals and are at increased risk for lifetime revictimization. Childhood victimization specifically increases risk of physical and sexual assault/abuse, kidnapping/stalking, and having a family friend murdered or commit suicide. Adult survivors of sexual abuse may be unable to recognize potentially dangerous situations and persons or to know how to respond to unwanted sexual or physical attention. Consequently, both boys and girls who are sexually abused are more likely to fall victim to further trauma and violence, such as rape and domestic violence, during adulthood.

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Women with histories of childhood sexual abuse are more likely to experience difficulties related to sexual adjustment, such as low sexual arousal, intrusive flashbacks, confusion about their sexuality, disturbing sensations and feelings of guilt, anxiety and low self-esteem, as well as dissociation. Distorted views about the body and sexuality, which are common among women who have been sexually abused, can put them at risk for rape, eating disorders, poor physical healthcare, and physically self-destructive behaviors. While sexualized behaviors are more common in younger abused children (under 12 years of age), they can emerge during adolescence or young adulthood in the form of promiscuity, prostitution, sexual aggression, and victimization of others. Child abuse victims are more likely to suffer from physical illnesses in adulthood, such as irritable bowl syndrome, arthritis, immune deficiency disorders, heart disease, and cancer. This was seen when other risk factors, such as drinking, smoking, inactivity, and poor social economic status, as well as childhood stressors such as divorce and early poverty, were ruled out as potential causes. It has been suggested that abused children are prone to abnormal levels of cortisone, a fight-or-flight hormone that helps the body deal with stressful situations, which can impact a person’s overall health. History of child abuse also is related to criminal activity in adolescence and adulthood. People who have experienced any type of child abuse (i.e., physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect) are more likely to be arrested as juveniles compared to their nonabused peers. The same pattern continues into adulthood. Individuals with histories of physical abuse and neglect are more likely to commit a violent crime, significantly more so for women—this relationship was barely significant for men. When examining the risk for sex crimes in particular, after all rates of abuse and neglect were combined, the odds of committing a sex crime were two times greater for abused victims than for nonvictims. However, when looking at each type of abusive background, only those who suffered physical abuse and neglect exhibited an increase in sex crime behavior, while those with sexual abuse backgrounds did not. This finding was consistent across both genders. As many as two-thirds of patients in treatment for drug abuse report that they were repeatedly physi-

cally or sexually abused during childhood. When women are victims of both types of abuse, they are twice as likely to abuse drugs as individuals who experienced only one type of abuse. Female drug users, in particular, show much higher rates of PTSD related to childhood abuse than do males who abuse drugs. Women who were raped, especially before the age of 17, are dramatically more likely to abuse drugs than are women who are not victims. These women are significantly more likely to have used “hard core” drugs such as cocaine and heroin. There is a significant association of reported child abuse and the later diagnosis of a range of psychiatric disorders (anxiety disorder, depression); and personality disorders (borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder); as well as disorders including psychosis (schizophrenia). Finally, both individuals reporting childhood physical abuse and/or childhood sexual abuse showed an increased number of lifetime suicide attempts while taking into account such factors as age, gender, psychiatric history, and family psychiatric disorder. See Also: Child Abuse, Perpetrators of; Domestic Violence; Health, Mental and Physical; Poverty; Suicide Rates. Further Readings Colman, Rebecca and Cathy Widom. “Childhood Abuse and Neglect and Adult Intimate Relationships: A Perspective Study.” Child Abuse and Neglect, v.28/11(2004). Corby, Brian. Child Abuse: Towards a Knowledge Base, 3rd ed. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2006. Draper, B., et al. “Long-Term Effects of Childhood Abuse on the Quality of Life and Health of Older People: Results From the Depression and Early Prevention of Suicide in General Practice Project.” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, v.56/2 (2008). Herman, Judith Lewis. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Howe, David. Child Abuse and Neglect: Attachment, Development, and Intervention. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Miller-Perrin, Cindy and Robin Perrin, eds. Child Maltreatment: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007.

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Widon, Cathy. “Victimization and Lifetime ReVictimization.” Child Abuse and Neglect, v.32/8 (2008). Denise Vallance York University

Child Labor Child labor is notoriously difficult to define. Largely, the term child labor differs from the term child work. The first term encompasses harmful work, and the second, work done without damaging consequences upon children. The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) defines work in terms of “economic activity.” It covers all market production (paid work) and certain types of nonmarket production (unpaid work), including production of goods for ones own use. Inside this larger concept of “economically active children,” the ������������ United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defined distinctions among “child work” (light work), “child labor,” and “worst forms of child labor.” The first category, “child work” or “light work,” is considered to be “children’s participation in economic activity that does not negatively affect their health and development or interfere with education, and which can be positive.” This category acknowledges that not all work is detrimental to children, and that, to a certain extent, work can be regarded as “a right” not to be denied to children. The International Labour Organization (ILO) permits light work from the age of 13. The second category used by UNICEF is “child labor,” which refers to “all children below 12 years of age working in any economic activities, those aged 12 to 14 years engaged in harmful work, and all children engaged in the worst forms of child labor.” The third category, “worst forms of child labor,” refers to children being enslaved, forcibly recruited, prostituted, trafficked, forced into illegal activities, and exposed to hazardous work. The major international documents regulating child labor are the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the ILO Convention No. 138 on the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment and Work (1973), and the ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor (1999).

A young girl works a loom in Morocco. Girls make up 46 percent of child laborers worldwide.

The highest prevalence of child labor is in subSaharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America. Child labor has largely been eradicated in the developed world, although isolated evidence shows that there is no country free of child labor. In the most industrialized countries, migrant children are at increased risk of early entry into work that is concealed from public scrutiny. Limitations of the Official Definitions Different measures have been created to measure the degree of harm produced by various types of work. The ILO has been at the forefront in proposing standards to account for the duration of work, the physical and social circumstances of a working environment, age, presence of parental consent, and so forth. Arguably, many of these criteria are not completely transferable to the circumstances children work in. This situation has lead G. K. Lieten, a leading figure in the social research of child labor, to argue that it is not the form of the labor relation, nor the type of

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activity that defines child labor, but rather “the effect the activity has on the child.” The above distinctions are also difficult to apply universally because societies define detrimental consequences in different ways, and one cannot draw a clear line between “beneficial” and “harmful” consequences without attracting cultural and methodological criticism. According to Ben White, there is a continuum between light work and work that is harmful. Standardized delimitations have been charged for endorsing a Western cultural model of childhood that disregard the variety of living circumstances across the globe. The IPEC classification typically excludes activities that are not based on market production as noneconomic. This situation contributes to poor documentation of the domestic work undertaken by girls. Gender Disaggregated Statistical Estimates In 2004, there were 317 million economically active children aged 5 to 17, of whom 218 million were child laborers. Of the latter, 126 million were engaged in hazardous work. The number of child laborers globally fell by 11 percent since 2002. The steepest decline was within the 5 to 14 age group and in the worst forms of child labor. Geographically, Latin America and the Caribbean are the regions with the highest decreases. Sub-Saharan Africa is at the other extreme, according to ILO statistics. The ILO also estimates that girls make up 46 percent of all child laborers in the world, with more than 100 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 being child laborers. The majority are between 5 and 11 years old, and outnumber male counterparts in this specific age group. The proportion changes in older age groups, when girls become more involved in less visible domestic work. Worldwide, girls make up 42 percent of all children in hazardous work. About 53 million girls are in the worst forms of child labor; an equal number of boys and girls (20 millions) between 5 to 11 years old are exposed to work that threatens their health. Limitations of Data Collection There are several gender distortions in the very way the data is collected and in the way the concept of work is defined. The definition of employment used by the ILO does not include household chores, and thus, statistical

data on girls’ work are severely underestimated. When working inside their households, girls’ work is difficult to measure, even with more refined instruments. It does not fit particular time lines, it may be combined with leisure and other activities and not perceived as work, or it may be undertaken in the company of other family members who may receive the credit for it. The household chores themselves may be viewed as anything but work (e.g., as gender socialization or play). When working in households other than their own, female domestic workers may remain unaccounted for because of their ambivalent status as neither family members nor employees. From a feminist perspective, girls’ domestic work replicates the devaluation of female work. Reliable data on girls doing the worst forms of child labor are difficult to gather. The ILO admits that the typical method of data collection using household surveys is unable to capture the apparently large proportion of girls exploited in commercial sex, forced labor, trafficking, armed conflict, and illicit activities. Rapid assessment methods are currently used to study hard to reach populations. What Types of Work Do Girls Do? Despite the international attention toward children’s work in factories and workshops, most children, boys and girls, work in agriculture: cultivating their family’s land, or for other owners, including corporate farms. From the ages of 5 to 14, there are 10 percent fewer girls than boys working in agriculture. Yet, girls are more likely to work in the informal sector as domestic workers and in trade. Domestic work for an employer is considered a worst form of child labor, as it exposes girls to major risks. These may include psychological and sexual abuse, food and sleep deprivation, work with hazardous chemicals and tools, economic exploitation, deprivation of the right to education, family life, and leisure. The psychological consequences of domestic work remain underestimated and difficult to evaluate longitudinally. They may include poor self-image and burnout that may later hinder girls’ capacity to raise their own families. Isolation from family, debt and bondage, class differences, and lack of alternatives increase girls’ risks of exploitation and abuse. In many circumstances, giving up domestic work means entry into prostitution. Because of their physical and social isolation and of the socially accept-



ability of domestic work, girls are difficult to reach during interventions. Rrecent interest in child soldiers ignored the fact that many girls were also taking part in armed conflicts: not only as “wives” or sexual slaves of adult combatants, but also as fighters, intelligence officers, spies, porters, medics, and slave laborers. According to 2005 UNICEF research, girls were a part of various armed opposition forces in 55 countries; government, and were actively involved in armed conflict in 38 of those countries between 1990 and 2003. They may become targets for abduction during armed conflict, be given into armed service by their parents as “tax payment” (Colombia or Cambodia) or “choose” to become part of an armed group in order to protect their family or because of the severe risks they are exposed to outside the military services. Psychological traumas, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and stigmatization because of mothering “war babies” following rape are several underestimated consequences. Risk Factors of Early Entry Into Work There are several economic and sociological theories explaining children’s early entry into work. This may occur because of the low income of otherwise altruist parents, the dysfunctional credit markets, and the lower payoffs of going to school for girls (especially those belonging to a marginalized race, ethnicity, or caste). Birth order has also been considered a risk factor. Recent research shows that the importance of poverty has been overestimated, when in fact, factors like capability deprivation and low quality of schooling are also important. Poverty may be responsible for sustaining discriminatory cultural practices such as bonded child labor and early marriage. Child labor is maintained and legitimized by the subsistence nature of agriculture and the (deliberate) use of undeveloped technologies, or the“nimble fingers” theory. Girls have poor bargaining power, and parents perceive the economic returns of their education as being low. School may be part of the risk side of the child labor problem when it is situated at a distance, overcrowded and insecure for girls, not free, and when it excludes, discriminates, or abuses some groups. Nevertheless, many children combine schooling with work, an aspect often ignored in pol-

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icy research. Lower penalties and poor chances of being detected if involved in criminal activities are also responsible for the continuation of child labor. Consequences of Child Labor Child labor may interfere with the rights to education and leisure, and may affect physical and social development. In the long run, working children are more likely to be poor, socially excluded, to undertake physical and poorly paid jobs, and to have child laborers themselves. The ���������������������� World Health Organization (WHO) has documented the immediate and long-term health consequences of child labor, such as injuries, skin infections, burns, poisoning, chronic lung disease, cancers, or skeletal deformities. The psychological consequences of girls’ work are rarely studied. Besides, even existing evidence is rarely based on longitudinal surveys from developing countries, but is deduced either from surveys carried out within adult population or with children from developed countries. Interventions Addressing Child Labor In developed societies, fair-trade policies and campaigns targeting public’s moral complicity in purchasing products made with child labor are increasingly visible. In developing countries, poverty reduction strategies via public services and pro-poor policies are proposed. Additionally, there are several school attendance incentive schemes: “food for school programmes” in Kenya, Brazil, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Bolsa Escola in Brazil, Progressa or Oportunidades in Mexico, and PETI in Brazil and Portugal. Cash transfer programs may consider the gender discrepancies in education and may provide higher monthly allowances for girls’ attendance. Flexible schooling programs and remedial schooling schemes (e.g., residential bridge camps in India) are local interventions based on nonformal education principles. Yet, schooling and fair-trade policies are questionably a panacea, especially when structural economic conditions are not met. Recent Debates on Child Labor “Child labor” has been blamed for being adultocratic and an expression of “Western ethnocentricity,” imposing a bourgeois vision of childhood on other cultures. It is under these circumstances that ideas on children’s

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right to work have been advanced, according to Manfred Liebel. Beyond this, children-led social movements and trade unions have begun to articulate their need to be protected both during and away from work. See Also: Domestic Workers; Fair Trade; Microcredit; Sex Workers; Unpaid Labor. Further Readings Emerson, P. and A. P. Souza. “Birth Order, Child Labor, and School Attendance in Brazil.” World Development, v.36/9 (2008). Hindman, H. D., ed. The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2009. International Labour Organization (ILO). “Assessing The Gender Gap: Evidence From SIMPOC Surveys.” Geneva: ILO, 2009. International Labour Organization (ILO). “The End of Child Labor: Within Reach. Global Report Under the Follow-Up to the International Labour Organization Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.” Geneva: ILO, 2006. Liebel, M. A Will of Their Own. Cross Cultural Perspectives on Working Children. London: Zed Books, 2004. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “The State of the World’s Children 2005. Childhood Under Threat.” Geneva: UNICEF, 2005. Maria-Carmen Pantea Babeş Bolyai University

Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital Wherever both home birth and hospital birth are possible, the decision of which to choose is limited by various physical, psychological, social, and economic factors. Around the world, most women give birth at home or in other nonhospital settings, preserving generational knowledge and family responsibility. Better nutrition, hygiene, and disease control over the last century have improved overall birth outcomes for mother and baby. In the developed world, home birth is increasingly common but not the norm. In deciding to elect a home birth, the risk of possible complica-

tions is typically offset by trust in the woman’s ability to give birth and her intuition, confidence in the attending midwife or homebirth practitioner, physical and intellectual preparation, and confidence in a supportive partner. Some of the reasons women may seek to give birth outside of a hospital include the ability to birth naturally (often with faster labors and recoveries), desire for freedom of movement, comfort of the home, control of their bodies and environment, family support, partner/spouse support and presence, relationship with a homebirth practitioner who has given birth herself and understands birth from a woman’s perspective, continuity of care, and being with and caring for other children as required. For healthy women at low risk for complications, home birth with a skilled birth attendant is safe. Rates of resuscitation, infection, and respiratory distress in infants are higher for hospital births. Interventions, including induction of labor, anesthesia, forceps deliveries, and caesarean (C-) section are less frequent in women who chose a home birth and problems such as vaginal tearing or hemorrhaging are less likely. Studies comparing planned home birth (regardless of where a birth actually occurs) with planned hospital birth show that planned home births require fewer interventions such as episiotomies and C-sections, and there are comparable perinatal mortality rates with less serious morbidity for both women and infants. Homebirth care is costeffective. Worldwide, the average uncomplicated vaginal birth costs less in a home than in a hospital. Still, challenges remain, particularly for low-income women and families because many insurance companies and government-supported healthcare programs do not cover or provide only limited coverage for homebirth. Homebirth practitioners include naturopaths, family practitioners, nurses, physician’s assistants, chiropractors, and midwives. Practitioners generally acknowledge that childbirth may have complications requiring hospital transport. However, an emphasis is placed on the holistic nature of birth as a physical, psychological, spiritual, and social experience. In addition to providing continuity of care, homebirth practitioners are dedicated to full labor participation and do not have the burden of competing responsibilities as do hospital obstetrics staff who must also attend to postoperative patient care, waiting surgeries, and other hospital duties.



The transition from home birth to hospital birth took place in the early 20th century for most of the developed world’s middle class (low-income communities take longer to make this transition because of poverty, racism, and lack of access to hospitals). Reasons expectant mothers may wish to have a hospital birth include the presence of medical conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes, a previous C-section, pregnancy complications such as multiples, a baby in breech position at 37 weeks, premature labor, or preeclampsia. Medicalization Although a natural process with over 90 percent of people worldwide born at home, childbirth today is increasingly medicalized. Over the past 25 years, maternal mortality rates have continued to rise with increasing medicalization. Currently, 99 percent of births in the United States and Australia, and 97 percent in the United Kingdom occur in hospitals, and over 80 percent of women accept significant medical intervention in their birthing experience even though many routine interventions are unnecessary. Both the medical profession and society at large in the developed world today view a hospital birth as the norm. Interventions can include intravenous fluids, electronic fetal heart monitors, restricted movement, restricted food and water, forceps, fetal scalp electrodes, painkillers, and anesthetic drugs. The United States has the highest obstetrical intervention rates in the world and yet ranks 33rd on the United Nations World Population Prospects report ranking of countries’ infant mortality rate (a measure often used to gauge a country’s health). Proponents of nonmedicalized births note that medicalization also has financial benefits for hospitals and doctors. Additionally, they note that the widespread view of birth being a medical event, one controlled by medical professionals and not the birthing woman, can often lead to unpleasant and disempowering childbirth experiences. Women often feel less in control of their childbirth, less involved, and even alienated from the total birth experience because of medicalization. Dr. Marsden Wagner, former European Director of the World Health Organization, has warned that hospital births endanger the health and lives of mothers and babies primarily because of impersonal procedures and medicalization.

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Caesarean Sections The C-section is a surgical method of birth whereby cuts are made in a woman’s abdomen and uterus (as opposed to a vaginal birth). It is the most common major surgical procedure currently performed in the United States at 30 percent of all births—over 1 million each year or one in every four births. Approximately half of these are elective; that is, women request a C-section without medical issues necessitating such a procedure. A C-section may be a lifesaving procedure when the baby or mother is at risk; however, up to half are unnecessary, and morbidity rates for both mother and child are higher in elective C-section than with vaginal birth. Additional research is required to determine the nature of a woman’s decision to have an elective caesarean, including whether or not she was coerced by medical professionals because of malpractice fears, profitability reasons, or simply because of outdated medical information. A woman undergoing an elective caesarean is between two and eight times more likely to die from the procedure. She is also more likely to experience adverse psychological aftereffects including decreased self-esteem, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Other potential problems include difficulty with subsequent pregnancies, a greater risk of stillbirth, and neonatal morbidity. Many factors likely contribute to C-section births, including medical, legal, financial, and cultural concerns. Psychosocial factors that affect expectant women’s birth decisions have not been thoroughly examined; however, a fear of childbirth and emotional stressors may play a role in elective caesareans. Many women also consider religious or spiritual beliefs in their decision making. Constraints of work, convenience, and physician preference are other reasons given for C-section births. Some women may even opt for an elective caesarean because a particular birthday is deemed auspicious for their child. Institutionalized control and pathologizing of women’s reproductive functions may also contribute to the high C-section rate. Experts agree that the rise of C-section births in every developed country in the world is a cause of global concern. Determining who is responsible for the increase in the C-section rate over the last 30 years is currently the focus of a polarizing debate within the healthcare industry.

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Childbirth is a central theme in the lives of women and the use of medication or lack thereof in the birthing process is a political, economic, medical, and personal issue for women. There are various kinds of medications used during the birthing process. Research has revealed that the use of medication in childbirth has both positive and negative effects on both the birthing woman and the unborn child. Women have adopted multiple behaviors and practices to avoid or lessen the use of medication during the childbirth process. Philosophies about the use of medication in the birthing process vary among individuals.

only one part of the body. Medications administered through epidurals fall into a group of drugs known as local anesthetics. Commonly used anesthetics are chloroprocaine, bupivacaine, and lidocaine. Typically, a narcotic or opioid such as fentanyl and sufentanil is also used to lessen the amount of local anesthetic that is needed. An epidural is administered through a flexible narrow tube that is inserted in the epidural space of the spine. Essentially continuous pain relief is delivered to the lower part of the body while the individual giving birth remains fully conscious and mentally aware. Epidural anesthesia is the most popular form of pain relief used during childbirth in the United States. Over 50 percent of women who have hospital births use an epidural. The use of the epidural may provide women with a method of dealing with fatigue and exhaustion so that they can be more active participants during the stage of delivery where pushing is required. One side effect of the epidural is that depending on the amount of medication given, the legs may become numb and the ability to stand may be temporarily lost. Another main effect is that an epidural may slow labor, which increases the likelihood that another drug named Pitocin would be used. Pitocin serves to speed the labor. The use of the epidural also tends to lengthen the amount of time that a birthing mother must spend during the pushing stage of labor. This is due to the weakening of the bearingdown reflex caused by the lack of sensation in the lower extremities. The use of the epidural has been linked to increases in the use of forceps deliveries and vacuum extractions, which increase the risk of lacerations for the baby, and is also linked to an increase in the rate of caesarean sections. Medication used in the epidural may also temporarily slow the birth mother’s blood pressure, thereby reducing the flow of blood to the baby, which, in turn, lowers the baby’s heart rate. The use of a catheter is often needed because of the decrease in the ability to feel the need to urinate that is associated with an epidural. Other noted side effects include itchiness of the skin and nausea.

The Epidural There are different classes of medications used during childbirth. One class is anesthetics, which act directly on the body’s nerves. The epidural, also known as epidural anesthesia, is a regional anesthesia, so it affects

Narcotic Analgesics Narcotic analgesics are another class of medication used during childbirth. Drugs such as Stadol, morphine, Demerol, and Nubain are examples of narcotic analgesics. Narcotic analgesics, unlike an epidural,

See Also: Childbirth, Medication in; Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural; Midwifery. Further Readings Arms, S. Immaculate Deception II: A Fresh Look at Childbirth. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 1994. Gaskin, I. M. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. New York: Bantam Books, 2003. Martin, E. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987. McElvaine, R. S. Eve’s Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Northrup, C. Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom. New York: Bantam Books, 1994. Raphael-Leff, J. Pregnancy: The Inside Story. London: Karnac Books, 1993. Stern, D. N. and N. Bruschweiler-Stern. The Birth of a Mother: How the Motherhood Experience Changes You Forever. New York: Basic Books, 1998. Wagner, M. Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Chandra Alexandre Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

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Medication is not only used during childbirth to ease pain but is increasingly being used to induce labor. The rate of labor induction in the United States has more than doubled since 1990. Above, a physician performs a C-section on a patient.

act on the entire body as well as on the unborn baby. They do not act directly on the nerves as does an epidural. Another characteristic of narcotic analgesics is that along with easing pain they blunt cognitive perception. Medication is not only used during childbirth to ease pain but is increasingly being used to induce labor. The rate of labor induction in the United States has more than doubled since 1990. Social reasons account for some of this rise in the rate. Increasingly, doctors will schedule an induction to avoid delivering a baby on a holiday. Also, women are scheduling inductions to control when the baby is born, to ensure that the doctor they desire to assist with the birth is available, or for convenience, among other reasons. The drug most commonly used to induce labor is Pitocin. Inducing for social, rather than for medical, reasons has been described by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as a poor obstetrical practice.

Natural Childbirth Often, attempts are made by the expectant woman and those involved in her childbirth to avoid the use of medication during the process. Giving birth without the use of medication is commonly called natural childbirth or unintervened childbirth. Some practices that are employed by women in an attempt to avoid the use of medication and/or decrease the likelihood of undergoing a caesarean section include the Lamaze technique, the Bradley method, HypnoBirthing, which is also known as the Mongan method, and prenatal yoga. Less well-known practices also include the Alexander technique, Birthing for Within, and BirthWorks. Creating and sharing with the medical provider a well-written birth plan that spells out the birthing woman’s desires for how she would like the birth to unfold is another method women use to minimize or

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eliminate the use of medication. The use of a birthing doula, who typically provides prenatal, childbirth, and postpartum support, is another practice often used for the same purpose. Last, women may choose to use the midwifery model of care in part to lessen the likelihood that medication will be used during childbirth. The rates of use and types of medication used during childbirth vary greatly when examined globally. Despite this variation some patterns exist. The use of medication in the birthing process is typically highest within high-income countries and lowest within low-income countries. Within the Western world, the use of medication during childbirth has increased rapidly over the past 20 years. Epidural use is notably high in the United States, Turkey, and New Zealand. Variance within countries is dependent on several factors, including the status of women within the society, access to and beliefs about technology, cultural values, ideas held about both pain and choice, and the role litigation plays in the birthing process, among others. See Also: Abortion Methods; Caesarean Section, Rates of; Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital; Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural. Further Readings Brodsky, Phyllis L. The Control of Childbirth: Women Versus Medicine Through the Ages. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Cassidy, Tina. Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born. New York: Publishers Group West, 2006. Gaskin, I. M. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. New York: Bantam Books, 2003. Wagner, M. Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Jessica Sippy Southern Illinois University

Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural Childbirth is simultaneously a natural, social, culturally bound, and political event. Evolutionary biologists know that the pelvis of the female human is different

than the pelvis of the female primate; the human’s pelvis is flatter, causing a more challenging birth for women than primates. Because of the pain that accompanies childbirth, most females around the world have always desired to have social support during labor and delivery. Across cultures, very few communities encourage women to be alone during labor and delivery. As a result, a human birth is a social enterprise, influenced by community values, norms, and ideologies. Childbirth is an event that influences and is influenced by the communities in which it occurs. Until approximately 300 years ago, childbirth practices were surprisingly similar across cultural communities. In most localities, the laboring woman guided the process. She determined what position she wanted to be in while laboring as well as the foods she wanted to eat and with whom to share the birth experience. Often, babies were delivered in homes with the assistance of family members or a midwife. It was a personal, intense, and intimate experience. For the most part, men were not present, making the birthing area a female-dominated space—one in which the women present were assumed to bear the knowledge necessary to successfully deliver the baby. And for thousands of years, they did just that. The Technocratic Model of Childbirth Birthing methods began to change globally when the industrial revolution changed the economic and cultural landscape in Europe. In France, males began to take on tasks previously relegated to midwives, inventing tools such as the birthing forceps that allowed them to intervene when they believed a baby was not moving adequately through the birth canal. By the 19th century, most births in Europe were managed by male physicians. Trained physicians as well as expectant women now placed high value on standardization of childbirth procedures. University-educated male physicians, certainly not uneducated women, were considered the authorities on childbirth. Considering that the traditional model of childbirth was dominant for thousands of years, the medical model rapidly displaced it in Europe and, eventually, in many parts of the world. Assumed to be uncivilized and unsafe, the traditional birthing model was replaced by the technocratic model, which grew out of the Enlightenment—a period during which the scientific method was glorified.



The ancient methods of delivering babies were no longer trusted; they were not grounded in science and did not utilize modern technologies. An illustration of this shift in trust is the movement of births from the home to the hospital. The widespread belief was that delivering a baby in a hospital was safer for mother and child—despite the prevalence of deadly germs. When it was discovered that women and infants were dying due to the spread of disease within hospitals, sterilization procedures were developed, but they proved ineffective at first. Maternal morbidity did not decrease at all in many parts of Europe after the industrial revolution. In 1898, maternal death was higher among the middle and upper classes in London than the lower class. The primary difference between these two sets of expectant women was that the middle- and upper-class women delivered in hospitals while the lower-class women delivered their babies in homes under the care of a midwife. The Impact of Caesarean Sections Childbirth has become increasingly more invasive in the last four decades, as the growing number of routine caesarean sections illustrate. Common reasons for doing a caesarean section—major surgery during which an incision is made in the woman’s abdomen to extract the infant, placenta, and membranes—include the inability of a large infant to move easily through the birth canal, labor is too slow, and the baby is not moving head-first through the birth canal, among others. Caesarean sections are sometimes absolutely necessary to protect the life of the mother or infant. The World Health Organization asserts that 10 to 15 percent of births involve problems severe enough to demand this surgical procedure. In 2007, one-third of all babies born in the United States were born via caesarean section. In Australia, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom (UK), caesarean deliveries have doubled, and in China, 46 percent of pregnant women now have caesareans. The rates of caesarean section are increasing in high-income areas of the world despite the increasing risk for mother and infant. Women who have caesareans are more likely to develop complications forcing lengthier hospitalizations. Maternal mortality is 10 to 20 times higher for women who have caesarean sections than for women who deliver vaginally. Because women are more likely to have difficul-

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ties breathing, infants born via caesarean section are more likely to spend time in the neonatal intensive care unit. The financial costs of a caesarean birth are much greater than for a vaginal delivery. In 2005, the average cost of an uncomplicated vaginal delivery in a U.S. hospital was approximately $7,000 compared to $12,000 for an uncomplicated caesarean section (excluding costs of anesthesia). Higher rates of cesearean sections throughout the world are attributed to an increase in women’s comfort with surgical procedures as well as the lack of intensive one-on-one support and assistance for the mother. Asian obstetricians claim that some of their patients request caesarean sections to ensure the baby is born on a lucky day. Vietnamese obstetricians report an increase in cesearean section rates is due to women with small frames having larger babies. In China, a caesarean delivery is a sign of status in a country where poor women still deliver at home with little assistance. China’s initiative to manage population through its Planned Birth Policy reflects a cultural value on control; caesarean sections are in harmony with this core value. Also, hospitals can benefit from cesearean sections, especially those that are planned. They demand less time of the physican than a vaginal delivery and are more profitable for hospitals in all parts of the world. Some argue that U.S. physicians prefer caesarean sections because they are less likely to face malpractice lawsuits if they utilize high-tech delivery methods. The lowest rates of caesarean section births are in developing countries where there is a relative absence of both high-tech interventions and skilled surgeons. These are countries where the support for pregnant women, either traditional or high-tech support, is inadequate. As a result, maternal death is the highest in resource-poor countries such as Afghanistan, Rwanda, Chad, and Nigeria, to name a few. Primary reasons for maternal death are severe postpartum bleeding and infections, hypertensive disorders such as eclampsia, and obstructed labor. Because pregnancy can worsen some diseases, women with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are more likely to die during pregnancy. In all, 536,000 women died in 2005 in pregnancy, childbirth, or as a result of postpartum issues. There are international efforts to radically reduce the number of maternal deaths and some progress is evident in Egypt, China, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

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The technocratic model has influenced childbirth around the globe. In some cases, the high degree of respect women assign to this mode of care leads to the overuse of costly technological interventions and a corresponding marginalization of women in their own childbirth experiences. Some worry that unquestioned acceptance of technocratic procedures results in the invalidation of traditional methods that honor women. Because efforts to control maternal and infant death often involve various types of intervention, some believe these efforts function to increase the power of the technocratic model and diminish the practice of traditional childbirth methods in some parts of the world. Certainly, the medical model that emerged from the industrial revolution is the backdrop for other childbirth methods around the world. Due to its global hegemony, it is the technocratic model to which all other models are compared. Diverging From the Technocratic Model While the technocratic model has gained strength and worldwide support, there have been pockets of people, if not entire communities, around the world that have not embraced the new order. Time-honored childbirth methods continue despite pressures to change. In resource-poor areas where there could be a desire to shift to high-tech childbirth methods, the means to do so are not available. Women in these areas have no choice but to deliver babies the oldfashioned way. In wealthier areas where the technocratic model is solidly ingrained, there are groups who advocate and practice traditional childbirth methods for personal, economic, or political reasons. Finally, there is a growing number of practioners and women who advocate the integration of indigenous and modern approaches. Common to almost all traditional birthing methods is the presence of a midwife which means, “with woman” in English and ”earth mother” in Danish. Hindu texts, the Bible, and Greek and Roman documents refer to midwives, confirming their use throughout history. The philosophy that grounds midwifery differs from the principals that supports the technocratic model. Midwives understand pregnancy as a normal occurrence that will naturally run its course in most cases. Their goal is to assist the woman throughout the pregnancy and delivery. Midwives care for the mother’s physical and emotional

well-being. They spend a great deal of time with the expectant mother while she is pregnant and during delivery. During labor and delivery, midwives encourage women to move around and eat as they wish. In resource-rich areas, midwives are much less likely than obstetricians to turn to medical technology prior to or during labor; this includes the use of painrelieving or labor-inducing medicines. The midwife’s consistent support is believed to reduce maternal stress, making for a more positive childbirth experience and decreasing the likelihood of postpartum depression. Many midwives acknowledge a spiritual component to childbirth and believe the traditional childbirth transforms and empowers women, resulting in the mother’s deep connection with and love for the newborn. In the 1950s, a minority of women in the United States who disliked managed childbirths in hospitals opted for home births and initiated a small homebirth movement. At that time, midwives usually had no training in recognized educational institutions. Women learned from each other through mentorship. In the 1970s, the number of home births doubled, although it was still a small number in comparison to hospital births. In 2006, approximately 38,500 women had home births, which is still a small number compared to the number of women who deliver their babies in hospitals. However, the percentage of women delivering at home increased from 1 to 3 percent, the majority of them occurring in rural rather than urban areas. For women with low-risk pregnancies who have home births, the likelihood of having a safe vaginal delivery under the watch of a midwife is very high. Ida May Gaskin, founder of Tennessee’s Farm Midwifery Center, delivered about 2,400 babies at the center or in homes from 1970 to 2007. Only 2 percent of these resulted in caesarean sections. In India, 65 percent of births occur in both rural and urban homes. In Indian homes, a number of people may share the tasks that a single midwife may be responsible for in Europe or in the United States. However, there is a recent government initiative to increase the number of women delivering in hospitals to combat the high number of infant and maternal deaths during home births. Some question the government’s claim about death rates, voicing concern that this policy will work to eradicate traditional home births. In China, where almost half of all women get caesarean sec-



tions, traditional midwives are present at some home births; but midwife attendance comes with the stigma of having a lower socioeconomic status. Furthermore, women who deliver at home are often perceived as not conforming to China’s efforts to be a modern society. Consequently, rural women often choose to travel long distances to get to a rural clinic even though the quality of care in the clinic is usually no better than what they would receive in their own home. In Japan, few midwives remain due to a drastic reduction in requests for their services. Yet, many Japanese women share values with midwives, particularly the value of a natural birth and avoidance of medication to reduce pain. In fact, Japanese women who deliver an infant without pain medication are socially valued for their ability to handle an arduous experience. The United Kingdom has recorded a noticeable increase in the number of home births, particularly in Wales. These rising numbers are due to a concerted effort by the Welsh Assembly to redefine birth as a natural event rather than a medical procedure. The Welsh government hopes to increase the number of home births to 10 percent of all births. In the United States, nurse-midwives meet the demand of some women who want a midwife to deliver their baby in a hospital. Some expectant mothers value the philosophy and methods of midwifery but are not ready to fully abandon the technocratic model. Because midwives are present in hospitals, midwifery has changed hospital practices. The technocratic model has lost some of its power as aspects of the natural model have been sanctioned in labor and delivery wards. Practices long used by midwives are now available in some hospitals; examples include the use of water tubs to reduce pain, allowing women to give birth in an upright position, and letting the laboring woman eat and drink as she pleases. The nurse-midwife embodies the integration of the two models; she has learned about and is not totally resistant to the medical model of childbirth. However, she often prefers the less-invasive methods of childbirth. Pure or radical midwives such as the lay midwives have not always appreciated the nurse-midwives because the latter have not wholly discarded the technocratic model. All species bear offspring. While many animals give birth in solitide, the human skeletal structure and desire for an interpersonal connection necessitate that childbirth occur in the company of others.

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As a result, childbirth is a product of culture. Human values, preferences and ideologies influence childbirth expectations and practices. Class and economy play the most critical role in childbirth around the world. A woman in Atlanta, Georgia, could have a childbirth experience that is akin to that of a woman in Beijing, China, because they have similar socioeconomic positions, reside in resource-rich areas, and have comparable levels of trust in modern medicine and the technocratic model of childbirth. The hegemony of the technocratic model results in the overuse of its associated methods in some areas, the pressure to convert to its use in some others, and the resistance to its philosophy in still other areas. Childbirth is a politically charged event that happens thousands of times each day around the world. The infant, new to the world, enters it as a product of that environment and is already marked in some way as a member of a particular community. See Also: Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital; Childbirth, Medication in; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality. Further Readings Childbirth Connection. “Cesarean Section: Why Does the National U.S. Cesarean Section Rate Keep Going Up?” http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article .asp?ck=10456 (accessed April 2010). Davis-Floyd, Robbie. E. “The Technocratic Model of Birth.” In S.T. Hollis, L. Pershing, and M.J. Young, eds., Feminist Theory in the Study of Folklore. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Louden, Irving. “Obstetric Care, Social Class, and Maternal Mortality.” British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition), v.293 (September 6, 1986). Martin, Emily. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Mesure, Susie. “Huge Rise in Number of Home Births.” The Independent (March 16, 2008). The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health. http://www.who.int/pmnch (accessed April 2010). Selin, Helaine and Pamela K. Stone, eds. Childbirth Across Cultures: Ideas and Practices of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Postpartum. New York: Springer, 2009. Lori A. Walters-Kramer Independent Scholar

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Childcare

Childcare The overwhelming majority of childcare worldwide is provided by parents. In many cultural contexts worldwide, childcare is a family endeavor: when parents must work, children may be cared for by extended family members or other close relatives and friends within a formal or informal kinship network. In many industrialized nations, the economic necessity of two-parent income and the increasing isolation of the nuclear family creates a necessity for external, professional childcare. In the United States, for example, parents and guardians may choose between in-home childcare, such as a nanny or babysitter, or formal childcare in either a home or center-based care setting. The latter are often subject to licensure and review by the state, whereas the former is much more informal. The National Network for Childcare (NNCC) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) have established guidelines for best practices in childcare. These include establishing strong connections with children’s families and communities, using developmentally appropriate practices, providing a safe, engaging, nurturing, and emotionally and culturally responsive environment, and encouraging learning through play and interaction with caregivers and peers. Family Childcare In-home childcare, where a nanny, babysitter, au pair, grandparent, or other family or nonfamily individual comes to the child’s home to care for the child in his or her own environment, can be convenient for families. It also allows families to choose caregivers whose beliefs about children and care are similar to their own. While expensive, and largely unregulated, this type of care is popular with families who feel strongly about keeping their child in his or her own home. Some caregivers live in the home with the family; this is typical for an au pair, who is usually a foreign national hired to work in the home as a caregiver for the family’s children with the promise of cultural exchange and the opportunity to work and live in another context. Different national governments have different polices about the employment and treatment of au pairs. Nannies and babysitters, meanwhile, typically do not live in the home and may come and go at the beginning and end of each workday.

Family childcare is the most prevalent form of childcare. This has the advantage of caring for smaller numbers of children than center-based care, in a homelike rather than school-like setting that still has a social, multichild environment and some structure while also offering the opportunity to mirror the rhythms of family life. Disadvantages include the often small spaces and limited play choices afforded for the children and, while most states monitor family care settings, they vary in quality. In the United States, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accredits family childcare providers at the national level. Childcare Centers Center-based childcare is the most school-like of the three options, with many children enjoying planned activities, meals, naps, and care together, often with an early education focus. Children in center-based care are typically grouped by chronological age with teachers who focus on developmentally appropriate activities for the group. While centers care for higher numbers of children than either in-home babysitters or family childcare providers, this disadvantage is potentially offset by the high reliability and more rigid structure of center-based care: they do not call in sick, have regular hours of operation, and a schedule parents can rely upon to be consistent. Other advantages include the varied activities, games, and social interactions possible in larger settings. Disadvantages include the relatively inflexible scheduling, less relaxed institutional setting, and higher teacher-to-child ratio. Centers must also be accredited, inspected, and licensed by the state so that children are guaranteed a safe, developmentally appropriate environment. It is also important to note that parents and others may have reasons for enrolling their child in a form of childcare beyond the necessity to pursue paid employment; some parents believe care settings enhance children’s social and emotional development, while others choose academically oriented childcare to enhance school readiness. Research suggests that parents are more likely to make choices prioritizing the nurturing qualities of a center when the child in question is very young, with the focus moving steadily toward an educational focus as the child gets older. Additionally, it has been suggested that fami-



lies who believe that it is inappropriate for mothers to work outside of the home, but whose economic situation demands that the mother do so, are more likely to choose a family care setting. Meanwhile, families who support a mother’s career orientation and work outside the home regardless of economic necessity are more likely to choose a center-based care option. Childcare: Contemporary Issues and Debates Because of the demand for childcare resources in some industrialized nations, large, profit-oriented corporate childcare operations have come to the fore. However, research supports that children receive higher quality care in smaller, not-for-profit independent care centers as these may benefit from being locally run and controlled, and therefore responsive to the local community and the unique needs of the children enrolled. Critics of the large corporate childcare centers suggest that the profit orientation and the need to answer to corporate shareholders deemphasizes a focus on developmentally appropriate care practices. Still others suggest that the discourse of cost effectiveness has no place in early education and care. The difference in care between nonprofit independent centers and for-profit home-based care environments is unclear at this point. Research on the impact of daycare on children’s health, welfare, and school readiness perpetually paints a dismal picture, especially of center-based care, suggesting that children who are in childcare may be more likely to have intellectual, behavioral, or health problems in later childhood or adulthood. While additional scrutiny of such studies has revealed that, in fact, the outcomes for the vast majority of children in childcare are no worse and may in fact be intellectually, socially, emotionally, and otherwise advantageous compared with children cared for in the home by a stay-at-home parent, the language of daycare panic remains. This may be in part due to the pervasive belief in most industrialized nations, like the United States and Britain, that it is preferable that one parent, especially the mother, can stay at home with the children. This is often a marker of economic status for primary earners in a family setting, and working women in the U.S. culture typically feel enormous pressure to opt out of careers once they start families. Finally, finding and securing high-quality childcare represents an affordability challenge for many working families, who must balance the costs with quality,

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often making sacrifices on either end of the bargain. The Childcare Law Center and Institute for Women’s Policy Research have both addressed the fact that poor and working families in the United States often face heightened barriers to accessing childcare solutions through restrictive welfare and subsidy policies, and middle-class families have experienced a secondary recessional effect placing them in similar circumstances. These families must rely upon inconsistent publicly subsidized and government childcare, and may worry about the effects of lower quality childcare environments on their children. While research found that high-quality daycare had a positive effect on children, few studies addressed the same question in the context of poor families. Subsequent inquiries have shown that children benefit, to some degree, in a wide variety of childcare settings, and that policy makers and others interested in increasing economic growth should look to supporting early education and care, especially for children in high-need environments. These may be sites for potential development of dynamic learners in schools and eventually the workplace, and may make significant strides toward economic and social justice for the children, and by extension, their mothers. Childcare and Women’s Economic Independence The National Women’s Law Center frames childcare as a key element of improving the quality of life for women and their families in the United States, and focuses on the twin issues of cost and availability/ accessibility. In the midst of the global recession, women’s need for quality childcare that is either subsidized or accessible through economic recovery funds is particularly important. For example, in Japan, where state daycare has been unavailable through a shortage of enrollments slots combined with the growth of young families in urban centers, women’s return to the workplace after male partners’ layoffs has compounded the problem further. Meanwhile, private care remains costly and prohibitive to most families waiting for openings in state care. The situation is similar in many European contexts, where state childcare is available, though often inaccessible, and private options remain expensive. Fundamentally, the affordability and quality of childcare options for working mothers speak to the

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larger issue of women, children, and poverty. In the United States, as is the case worldwide, the overwhelming majority of people living in poverty are women and children. With current estimates of childcare costs in the United States exceeding some public university tuition rates, the need for higher quality, higher accessibly, and more affordable childcare for all children regardless of socioeconomic status a necessity for moving mothers out of poverty and into successful economic participation and independence. Until working poor mothers can have better and more choices for quality childcare, equity issues will loom large both economically and socially. Finally, it is important to understand that the majority of all childcare providers are women. They may become in-home, family, or center-based childcare providers and in this way be able to provide economically for their own families. For those working in their own homes, they may be able to do this work while simultaneously caring for their own children. Despite the increasing costliness of childcare, providers across all childcare contexts are among the lowest-paid, lowest-status workers. While this creates an environment where workers cannot reasonably be expected to have had extensive (or often, even barely adequate) preprofessional education or training, it also suggests that childcare may be a cultural and economic afterthought, reflecting the general low status of mothers, children, and the work of caring for them. See Also: Economics, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Nannies; Working Mothers; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Belsky, Jay, et al., and the NICHD Early Childcare Research Network. “Are There Long-Term Effects of Early Childcare?” Child Development, v.78 (2007). Burchinal, Margaret R., et al. “Relating Quality of CenterBased Childcare to Early Cognitive and Language Development Longitudinally.” Child Development, v.71/2 (2000). Connelly, R., D. S. DeGraff, and R. A. Wills. Kids at Work: The Value of Employer-Sponsored, On-Site Childcare Centers. Kalamazoo, MI: UpJohn Institute, 2004. Fuller, Bruce, et al. “Childcare Quality: Centers and Home Settings That Serve Poor Families.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly, v.19 (2004).

Institute for Women’s Policy Research. http://www.iwpr .org/index.cfm (accessed June 2010). Kato, Mariko. “Government Day Care Falling Short: More Working Mothers Make Already Difficult Situation Worse.” The Japan Times (May 8, 2009). McNamara, Melissa P. “Research on Day Care Finds Few Timeouts.” New York Times. http://www.nytimes .com/2004/02/10/health/research-on-day-care-finds -few-timeouts.html (accessed June 2010). Mooney, Ann and June Statham, eds. Family Day Care: International Perspectives on Policy, Practice and Quality. London: Jessica Kingsley, 2003. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “Does Amount of Time Spent in Childcare Predict Socioemotional Adjustment During the Transition to Kindergarten?” Child Development, v.74/4 (2003). Sally Campbell Galman University of Massachusetts

Childlessness as Choice The effort to control reproduction is as old as human history, yet it was not until the late 20th century that a sexually active heterosexual person had the ability to choose childlessness. Worldwide, the number of people who are childless by choice is on the rise. Women and men offer both similar and different reasons for their choice to remain childless. Found among people of all races and socioeconomic statuses, people who are childless by choice report that they are satisfied with their lives; nonetheless, others often attribute negative stereotypes to this group. People who are childless by choice have founded organizations to advocate for their interests and to offer opportunities for social networking. Today, both scholars and activists continue to debate ways to promote equality between parents and people who are childless by choice. Role of Contraception Childlessness as choice was made possible through the advent and wider accessibility of reliable contraceptives, and in some countries, the availability of legal abortion. That women and men have embraced this newfound ability is evidenced by population trends.



Worldwide, the average fertility rate has declined from 2.8 children per woman in 2000 to 2.09 children per woman in 2007. In part, this decline reflects some people’s choice to have fewer children; however, it also reflects a growing number of people who are choosing to remain childless. According to the U.S. Census, in 2006, 20 percent of women age 40 to 44 were childless; this is twice the number of childless women 30 years prior. In Italy, 15 percent of women in their 40s have not borne children; in Great Britain, 20 percent of women born in 1959 are without child; and in Germany, the proportion of childless women is 30 percent. The reasons people provide for remaining childless are complex and varied. Some childless people are driven by lifestyle concerns, telling researchers that remaining childless has provided the time, energy, and financial freedom they need to pursue both personal and professional interests. Other people report that their decision reflects a lack of maternal or paternal instinct. Men are more likely than women to point to financial issues when they explain their choice to remain childless. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to offer altruistic reasons for not having children, expressing concerns about overpopulation and environmental stress. Career Goal Considerations Also more so than men, childless women are more likely to believe that becoming a parent will conflict with career goals. Employment numbers seem to support their beliefs. In corporate America, 49 percent of high-achieving women are childless; this compares with 19 percent of their male peers. Similarly, 43 percent of academic women do not have children; this compares with a female childlessness rate of about 18 percent in the general population. Some of these women report that their childlessness stems from their belief that they could not fulfill both their professional responsibilities and the responsibilities associated with motherhood. This grows out of two contradictory cultural trends. Over the past 40 years professional opportunities for women, and especially for economically and socially privileged women, have increased significantly. However, regardless of socioeconomic status, women continue to assume primary responsibility for caretaking and household work. Childless people can be found among all races and all socioeconomic statuses; nonetheless, the major-

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ity of people who are childless are better educated, wealthier, less religious, and less traditional than their peers with children. Childless women are more likely to work in male-dominated professions than are mothers. Couples without children tend to have more egalitarian relationships and are less likely to follow traditional gendered patterns of behavior. Childless couples report being happier than parents; research indicates that the childless have better marriages, better finances, and less stress than parents do. Childless people are no more likely to be unhappy or lonely in their old age than are people with children. Although their numbers are growing and selfreports indicate that they are satisfied with their lives, people who are childless by choice face social censure. Numerous studies have reported that purposefully childless people are perceived more negatively than parents or people who are unable to have children. Childless couples often are assumed to be maladjusted and characteristics attributed to childless people include selfishness, irresponsibility, and hedonism. Motherhood continues to be a defining aspect of femininity in many cultures; fatherhood is less central to the male gender role. As such, childless women bear the brunt of these negative stereotypes. Childless women are frequently perceived as cold, unnatural, and unwomanly. Advocacy Organizations Organizations designed to advocate for the interests of childless people have been formed. Some of these organizations are purely social, such as No Kidding!. Founded in 1984 by Jerry Steinberg in Vancouver, Canada, No Kidding! is an international social club for childfree singles and couples with over 40 chapters in 5 countries. Other groups have combined social networking with political activism. In 1992, Leslie Lafayette formed the Childfree Network and among the issues this California-based organization addressed were workplace and tax policies that discriminate against people without children. As the name of Lafayette’s organization suggests, many advocates for people who choose not to reproduce prefer the term childfree to childless, suggesting that it avoids connotations of loss or lack associated with being childless. Other advocates for the childless avoid the term childfree, suggesting it implies a negative attitude toward parents and children that they do not embrace.

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Over the last several years, both academics and public intellectuals have addressed whether childless people are discriminated against through workplace and public policies designed to support parents. In 2000, Elinor Burkett published The Baby Boon: How Childfree America Cheats the Childless; this book has been embraced by advocates for the childfree. More recently, Bonnie Dow and Julia Wood have explored informal workplace norms that lead to discrimination against childless people and Dow has offered a proposal for “colleague-friendly parenting” in response. Similarly, Sara Hayden argues that the debate between advocates for parents and advocates for the childfree can be attributed to the different ethical systems on which each side bases its claims and she offers suggestions for resolving this debate. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, International; Contraception Methods; Household Division of Labor; Parental Leave Act; “Singletons”/Single by Choice; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Agrillo, Chrisian and Cristian Nelini. “Childfree by Choice: A Review.” Journal of Cultural Geography, v.25 (2008). Burkett, Elinor. The Baby Boon: How Childfree America Cheats the Childless. New York: Free Press, 2000. Dow, Bonnie. “Does It Take a Department to Raise a Child?” Women’s Studies in Communication, v.31 (2008). Hayden, Sara. “Lessons From the Baby Boon: FamilyFriendly Policies and the Ethics of Justice and Care.” Women’s Studies in Communication, v.33/2 (2010). Leibowivic, Lori, ed. Maybe Baby: 28 Writers Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence, and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Tyler May, Elaine. Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Wood, J. and B. Dow. “The Invisible Politics of ‘Choice’ in the Workplace: Naming the Informal Parenting Support System.” In S. Hayden and L. Obrien Hallstein, Contemplating Maternity in the Era of Choice. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2010. Sara Hayden University of Montana

Children’s Rights Children’s rights encompass civil and political as well as cultural, social, and economic terrain. Activism and research in the arena of children’s rights puts forward key questions about children, childhood, and the state, and how we should think about children as not just recipients but also producers of culture. For example, should children’s rights be about keeping children safe, or about ensuring their autonomy? Similarly, most documents addressing the rights of the child assume a certain philosophical position regarding the child; these include the assertion that the child is a full and complete person, but a potentially vulnerable one whose personhood is special and entitled to special protections. Many organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations Children’s Fund, recognize children’s full personhood but must also acknowledge the vulnerability claim, as children are uniquely at risk in a world where child prostitution, child labor, physical and emotional child abuse, child neglect, and mistreatment of child refugees and orphans are commonplace. Children’s rights are also tied inextricably to women’s rights, as empowered women have been shown to contribute greatly to the health and welfare of children and, through them, successful communities. Thoughts on Children’s Rights Aid and advocacy groups address contemporary children’s rights to both safety and empowerment in four central arenas. First, children have a right to be protected from exploitation. Children as young as 6 years old are compelled and coerced, through kidnapping or other forms of violence, to participate as armed combatants in military conflicts. Orphans or survivors of natural disaster are “adopted” into guerrilla training camps for indoctrination and combat training, or kidnapped from displaced persons camps and fragmented postconflict or disaster communities. Amnesty International and other human rights groups and some state governments actively oppose these practices by implementing nonassistance policies against nations that use child soldiers in conflicts, and encourage other states to do so. Still others have suggested that children in the contemporary context are entitled



to environmental rights—that they have a right to inherit a safe, livable natural environment and that it is the responsibility of adults to make sure that appropriate environmental action takes place to ensure the quality of this inheritance. Second, children have a right to education. This speaks to making sure girls and young women have access to free, equal, and empowering educational experiences; that elementary education be free and compulsory; and that schools be protected from becoming targets for political or military aggression. In addition, it is important that schools work to make human rights part of the curriculum. In this way, children can be informed about their basic rights and responsibilities and will see and understand the necessity for protecting the rights of others. Third, children have a right to special legal consideration. International law forbids the use of capital punishment on offenders who committed their crime when they were younger than 21 years. Finally, children have a right to safety and security, both physical and emotional. Children should be the first to receive aid and accommodation, including nutritional, emotional, and material considerations. According to Human Rights Watch, children living with human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) are at risk for exploitation and death through severely limited access to healthcare, as well as other practices that contribute to their and other children’s initial exposure to HIV. Although Kenya, notably, made antiretroviral treatments available for all affected citizens free of charge, as of 2009 Kenyan children had disproportionately lower levels of access to these medications. Children’s rights proponents would suggest that these children should be given first and most complete access to lifesaving treatment. In addition, gender-based violence is particularly offensive, as female genital mutilation, child prostitution, child marriages, honor killings, and female infanticide are part of the daily lives of thousands of girls. Similarly, certain groups of children, such as those living with HIV/AIDS or those with migrant status, should be entitled to special protections. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, migrant children’s right to safety and security are at risk both in transit zones and detention cen-

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ters and in displaced persons camps, where children are routinely abused, exploited, and even recruited/ abducted/conscripted as child soldiers. In the United States, children’s rights advocates suggest that practices of remote detention, in which illegal immigrants are sent to remote locations for detention following their discovery and arrest, unfairly punishes the U.S.born children of detained parents, who often return home from school to find that their parents have been detained and sent far away. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights was adopted in 1948. A central statement in this declaration was that motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. Discussion of the particular rights of the child followed quickly thereafter. Eventually, in 1989, the United Nations General Assembly put forward the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child. The declaration was adopted as a legally binding treaty for member states in 1990 and is currently the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. As of today, all United Nations member nations have ratified this treaty, except for Somalia and the United States. By signing, but not ratifying, the declaration, neither of these nations has recognized the content of the declaration as a legal obligation. Notably, as of November 23, 2009, Somalia had announced its plans to ratify the convention, which would leave the United States as the only nonratifying member nation. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes the following: • Children and childhood are special conditions and warrant special care and assistance. • Every child, regardless of race, ethnic group, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, and birth or other status, whether of himself/herself or of his/her family, is entitled to all rights set out in the declaration. • All children are entitled to a birth name and nationality. • All children have a right to adequate care, including nutrition, housing, medical treatment, and recreation.

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• A child who has special needs will be cared for and given the required special treatment and education. • A child is entitled to affection and understanding and moral and material security. A very young child should not be, except under extreme circumstances, be separated from his or her mother. • All children are entitled to a free, compulsory elementary education and shall have full opportunities for safe play and recreation. • The child shall, in all circumstances, be among the first to receive protection and relief. • The child shall be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation. She or he shall not be the subject of traffic, in any form, nor shall he or she be a victim of child labor. • The child shall be protected from practices that may foster racial, religious, and any other form of discrimination so that she or her might grow up to do good for others. African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child The landscape of children’s lives in Africa is unique: Children there are much more likely to be involved as child soldiers in armed conflict, and rates of child labor are the highest in the world. The African Charter focuses on the child’s privileged place in African society and emphasizes that African children are entitled to special treatment and care. In particular, the authors of the charter suggest that the United Nations document does not adequately address the unique nature of childhood in Africa, affected as it is by cultural and social practices inherent in both traditional and contemporary African values. These special areas of concern include child marriage and betrothal practices, girls’ education, access to and empowerment in schools, addressing the aftermath of apartheid and similar discriminatory systems, the prominent role of extended families and matrilineal kinship structures in child care and education, high rates of poverty and concomitant starvation for children whose parents do not receive state support, and the status of orphaned and refugee children and children of mothers who are imprisoned. Differing substantially from the United Nations document, the African Charter also emphasizes pro-

tecting the expectant mother in a variety of contexts and providing specific direction for children seeking protection. The African Charter went into effect in 1999, with ratifying African Union member states agreeing that the charter has primacy over local, traditional, or other policies in addressing children’s rights and welfare. Nonsigners/nonratifiers include Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some children’s rights advocates see the U.S.based parents’ rights movement as oppositional to that nation’s ratification of the United Nations treaty. U.S. parent’s rights groups advocate for unquestionable parental authority to determine the treatment of their own children without oversight from any governmental body. Other opponents of the current thinking in children’s rights and the United Nations and African Charter documents cite the necessity for idealized childhood to be protected from corrupt visions of adult life, implicit in children’s understanding of their own rights. Similarly, in the United States, conservative “family values” ideologies have opposed children’s rights discourses, as they interpret these as undermining the primacy of the family. Other opponents argue that enforcing children’s rights would mean undermining state sovereignty, that the United States already practices the included policies, and that signing the document would have no effect, or that it is too difficult to enforce. Meanwhile, supporters of children’s rights suggest that the United States has not ratified the treaty because of its unique history of unusual ambivalence to the rights of the child, stemming in part from its brutal history of involvement in the African slave trade and subsequent crimes against African children and their families and its economic and social foundations on indentured servitude and violent forms of apprenticeship. Contemporary accounts suggest that the need for the United States in particular to ratify the treaty is pressing: accusations of child labor in the United States, large numbers of children serving life sentences in U.S. prisons, the disproportionately high incidence of corporal punishment for children with disabilities in U.S. schools, and the declaration’s congruence with the U.S. Bill of Rights are cited as reasons for its hasty adoption.

Chile



Relationship Between Children’s Rights and Women’s Rights There is a relationship between the well-being of women and children in any given society. Although both the United Nations declaration and the African Charter emphasize the integrity of the family as an emotional and material support structure, the United Nations Children’s Fund 2007 Report on the State of the World’s Children suggests a tighter coupling between women’s and children’s rights, indicating the following: • Gender equality is positively correlated with children's well-being. • Healthy, educated, and empowered women have healthy, educated, and empowered children. • Educated, empowered women are more likely to overcome poverty and create better conditions for their children. • Women who enjoy equal rights are able to make better decisions at home, in the workplace, and in the political sphere that can benefit her children. • Gender equality is necessary for human rights and sustainable development. • Violence against women and girls often results from the same practices, cultural patterns, or criminal acts, which also affect boys directly or indirectly. These include but are not limited to female genital mutilation, the use of rape as a weapon of war, child marriage, and refusing or interrupting access to girls' and women's schooling. The United Nations declaration is clear that young children shall not be separated from their mothers. One reason for this is that the declaration emphasizes that children be afforded the best possible opportunity to reach their fullest emotional, social, and intellectual potential, and being with the mother, except in extreme circumstances, is aligned with this goal. Mothers' rights have long been an agenda for the World Health Organization and the United Nations, which have emphasized encouraging breastfeeding and public support for breastfeeding, paid maternity leave, and other measures aimed at reducing infant and maternal mortality and increasing positive interaction and bonds between mother and child.

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See Also: Child Abuse, Child Labor; Victims of; Conflict Zones; United Nations Conventions. Further Readings Beah, Ismael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Foley, Stephen. “U.S. Blueberry Farms Accused of Using Children as Pickers: Supermarkets Blacklist Firm After Children Exploited for Small Hands.” The Independent (November 2, 2009). Human Rights Watch and the ACLU. “Impairing Education: Corporal Punishment of Children With Disabilities in U.S. Public Schools.” http://www.aclu .org/human-rights/impairing-education-corporal -punishment-students-disabilities-us-public-schools (accessed November 2009). Jolly, M. “Womens Rights, Human Rights and Domestic Violence in Vanuatu.” Feminist Review, v.52 (1996). Krisberg, Barry. Juvenile Justice: Redeeming Our Children. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. Rosen, David M. “Child Soldiers, International Humanitarian Law and the Globalization of Childhood.” American Anthropologist, v.109/2 (2007). “Somalia to Join Child Rights Pact.” Reuters Africa (November 23, 2009). United Nations Children’s Fund. “The State of the World’s Children, 2007: Women and Children, The Double Dividend of Gender Equality.” http://www.unicef.org /sowc07 (accessed November 2009). Sally Campbell Galman University of Massachusetts

Chile Chile is a country of 16.6 million inhabitants that is located along the western coast of South America. The people of Chile are primarily Roman Catholic, and the country has a reputation for being socially conservative among its Latin American peers. Chile experienced stable democratic rule during much of the 20th century until Augusto Pinochet led a military coup in 1973 to end the Marxist, democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. Pinochet was right wing in his approach to economics and politics, so he championed the traditional

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role of women as wives and mothers in the home. After democracy returned to Chile in 1990, a centerleft coalition governed during the 1990s and 2000s allowing women’s roles in society to evolve. In 2004, a centuries-old marital code was dismissed to allow Chileans to legally divorce. Although the Catholic Church fought against this reform, many Chilean women championed it because previously they had been unable to end abusive marital relationships. Women in Politics Chilean women have experienced notable successes in the political realm. Michelle Bachelet’s presidency (2006–10) alone was an achievement for women. Moreover, her administration advanced policies favoring women and she appointed a cabinet with an equal number of male and female ministers. However, Chile lags other Latin American countries in terms of women in its national legislature. Whereas Argentina boasts 41.6 percent women in the lower house of its legislature, women in Chile’s lower house constitute a mere 15 percent. Gender quotas and electoral systems explain the low political representation of Chilean women. Argentine law mandates that women must be 30 percent of each political party’s candidates, whereas Chile has no law and only certain parties set voluntary quotas for themselves. Chile’s electoral system is binomial, meaning two candidates are elected per district, and like majoritarian electoral systems it contributes to far fewer women being elected than in proportional representation systems. Women’s Rights Women in Chile have a long life expectancy and high rates of literacy. Women live on average 80.8 years, and 95.6 percent of women (and 95.8 percent of men) are literate. Chilean women are now choosing less traditional lifestyles. Younger women often choose cohabitation over marriage and they have fewer children. In 2002, urban women had a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman. Rural women have more children, at 2.9 children per woman, but they too have fewer children than in the 1990s. Chilean women are not as active in the labor force as their Latin American counterparts. Women between the ages of 25 and 34 are more likely to be employed than older women, yet only approximately 41 percent of Chilean women are in the workforce

compared with 53 percent of all Latin American women. Although 47.5 percent of university students are women, many university graduates choose to be homemakers instead of seeking employment. As a result, women activists in Chile pressed presidential candidates in 2009 to pursue reforms that help women to enter the workforce, including job training, maternity leave options, and flexible working schedules. Activists applaud former president Bachelet for advancing women’s issues. Chilean women benefit from her administration’s pension reform, childcare initiatives, and breastfeeding law. Centers providing free childcare are now four times as numerous and housewives can apply for government pensions. Mothers of infants have the right to nurse during the workday. Reproductive rights remain on the agenda of activists because Chile has among the most conservative abortion laws in the world. Therapeutic abortion is illegal under all circumstances, even when a woman’s life is in danger. It is estimated, unofficially, that between 120,000 and 160,000 women have illegal abortions each year, although in 2002 over half of Chileans supported legalizing abortion in cases in which the mother’s health is in danger (65.6 percent) and the pregnancy is a result of rape (58.3 percent). See Also: Abortion, Access to; Bachelet, Michelle; Childcare; Gender Quotas in Government; Gender Roles, Cross Cultural. Further Readings Blofield, Merike. The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2006. Estrada, Daniela. “Chile: Activists Quiz Candidates on Women’s Rights Stance.” Global Information Network (September 30, 2009). Estrada, Daniela. “Chile: Press Prints Names of Women With Abortion Complications.” Global Information Network (August 8, 2009). Servicio Nacional de la Mujer. “Servicio Nacional de la Mujer, Estadísticas.” http://www.sernam.cl/cedocvi /web/fus_index.php?sec=2 (accessed January 2010). Candice D. Ortbals Pepperdine University



China One of the most enduring stereotypes of Chinese women is that of the submissive woman with bound feet obedient to her family or husband and treated like property with no rights. This stereotype denies the reality of women in China today and the full variety of women’s lives. Today, by law, women have equality in education, marriage, rights, and freedom. While women’s roles have improved overall, there are still some laws that are ignored or underenforced, and women have yet to attain equality in society. Some women have been able to attain higher education and high-paying jobs, yet many others work in low-paying factory jobs as unskilled laborers. The largest disparity is between women in urban areas and those who live in rural regions. Overall, the picture of women in China is a complex one that defies reduction into a simple stereotype. One of the key laws established by the newly formed People’s Republic of China in 1950 was the Marriage Law that promoted the idea of equality of men and

Women make up the majority of the workforce in the exportoriented Special Economic Zones of southern China.

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women within the marriage and family. Women were not to be mere housekeepers, but were encouraged to be workers for the common good of the society. In 1954 the 96th article of the Constitution gave women equal rights with men in all aspects of life, including social, political, cultural, and social arenas. In 1968 Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Zedong) famously stated, “Women can hold up half the sky.” Since then, a variety of legislative acts have been enacted with explicit provisions that protect the rights and interests of women. Enforcement of these laws is not always uniform, however, and women are continuing to struggle to gain equity with men. While this gender disparity still exists in China, women are able, like never before, to obtain a higher education, work in a white-collar profession, and acquire a divorce. They also are ensured rights to inherit property, protection from domestic violence, and hold political office at both local and national levels. Women’s Political Rights In the political arena, women have equal political rights with men such as the right to vote. Women are allowed to hold local and national office; to ensure women’s participation in the governmental processes, the election law stipulates the percentage of female deputies in the national and local National People’s Congress committees, and encourages a steady growth of women to participate. At the 2009 annual session of the National People’s Congress, 635 women were elected lawmakers, 21.9 percent of the total number of deputies. During that session, women deputies proposed legislation that focused on women such as cervical and breast cancer screening in rural areas, rural property rights and subsidization for companies with women in top positions. Women also are represented in regional and county government positions. Women are working in record numbers in China. According to United Nations statistics, in 2008 45 percent of the Chinese workforce was comprised of women. Rural women comprise 41 percent of the agricultural workforce. Young women workers compose a large portion of the factory workers in the Special Economic Zones, and women with higher education have moved into managerial and corporate positions. Legally, women and men have equal rights to employment as ensured under China’s Constitution,

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the Employment Promotion Law, Labor Contracting Law, and the Law on Protection of Rights and Interests of Women. Under these regulations, women are guaranteed equal pay as men in the same positions, equality in hiring and promotion, and protection from termination due to pregnancy. In addition, women may take up to 90 days of maternity leave. Although the edicts are in place to help women in the workplace, in many instances, inequality exists. A 2009 research project from the Center for Women’s Law and Legal Services of Peking University demonstrates sexual discrimination still exists. Approximately 4 percent of women interviewed reported having to sign a contract stating that they would not get married or pregnant within a set amount of time (often from one to three years after hiring) as a condition of employment. Twenty-eight percent stated they believed there were different hiring standards for men and women.Women were required to have more education, experience, or ability than their male counterparts to get hired. The perception of inequality continued after hiring with 35 percent of women interviewed believing it was easier for male peers to get promoted than female coworkers. Young women working in white-collar jobs feel a great pressure to conform to a standard of beauty for the sake of getting a job or promotion. In urban areas there are many plastic surgery clinics that help women become as beautiful as they can be. The current global economic downturn has had an effect on women in China. Thousands of export-oriented factories in southern China have closed leaving thousands of women out of work. As companies across China either cut back on their workforce or slow their hiring, young women who are about to graduate from universities face more competition from men in a job market that is tougher than ever. Education and Family China’s Education Law, Compulsory Education Law, and Vocational Education Law are intended to protect equal education for boys and girls. On the whole, these laws have been quite effective. According to government figures, 98.97 percent of boys and 98.93 percent of girls of primary school age were enrolled in school. It is at the junior high and high school levels that the number of females to males lags, especially in the rural areas, where girls attain an average of seven

years of education. Fewer women than men enter and complete college and university degrees. The statistics of school completion, for both boys and girls, drips for students living in the rural areas due to a shortage of teachers in impoverished communities. In addition, children are often needed to work in the fields. In rural areas, girls are much more likely to be illiterate than boys, and both sexes are more apt to be illiterate than children in the cities. To combat this and to raise literacy rates, the government has started new programs to pay for rural children’s books, tuition, and for hiring teachers. China’s Family Planning Law of 1978 and the OneChild Policy of 1981 limited the number of children a couple could have to one, or in some rural areas, two. The results of this policy are various: in addition to lowering the birth rate, it caused a sexual imbalance as historical preference for male children continued. Currently, there are an estimated 120 boys born to every 100 girls. Technology has exacerbated the inequality, as couples are able to discover the sex of their baby in time for an abortion. This is not legal in China but it does occur. Another aspect of the laws is that as people have grown used to and more importantly, grown up with the laws, legislation has become internalized. The younger generation is beginning to prefer small families, and one-child families with a girl have devoted more resources to the education and career of their daughters, especially in urban areas. Human trafficking in women and children is recognized as a problem in China. Women and children are trafficked for sexual exploitation within China and to other Asian countries and the West. Rapid economic development on the eastern coast of China has led to the abduction of women to work in the factories. China also is a destination country for human trafficking. In 2009, the China National Plan of Action on Combating Trafficking in Women and Children was released. The goal of this special campaign is to prevent abuses, find and prosecute violators and rescue women and children who have been abducted. Enforcement problems exist, as there is a lack of funds to support the effort. Working Women In the past 10 years, the rural to urban migration in China has grown exponentially. It is estimated that nearly half of the Chinese population now resides



in urban areas, as opposed with the 26.7 percent in 1990. The figure is confused by the many internal migrants to cities who are not registered within those areas. Many people are leaving the rural regions to find higher-paying jobs in the urban areas, especially to places like Guandong Province, which has many factories. Chinese citizens who are not registered to live and work within the urban areas are assigned to informal sector jobs that are lower paying and do not follow employment protection laws. Although with much less frequency than men, women comprise a large portion of the migrant population and make up the majority of the workforce in the export-oriented Special Economic Zones of southern China. Factory life for women consists of living in dormitories at the factories, long hours, and often lower pay than promised. Still, these jobs allow women to make financial contributions to their families and earn some money for themselves. Anecdotal stories abound in Chinese newspapers and magazines with stories about young women who, traveling alone from rural areas, are raped, kidnapped, or otherwise assaulted during their journeys to work in the factories of southern China. These stories likely hold some truth, but the extent of these incidences has not been studied and, therefore, is not known. The government of China has worked hard in the last 60 years to change hundreds of years of traditions that put women in a submissive position to men. The policies set out ensure equality under the law, but society has been slower to adapt. Problems with enforcement of the laws, especially in rural areas, have led to a continuance of gender discrimination. The Chinese government is proactive in working to pass legislation to protect the rights of women. See Also: Abortion Laws, International; Chinese Religions; Contraception Methods; Sterilization, Voluntary. Further Readings Brownell, Susan and Jeffery N. Wassertrom, eds. Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Chang, Leslie T. Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China. New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2008. Fong, Vanessa L. Only Hope: Coming of Age Under China’s One-Child Policy. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004.

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Rofel, Lisa. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture (Perverse Modernities). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Jocelyn H. DeHaas Eastern Washington University

Chinese Religions The conventional view is that Chinese religions, which place an emphasis on filial piety and female submissiveness, are uniformly patriarchal. This interpretation ignores important variations within these traditions that often provide religious roles that empower women. Any account of religion in China must also consider the consequences of Communist rule on religious belief and practice. There is a long-standing academic debate as to whether there are any Chinese religions. Belief in a High God is largely absent from Asian religious cultures, and Confucianism is a state ideology relating to social order and respect for authority. Similarly, Buddhism may be thought of as “the Righteous Way,” or the dharma, which develops meditation practices to regulate desire. Daoism is typically a set of beliefs and practices promoting health and longevity through various exercises such as breathing techniques (qigong). Syncretism is also a notable characteristic of religion in China, especially between Buddhism and Daoism, and hence these traditions overlap with each other. There was some cultural division of labor in China, in which Confucianism was important in family concerns, Buddhism for death and funeral services, and Daoism for psychological and health matters. These religious traditions share in common ancestor worship, filial piety, and the absence of any sacerdotal priesthood and congregational organizations. It is also important to distinguish between the literary “official religion” and their religions’ constitutive texts—such as The Analects of Confucius or the Pali Canon of Buddhism—and popular or folk religion, with its pantheon of deities, spirits, sacred persons, cultural heroes, and the ubiquitous Chinese Dragon. Finally, although they are not Chinese religions as such, Christianity, which first entered China in the

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7th century, was important in creating educational institutions and in opposing footbinding, and Muslims, who came along trade routes as early as the 7th century, migrated in large numbers to China during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368). Because Chinese religions do not have congregations or membership, it is difficult to calculate their relative size and influence, and estimates of religious adherence vary greatly. In addition, all religions were suppressed under Communist rule, and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), churches, temples, and ancestral shrines were destroyed, while Mao Zedong’s atheism was rigorously enforced by the Red Guards. Three Dominant Religions Following economic and cultural liberalization under Deng Xiaoping in 1978, there has been a significant revival of religious life in modern China. Buddhism is the largest religion, with 660 million adherents or 50 to 80 percent of the population, and Daoism represents some 400 million people, or 30 percent of the population. However, it is quite likely that these figures simply refer to the widespread presence of some folk religious practice. Islam has between 20 and 30 million adherents, or 1.5 to 2.0 percent of the population, and Christianity has 40 million followers, or 3 percent of the population. Many new religious movements have also emerged such as Falun Gong, which now has a substantial organizational membership in China. In assessing the effect of these religious traditions on gender identity and relations, it is important to draw a distinction between south, east, and southeast Asia. Although east Asia (comprising China, Japan, and Korea) has been unambiguously patriarchal, women have enjoyed much greater equality in southeast Asia, which was matrilocal and where gender was seen to be fluid and derivative. The conventional view of the three dominant religions in China is that they are patriarchal and have not developed values or institutions that promote women as equal members of society. The widespread belief in yin (female) and yang (male) sustained an ideology in which men and women had ontologically separate beings. Although in early Confucianism yin and yang were complementary, when Confucianism became the dominant official state ideology of the Han dynasty (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.), they were hierarchically organized: Women were defined as weak, cold, and

passive and were associated with the moon, and men were associated with warmth, strength, and the sun. Unsurprisingly, feminist criticism has been directed in the main against Confucianism, which is associated with foot-binding and the cult of chastity that were common in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644– 1911) dynasties. In the Classic of Filial Piety, Confucius established norms of respect for elders but also defined the virtuous wife as submissive and respectful. Widows were to remain chaste and dedicated to their parents-in-law and to the memory of their husbands. These norms affirmed the authority of the husband and gave a distinctive preference for male offspring. It is often argued that Daoism and Buddhism were attractive as a refuge from Confucianism because their religious practices and values were less harsh and rigid. The Daoist classical texts (Daodejing) of Laozi are said to give expression to feminine virtues. Dao, the mystical source of being, entailed the idea of wu wei, or nonaction, in which people can become free from desire. The teachings of Laozi were a source of opposition against authoritarian rule, and in medieval Daoist monasteries, women often enjoyed equal status with men. The relationship between Buddhism and women is much disputed. There is nothing in Buddhism’s canonical texts to support or justify discrimination against women, and yet in both China and India Buddhism has been in practice patriarchal. It was generally believed that a woman could not achieve nirvana until she had changed into a man. However, Buddhism, unlike the Confucian emphasis on the importance of marriage for young women and chastity for widows, developed nunneries for women who chose not to marry or who were widows. Throughout Asia, Mahayana Buddhism created a pantheon of deities or celestial beings such as bodhisattvas who are the compassionate manifestation of the Buddha. The bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, or “the lord who looks down,” was especially important. In China, Avalokeshvara evolved into the female bodhisattva Guanyin or Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion, who became associated with Mount Putuo in Zhejiang, where pilgrims from all over China seek her blessing. In popular religion, the female goddesses of both Daoism and Buddhism are sought after by the downtrodden and impoverished, rather than male figures such as the Buddha or the Jade Emperor.



For some 2000 years, Confucianism served the basic pillar of Chinese society, and women were taught to be obedient and submissive. This familial system was challenged by the Nationalist Revolution in 1911, by the militarization of Chinese society in the warlord period (1927–49), and by the Communist Revolution, when Mao Zedong’s regime sought to undermine the “Four Olds” of Confucian teaching: old ideas, old habits, old customs, and old culture. In particular, the Communists attempted to destroy the legacy of filial piety and lineage organizations. The Marriage Law of 1950 outlawed dowries, concubinage, and arranged marriages. In 1982, the one-child policy was announced, and the State Planning Commission introduced such practices as compulsory insertion of intrauterine contraception and sterilization. These policies had traumatic consequences for gender relations and resulted in widespread female infanticide and the abandonment of female children. The resulting demographic transition to low fertility rates, coupled with greater life expectancy, is beginning to change the status of women, and they are leaving the countryside to take up employment in the coastal economic zones. As the traditional system of filial piety breaks down, religion is also changing. There are two aspects of the new relationship between religion and state in the period of contemporary liberalization. The first is that the state constantly intervenes to manage religions in the interests of state security, but it also attempts to maintain some semblance of freedom of religious worship. It has, of course, a tense relationship with the tantric Buddhist traditions of Tibet and with the Muslim uiyghurs and Hui. The second aspect is that the state often promotes religion, but only as a commercialized leisure activity. There is support for Daoist and Buddhist temples as tourist sites for pilgrims; for example, the Daoist temple complex at Wudang Mountain in Hubei Province has been reopened as a heritage site, attracting visitors not only from mainland China but also from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The commodification of religion is in tune with the development of Chinese capitalism, globalization, and the gradual expansion of religious and sexual freedom in contemporary China. In the emerging gender pluralism of the major cities, there is greater fluidity in the definition of gender roles, in which both men and women experience more opportunities for sexual experimenta-

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tion. Although there is a revival of religions in China, they are subject to extensive state surveillance, especially in the case of Falun Gong and Islam. In this evolving secular framework, there is little prospect that the rigid gender roles and values of traditional Confucian China will survive. See Also: Buddhism; China; Christianity; Islam; Religion, Women in. Further Readings Berlie, Jean A. Islam in China. Hui and Uyghurs Between Modernization and Sinicization, Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus, 2004. Chan, Sin Yee. “The Confucian Conception of Gender in the Twenty-First Century.” In Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chaibong, eds., Confucianism for the Modern World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Despeux, Catherine and Livia Kohn. Women in Daoism, Cambridge, MA: Three Pines, 2003. Ikels, Charlotte, ed. Filial Piety. Practice and Discourses in Contemporary East Asia. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. Palmer, Martin and Jay Ramsay (with Man-Ho Kwok). Kuan Yin, Myths and Prophecies of the Chinese Goddess of Compassion. London: Thorsons, 1995. Paul, Diana Y. Women in Buddhism. Images of the Feminine in the Mahayana Tradition, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Bryan S. Turner The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Cho, Margaret Margaret Cho has distinguished herself as an important feminist, antiracist, queer comedian whose work has developed consistently as she moved from a 16-year-old stand-up to sitcom star to a multimedia political provocateur. Cho first achieved national recognition as the star of the first sitcom starring an Asian American family, All-American Girl, in 1994. The series was short-lived, lasting less than a season, and Cho achieved far more significant political impact talking about her oppressive experience making the show in her 1999 one-

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woman show, I’m the One That I Want. Starting as a live performance, this show was filmed and shown in movie theaters and then got wide distribution on DVD, establishing Cho as a potent political voice who spoke not only for those marginalized by race, gender, and sexuality, but also as one who could expose some of the many ways this marginalization is produced from within the entertainment industry. Notorious C.H.O. (2001), Revolution (2003), Assassin (2005), and Beautiful (2008) are all films that have grown out of her live performances—all of which take on both structural political issues around race and sexuality particularly, and topical issues at the same time. Multimedia Communication Cho’s cultural influence is made possible through her ability to communicate through so many media. I’m the One That I Want was also made into a book (2002), and was followed by I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight (2005). She contributed an essay to the book Open My Eyes, Open My Soul: Exploring Our Common Humanity (2003), and the foreword to BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism From the Pages of Bitch Magazine (2006). Cho also made a CD, Drunk With Power (2003), and appears in films, like Phone Sex (2005), and documentaries like American Experience: Miss America Pageant (2006) and Underbelly (2008). She also wrote, directed, and starred in her own full-length film, Bam Bam and Celeste, in 2005. Cho is featured in the Lifetime series, Drop Dead Diva, in 2009. She is also an active blogger on her Website. As of early 2010, she was at work on a musical comedy CD titled Guitarded. In 2008, Cho starred in her own reality television show, The Cho Show, that followed her and her faux-entourage, along with her parents, but did not include her husband, Al Ridenour. This choice was interesting in light of her queer identity. Cho has publicly discussed her own sexual relationships with both men and women, has a very large and visible gay male following, identifies herself as queer, and has campaigned for gay marriage rights, in part because she said that she has experienced being married herself as very positive, and so wants to ensure that everyone has the right to the possibility. Her public queer identity is maintained and cultivated with these unconventional and unpredictable relational and political stances.

Cho is one of the very few comics working today who actively challenges all forms of Othering in all of her work. She is exemplary in her creation of a career that manages to get laughs, and get seen, without sacrificing her personal and political vision. See Also: Celebrities, Women; Comedians, Female; Entrepreneurs; Marriage. Further Readings Lee, Rachel C. “‘Where’s My Parade?’: Margaret Cho and the Asian American Body in Space.” TDR: The Drama Review, v.48/2 (Summer 2004). Margaret Cho. http://margaretcho.com (accessed May 2010). Pearson, Kyra. “‘Words Should Do the Work of Bombs’: Margaret Cho as Symbolic Assassin.” Women and Language Journal, v.32/1 (Spring 2009). Jennifer Reed California State University Long Beach

Christian Identity Christian Identity is a conservative religious movement based primarily on race and bloodline. Proponents of the movement believe firmly in the notion of racial purity. The movement gets its name from the members’ belief that they have discovered their identities as the true descendants of the lost white tribes of Israel. The movement is known for its fanatical racism and homophobia and serves as a continuous threat to peace and tolerance (since many Christian Identity members are violent and because of the racist ideology they champion). Their views relegate women to subservient positions, and members also expect women to behave in accordance with strictly defined gender stereotypes. As Chester Quarles notes in Christian Identity: The Aryan American Bloodline Religion, groups that follow the tenets of the Christian Identity belief system include the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads, Posse Comitatus, and the Covenant, Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA); other extremist white right-wing groups believe in the Christian Identity movement as well. Quarles examines the way in which their beliefs dif-

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fer from those of other conservative Christians. Christian Identity beliefs often assign responsibility to women for crises that occurred in Christian theology. For instance, Christian Identity movement members believe that Satan seduced Eve and that she later bore his child, Cain. As Quarles notes, most conservative Christians believe that both Adam and Eve disobeyed God and that Adam fathered Cain. Christian Identity beliefs hold Eve solely to blame and relieve Adam of any responsibility for events Christians believe brought wickedness and violence into the world (including the fall of humankind and the birth of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel). These views about women have extended from the inception of the movement into the 21st century. The Christian Identity movement perpetuates ideology that women should be highly feminine and subservient. Advertisements and newsletters on various Christian Identity Websites demonstrate this ideology. For instance, the Kingdom Identity Ministries Website hosts a link labeled “White Christian Ladies Only.” The link leads to a posting for a secretarial position, where applicants must have “genuine sweet, gentle, feminine mannerisms and be easy to get along with.” The Christian Identity Ministries Website provides links to copies of newsletters in which advice on the roles of women abounds. For example, a concerned brother wrote to the newsletter column for teens called “What’s Up With That?” He shared his worry over his sister, who wanted to grow up and become a doctor instead of getting married early and having children. The advice he received urged him to remind his sister that a girl’s first priority is to be a wife and have a family. The columnist also encouraged the brother to remind his sister that when God gave Adam and Eve orders, God did not tell Eve to get a career. Another newsletter advertises a series of tapes for rent called God’s Plan for Finding a Mate. The advertisement says that men must win their lady’s heart and that, with the help of God-given authority figures, they will find marriage as God intended. This advertisement implies that women play a passive role in finding a partner, and that those in power in the movement—men— determine who and when they should marry. Soldiers of God Members of the Christian Identity movement refer to themselves as Soldiers of God, and believe their task

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is to begin a religious war with the U.S. government. They hold a “God of Tolerance” responsible for the problems of the world, and believe they are the chosen people. Though members believe that they will all experience salvation, women remain consigned to subservient roles in which men expect them to marry and have families, rather than pursue their own interests and ambitions. See Also: Christianity; Ku Klux Klan; Religious Fundamentalism, Cross-Cultural Context of. Further Readings Christian Identity Ministries. “God’s Plan for Finding a Mate.” www.christianidentityministries.com/244.pdf (accessed July 2010). Christian Identity Ministries. “What’s Up With That?” http://www.christianidentityministries.com/184.pdf (accessed July 2010). Kingdom Identity Ministries. “White Christian Ladies Only.” http://www.kingidentity.com/cla-kim.html (accessed July 2010). Quarles, C. L. Christian Identity: The Aryan American Bloodline Religion. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004. Roberts, Charles H. Race Over Grace: The Racialist Religion of the Christian Identity Movement. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2003. Walters, Jerome. One Aryan Nation Under God: Exposing the New Racial Extremists. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2000. Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

Christianity Christianity today is found in a plethora of denominations, perhaps as many as 30,000 worldwide. While those denominations share core beliefs in God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, they vary widely in further expressions of that belief and its implications. Even doctrines that Christ is both fully human and fully divine and that God exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—which are central for most Christians—are disavowed by some individuals and groups who identify themselves as Christian.

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While the percentage of the world’s population that espouses Christianity is dwindling, statistical sources still suggest that it is somewhere around 30 percent. Moreover, Christianity’s influence, especially on Western culture, makes it a major factor in the experience and attitudes of a large number of the world’s women and men. This article focuses on women’s work to shape their world by influencing Christian thought and practice worldwide. Women’s Roles in Christian Churches Today, women exercise formal leadership as ordained ministers, preachers, teachers, and even bishops in almost every Christian denomination. But that is quite a recent development. While Quakers allowed women to preach as early as the 17th century, most Christian groups did not allow women to study theology, to

preach, to lead prayer, or to vote in church assemblies until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exclusions were grounded in the churches’ understanding of certain biblical passages that enjoined women not to speak in church and on the idea that leadership in the early church was exercised almost exclusively by men. In the 19th century, a surge of religious fervor, at least in the Western world, and a rising movement for women’s suffrage both contributed to the rise of women’s missionary movements. Women began to organize around providing food, housing, education, and other social services for the poor in their own home countries as well as in such mission fields as China, India, and Africa. Believing that women could do more than serve as quiet helpers to the men in the field, they also established educational programs to prepare women for the work of the missions.

Christianity today is found in a multitude of denominations—as many as 30,000 worldwide. While Christian denominations share the core belief of Jesus Christ being the son of God, they vary widely in further expressions of that belief and its implications.



At the same time, women began to seek an official voice in the churches. In the United States, Antoinette Brown Blackwell completed the theological seminary at Oberlin College in 1850. Although at first she was neither granted a degree nor ordained, she held a pastorate in the Congregational Church and was ordained in 1853. In November 1919, the International Association of Women Ministers, still an active group, gathered for the first time in St. Louis, Missouri. The Methodist General Conference declared women eligible to be licensed preachers in 1920, and in 1947, stated that women ministers should be accorded equal status with their male colleagues. Lutheran churches saw a movement in the 19th century to ordain women as deacons, but it was not until the 1970s that the Lutheran Church of America and the American Lutheran Church voted to ordain women as pastors. During the 1980s, the worldwide Anglican Communion carried on a lengthy discernment regarding the ordination of women. The Anglican Communion agreed in 1992 that ordination of women was approved but left an opening for individual dioceses to limit ordination to men, and at the time of this writing some Anglican and Episcopal dioceses still do so. A few denominations such as the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox still reserve ordination to men alone, although other administrative and teaching roles are open to women. Christian women do not believe that gaining access to ordination and other official roles in the churches means that women have achieved full equality. Ordained women still find themselves in smaller or more remote parishes or in assistant roles in larger places. Moreover, they find that Christian churches still need to pay more attention to women’s voices as they develop Christian doctrine, morality, history, and spirituality. Doing Theology Women were the first to announce that Jesus was risen from the dead. Women served as deaconesses in the first centuries of Christianity, lived as virgins and widows dedicated to lives of holiness as that lifestyle developed among those seeking to give themselves fully to Christ, and continued to reflect and write on the meaning of Christian faith and lifestyle throughout the Middle Ages. The 20th century, however, saw tremendous growth in the number of women engag-

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ing in professional theology, earning doctorates, teaching at the college and university level, and publishing theological works. Christian women’s theology is far from monolithic. Coming from different denominational and experiential perspectives, women theologians disagree with one another even on some fundamental questions. Interpretation of Scripture One of the major theological tasks undertaken by Christian women has been to address the interpretation of scripture and what it says to and about women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in the second half of the 19th century, undertook to publish the Women’s Bible, consisting of selected passages and commentary pointing out the patriarchal biases found both within the texts and in the church’s traditional uses of the texts. In the 20th century, women utilized the variety of scholarly tools now available to demonstrate that the inspired message of scripture can be distinguished from language, underlying assumptions, and customs that are reflected in but are not essential to the meaning of biblical passages. They also work to retrieve and reemphasize biblical messages that uphold the dignity of women and show their importance both in the history of Israel as God’s people and in the early Christian community. In the last decade of the 20th century, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza edited a history and an anthology of feminist commentary on scripture dedicated to the work of Cady Stanton and her colleagues. God Language One of the questions for women examining the Christian tradition has to do with the way in which Christians name and describe God. The importance of that question include the fact that human persons are said to be made in God’s own image. That being the case, does an overwhelmingly male image of God suggest that men are, in some way, more fully human than women? While most women acknowledge the special status of the name Father found throughout both Old and New Testaments and overwhelmingly in the teachings of Jesus, they point out that scripture also contains God-images that draw on motherhood as well as on the force and beauty of nature. They further point out that God is ultimately incomprehensible and cannot therefore be captured by a single name or image.

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Many women find the doctrine of the Trinity a rich source for feminine spirituality. Elizabeth Johnson and Catherine Mowry LaCugna point out that according to the tradition of Trinitarian Faith, God exists in eternal interpersonal relationship marked by mutuality and reciprocity. Thus, a Christian understanding of God bears witness against any human relationships or structures marked by domination or oppression. Another key subject for women is the significance of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, the revelation of God and savior of all, was a male person. Women theologians vary in their approach to this issue. Some suggest that the humanity rather than the gender of Jesus is the significant factor. Others search the accounts of Jesus’s work to find examples of his equal regard for women and men. Some women like Mary Daly, who was a pioneer in Christian feminist theology, ultimately abandoned Christianity, concluding that with a Father God and a male savior, its message is inherently and irredeemably patriarchal. Moral Issues Women have taken a particular interest in certain moral issues including violence in all forms as well as questions regarding relationships, healthcare, and respect for the all creation. In the 19th century, Quaker and other Christian women were among the first to raise their voices against the practice of slavery. In the 20th and 21st centuries, women continue to take leading roles in articulating Christian opposition to war, to exploitive labor practices, and to anthropocentrism, and in insisting on allocation of resources to provide healthcare and education as basic human rights. They point out that unjust economic policies and the proliferation of violence at all levels have overwhelmingly affected women and children, leaving them without basic human needs. Many women identify dualism—the unjustified categorization of reality into opposing and mutually exclusive pairs such as spirit/matter, male/female, good/evil, we/they—as the root of all disordered relationships. Dialogue and Difference Today, Christian women, like feminist groups in general, are especially sensitive to issues of difference. Women recognize not a univocal “feminist” perspective but attend to the vital contributions of woman-

ist, mujerista, black, Latina, Asian, and many other styles of women’s theology. While differences in their experiences of Christianity and of the world in general lead women to different positions or approaches to theological issues, they have also demonstrated a commitment to dialogue across those differences. They are also engaged in dialogue with women of other faith traditions. They have established local and international organizations committed to that dialogue. Among them are the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus Christians for Biblical Equality, the Ecclesia of Women in Asia, the Ecumenical Forum of European Christian Women, the Circle of Concerned African Woman Theologians, and women’s groups within the American Academy of Religion and the World Council of Churches. Work of the World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) , the largest and best-organized ecumenical group of Christian leaders worldwide, declared 1988–98 an “Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity With Women.” While the assembly did not reach a unified stand on all issues due to diverse convictions and even interpretations of language, the assembly did agree on a strong statement on the sinfulness of violence against women. Further, members united around a call for recognition of the effects of economic trends on the lives of women and children and for commitments to education and equal dignity for women in society. Likewise, the WCC study on Theological Anthropology insists on gender equality in its assertions on creation in God’s image and on issues calling for Christian commitment grounded in our common understanding of what it means to be human. See Also: Black Churches; Ecofeminism; Evangelical Protestantism; Feminist Theology; Fundamentalist Christianity; Mujerista Theology; Roman Catholic Church; Women’s Ordination Conference. Further Readings Bendroth, Margaret Lamberts and Virginia Brereton, eds. Women and Twentieth-Century Protestantism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Daly, Mary. The Church and the Second Sex With the Feminist Post Christian Introduction and New Archaic Afterwords, 3rd ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.

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James, Janet Wilson, ed. Women in American Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980. MacHaffie, Barbara J. Readings in Her Story: Women in Christian Tradition. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1992. Malone, Mary T. Women and Christianity, 3 vols. New York: Orbis Books, 2001–03. Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth, ed. Searching the Scriptures. 2 vols. New York: Crossroad, 1993–94. World Council of Churches. Christian Perspectives on Theological Anthropology: A Faith and Order Study Document. Faith and Order paper No. 199. Geneva:WCC Publications, 2005. World Council of Churches. “Eighth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Harare, Zimbabwe, December 3–14, 1998.” http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc /assembly.index-e.html (accessed June 2010). Young, Pamela Dickey. “Women in Christianity.” In Leona M. Anderson and Pamela Dickey Young, eds., Women and Religious Traditions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. M. Corinne Winter St. Ambrose University

Civil Unions A civil union is a legally and socially recognized union between partners of the same sex. As a sociolegal institution, civil unions were created to provide same-sex couples with many of the rights, benefits, and privileges typically associated with oppositesex civil marriage. Civil unions are distinguished by the fact that they provide all of the state-recognized rights and benefits of marriage, without being the equivalent of marriage. The term civil union was first adopted in the American context and, therefore, has a unique cultural, political, and historical trajectory. Given their particular development, it is important to distinguish civil unions from American-style domestic partnerships, European-style registered partnerships, and civil marriage. Throughout the 1990s, but especially after the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision in Baehr v. Lewin (1993), relationship recognition for same-sex cou-

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ples became a major topic of political debate. Various municipalities across the country began creating domestic partnership registries, providing a basic legal structure for the official recognition of samesex relationships. The rights and benefits available through these domestic partnerships vary significantly, but typically involve the ability to visit one’s partner in a hospital, and various contractual agreements regarding property ownership and mutual support. While domestic partnerships provide a set of basic rights to same-sex couples, they have often been criticized for providing only minimal protections, and this criticism represented the early stages of the movement for same-sex marriage. Court Battles and Decisions In 1999, three same-sex couples sued the state of Vermont for the right to marry. In a landmark decision called Baker v. State, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled unanimously that denying the statutory benefits and protections of marriage to same-sex couples violated the Common Benefits Clause of the Vermont Constitution. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Amestoy, the court held that the state was “constitutionally required to extend to same-sex couples the common benefits and protections that flow from marriage under Vermont law.” However, the court left it to the Vermont legislature to remedy the violation by either incorporating same-sex couples into existing marriage laws, or by creating a statutory alternative that provided same-sex couples the full “benefit, protection, and security of the law.” The court’s decision proved controversial and the Vermont legislature engaged in extensive committee hearings and public debate to find a legally acceptable solution. Once it became clear that the majority of legislators preferred the creation of an alternative statutory arrangement, rather than the integration of samesex couples into civil marriage, much of the discussion focused on what such an arrangement should be called. Members of the Vermont legislature considered several terms including domestic partnership, civil accord, and civil domestic partnership; however, members of the gay and lesbian community were dissatisfied with the term domestic partnership as were many of the legislators. Legal scholar William Eskridge notes that the term civil union first became part of the Vermont legislative record when Representative Cathy Voyer urged

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that the provision of equal benefits and responsibilities ought to be made in a “civil union package.” The term civil union gained the favor of Representative Thomas Little, the chair of Vermont’s House Judiciary Committee, and the term was eventually adopted by the full legislature when it passed Act 91—An Act Relating to Civil Unions. Vermont’s Act 91 created what legal scholars have referred to as “a parallel system” for the recognition of same-sex relationships. Vermont’s creation of civil unions was seen by many as a political compromise that conformed to the legal mandate to provide samesex couples all of the rights and benefits associated with marriage, while at the same time reserving the title “marriage” for opposite-sex relationships. As debates over same-sex marriage continued in the 2000s, civil unions became an attractive option for courts and legislatures struggling with how to ensure the equal rights of same-sex couples. The civil union approach was eventually adopted by the states of Connecticut (2005), New Jersey (2007), and New Hampshire (2008). Separate but Equal System More recently, civil unions have been criticized as a novel legal institution that fails to provide full equality for same-sex couples. Echoing the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), many have argued that civil unions are an attempt to create a “separate but equal” system of familial recognition that explicitly distinguishes same-sex couples from opposite-sex couples. In 2008, Connecticut became the first state with civil unions to address this legal problem. In Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a right to civil marriage, and that Connecticut’s civil union law did not provide full equality to its citizens. In recent years, several states have expanded their domestic partnership laws to provide all, or nearly all, of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, therefore rendering them equivalent to civil unions while at the same time retaining the term domestic partnership. For example, the states of California, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington have comprehensive domestic partnership laws that are equivalent to civil unions. Several other states including Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, and Wisconsin provide more limited forms of domestic partnership. In 2009, Vermont and New

Hampshire became the first states with civil unions to legislatively adopt same-sex marriage. As prescribed by these laws, civil unions in both states will be converted to civil marriages. Forms of relationship recognition similar to American-style civil unions have been adopted in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe. Denmark became the first country in the world to provide samesex couples almost all of the rights of marriage when it adopted the Registered Partnership Act in 1989. Since then, other countries have adopted various forms of relationship recognition for same-sex couples. Similar to the diversity among American states, some of these countries provide a minimal set of rights while others provide more comprehensive recognition for same-sex couples. For example, in 2004, the United Kingdom passed the Civil Partnership Act, which, like American-style civil unions, provides same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities of marriage, but without the title of marriage. Because of the various ways different states and countries have dealt with relationship recognition for same-sex couples, there is a patchwork of legal arrangements that are often not recognized outside their jurisdiction of origin. Many of these legal arrangements are similar in the kinds of rights and benefits they provide to same-sex couples, yet different in terms of their historical development and their cultural meaning. Civil unions emerged at the turn of the 21st century as the result of particular legal and political conditions. As a form of relationship recognition for samesex couples designed to be the substantive equivalent of civil marriage, civil unions are distinguished by the particular bundle of legal and social rights they provide, as well as the cultural meanings they convey. Civil unions, and their counterparts in other societies, are certain to remain an important and evolving feature of civil society for the foreseeable future. See Also: Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Marriage; Same-Sex Marriage. Further Readings Baker v. State of Vermont. 744 A.2d 864 (Vt. 1999). Chauncey, George. Why Marriage?: The History Shaping Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

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Eskridge, William N. Jr. Equality Practice: Civil Unions and the Future of Gay Rights. New York: Routledge, 2002. Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health. 289 Conn. 135 (2008). Mello, Michael. Legalizing Gay Marriage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Merin, Yuval. Equality for Same-Sex Couples: The Legal Recognition of Gay Partnerships in Europe and the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Strasser, Mark. On Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and the Rule of Law: Constitutional Interpretation at the Crossroads. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Vermont Act 91, An Act Relating to Civil Unions. Approved April 26, 2000. Jason J. Hopkins Independent Scholar

Classical Music, Women in Although women have been active participants in all aspects of musical life since antiquity, their accomplishments have typically been eclipsed by those of male musicians. Historically, classical music (Western art music) has generally been viewed as an elite domain—the realm of the highly trained “professional,” and thus deemed largely off-limits for female musicians, who usually lacked equal access to formal musical training. Women have been performing and composing music for centuries, but often their efforts were unknown, unpublished, or considered amateur accomplishments. Since the “second wave” feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, women’s work in classical music has begun to be explored by scholars in greater depth. Research has led to new insights about important female performers and ensembles of previous eras. Music by female composers has been recovered and discovered, adding an astonishing number of new pieces to the classical repertoire. Many of the works of these previously forgotten female composers are now being performed, published, and recorded for the first time. In many ways, women’s struggles in music have paralleled their struggles to redefine their roles in society.

Even highly successful female classical musicians face many professional barriers in the 21st century.

The hard-won social and political gains for women in the 19th and 20th centuries were also reflected in the classical music world, as increasing numbers of women began to pursue professional careers as performers and composers. Performers Female instrumentalists and singers broke down barriers regarding professional performance careers during the 19th century, as more and more women fought against prevailing ideas about the “proper” lady. Music was typically considered a hobby or “feminine” accomplishment for well-to-do women: Long-held views about “feminine” music making dictated that middleand upper-class women should perform as amateurs in domestic settings. As 19th-century women argued against entrenched notions of the “proper lady,” many women also sought to widen their musical sphere by publishing their music or attending conservatories. By the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, more and more women began to expand their musical activities, not only by learning instruments previously considered “unfeminine” (such as the violin or

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wind and brass instruments) but also through newfound professional opportunities. At the turn of the 20th century, women’s ensembles such as the Boston Fadette Lady Orchestra provided female instrumentalists a way to earn money as performing musicians, as women were still largely barred from playing in professional groups, which typically comprised only men. During the 20th century, larger numbers of women began to gain membership in professional symphony orchestras. World War II also offered increased opportunities for women, who were hired to replace male orchestral musicians who had been called overseas. Changes in audition procedures—particularly the switch to “blind” auditions (in which musicians play behind a screen, hiding their appearance from the hiring committee)—also have helped to prevent discrimination in orchestra auditions. At the close of the 20th century, a number of women such as Cecilia Bartoli, Evelyn Glennie, Jessye Norman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mitsuko Uchida, and many others enjoyed lucrative performance careers and worldwide acclaim. However, female performers still face professional barriers in the 21st century. The Vienna Philharmonic did not hire female musicians until the 1980s and did not allow women to become full-time members until 1997. In 2010, Albena Danailova made headlines when she became the first female violinist to be appointed concertmaster of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra (the ensemble from which the Vienna Philharmonic draws its performers). Successful female performers also face a different sort of pressure from the recording industry. A startling number of albums by female classical musicians have cover art and photography that emphasizes the physical attractiveness of the performer, often using risqué images and graphics. Crossover groups such as the “OperaBabes” (whose 2001 album sold more than 1 million copies) include highly sensual visual content on their albums, Website, and videos. Even accomplished and highly successful classical musicians such as the Eroica Trio, Anna Netrebko, and Lara St. John have used suggestive photography on their Websites and album cover art. Composers Historically, classical composition is a realm that has been dominated by men. As women’s access to educational opportunities improved, more women

began pursuing careers as composers. However, critics often dismissed women’s compositional efforts. In 1880, George Upton claimed that women’s inherent incapacity for intricate, logical reasoning meant that they would never create musical works equal to those of male composers. Even as late as 1940, Carl E. Seashore argued that the lack of “great” women composers could be explained by women’s “fundamental urge,” which he claimed was to be loved and adored (and not to seek a professional career). However, significant numbers of women endeavored to have careers as professional composers in the 20th century. These women garnered a number of important “firsts” for female composers. In 1933, Florence Price became the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra. In 1983, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music—the first woman to receive this important honor. Since 2000, female composers have continued to make impressive strides. In 2010, Columbia University awarded Pauline Oliveros the prestigious William Schuman award; Oliveros is the first woman to receive this prize. The same year, Jennifer Higdon won the Pulitzer Prize in music, making her the fourth woman to earn the award for composition. Yet female composers still face many barriers. As Gascia Ouzounian has noted, male composers still significantly outnumber female composers as university faculty members, and many major institutions (such as McGill University, the Juilliard School, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Yale University, to name just a few) currently employ only one or even zero women on their permanent composition faculties. Other Areas In recent years, female conductors have made especially noteworthy accomplishments. Although a few women (such as Ethel Leginska and Antonia Brico) worked as guest conductors in the early decades of the 20th century, it was not until the mid-1980s that a woman (Catherine Comet) was finally appointed to a permanent position as an associate conductor. In 1998, JoAnn Falleta (who is also the first American woman to lead a regional orchestra) became the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic—an acclaimed second-tier orchestra—and in 2007, Marin Alsop was appointed music director of the Baltimore Symphony,



making her the first female music director of a major American orchestra. Music scholarship by and about women has flourished since the “second wave” feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. However, the integration of gender studies into music scholarship has occurred more slowly than in other disciplines, perhaps because men have traditionally outnumbered women in the subdisciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. Although in recent years the professional organizations for musicologists (the American Musicological Society) and ethnomusicologists (the Society for Ethnomusicology) have reported that their percentages of male and female members are now roughly equal, a 2008 study by the Society for Music Theory’s Committee on the Status of Women revealed that female music theorists were still significantly outnumbered by male music theorists. In 2001, only 31 percent of the Society for Music Theory’s members were female; by 2008, the percentage of women in the society had fallen to just 27 percent. Although progress remains to be made, women’s status in classical music has significantly improved during the last two centuries. The 21st century marks an exciting era in which female musicians and scholars have unprecedented opportunities to pursue professional careers in music. In addition, technological advances (such as the World Wide Web) provide new ways for female musicians to communicate, organize, and share their work with audiences around the world. Today’s women in classical music will continue to blaze the way for future generations of female musicians and scholars. See Also: Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity; Arts, Women in (21st Century Overview); Zaimont, Judith Lang. Further Readings Bernstein, J., ed. Women’s Voices Across Musical Worlds. Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2004. Briscoe, James R. New Historical Anthology of Music by Women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Citron, Marcia. Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993. The Committee on the Status of Women (in the Society for Music Theory). “CSW Report on Gender Imbalance” and “Gender in SMT.” Presented at the 2008 Society for Music Theory meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. http://

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societymusictheory.org/administration/committees /women (accessed April 2010). International Alliance for Women in Music. http://www .iawm.com (accessed June, 2010). Sadie, J. and R. Samuel, eds. The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Seashore, Carl E. “Why No Great Women Composers?” Reprinted in Carol Neuls-Bates, ed., Women in Music: An Anthology of Source Readings From the Middle Ages to the Present, rev. ed. Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 1996. Tick, J., et al. “Women in Music,” in Grove Music Online/ Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline .com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52554pg2 (accessed April 2010). Upton, George. Excerpts From Woman in Music (1880), Reprinted in Carol Neuls-Bates, ed., Women in Music: An Anthology of Source Readings From the Middle Ages to the Present, rev. ed. Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 1996. Rachel Lumsden City University of New York

Clergy Abuse/Pedophilia For several decades, the Catholic Church has found itself rocked by scandal; hundreds of members of the clergy have sexually abused their parishioners. Though victims have reported incidents of sexual abuse around the world, most cases have occured in the United States and Europe. Critics have attacked the Church relentlessly because many members of the Church’s upper echelon were aware of clergy members’ sexually abusing members of their flock. For instance, Pope Benedict XVI, while serving in the capacity of head of the archdiocese of Munich and Freising in Germany, allowed a priest who molested children to seek therapy and then be reinstated. Through the end of the 20th century, most publicized cases of sexual abuse involving clergy concerned young males. Since 2000, however, scores of women (including nuns) have come forward and revealed that they, too, suffered sexual abuse by members of the clergy. In 2006, Colm O’Gorman’s BBC documentary Sex Crimes and the Vatican focused on young boys

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sexually abused by clergy members. Gorman’s work emphasized the Church’s scandal in detail, which many members of the public consider a “homosexual issue” because the sexual abuse involves two males. In a world still plagued by homophobic attitudes, cases of boys sexually abused by priests receive a wealth of attention. Hundreds of women have also been sexually abused by the clergy, but these women remain the underrepresented population of sexual abuse victims. In fact, Sacha Pfeiffer of the Boston Globe and author of “Women Face Stigma of Clergy Abuse” argues that though more preadolescent victims of clergy abuse are male, once parishioners reach the age of late adolescence or adulthood, females account for 80 percent of clergy sexual abuse victims. Continuing Pattern of Abuse Critics of female abuse victims question why these women did not reveal the abuse they suffered earlier, especially when male victims have been creating awareness about abuse patterns for decades. Scholars and abuse victims alike agree that the scare tactics used by priests abusing young women caused them to remain terrified and silent for much longer than their male counterparts. While male abuse victims suffer as much pain and humiliation as female victims, the Church’s traditional views of the female sex make women ripe for exploitation. The Catholic Church remains an institution in which traditional Church fathers (stemming back to St. Augustine) hold women responsible for humankind’s fall from grace. Priests who sexually abused young women commonly played on the traditional Catholic belief that women are wrongdoers, temptresses, and ultimately responsible for seducing men into behaving inappropriately. Both female and male victims say that priests often encouraged them to remain quiet about the abuse because no one would take the abuser’s word over that of a trusted and respected priest. Consider the case of Mary Ryan who, once she revealed that a priest had abused her, was nicknamed “Priest Lover” and was made to feel responsible for the abuse inflicted on her, simply because she is female. Since 2000, hundreds of cases concerning sexual crimes committed by the clergy against women have been exposed. Some of the most shocking cases include Massachusetts reverend Robert Kelly, who recently

claimed to have sexually abused between 50 and 100 young women, and the case of a Canadian woman named Cecelia McLauchlin, who may be the youngest girl on record to have been sexually abused by a priest. As Mary Ormsby reports in “Church Scandal’s Next Wave: Abused Girls,” McLauchlin, at the age of only 5, was taken to the gynecologist for vaginal infections caused by her priest, Father Charles Sylvestre, who abused her. The Website SNAP (Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests) aims to educate readers about the stories of abuse victims. Barbara Blaine, a woman raped for years by her priest Chet Warren, founded the Website, which includes and emphasizes the stories of female victims from around the world who were sexually abused by clergy members. Some recent cases of sexual abuse in the Church involved nuns—both as targets of abuse and as perpetrators. In the article “Nuns as Sexual Victims Get Little Notice,” Bill Smith argues that over 40 percent of nuns report being sexual abuse victims; many of those victims say their abusers were members of the clergy with whom they work so closely. Conversely, sexual abuse victims have also targeted nuns as perpetrators. These scandals receive far less attention than those involving the clergy, however, because much of the Church’s resources remain devoted to addressing the more wellknown patterns of abuse created by its male members. In 2006, several Minnesota women made headlines by suing nuns who abused them as young girls. Mary Dunford weathered abuse while attending the Villa Maria boarding school. A nun came into her room after curfew to molest her. Christina Bertrand, Patricia Swartz, and Karen Britten of Rochester, Minnesota, experienced sexual abuse during private piano lessons with a nun. They later sued the Sisters of Saint Francis in Rochester. In Europe, Petra Jorissen, a Dutch woman, exposed her terrifying story of abuse by nuns at the Roman Catholic Hospital of Our Dear Lady Mother (located in Eindhoven in the Netherlands). Jorissen’s story, coupled with those of other abuse victims in the Netherlands, confronted the Dutch assumption that clergy in the Netherlands were uninvolved with the international sexual abuse scandal. Just as the pattern of priests abusing young men has been classified a “homosexual issue,” so has the pattern of nuns who abuse young women. This blanket generalization seeks to provide a rationale for why nuns, usually viewed as loving and peaceful, would



abuse young women: they must be lesbians and seek intimacy from other females. Several scholars agree, however, that nuns who abuse young girls are not lesbians, but simply women who—relegated to secondary positions in the institutions to which they devote themselves—enjoy having power over someone. Other scholars, like psychologist Gary Schoener (as interviewed by Pamela Miller in “Complaints of Sex Abuse by Nuns Begin to Emerge”) claim that some nuns who sexually abuse children do not understand the inappropriateness of their actions. Many nuns, Schoener claims, enter a convent immediately after completing high school and know very little of the world—including what constitutes sexual abuse. Long-Term Consequences Female victims, just like male victims, suffer tremendous consequences from the abuse endured. Some victims do not reveal their painful pasts and thus live under a burden of pain created by events in their youth. Others who expose the crimes committed against them require therapy. Whether or not the victim reveals the abuse, consequences for female victims of sexual abuse by religious leaders fall into two major categories: the females either suffer attacks from people who refuse to believe their stories or the abuse victims question (and sometimes even lose) their faith. For instance, Mary Ryan (the woman nicknamed the “Priest Lover” after revealing the abuse she endured) says she no longer believes in God but only in justice. Organizations like SNAP offer assistance and healing to victims and educate the public about the problem of sexual abuse and pedophilia within the Church and the dire consequences for its victims. Female victims face a particular set of consequences not typically present for male victims—that is, being held responsible for the sexual encounter—and have understandably been less willing to report incidents of abuse. But, as evidenced in recent years, the number of female victims who amass the strength and courage to reveal stories of sexual abuse by members of the Church will continue to grow. See Also: Child Abuse, Perpetrators of; Child Abuse, Victims of; Nuns, Roman Catholic; Priesthood, Roman Catholic; Rape Trauma Syndrome; Roman Catholic Church.

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Further Readings Berry, Jason. Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Dohmen, Joep. “Catholic Nuns Also Abused Children.” NRC Handelsblad. http://www.nrc.nl/international /article2530647.ece/Catholic_nuns_also_abused _children (accessed June 2010). Doyle, Thomas, et al. Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse. Santa Monica, CA: Bonus Books, 2005. Miller, Pamela. “Complaints of Sex Abuse by Nuns Begin to Emerge.” Star and Tribune. http://www.bishop -accountability.org/news2006/05_06/2006_06_24 _Miller_ComplaintsOf.htm (accessed June 2010). Ormsby, Mary. “Church Scandal’s Next Wave: Abused Girls.” The Star (April 2010). Pfeiffer, Sacha. “Women Face Stigma of Clergy Abuse.” Boston Globe. http://www.snapnetwork.org/female _victims/women_face_stigma.htm (accessed June 2010). Plante, Thomas, ed. Bless Me Father for I Have Sinned: Perspectives on Sexual Abuse Committed by Roman Catholic Priests. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. Smith, Bill. “Nuns as Sexual Victims Get Little Notice.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. http://www.snapnetwork.org /female_victims/nuns_as_victims.htm (accessed June 2010). SNAP: The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. http://www.snapnetwork.org/female_victims /female_victims_index.htm (accessed June 2010). Van Wormer, Katherine. “Priest Abuse: Male Compared to Female Victimization Impact.” Psychology Today. http:// www.psychologytoday.com/blog/crimes-violence /201005/priest-abuse-male-compared-female-victim ization-impact (accessed June 2010). Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

Climate Change as a Women’s Issue Climate change poses a threat to women all over the world, and particularly those women who live in developing nations and women in low-income communities in developed nations. The effect of climate change

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on women in developing nations is particularly severe because of women’s unequal access to resources such as credit and property ownership; dependency on local natural resources; responsibility for supplying their households with water, energy for cooking and heating, and food; and increased vulnerability in natural disasters because of limited mobility. Gendered cultural norms also compound these threats. For example, in some cultures women are not taught to swim, thus limiting their chances of survival in a natural disaster such as a tsunami. In addition, although their perspectives on effective local strategies would be invaluable to decision making, women are seldom included in climate change policy discussions and decisions. Women in developed nations, particularly those in low-income communities, are also affected by climate change, as shown by Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005. Women’s perspectives and participation are vitally needed in informing policy discussion about climate change and enacting effective adaption and mitigation strategies in their communities. Causes and Effects of Climate Change The term climate change refers to significant and long-lasting (a decade or more) changes in the composition of the global atmosphere that, either directly or indirectly, are attributed to human activity. Global warming, an increase in global mean temperature, is one example of climate change. Additional examples include severe heat and drought, extreme rain and wind, and changing behavior in plants and animals. These combined changes threaten ecosystems, water availability, food production, and public health across the globe. In addition, rising sea levels pose a significant threat to the approximately 40 percent of the world’s population that lives in or near coastal areas. Climate change is attributed to the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. The primary sources for these emissions are industrialized nations, which use energy for heating, lighting, transportation, and manufacturing. The least-developed countries are responsible for only 0.4 percent of the total emissions of all greenhouse gases, yet they stand to be most affected by climate changes and are the least prepared to cope with the effects. Effects of climate change include changes to environmental, economic, and social development. The risk of political unrest

and conflict rises as natural resources become scarce in a region, creating famine, drought, and relocation of populations. Adaptation and mitigation strategies are both needed to address the threats posed by climate change. Adaptation strategies are aimed at preparing for climate change disruptions and include strategies such as early-warning systems, such as those that are in place for droughts in Africa and cyclones in Bangladesh; preparing for an influx of refugees in the event of a natural disaster; and relocating at-risk populations before a disruptive event occurs. Mitigation strategies are aimed at slowing climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and include reducing the use of fossil fuels, reforestation, and developing sustainable alternatives for production and consumption practices. Effects on Women Women in developing nations are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change because they make up the world’s majority of subsistence farmers and are directly influenced by changes in water and land resources. Two broad factors influence the vulnerability of women to climate change in developing nations: traditional power structures and ecological degradation. Traditional power structures that perpetuate gender inequalities include limited access to resources such as credit; limited mobility; underrepresentation in decision making; poverty; not learning basic survival skills such as swimming and climbing trees; responsibility for household food, energy, and water; and the fact that women typically are the ones who stay behind in the event of a natural disaster, to care for the elderly and immobile. For example, it is estimated that up to two-thirds of those who died in the 2004 tsunami in Asia were women. The second factor that influences the vulnerability of women to climate change in developing countries is ecological degradation. Because women constitute the majority of the world’s subsistence farmers, they are directly affected by ecological degradation such as deforestation and desertification. For example, the conflicts that began in Darfur, Sudan, in 2003 and have left an estimated 500,000 people dead are linked to drought and the desertification of the region. In addition to conflict, such ecological changes place more of a burden on women, who must travel longer distances to find water



and firewood for fuel. In addition, mothers may take their daughters out of school to help them manage the household tasks, thus depriving the girls of education and perpetuating a cycle of social inequality. Although women in developing nations are most vulnerable to climate change, women in developed nations are also at risk, particularly those in lowincome communities. For example, in 2005, Gulf Coast regions of the United States were severely affected by flooding related to Hurricane Katrina. Similar to women in developing countries, the effect of the storm on women in these regions was compounded by their economic status, restricted mobility, and care-giving responsibilities. In addition to the devastation of communities and loss of life caused by the storm, women in affected regions faced poststorm challenges such as lack of affordable and safe housing, which resulted in increased domestic violence and sexual assault. In addition, representation of women in the workforce in these regions decreased with lack of job opportunities, lower wages, and the closure of childcare facilities. Climate Change Policy The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed on in 1992 and went into effect in 1994, with federal governments agreeing to reduce their overall emissions. With a few exceptions, the majority of the world’s nations signed on to the convention. Negotiated in 1997 and adopted in 2005, the Kyoto Protocol set specific targets and timelines for achieving emissions reduction. The Kyoto Protocol was not adopted by the United States or Australia, as well as parts of Africa and eastern Europe. However, many local governments voluntarily adopted the Kyoto Protocol. Cities for Climate Protection was established in 1993 and includes more than 1,000 participating local and city governments in 33 countries that have pledged to reduce their carbon emissions. In the United States, the Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement was established in 2005, and in 2009 it had 1,016 mayors signed on across the United States agreeing to reduce their carbon emissions below the 1990 level in accordance with Kyoto Protocol recommendations. None of the above initiatives include gender as an area of focus, however. Although women in developing countries and lowincome communities are the most vulnerable to the

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problems posed by climate change, they may also be the most knowledgeable in identifying effective local solutions, and thus, their inclusion and participation in environmental decision making is necessary. In particular, women can positively influence mitigation and adaptation strategies with their localized knowledge and expertise. Women’s grassroots environmental groups such as the Green Belt Movement, a nonprofit nongovernmental women’s civil society organization based in Kenya, are working to address the gender gap in discussions about climate change policy. Started in 1977 by Dr. Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and the first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, the Green Belt Movement began as a grassroots tree-planting program intended to address the challenges of deforestation, soil erosion, and lack of water. Since the program began, more than 40 million trees have been planted across Africa, resulting in reduction of soil erosion in critical watersheds, restoration and protection of forests, and empowerment of women. Established in 1990 by former U.S. Congresswoman Bella Abzug and feminist activist and journalist Mim Kelber, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) organizes international conferences and actions that involve women in environmental decision making. In 1992, WEDO organized the World Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet, bringing together more than 1,500 women from 83 countries to work jointly on a strategy for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. WEDO’s Climate Change & Gender Mobilization Project involves partnerships with civil society organizations and governments in developing countries to examine the effects of climate change on women’s lives through gender and climate change assessments conducted in Ghana, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago, and Senegal. Efforts at both the government and the grassroots levels are needed to help incorporate gender perspectives on climate change discussions, policy, and strategies; address and reduce women’s increased risk of susceptibility to harm caused by climate change; and identify best practices, challenges, and gaps. See Also: Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Issues, Women and; Famine; Financial Independence of Women; Green Belt Movement;

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Maathai, Wangari; Poverty; Property Rights; United Nations Development Fund for Women; Women’s Environment and Development Organization. Further Readings Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “Women in the Wake of the Storm: Examining the Post-Katrina Realities of the Women of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.” http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/D481.pdf (accessed June 2010). Sontheimer, Sally, ed. Women and the Environment: A Reader. Crisis and Development in the Third World. New York: Monthly Review, 1991. United Nations Population Fund and Women’s Environment and Development Organization. “Climate Change Connections.” http://www.wedo.org/wp-con tent/uploads/climateconnections_1_overview.pdf (accessed June 2010). Deborah R. Bassett University of Washington

Clinton, Hillary Rodham Hillary Rodham Clinton was born on October 27, 1947, in Chicago to Dorothy and Hugh Rodham. She attended Wellesley, graduating in 1969, and then continued her education at Yale Law School, graduating with honors in 1973. It was at Yale that she first met Bill Clinton. Upon completing law school, Hillary Rodham completed an additional year of study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. In August 1974, after serving as a member of the presidential impeachment inquiry staff during the Watergate scandal, Rodham served as a faculty member at the University of Arkansas Law School. Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton were married on October 11, 1975, and welcomed their first and only child, Chelsea, on February 27, 1980. Hillary Clinton has held many prominent positions at both the state and federal levels. She served as First Lady of Arkansas (1979–1981 and 1983–1992), First Lady of the United States (1993–2000), and U.S. senator from the State of New York (2001–2009). In 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for president of the United States, losing the nomination to then U.S. senator Barack Obama. Following Obama’s election as presi-

dent, he tapped Senator Clinton to serve as secretary of state, and she began her tenure in this role in 2009, resigning her position in the U.S. Senate. Throughout both her law and political careers, Clinton has attempted and accomplished much and is regarded by many as a pioneer and strong advocate for women and children. First Lady of Arkansas Prior to serving as First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary Rodham Clinton was a member of the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was made a full partner in the firm in 1979, as she began her tenure as First Lady, and was named twice to the list of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.” She also founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a nonprofit organization designed to research and advocate for issues impacting children and families. As First Lady of Arkansas, Clinton was appointed by her husband as the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee where she worked to bring healthcare to the rural poor. Additionally, she chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee. In this position she advocated for teacher raises, competency tests for new and current teachers, and statewide curriculum standards. Clinton also endorsed Arkansas’s Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth which sent teachers into the homes of underprivileged preschool children to train the parents in literacy and school preparedness. This program has since been adapted as a model in many other states. While serving as First Lady of Arkansas, Clinton also served on the boards of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Legal Services, the Children’s Defense Fund, TCBY, Walmart, and Lafarge. She also chaired the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton was appointed as chair of the President’s Task Force Health Care Reform in 1993 by her husband, President Bill Clinton. While this taskforce took on reforming the healthcare system in the United States, its plan was often criticized as a form of socialized healthcare and was abandoned a year later. This, however, did not deter Hillary Clinton from raising awareness about the underinsured and uninsured in America. In 1997,



she helped initiate the Children’s Health Insurance Program to provide state assistance to children who were not covered by health insurance. Additionally, Clinton worked to put into place the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which improves the safety of children waiting to be adopted, promotes adoption and other permanent homes for children who need them, and supports families throughout the process. Hillary Rodham Clinton also supported efforts to encourage reading to children, to immunize children against a range of childhood illnesses, and to stress the importance of mammography in the detection of breast cancer. She also began the Save America’s Treasures program in an effort to secure funding from federal and private sources to restore and preserve American icons and historical sites. She joined with then secretary of state Madeleine Albright to launch a government initiative called the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative to train and organize women leaders worldwide.

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U.S. Senator From New York As her time as First Lady of the United States drew to a close, Hillary Rodham Clinton organized an exploratory committee to investigate the possibility of her run for U.S. Senate. Clinton entered the senatorial race and was the first woman elected statewide in New York in 2000. She was sworn in as the U.S. Senator from New York on January 1, 2001, and served for 20 days as a senator who was also married to a current sitting president. During her time as a senator, Clinton served on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and the Senate Special Committee on Aging. She also sponsored 363 bills, 11 of which were enacted, and many that focused on healthcare, the nation’s military, healthcare for veterans, and rebuilding New York after the September 11 attacks. Clinton won reelection to the Senate in 2006 and shortly thereafter began her campaign for president of the United States. Presidential Campaign Throughout the presidential primaries, Clinton’s main competitor was Barack Obama. She was able to win primaries in New Hampshire, California, New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, and South Dakota. Unable to secure enough delegates to win the nomination of the Democratic Party, Clinton ended her presidential run on June 7, 2008, and began campaigning for Barack Obama.

Throughout her career, Clinton has accomplished much and is regarded as a strong advocate for women and children.

Secretary of State Following Barack Obama’s win in the 2008 presidential election, he nominated Hillary Rodham Clinton to serve as secretary of state. She was sworn in on January 21, 2009, resigning her seat in the U.S. Senate. In her welcoming remarks to the State Department employees, Clinton said, “President Obama set the tone with his inaugural address. And the work of the Obama-Biden administration is committed to advancing America’s national security, furthering America’s interests, and respecting and exemplifying America’s values around the world.” To accomplish this end, Hillary Rodham Clinton has advocated for the use of smart power, engagement, and diplomacy in interactions with countries around the world and

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has traveled extensively since beginning her tenure to begin building relationships with the leadership of countries in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. See also: Albright, Madeleine; National Women’s Political Caucus; Obama, Michelle; Pelosi, Nancy; Representation of Women in Government, U.S. Further Readings Clinton, Hillary Rodham. It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Clinton, Hillary Rodham. Living History. New York: Scribner, 2004. U.S. Department of State. “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.” http://www.state.gov/secretary /index.htm (accessed December 2009). The White House. “The First Ladies.” http://www.white house.gov/about/first-ladies/hillaryclinton (accessed December 2009). Carrie L. Cokely Curry College

Coaches, Female Large increases in participation opportunities at all levels of sport for girls and women have opened up more job opportunities for coaches and athletic administrators. The number of girls participating in high school sports has risen from 294,015 in 1971 to an all-time high of 3,114,091 in 2008–09. Similarly, women’s participation in intercollegiate sports has also increased to all-time highs. In 1968, there were 16,000 female college athletes; there were 180,000 in 2008. In addition, there are now two professional sport leagues for women: the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and Women’s Professional Soccer league. Despite these dramatic increases in female athletic participation, since 1972 the percentage of females coaching women’s intercollegiate athletic teams has steadily decreased every year. For example, in 1972, 90 percent of women’s intercollegiate teams had female head coaches; today, only 43 percent of women’s teams are led by women. At this time, there

are 3,874 female and almost 5,200 male head coaches of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division I, II, and III women’s sports teams. In addition, only 57.5 percent of assistant coaches of all women’s NCAA teams are female—this percentage has remained consistent for the last 15 years. Similar data regarding the gender of coaches at the interscholastic level are not available because unlike colleges and universities, high schools are currently not required to publicly report this information. However, the NCAA percentages are mirrored in data collected from the WNBA. During the 2009 season, 46 percent of WNBA head coaches and 55 percent of assistant coaches were women. In 1998, the WNBA’s first season, 70 percent of head coaches in the WNBA and 50 percent of assistant coaches were women. There are a number of different reasons for this decrease in the number of women entering and staying in the coaching profession. In a 2008 report on gender equity in intercollegiate coaching and administration published by the NCAA, female studentathletes cited salary concerns, concerns over the time requirements of coaching, and preference for a 9-to5 workday as perceived reasons for not choosing a career in athletics. Further, these female student-athletes identified time requirements, salary, and gender discrimination as perceived reasons why women leave the coaching profession. Ninety-seven percent of the 8,900 female student athletes who responded to this survey were satisfied with their participation in athletics, yet only 10 percent of these respondents indicated that they were interested in working in college athletics. Support for Female Coaching Recognizing these trends and the need to provide additional training and support to current female coaches, the NCAA has partnered with several organizations, such as the Women’s Sports Foundation, to research and address these issues. In addition, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics established the Women Coaches Academy in 2002. The purpose of the academy is to enhance the management, leadership, communication, and networking skills of female coaches through training and mentoring. Key goals of the academy are to provide support for women who want to enter the coaching profession and the retention of females who are currently coaching.



Although many female student-athletes appear to be interested in careers other than coaching—business, the social sciences, and education were the most frequently cited majors by these female athletes— there are several successful female coaches who continue to have an effect on women’s sport. Perhaps the most well-known female coach is Pat Summitt, the head coach of the women’s basketball team at the University of Tennessee. Summitt was a basketball player for the University of Tennessee at Martin and the co-captain of the United States women’s national basketball team in the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. The team won a silver medal in the first women’s basketball tournament in Olympic history. In 1974, Summitt was a graduate assistant at the University of Tennessee and was subsequently named the head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s basketball program. She is still coaching at the University of Tennessee today, where she has accumulated a long list of awards, titles, and accomplishments in her name. One key accomplishment for Summitt occurred on February 5, 2009, when she became the first NCAA Division I coach—female or male—to reach 1,000 wins as a head coach. She is the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history, and in 2000 she was named the Naismith Coach of the Century. She also has the most national championships (eight) in women’s basketball. On March 22, 2005, after clinching her 880th career win, the University of Tennessee basketball court was named “The Summitt” in her honor. She was part of the first class that was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (1999) and was also inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame (2000). One of her proudest accomplishments is that 100 percent of the student–athletes who have completed their eligibility at the University of Tennessee have graduated. Also noteworthy is the fact that 45 of her former players have gone on to become basketball coaches. Notable Female Coaches Other notable female coaches include intercollegiate basketball coaches C. Vivian Stringer, Tara VanDerveer, and Kim Mulkey and U.S. Women’s National Team soccer coach Pia Sundhage. Stringer is currently the head coach of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, where she has been coaching since 1995. She has been a head coach since 1972 and has the distinction of being the first coach

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in NCAA basketball history to lead three different teams to the NCAA Final Four: Cheyney State College (1982), the University of Iowa (1992), and Rutgers (2000 and 2007). She is the third winningest coach in women’s basketball history, and on February 27, 2008, she clinched her 800th career coaching win. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (2001) and the Basketball Hall of Fame (2009). Tara VanDerveer has been the head coach of the Stanford University women’s basketball team since 1996. Following her playing career at Indiana University, she has been the head women’s basketball coach at two other universities (University of Idaho and Ohio State University). In addition, VanDerveer was the head coach of the gold medal–winning U.S. Olympic Women’s Team during the 1996 Olympic Games. She has over 750 career wins as a NCAA Division I coach and has coached the Stanford women’s basketball team to two NCAA National Championships (1990 and 1992). VanDerveer was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002. Kim Mulkey became the head coach of the Baylor University women’s basketball team in 2000 after serving as an assistant and then associate head coach at Louisiana Tech for five years. Mulkey was an AllAmerican player at Louisiana Tech (1980–84), where she played point guard on two national championship teams (1981 and 1982). She was also a member of the U.S. women’s basketball national team that won a gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. In 2005, the Baylor University women’s basketball team won the NCAA National Championship. Mulkey became the first person in NCAA basketball history to win a national championship as a player, assistant coach, and head coach. Pia Sundhage became coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team in 2008 after a long and illustrious international career as a soccer player and coach. Sundhage was a member of the Swedish Women’s National Team for the first time in 1974 and continued playing until 1996. Named the head coach of the Boston Breakers of the Women’s United Soccer Association in 2003, Sundhage’s team won the league title and she was named the Women’s United Soccer Association Coach of the Year that same year. During the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Sundhage was an assistant coach for China’s Women’s National Team. Later that year, Sundhage became the seventh U.S. Women’s National

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Soccer Team head coach and the third female coach in team history. Sundhage led the national team to a gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Gender Barriers Less than 3 percent of men’s intercollegiate athletic teams are coached by women, and at this time there are no women coaching men’s professional teams. That fact will change with the start of the men’s professional 2010 National Basketball Association Development League season. Nancy Lieberman, former collegiate and professional basketball player, Olympian, WNBA coach and general manager, member of both the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame, and ESPN basketball analyst, was named head coach of the Texas Legends. Lieberman will be the first female to coach a men’s professional team. Another gender barrier in coaching was broken when Natalie Randolph was named head coach of the Calvin Coolidge Senior High School boys’ football team in Washington, D.C., for the 2010 season. Randolph was a track athlete at the University of Virginia and more recently a wide receiver for a professional women’s football team. She was previously employed as an assistant coach for the H. D. Woodson High School boys’ football team. Although these are groundbreaking opportunities for Lieberman and Randolph, many women are still faced with significant barriers to pursuing a career in coaching and athletics. The NCAA, Women’s Sports Foundation, coaching associations, and other women’s sport organizations are actively taking steps to reverse an almost-40-year decline in the number of females coaches at all levels of athletics. See Also: Basketball, College; Olympics, Summer; Olypmics, Winter; Sports, Women in; Women’s National Basketball Association. Further Readings Acosta, R. Vivian and Linda Jean Carpenter. “Women in Intercollegiate Sport: A Longitudinal Study ThirtyThree Year Update,” Women in Sport/Title IX. http:// www.acostacarpenter.org/ (accessed March 2010). Lapchick, R. “The 2009 Women’s National Basketball Association Race and Gender Report Card.” Tide Sport. http://www.tidesport.org/RGRC/2009/2009_WNBA _RGRC_PR.pdf (accessed March 2010).

National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). “Gender Equity in College Coaching and Administration: Perceived Barriers Report.” Indianapolis, IN: NCAA, 2009. WinStar Foundation. “NCAA Women Coaches Academy.” http://www.coachesacademy.org/ncaa .php (accessed April 2010). Women’s Sports Foundation. Special Issues for Coaches of Women’s Sports. East Meadow, NY: Women’s Sports Foundation, 2009. Corinne M. Daprano University of Dayton

Coaches of Women’s Teams Job opportunities in women’s coaching and administration increased dramatically after the passage of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972. This increase is the result of increases in participation opportunities for female athletes. Today more girls begin playing sports at younger ages, and there has been an increase in the number of school, recreational, and club sports programs for girls and women. For example, there are currently 9,087 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s intercollegiate athletic teams and two professional sport leagues for women—the Women’s National Basketball Association and Women’s Professional Soccer league. In addition, there are several organizations dedicated to promoting girls and women’s participation in different sports, as well as the interests of coaches who coach women’s teams. These include the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, National Golf Coaches Association, Collegiate Coaches Rowing Association, National Fastpitch Coaches Association, and National Soccer Coaches Association of America. The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association is one of the largest of these organizations and represents female and male coaches of women’s basketball teams at all levels of play, including high school, recreational, Amateur Athletic Union, junior college, community college, collegiate (NCAA and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), and professional. The organization was founded in 1981 and currently has over 4,000 members.

CODEPINK



There are still few women coaching men’s teams: less than 3 percent of men’s intercollegiate athletic teams have female head coaches, and approximately 57 percent of women’s teams are coached by males. In addition, almost 42 percent of assistant coaches for women’s teams are women. Before 1972 and the enactment of Title IX, 90 percent of women’s intercollegiate athletic teams and about 2 percent of men’s teams had female head coaches. Researchers have found that the most important reasons for the decline in the number of women coaches after Title IX’s enactment are gender discrimination, workload issues, and lack of family/work balance in the workplace. Further, in an NCAA gender equity survey that was administered, in part, to NCAA female studentathletes, 52 percent of the 8,900 athlete respondents reported that they preferred their coach to be male. Resources and Support Women’s and girls’ teams generally receive fewer resources and do not have the same long-standing history and community support as their male counterparts. In addition, the coaches of women’s teams are often paid considerably less than those who coach men’s teams. Pat Summitt, head coach of the women’s basketball team at the University of Tennessee, recently became the first coach of a women’s team to sign a million-dollar coaching contract. Despite these disparities, there are many highly skilled coaches who have long-tenured coaching careers. Some of the most tenured and successful coaches of women’s teams include Pat Summitt, C. Vivian Stringer, Tara VanDerveer, Geno Auriemma, and Anson Dorrance. Pat Summitt has had a 36-year coaching career with the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team. She has the most NCAA National Championship wins (eight) in women’s basketball, as well as the most career wins for any coach—male or female—in NCAA history. With a career spanning 38 years, C. Vivian Stringer has coached three different teams to the NCAA Final Four, including her current team, the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. Tara VanDerveer is also a long-tenured coach (32 years) who has spent the last 24 years coaching the Stanford University women’s basketball team to two NCAA National Championships. Geno Auriemma has coached the University of Connecticut women’s bas-

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ketball team for 25 years and is second only to Summitt in terms of NCAA National Championship wins, with seven wins to her name. Anson Dorrance has coached the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team since its inception in 1979. During his tenure, the team has won 20 of 28 NCAA Women’s Soccer Championships. These female and male collegiate coaches, as well as coaches at other levels of play, continue to serve as advocates for their female athletes and teams and for girls’ and women’s continued involvement in sport. See Also: Basketball, College; Coaches, Female; Sports, Women in; Women’s National Basketball Association. Further Readings Acosta, R. Vivian and Linda Jean Carpenter. “Women in Intercollegiate Sport: A Longitudinal Study ThirtyThree Year Update.” Women in Sport/Title IX. http:// www.acostacarpenter.org (accessed March 2010). Drago, Robert, et al. CAGE: The Coaching and Gender Equity Project. CAGE Final Report. University Park: Pennsylvannia State University, 2005. Fazioli, Jennifer K. The Advancement of Female Coaches in Intercollegiate Athletics. University Park: Pennsylvannia State University, 2004. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). “Gender Equity in College Coaching and Administration: Perceived Barriers Report.” Indianapolis, IN: NCAA, 2009. Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. http://www .wbca.org (accessed March 2010). Corinne M. Daprano University of Dayton

CODEPINK This woman-centered activist organization promotes peace and social justice. The group was founded in the United States by longtime activists including Media Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Diane Wilson, and Starhawk on November 17, 2002, in response to the Bush administration’s policies toward Iraq. Combining humorous, performance-based activism that relies heavily on traditional feminine symbols—spe-

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cifically the color pink and emphasis on women’s mothering and caretaking roles—with astute Internet and media savvy, CODEPINK has emerged as a leader in the contemporary peace movement. Although it currently targets politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, the group’s initial aim was to stop the Bush administration from going to war in Iraq. In subsequent years, however, it has expanded its political agenda to include other social justice issues including, for example, electoral fraud and Hurricane Katrina. Membership has also expanded dramatically since the organization’s inception. What began as a group of approximately 100 women in Washington, D.C., has grown to include over 300 autonomous local and campus chapters worldwide. In addition, approximately 200,000 individuals receive weekly e-mail updates about CODEPINK activities; the group uses the Internet as a primary communication, networking, and recruitment tool. As its name indicates, the color pink is central to CODEPINK. Members wear bright pink clothing and accessories and bring pink signs to protests and other events. The color is also emphasized throughout the organization’s Website and print materials. Use of this particular color enables members to draw attention to their femininity and make themselves easily visible at protests, demonstrations, and other events. Adopting the color pink has also been a way for the group to poke fun at the color-coded terrorism alert system that was implemented in the wake of the September 11 tragedy. CODEPINK contends that while the terrorist alert system served to instill fear in American citizens, their use of the color pink calls upon women and men throughout the world to promote and demand peace. CODEPINK utilizes a variety of protest methods and has garnered considerable media attention. They are perhaps best known for their use of pink lingerie (aka “pink slips”) to symbolically “fire” elected officials. Although protests are planned in advance, group members encourage observers to participate. The organization has collaborated with numerous social justice organizations both in the United States and internationally, including those that promote peace (such as United for Peace and Action) as well as those that focus on gender-related issues (including the National Organization for Women). In 2009, CODEPINK was named a Most Valuable Progressive (MVP) organization by The Nation.

See Also: Guerrilla Girls; Internet; National Organization for Women; Peace Movement. Further Readings Benjamin, Medea and Jodie Evans, eds. Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism. Maui, HI: Inner Ocean Publishing, 2005. CODEPINK: Women for Peace. http://www.code pink4peace.org (accessed July 2009). Milazzo, Linda. “Code Pink: The 21st Century Mothers of Invention.” Development, v.48/2 (2005). Nichols, John. “Most Valuable Progressives: Code Pink’s Transition.” The Nation (blog). http://www.thenation .com/blogs/thebeat/398667/most_valuable_ prog ressives_code_pink_s_transition (accessed July 2009). Simone, Maria. “CODEPINK Alert: Mediated Citizenship in the Public Sphere.” Social Semiotics, v.16/2 (2006). Jillian M. Duquaine-Watson University of Texas at Dallas

College and University Faculty Women have continued to increase their presence as members of the faculty at institutions of higher education over the past few decades. Based on the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates, the 2001–02 academic year marked the first time that more women received doctoral degrees than men. In addition, the U.S. Digest of Education Studies reported that 63 percent of graduate students in 2007 were women. Despite such progress, female faculty members continue to be clustered in lower ranks, work at less prestigious universities, and earn less than their male colleagues. A variety of explanations have been offered through numerous studies in recent years in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the disparities. Institution Type Although the number of female faculty members has increased over the years, there is evidence that women are more likely to be employed at less prestigious universities and are less likely to work in tenure-track positions, regardless of institution type. The major-



ity of faculty positions at elite universities continue to be filled by male faculty members. In the 2001–02 academic year, male faculty members represented 60 percent of the assistant professor positions at the top research universities. Similarly, a report issued by the American Association of University Professors revealed that in the 2003–04 academic year, male faculty members at doctoral institutions outnumbered women by two to one. In comparison, full-time faculty positions at community colleges were more likely to be held by women. During the 2005–06 academic year, 26 percent of women occupied tenured positions at doctoral institutions, 35 percent were tenured at master’s institutions, 36 percent were tenured at baccalaureate institutions, and 47 percent held tenure at associate institutions. One plausible explanation for the difference in numbers of female faculty members across institution types is that disparities are the result of one’s field of study—that men are more likely to earn degrees in science and engineering and top research universities are more likely to hire within those fields. However, this is not always the case, as demonstrated by recent data indicating that although 45 percent of doctoral degrees in biology were awarded to women, only 30 percent of assistant professors among the 50 top research institutions were women. Rank Women are more likely to hold the ranks of instructor, lecturer, and assistant professor and are less likely to move up through the ranks than male faculty members. Sixty percent of male faculty members held tenured positions in 1998 compared with 42 percent of female faculty members. The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession reveals that in 2004, 26 percent of full professors were women compared with 74 percent of male full professors. According to the 2009 Almanac of the Chronicle of Higher Education, sex comparisons for the rank of full professor remained unchanged in 2007. In comparison, women represented 40 percent of associate professors, 47 percent of assistant professors, 54 percent of instructor positions, and 53 percent of lecturer positions. The pipeline argument, that women are in the pipeline and will eventually advance at a rate equivalent to their male counterparts, has been used to explain discrepancies and rank and tenure. Neverthe-

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less, despite the fact that women represent half of the doctoral population, women have not been promoted up the academic ranks at the same rate as men, and attrition is higher for women at the assistant professor level. There is also evidence that in recent years, tenure has declined, particularly for women. A report by Robin Wilson in The Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that tenure offers to women at Harvard have decreased since 2001. In addition, recent studies have also revealed that it takes longer for women to reach the status of full professor, particularly at doctoral institutions. Rank has also been used as an explanation for pay disparities between male and female professors; however, in some instances, disparities exist even when credentials, discipline, publications, and teaching experience are taken into consideration: Women faculty earn 81 percent of what their male colleagues are paid. According to the American Association of University Professors, there were gaps in pay between men and women at all ranks in 2007–08. The gap was 8.6 percent for lecturers, 2.9 percent for instructors, 6.8 percent for assistant professors, 6.8 percent for associates, and 12.1 percent for full professors, with women earning $93,349 and men earning $106,195 as full professors. Parental Status Female faculty members often discover that their biological clock and tenure clock tick simultaneously, as they transition from graduate school into teaching positions. There is evidence that parental status has an effect on one’s academic career, and a different effect for women than for men. The Survey of Doctorate Recipients indicates that men with children younger than 6 years old were twice as likely to enter tenure-track positions as women with young children. Similarly, a study conducted by Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden found that male faculty members with a child born in the household within five years after receiving a doctoral degree were 38 percent more likely to receive tenure than female faculty members who gave birth within five years after receiving their doctoral degree. In comparison, women who did not have children and women who had children 5 or more years old after receiving their doctoral degrees were also more likely to earn tenure than women who started their families earlier.

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Institutional Policies on Work–Life Balance One study of junior faculty at various research universities found that nearly half of those tenure-track faculty were dissatisfied with the balance between personal and professional time. Similarly, the 2009 Almanac of the Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrates that faculty reported lack of personal time (74 percent) and managing household chores (73 percent) as major sources of stress during the past two years. Cognizant of the need to improve work–life balance, some colleges and universities have designed a variety of initiatives to assist faculty members. Such initiatives include parental leave beyond the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), tenure clock stop, modified duties, and childcare assistance. Colleges and universities have traditionally negotiated leave beyond FMLA on a case-by-case basis for faculty members requesting extended leave. More recently, however, institutions of higher education have developed policies to extend unpaid leave. The Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor reported that 44 percent of colleges and universities within their sample provided unpaid leave beyond FMLA. Dependent leave policies apply to men as well as women, as long as one can demonstrate the role of primary caregiver. In contrast, colleges and universities are less likely to provide extended paid leave for dependent care or personal illness beyond FMLA and any combination of sick leave or short-term disability policy that a faculty member may hold. A few notable exceptions include Duke University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at which male or female faculty members who can demonstrate that they are the primary caregiver following the birth or adoption of a child are entitled to a semester of paid leave. The American Association of University Professors includes the tenure clock stop within the statement of principles on family responsibilities and academic work, and in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of colleges and universities that offer a tenure clock stop. A tenure clock stop is typically defined as a pause in the tenure clock for a faculty member to address extenuating circumstances, particularly the birth or adoption of a child or a major medical illness that interferes with a faculty member’s productivity. Universities with tenure clock stops often provide one to two years off the tenure clock.

Furthermore, true tenure clock stops do not require the faculty member to be on leave. Princeton, in 1970, was one of the first universities to develop one-year tenure extensions for female faculty. The policy was expanded in 1991 to cover male faculty. Research universities are also twice as likely to offer tenure clock extensions as other types of institutions. The Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor found that 92 percent of research universities had a tenure clock stop compared with 50 percent of liberal arts colleges. The American Association of University Professors also advocates active service–modified duties (ASMD) policies to promote work–life balance. ASMD policies provide reduced teaching loads for a specified time period with minimal to no pay cuts for faculty members who are primary caregivers for newborns or an adopted child younger than 5 years old. Only a small percentage of institutions have a formal policy on ASMD; however, many colleges and universities may negotiate with faculty members on an ad hoc basis. Among the notable exceptions of universities with formal ASMD policies, Duke University provides modified duties for up to three years. The University of California, Berkeley offers ASMD for three months before and one year after the birth or adoption. Northwestern, the University of Michigan, and Princeton also offer flexible options for ASMD. Campus-based childcare centers provide a variety of childcare arrangements and services to students, faculty, and staff. Funding for services is typically provided through childcare fees paid directly by the parents. In 2001, there were 2,500 campus-based childcare centers. For example, the State University of New York system provides on-site childcare to students, faculty, and staff across the state. Nevertheless, the demand for services is always greater than the amount of childcare slots available at centers on campus. As a result, many universities have also partnered with outside service providers. For example, Rutgers provides on-site childcare, and the university also contracts with outside providers in the region. Harvard provides care through affiliated centers that are independently owned and operated. Duke also partners with childcare service providers in the region.

Colombia

See Also: American Association of University Women; Attainment, Graduate Degree; Faculty, Adjunct and Contingent; Working Mothers; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Bradburn, Ellen M., et al. “Gender and Racial/Ethnic Differences in Salary and Other Characteristics of Postsecondary Faculty.” U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2002. The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Almanac Issue.” v.56/1 (2009). The Chronicle of Higher Education. “What Professors Earn.” v.54/32 (2008). Curtis, John W. “Faculty Salary and Faculty Distribution Fact Sheet.” http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres /research/2003-04factsheet.htm (accessed March 2009). Frasch, Karie, et al. “Creating a Family Friendly Department: Chairs and Deans Toolkit.” UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge. http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu (accessed December 2008). June, Audrey Williams. “Not Moving Up: Why Women Get Stuck at Associate Professor.” The Chronicle of Higher Education (April 2009). Touchton, Judy, et al. A Measure of Equity: Women’s Progress in Higher Education. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2008. Heather Wyatt-Nichol University of Baltimore

Colombia The Republic of Colombia is located in South America and features a diversity of regional cultures. Most of the population is mestizo or mulatto. The predominant culture is Hispanic and the predominant religion is Roman Catholic. Gender roles in Colombia are largely shaped by the traditional Hispanic cultural emphasis on male dominance while physical appearance and socioeconomic status are also important. Recent urbanization as well as increased educational and employment opportunities are slowly changing traditional gender roles. Although women enjoy civil equality, gender discrimination is still common, particularly in urban areas. Colombia was ranked 56th

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of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Quality-of-Life Issues Social and cultural tradition dictates that a woman’s primary role is that of wife and mother. The average age of marriage is the early 20s. The 2009 fertility rate was 2.2 births per woman. Skilled healthcare practitioners attend 96 percent of births. The infant mortality rate is 17 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate is 130 per 100,000 live births. The state social security system provides women with 12 weeks of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of their wages. The Hispanic cultural practice of machismo shapes gender roles, although it is becoming less prevalent in urban as opposed to rural areas. Men are expected to provide the family’s main financial support and make household decisions. Women are expected to place their husband’s wishes above their own. Women perform most of the domestic chores and childrearing responsibilities, although men often serve as the disciplinarian. Female school attendance rates stand at 87 percent at the primary level, 71 percent at the secondary level, and 33 percent at the tertiary level. Many children drop out of school to work. Women who receive a higher education are mainly from the upper and middle classes. The 2009 literacy rate for both genders stands at 92 percent. More than half of the population lived below the poverty line in 2001. Although public health standards have been improving, the lack of adequate safe drinking water supplies and sanitation remain problems. Rates of diseases such as malaria also remain high. Other problems include violence against women, trafficking in women and children for the sex trade, kidnappings, narcotics trafficking, instability and conflicts with paramilitary and guerrilla organizations, and human rights violations. Colombia has rapidly urbanized, leading to problems overcrowding and a lack of housing. The average life expectancy is age 66 for women and age 58 for men. A woman’s socioeconomic class also largely determines her public role, especially in urban areas. The upper class is mainly composed of whites, the middle class is mainly comprised of mestizo and mulatto, and the lower class is mainly black and indigenous. Many urban upper- and middle-class women avoid working outside the home because to do so would damage the family’s honor and social status. These women do play

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prominent roles in public institutions such as social groups and churches. Gender Gap Most lower-class women must seek outside employment out of financial necessity. Approximately 69 percent of women participate in the labor force. Women make up 49 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce but only 4 percent of professional and technical workers. Key employers include agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing. Women represent the bulk of primary school teachers and large but diminished percentages at the secondary and tertiary levels. There is a gender gap in terms of the average estimated earned income, which stands at $4,898 for women and $7,902 for men, and unemployment rates, which stand at 13.82 percent for women and 8.69 percent for men. Sexual harassment is pervasive. Although more women are represented in highpaying employment, giving them increased social influence, many women still remain economically dependent on men. Women have the right to vote and middle- and upper-class women are often politically active in terms of social issues. Women hold 8 percent of parliamentary seats and 23 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. Nongovernmental organizations that operate in Colombia have provided some support in terms of financing female micro-enterprises. See Also: Conflict Zones; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Machismo/Marianismo; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Dore, Elizabeth and Maxine Molyneux. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.save thechildren.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp _hd_pub (accessed February 2009). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Combat, Women in The phrase women in combat relates to any deployment (whether in air, in navy, or on the ground) of military women in direct combat. This is a controversial issue both for military and defense policy makers and for feminists. While the biggest debates have been held around exclusion policies of women from direct combat roles in the U.S. military (i.e., ground combat exclusion), especially in the wake of the 1990–91 Gulf War, this debate has been present globally. Historical Review Historically, women have played an active part in military forces during wars and battles. Many historians, anthropologists, and researchers, both feminist and nonfeminist, have in recent years dedicated their time to trying to establish the extent of women’s involvement in wars and combat. While many of the stories about women warriors tended to be interpreted as fictional myths, some of the findings differ. Using the archaeological evidence from the excavation site for Iron Age in the Eurasian steppes and analyzing remains of female warriors and their association with weaponry in graves, Davis-Kimball corroborated Herodotus’s accounts of the existence of female warriors among Eurasian nomadic tribes and the myth of the Amazon. The second documented site concerning women warriors relates to the historical sources pointing to professional women soldiers of the Kingdom of Dahomey in Benin, West Africa, who became the elite force of Dahomey’s professional standing army during the 18th and 19th centuries. Furthermore, the documents show that in 19th-century China during the Taiping Rebellion, women served and fought in the rebels’ Taiping Heavenly Army. Also reported are all-women fighting units that protected the kings in ancient Persia, India, and several south Asian countries and that fought in the Danish army against Spain in the 16th century and in the Congolese army in the 17th century. Moreover, throughout history, women joined armies as individual fighters. The most known women individual fighters are women military leaders such as Joan of Arc, who in the 15th century led the French army into several significant victories against English; the Vietnamese Trung sisters, who led the first national uprising against the Chinese in 40 c.e.; and African warrior queen Nzinga of Matamba, who ruled Angola



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Women were excluded from combat and prevented from voluntarily handling lethal weapons in the Western militaries for a significant part of the 20th century.

in the 17th century and led the male army in the wars against the Portuguese. Also, women joined the battles, often disguised as men. As pointed out by Goldstein, while the history books only document women whose gender was discovered, this number is significant and indicates that this occurrence was not so rare. Thanks to Disney’s film adaptation in 1998, probably the bestknown story about the woman who disguised herself as man to join the battle is the Chinese story of Mulan. Moreover, historical documents from the U.S. Civil War list a significant number of women who fought disguised as men. In more recent history women, were excluded from combat and prevented from voluntarily handling lethal weapons in the Western militaries for a significant part of the 20th century (i.e., in the British army in World War II, women were allowed to join the Home Guard or Auxiliary Territorial Services but were not allowed to learn how to fire weapons or anti-aircraft

guns). However, women have participated in combat in armies in other parts of the world. In World War I in Russia, the “Battalion of Death” composed of several hundred women was led by Maria Botchkareva against the Germans. In Poland, on the eastern front, the Women’s Volunteer League engaged in combat after receiving official approval by the high command of the Polish military desperate for army personnel. During the Spanish Civil War, women were actively engaged in resistance against Franco. In World War II, the Soviet Union started recruiting women in 1942 when it faced manpower shortages. However, women participated mainly as medical staff in anti-aircraft units and air forces and were engaged in ground combat only when they were caught in the fire. During World War II, the partisan formations of many countries included women in their units, and in some, women participated in combat, primarily in Italy, France, and Greece. Probably the most represented

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among women partisans were women in the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, a country where tradition allowed women some fighting roles. While many were involved in combat support, especially as medical staff, a significant number engaged in direct combat. Also, in China, women fought in the 1930s and 1940s against the Japanese army in the Sino-Japanese War and in both nationalist and communist formations during the Chinese Civil War. During the latter half of 20th century, many guerrilla and national liberation movements allowed women to engage in combat in some form in countries such as Vietnam, South Africa, Argentina, Cyprus, Iran, Lebanon, and Nicaragua. However, once the conflicts were resolved and women were not needed as replacements for insufficient manpower, they were excluded and in different ways removed/prohibited from entering the official military formations. The trend of inclusion of women in guerrilla warfare has continued in 21st century and women have been allowed or even forced to participate in combat in the People’s Liberation Army of Nepal, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, the Naxalites in India, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, and others. Current Developments Currently, in most militaries of the global North, women are allowed to participate in the combat to a certain extent. Under Equal Opportunity Acts, many countries have been changing the policies in respect to deployment of women in combat, especially in cases of voluntary army service and in the context of employment opportunities within the army. In the Australian Defense Forces, women are excluded from categories of deployment that are classified as “direct combat duties” such as clearance diving teams, infantry, armor, artillery, and combat engineers and airfield defense guards and ground defense officers. The Canadian Armed Forces opened all occupations, including combat roles, to women in 1989 and allowed women on submarines in 2000. Under the European Union’s (EU’s) Equality Directives, Germany’s constitutional prohibition of women in the military had to be changed and the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Ministry of Defence has been requested to review its policy prohibiting women from close combat. EU countries opened military positions for women and in many of those countries, women are now serving in direct ground combat forces. In the U.S.

military, women may serve on combat planes and ships (with the exception of submarines), in ground combat support units, but not in ground combat units. In 2007, New Zealand withdrew its reservation to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in respect to deployment of women in armed combat. In most of the countries that have recently witnessed armed conflicts, women were not excluded from direct combat but not many participated (i.e., Bosnia, Timor-Leste). Also, in the case of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), one of the few armies in which both men and women are subject to military conscription, women are excluded from combat roles. Women are mainly channeled into traditionally feminized military jobs, and if in combat units, they are only allowed to do administrative jobs. In the context of the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century’s global security discussions, where the main discussants are powerful North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members (primarily the EU and the United Stataes), the entry of women into the military and into combat posts has been marked with the increase in deployment in peacekeeping operations. Kier argues that the European militaries that have been perceived as “feminized” have been seen as more inclined toward contributing to peacekeeping and reconstruction. Within the European countries themselves, in Germany for example, the arguments put forward in debates about entrance of women into military posts are that women would be uniquely suited to peacekeeping tasks (this is resonated in UN Resolution 1325). Debates Surrounding Exclusion of Women From Combat Roles Traditional arguments provided by the militaries for exclusion of women from combat positions have been constructed primarily around military effectiveness and physical and emotional deficiencies of the average woman. They also point out that societies could not accept the fact that women, mothers, wives, and daughters are ordered to kill. Furthermore, their view is that women should be protected from harm and that they should not be hurt or killed in combat. Other popular arguments used to justify the exclusion of women from combat are pregnancy and childrearing, potential negative influence on group cohesion, potential for sexual harassment and assaults, and the



assumption that if combat units are opened to women, they would have to be drafted. Also in the context of discussions about using peacekeeping tasks for opening military posts to women, opponents argue that feminization of militaries, women, and peacekeeping undermine combat capabilities and that soldiers cannot be both warriors and peacekeepers. In respect to feminist scholarship, there is no single position on the issue. Debates are usually divided between equal rights/liberal feminists and feminist antimilitarists, proponents of politics based on gender difference. Both critique the privileged status of masculinity throughout society and the role of militarization in supporting patriarchy but differ in the approaches to addressing the issue. Both also recognize that military roles are not only gendered but that they are also race and class based, as poor and working-class women from minority groups are disproportionately recruited and rarely promoted. Gender Constrictions Liberal feminists argue that qualified women should have the same access to military positions as men. They claim that exclusion policies are not only about women’s capacities but more so about defending constructions of gender that associate masculinity with combat competencies in defense of the feminine. Furthermore, they stress that active citizenship and citizens’ rights are achieved through obligations to military service. Additionally, women with military experience claim that enlistment is not enough but that combat duties are the condition for first-class citizenship. Only by actively participating in combat would women gain first-class citizenship and along with that, greater political power. The access of women to combat posts also avails them for promotions in the military. The liberal feminist argument is that the greater number of women in the military can change this institution for the better and consequently, the entire society. On the other side, antimilitarist feminists argue that the military is a sexist institution in its essence and that women should not join it. They argue that it is more likely that the military changes women who enter than the opposite. Most of the women who enter the military assume male characteristics, disguising their female identity, or else they would be entirely powerless. As a result, they are unable to articulate the needs of women. The involvement of women in

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combat means that women will assume the norms of masculinity rather than influence men to accept any values connected to femininity. Consequently, women’s participation in combat cannot reduce gender differences in society. Given the nature of the current warfare—in the sense that it is hard to divide rear or forward lines of troops and that there is no classical front line anymore—it is also argued that “women in combat” is no longer an issue at all since women (both military and civilian) are involved in fighting anyway. See Also: Conflict Zones; Military, Women in the; Military Leadership, Women in; Pacifism, Female; Prisoners of War, Female. Further Readings Alpern, Stanley B. Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of Dahomey. London: C. Hurst, 1998. Cooke, Miriam. “War, Gender, and Military Studies: Review Essay.” NESA Journal, v.13/3 (2001). Davis-Kimball, Jeannine and Mona Behan. Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. New York: Warner Books, 2002. Dombrowksi, Nicole Ann. Women and War in the Twentieth Century: Enlisted With or Without Consent. New York: Garland, 1999. Enloe, Cynthia. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives. Berkeley: California University Press, 2000. Feinman, Ilene Rose. Citizenship Rites: Feminist Soldiers and Feminist Antimilitarists. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Goldstein, Joshua S. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Jacobs, Susie M., et al. States of Conflict: Gender, Violence and Resistance. London: Zed Books, 2000. Kier, E. “Uniform Justice: Assessing Women in Combat: Review Essay.” Perspectives on Politics, v.1/2 (2003). Rustum Shehadeh, Lamia. Women and War in Lebanon. Gainesville: Florida University Press, 1999. Summerfield, Penny. “Gender and War in the Twentieth Century.” International History Review, v.19/1 (1997). Wagner Decew, Judith. “The Combat Exclusion and the Role of Women in the Military.” Hypatia, v.10/1 (1995). Gorana Mlinarevic University of Sarajevo

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Comedians, Female The feminist movement has unquestionably changed the face of American comedy since the mid-1960s. There are more women comedians, and they have increasingly taken up more cultural space. Still, the field of comedy is overwhelmingly male, both in terms of numbers and perspective of the entertainment. Certainly, not all women comedians are feminist, but arguably funny women who perform or write constitute feminist acts. A woman being funny already transgresses a basic rule of womanhood. To be funny is to take control of a social situation through language. It is to directly frame reality and shape how people see things. If comedy is successful, it evokes a physical reaction while offering a nonobvious perspective that helps the audience see the story or joke in a different way. Even if the humor itself does not point to the absurdities of a male-dominated society, for a woman to command that much linguistic power encroaches on male privilege. There are many ways that female comedians occupy the comedy space: Some play to the male gaze and/or the dominant ideological narrative based on the naturalization of male dominance; others are much more politicized and challenge the assumed subject/object relationship between men and women directly. Most female comedians navigate the complex terrain of gender cultural to both maintain an audience and to create humor consistent with their own vision. This usually means that comedians who work in mainstream venues stay within current accepted expectations for women in most ways, even while they push at some of the limits. Stand-Ups Perhaps the most well-known and easily recognizable comedians are stand-up comics. In the 1970s and early 1980s, stand-up comedy enjoyed a rise in cultural stature that lifted its level of legitimacy and visibility to a revered art form, especially among people who valued cultural and political dissent. During that era, women comedians were virtually absent from the comedy clubs and cable television. They were, however, doing stand-up routines, and they positioned themselves as cultural critics of the social and political scene. Of the few women stand-up comics who commanded a national audience—Phyllis Diller, Totie

Fields, and Joan Rivers—none was generally recognized as politically or culturally important. Most scholars argue that the successful female comedians of that time were relegated to making mostly selfdenigrating jokes. After stand-up comedy peaked in terms of its cultural and political importance, women broke onto the general comedy scene. By the 1990s, female comics composed about a third of all stand-ups in clubs and on cable comedy shows, but have actually dipped in numbers early this century to about one-quarter. Roseanne Barr, Joy Behar, Elayne Boosler, Brett Butler, Ellen Cleghorne, Ellen DeGeneres, Kathy Griffin, Rosie O’Donnell, Paula Poundstone, Rita Rudner, Wanda Sykes, and Judy Tenuta are some of the women who started as stand-up comedians in mainstream venues in the late 1980s. In one sense, many are descendants of earlier stand-up women comics, as they replicate a structural primacy of the male experience. This generation of stand-up women was shaped by the female comics who preceded them, and from the feminist movement. Even when their viewpoints were not specifically feminist, their comedy engaged the ongoing changes between men and women. Many of the comedians can be seen as postfeminist comics, They did not politicize gender to any great degree and they dropped men as the reference point altogether. Griffin, Poundstone, O’Donnell, DeGeneres, and Sykes create comedy that eschews the battle of the sexes as a topic. The increase in the numbers and kinds of venues they perform in means that there is a wider variety of politics and subject matter available to them and other female entertainers. Most of them have gone on to do their comedy in different contexts as well: as actors on sitcoms or in films, hosting their own talk shows, or in Kathy Griffin’s case, as the star of her own reality show, My Life on the D-List. Similarly, women who got their start a bit later, in the mid-1990s, also started in stand-up and have gone on to combine that with other endeavors. Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler are two comics who achieved success on cable stations in their own shows, and who play very well to young, postfeminist sensibilities. They push at boundaries even as the parameters are still being defined. Their comedy is a product of a culture that sees itself as postracial as well as postsexual so that irony is turned back on itself and the political meaning of their work is often up for grabs.



Sandra Bernhard, although from the chronological generation before Silverman and Handler, shares a postpolitical perspective in much of her stand-up work. These women present the most controversial of mass-mediated comedy because their work is often quite open ended. This makes their comedy compelling and at times offensive to some. The sheer edginess of their humor is one more way Bernhard, Silverman, and Handler push at gender boundaries. Margaret Cho and Janeane Garofalo, on the other hand, are part of that mid-1990s generation; they work in a comedic tradition committed to political challenge of the intersecting power structures that oppress marginalized people. Cho created her career based on antiracist, queer-affirming political humor. Garofalo became more of a humorous political commentator than a stand-up. Roseanne Barr, one of the few standup women of her generation to directly challenge gender ideologies, went to on to create a wildly successful TV sitcom, Roseanne (1988–97), in which she broke the rules of femininity through her performance of excess wit and weight, consistently politicized class, and broke numerous sexuality taboos. Ellen DeGeneres, not known for her political humor as a stand-up, broke a significant sexual barrier in 1997 when she came out as a lesbian, as an actor, and as a character on her sitcom Ellen. DeGeneres has since created a place for herself as the host of a talk show, as have a disproportionate number of other lesbian comics. Rosie O’Donnell was not out when she hosted her own daytime show, but was openly gay when she hosted The View. Wanda Sykes is a lesbian with her own talk show, offering audiences another view of a successful gay comedian. DeGeneres, O’Donnell, and Sykes all came out after they were famous. There is a large group of lesbian comics who were openly lesbians in the early 1980s and played almost exclusively to lesbian and gay audiences, including Kate Clinton, Lea Delaria, Marga Gomez, and Lynda Montgomery. In addition, Monica Palacios, Robin Tyler, Suzanne Westenhoefer, and Karen Williams are nationally recognized lesbian comics who have not been part of mainstream comedy and have never had the national exposure enjoyed by comedians who came out after receiving notoriety. Lesbian comics also tended to be much more openly political regarding sexuality, and other matters in their work. This is a separation that may not be necessary anymore

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as lesbian identity is less threatening to mainstream audiences. However, overt politics challenges to heteronormativity is still not quite ready for prime time. Character Comedy As a category, this can encompass any development of a character not assumed to be the comic persona herself, whether in a one-woman show or part of a sketch comedy. Most of the characters are a satire of current social conditions and personalities. Lily Tomlin, is perhaps the standard bearer working in this genre. Since 1969, Tomlin has been a nationally known comedian creating a wide variety of characters lampooning all varieties of cultural hypocrisy, beginning on the hit 1960s television show Laugh-In, and progressing to her own television specials and onewoman stage productions. Tomlin has distinguished herself as critically and popularly acclaimed, and has been able to maintain both a satirical edge and mainstream success. Whoopi Goldberg, who also has worked in a number of genres, has achieved her most important comic work in her one-woman Broadway show, Whoopi, in which she played characters that skewered racism, sexism, and other oppressive forces. Tracy Ullman has developed a long career creating characters that satirize contemporary culture, mostly on Fox, HBO, and Showtime. Audiences see the influence of these comedians in the work of Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy in their work as Kathy and Mo, Julie Goldberg on The Big Gay Sketch Show, and in the sketch work of women on Saturday Night Live like Molly Shannon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Rachel Dratch. In more alternative venues, like the WOW café in New York, an all-women collective has produced comedic artists like Holly Hughes, Lisa Kron, Peggy Shaw, and Lois Weaver, whose character work uses camp and other subversive means to undercut dominant systems of oppression and has made it to mass media. Writers Even though more women than men make up the audience for comedy on television, females are vastly underrepresented as writers. There are notable names like Carol Leifer, the late Marjorie Gross, Tina Fey, and Heather McDonald, who writes for Chelsea Lately, and Lizz Winestead, who created The Daily Show, among them. Still, females comedic writers are

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exceptional in a field that is still overrun with men. Similarly, the comedic women writers who work primarily in media other than television, like Sarah Vowell and Amy Sedaris, for example, are egregiously outnumbered by men. This imbalance is indicative of one of the significant ways in which contemporary society continues to be defined by men’s sensibilities. See Also: Celebrity Women; Cho, Margaret; Coming Out; DeGeneres, Ellen; Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Lesbians. Further Readings Gilbert, Joanne R. Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 2004. Landay, Lori. Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. Lavin, Suzanne. Women and Comedy in Solo Performance: Phyllis Diller, Lily Tomlin and Roseanne. New York: Routledge, 2004. Walker, Nancy. A Very Serious Thing: Women’s Humor and American Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Jennifer Reed California State University, Long Beach

Coming Out “Coming out” is a popular term for the acceptance of a certain belief about oneself or, more commonly, the communication of this self-belief to others. In early usage, coming out referred to a social event introducing an affluent young woman of marrying age to society. Currently, it usually refers to an individual’s acknowledgment of his or her sexual orientation and/ or disclosure of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity to others—for example, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex (LGBTI). It may also refer to disclosure of other types of personal information, especially that which is concealable and potentially stigmatizing, such as learning disabilities, health conditions, mental illness, drug/alcohol use, or criminal history. When applied to the disclosure of contextually devalued attributes, the phrase is sometimes length-

ened to “coming out of the closet.” The decision not to come out is sometimes referred to as “passing,” as in “passing for heterosexual.” Individuals who decide to pass may be referred to as “in the closet.” The decisions that people make about disclosing personal information can have important personal and societal implications. For instance, women who publicly disclose personal information such as their religious beliefs or their sexual orientation have a profound impact on the role of women in today’s society. Some personal information such as race, gender, or height is generally directly observable to others. However, much personal information, such as health background, education level, or aesthetic preference, is not directly observable. Information of this type requires communication in order to be known. Thus, individuals must determine when and to whom they disclose this information. In some cases, they may decide to vary their levels of disclosure by context. For example, a woman could disclose information regarding a recent abortion, or a diagnosis of muscular dystrophy to her close friends but determine to keep that information private at work. In this way, she can manage how others perceive her in different contexts. When an individual decides whether to come out in a certain context, he or she must weigh the costs and benefits associated with disclosure. This is especially true when the information is potentially stigmatizing and disclosure could expose an individual to discrimination, harassment, or even physical abuse. Depending on the context, however, coming out may help resolve potential confusion between one’s personal, social, and occupational identities. It may increase access to social support, reduce the anxiety associated with trying to keep a part of one’s identity concealed, and improve self-esteem. Coming out may also help change stereotypes regarding the disclosed subject matter and may even change attitudes (if applicable) toward a minority group as a whole. Appropriate Versus Inappropriate Communication There are cultural, contextual, and even legal standards governing the communication of some types of personal information, as well as perceived or actual public attitudes and stereotypes regarding the disclosed subject matter. The interplay between these various standards and attitudes can add complexity to the dis-



closure decision. For example, it may be deemed inappropriate for a woman to discuss or display the sexual activities of her marital relationship even when the activities themselves are socially accepted (as is the implicit communication that these activities are going on, perhaps by a wedding band). In the case of potentially stigmatizing information, it may be unclear how or if such standards apply. Thus, members of marginalized groups may attempt to establish acceptable modes of communication. For instance, a lesbian teacher may disclose by using a nonverbal symbol such as a gay pride rainbow bumper sticker or displaying a photograph on her desk of her romantic partner. Social Conventions and Coming Out Social conceptions of sexuality and the gender roles commonly attributed to women differ in various regions of the world and within different cultures. For example, in some societies coming out as a lesbian is conceptualized as normal identity development, with supportive organizations and laws. In 2008, the United Nations declaration to decriminalize homosexuality and to end discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity was signed by 66 countries; in 2009, the United States became the 67th signatory. In other cultures, however, homosexuality remains illegal and can be punishable with jail time or even death. In societies where homosexuality is not illegal, homosexual identifications may conflict with traditional gender norms and familial duties. For women around the world, coming out has acted as an important impetus for personal, social, and political change. In the United States, for instance, disclosure has been an indispensable tool in creating a society that reflects the cultural diversity of its individual inhabitants. Early American female preachers, abolitionists, and suffrage activists challenged the gender roles of their time period by publicly expressing their political and religious opinions. By coming out publicly about a range of beliefs, behaviors, and identifications women around the world are challenging narrow conceptions of femininity, sometimes through multiple group identifications. Current examples include women coming out about various political identifications, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, faith, disabilities, career aspirations, contraceptive use, physical abuse, or health backgrounds, such as surviving breast cancer.

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See Also: DeGeneres, Ellen; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Gender Dysphoria; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Global Feminism; Homophobia; Intersex; LGBTQ; Queer Theory; Sexual Orientation; Stereotypes of Women; Third Wave; Vagina Monologues, The. Further Readings Garnets, L. and D. Kimmel. Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Experiences. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. http://ilga.org (accessed May 2010). Quinn, D. M. “Concealable Versus Conspicuous Stigmatized Identities.” In S. Levin and C. van Laar, eds., Stigma and Group Inequality: Social Psychological Approaches. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006. Bridget D. Hilarides Kathryn C. Oleson Reed College

Community Colleges Women are represented in all echelons of the community college—they are students, faculty members, and support staff, as well as administrators and trustees. There are more women in community colleges than in four-year universities. Since the 1970s, women have dominated higher education enrollments and are even better represented in community college enrollments. The percentage of senior-level administrators (academic officers, student affairs officers, chief financial officers) and full-time women faculty has also significantly increased during this time. However, although there have been marked shifts illustrating the greater parity women have achieved with men in the community college, they remain underrepresented in professional leadership executive positions and overrepresented in nonprofessional support service positions. In addition, issues related to work/ school and family balance have received more attention over the past three decades and have been met with greater efforts to address these issues. Overall, women have a greater presence and higher completion rates in community colleges. They enroll in

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community colleges at greater rates (59 percent) than in four-year public universities (54 percent). Women students in community colleges tend to be nontraditional in that they are older, more ethnically diverse, and face a host of challenges (financial constraints, low academic skills, family conflicts, psychological distress) not typical of women at traditional four-year universities. Despite these challenges, women persist more than men in the community college and have higher completion rates for associates degrees and certificates. They take longer periods of time to finish these degrees and certificates, but they nonetheless complete them at greater rates than their male counterparts. In 2001–02, women had greater associate’s degree (62 percent) and certificate (53 percent) completion rates than their male counterparts across all racial and ethnic groups. The number of women faculty members in community colleges has achieved parity with men, even at the tenured level. In 2003, 49 percent of full-time faculty were women, and in 2006 their representation increased to 50.8 percent. This level of representation is unmatched in any other higher educational institution. Women faculty members in community colleges are also tenured (62 percent) at greater rates when compared with their four-year university female counterparts (38 percent). However, despite their increasing approach to parity with men, women are tenured at lower rates (62 percent) than men in community colleges (68 percent) and earn, on average, between 4 and 7 percent less than their male counterparts. However, this disparity is less stark when compared with the salary discrepancy found at four-year universities, where women make 11 to 12 percent less than their male counterparts. Although the number of women in professional positions in community colleges has increased over the past three decades, they still remain the least represented in this sector. Scholars in higher education argue that the amount of power people have is defined by the position they hold within an organization. Hence, in community colleges, college presidents and vice presidents have more structural power than faculty, who have more power than students. That women have achieved parity with men in faculty rankings and are overrepresented in student enrollments demonstrates their increasing access and presence in the community college. However, this parity with men tends to be in less powerful positions. Indeed, in

2001, women remained overrepresented in positions such as clerical/secretarial (85.8 percent), technical/ paraprofessional (61.6 percent), and support services (63.4 percent) positions. In contrast, women constituted 51 percent of the new hires in executive/administrative/managerial position and 52 percent of faculty new hires in community colleges. This indicates that efforts (even if marginal) are being made to hire women in more professional positions and to increase their representation. As well as these advances, however, women constituted the majority of new hires in support services (74.6 percent), technical/paraprofessional positions (61.2 percent), and clerical/secretarial positions (88.5 percent) during this time. Family–Work/School Balance The 21st-century discussions on gender relations represent a surge of scholarship calling for a greater balance in life for faculty and staff. Women faculty in higher education stated that they viewed the community college atmosphere as an option more conducive to combining a career and a family, in contrast to other higher education institutions. The four-year university climate of “publish and perish” gave them the perception that they would not be able to meet the demands of a research university while maintaining a fulfilling family life. Colleges generally are asked to facilitate childrearing by creating spaces where women can pump breast milk and by providing childcare on campus for both students and college employees. Such efforts would demonstrate a college’s openness to accommodate to the needs of women faculty, students, staff, and administration. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, College and University; Educational Opportunities/Access. Further Readings Lester, Jaime. “Gendered Perspectives on Community College.” New Directions for Community Colleges, v.142/1 (2008). Townsend, Barbara. “Gender and Power in the Community College.” New Directions for Community Colleges, v.89/1 (1995). Christine Cerven University of California, San Diego



Community Defense/ Resistance The idea of community defense is linked to the notion of nonviolent community resistance where some connections are made between the grassroots orientation to social defense and strands within community development. In order to pursue possible connections with community-level action, a community relies on popular action in a variety of forms, including petitions, rallies, strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, fasts, and alternative institutions. Community defense is also known as nonviolent defense, civilian defense, and civilian-based defense. For example, the processes of invasion, conquest, genocide, slavery, and colonization have profoundly shaped indigenous women’s lives in North America, and consequently, women have developed complex and diverse strategies for challenging oppression by organizing community-level actions. Another example of women community defense and resistance can be seen in the Women in Black organization. Its most common tactic consists of standing together in various public places, usually in complete silence. Responding to what they considered serious violations of human rights by Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Territories, vigils in many countries were started in solidarity with the Israeli group, but then embraced other social and political issues. Especially notable were the Women in Black groups in former Yugoslavia, which confronted rampant nationalism, hatred, and bloodshed in the 1990s, often meeting with violence from nationalists and persecution by police. There is also the Coalition of Women for a Just Peace which is an umbrella organization of women’s groups in Israel, established in November 2000, and committed to political, social, economic, and gender justice. They call on the Israeli government to end the occupation of Palestinian territories. Other examples of women community defense are CODEPINK: Women for Peace, an antiwar group with regional offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, D.C., a grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect government resources into healthcare, education and other life-affirming activities; and Women for Israel’s Tomorrow, which

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is a right-wing political women’s group in Israel, commonly known as Women in Green. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is another well-known example of women community resistance. They are a unique organization of Argentine women who have become human rights activists in order to fight for the right to reunite with their children who were abducted by agents of the Argentine government during the years known as the Dirty War (1976–83), when many were then tortured and killed. The central assumption underlying community defense is that rule by any government depends on widespread cooperation or at least acquiescence by most of the population. Many activist groups see community defense as something to be brought about through people’s struggles, rather than implemented by governments on the basis of rational arguments. For example, women’s resistance in Northern Ireland have become increasingly politicized and organized in their resistance to repeated incursions into the home by the security forces which have ruptured traditional boundaries around relations of motherhood, homemaker, and sexual privacy. Grassroots Links There are a number of links between the various grassroots orientation to community defense and community development. For example, women have attributed the problem of war to the system of nation-states, to capitalism, and to patriarchy, or more generally to systems of unequal power and wealth experienced by many women. Although there may be links between community defense and community development at the level of the causes of the problems they address, the more obvious links lie in the methods used to deal with these problems together with a definition of violence. Some women activists, in both the peace and welfare fields, prefer a definition of violence that extends beyond physical violence to include social violence, namely poverty, exploitation, and disempowerment. Physical and social violence reinforce each other in a cycle that feeds upon itself until the cycle is broken, and therefore, they would argue, nonviolent methods are required to break this cycle as violent means of struggle merely propagate further violence. See Also: Peace Movement; Poverty; Self-Defense, Armed; Social Justice Activism.

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Further Readings Boserup, A. and A. Mack. War Without Weapons: NonViolence in National Defense. London: Pinter, 1974. Galtung, J. Peace, War and Defense: Essays in Peace Research, vol. 2. Copenhagen, Denmark: Christian Ejlers, 1976. Kantowsky, D. Sarvodaya: The Other Development. New Delhi, India: Vikas, 1980. Martin, B. “Social Defense: Elite Reform or Grassroots Initiative?” Social Alternatives, v.6 (April 1987). Roberts, A., ed. The Strategy of Civilian Defense: NonViolent Resistance to Aggression, London: Faber and Faber, 1967. Sharp, G. Making Europe Unconquerable: The Potential of Civilian-Based Deterrence and Defense. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1985. Nicoletta Policek University of Lincoln

Comoros After achieving independence from France in 1975, the Southern African nation of the Union of Comoros was plagued by a long series of coups. Following a bloodless coup in 1999, the three islands that make up Comoros have shared power through a sometimesunstable federal system. Many Comorans are engaged in subsistence agriculture, and only 28 percent of the population has been urbanized. Ethnic groups include Antalote, Cafre, Makoa, Oimatsaha, and Sakalava. Ninety-eight percent of Comorans are Sunni Muslim. Located off the southeastern coast of Africa, Comoros is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of only $1,000 and a poverty rate of 60 percent. One-fifth of the workforce is unemployed. The country is heavily dependent on foreign aid and remittances from Comorans who work abroad. As a result of political instability and widespread poverty, the women of Comoros lead difficult lives. The Constitution grants them equality, but in practice, gender discrimination is widespread. Women who live in rural areas are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, and violence against women, child abuse, and limited access to health services and education are all major problems.

Unwritten Restrictions In practice, Comoran society is heavily patriarchal, but women maintain property and inheritance rights in large part because of matriarchal traditions that govern family life. Although women officially have freedom of dress, religious customs require them to wear head coverings. Few women have gotten past unwritten restrictions that ban them from politics. Only 3 percent of the national legislature is made up of women, and women hold only 10 percent of government posts. Comoros has an infant mortality of 66.57 deaths per 1,000 live births—the 30th highest in the world— and has a maternal mortality rate of 400 deaths per 100,000 live births. Female infants (58.4 deaths per 1,000 live births) have a considerable advantage over male infants (74.5 deaths per 1,000 live births). The gender gap narrows in adulthood, and women have a life expectancy of 65.94 years compared with 61.07 years for men. The median age for women is only 19.1 years. Comorans, particularly those who live below the poverty line, frequently lack access to adequate healthcare. This lack is largely responsible for the high infant and mortality rates. With a rate of 4.84 children per woman, Comoros ranks 32nd in the world in fertility. Less than half (49.3 percent) of Comoran women are literate compared with 63.6 percent of males. Neither men nor women are well educated, but men (9 years) tend to be better educated than females (7 years). In addition to limited educational opportunities, many schools are ill equipped, and teachers frequently lack sufficient training. Rape laws are not effectively enforced, and Comoran law makes no special provisions for dealing with spousal rape. Although domestic violence is illegal, the government does little to combat the issue or to support victims. Most often, domestic violence is dealt with by village elders. Although prostitution is illegal, arrests are rare. In contrast, sexual harassment carries a prison term of up to 10 years. See Also: Domestic Violence; Poverty; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Comoros.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/cn.html (accessed February 2010).

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Ewelukwa, Uché U. “Centuries of Globalization; Centuries of Exclusion: African Women, Human Rights, and the ‘New’ International Trade Regime.” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law, and Justice, v. 20 (2005). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tripp, Alili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Comoros.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /af/118994.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Computer Games Although relatively brief, the history of women and the evolving computer gaming industry is a reflection of a number of other older and ongoing struggles for participatory and representative equality, as well as a new arena where the long-standing debates about sexism and misogyny persist. Because the ways in which women interact with the computer game industry are quite complex, making any generalizations about the relationship of women to an entire industry would be an oversimplification at best. However, there are two sets of issues: (1) the involvement of women in game development, design, and marketing, and (2) the level of interest and participation of women in the use of computer games. The presence and influence of sexist attitudes and practices will be considered here as constitutive of the kinds of problems and challenges women face as creators and users of computer games. Finally, it is important to note that most observations about women and computer games made here apply overwhelmingly to women within the developed nations of North America, Europe, and Asia. Game Design and Marketing Currently, less than 10 percent of game designers and developers are women (although this number has been slowly climbing). The majority of women who are employed in the computer game industry are engaged in marketing, managerial, public relations,

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and other administrative roles. This apparent lack of female visibility among game creators and designers tends to have the circular effect of discouraging women from joining their ranks, and makes it difficult to recruit young women into these nontraditional positions. More recently, as a part of its focus on diversity, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a nonprofit membership organization serving those involved in the computer game industry, has been expanded into the IGDA Women in Games (WIG) Special Interest Group (SIG), offering women within (or wishing to enter) the industry support, resources, and encouragement to strengthen women’s influence on game design, development, and use. Some of the organization’s goals include increasing the visibility and influence of women within the game industry, and to make possible the kind of talent development that would bring greater balance to the ranks of game designers, developers, and players. More important, a part of the IGDA WIG agenda includes the introduction of the element of mentorship of young women who are interested in entering the computer game industry as a way to address both the explicit and implicit sexism that both causes and perpetuates gender-based exclusion. A small, yet growing, number of women have also begun to advance in the world of design, notably Jane McGonigal, a designer and researcher specializing in alternative reality gaming. The difficulty in analyzing the relationship of women to the video game industry lies partially in the fact that the industry itself is so varied: Games are not only created for different platforms but also with different audiences in mind, thus any general claims are bound to be met with some criticism. However, based on existing evidence, a convincing argument can be made that game design and marketing, with some notable exceptions, are deeply grounded in sexist images, story lines, and ideas. In fact, the lack of women within the computer gaming industry and the way games are designed are intimately related and indeed mutually dependent on each other: The gender disparity within computer game companies leads to games that very often are essentially constructions of a particular kind of aggressive, violent masculinity, such as Clint Eastwood–like Master Chief from the Halo series, the gritty Max Payne,

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or the ruthless commando Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell. Subsequently, games are designed and/or marketed for a younger male audience, with (until fairly recently) little or no awareness of how such games appeal (or do not appeal) to women. Particularly within the adventure, fighting, and shooter genres of games, although the majority of central characters are male, those that happen to be female tend to be the physically exaggerated, large-breasted, and scantily dressed fantasy figures such as Lara Croft of Tomb Raider, and, more recently, the female characters in the game Dead or Alive. Aside from the sexualized heroine image, women within popular games can be portrayed as victims or playthings, with a more extreme example found in the option of killing prostitutes in the Grand Theft Auto series. The resulting game reward structure, formed around sexualized violence, not only emphasizes particular images of women within the game itself, but as has been noted, reinforces attitudes of social acceptance toward such violence in the nonvirtual world. In addition to emphasizing certain female images, video games tend to contribute to what Karen E. Dill and Kathryn P. Thill have called “gender socialization,” which tends to enforce a number of gender-specific stereotypes that are especially widespread among younger gamers, including the more objectified, scantily clad females, and the more aggressive and nonsexualized males. Given the popularity of these games, especially among younger males, serious concern exists about the proliferation of these stereotypes beyond gameplay in ways that will only serve to exacerbate the existing sexist social attitudes, thereby worsening the numerous oppressions already experienced by women. Women’s Level of Interest and Participation in Gameplay However, whenever the adventure, cooperative, or other nonsexualizing elements of a game are emphasized, the percentage of women players increases, and in fact has been increasing—especially in the area of online or multiplayer gaming. Despite the dearth of women in the computer game industry and the often sexist design and marketing of the games themselves, the number, and the median age, of female players has been increasing. According to the Entertainment Software Association’s 2009 Sales, Demographic, and

Usage Data report, 40 percent of all game players and 43 percent of online game players are women, as are 48 percent of game purchasers. In some developed nations, such as South Korea, as many as 65.9 percent of women play some kind of video games. Interest among more casual female players tends to favor more casual games, such as Sudoku, Zuma, JewelQuest, crosswords, and so on. The introduction of a greater number of more casual games, as well as user-friendly game consoles like the Wii, has also contributed to the growth of both women’s interest and participation in computer gaming. What is more, studies have suggested that some games tend to attract some very serious female players who spend more time playing than their male counterparts. See Also: Chatrooms; Computer Science, Women in; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Science, Women in. Further Readings Bryce, Jo and Jason Rutter. “Killing Like a Girl: Gendered Gaming and Girl Gamers’ Visibility.” Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings. Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2002. Bulik, Beth Snyder. “Video Games Unveil Feminine Side.” Advertising Age, v.77/44 (2006). Carr, Diane. “Games and Gender” In Diane Carr, et al., eds., Computer Games: Text, Narrative, and Play. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2006. Cassell, Justine and Jenkins, Henry. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Dill, Karen E. and Kathryn P. Thill. “Video Game Characters and the Socialization of Gender Roles: Young People’s Perceptions Mirror Sexist Media Depictions.” Sex Roles v.57/11–12 (2007). Entertainment Software Association. “2009 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry.” http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2009.pdf (accessed July 2010). Guy, Hannah. “Women Video Gamers: Not Just Solitaire.” PC World Canada. http://www.pcworld.ca/news/col umn/a7fe9b8a0a010408019ac931643ebf2c/pg0.htm (accessed July 2010). Hermida, Alfred. “Call for Radical Rethink of Games.” BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology /4561771.stm (accessed July 2010).

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he IGDA Women in Games Special Interest Group. http:// archives.igda.org/women (accessed July 2010). The International Game Developers Association (IGDA). http://www.igda.org (accessed July 2010). TKirkland, E. “Masculinity in Video Games: The Gendered Gameplay of Silent Hill.” Camera Obscura, v.24/2 (2009). Raessens, Joost and Jeffrey Goldstein, eds. Handbook of Computer Game Studies Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. Schleiner, Anne-Marie. “Does Lara Croft Wear Fake Polygons? Gender and Gender-Role Subversion in Computer Adventure Games.” Leonardo, v.34/3 (2001). Williams, Dmitri, Mia Consalvo, Scott Caplan, and Nick Yee. “Looking for Gender: Gender Roles and Behaviors Among Online Gamers.” Journal of Communication, v.59/4 (2009). Wolf, Mark, J. P. Wolf, and Bernard Perron. The Video Game Theory Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003. Woudhuysen, J. “Computer Games and Sex Difference.” http://www.woudhuysen.com/documents/Computer GamesSexDifference.pdf (accessed July 2010). Anna Gotlib State University of New York, Binghamton

Computer Science, Women in The overriding issue for women in computer science has been determining why women are not entering and remaining in this field. Women have been largely invisible in computer science. Reports on the history of computer science usually ignore women who have made substantial contributions, while educational programs in computer science have few women enrolling. Not only does the computer job force have few women available to hire but those women hired are more likely than men to be dissatisfied and to leave the computer science workforce. In the field of computer science, women can be divided into the areas of creators and users. Users include office workers, designers, artists, musicians, and most professionals who rely on computer applications to perform their professional and office responsibilities. However, this entry deals with the creators of computer science, which are the programmers, sys-

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tems analysts, database designers, and other computer professionals who create the canon that others use. Because men predominantly create the tools of computer science, there is fear that male domination of the field will be self-perpetuating, as male-created tools will be embedded with male values that may discourage their use by women. At the surface, this has not been shown to be true because women secretaries and office workers are avid computer users. Looking deeper into the many levels of software and hardware below the applications this claim gains more credence. History of Women in Computer Science The history of women in computer science in the United States is long and active. Despite this history, women are rarely mentioned in computer science textbooks and when they are usually only Admiral Grace Murray Hopper and Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace are noted. Hopper, an admiral in the U.S. Navy was the developer of the first programming language used in business. Lovelace, daughter of noted poet Lord Byron, was a collaborator with Charles Babbage who was the inventor of the thinking machine, or first conceptual computer. While these women are certainly noteworthy, other women should also be remembered. Almost all the early programmers were women. However, they did not achieve supervisory rolls in companies until World War II decimated the ranks of male workers. ENIAC, the first general-purpose computer, was programmed by Kathleen McNulty, Frances Bilas, Elizabeth Jean Jennings, Frances Elizabeth Snyder, Ruth Lichterman, and Marlyn Wescoff under the supervision of Adele Goldstine, Mary Mauchly, and Mildred Kramer. UNIVAC followed ENIAC as the next general computer and again many women including Francis E. Holbertson, Jean Bartik, Frances Morello, and Lillian Jay were hired to program it under the supervision of Admiral Hopper. At this time, Hopper was developing programming languages that used English words rather than symbols to program and were thus accessible to businesses. After World War II, the number of women in computer science declined at about the same time U.S. universities were developing their first departments of computer science. Judy Clapp was notable as a programmer of Whirlwind, the first real-time computer. Thelma Estrin was one of two electrical engineers who worked on the design of the Whirlwind computer. Sister Mary

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The history of women in computer science is long and active. Two women wiring the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), the first operational electronic digital computer developed for the U.S. Army.

Kenneth Keller was one of the first women to receive a Ph.D. in computer science in the United States and went on to establish a department of computer science at Clarke University that included a master’s degree in Computers in Education. She promoted the idea that women should be information specialists as a field in computer science. In more recent history, Meg Whitman is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of the online auction site, eBay. Carly Fiorina was CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005. Shafi Goldwasser, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has twice received the prestigious Gödel Prize for her innovative work in complexity theory and cryptography. Anita Borg founded the Institute for Women and Technology, which is active in bringing women into the field as

designers. Eva Tardos, a professor and chair at Cornell University, won the Fulkerson Prize for her work on complex algorithms. Education in Computer Science The percentage of women majoring in computer science reached a peak of 38 percent in 1985 but was declining so steadily that in 2003 women constituted 17 percent of computer science majors. Many reasons have been given for the lack of women in the major, including an assumption of math phobia in women, lack of female role models and teachers in the field, lack of encouragement in high school, fear of job availability, a heavy workload, highly competitive weed-out courses, less exposure to computers, and the lack of connection to people. In one contradictory case, Carn-



egie Mellon University has increased the women in it computer science program from 8 percent to 40 percent and has maintained that level for several years. Providing mentors, women-only clubs, female computer science dorms, study groups, and summer or longer internships in interesting fields have all been shown to help keep women in the major. Women who drop the major cite the high workload, “geekiness” of the field, lack of a social life, emphasis on programming, spending so much time with a machine rather than with people, and the decreasing number of jobs for computer scientists. Some computer science departments have responded with less emphasis on programming, more support in the programming courses, group programming projects, and applied programming projects in fields that women are thought to enjoy. The college years can be made more acceptable to women when they have other women to study with, group projects, and education in the large array of computer science careers that await them, both theoretical and applied. Last, they must be encouraged to apply for computer science careers after graduation. In computer science programs in the United States, there is a significant difference between national and international women successfully graduating from the major where international women are more successful and then more commonly seek employment as computer science professionals. Explanation for this difference relies on greater motivation to succeed even if the going is tough. This difference persists even when international women have less previous experience in the field as in fewer high school programming courses and experiences with computers. There are two distinct issues in graduating female computer scientists. One is attracting women to enter the major and the other is encouraging them to complete the major, which are referred to as “pipeline” issues. Starting in middle and high school, women must be encouraged to take math and computer science courses learning how to program and be comfortable with abstract reasoning. Then there is the transition to college where women must be encouraged to declare as computer science majors early in their schooling because the major generally has many requirements. In the college years, women must be kept in the major as even very bright and successful women drop out of computer science. In their senior year, women must be encouraged to apply for com-

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puter science jobs because many women fail to do this even after completing the major. Finally, women must be kept interested in staying in the field and pursuing graduate degrees in computer science so that they may go on to become mentors and role models for the next generations of female computer science students. Careers in Computer Science Careers in computer science are varied and range from the extremely applied to the extremely theoretical. Women have been more likely to be employed in applied fields such as human computer interaction, Web design, medical informatics, customer support, communications, and sales. Unfortunately, the women’s tracks usually involve lower status, less power, and lower pay than the men’s tracks. Still, women are increasingly breaking through barriers to become professors, department heads, supervisors, and upper-level administrators of high-tech firms. In most places where women work as computer science professionals, they are in the minority and complain of loneliness and lack of support. In addition, women complain about long work hours in the higher status jobs and the incompatibility with family life. Women also have to deal with pregnancies as any time off from fast-moving fields may leave them behind in their skills. There is a big difference here between U.S. and Canadian women and women from other countries. Women in India and Malaysia form a large percentage of the computer science workforce. In Europe, there is an increasing interest of women in computer design issues where listservs, such as “faces-l.net,” promote feminism and multimedia Web design. This is definitely the “softer” side of computer science, and although highly interesting, does not promote the inclusion of women into the “harder” side of computer science. Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand report similar pipeline problems as the United States and Canada. South Africa reports increasing numbers of women in computer science but not yet the 50 percent levels desired and as yet few women are teaching computer science in South African universities. Stereotype of Computer Scientists Unfortunately, the stereotype of computer scientists as asocial geeks who do nothing but communicate

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with computers all day is still accepted as factual by many middle school and high school girls. Like many stereotypes, there are some nuggets of truth that make the stereotype hard to dispel. Why do we care about low numbers of women in computer science and negative stereotypes? Reasons are social justice, the international need for highly skilled computer scientists, the need for the creativity of women, and breaking the cycle of domination of computer science by men as women design hardware and software with women’s needs in mind. See Also: Mathematics, Women in; Science, Women in; Science Education for Girls; STEM Coalition; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Grossman. Lisa. “Stereotypes Steer Women Away From Computer Science.” Science News (December 15, 2009). http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/50804/ title/Stereotypes_steer_women_away_from_computer _science (accessed January 2010). Margolis, Jane, Allan Fisher, and Faye Miller. “Failure Is Not an Option: International Women in Computer Science.” http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~gendergap (accessed January 2010). University of Bristol. “Famous Women in Computer Science.” http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/admissions/what_is _cs/FamousWomen.html (accessed January 2010). Rebecca K. Scheckler Radford University

Conflict Zones For centuries women have lived in the midst of conflict zones. Women have acted as soldiers, suicide bombers, and freedom fighters. Women have been victims of violent conflict; raped, abused, and murdered; and sold as slaves. Women have mobilized in peace movements, protesting against wars. Hence, conflict affects women’s lives on all levels. It is important to note that within every society women’s positions vary and are constantly contested; thus, women are active participants, beneficiaries and victims of conflicts.

Traditional Conflict Zones In many societies and cultures women hold symbolic and discursive positions as bearers of tradition and markers of nation. In wars, and specifically in ethnic and religious conflicts, these discourses become intensified and women’s bodies are turned into battlefields. In traditional Western discourses, women have been portrayed as the “beautiful soul” that must be saved. These have been reiterated in current times, when discourses around saving Afghan women from Taliban oppression were used to legitimize the invasion in 2001 by United States and its coalition. Also, women fighters often turn into mythical figures. In Sri Lanka, Tamil women who joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) adhered to stereotypical yet changing images; first conflating the traditional glorification of women as mothers with the female fighter, thus creating a “warrior mother”; then adding stereotypically masculine attributes, such as short hair and muscles, on to customary female qualities of virginity and chastity, resulting in a “masculinized virgin fighter.” Raping or sexually assaulting women of the enemy often serves as denigration, as women’s bodies are considered the property and reputation of the community. Military Conflict Zones In many conflicts women take up arms to fight sideby-side with men. Military forces in many countries have opened up to female participation since the 1980s and women are allowed to serve at most positions, which has involved increased numbers of women in the armed forces. Nevertheless, rarely more than 15 percent of army staff is comprised of women. During the 20th century, many women took part in liberation movements against colonial rule, as in Algeria, Vietnam, and Kenya. This was mainly a fight against the colonial power, and less a struggle for female emancipation. Yet, at times women sensed a connection between liberation from colonial rule and freedom from patriarchal oppression, thus initiating a feminist movement. For others though, and more commonly, the end of the war involved being reinserted back into, or voluntarily returning to, the domestic sphere. In many Latin American countries, for instance in Nicaragua, Chiapas in Mexico, and El Salvador, at times 30 percent of the members of guerrilla groups were female, a fact often ignored in public discourse Also, during the



civil war in Sri Lanka, many Tamil women engaged in the war against the Sri Lankan army. Female fighters often experience gender-specific violence such as rape, which, due to social stigma, is often ignored. During the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe, thousands of women freedom fighters were raped by their fellow combatants, a fact that was silenced in order to maintain unity in the newly independent nation. Gender and Violence Conflict Zones Civilian women experience life in a conflict zone differently. Intersectional inequalities, such as gender, class, race, ethnicity, religion and age, impact the level of vulnerability women experience. Women living in conflict zones experience a continuum of violence, which extends from massacre, murder, and other forms of killing, to rape, sexual violence and structural and economic violence. Gender-based violence and specifically sexual violence is prevalent among the majority of the world’s conflict zones and women are most commonly victims. Although, to a lesser extent, men and boys have also been subjected to sexual violence or gender-based mass killings, for instance in Srebrenica in 1995. In Darfur, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bangladesh, as well as in many other conflicts and civil wars, rape has been used as a tactic of genocide. In many areas, including Colombia, Kashmir, and Pakistan, rapes and sexual abuses of women and girls have been perpetrated by both the army and militants. Women have also been used as sex slaves for commanders. In Darfur the majority of rapes occur while women perform their daily household duties, often under threats of extreme violence. There is also evidence that during war there is an increase in the prevalence of domestic violence. Afghanistan, for instance, has a long history of impunity against domestic violence offenders and since 2001 domestic violence has increased significantly. Conflicts destroy social, economic, and legal infrastructure, as well as technical structures such as water supplies, roads, and buildings. For the civilian population this is detrimental, as fundamental facilities such as healthcare, education, clean water, and electricity are essential for livelihood. Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), waterborne diseases, malaria, and maternal mortality are a few examples of conditions that affect women living in conflict zones.

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In some conflict zones, such as Darfur, the infrastructure is destroyed entirely; in others, such as Northern Ireland, they function rather well. As women often are responsible for the needs of the family, the absence of working infrastructures can be damaging. In Timor Leste, women’s access to healthcare, in specific reproductive health, has been clearly limited by the conflict, which has resulted in high maternal mortality rates, as well as a fast-growing population. Stay-at-Home Conflict Zones Despite the fact that women are active participants in conflicts, many women stay at home while their husbands, fathers, and sons join the armed forces. The loss of a breadwinner can have serious implications on the economic situation for the family and forces the woman to enter the formal or informal market in order to earn a living. For some women this can prove emancipating and empowering, while for others, social, cultural, or religious restrictions make it impossible for women to work. The loss of a husband and becoming a widow has extreme consequences for the family. Clearly, the trauma of death has in itself mental implications. In addition, in many societies, widows are met with hostility in fear; in Sri Lanka, there is a widespread stigmatization and resentment toward widowhood, and widows also experience threats to their financial and personal safety. In Kashmir many men have simply disappeared—in reality often killed, abducted, or imprisoned—and thus leaving their wives as “half widows.” This label makes it difficult for the woman to remarry and, as in Sri Lanka, thus inhibits her capacity to earn a living. Displacement Conflict Zones Displacement and forced migration present disruption and trauma in people’s lives. In Pakistan, there are 3 million internally displaced persons who have fled sectarian violence, terrorism, or clashes between the army and militants. Limited health and sanitary facilities in refugee camps increase the vulnerability to diseases and women are not able to access basic healthcare on a regular basis. Food is often limited, thus malnutrition is prevalent and pregnant women are especially at increased risk. Also, the civil conflict in Angola has resulted in a large internally displaced population, which, in connection with poverty and human rights abuses, has had an extensive impact on women’s lives.

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Peace and Activism Conflict Zones There has also been extensive work done by women in peace movements and peace building. Women are often linked to life-giving in their capacities as mothers, and thus some women’s peace groups have emphasized this role. Yet, as many women experience conflict as civilians, it has been argued that they have a different perspective to bring to peace building. Women’s peace initiatives tend to deconstruct the personal/public divide and are influenced by the daily struggles experiences by women therefore their work focuses on education, health, and food security. There has also been attempts to initiate contact with the “enemy” and locate common issues that the women living in the conflict zone experience, for instance domestic violence, militarism, and fundamentalism. As women often have been excluded from formal politics, such as in Northern Ireland, women have had little representation in official peace negotiations. While women were active in civil society and peace movements, it has been argued that this was not acknowledged in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 (the Belfast Agreement). These gendered implications of peace initiatives have been accounted for in the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, which highlights women’s exceptional position during conflicts and purports that gender must be accounted for in all peace making, peace building and peace keeping missions. UNSCR 1325 therefore accentuates the impact of conflict on women and girls’ lives and calls for a gender perspective among all actors negotiating and implementing peace. See Also: Afghanistan; Colombia; Combat, Women in; Terrorists, Female; Wars of National Liberation, Women in. Further Readings De Alwis, Malathi. “The Changing Role of Women in Sri Lankan Society.” Social Research, v.69/3 (2002). Jacobs, Susan, Ruth Jacobson, and Jennifer Marchbank, eds. States of Conflict : Gender, Violence, and Resistance. London: Zed Books, 2000. Lorentzen, Lois A. and Jennifer E. Turpin, eds. The Women and War Reader. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Pankhurst, Donna, ed. Gendered Peace: Women’s Struggles for Post-War Justice and Reconciliation. London: Routledge, 2008.

Shepherd, Laura J. Gender, Violence and Security: Discourse as Practice. London: Zed Books, 2008. Emma Brännlund National University of Ireland, Galway

Congo The Republic of Congo (henceforth Congo), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, is a small country located in central Africa. Over the past two decades, Congo has had several bouts of civil war and unrest, but it is often overshadowed by its neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, because of its ongoing civil war. With a population of approximately 3.8 million people, Congo suffers from a 70-percent poverty rate that greatly affects the lives of Congolese women. The 1990s proved to be a turbulent decade for Congo, which suffered from civil war, political instability, and economic downturn. As a result, the number of social issues facing the nation dramatically increased. It has been estimated that approximately 60,000 women aged 12 through 15 years were raped and forced into conscription during the civil war, causing physiological and physical problems for a large number of young women. Victims of rape face increased chances of sexually transmitted diseases and human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), which was very problematic considering the lack of reproductive healthcare available. Since 2002, Congo has been working hard to rebuild its economy, education system, and healthcare system, with a special focus on women’s issues. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is one of the most prominent social issues that women are faced within Congo. Seven percent of women in the Congo are HIV-positive. In response to the climbing HIV/AIDS rates, the Congolese government has initiated several programs to combat the disease, such as subsidized healthcare and antiviral drugs. It is also working to improve AIDS education programs in rural areas. Women play a large role in the agricultural economy of the country, which makes up 11 percent of Congo’s Gross Domestic Product. Women and children are generally responsible for planting, cultivating, and selling agricultural products, but agricultural

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work is lower paying, causing women to continue to live in poverty. Compared with other central and subSaharan African countries, Congo, at 80 percent, has a high literacy rate. Although the literacy rate is high, more men than women are literate. Women are granted equal protection under Congolese law, but they often face gender-based discrimination in education, healthcare, and land ownership. The Congolese government is currently working to address the needs of women and improve social, economic, and political opportunities within the country. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs is responsible for incorporating the promotion of women and opportunities for women throughout the country. See Also: Domestic Violence; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Rape in Conflict Zones; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Afoaku, O. G. Explaining the Failure of Democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Autocracy and Dissent in an Ambivalent World. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen, 2005. African Development Bank/African Development Fund. “Republic of Congo Country Strategy Paper.” http:// www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents /Project-and-Operations/ADB-BD-WP-2006-01-EN-R -CONGO-CSP-2005-07.PDF (accessed June 2010). Clark, John Frank. The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008. Martin, Phyllis. Catholic Women of Congo-Brazzaville: Mothers and Sisters in Troubled Times. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. Meggan A. Houlihan Ball State University

Congo, Democratic Republic of the Although the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), formally known as Zaire, has immense mineral wealth and an abundance of natural resources, the country continually ranks as one of the poorest countries in the world. Since 1996, the country has been ravaged by civil war and unrest, which has depleted the infrastructure of the country, causing

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a wealth of problems for its citizens. Women in DR Congo face issues relating to healthcare, education, and basic necessities. The civil war in DR Congo has had devastating effects on the country’s population of 64 million people; since 1998, over 5.4 million people have died as an indirect result of the civil war, and over 2 million people have been displaced. Securing the basic necessities of survival such as clean water, shelter, clothing, and medical care has become increasingly difficult, and women have been subjected to an increase in sexual violence. Before the outbreak of civil war in DR Congo, women were viewed as subordinates to men, which can be seen in Congolese law and social norms. Under the Congolese Family Law, women are forced to obey their husbands and are not allowed to take legal action unless their husband agrees. Men, unlike women, are allowed to have extramarital affairs, and although polygamy is illegal, it is overlooked throughout the country. Women do not have the legal authority to force their husbands to wear condoms; therefore, married women are subjected to increased risks for sexually transmitted diseases and human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Women in DR Congo have traditionally played a large role in the agricultural economy of the country because it is their responsibility to plant and harvest crops. Many women also make their living from making charcoal and trading at markets; 90 percent of market traders are women. Access to reproductive healthcare has and will continue to be one the largest issues facing women in DR Congo. Before the civil war, DR Congo had little in the form of reproductive healthcare for women, and the services that were available were often expensive. The surge in sexual violence as a means of war has meant women have gone untreated after suffering brutal physical and psychological attacks. Armed forces from all sides of the war have kidnapped, raped, and forced women into sexual slavery. An increase in the number of sexually violent attacks has also meant an increased number of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and pregnancies. Young women also often face physical injuries, such as fistulas and internal bleeding, as a result of rape. The high cost of medical care combined with the social stigmas associated with rape have prevented

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thousands of women from receiving proper medical treatment and caused many to remain silent. Many communities and families will ostracize a woman after she has been raped; as a result, many women remain silent to try and carry on with their lives. Churches, local nongovernmental organizations, and other organizations have organized treatment centers for women to seek physical and psychological help, as well as improve their quality of life. Women receive educational training as well as skill development and training, which prepares them for future employment. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; Rape and HIV; Rape in Conflict Zones; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Clark, John Frank. The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008. Csete, Joanne, and Juliane Kippenberg. The War Within the War: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002. Kippenberg, Juliane. Soldiers Who Rape, Commanders Who Condone: Sexual Violence and Military Reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2009. Prunier, Gerard. Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009. Meggan A. Houlihan Ball State University

Contraception, Religious Approaches to Contraception is the use of a variety of technologies and practices to prevent the fertilization of female egg by male sperm cells. Typical forms of contraception include barrier methods (such as the male or female condom, diaphragm, contraceptive sponge, or cervical cap), hormonal methods (birth control pills containing progesterone, estrogen, or both; patches or insertable objects that release hormones; intramuscular injectables; implants inserted beneath the skin); and chemical methods (spermicides). Finally,

fertility awareness methods such as Natural Family Planning, calendar-based and body-awareness methods (including charting ovulation, basal body temperature, and other signs of body changes indicative of ovulation and/or impending menstruation), lactational amenorrhea, surgical sterilization, abstinence, and the practice of coitus interruptus are considered forms of barrier method contraception. Although the term contraception is used to describe most forms of birth control, other methods of birth control may not be considered contraceptives but are, rather, contragestives. This is because these methods do not prevent fertilization but instead prevent or interrupt the implantation of the fertilized egg or otherwise interrupt gestational processes. Contragestives include hormonal methods (the “morning after” pill), intrauterine devices (commonly known as IUDs), and abortion. Effectiveness varies widely between and across forms of contraceptive and contragestive birth control. Contraception and Religion Although popular press typically portrays religious discourse about birth control as a battle in which religion and modernity are pitted against one another, it is actually a varied and nuanced debate. Religious groups have different levels of acceptance and even active endorsement of different forms of contraceptive practice, and the theological basis for these stances may vary widely. The vast majority of wholesale religious rejection of contraception hinges on the belief that sexual activity should be connected with procreation. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, endorses Natural Family Planning and abstinence but does not permit adherents to engage in any other form of contraception or contragestation. In addition, within Natural Family Planning, the Roman Catholic Church further stipulates that it should only be used within specific parameters and that there should be periods of abstinence if spacing between children is desired. The Roman Catholic Church goes further to suggest that use of contraceptive practices and devices of any kind may lead to the degradation of women, who should be seen as long-term partners in marital love rather than temporary outlets for sexual impulses. However, there is much dissent among practicing Catholics around the church’s official statement on



contraception, and some sources suggest that as many as 70 percent of all Catholics would support a move from the Church to allow some forms of birth control for family planning use. Although the Qur’an clearly prohibits infanticide, nowhere in the Qur’an verses are Muslims prohibited from preventing conception. However, the verses that refer specifically to infanticide are often used to forbid contraceptive practices, although Muslim historians continue to disagree on these and other early (and, increasingly, contemporary) interpretations of Qur’an verses and other texts. Some suggest that abortion, for example, is always forbidden, whereas others assert that early Muslim scholars argue an acceptable time frame for the practice. Islamic teachings have historically been progressive by contemporary standards in the realm of family planning and contraception, typically putting the welfare of existing children, mothers, and families ahead of any specific edicts about the nature and permissibility of birth control of any kind. Although certainly not true of all women in all Islamic centers, many Muslim women attribute their empowerment to the free and unrestricted access to information about contraception. Protestant Christian denominations, without heavy centralization such as found in the Roman Catholic Church, vary in their treatment of contraception. Most Protestant denominations endorse the use of birth control within marriage and treat this issue, similar to others, as allowable under the tenets of free will and the freedom of conscience. Still, significantly fewer denominations support contragestive methods, especially abortion. Most frame these personal choices as between an individual and his or her conscience but emphasize that every couple has a responsibility to limit the number of children they have to ensure that mothers are able to maintain their health and that every child is born healthy and can be adequately provided for in material and emotional ways. Meanwhile, more-evangelical and more-fundamentalist denominations are also more likely to reject contraception of any kind. For many of these congregations, the issue is not necessarily about how married couples plan the number and frequency of children but, instead, that access to and free use of contraceptives may encourage individuals to engage in extramarital sexual relations.

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Contemporary Thought Some denominations, including contemporary fundamentalist schurches, encourage extremely large families in a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible. They assert that it is not the place of human beings to plan the size of their families but that, instead, it is a spiritual matter best decided by God. As such, all forms of family planning—including Natural Family Planning—are forbidden. The health of a mother who is expected to bear as many children as God sends her is not typically a subject of public discourse, though it may figure into more private discussions. Similar to Protestant Christianity, Judaism is also a decentralized, highly varied religion. Historically, Judaic teaching emphasizes the preservation of life—especially that of the mother—and its teachings about birth control and any exceptions stem from that central emphasis: The health and welfare of mothers are major considerations. In contemporary interpretations, Haredi and Hasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform/Reconstructionist Judaism vary in attitudes toward contraception and family planning. Although many Hasidic and Haredi groups encourage very large families, some measures of family planning—provided contraceptive methods do not spill semen from its established route (per a literal interpretation of the biblical story of Onan)—are acceptable. Less conservative branches of Judaism endorse the use of contraceptives for family planning, and Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist groups in the United States have formally supported a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion, especially when the mother’s life is in danger or when the pregnancy has been the result of violence of any kind. Hindu teaching emphasizes an individual’s responsibility to family life and procreation; however, the use of contraception has never been a contentious issue on the scale of Western religious debate. India is unique among nations in that it was among the very first countries to actively endorse and encourage the use of contraception for family planning as a means to regulate population and its environmental impact. Similarly, Taoist, Shinto, Buddhist, and other faiths have minimal engagement with the birth control question, and access to contraceptive and other birth control methods is relatively unfettered in many of the centers of those religions.

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Women, Religion, and Autonomy For many women, theology dictates their birth control practices. However, for others, this is not a matter of conscience and individual decision but, rather, about public access. In many religious centers, especially where state and religious interests are not separated, theological barriers make obtaining reliable, accurate information about and access to contraception impossible. Many women’s experiences affirm that family planning is crucial to maternal health, women’s empowerment, and the desperate need to address population-driven environmental conditions worldwide, and research continues to support the connection between women’s access to birth control and women’s relative financial and personal autonomy. See Also: Abortion; Christian Identity; Christianity. Further Readings Dharmalingam, A. and S. P. Morgan. “Women’s Work, Autonomy, and Birth Control: Evidence From Two South Indian Villages.” Population Studies, v.50/2 (1996). Maquire, Daniel C., ed. Sacred Rights: The Case for Contraception and Abortion in World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Scarnecchia, Brian D. Bioethics, Law, and Human Life Issues: A Catholic Perspective on Marriage, Family, Contraception, Abortion, Reproductive Technology, and Death and Dying. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010. Sally Campbell Galman University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Contraception Methods Contraception allows women to choose the number and spacing of their children. Female sterilization and intrauterine devices (IUDs) account for almost 40 percent in less developed countries, and combined oral contraceptive pills (COC), IUDs, and condoms for the same proportion in more developed countries. Contraception remains one of the most cost-effective public health measures to reduce rates of maternal and infant mortality. In 2008, modern contraception prevented about 188 million unintended pregnancies, 1.2 million new-

born deaths, and 230,000 pregnancy related deaths. An unmet need for family planning of an estimated 215 million women of reproductive age who want to avoid or postpone childbearing still exists because they are not using effective contraceptive methods. There are several reasons for this, including lack of knowledge about the risk of becoming pregnant, fear of side effects of contraceptives, influence from partners and community leaders, religious beliefs, and lack of access or finances to use family planning services. A large number of unintended pregnancies occur due to lack of knowledge and myths regarding contraception and the failure or discontinuation of use of short-term hormonal contraception. Effectiveness of a contraceptive method depends on compliance and correct use of that method. It is thus essential that proper information and counseling on contraception choices for both women and men should be advocated. Health practitioners should be able to discuss all eligible contraceptive methods locally available. Essential topics should include effectiveness, risks and side effects, and advantages and disadvantages. Choosing a Method The World Health Organization (WHO) produced guidelines to aid in contraceptive choice. The WHO Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use (WHO MEC) provides evidence-based recommendations to help the healthcare provider to safely select the most appropriate method of contraception. A WHO also provides information on contraception effectiveness to assists in decision making. Table I provides classifications of the four categories used. Women must realize that popular methods, such as COCs and barrier contraception, that rely on daily or coital administration have “typical” use failure rates (user and method failures) that are higher than the “perfect” use rates (method failures). Their effectiveness is dependent on compliance and correct use. This has resulted in the promotion of “longacting reversible contraception” (LARC). A LARC is a method that requires administration less than once per cycle or month. These methods include copper IUDs, levonorgestrel-intrauterine systems (LNGIUS), progestogen-only injectable contraceptives (POIC), progestogen-only subdermal implants, and combined hormonal vaginal rings. LARC methods combine reversibility with high effectiveness.

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Table I: World Health Organization Contraceptive Use Classification Classification of Category Ratings 1

No restriction for use

Use method under any circumstance

2

Advantages of using method generally outweigh theoretical Generally use the method or proven risks

3

Theoretical or proven risks usually outweigh advantages of using method

Use not usually recommended unless other more appropriate methods are not available or not acceptable (requires expert clinical judgment and/or referral to a specialist contraceptive provider)

4

Represents an unacceptable health risk if the contraceptive method is used

Do not use the method

Source: World Health Organization. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use, 4th Ed., 2009.

Natural Methods Natural family planning methods are practiced in most countries and include fertility-based methods (FAM) and withdrawal. These methods are safe, have no side effects, are inexpensive to practice, and may be easily discontinued. Disadvantages include meticulous recordkeeping of fertility cycles, involve intensive training, and are dependent on a partner’s willingness to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period. Other factors, such as irregular menstrual cycles, medicine that may affect body temperature or cervical mucus, women who are breastfeeding or ill, as well as cervical surgery may influence effectiveness. Withdrawal Method. The withdrawal method, or coitus interruptus (CI), is one of the oldest-known methods of contraception. It involves pulling the penis out and away from the vagina before ejaculation. Great self-control, and experience are required by men, and the woman must trust her partner. More reliable methods of contraception are preferred nowadays. Both FAM and CI does not protect against sexually transmitted infection. Lactational Amenorrhea Method. Women who are breast-feeding suppress ovulation because of high prolactin levels. In the lactational amenorrhea method (LAM), all three of the following prerequisites must be met for this method to be effective: complete absence of a menstrual period after cessation of the lochia postpartum vaginal discharge (blood, mucus, and placental tissue that can continue for four to six weeks after childbirth), exclusively breastfeeding the

child, and only when the baby is under 6 months of age. The risk of conception in the first six months is 2 percent with this method. If the baby is not fully breastfed, additional contraception must be started at the end of the third week. Barrier Methods Chemical Methods or Spermicides. These agents consist of a carrier substance (e.g., foam, jelly, cream, soluble film, suppository, or tablet) and a chemical agent with spermicidal properties (acidic compound, microbicidal agent, or a detergent). The product is placed high up in the vagina, as close as possible to the cervix. Depending on the product used, women should wait a few minutes for the product to be dissolved in the upper vagina. The agents should not be removed within the next two to six hours, depending on the method used. Some of these detergent agents (i.e., nonoxynol-9) increase the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Ongoing research explores agents that will provide protection against STIs. Spermicidal agents, when used alone, carry a high failure rate, and are therefore not recommended without an additional method. Male Condoms. Male latex condoms are one of the most commonly used methods of contraception. Apart from preventing conception, the condom is the only proven method to prevent STDs, including HIV. This advantage, as well as the ease of use and minimal side effects, render this a popular method.

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The use of an additional and more reliable contraceptive with condom use should also be promoted. It is important to adhere to guidelines to insure correct use. Short condoms, which cover the glans of the penis only, are not recommended, and oil-based lubricants should never be used as they can damage condoms made from latex. Polyurethane condoms could be a useful alternative for patients with a latex allergy or for those who find latex condoms unacceptable. The polyurethane condom has a larger diameter and is a better conductor of body heat and sensation. Female Condoms. Female condoms are manufactured from polyurethane. It consists of a pouch with a wide ring that fits over the vaginal orifice, and a loose inner ring that fits over the cervix. This device is less likely to rupture, can be inserted up to eight hours before sexual intercourse, and can be used without the male having a full erection. Diaphragms. Diaphragms are available in different sizes, and consist of a central dome of latex, which is attached to a firm outer ring. A healthcare worker should determine the size to be used, and the client is then taught how to use the device. The use of spermicidal jelly is recommended to enhance the efficacy of this method. The diaphragm should not be removed until eight hours after intercourse. Use of the diaphragm is associated with very few adverse effects, but cannot be inserted in a patient with a prolapsed pelvic or during the first six months postpartum. The size needs to be adjusted after a change in weight of more than 10 pounds. Intrauterine Devices (IUDs). Modern intrauterine devices (IUDs) contain either levonorgestrel (LNG) or copper, and are extremely safe, highly effective, long lasting, and reversible. Women and health professionals still have widespread misconceptions about IUDs, such as that it cause ectopic pregnancy, infertility, pelvic infection, should not be used in teenagers and nulliparae, and should not be used in women with HIV. The principal mechanism of action of a coppercontaining IUD is due to the effects of copper on sperm motility, preventing fertilization. In addition, the copper IUD prevents implantation due to its inflammatory reaction on the endometrium. The main side effects are pain, spotting, light bleeding, or amenorrhoea (abnormally heavy or long menstrual periods) that occur in the first three to six months

and usually decrease with time. The risk of uterine perforation with IUD use is less than two in 1,000, and expulsion occurs in 5 percent of women, usually within the first three months after insertion. The LNG intrauterine system is T-shaped and has a reservoir containing levonorgestrel, which is released slowly for five years. Irregular bleeding and spotting are common within the first six months, but at one year, 65 percent of women experience light bleeding or amenorrhea. There are many noncontraceptive benefits in using this method, which include treating heavy menstrual bleeding, dysmenorrhea, and pain associated with endometriosis. It can also be used in women with endometrial hyperplasia and as endometrial protection for those on oestrogen therapy. Hormonal Methods There are several hormonal contraceptives available in several formulations, including the most well-known form of birth control pills. The minimum requirements before commencing a combined estrogen– progestogen product are to provide a personal and family history of deep vein thrombosis, and to have your blood pressure measured at baseline and followup. Combined agents are best avoided by women over 35 years who smoke. Certain drugs may interfere with the metabolism of combination oral contraception, which can lower the efficacy. There are also several beneficial effects of the combined oral contraceptives. Progestogen-only methods can be started in healthy nonpregnant women without screening procedures. See Also: Contraception, Religious Approaches to; Fertility; Health, Mental and Physical; Pregnancy. Further Readings Gebbie, Ailsa and Katharine O’Connell White. Fast Facts: Contraception. Albuquerque, NM: Health Press, 2009. Gramont, K. E. and N. De Bender. Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, & Abortion. San Francisco: MacAdam/ Cage, 2007. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2010. Jütte, Robert. Contraception: A History. Queensland, Australia: Polity Press, 2008.



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Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion From the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Shoupe, Donna. The Handbook of Contraception: A Guide for Practical Management (Current Clinical Practice). New York: Humana Press, 2006. Petrus Steyn Stellenbosch University

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted on December 18, 1979, by the United Nations General Assembly and entered into force on September 3, 1981, after the 20th member state had ratified it. To date, 186 states have ratified the convention, and in doing that, they have committed themselves to fight against discrimination against women. In 1982, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women was established with the aim of monitoring the enforcement of women’s rights in those states that were parties to the convention. The Division for the Advancement of Women, established in 1946, contributed to the implementation of the CEDAW. In the last two decades, the history of the convention has come across relevant developments in the enhancement of global human rights, especially within the framework of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and its follow-up. Historical Background Equality between women and men is a basic principle of the United Nations and has been since the signing of the foundational treaty of the United Nations (the Charter of the United Nations) in 1945. The principle of equality was then strengthened and extended by a plethora of United Nations’ international documents, such as the International Bill of Human Rights (comprising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the International Cove-

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nant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of 1966). Thanks to the work of the Commission on the Status of Women, originally set up in 1946 as a subcommission of the Commission on Human Rights, many documents entirely dedicated to the enhancement of the human rights of women are coming into force, such as the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (adopted by the General Assembly in 1952); the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women (adopted by the General Assembly in 1957); the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, and Registration of Marriages (adopted in 1962); and so forth. The protection provided by these conventions was fragmented and confined to very specific and sensitive women’s rights; other women’s rights were intended to be protected by the United Nations’ general human rights system. In the 1960s, many feminist movements and nongovernmental organizations around the world started raising awareness of gender-based discrimination and advocated for a holistic legal instrument to tackle all forms of discrimination against women. In particular, the World Conference of the International Women’s Year, convened in Mexico City in 1975 and applauded by the United Nations General Assembly for stepping forward for the advancement of women rights, encouraged the Commission on the Status of Women to draft the CEDAW in 1976. The draft was then scrutinized by the Third Committee of the General Assembly during the next three years, from 1977 to 1979, and the CEDAW was adopted by the General Assembly in 1979. On October 6, 1999, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention, which entered into force on December 22, 2000, after the 10th ratification—intended to provide victims of discrimination with a complaints procedure. To date, 99 countries have ratified the Optional Protocol. Structure and Effect of the Convention The CEDAW consists of a preamble and 30 articles. In the preamble, the convention recognizes that, despite the general human rights instruments in existence, discrimination against women continues to exist and can be exacerbated in situations of poverty, which makes women even more vulnerable. In addition, the CEDAW points out that phenomena such as

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racial discrimination, colonialism, injustice, and foreign domination prevent both men and women from the full enjoyment of their rights. It then calls attention to the contribution of women to the family and society, stressing for the first time in an international convention the importance of women’s reproductive rights by stating that “the role of women in procreation should not be a basis for discrimination.” The convention adopts a substantive equality approach, aiming at women’s equality in practice. Therefore, moving beyond the Aristotelian principle of formal equality, states should remove obstacles and promote action to ensure that women’s equality is real and effective. The convention defines “discrimination against women” as “any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field” (Article 1). The following articles cover very sensitive areas of women’s lives. A number of them prescribe actions to the states and implement adequate measures for achieving the thorough and effective protection of women in their full enjoyment of civil, economic, social, and cultural rights; for fostering women’s access to education, employment, and social and economic activities; and for granting women freedom by tackling human trafficking. Moreover, the convention focuses on three fundamental topics: women’s legal status, asking states to ensure that the legal status of women does not depend on the nationality of their husbands at the moment of the marriage or during it; women’s reproductive rights, stressing the social function of maternity and, among other items, affirming women’s rights to reproductive choice; and the role played by culture and tradition in restricting women’s enjoyment of their fundamental rights, challenging historical, cultural, and other kinds of grounds that gave rise to and further developed gender-based discrimination. The convention is legally binding under international law for all states that have ratified it, which are bound to implement it and to submit national reports on the actions taken to improve women’s rights and on the progress of women’s rights within their region

to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women on a regular basis (within one year of ratification or accession, and thereafter every four years). The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is an international expert body consisting of 23 experts on women’s issues. To date, more than 100 experts have served as members of the committee since its establishment in 1982. These experts are elected by the states’ parties according to the standards set by the convention, which require experts’ geographical distribution and the representation of different legal systems and cultures. The experts’ mandate lasts four years, with half of the committee experts replaced each election to ensure the consistency of the committee’s work. The specific mandate of the committee is to monitor the implementation of the CEDAW by states’ parties. For this purpose, the committee is entitled to review national reports sent by the parties. The review procedure is centered on a joint auditing by committee experts of the reports with national government representatives, who have the chance to be asked questions and to offer clarifications on their national antidiscrimination policies. The committee wishes this exchange to take the form of a constructive dialogue, the purpose of which is the enhancement of women’ s rights in the reporting state. The committee can make recommendations to states’ parties on women issues and invites specialized agencies of the United Nations’ system to cooperate on the full implementation of the convention at a national level. It also encourages representatives of national and international nongovernmental organizations to provide country-specific information on states’ parties. Beijing and Its Follow-Up The CEDAW is often connected with the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action—two international documents that uphold the convention in the protection of women’s human rights. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action were adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, organized by the Commission on the Status of Women and held in Beijing, China, in September



Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

1995. While reaffirming the commitment to enforce women’s rights enshrined, among other documents, in the CEDAW, the Beijing Declaration opens a new era in the protection of women’ s rights; in fact, not only does it aim to provide guidance to governments and the international community with regard to the promotion of women’s equality, empowerment, and advancement, but it also ensures mainstream acceptance of the gender perspective in all policies and programs in the implementation of the Platform for Action and openly draws attention to so-called multiple discrimination against women (i.e., “multiple barriers to their empowerment and advancement because of such factors as their race, age, language, ethnicity, culture, religion, or disability, or because they are indigenous people” [Article 32]). The commitment to tackle multiple discrimination has also strengthened cooperation between the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which is the United Nations body entitled to consider the progress made in the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, signed on December 21, 1965, and entered into force on January 4, 1969. As far as the Platform for Action is concerned, it is an agenda for women’s empowerment through the principle of shared power and responsibility between women and men in all spheres of society. The platform identifies 12 critical areas of concern in which governments and society at large are called on to take strategic action, among which are included the increasing feminization of poverty; unequal access to education, to healthcare, and to decision-making power; the situation of women during armed conflicts; the stereotypes perpetrated by the mass media; and the gender inequalities found in the safeguarding of environment. The Commission on the Status of Women has regularly reviewed the progress of the implementation of women’s rights in these critical areas of concern, and the General Assembly reviews the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action every five years. Three reviews of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action have taken place, one in June 2000, one in February to March 2005, and in March 2010. To promote the goals of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a publication series titled

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“Women2000 and Beyond” has been published by the Division for the Advancement of Women since 2002. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Rape, Legal Definitions of; Representation of Women in Government, International; United Nations Conferences on Women. Further Readings Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. http://www.un.org /womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm (Full text of the Additional Protocol) http://daccess-dds -ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N99/774/73/PDF /N9977473.pdf?OpenElement (accessed April 2010). Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. “Progress Achieved in the Implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: Report by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.” http://www.un.org /documents/ga/conf177/aconf177-7en.htm (accessed April 2010). Merry, Sally Engle. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law Into Local Justice. Chicago Series in Law and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/pdf /Beijing%20full%20report%20E.pdf (accessed April 2010). United Nations. “Directory of UN Resources on Gender and Women’s Issues.” http://www.un.org/womenwatch /directory (accessed April 2010). United Nations. “Women 2000 and Beyond.” http://www .un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/W2000andBeyond .html (accessed April 2010). United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). Eliminating Violence Against Women: Forms, Strategies and Tools. Turin, Italy: UNICRI, 2008. http://www.unicri.it/wwk/publications /books/docs/eliminating_violence.pdf (accessed April 2010). Vandehole, Wouter. Discrimination and Equality in the View of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Antwerp, Belgium: Intersentia, 2005. Barbara Giovanna Bello University of Milano

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Convention on the Rights of the Child

Convention on the Rights of the Child Adopted on November 20, 1989, by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is comprised of 54 articles and two Optional Protocols. This document, grounded in broader discourses of human rights, was prompted by an understanding of the vulnerable position of children in most societies and the desire to ensure that the social, cultural, political, economic, and legal rights of individuals under the age of 18 are both recognized and respected. The CRC went into effect on September 2, 1990, after receiving the required number of ratifications. At present, 194 countries have ratified the convention including all member countries of the United Nations except the United States and Somalia. The CRC is significant because it is a unique, nonnegotiable, legally binding agreement that sets forth children’s rights and establishes the responsibilities that governments, communities, and individuals (including parents) have toward children. Central Components of the CRC The convention is based on four principles that the UN regards as equal and interdependent. First, it maintains that children should be free from all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ability, wealth, origins, beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, or other identity traits. Next, it holds that the best interests of children must be a central consideration in all matters that affect them. Third, it establishes that all children have the right to life, survival, and development and asserts that governments have a responsibility to promote these rights and protect children from individuals and forces that may infringe upon their rights through such means as child abuse, neglect, or exploitation. Finally, the convention affirms that children have a right to participate—to degrees that are age-appropriate—in making decisions that affect their lives and wellbeing. On May 25, 2000, the UN added two optional protocols to the convention. The first sets 18 as the minimum age for participation in the military and armed conflict. The second prohibits the sale of children, child pornography, and child prostitution.

While the CRC aims to promote the health, safety, welfare, and development of all children, it includes special attention to the needs of children who are separated from their parents, children who are in conflict with the law, and children with disabilities. Countries that sign and ratify the convention must regularly provide information concerning their adherence to and implementation of the principles and optional protocols of the CRC to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, a group of 18 individuals with expertise in the field of human rights and who are elected to four-year terms. The committee meets three times annually and makes regular reports and recommendations to the UN General Assembly via the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. After completing its formal review process for a particular country, the committee makes specific recommendations concerning how that country can further promote the CRC. The CRC has helped raise global awareness regarding children’s human rights. In addition, it has set standards for the treatment and welfare of children. It also has prompted an increase in research and reporting concerning the status of children in countries around the world. It has been particularly useful as a planning tool and has helped governments alter existing legislation as well as implement new programs and services in order to promote children’s development and well-being. Despite this, widespread human rights violations continue to hamper the welfare and rights of children. Globally, discrimination persists and, as feminist scholars and activists have argued, there is a particular need to effectively address the consequences of gender-based discrimination as well as the ideologies that give rise to sexism in the first place. Indeed, girl children continue to face widespread challenges regarding their overall status in society, full and equal participation in social and political life, and access to healthcare and education/training. They also face numerous forms of gender-based violence including sexual harassment, sexual assault, trafficking, forced and child marriage, and rape. These challenges, coupled with and exacerbated by those related to armed conflict, are some of the most pertinent and pervasive global issues facing children in the 21st century. As some commentators have observed, practitioners and politicians will need to continue to use the CRC as a

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This Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes the vulnerable position of children in most societies and the desire to ensure that the social, cultural, political, economic, and legal rights of individuals under the age of 18 are recognized and respected.

tool for promoting legislation and creating programs that not only promote children’s human rights but also find ways to hold accountable those individuals that infringe upon or deny such rights. Only then, it seems, can the convention serve as a foundation for creating tangible, enduring, and positive change in the lives of children around the world. See Also: Adolescence; Child Abuse, Perpetrators of; Child Abuse, Victims of; Child Labor; Children’s Rights; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; Girl Scouts; Girls Inc.; Rape in Conflict Zones. Further Readings Berman, Helene and Yasmin Jiwani, eds. In the Best Interests of the Girl Child: Phase II Report. http://www .unbf.ca/arts/CFVR/documents/Girl_Child_E.pdf (accessed December 2009).

Connors, Jane, Jean Zermatten, and Anastasia Panayotidis, eds. 18 Candles: The Convention on the Rights of the Child Reaches Majority. Sion, Switzerland: Institut International des Droits de l’Enfants, 2009. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/crc18 .pdf (accessed December 2009). Hadju, Christina, ed. Child Rights in the Commonwealth: 20 Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 2010. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “Convention on the Rights of the Child.” http://www.unicef.org/crc (accessed December 2009). United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Protecting the World’s Children: Impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on Diverse Legal Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Jillian Duquaine-Watson University of Texas at Dallas

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Coppola, Sofia Sofia Coppola, daughter of renowned filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, has established her place in American cinema as a successful director and screenwriter. She has completed three feature films, won an Academy Award, and has challenged the gender barrier in Hollywood filmmaking, proving that she is more than a Hollywood scion. Born in 1971 in New York City and raised in Napa Valley, California, Coppola is the youngest child of Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, director of Apocalypse Now and the Godfather trilogy. Sofia Coppola’s extended family includes Nicholas Cage and Talia Shire. She was married to filmmaker Spike Jonze from 1999 to 2003, and in 2006 gave birth to a daughter, Romy, with musician Thomas Mars. Coppola attended Mills College and the California Institute of the Arts. Career Development Coppola began her career as an actress, appearing in many of her father’s films, including the Godfather trilogy, Rumble Fish, and The Outsiders. She hosted a popular culture show, Hi Octane, on the Comedy Channel with Zoe Cassavetes. In the 1990s, Coppola transitioned from acting to fashion, photography, and filmmaking. She interned at Chanel, modeled for Marc Jacobs, and developed a fashion label, Milk Fed, with Stephanie Hayman. Her photography has appeared in books and fashion magazines. Coppola’s films primarily focus on young women at pivotal stages in their lives. Coppola’s black-and-white short film Lick the Star (1998) portrays a clique of girls inspired by the sinister teen cult novel, V. C. Andrew’s Flowers in the Attic, to poison the boys in their high school. She subsequently wrote and directed three feature films and is completing a fourth. Told from the perspective of infatuated neighborhood boys, Coppola’s film The Virgin Suicides (1999) is a dark, suburban coming-of-age story that portrays the suicides of the sheltered, idealized, adolescent Lisbon sisters. Lost in Translation (2003) is a pensive dramatic comedy that captures the brief relationship between two geographically and socially dislocated individuals, a 20-something newlywed and a middle-aged actor in Tokyo, struggling with melancholy and the frustration of ill-fated marriages. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and won the Oscar for best

screenplay, making Coppola only the third woman and the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for directing. Her next film, Marie Antoinette (2006), recounts Marie Antoinette’s transition from a sheltered, decadent teenager to the queen of France. Coppola’s recent film, Somewhere, focuses on male development by portraying a hard-partying Hollywood actor forced to reevaluate his life when his 11-year-old daughter unexpectedly visits. Recently, Coppola began directing television commercials and music videos. While her films have received mixed reviews, critics recognize Coppola as a formidable member of the predominantly male American New Wave. See Also: Celebrity Women; Film Directors, Female; Film Directors, Female: United States; Film Production, Women in. Further Readings Cook, P. “Portrait of a Lady Sofia Coppola.” Sight & Sound, v.16/11(2006). Hill, D. Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood’s Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers: An Excursion Into the American New Wave. London: Oldcastle, 2008. Lee, N. “Pretty Vacant: The Radical Frivolity of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.” Film Comment, v.42/5 (2006). McGowan, T. “There Is Nothing Lost in Translation.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, v.24/1 (2007). Judith R. Halasz State University of New York, New Paltz

Cornum, Rhonda Ironically, United States Army Brigadier General (Dr.) Rhonda Cornum’s iconoclastic military legacy as a surviving 20th-century American female prisoner of war (POW) has proven to be the definitive fulcrum feminists, military historians, and politicians use to weigh in on the winning side of the long standing debate regarding military servicewomen’s ability to successfully undergo the physical, mental, and emotional dangers of modern warfare and serve bravely in combat.



Educational and Military History Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1954, Rhonda Cornum grew up in East Aurora, New York, near Buffalo. Cornum earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and nutrition at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She joined the Army in 1978 where she worked at an Army research facility in San Francisco, California. In 1982, Cornum attended the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (military school in Bethesda, Maryland) and became a military doctor in 1986. She completed a General Surgery Internship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. In 1987, Cornum, an accomplished military aviator (who has flown almost every type of military aircraft), applied for and became a finalist for candidacy in the United States Astronaut program but was not ultimately selected. Instead, that year as Chief of Aviation Medicine she honed her professional skills as a flight surgeon for Army Aero Medical Center at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Four years later, flight surgeon Cornum went to the Persian Gulf with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. During an ill-fated rescue attempt of an injured United States Air Force pilot who had crashed in enemy territory, Iraqi combatants shot down the Black Hawk helicopter carrying Cornum and seven crew members. Incredibly, she and two crew members survived a devastating crash that had the aircraft falling from the sky and careening toward the ground at 140 miles per hour. Cornum was severely injured with a bullet lodged in her shoulder, two broken arms and significant damage to the ligaments in her knees. She could not walk, so her captors roughly removed her from the wreckage, threw her in a vehicle and took her to a prison in Basra, Iraq. She was held as a prisoner of war for eight days and released March 5, 1991. During her imprisonment, she was interrogated and sexually assaulted by one captor, crucial facts she revealed one year later in She Went to War, her POW story named by the New York Times as one of the most notable books of 1992. She was one of two American servicewomen taken prisoner by the Iraqis during this military conflict. After the Persian Gulf War, Cornum did what most prisoners of war don’t—she remained on active duty and trained in urology surgery. Cornum did not avoid service in war zones. In 2000, she became the Medical Task Force Commander to Bosnia. By the time the

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second Iraq War began in 2003, she had become the commander of the Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC). The Landstuhl military hospital in Germany is the largest military hospital outside the United States. She helped treat and care for 26,000 military members, including those who were severely wounded during battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. She is one of three female medical doctors in the Army on active duty. General Cornum is the Army’s Director of Comprehensive Soldier’s Fitness, a program designed to help soldiers to become stronger, more resilient, and less likely to succumb to post-traumatic stress disorder. This new Army psychological training regimen will help to individually and collectively bolster emotional, spiritual, and mental health so that servicemen and servicewomen can better deal with the traumas of war and deployments, and other types of crises. See Also: Military, Women in the; Military Leadership, Women in, Prisoners of War, Female. Further Readings Cornum, R. (with P. Copeland). She Went to War: The Rhonda Cornum Story. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1992. Schmidt, Katherine A. “U.S. Patient Load Surges at Military Hospital in Germany.” USA Today (November 15, 2004). http://www.usatoday.com/news/world /iraq/2004-11-13-injured-germany_x.htm (accessed April 2010). “A Woman’s Burden.” Time (March 28, 2003). http://www .time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,438760,00.html (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth Frances Desnoyers-Colas Armstrong Atlantic State University

Cosmetic Surgery Cosmetic surgery refers to any surgical or medical intervention to the body for aesthetic purposes, and is interchangeably referred to as cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery, and aesthetic surgery. While cosmetic surgery used to describe solely surgical interventions, it now refers to a range of procedures that include surgery, injectables, and laser and chemical treatments. The goals of cosmetic surgery are also varied. While

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some patients seek cosmetic surgery to improve their already-normative appearance, others aim to achieve a normative appearance through cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery is a controversial medical practice that is highly gendered and racialized. The majority of cosmetic surgery patients are women and cosmetic surgeons are men, and several surgeries have been developed to render a patient’s features to more closely approximate Caucasian features. While cosmetic surgery is still expensive, in the past 20 years it has become more accessible and affordable due to the availability of credit cards to finance cosmetic surgery and other payment plans, less invasive procedures that do not require overnight stays, and a greater selection of practicing cosmetic surgeons with varying credentials. The acceptability of cosmetic surgery has also increased with its popularity, and this has been facilitated in North America by a greater awareness of cosmetic surgery procedures in popular culture. Types of Cosmetic Surgery A wide range of procedures are encompassed by cosmetic surgery including surgical procedures for the face and body. Some common facial cosmetic surgeries include rhytidectomy (face, brow, forehead, chin, or cheek lifts), rhinoplasty (nose reshaping), blepharoplasty (reshaping of the eyelids, frequently to create a double eyelid fold), chin and cheek augmentation (insertion of an implant into the chin or cheek), and liposuction (removal of fat). Cosmetic surgery procedures include mammoplasty (breast implants, reductions, and lifts), abdominoplasty (removal of fat and skin from the abdomen), liposuction (removal of fat), labiaplasty and vaginoplasty (reshaping and augmentation of the labia and vagina), and implants (such as buttock and calf augmentation). In the 2000s, the market for less invasive cosmetic procedures burgeoned in North America, and the definition of cosmetic surgery widened in response. These procedures are commonly performed with no or local anesthetic in cosmetic surgery clinics, dermatology practices, spas and salons, and comprise chemical and laser treatments, as well as injectables. Chemical peels involve the application of acid to the skin, which causes the dead skin to eventually peel off and reveal smoother skin underneath. Chemical peels are often used to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, acne scars, age spots, and photodamage.

Laser procedures use concentrated laser beams to kill bacteria that causes acne breakouts, to reduce cellulite, to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and saggy skin (called a laser facelift), and to remove hair. Injectables include “fillers” such as collagen and fat to reduce the appearance of wrinkles or augment small areas of the face such as the lips, fillers such as hyaluronic acid (brand name Restylane) to fill in wrinkles, and botulinum toxin (brand name Botox) to paralyze and relax the facial muscles, which smooths out wrinkles. Cosmetic surgery is a highly controversial topic worldwide, and as a result, cosmetic surgeons are often required to justify performing cosmetic surgery. The practice of cosmetic surgery is commonly viewed as oppositional to the practice of medicine because doctors operate on bodies that are healthy and do not require surgery in order to restore or improve function. Two interrelated solutions exist to address this view of cosmetic surgery. The first solution is to classify some surgeries as “reconstructive,” a term which suggests that the surgery will restore the affected body parts to an original or normal state. The boundary separating cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries changes depending on the historical and cultural milieu. For example, the implantation of fat or silicone implants after a mastectomy is currently considered and labelled “breast reconstruction.” However, many women are unable to breastfeed and frequently lose sensation in the breast and nipple, so the reconstructed breast does not restore function. The second solution to oppose views of cosmetic surgery as medically unnecessary is to understand cosmetic surgery as a procedure that improves psychological well-being. Returning to the example of breast implants after mastectomy, it is widely assumed that the loss of a breast is psychologically traumatic for women. Therefore, a breast implant is a solution that addresses women’s psychological needs after a mastectomy. While women employ other means to recover from a mastectomy, such as breast prostheses, specialty bras, or tattooing over scars, breast augmentation is becoming increasingly popular due to these strategies of naming the surgery as reconstructive and considering it as psychologically beneficial (as opposed to medically unnecessary and potentially harmful). Presently, the majority of cosmetic surgeries are justified because they will improve a patient’s



psychological health, primarily by reducing self-consciousness and improving self-confidence. Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in Cosmetic Surgery Compared with other medical specialties, cosmetic surgery is a highly gendered practice. While it is true that more men are seeking out cosmetic surgery, and that the range of cosmetic surgical procedures tailored toward men has increased in the 2000s, the majority of cosmetic surgery patients are women and cosmetic surgeons are predominantly men. In 2008, 91 percent of U.S. cosmetic surgery patients were women and in 2000, 85 percent of cosmetic surgeons were men. Cosmetic surgery exists within a range of body modification practices for women to more closely approximate cultural ideals, such as wearing makeup, dieting, foundation garments, and exercising. Cosmetic surgery is also identified within popular media as a source of unrealistic body expectations for women and girls, in addition to the manipulation of photographic images and valorization of anorectic body types. Because cosmetic surgery is a medical procedure that is elective and usually financed by the patient (rather than state or private insurance), it is the patient who holds the authority to diagnose the problem that the surgeon will address, which is contrary to most other medical and surgical procedures. In response to this tipping of power, discourses of cosmetic surgery in the West often adhere to strict sexist and heterosexist codes of behavior, where the patient is conceived as an undisciplined female body who submits to the help of the skilled and valiant male surgeon. This is evidenced most strongly in anecdotal accounts of cosmetic surgery, where women patients report that their surgeries were more painful than they expected, the side effects of their surgeries were downplayed by surgeons, and that the results of the surgeries did not meet their expectations. For example, breast implants can be very painful and can cause significant trauma to the tissues around the implant, which can be a surprise to patients who expect a routine surgery with a quick recovery time. Common side effects of breast implants include loss of sensation in the nipple, as well as encapsulation (formation of thick, hard scar tissue around the implant that must be manually broken down), which is again surprising to patients.

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Less common but very serious side effects of breast implants that are downplayed by surgeons include reactions to anesthesia, rupture and migration of implants, thick scarring, and loss of ability to breastfeed. Usually these side effects and the perception of the appearance of breast implants as “unnatural” lead patients to be unsatisfied with the results of their surgeries. Women’s stories of breast implants often demonstrate their vulnerability to their male surgeons, which can be reinforced by sexism. Cosmetic surgery is also a racialized practice, and the practice of cosmetic surgery often affirms white femininity as the ideal of beauty. In 2008, while the number of procedures performed on African American, Hispanic, and Asian cosmetic surgery patients increased in the United States, the number of white patients decreased. Surgeons frequently justify their surgical techniques and styles through recourse to classical aesthetics, which in terms of the physical body is based on white western European features. These justifications are presented as neutral and objective, rather than racist. Two surgeries in particular are targeted toward specific ethnic communities. The oldest cosmetic surgical procedure within this category is rhinoplasty for Jewish women, which relies on the stereotype of a distinctively Jewish nose structure. As Sander Gilman has argued in his work on aesthetic surgery, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, western European and American cultures were obsessed with stereotypes and caricatures of distinguishably Jewish, African, and Irish noses. Surgical modification of the nose promised an easier assimilation through passing as “white.” The practice of rhinoplasty for Jewish girls and women has been normalized through repetition as well as popular culture. Another more recent cosmetic surgical procedure that is explicitly racialized is blepharoplasty, or eyelid surgery, for people of Asian descent. This surgery can create a double eyelid fold and widen the eyes, physical traits that are assumed to belong to those of Caucasian descent. As cosmetic surgery tourism expanded in the 2000s, White patients traveled to countries in the global south (in particular South Africa, Thailand, and Brazil) to obtain cheaper surgeries and a vacation for surgical recovery. Cosmetic surgery vacations contribute to the often exploitative tourism industries in the global south as well as the diversion of medical resources toward white tourists.

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Cosmetic Surgery and Popular Culture The increased visibility of cosmetic surgery in popular culture has been a boon to the cosmetic surgery industry. While cosmetic surgery was considered a relatively private and secretive event in an individual’s life from the 1940s to the 1980s, in the 1990s it became a popular topic in women’s magazines, and by the 2000s cosmetic surgery was a subject for several reality and dramatic television shows. Media coverage of cosmetic surgery began as speculative reports of celebrity cosmetic surgeries in tabloid magazines, as well as anecdotal accounts in women’s magazines that were commonly cautionary tales advising women to be very careful about obtaining cosmetic surgeries. In the 1990s, there was a sharp increase in magazine and talk show stories of cosmetic surgeries that celebrities and “ordinary” people underwent, which contributed to the normalization of cosmetic surgery and an expansion in the cosmetic surgery industry. Episodes of the Learning Channel’s medical documentary show The Operation focused on cosmetic surgical procedures in the late 1990s, paving the way for several television depictions of cosmetic surgery. The 2000s saw many reality television shows about cosmetic surgery, including Extreme Makeover (ABC), I Want a Famous Face (MTV), The Swan (Fox), and Dr. 90210 (E!), as well as the dramatic television show Nip/Tuck (FX). These shows have been critiqued within popular culture, feminist studies, and the cosmetic surgery industry as trivializing the risks of cosmetic surgery, giving patients unrealistic expectations of cosmetic surgery and surgeons, and promoting cosmetic surgery as a means to attain unrealistic beauty ideals. At the same time, these shows (in tandem with the proliferation of Internet resources and images) have also offered patients a knowledge base and range of outcomes that was previously unavailable to them. As a result, cosmetic surgery is significantly more acceptable and accessible at the end of the 2000s than it was at the beginning of the decade. Challenges in Cosmetic Surgery Research Cosmetic surgery is described often as “American,” and certainly American surgeons and patients push the boundaries of cosmetic surgical procedures and techniques. A significant challenge to feminist research on cosmetic surgery worldwide is the lack of

accessible statistical information on cosmetic surgery outside of the United States and Canada. This happens primarily for a variety of reasons: the national professional organization of cosmetic surgeons leaves it to individual surgeons to collect statistical information; there are either no national professional organizations or more than one professional organization; and finally, a wide range of surgeons perform cosmetic surgeries who are not cosmetic surgeons. Researchers are currently studying cosmetic surgery phenomena that have global implications, such as the burgeoning practice of cosmetic surgery tourism, and the impacts of neoliberal globalization on the manufacturing of implants and training of surgeons. See Also: Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Aging, Attitudes Toward; Bariatric Surgery; Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Body Image; Botox; Breast Reduction/ Enlargement Surgery; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Pornography, Portrayal of Women in. Further Readings American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “2008 Quick Facts.” http://www.plasticsurgery.org/Media/stats/2008 -quick-facts-cosmetic-surgery-minimally-invasive -statistics.pdf (accessed December 2009). Blum, Virginia. Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Davis, Kathy. Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body: The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery. London: Routledge, 1995. Gilman, Sander. Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. Gilman, Sander. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Haiken, Elizabeth. Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Heyes, Cressida and Meredith Jones. Cosmetic Surgery: A Feminist Primer. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009. Rachel Hurst St. Francis Xavier University

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Women in Poland examine their options in the cosmetic department. According to research, beauty and personal care in Poland were resistant to the economic slowdown with total sales showing a growth in 2009.

Cosmetics Industry The cosmetics industry sells products designed to temporarily change a person’s appearance. A growing segment of the industry, “cosmeceuticals” (a blend of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals), promise longer-lasting changes. Whether fleeting or more enduring, the changes the industry promises tend to correspond to prevailing standards of beauty, that is, youthful, thin, and quite often white. Cosmetics are a multibilliondollar industry in the United States and worth $45 billion globally. Women around the world are marketed a wide array of cosmetic products and remain the largest consumer group, although in recent years an increasing number of cosmetic products have been marketed to and consumed by men. Feminism has long been associated with a critical view of the cosmetics industry. Today, there are a range of feminist perspectives on cosmetics, and many contemporary feminists call

attention to the relationship between cosmetics and identity. Indeed, the cosmetics industry is important because whether or not women identify as feminists, for those with access to cosmetics, the use, manner of use, or nonuse of cosmetics is a statement. There are several issues related to the global cosmetics industry: first, the vast scope of products sold to women and men; second, the mass marketing of cosmetics and critiques of “hucksterism” (the claiming that a product will evoke changes that it could not possibly accomplish) that persistently dog the industry; and finally, critiques of racism in that products are often designed to make the consumer more closely resemble a white or European ideal. The industry’s response to the various critiques will also be examined. Cosmetic and “Cosmeceutical” Products Today, there is a vast scope of cosmetic products sold to women and men around the world. Cosmetic products sold to women include those associated

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with skin (such as creams, lotions and skin lightening products), hair (shampoos, conditioners, mousse, hair spray, hair dyes, permanent wave solutions, and hair straightening products), nails (nail polish and artificial nails), bathing (bath oils and bubble baths), in addition to the variety of face paints and powders known as “makeup” (lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, concealer, foundation, face powder, blush, and eye shadow). Cosmetic products sold to men (which also have women’s versions) have until recently been limited to hair products, fragrances, deodorants, shaving products, mouthwashes, and sunscreens. However, with changing conceptions of masculinity in the 2000s (such as the rise of the “metrosexual” man in urban North America and Europe who takes great care with his appearance) products sold to men today include eye gel, exfoliating facial scrubs, and even face paints and powders such as brow and eyelash gel, eye shadow, eyeliner, lip gloss, and concealer. To avoid unduly blurring prevailing conceptions of gender difference (and the reduced appeal to many male consumers such blurring might entail), these products are usually marketed as “skin care” or “grooming products” rather than cosmetics or makeup. Although some of the above products for women and men are used for bodily cleanliness, soap itself is not considered a cosmetic. In addition to selling more products to men, the cosmetics industry has expanded in recent years by offering an increasingly wide scope of products dubbed “cosmeceuticals.” Cosmeceuticals as a marketing term, along with most cosmeceutical products, first appeared in the United States in the 1990s. Today, cosmeceuticals are sold in an increasing number of countries. Some products that would today be classified as cosmeceuticals predate the 1990s, such as baldness treatments for men and skin-lightening products for women. Cosmeceuticals contain biologically active ingredients that claim to evoke longer-lasting changes to “problems” (for example, wrinkles, stretch marks, cellulite, acne, mild scarring, and uneven pigmentation) that cosmetics only temporarily conceal. In a similar manner to cosmetics more generally, cosmeceuticals in the 2000s are not only sold to women but increasingly to men as well. Such products include antiwrinkle and other “antiaging” creams, microdermabrasion products (which contain an abrasive substance to “sand down” the outer layer of the skin), and mild chemical peels

(chemical solutions that cause dead skin to fall or peel off are mixed into facial washes and creams). The latter two products involve processes more commonly done by doctors and aestheticians; however, weaker forms of microdermabrasion and chemical peels are increasingly available for home use. Although cosmetic and cosmeceutical products continue to be produced and sold by small local manufacturers and merchants, the expansion of the global cosmetics industry in the 21st century has much to do with the large multinational corporations spending vast amounts of money on marketing to reach both mass and specialized markets. Marketing and Critiques of Hucksterism The use of cosmetics has a long history, and with advent of mass marketing, a set of diverse cultural practices became a global industry. The history of the use of cosmetics dates back 40,000 years, that is, for as long as people have adorned their faces and bodies. Many cultures around the world have made extensive use of cosmetics. Some cosmetics have contained dangerous ingredients, such as lead, which the ancient Romans, ancient Egyptians, and Elizabethan English slathered on their faces. Cosmetics became common among the European upper classes by the 18th century. The greatest expansion of cosmetics use (to include more than the wealthy) occurred in the 20th century with the development of modern marketing techniques. By the 1920s, marketing techniques for cosmetics were developed that continue to be used today: namely, appealing to women’s feelings of insecurity (about their bodies, financial situation and relationship or marital status), utilizing popular actresses to sell products, and equating cosmetics with women’s liberation (originally through the image of the liberated flapper). Advertising cosmetic products, including skin-lightening cream, as a form of female empowerment is done more often than not today. Critics would understand such marketing as serving to diffuse well-known feminist critiques of the beauty industry, such as that of the author Naomi Wolf. The industry contends marketers are merely keeping up with the changing roles of women in contemporary society. The use of cosmeceuticals has a short history that does not predate the marketers of modern multinational corporations. The development and marketing of products that obscure the differences between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals are a result of merg-



ers and acquisitions across the previously separate biotechnology, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries. Before the advent of cosmeceuticals, cosmetic products were understood to involve temporary changes to one’s appearance (such as covering liver spots on the skin), while more permanent changes (such as removing these spots entirely) would be classified as a drug. Cosmeceuticals create regulatory difficulties for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States and similar government agencies in other countries because it is unclear whether cosmeceuticals are cosmetics or drugs. Although, the term cosmeceuticals was invented by marketers in the industry, they continue to insist that cosmeceuticals are cosmetics, as cosmetics are subject to less strenuous testing and regulation than pharmaceuticals. The cosmetics industry has a vested interest in keeping cosmeceuticals subject to less regulation. Today, the global market for thigh creams alone, the effectiveness of which is questionable, is worth $90 million. The cosmetics industry is often associated with hucksterism. In her history of cosmetics, Teresa Riordan notes that this is not a new phenomenon. For example, a variety of breast creams were sold in the late 19th century with the claim that regular use would increase size. The cosmetics industry has been associated with hucksterism not only because of promises not kept, but because they have proven harmful to women. Women have died for beauty, and much more recently than those who spread lead and mercury on their faces in preindustrial Europe. For example, the United States Congress only began to regulate the cosmetics industry in 1938 after several cases of deaths, disfigurations,and blindness that were directly attributed to cosmetics. Today, most cosmetics are fairly safe for people without allergies (with some exceptions, including skin-lightening creams containing mercury). Most cosmetics have far too little biologically active ingredients to be harmful, but at the same time, many have far too little to be effective. “Angel dusting” is a common contemporary form of hucksterism. This practice involves including a tiny amount of an active ingredient so the cosmetic can be marketed as containing that ingredient; however, the amount is insufficient to cause any measurable impact. Products are marketed using scientific-sounding language and images that suggest long-lasting results. However, the language is rarely definite: products are

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marketed as changing the “appearance of” or “look of” “imperfections” such as wrinkles. Marketers are careful to avoid stating that the product actually contains enough of the active ingredient to produce such results; that is to be assumed by the purchaser. Products for Women of Color and Critiques of Racism Racist constructions of beauty that privilege whiteness and “European” facial features date back to European colonialism, and continue to be profitable for the cosmetics industry today. British colonialists in India believed there to be different “races” of Indians and thought those with lighter-colored skin were evolutionarily superior and more beautiful. Similarly, American cartoons during and after slavery portrayed exaggerated characteristics of African Americans to promote white supremacy. The impact of colonialism can be seen in cosmetic products designed to help women of color strive for a white European ideal. These products include skin bleaching and lightening products and hair straightening products. For example, in the United States from the late 1900s to the 1950s, skin bleaching and hair straighteners were advertised with names such as No Kink, Imperial Whitener, Mme. Turner’s Mystic Face Bleach, and Black Skin Remover. Although these products have been severely criticized, they are not a thing of the past in the United States or elsewhere (including Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Mali, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, the Philippines, Japan, China, and Korea). The global market for skin-lightening products has exploded in the 21st century, and constitutes a multibillion-dollar industry. Although, some of these products are sold by smaller regional corporations, most are sold by multinational corporations. As such, skin-lightening products are not only a legacy of colonialism but also a consequence of the expansion of multinational corporations and Western consumer culture. In a similar manner to the white face paints of the ancients and the early modern Europeans, many modern skin-lightening products contain toxic ingredients including mercury. Many of the products containing mercury sold in Africa are manufactured in the European Union, with the most production happening in Ireland and Italy. It is legal to produce such products as long as they are not sold in the European

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Union (although many African shops in Dublin and other European cities carry them). Similarly, Mexican-manufactured products containing mercury have caused outbreaks of mercury poisoning in American states (where mercury products are illegal) including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The cosmetics industry offers two responses to critiques of racism. First, they point to the many cosmetic products made for women of color are not designed to lighten skin or straighten hair. In fact, African American beauty products have provided opportunities for African American entrepreneurs, many of whom are women, and many of whom have refused to sell these products. Second, those in the industry that do sell these products tend to use the language of choice and aesthetic preference. Whether or not such language obscures the issue that what women do with their bodies is highly informed by a culture that values youth and the slender body and devalues bodies of color continues to be a matter of debate. See Also: Advertising Aimed at Women; Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Beauty Standards, CrossCultural; Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Feminism; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women; Women’s Magazines. Further Readings Berry, Bonnie. Beauty Bias: Discrimination and Social Power. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Glenn, E. N. “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners.” Gender & Society, v.22/3 (2008). Riordan, Teresa. Inventing Beauty. New York: Broadway Books, 2004. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. New York: Vintage, 1997. Julie E. Dowsett York University

Costa Rica Costa Rica is a central American country, located between Nicaragua and Panama, whose 4.3 million inhabitants enjoys a relatively high standard of living based on agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing.

Women participate in all aspects of life in Costa Rica, including government. About 35 percent of the seats in Costa Rica’s legislative assembly are held by women and in 2010 Costa Ricans elected their first woman president, Laura Chinchilla. Overall, the World Economic Forum ranks Costa Rica 27th out of 134 countries on the Global Gender Gap Report, an index of equality between men and women (the United States ranked 31st). On a scale from 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality), Costa Rica achieved an overall score of 0.718 and subscale scores of 0.9796 on health and survival (highest in the world), 0.9954 on educational attainment (48th highest, because many countries achieved a score of 1.0), 0.6136 on economic participation and opportunity (84th highest), and 0.2833 on political empowerment (20 highest). Save the Children ranks Costa Rica 9th on its Mothers’ Index and 11th on its Women’s and Children’s Index out of 75 less developed countries, reflecting a high standard of healthcare and services for women and children. Literacy is about 95 percent for both men and women and women are more likely than men to be enrolled in tertiary education. The per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009 was $11,300, second only to Panama among central American countries. Because of its stable political climate, Costa Rica leads central America in attracting foreign investment. However, income is not distributed equally and an estimated 16 percent of Costa Ricans live below the poverty line. A strong social safety net helped reduce the ill effects of poverty, although it has frayed somewhat with the global recession. Change in Social Climate Although the culture of Costa Rica has been traditionally informed by the Roman Catholic Church and the country’s Spanish heritage, the social climate for women has changed rapidly in the past few decades. Discrimination against women in employment and salary is illegal although in reality women constitute about 40 percent of the nonagricultural labor force but almost 60 percent of the part-time labor force, and earn about 65 percent of what men earn for similar work. Although most Costa Ricans are Roman Catholic (76.3 percent) the stigma of divorce is lessening, particularly among young urban women. The social sector with the highest percent of divorced women is the urban 40 to 59 age group (18.6 percent) while the

Côte d’Ivoire



lowest is rural females age 60 and over (9.0 percent). Abortion is legal only to save the mother’s life or preserve her mental or physical health. Birth control use is widespread with 80 percent of women age 15 to 44 reporting using some method of contraception and over 70 percent using modern methods. See Also: Gender Quotas in Government; Gender Roles, Cross Cultural; Representation of Women in Government, International; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Hausman, Ricardo, Laura D. Tyson, and Saadia Zahidi. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2009. http://www.weforum.org/en /Communities/Women%20Leaders%20and%20Gender %20Parity/GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010). Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Côte d’Ivoire Since achieving independence in 1960, Côte d’Ivoire has maintained close ties with France. This alliance has contributed, along with cocoa, coffee, and palm oil production, to making Côte d’Ivoire economically healthy in comparison with other West African countries. Since a military coup in 1999, however, the country has experienced major political unrest, which has divided the country and resulted in both France and the United Nations dispatching peacekeeping troops. Although they have the legal right to equality, Ivoirian women live in a male-dominated society in which they are considered to be of little worth. Widows may be forced to marry the brothers of their dead husbands, and young girls are forced to undergo female genital

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mutilation (FGM). Girls as young as 7 years old are forced into marriage with men old enough to be their grandfathers. Violence against women is epidemic, and many women have limited access to education, healthcare, and employment. Ivoirian activists have been heavily involved in pressuring the government to enforce new laws banning forced marriages. They stepped up those efforts after a 12-year-old girl killed her husband who had beaten and raped her. Activists are also determined to improve the situations of young girls who are faced with poverty, illiteracy, and FGM, which is correlated with the country’s high human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) rate (3.9 percent)—the 17th highest in the world. Less than half the population is urbanized, and 68 percent of the workforce is dependent on agriculture. Côte d’Ivoire has a per capita income of only $1,700, and 42 percent of the population live in poverty. As a result of the civil war, from 40 to 50 percent of the workforce may be unemployed. Ethnic groups include Akan (42.1 percent), Voltaiques or Gur (17.6 percent), Northern Mandes (16.5 percent), Krous (11 percent), and Southern Mandes (10 percent). Ivoirians are religiously diverse, with most people identifying themselves as either Muslim (38.6 percent) or Christian (32.8 percent). Approximately 12 percent of the population has adopted indigenous religions. French is still the official language, but more than 60 native dialects are also spoken. Ivoirians have an infant mortality rate of 68.06 deaths per 1,000 live births, which is the 27th highest in the world. Female infants (60.73 deaths per 1,000 live births) have a distinct advantage over male infants (75.17 deaths per 1,000 live births). With a life expectancy of 56.28 years, adult women also have a higher survival rate than men (54.64 years). However, unlike most countries of the world, the median age for women (19.1 years) is lower than that of men (19.4 years), in part because of rampant violence and the fact that FGM makes them more susceptible to HIV/AIDS. Ivoirian females have a fertility rate of 4.12 children each. All Ivoirians also have a very high risk of contracting bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, yellow fever, schistosomiasis, and rabies. A highly pathogenic form of avian flu has also been identified.

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Women are discriminated against in all elements of society. Some 60.8 percent of men are literate, but only 38.6 percent of females older than 15 years are able to read and write. Less than half of men and less than a third of women receive a complete education. In 2005, the estimated earned income for women was $795 compared with $2,472 for males. The country’s political turmoil has spilled over to elections, but in 2001, women won 19 of 225 seats in the National Assembly, four of 33 ministerial posts, and four of 41 Supreme Court seats. Subsequent elections were suspended because of political unrest. Ivoirian women are vulnerable to rape from their husbands, the police, bandits, and opposition military personnel. Although rape is illegal, laws are not well enforced, except in the case of child or gang rape. Child brides are not protected from spousal rape. Although domestic violence continues to be a major problem, victims receive little help from the police. The Ministry of Family and Social Affairs has opened counseling centers, and in some cases they have actively stepped in to mediate or remove abused domestics from the scene. Families often pressure victims to seek amicable resolution. The National Committee to Fight Violence Against Women and Children has become the chief resource for victims of domestic violence and for girls who wish to escape forced marriage or FGM. In 2008, the government held seminars to train judges and security personnel about sexual violence. Prostitution is legal, but it is unlawful to solicit or pander. Women frequently face sexual harassment, but laws are not always enforced. See Also: Domestic Violence; Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; Marriages, Arranged. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “Côte d’Ivoire.” https://www .cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos /iv.html (accessed February 2010). Fallon, Kathleen M. Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. “Female Genital Mutilation: Côte d’Ivoire; FGM Law and Protection for Women Hard to Enforce.” WIN News, v.25/3 (1999). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Tripp, Aili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

“Cougars” The term cougar is used to refer to an older woman (usually 35 or 40 years and above) who sleeps with younger men (usually in their 20s). The term gained popularity in American culture in the late 1990s to early 2000s and has both positive and negative cultural representations and meanings for women. Like her feline counterpart, the cougar is known as a predator, using her years of experience in the dating realm to stalk and hunt her human prey. Once she has captured her man, the cougar may additionally use her money and financial assets to keep him cared for, her knowledge and life experience to keep him interested, and her matured sexuality to keep him satisfied; or she may choose to be more fickle in her tastes and return to the bar or club, which is generally recognized as her primary hunting ground, to entice more younger men to her bed. Cougar is a slang term that originated in Canada. Early uses of the term include the creation of the Website www.cougardate.com in 1999 and the book Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men in 2001 by Canadian author Valerie Gibson, both intended to assist women in being successful cougars. Some sources credit Canadian hockey players for creating the term prior to 1999 in reference to female fans but this is not documented. Recent cultural representations of cougars include the 2007 reality show Age of Love, characters Gabrielle on Desperate Housewives and Samantha on Sex and the City, the 2009 television series Cougar Town, and the 2009 film Chéri. Famous celebrity cougars include Demi Moore, Halle Berry, Kim Cattrall, and Madonna. Social Connotations Social connotations for cougars vary depending on context and community. At its conception, the term was primarily a negative one; it has since shifted cul-

Council of Women World Leaders



turally and is now often used without any negative connotation. Cougars can be seen positively represented by straight men as “MILFs” (sexually attractive “mother’s I’d like to fuck”), or in some feminist communities as women who are choosing to take charge of their sexual experience—who know what they want and do whatever it takes to get it. Cougars are also still frequently represented negatively, as desperate women who are past their prime, have failed in other relationships or been rejected by men their own age, and over-use tanning and plastic surgery to get a younger man as part of an attempt to recapture their lost youth. The presence of the cougar in popular culture challenges heterosexual relationship norms by offering women an avenue with which they may take on the dominant role in a sexual or romantic relationship with a man by being the older, richer, and perhaps wiser of the two partners; however it may in many cases merely provide another term with which to negatively categorize women. Context is key and is continually changing. See Also: Celebrity Women; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Madonna. Further Readings CougarDate. http://www.cougardate.com (accessed May 2010). Gibson, Valerie. Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men. Toronto: Key Porter Books Limited, 2001. Katy N. Kreitler University of San Francisco

Council of Women World Leaders The Council of Women World Leaders is a network of current and former women prime ministers and presidents with a mission to mobilize the highestlevel women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women. Established in 1996 by Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, president of Iceland (1980–96) and the first woman to be

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democratically elected president, and Laura Liswood, former managing director and current senior adviser to Goldman Sachs, the council aims to promote good governance and gender equality and to enhance the experience of democracy globally by increasing the number, effectiveness, and visibility of women who lead their countries. The council’s secretariat moved from Harvard University to be housed at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., in 2004. In May 2008, the council became a policy program of the Aspen Institute. The council is currently chaired by President Tarja Halonen of Finland and has 37 members, comprising almost all of the current and former women heads of state and government. A complete list of council members can be found on the organization’s Website. In 2009, 10 of its members were named to the Forbes’s annual list of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” The inaugural summit of the council was held at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1998, where nine council members and an audience of nearly 800 discussed how to rebuild trust in government and explore the challenges of global leadership. Since then, the council has expanded to establish ministerial initiatives, launch the Albright Women’s Voices Series, and develop graduate fellowship programs. The ministerial initiative, chaired by the Honorable Margot Wallström, vice president of the European Commission, seeks to promote ministerial-level exchange on global issues, identify and address the particular challenges facing women in ministerial leadership positions, and increase their visibility both nationally and internationally. The initiative is organized into different portfolios by ministry. Through this initiative, the council secretariat has convened numerous meetings for women ministers within a variety of portfolios such as health, education, environment, finance, economy and development, affairs, and culture. These meetings have created a unique space for ministers to share best practices from developing and developed country experiences and form a united, influential force for policy change with a gender perspective. In addition, the council is partner to Ministerial Leadership Initiative (MLI), a four-year program funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Founda-

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tion. The primary mandate of the council under MLI is to create, coordinate, and manage the Ministerial Consultative Process, representing the provision of input through its Ministerial Initiative for Health to the first-ever World Health Organization report on women’s health globally. Women’s Voices, the council’s roundtable program, was expanded and named the Madeleine K. Albright Women’s Voices in fall 2007 in honor of the first female U.S. secretary of state and founding chair of the Council’s Ministerial Initiative. The series invites internationally acclaimed experts to discuss the progress that women have achieved worldwide, the challenges that lie ahead in key areas of leadership, and the actions required for change. The series is held in conjunction with the Aspen Institute. The Council’s Graduate Fellowship Program allows students to work directly with global leaders, ministers, prime ministers, presidents, and international organizations on important global issues. The program is currently open to graduate students from the Harvard Kennedy School, where it is funded by the school’s Women’s Leadership Board, and Columbia University, where it is funded by the Office of the President. To date, over 80 women and one man have served as fellows in 24 offices worldwide. In 2009, the council added the Public Health Graduate Fellowship Program, which places students from top-tier graduate schools of public health in the ministries of members of the council’s Ministerial Initiative for Health, as well as in international organizations, and the council also plans to launch an Environmental Policy Graduate Fellowship Program in 2010. Other activities of the council include member engagements and policy dialogues, which are highlevel summits that allow members to discuss and bring to international attention the policy positions and issues that are of importance to women. In 2009, council members convened in Monrovia, Liberia, for a colloquium on women’s empowerment, leadership development, international peace, and security, at which members and council guests cosponsored a petition to the government of Sudan, the African Union Commission, and the United Nations to reinstate the licenses of humanitarian agencies providing critical humanitarian assistance to individuals displaced by the war in Darfur.

The council partners with a variety of public and private entities as well as governments for its programs and initiatives. See Also: Albright, Madeleine; Gender Quotas in Government; Government, Women in. Further Readings The Aspen Institute. “Policy Program Council of Women World Leaders.” http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy -work/women-world-leaders (accessed April 2010). Council of Women World Leaders. http://www.cwwl.org /index.html (accessed April 2010). Shenila S. Khoja-Moolji Harvard Divinity School

Country and Western Music, Women in Women have been a part of country music from its beginnings. They have served in most all capacities including writers, producers, performers (both vocalists and instrumentalists), managers, and company executives. Early in the development of country music in the United States, women were more likely to be working behind the scenes rather than on the stages; even in these early times, there were a few women who earned audience favor and fame. However, it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that women as “star” performers began to increase in numbers. Today, the Country Music Association Awards and the Country Record Charts abound with women both visible and lauded in all aspects of the music business. In its earliest form, country music was a derivation of centuries-old folk tunes that came to the United States from the British Isles. The beginnings of country music itself are indistinct and blended with such music genres as blues, gospel, folk music, and ballads. Early on, women were active in the music business but rarely seen or heard. However, within religious communities, vaudeville performances, and the various itinerant tent shows traveling through rural areas, women not only had places in these performances but some also had fame as performers.



First Women of Country Music As a point to begin the discussion of women in country music, the Carter family’s entrance on the music scene will be used. The Carter family in its original form consisted of A. P. and Sara Carter and A. P.’s sister-in-law, Maybelle Carter. The Carter family made their first recording in 1927 and were significantly influential in the country music scene until well into the 1940s. The two women had distinctive sounds that endured over extended periods and were copied by many. They were among the first artists to play country music professionally, followed by other family groups such as the Monroe Brothers, who sang of sin, redemption, and other topics reflecting the hard lives of rural Americans. Country music, as a whole, remained somewhat localized until the advent of radio. A variety of live performance programs such as Midwestern Hayride, The Grand Ole Opry, Ozark Jubilee, and the Louisiana Hayride were also heard by many as radio broadcasts. These and other programs like them provided support for country music generally, but women in country music specifically. Without question, however, the greatest promoter of country music’s popularity was World War II. The American GIs and other military personnel took the music they loved wherever they were sent in the world. Country music became a popular offering on the Armed Forces Network radio station. The popularity of country music continued after World War II and the advent of television in the 1950s merely added to the speed and breadth of its growth. Popular male vocalists such as Porter Wagoner, Jimmy Dean, Roger Miller, Johnny Cash, and Glenn Campbell provided a forum for the music genre and within this forum, opportunities for performances by women. Wells and Cline Make Their Mark During this same time in the 1950s, two women, Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline, paved the way for women in country and western (C&W) music. Both Wells and Cline asserted themselves in the Nashville music scene and changed it forever. In 1952, Kitty Wells was the first woman to perform seriously and to compete for the mostly male C&W audience. Wells became the first woman to top the C&W charts with her single, “It Wasn’t God

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Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” This song was an answer to Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life.” Wells was born Muriel Deason, in Nashville, Tennessee. Deason was given the name Kitty Wells for her stage persona by her husband, Johnny Wright. Kitty regularly sang with Johnny Wright, Jack Anglin, and the Tennessee Mountain Boys. Although she had performed for many years prior, it was not until her recording of “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” that her career came into its own. The recording was on Billboard’s country chart for six weeks, which was the first song by a woman to ever attain this recognition. In 1961, Wells had another number one record. She presented an image of “wholesomeness and domesticity” through her dress and manner. Although, Wells’s music garnered the public’s attention, her husband negotiated and spoke for her in the professional arena. Wells inspired Kentucky native Loretta Lynn who left home at age 13 and began coloring her own twangy singing with a feisty attitude in songs like “Your Squaw Is on the Warpath.” Patsy Cline is considered one of the greatest singers of all time in the history of country music. Her brief career produced the number one jukebox hit of all time, “Crazy.” Other nationally recognized hits included “I Fall to Pieces” and “Walking After Midnight.” She was called “the most popular female country singer in recording history” by the Country Music Hall of Fame. She broke down doors by busting stereotypes. Early on, she dressed in cowgirl attire and attempted to make yodeling a part of all of her records. As her career matured, she favored gowns and cocktail dresses instead of the standard cowgirl wardrobe. And she was a feisty type who wasn’t afraid to lock horns with record executives, which was unheard of for women of that era. Ironically, it was never Patsy’s desire to be the crossover queen. She hated the idea of being made into a pop star and held on to her country upbringing. She was always proud of her hometown, and claimed it as her hometown at the beginning of every concert. She died in a plane crash on March 6, 1963. Although, her career was short, she increased the audience for country music and moved women country singers away from the older style of Molly O’Day, Rose Maddox, Jean Shepard, and Kitty Wells to more of a popmainstream genre.

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Today’s Women in Country Music Once the trailblazing efforts of Wells, Cline, and others took hold, the gates for women in country music were wide open. With increasing frequency over the last 50 years, women have become an accepted, even lauded element of the country music scene. Dolly Parton, Lynn, and Tammy Wynette all came on the scene in the 1960s. The talents of Parton, Lynn, Wynette, June Carter, and Tanya Tucker expanded the listening audience in country music to include women. They dramatically altered the male bias of country and western music by boldly presenting new lyrics and philosophies that reflected a female perspective. Singers like Barbara Mandrell, Anne Murray, and Emmylou Harris made their names during the 1970s. The 1980s saw the arrival of acts such as K. T. Oslin, and Reba McEntire. Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and Martina McBride all had their first hits in the 1990s. Canadian k.d. lang broke ground in women’s country music with her adrogynous look, and when she came out as a lesbian in a 1992 article of The Advocate. In 2002, Country Music Television (CMT) hosted a three-hour special program to honor the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music. Both Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline were on the list of performers honored. Not surprising, the list included Parton, Hill, and Twain. Women artists from the 1920s such as “Mother” Maybelle Carter, of the Carter family fame were on the list. A CMT executive was reported as saying, “It is amazing when you look at these women and realize what it took to be a success, especially in country music. This wasn’t rock ’n’ roll, where being rebellious was always rewarded. This was country music, where tradition was king. A lot of the women voted onto this list really stepped out of tradition and said, ‘This is who I am, and I’m just as country as the people who came before me.’ They’re brave.” See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Celebrity Women; MTV; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Parton, Dolly. Further Readings Bufwack, M. A. and R. K. Oermann. Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music, 1800–2000. Nashville, TN: The Country Music Foundation Press & Vanderbilt University Press, 2003.

Lewis, G. H. “The Creation of Popular Music: A Comparison of the Art Worlds of American Country Music and British Punk.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, v.19/1 (1988). Mansfield, B. “CMT Saluting Country Women.”USA Today. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct =true&db=a9h&AN=J0E387689941302&site=ehost -live. (accessed July 2010). Anita M. Pankake University of Texas, Pan American

Couric, Katie Katherine “Katie” Anne Couric, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, is a successful and highly compensated woman on American television. In addition to her work on the Evening News, Couric has also contributed to the iconic 60 Minutes news magazine. Known for her provocative interviews, she has interviewed both presidents and celebrities. Previously, she served as the host of the popular NBC Today Show for 15 years. She also worked for ABC and CNN during the 1980s before joining CBS in 2006. Education and Career Highlights Couric was born on January 7, 1957, in Arlington, Virginia, to homemaker Elinor and public marketing executive and news editor John Couric Jr. While her mother was Jewish, she was raised Presbyterian. She is a product of Virginia public schools and graduated in 1979 with a bachelor’s in English from the University of Virginia. Afterward, Couric pursued a career in journalism with an entry-level position as a desk assistant at ABC. Soon after, however, Couric joined CNN and served for four years in a variety of positions, including producer, editor, and correspondent. Following her successful stint with America’s first cable news network, she left to take a position as a reporter at WTVJ-TV in Miami from 1984 to 1986. In 1987, Couric moved to Washington, D.C., to assume a similar position with WRC-TV. She impressed viewers and those in the industry with her professionalism, personality, and work ethic. Landing a job as defense correspondent for NBC

Cowboy Action Shooting



News in 1989, she also periodically filled in as cohost with Bryant Gumbel on the popular morning program, The Today Show. Following Deborah Norville’s departure, Couric was elevated to the permanent slot of cohost in 1991. She spent the next 15 years becoming one of the most respected and well-known news personalities in television. Since 2000, Katie Couric has solidified her position as one of the most popular, successful, and distinguished journalists in America. On September 5, 2006, Couric took the reins of the venerable network news program, the CBS Evening News. She has interviewed every American president from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama. Over the past several years, she has also sat with major Middle East leaders Ariel Sharon, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Couric, however, has not only made news with prominent and serious politicians and world leaders. She interviewed the late John F. Kennedy Jr., Bill Gates, and the Central Park Jogger. Beyond being an interviewer, Couric has covered the major stories of our time, such as the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Virginia Tech shootings, the Gulf War, the Columbine shootings, and the Timothy McVeigh trial and execution. Critics aside, Couric has proved that intelligence and beauty are not incompatible qualities. Moreover, she has been active in cancer research; often lending her name and prestige to worthy efforts to eradicate the deadly disease. Katie Couric was married to the late Jay Monahan from 1989 until his death in 1998 of colon cancer. She has two daughters from this union: Elinor and Carolina. See Also: Financial Independence of Women; Journalists, Broadcast Media; Walters, Barbara. Further Readings Klein, Edward. Katie: The Real Story. New York: Thomson-Gale, 2007. Koestler-Grack, Rachel. Katie Couric: Groundbreaking TV Journalist. New York: Gareth Stevens, 2009. Paprocki, Sherry Beck. Katie Couric. New York: Chelsea House, 2001. Daryl A. Carter East Tennessee State University

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Cowboy Action Shooting Developed in 1981 by Southern Californian Harper Creigh with the help of two friends, Cowboy Action Shooting (CAS) uses the myths and legends of the American West as a catalyst for a sport that combines the skill of tactical shooting with the thrill of fantasy role-playing, but with live firearms. Competitors are required to pick an alias and don an outfit suggestive of a famous 19th-century western individual or profession, or a character from a western film or television show. Equipped with two single-action revolvers, a rifle, and a shotgun, the designs of which predate 1899, shooters compete in a demanding sport that requires strong eye/hand coordination and mental focus. From its inception, CAS was promoted as a family activity, with women and girls competing equally with men and boys. In 1987, the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) was formed as the governing body for all CAS events. Today, there are over 500 clubs in the United States, and interest has spread to 18 other countries, including Canada, Italy, Germany, France, New Zealand, and Australia. The overarching themes of SASS are the celebration of manifest destiny, reverence for the iconic cowboy of myth and legend, and active support of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Cowboy aliases tend to be humorous; female names may be gendered (Sage Chick, Honey B. Graceful, Bama Belle) or sexually suggestive (Mist Chance, Leggs Balou). They may imply toughness (Kitty Carbine, Lady Justice) or badness (Holy Terror, Dew R. Dye). Costume contests are a big part of the festivities, and categories for women include Best Shooting Costume, as well as the sexually charged awards for best Soiled Doves and Parlor House Madams. Participants range from urban professionals to blue-collar workers, many of them not raised in the so-called gun culture. They are united by their appreciation for what SASS calls “The Code of the West.” The sport offers weekend, regional, and national events, culminating in the End of Trail Wild West Jubilee and Cowboy Action Shooting World Championships (EOT), hosted at SASS’s Founders Ranch in New Mexico. Seventeen shooting bays are temporarily outfitted to resemble western movies sets, each with a different tactical challenge—be it to shoot evildoers or hunt down food for the family.

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The 480-acre spread also includes permanent buildings reminiscent of a Hollywood western town. With dozens of competitions offered, including a few on horseback using blank ammunition, there is a challenge for every level of shooter, including Overall Ladies World Champion, Ladies Senior, Junior Girl, and Cowgirls First Time. According to SASS, women typically make up 20 percent of EOT shooters, and top female competitors consistently place high in mixed events. For example, at the 2009 Main Match, Holy Terror came in second of 419 participants; and in Cowboy Mounted Shooting, Star of July-Dakota was second in a group of 45 shooters. There are no monetary awards in SASS-run events; instead, winners receive a trophy or buckle. In addition, although four firearms alone can cost over $2,000, most members treat their sport like an expensive hobby—they simply enjoy being in an environment with like-minded individuals. SASS does offer educational scholarships to members; however, shooting skill is not a factor. Rather, applicants are judged on their essay, grade point average, and involvement in community service. In 2009, girls and women received more than half of the 26 awards. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender Defined; Gun Control; Shooting Sports, Women in. Further Readings Hall, R. Performing the American Frontier, 1870–1906. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Kohn, A. A. Shooters: Myths and Realities of America’s Gun Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Single Action Shooting Society. http://www.sassnet.com (accessed June 2010). Slotkin, R. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Atheneum, 1992. Nancy Floyd Georgia State University

Cowgirls While women in a number of countries in North and South America and in places like Australia and New Zealand compete in rodeos, the competition or dis-

play of lassoing, bronco-riding, calf-roping, and steerwrangling is most closely associated with the United States and the American West. Male riders, called cowboys, and female riders, called cowgirls, compete in the rodeo, but cowgirls are not just relegated to this world. The term cowgirl encompasses women in the rodeo, wild west shows, commercial portrayals, women of the frontier, and pioneering women in the more general sense. Cowgirls are associated primarily with the rodeo, and that is where female riders first received their name. Supposedly, President Theodore Roosevelt bestowed the cowgirl name on Lucille Mulhall, one of the best-known rodeo competitors in the early 20th century. Since then, the term has been used to describe any number of women, but most often for women in ranching and rodeo. As working cowgirls on ranches, women rarely held official positions like the male cowboys. However, female relatives of ranch owners and employees often worked alongside their male relatives. The ranching cowgirls may not have been paid, but they often completed the same tasks as their male counterparts. As ranching led to the formation of rodeos in the late 19th century, women moved from the ranching world to the rodeo arena. Until the 1930s, rodeo cowgirls competed almost equally with male riders and at times even competed directly against them. Following a restriction in the events available to them, women formed their own professional organization in the late 1940s and since then, have worked to regain more equal footing and recognition as rodeo cowgirls. In addition to competing in rodeos, women also appeared as cowgirls in the many wild west shows that were popular in the 1910s and 1920s, the most famous of which was the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, which toured the United States, Australia, Europe, and South America. Some of the cowgirls rode horses and performed riding and roping tricks, but others like Annie Oakley were sharpshooters or other types of performers. With the popularity of cowgirls in rodeos and wild west shows, television and movies soon commercialized the cowgirl image. Women like Gail Davis, who played Annie Oakley on a television show from 1954 to 1957, and Dale Evans, who married and performed with Roy Rogers in more than 20 films, popularized the genre of the western.



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The term cowgirl encompasses women in the rodeo, wild west shows, commercial portrayals, women of the frontier, and pioneering women, as well as modern women working on ranches and farms.

Although not considered to be cowgirls in the traditional sense because they do not ride horses, work on ranches, or compete in rodeos, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame includes “trailblazers” of the American West like Sandra Day O’Connor, who grew up in Arizona and was the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, and female artists in and of the west, like Willa Cather, the Pulitzer prize-winning author of O Pioneers. Even as ranching and the origins of cowgirls have faded in the 21st century, this updated definition of a cowgirl allows the traditional image to live well beyond the borders of ranching and rodeos. See Also: Cowboy Action Shooting; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender Defined; O’Connor, Sandra Day; Professions by Gender; Rodeo; Shooting Sports, Women in; Sports,Women in.

Further Readings Jordan, Teresa. Cowgirls: Women of the American West. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1982. LeCompte, Mary Lou. Cowgirls of the Rodeo: Pioneer Professional Athletes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. McGinnis, Vera. Rodeo Road: My Life as a Pioneer Cowgirl. New York: Hastings House, 1974. Reddin, Paul. Wild West Shows. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Roach, Joyce Gibson. The Cowgirls, 2nd ed. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1990. Stansbury, Kathryn. Lucille Mulhall: Her Family, Her Life, Her Times, 2nd ed. Mulhall, OK: Homestead Heirlooms, 1992. Elyssa Ford Arizona State University

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Crafting Industry Traditionally defined as a skilled practice of a practical occupation, a craft is often seen to exist in counterpoint to an art which is innately impractical and creatively significant. Crafts and women’s involvement in crafting practices are common to every community across sociocultural and political economic contexts. Spanning the globe, in country markets in France and Burma as well as urban farmer’s bazaars in the Congo and Peru, one can find women’s artifacts for sale. Whether a basket of vegetables and fruits, a patchwork quilt, a jar of honey, a string of sausages, a braided rug, a package of cheese, a knitted hat, or bouquet of flowers, the presence of handmade products is ubiquitous, and women’s centrality in the production of the homemade and locally grown is evidenced throughout the world and has been this way for centuries. Women’s involvement in the crafting industry predates the industrial era. What is unique to crafting practices in the early 21st century is the emergence of the Internet and the creation of online socioeconomic networks related to women’s crafting practices. These networks, whether they are embedded within a friendship framework, such as Facebook or Myspace, situated within a craftspecific environment, such as Ravelry or Etsy, or independent personal sites, have facilitated the merging of craft and art, the personal and the public, as well as the marketable and the unsalable simultaneously. Gendered crafting practices, including but not limited to, sewing, knitting, crocheting, embroidering, decorating, weaving, quilting, bookmaking, and cooking, are now written about and photographed fastidiously in ways that have created a new and vibrant social world. Through its innately democratizing nature, the Internet allows any and every women with access to the Internet, whether in her home, the public library, or a cybercafé, to create her own space for self-expression and documentation of her personal habits and hobbies, especially crafting. A variation on the 1880s and 1960s “back to the land” movements with an emphasis on the organic, the homegrown, and the natural, today’s female crafters use their blogs to inspire and delight, but they also sell a range of products, including patterns, books, music, yarn, and fabric. The Website Etsy.com was started in 2005 by a team of computer science engi-

neers, public relation specialists, and investors who posited that a substantial income could be generated by facilitating community connection between crafters and crafting aficionados. As of late 2009, Etsy.com generated between $10 and $13 million in sales per month. Its popularity has increased in the global economic depression, buyers continue to seek the inexpensive and the uniquely sentimental, and sellers continue to use Etsy.com as an online marketplace because of its outspoken commitment to the homemade community. As a member of the Etsy.com community, one can own a “shop,” participate in community forums and workshops on a variety themes and practices, and define oneself in relation to specific subcommunities of sellers. Women’s involvement in the crafting industry continues to evolve as does the definition of craft itself. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Business, Women in; Fair Trade; Fiber Arts, Women in; Part-Time Work. Further Readings Kinkade, K. A Walden Two Experiment. New York: Morrow, 1973. Miller, Kerry. “Etsy: A Site for Artisans Takes Off.” BusinessWeek (June 12, 2007). http://www.business week.com/smallbiz/content/jun2007/sb20070611 _488723.htm (accessed June 2010). Schofield, Jack. “Arts and Crafts for the Space Age.” The Guardian (February 18, 2008). http://www.guardian .co.uk/technology/2008/feb/18/etsy.crafts (accessed June 2010). Slatalla, Michelle. “Rooting Around Grandma’s Basement in Cyberspace.” New York Times (January 18, 2007). http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/ fashion/18Online.html?ex=157680000&en=8b334fa53f 7dd9da&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permal ink (accessed June 2010). Ulrich, L. The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories In the Creation of an American Myth. New York: Knopf, 2001. Walker, Rob. “Craft Capitalism: Just Do It Yourself.” International Herald Tribune (November 15, 1997). http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/14/business /wbcraft.php (accessed June 2010). Alpha S. DeLap University of Washington



Creation Care Movement (Evangelical)

Creation Care Movement (Evangelical)

to live out stewardship for all creation, “pro-life ecofeminists” protect all vulnerable living things, often advocating for oppressed women, animal life (through vegetarianism), biospheres, and unborn human life.

The Creation Care movement is an increased environmental focus among Evangelical Christians who recognize good stewardship of God’s creation, the Earth, as a biblical mandate. Distinct from Earth-focused “ecology,” the term creation care focuses on biblical commands to take responsible stewardship of God’s creation and care for those in need. Creation Care advocates recognize climate change’s serious effects on those in poverty, particularly women, but it is not generally considered a “women’s issue.” In 2006, Jim Ball organized the Evangelical Climate Initiative, a petition for Congress to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Other Creation Care projects include the 2008 Green Bible, which prints references to the Earth in green text; the Evangelical Environmental Network and its magazine Creation Care; programs for churches, including Flourish and EcoCongregation; conferences such as the 2008 Reform Conference, which seek biblical solutions to environmental issues, poverty, and injustice; and the studyabroad Creation Care Study Program. Related work includes the Mennonite Creation Care Network and missions organizations such as Care of Creation. The 2006 Evangelical Youth Climate Initiative reflects the significant increases in “creation care” at many Christian colleges, including “green” initiatives and chapters of Peter Illyn’s environmental stewardship group Restoring Eden. In 2008, student leaders coordinated by Anna Jane Joyner launched “Renewal: Students Caring for Creation”; the Sierra Club’s Melanie Griffin is an adviser. Women’s Issues As with Evangelical Christianity as a whole, women’s issues are rarely mentioned in Creation Care discussions. Nonetheless, many within the movement recognize the inseparability of environmental issues and poverty: disasters such as increased drought and flooding disproportionately affect the world’s poor, especially those women without political or economic power. Creation Care advocates see this as a social justice issue and a chance to care for “the least of these.” A few also see Creation Care as inseparable from ecofeminism and a holistic pro-life mind set. Seeking

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Women Writers A few of the Creation Care movement’s prominent voices are women, including Nancy Sleeth, the author of Go Green, Save Green: A Simple Guide to Saving Time, Money, and God’s Green Earth (2009). At age 15 years, Emma Sleeth wrote It’s Easy Being Green: One Student’s Guide to Serving God and Saving the Planet (2008), highlighting her generation’s environmental responsibility. For the Beauty of the Earth: Women, Faith, and Creation Care (2009) is a curriculum guide for women’s study groups written by Patty Friesen. The Green Bible’s introductory essays include “Creation Theology: A Jewish Perspective” by Ellen Bernstein, “Knowing Our Place on Earth: Learning Environmental Responsibility From the Old Testament” by Ellen F. Davis, and “The Dominion of Love” by Barbara Brown Taylor. Anne M. Clifford wrote “From Ecological Lament to a Sustainable Oikos,” a chapter in God’s Stewards: The Role of Christians in Creation Care (2002). Contributors to Creation Care magazine include managing editor Kendra Langdon Juskus, Dorothy Boorse, Tricia O’Connor Elisara, Margie Haack, Marah Hardt, and Rachel Stone. See Also: Climate Change as a Women’s Issue; Ecofeminism; Environmental Issues, Women and; Evangelical Protestantism. Further Readings Bouma-Prediger, Steven. For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision of Creation Care. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001. Evangelical Environmental Network. http://www.creation care.org (accessed June 2010). The Green Bible. New Revised Standard Version. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008. Hodgdon, Sarah. “‘Creation Care’—A Growing Movement.” Treehugger.com http://www.treehugger .com/files/2008/07/creation-care-faith-action.php (accessed June 2010). Vanessa Baker Bowling Green State University

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Crime Victims, Female Women are victims of all forms of crime, but domestic violence—including sexual and physical violence—is responsible for about one-quarter of all incidents. Both women and men can be victims of domestic violence, but the most common scenario involves violence by men against a female partner or ex-partner. In addition, the crimes that are committed against women in public are often related to a female’s perceived sexualized identity as “other,” or as lesser beings than men. Criminal justice systems (e.g., the police and the courts) do not always respond appropriately to crimes against women. Grassroots groups and feminist academics have challenged the responses to crimes against women not just from the criminal justice system but also from the media and criminologists. The challenge is in determining how sex and gender interplay with other social variables as well as figuring out the relationship between crimes against women and the objectification of women’s bodies. Despite all of this, it is important to remember that women are not always passive and do not necessarily define themselves as victims. The Scale of the Issue Violent crimes against women in the domestic arena and in wider society appear to be on the increase even though statistics and surveys suggest that crime in general is on the decline in many countries. The Women’s Aid Federation England (WAFE), which is a national charity working to end domestic violence against women and children, supports a network of more than 500 domestic and sexual violence services across the United Kingdom (UK). It defines domestic violence as “. . . a range of abusive behavior, not all of which are, in themselves, inherently violent. Violence can mean, among other things: threats, intimidation, manipulation, isolation, keeping a woman without money, locked in, deprived of food, or using (and abusing) her children in various ways to frighten her or enforce compliance.” WAFE also identifies abuse as including “systematic criticism and belittling comments,” wildly fluctuating behavior of the abuser, and the offering of rewards if certain conditions are met, all to convince the partner that the abuse will never happen again. Such abuse can happen at any time within a relationship or after an association has ended, although

there is evidence to suggest that there are some occasions when women are even more vulnerable. Pregnancy appears to be a time when violence within a relationship often begins. When a woman does not fulfill the wishes of her family, she may be subject to emotional, physical, and/or sexual violence from her partner and possibly other family members. In some communities, honor killing (the murder of one family member by other family members) takes place when it is believed that a woman has brought dishonor on her family and/or community. Many women live in potential danger of ill health, even death, as the result of men’s emotional, psychological, sexual, and physical violence. Sex crimes— defined broadly to include soliciting, violence against sex workers, rape in war, and Internet grooming—is often considered to be less important, both legally and academically, than other crimes and criminal justice concerns. Sex crimes could be labeled as hate crimes because they identify an individual by a particular group such as race, religion, or sexuality. The risks of some groups, like sex workers, are particularly denied, ignored and even ridiculed in the media as well as within the criminal justice system. In both the domestic sphere and in wider society, millions of women and children every year are the victims of murder, rape, and child sexual abuse. Such crimes are gendered in that women are more likely than men to be the victims and men rather than women are likely to be the perpetrators. Estimates of the scale of these crimes differ within countries and around the world, and violence does happen in female (and male) same-sex relationships, but violent crimes against women by men is a significant issue worldwide. Studies that focus on the perpetrators’ motivation suggest that men’s violent behavior toward women is usually characterized as “losing control” or flying into a “blind rage.” However, all the evidence suggests that both abused women and the men who abuse them give the same reasons for the abuse: that men’s violent behavior is used as a means of control. Thus, violence against women happens in normal relationships and is undertaken by normal men. There are many myths surrounding violent crimes against women, including the belief that women enjoy being controlled and/or that they “bring it on themselves” through inappropriate behavior such as dressing pro-



vocatively, not fulfilling the expectations of others or being too demanding. When men are the victims of such crimes the perpetrators are likely to be other men. Women are more likely to be attacked by someone they know, and men are more likely to be attacked by someone unknown to them. When men are the victims of sexual violence the aggression is often an attempt to subordinate or feminize them. Sex crimes in both the private and public spheres are underreported; when the crimes are reported they are often not taken seriously, not prosecuted or end in the aquittal of the perpetrator. The experience of living in a violent relationship/ being subject to violent crime can affect a woman’s psychological as well as her physical health. Women who experience violence on a regular basis often have a high frequency of psychosexual dysfunction, major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Responses to Crimes Against Women One response to crimes against women could be to give increased attention to highlighting danger. However, in the past much of the focus on danger has been on external factors that women face outside of the home—often referred to as stranger danger. This theory denies the fact that women are more likely to be at risk from husbands, boyfriends, partners, and fathers; and while it helps to keep women away from external danger, they then are left unprotected and at risk at home. Additionally, when there have been real external threats to women’s safety, the criminal justice system strongly encourages them to behave in ways to minimize the threat, for example, not to travel alone and to be home before dark. This further supports the view that it is women’s own fault when such crime occurs. The Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust (ZTCT) is an organization that promotes innovative policy and practice that tackles the root causes of male violence against women and children. Since 1992, the ZTCT has launched a number of campaigns that focus on the prevention of male violence against women and children, but the old attitudes of blaming the woman for the crime committed against her still exists. For example, ZTCT researched young people’s attitudes toward gender-based abuse and found that half of

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boys and a third of girls thought that there were some circumstances when it was okay to hit a woman or force her to have sex; more than one-third of the boys (36 percent) thought that they might personally hit a woman or force a woman to have sex; more than half the young people interviewed knew someone who had been hit by their male partner, and exactly half knew someone who had been sexually abused. The response of the ZTCT is to encourage youth ambassadors to represent their philosophy throughout communities, schools, and universities and to offer training and training packs for teachers and youth workers. The rise of feminism in both the 19th and 20th centuries also led to crimes against women, with sex crimse receiving the most attention. Feminists challenged lay understandings of, criminal justice responses to, and academic and media discourse on crimes against women. The discipline of criminology and related fields such as the sociology of deviance were originally dominated by male academics who were concerned with male crime. Their focus was mainly on men as offenders and victims. The result of this narrow and gender-biased approach to crime and deviance meant that many issues were overlooked. Criminology, like many other academic disciplines, historically focused on the public sphere—where history is made at the expense of the personal and the private. This is one explanation for the lack of attention given to crimes against women. In addition, feminists argued that crimes against women have historically been ignored because all societies have accepted the exploitation of women. Thus, feminism, both within the academy and at the grassroots level, promotes new ways of thinking about crime, criminality, and the responses to it. Since the 1970s, grassroots organizations have been instrumental in developing support groups, many of which now have a virtual as well as a physical presence. There also have been changes in the laws of various countries, which aim to target sexual and physical crimes against the person, including crimes against women. Along with developments in criminology and in wider society, there have been changes in the way the media reports such crimes. Today, domestic violence and rape and other crimes against women are increasingly reported. They also have been given greater significance and a deeper understanding by society.

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The Significance of the “Gaze” There is still the tendency for some publications to report sex crimes and violence against women in misleading, sensationalized, and sometimes titallating ways. This can be seen as part of a broader sexual exploitation and objectification of women. This objectification—the positioning of women as objects rather than as people or as sexualized bodies—is thought to encourage a “male gaze.” This term defines the way men are encouraged to look at women’s bodies, that is, from a narrow, sexualized perspective. The justification for men’s use of pornography relates to the sexual double standard that suggests that men have a stronger sex drive than women and a “natural” need for regular sexual gratification. For women, “natural” is translated as being more passive sexually. Women who openly display an interest in sex are seen as unnatural, aggressive, and “loose.” Many feminists argue that pornography is objectifying and dehumanizing, reinforcing women’s subordinate status in society, and is both an extreme example of the male gaze and the foundation of male dominance. Some feminists also argue that there is a key link between pornography and sexual violence, and others see pornography as one aspect of sexual abuse, as another crime against women. Survivors Not Victims Female crime victims do not necessarily assume the permanent role of victim. In addition to practical and emotional support from professionals, these women often note that the support of other women who had the same experience helped them to move from victim to survivor. Many previous victims go on to offer support to others. See Also: Domestic Violence; Domestic Violence Centers; Drug Trade; Hate Crimes; Honor Killings; Rape, Incidences of; Sex Workers. Further Readings Abrahams, Hilary. Rebuilding Lives After Domestic Violence. London: Jessica Kingsley, 2010. Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2004. Flowers, R. Barri. Sex Crimes, Perpetrators, Predators, Prostitutes and Victims, 2nd ed. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 2006.

Heidensohn, Francis. Sexual Politics and Social Control. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 2009. Heidensohn, Francis. Women and Crime. London: Macmillan, 1985. Gayle Letherby University of Plymouth

Crisis Pregnancy Centers Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) were first established in the United States in the years before Roe v. Wade (1973), when individual states began liberalizing their abortion laws. They were a response to this liberalization by those holding pro-life sentiments; they offered pregnancy options counseling that excluded abortion. While some CPCs were and are open about their politics, many CPCs were or still are not. More recently, and especially during the Bush administration, CPCs began to take on a more medicalized persona presenting themselves as healthcare clinics that offer free medical services like pregnancy tests and ultrasounds. As explained below, this newer manifestation confuses some women who believe they are patronizing legitimate medical clinics, which is further complicated by the evidence that these women are given false and misleading information and subjected to a variety of hurtful tactics. CPCs are concerning because of their deceptive nature and how that impacts women’s reproductive health and rights. Many CPCs portray themselves as being neutral on the abortion issue in order to attract pregnant women to use their services. Yet, CPCs do not help women access abortion; rather, most present inaccurate information to clients. In 2006, the United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform found that 20 out of 23 CPCs contacted provided false and misleading health information to patients, especially in relation to the alleged links between abortion and breast cancer, abortion and future infertility, and the mental health effects of abortion. Moreover, the persons performing the free ultrasounds have limited training, and no training in detecting fetal abnormalities belying the medical nature of CPCs.



Objectional Tactics In addition to medical misinformation, the CPCs engage in a range of objectionable tactics when trying to persuade women to continue pregnancies. They have been known to use emotional pleas such as references to “your baby” and giving women knitted booties. They have also been known to use coercive and offensive tactics such as showing women graphic photos and videos, and equating abortion with “murder” or “killing.” An equal, though less frequently raised, concern is the role CPCs play in adoption. Several recent exposés, like those in The Nation and Time magazine, reveal the coercive nature of some CPCs in this respect. Not only are there examples of CPCs persuading women not to have abortions, but there are also reports of incidents where women are pushed into rushed and closed adoptions in which the pregnant women are isolated from their families and not properly informed of their rights as biological parents. The above concerns are exacerbated by the reach and power of CPCs. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that there are between 2,500 and 4,000 CPCs across the United States. Most of these have an affiliation with Christian charities or organizations. Under the Bush administration, many of these CPCs were awarded federal funding under abstinence-only education program guidelines. In 2006, the United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform reported that between 2001 and 2005, more than 50 CPCs received over $30 million in federal funding. The number and affiliation of these well-funded groups acquire further significance when one considers that approximately half of the pregnancies occurring yearly in the United States are unintended and that 40 percent of those will end in abortion. Moreover, unplanned pregnancies have increased almost 30 percent among poor women over the last decade. These are the same women for whom free ultrasounds and pregnancy tests would be appealing. Under the Obama administration, there have been budget cuts for abstinence-only education programs, which covers CPCs, and the Senate defeated a bill that would have seen CPCs directly eligible for federal funding. Yet, CPCs continue to operate and benefit from the resources accrued under the Bush administration.

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See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion Laws, United States; NARAL; Planned Parenthood; Pro-Life Movement. Further Readings Gibbs, Nancy. “The Grassroots Abortion War.” Time (February 26, 2007). http://www.time.com/time /magazine/article/0,9171,1590444,00.html (accessed December 2009). Joyce, Katheryn. “Shotgun Adoption.” The Nation (August 26, 2009). http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090914 /joyce (accessed December 2009). Lin, Victoria and Cynthia Dailard. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers Seek to Increase Political Clout, Secure Government Subsidy.” The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy (2002). http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs /tgr/05/2/gr050204.html (accessed December 2009). National Abortion Federation. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers: An Affront to Choice.” http://www.prochoice.org /pubs_research/publications/downloads/public_policy /cpc_report.pdf (accessed December 2009). United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource Centers (2006). http://reform.democrats .house.gov/Documents/20060717101140-30092.pdf (accessed December 2009). Shannon Stettner York University

Critical Race Feminism Critical race feminism (CRF) is a term coined within the U.S. legal academy in the 1990s to characterize an emphasis on the legal status of women of color. These women include U.S. minority group members, such as African Americans, Latinas, Asians, Native Americans, and Arabs. On a global level, the women include those living as minorities in predominantly white countries such as Canada or in Europe. In addition, women in the developing world are also part of the focus. What binds the plight of these diverse women together is that wherever they are based, as a group, they are generally on the bottom rungs of society within a nation or region. They

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usually face customary and religious patriarchal practices that limit their ability de jure and de facto to achieve their full human potential. The term critical race feminism highlights the intellectual strands from which CRF draws. “Critical” illustrates linkages to critical theory in general, including the progressive thought represented in critical legal studies, a jurisprudential movement dating back to the 1970s and influenced by European postmodern deconstructionists such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. “Race” indicates the connection to critical race theory (CRT), which emphasizes race and ethnic identity from a progressive perspective. Related trends with similar emphases include critical Latino theory, Asian crit, critical white studies, and some scholarship that might be characterized as Indian crit. The term feminism highlights CRF’s resonance with feminist jurisprudence. Thus, CRF interjects feminist analysis into CRT and related movements, and a race/ethnicity analysis into traditional feminism. CRF also links to “womanist” thought developed by women of color outside the legal academy, such as Alice Walker. CRF can overlap with QueerCrit and QueerRaceCrit scholarship as well. One of the key contributions of CRF to legal theory is the notion of intersectionality, as best articulated by University of California, Los Angeles/Columbia law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. The focal point of CRF is thus on the intersection of the women’s race and gender, rather than race or gender. Other scholars have used terms such as “multidimensionality” to characterize this analytic approach. Adrien Wing has used “multiplicative identity” to address the need to discuss not only race/ethnicity and gender simultaneously but also identities such as nationality, color, disability, sexual orientation, age, religion, minority status, parental status, language identity, class, and others. CRF is antiessentialist as well, as pointed out by University of California, Berkeley law professor Angela Harris and others, noting that not all women are white and middle class, and not all people of color are male. CRF is also concerned with praxis as well as theory. There is the need to go beyond theory and find legal and nonlegal solutions to the problems encountered. For example, solving the high rates of domestic violence in minority communities may mean not only changing the laws but also providing education to male and female children, as well as their parents, on the

unacceptability of physical and mental violence against family members. CRF writers, like CRT authors, may use a narrative methodology that interweaves stories into the discussion. In addition, they may incorporate other disciplines including history, sociology, political science, anthropology, and economics. CRF authors address a full range of topics including, for example, employment (antidiscrimination/antisubordination, affirmative action, sexual harassment), criminality (domestic violence, drug use, rape, war crimes, genocide, honor killings), immigration (asylum), healthcare (abortion, HIV, female genital surgeries), education (studying and professing), mothering (adoption, surrogacy, female infanticide, working), marriage (dowry, child brides, polygamy, divorce, tax codes), religious attire, and Internet identity shifting. See Also: African American Muslims; Arab Feminism; Chicana Feminism. Further Readings Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum, Issues: Volume 1989: Feminism in the Law: Theory, Practice and Criticism (1989). Wing, Adrien Katherine, ed. Critical Race Feminism: A Reader, 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press, 2003. Wing, Adrien Katherine, ed. Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Adrien Katherine Wing University of Iowa College of Law

Croatia Croatia is a country in southern Europe of about 4.5 million people, with a large coastline on the Adriatic Sea; it shares borders with Slovenia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro. It was part of Yugoslavia (1918–91), and was the site of brutal fighting during the Croatian War of Independence of 1991–95 that resulted in high degrees of internal



The bell tower of the Cathedral of St. Duje. The church is the Catholic cathedral of Split, the largest Dalmatian city in Croatia.

displacement. Croatia was also involved in the Balkan War of 1992–95, during which many women, including Croatians, were victims of rape. Almost 90 percent of the population identify themselves as Croatians, and most people (87.8 percent) are Roman Catholic. Literacy is almost universal among both men (99.3 percent) and women (97.1 percent). Croatia is one of the wealthiest of the former Yugoslav republics; although its economy was badly damaged during the 1991–95 war and more recently from the global recession, it had a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $17,600 in 2009. Income distribution is among the most even in the world, with a Gini Index of 29.0 and only 11 percent of the population living below the poverty line. The World Economic Forum places Croatia in the middle third of countries with regard to gender equality, ranking 54th out of 134 countries. On a scale of 1 (perfect equality) to 0 (inequality), in 2009 Croatia was awarded an overall score of 0.6944, with scores

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of 0.6458 for economic participation and opportunity, 0.9946 for educational attainment, 0.9791 for health and survival, and 0.2300 for political empowerment. Croatia’s gender gap has increased over the past several years: it was 0.721 in 2007 and 0.0697 in 2009. Save the Children ranks Croatia 26th among 43 developed countries on its Women’s Index, 29th on its Mothers’ Index, and 35th on its Children’s Index among 43 more developed countries. Croatian women are more likely than men to be enrolled in tertiary education and to be professional and technical workers. However, men constitute a majority (59 percent) of the faculty in tertiary education. Women are also less likely to be in the labor force, more likely to be unemployed, and earn about two-thirds of what a man earns for comparable work. Women hold 21 percent of the seats in Parliament and 24 percent of ministerial positions. Croatia provides maternity leave; full salary is provided for 45 days before delivery and one year after. All births are attended by skilled personnel, and both the infant mortality and maternal rates are low at 5 out of 1,000 live births and 7 out of 100,000 live births respectively. Perhaps due in part to the male/female ratio of 0.93 (reflecting the recent wars), Croatian women tend to marry late and have small families; the mean age of marriage is 26 years and the fertility rate is 1.30 children per woman. See Also: Government, Women in; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality; Rape in Conflict Zones; Roman Catholic Church; Wars of National Liberation, Women in. Further Readings Bellamy, Alex J. The Formation of Croatian National Identity: A Centuries-Old Dream? Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004. Ramet, S. P. and D. Matic. Democratic Transition in Croatia: Value Transformation, Education, and Media. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). Tanner, Marcus. Croatia: A Nation Forged in War, 3rd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

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Cuba Cuba, a close geographic neighbor to the United States, is located in the Caribbean Sea and contains 11.5 million inhabitants. The country’s history includes Spanish colonialism, U.S. interventionism, and then the Cuban Revolution of 1959 led by Fidel Castro. The revolution by most accounts improved the status of women. In the 1990s, Cuba lost subsidies from the Soviet Union and trade relations with the Soviet bloc, leading to economic hardships and stunted progress for women. Although the economy has since improved, the U.S. embargo against Cuba continues to obstruct the Cuban economy. Cuba’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated at $9,500 in 2008. Nevertheless, literacy rates in Cuba match those of the advanced industrial world, at 99.8 percent for women and men. This rate exceeds countries of comparable economic standing. Cuba shares a similar GDP per capita with Colombia and South Africa, yet their literacy rates are, respectively, 90.4 percent and 86.4 percent. Moreover, the life expectancy of Cuban women is nearly 80 years, about the same as it is in the United States. The status of women has improved because of the Cuban Revolution’s emphasis on social equality. Women were only 15 percent of the workforce before 1959. However, the government provides women with free education. Now more than 50 percent of university graduates are women, and women now hold positions in all professions; for example, women are medical doctors, government employees, agricultural engineers, and scientists. The Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) is an important government institution for women. Established in 1960, it was created more than a decade before the United Nations recommended that all countries should create national bureaucratic machineries to improve the lives of women. The FMC has held literacy campaigns, promotes shared responsibility of domestic tasks between women and men, and mobilizes campaigns for women’s health. Cuban women also have access to legal abortion, maternity leave, and free childcare from the state, although additional daycare centers are necessary because 20 percent of Cuban women lack access to centers. Meeting their families’ needs poses another challenge for Cuban women. During the 1990s, Cuban

women struggled to acquire food, clothing, and other basic necessities. Goods were rationed at that time and energy shortages complicated the everyday tasks of cooking and housekeeping. With low monthly salaries, working-class and professional women alike were unable to pay for rent, food, and electricity. The U.S. embargo further limits the availability of household supplies and hinders professional women (and men) such as scientists from obtaining the equipment necessary for their research. Despite economic growth in the 2000s, Cubans rely on remittances from their relatives living abroad to supplement incomes. Remittances are less likely to aid Afro-Cubans who have fewer relatives living abroad; thus, Afro-Cuban women may struggle more acutely with economic hardship and household maintenance than their white or mestizo counterparts. The Cuban sex trade generates a controversial debate. Before the revolution, tourism boosted the Cuban economy and prostitution was common. The revolution sought to eradicate prostitution, so much so that the government “re-educated” prostitutes. In order to revive its economy in the 1990s, Cuba again emphasized international tourism and a thriving sex trade followed. Sex work appeals to women who cannot obtain sufficient goods for their families or women who want items such as special shampoos or shoes. Women make significantly more money engaging in sex work than in professional employment. As one woman explained, “It takes four months to make what you can make in one night with a foreigner.” See Also: Childcare; Gender Roles, Cross Cultural; Machismo/Marianismo; Sex Workers. Further Readings Jennissen, Therese and Colleen Lundy. “Women in Cuba and the Move to a Private Market.” Women’s Studies International Forum, v.24/2 (2001). Shayne, Julie D. The Revolution Question: Feminisms in El Salvador, Chile, and Cuba. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Stout, Noelle M. “Feminists, Queers and Critics: Debating the Cuban Sex Trade.” Journal of Latin American Studies, v.40/4 (2008). Candice D. Ortbals Pepperdine University



Cyber-Stalking and Internet Harassment Across the world, more than 2 million women are stalked annually—and many more are harassed via Internet platforms. Conservative statistics estimate 1 in 12 women will be stalked at some point in their lives. Although the proliferation of Internet and social networking Websites or platforms has not impacted the number of stalking cases, digital technologies make it easier than ever to have quick access to a person’s private information or location. While the Internet makes stalking easier, it also allows women greater access to laws, organizations, and information that will help them if stalked. As digital technologies continue to change, so do stalking and other harassing behaviors. Colloquial, Academic, and Legal Definitions of Cyber-Stalking Because of the newness of the technology that allows its existence, cyber-stalking is difficult to define— especially as colloquial, academic, and legal uses of the word continue to compete for meaning. Colloquial definitions are usually driven by fictive and news media representations where women meet someone online—usually a man with a romantic interest—and later are terrorized or murdered. The term is also used interpersonally to describe what happens when an acquaintance, ranging from someone barely known to an ex-lover, continues to follow someone via the Internet. Other everyday perceptions of cyber-stalking typically include child predators preying on young women in chatrooms, remote access to personal Webcams, or following the victim’s friends online to gain information. While academic definitions of the terms often include the above situations, they often examine other instances as well. Many Internet scholars point out that most people engage stalker-like behavior at times, and that this behavior can be normal and healthy. People stalk, or keep tabs on others, for non-nefarious reasons. For instance, it is not uncommon for someone to meet another person and want to know more about them. Women, in particular, might Google a potential romantic interest, work colleague, or babysitter. Even though no harmful intent is being enacted, this Googling of another person is technically stalking

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because it is harvesting information about him or her without consent or approval. Because of the benign nature of many stalking situations, researchers often distinguish between lesser forms of stalking and more severe forms such as obsessive relational intrusion, or the willful and harmful intrusion upon someone’s life. Most cases of severe stalking usually occur with the stalker’s hope of forming some kind of relationship with the person being stalked. In cases of unwanted stalking, legal definitions of the terms become important. Courts and lawmakers continue to struggle with how to adjust laws to protect those who may be stalked or harassed because of the continuously evolving nature of digital technologies and how liberties regarding information seeking can conflict with the rights of individuals’ privacy and well-being. It is also difficult for law enforcement agencies to enforce cyber-stalking or Internet harassment laws. Prior to the emergence of interactive digital technologies, calls could be traced with relative ease and distance restraints could be placed on stalkers. In comparison, it is difficult to monitor Website use by an individual; and stalkers can abandon one Web identity to create another with ease. Internet Harassment While cyber-stalking typically encroaches upon an individual’s relational space, Internet harassment encroaches upon other aspects of an individual’s life and is common for both men and women. Forms of Internet harassment include identity theft, public embarrassment through digital platforms, spam or unsolicited e-mails, breaking into online accounts (such as social networking sites, e-mail, or banking), and rude online behavior (trolling or flaming). Usually Internet harassment is proliferated by the mismanagement of personal information by an account holder, although some forms (particularly online embarrassment, such as someone posting a false rumor or indecent picture to an Internet Web page) can happen with little to no personal information being surrendered by an individual. For instance, identity theft can be facilitated through online credit reporting bureaus. Gaining access to a credit record usually involves knowing a person’s name, social security number, and prior addresses. Where credit reports once required a wait period as they were requested through postal

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systems, hand processed, and then returned to a verifiable address, now they can be obtained in minutes. To date, no country has laws to protect information being distributed online by credit agencies or other information databases. Sometimes individuals unwittingly give others information that will allow access to personal records through phishing scams. For instance, a scammer will send a letter that appears to be from someone’s bank requesting account information. The person, often scared that their account will be closed if the information is not supplied, will provide access information. Then the account is used by the perpetrator. Women as Stalkers While those who are stalked are stereotypically women and those who stalk are stereotypically men, along with the emergence of the Internet one of these stereotypes has become false. Women of all ages receive a significant amount of stalking, but the most stalked individuals around the world are females age 20 to 29. When it comes to stalkers, however, things have changed since the arrival of interactive digital technologies. Where men used to account for almost 90 percent of stalkers, they now account for about half. Over 45 percent of stalkers are now women—although it is near impossible to know how much an influence the Internet has upon this growth in the number of female stalkers. Statistics regarding Internet harassment suggest both men and women are targeted about the same, but the sex of perpetrators is still largely unknown due to their often not being caught. See Also: Chatrooms; Internet; Internet Dating; Sexting; Sexual Harassment. Further Readings Baym, Nancy K. Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010. Bocij, Paul. Cyberstalking: Harassment in the Internet Age and How to Protect Your Family. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. Spitzberg, Brian H. and William R. Cupach. The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007. Survivors in Action. “Programs.” survivorsinaction.com /site/index.php?option=com_content&view=category &id=10&Itemid=32 (accessed December 2009).

Wolak, Janice, et al. “Online ‘Predators’ and Their Victims:  Myths, Realities and Implications for Prevention and Treatment.” American Psychologist, v. 63/2 (2008). Jimmie Manning Northern Kentucky University

Cyprus A Middle Eastern island located in the Mediterranean Sea, Cyprus has long been the scene of conflicting cultures, and such conflicts have taken a toll on the status of women. Within three years of attaining independence from Great Britain in 1960, Cyprus became embroiled in open conflict between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority. The United Nations dispatched peacekeeping forces, but was unable to prevent Turkish intervention and the establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Occupying more than a third of the island, TRNC is recognized only by Turkey. Cyprus was admitted to the European Union in 2004, and a tentative peace was negotiated four years later. By the early 21st century, 70 percent of the population had become urbanized, with four-fifths of the workforce engaged in service occupations, particularly in tourism, financial services, and real estate. With a per capita income of $21,200, Cyprus is the 58th richest country in the world. Greeks (77 percent) constitute the majority, but the Turkish minority (18 percent) maintains control in the north. Most Cypriots are Greek Orthodox faith (78 percent), but 18 percent of the population are Muslim. While Greek is the official language, English is also widely spoken. Cultural norms have often relegated women to stereotypical roles, confining them to nurturing activities, and limiting opportunities in education and employment. Increasing incidences of domestic violence are of major concern to women’s rights activists, as are economic disparities in the workplace and the limited role of women in decision making. Workplace disparities are greatest among blue-collar females who may earn 25 to 30 percent less than males working in similar positions. Sexual harassment also continues to be a major problem in the workplace. Due to criminal restrictions on abortion,



women have limited reproductive choices. There is considerable concern about the rights of Turkish women living in the occupied section of the island and about the rights of women of the Roma minority. Efforts have been made to eradicate gender stereotypes by improving the image of women as portrayed by the Cypriot media and by increasing female participation in television, radio, and advertising. Cypriots have a life expectancy of 77.66 years, with women (80.57 years) having an advantage over males (77.66 years). This advantage continues throughout life, resulting in a life expectancy of 80.57 years for women and 74.88 years for males. Thus, the median age of Cypriot women is 33.6 years as compared to 33.2 years for males. Cypriot women give birth at a rate of 1.45 children per woman, and Cyprus has an infant mortality rate of 9.57 deaths per 1,000 live births. Males (98.9 percent) have the advantage over females (96.3 percent) when it comes to literacy, but women spend an average of 14 years in school as compared to 13 years for males. Opportunities and Education Cyprus became a participant of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1985. In 1994, the Council of Ministers agreed to establish the National Machinery for Women’s Rights (NMWR). Operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice and Public Order, representatives from major women’s organizations, trade unions, and the government come together under the NMWR umbrella to increase the voice of women in national decision making. Working with nongovernmental organiztions (NGOs), the organization supports and subsidizes women’s rights groups, while maintaining its focus on ending all forms of legal discrimination against women. The greatest gains have been in field of family law and labor legislation. Efforts have been directed at increasing access to childcare and improving the quality of existing facilities. Women’s and children’s health issues have also been addressed, and both maternal and infant mortality rates have declined. Educational opportunities have been expanded to include vocational training. In the political realm, women continue to be in the minority at all levels. In 2009, women held only eight of 56 seats in the House of Representatives, and only and two of 11 ministers were female.

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Domestic violence continues to be of major concern, and legislation exists to make it a criminal offense. However, few cases are reported due to lack of witnesses and the unwillingness of victims to testify against their attackers. Official assistance to victims of violence includes counseling services and support for NGOs who have established crises centers. Marital rape is also considered a crime. While rape carries a possible sentence of life in prison, few perpetrators actually receive this sentence. Prostitution is not illegal, but human trafficking is against the law. In either case, those who exploit women may be arrested because it is illegal to procure women for sexual purposes. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Cyprus.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/cy.html (accessed July 2010). Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). “Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Concluding Observations: Cyprus.” http://www1.umn.edu/human rts/cedaw/cedaw-cyprus.htm (accessed July 2010). Keddie, Nikki R. Women in the Middle East: Past and Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Cyprus.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /eur/119074.htm (accessed July 2010). Ahmet Atay University of Louisville

Czech Republic The Czech Republic (CZ) represents an established parliamentary democracy of the central European region with a population of 10.5 million. Prague is the nation’s capital. CZ was created in 1918 as Czechoslovakia, and women’s suffrage was enacted in 1920. After World War II, the country became a part of the communist bloc. As the women’s movement was subject to control by the Communist Party, the second wave of

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feminism never took place. Transition to democracy occurred in 1989 under the leadership of Václav Havel. In 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech and the Slovak Republics, respectively. In 2004, the CZ joined the European Union (EU). The current Czech women’s movement is divided, represented mainly by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and two university departments of gender studies, in addition to partial representation in a governmental committee for equal opportunities. Women’s rights have a high standard that is required for all EU members by the common EU law. In 2009, the Discrimination Act was enacted, forbidding both direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic origin, nationality, gender, sexuality, age, disability, religion, and worldview. However, instances of discrimination still occur, mainly due to gender, age, and ethnicity (i.e., the Roma minority of 150,000–300,000 people). Czech households traditionally depend on incomes of both partners. The social system allows parents to receive welfare benefits until a child is 4 years of age. Childcare is still perceived as an exclusive domain of women. The percentage of women who are employed is high, and the difference between male and female unemployment has been at 2 to 3 percent for the last five years. However, 26.4 percent of women with three or more children are unemployed. The gender pay gap is at 23.6 percent with the EU average being 17.5 percent. The Czech labor market is characterized by its limited job variety and scarcity of parttime positions. In 2008, only 8.5 percent of women and 2.2 percent of men had part-time jobs, compared to the EU average of 31.1 percent for women, 7.9 percent for men. Even though the numbers of qualified men and women workers is comparable, there is an absence of women in executive and decision-making posts

in both the public and the corporate sectors. Today, women represent 17 percent of all the members of the CZ Parliament and occupy 28.6 percent of all executive posts. However, in 75 percent of all Czech corporations, not a single woman occupies a top management post. Political discussion regarding the implementation of mandatory quotas for women on ballots is slowly starting to develop. Until recently, 38 percent of all Czech women have encountered some form of domestic violence. There is a network of support groups operating NGOs throughout the country. The basics of legal protection of victims are in place (i.e., possibility to evict the offender from a common household). Throughout the 20-year period of 1970–90 the Communist regime took a systematic approach to the sterilization of Roma women. From 1990 to 2001, the phenomenon became rare and usually concerned cases when uninformed women signed an approval for the sterilization procedure without being aware of the consequences of their decision. Last year, the Czech government publicly apologized for these acts. See Also: Fertility; Part-Time Work; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Roma “Gypsy” Women. Further Readings Czech Statistical Office. “Focus on Women and Men 2009.” http://www.czso.cz/csu/2009edicniplan.nsf /engp/1413-09 (accessed July 2010). Feinberg, M. Elusive Equality: Gender, Citizenship, and the Limits of Democracy in Czechoslovakia 1918–1950. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006. Heimann, M. Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. Petra Zářecká Masaryk University

D Da Vinci Code, The The Da Vinci Code is a best-selling novel by the American author Dan Brown published in 2003. The novel, which takes its title from a famous manuscript by the legendary artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, is a thriller that draws on a number of conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church and Mary Magdalene in particular. Several successful novels and popular Hollywood movies, such Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Last Temptation of Christ, had already dealt with most of the pseudohistorical documents or legendary themes referred to by Brown, such as the Holy Grail story, the vicissitudes of the Templar Order, the Priory of Sion—a well-known modern hoax—and Jesus’ possible marriage. The novel proposes an alternate reading of Western history by imagining that Jesus of Nazareth was married to Mary Magdalene, and had a daughter, whose descendants gave origin to the French dynasty of the Merovingian kings. Later, the Merovingians went into hiding because the Roman Catholic Church, which in the novel is cast in the role of the great villain, persecuted them. According to Brown’s novel, the Roman Catholic Church was trying to cover up the fact that Jesus was just a man, and not the son of God. While most critics have focused on the lack of literary qualities in Brown’s novel, author and scholar J. Madison Davis has noted that the book is part of a line of works whose forefather is identified as writer,

linguist, and philosopher Umberto Eco. Davis also noted that The Da Vinci Code exploits the reader’s fascination with arcane knowledge. Christian writers have criticized the novel for various reasons. Roman Catholic critics, such as Sandra Miesel and Carl Olson, have noted both historical and factual errors in the novel, pointing out that Brown’s knowledge of Christian history is as superficial and as inaccurate as his reconstruction of European medieval history. They have criticized Brown’s choice of sources, which span from Elaine Pagels’s feminist writings to popular literature. A further problem noted by religious historians is that the wild inaccuracies in Brown’s treatment of Mary Magdalene obscure evidence of the real, and substantial, role she did play in the early Christian community. Some readers interpret Brown’s book as feminist work, and why it has been criticized by the American Christian Right as well as by fundamentalist Christian groups, who found offensive Brown’s apparent celebration of the feminine. Some scholars, such as Kristy Maddux, have highlighted how Brown’s work draws on radical or cultural feminism. She has argued that the novel reinforces patriarchy and points out how Brown has drawn on radical feminism. She maintains that his work celebrates women, and that he has a persistent recourse to the private sphere. Maddux also accuses Brown of reducing women to their biology and that he ends up reinstating old antifeminist stereotypes. 371

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The book has also faced controversy over allegations of plagiarism, which has called attention to Lewis Perdue, author of two novels on a supposed daughter of Jesus; and by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, authors of a book on the Holy Grail that was published in the 1980s. The film version of The Da Vinci Code was directed by Ron Howard and released to movie theaters worldwide in 2006. See Also: Feminist Theology; Mary Magdalene; Pagels, Elaine; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Goodstein, Laurie. “Defenders of Christianity Rush to Debunk ‘The Da Vinci Code.’” New York Times (April 27, 2004). http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/books /27CODE.html?pagewanted=1 (accessed April 2010). Maddux, Kristy. “The Da Vinci Code and the Regressive Gender Politics of Celebrating Women,” Critical Studies in Media Communication, v.25/3 (2008). Madison Davis, J. “The Mysterious Popularity of the Arcane.” World Literature Today, v.80/3 (2006). Miller, Laura. “I Couldn’t Have Put It Better Myself.” New York Times (July 13, 2003). http://www.nytimes .com/2003/07/13/books/the-last-word-i-couldn-t-have -put-it-better-myself.html?pagewanted=1 (accessed April 2010). Miller, Laura. “The Last Word; The Da Vinci Con.” New York Times (February 22, 2004). http://www.nytimes .com/2004/02/22/books/the-last-word-the-da-vinci -con.html?pagewanted=1 (accessed April 2010). Olson, Carl and Sandra Miesel. The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code. Fort Collins, CO: Ignatius Press, 2004. Maria Beatrice Bittarello Independent Scholar

Dance, Women in Most scholars would agree that the term dance refers to a wide variety of expressive and functional “movings” enjoyed at local, private, or community social affairs as well as formal state-of-the-art professional performances that range from subtle, gestural, inti-

mate, and improvised movement to large, prescribed, choreographed actions. Many dances feature a combination of these styles; dancers, and people who are involved with dance, participate in more than one of these options. Art Dance Around the globe, the word dance conjures up images of art-dance. By definition, dance is a Western term and its actions promote Western cultural values, even when the dances occur in non-Western locations. Ballet is the most well-regarded Western dance form, reflecting through both its management and its choreographies, the place of women in the Western culture. Ballet poses questions of elitism, control, power, authority, and ownership, which also are part of the dance world’s politics. Western art dance has been a feminized culture since the mid-19th century, with economic, institutional, and artistic power held primarily by men. However, a gradual shift is occurring as some women are integrating into the power élite as artistic directors (e.g., Paris Opera, Royal Ballet, the Alvin Ailey Company, and a few mid-level U.S. ballet companies). They’re also penetrating the ranks of executive directors (e.g., American Ballet Theatre) and as the directors of major training academies. Few women have been successful as choreographers in the ballet tradition, but many are artistic directors and choreographers in modern and contemporary companies and in regional ballet organizations. It is notable that the male-led companies tend to be far more successful financially than those led by women. In recent years, dance practices have been exposed and encouraged across creative and cultural lines. Thus, pioneers from Dawn Stoppiello (Troika Ranch) to Trisha Brown have been wowing audiences with dance invention. While there is a cultural bias toward men in technology fields—one that is supported by high-profile men like Ed Roberts, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs—that bias doesn’t translate to dance, dance technology, and other creative arts. There has been an exchange between and among local and global practices in art-dance. The availability of new technologies supports Internet and new media studies. Recent technology has made available and affordable both travel to other cultures and recording devices such as flip videos in ways that were not imagined 50 years ago. Thus, a 30-year-old American



dance artist can visit Indonesia for four months and incorporate appropriate Balinese kecak dance movement into her personal movement vocabulary. This form of cultural assimilation, transmission, migration, or contamination (depending on one’s point of view), is sometimes labeled fusion, and is both welcomed and resisted by different artists and audiences. Technological availability also has exposed the methods women choreographers are using to create new ideas (e.g., X-ray machines, projectors, videos, movies clips, live technology experience), and has resulted in new digital choreographies, as evidenced in the work of Norah Zuniga Shaw. Women have flourished in the professions of dance education. Two main factors have influenced the burgeoning of artist/educators: the increase in consciousness around bodily-kinesthetic activities in general and the decrease in funding for “art-dance” outside of education. While there are earlier success stories, such as Margaret H’Doubler, dance entered the U.S. college and university setting en masse in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the height of social protest movements (including the women’s rights movement), and refined its idea of “research” to align with other university studies. This move has given rise to a category called artist-educators, predominantly female dance professors who dance and teach. This change gave the artist-educators a voice, location and income for their art work. Ironically, since both dance and education have been highly populated by women, the smaller number of men who value dance education as a professional choice are often hired more readily than women, helping to gender-balance department faculty. Commercial Dance Musical theater is another dance form that is sometimes called “Broadway dance,” and is considered by many to be “entertainment” rather than “art,” although the boundary between the two is quite blurred. In general, records for commercial dance were not consistently kept nor recorded until Bye Bye Birdie in 1960 added a byline for the choreographer. In the late 20th century, many of the well-known choreographers were men, such as Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, and Michael Kidd. The women choreographers who preceded them—Helen Tamiris of Touch and Go (1950), Hanya Holm of My Fair Lady (1957), Agnes deMille of Goldilocks (1959), and Lee Theodore of The Apple

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Tree (1967)—had gone unnoticed and almost unpaid. More recently, Joan Brickhill, Graciela Daniele, and Susan Stroman were joined by Kathleen Marshall, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Twyla Tharp, and Karole Armitage as Tony winners. These women have proved that women are making in roads into the power positions of entertainment dance. Dance programs on Western-produced television programs have had a huge, if not unfortunate, impact on dance worldwide. Dancing With the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, and their international counterparts have influenced what is seen and done in dance studios and academies. This is particularly true in private for-profit studios. As a result, female dancers are scripted as sexualized beings and dressed in revealing outfits that suggest desire, and they tend to be “handled” by male partners in ways that display the female’s sexual value. Films from Hollywood to Bollywood follow this same role modeling. In these arenas, the roles occupied by women often reinforce an objectified, dominate-subordinate, power imbalance between men and women. Community-Based Dance The term community dance refers to dances that have long histories and/or traditions in which large numbers and a variety of people participate at once or over time with relatively little specialized training. In community dances, there are no single choreographers, although occasionally someone’s name is attached to a “craze,” for example, with Chubby Checker and “the Twist.” In many cultures, women have a clear and defined role in community dance. For example, Cook Island women dance alongside the men but execute different movements. Moroccan men and women often present single-sex dances, rarely dancing together, reflecting their religious beliefs. In Orthodox Islamic practices, women often dance freely but only in front of other women to avoid stimulating unwary men. In the United States, discos and other locations were designed for social dancing and men and women perform the same movements. They usually dance alone in the midst of many, however. In large part, the pressure to shift from not dancing in public and not needing a specific partner while dancing has come from educated women, beginning, loosely, in the last quarter of the 20th century. About one-third of all university teachers in the Arab world are female, and those women have taken dance as a symbol of personal liberation.

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Somatics and Health Dance also has been the arena in which inner-knowledge and physical health considerations have grown up and developed. Perhaps because women have been assumed to be aware of their bodies-in-use, they have been able to develop a consciousness of how small controlled changes develop into large differences. Somatic studies takes as its focus subjective learning, and places a first-person narrative at the center of knowledge. It has at its forefront researcher/practitioners like Bonnie Bainridge Cohen, Emilie Conrad, Ida Rolf, Joan Skinner, and Elaine Sommers. In this field, women have had as much inventor/leader voice as men, and a majority of members in the professional organizations are female. While this leadership role may be a sign of women edging toward equality, the member numbers may simply reinforce the stereotype that women are more prone to nurturing and helping professions. Dance Organizations Several support organizations have contributed to the advancement of dance as a field, and in all cases these groups were created, developed, and sustained primarily by women. During the second half of the 20th in the United States, numerous dance organizations formed, including American Dance Guild, Body-Mind Centering Association, The Congress on Research in Dance, The American Dance Therapy Association, Dance Critics Association, Dance Film Association, Dance Notation Bureau, Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies, and the Society of Dance History Scholars. The work of collaborating, organizing, sustaining, and devoting countless unpaid hours has furthered the “legitimatization of education, scholarship, and therapeutic practice in the evolving filed of dance as an academic discipline,” according to artist Susan Lee. In the 21st century, a great proportion of this work continues to be done disproportionately by women, and it is often done online, through Websites, and listservs. In 2010, the creators of the listservs for movement research, body-mind centering association, dance history scholars, and movement analysts are all women. Because of countless hours of volunteer work and the technology now available, organizations have been able to grow into truly international concerns. For example, the nongovernmental

organization Conseil International de la Danse or International Dance Council, has more than 4,000 members from 148 countries. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Hip Hop; Pilates. Further Readings Adair, Christy. Women and Dance: Sylphs and Sirens. New York: New York University Press, 1992. Banes, Sally. Dancing Women: Female Bodies in Stage. New York: Routledge, 1998. Burns, James. Female Voices From an Ewe DanceDrumming Community in Ghana. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. Desmond, J., ed. Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. Garafola, Lynn. Rethinking the Sylph: New Perspectives on Romantic Ballet. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1997. Jonas, Gerald. Dancing! The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement. New York: Abrams, 1998. Thomas, Helen. Dance, Gender, and Culture. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995. Gill Wright Miller Denison University

Dating Violence Since the late 1960s, violence in intimate relationships has been drawing more attention as an important social problem. Recently, violence has attracted attention as a source of growing concern among married, nonmarried, dating, and cohabiting couples. Early research indicates that 25 percent of nonmarried couples have experienced violence in their relationship. More recent research suggests that as many as 74 percent of men and women in relationships fall victim to their dating partners. Dating is a difficult concept to define. The term dating can refer to a wide range of relationships between men and women. It includes boys’ and girls’ “hanging out,” “seeing each other,” or “hooking up with one another” within the context of a large, mixed-gender group, as well as monogamous committed sexual



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Risk factors linked with dating violence include poor communication, problem-solving, and assertiveness skills. Violent partners, versus nonviolent couples, exhibit lower levels of verbal skills overall.

relationships. A study conducted with suburban high school students indicated that students started dating at about 12 years old. Nearly half of high school students reported being involved with a partner at the time of data collection. In another study conducted at inner-city middle schools, more than two-thirds of the students said that they were “going out” with someone at the time of the study. These students also reported having boyfriends and girlfriends as early as 9 years old. Overall, 25 to 33 percent of the surveyed students reported wanting to get married with their current dating partner. Defining dating violence is a difficult task often associated with heated debates. There are numerous conceptualizations of violence that have been used in literature. Therefore, the prevalence rate for dating aggression is highly variable since it depends on how researchers define violence.

Defining Violence Violence in intimate relationships can occur in physical or nonphysical ways. Acts such as hitting, kicking, and choking are among physical forms of violence, while emotional abuse includes dominance, isolation, ridicule, use of intimate knowledge for degradation, or threats of violence. Sexual violence, on the other hand, can be described as any sexual act that is forced against someone’s will. Sexual violence can be physical, verbal, or psychological. Based on a broader definition of violence that includes its physical and nonphysical forms, researchers started finding that dating violence is a more serious problem than originally thought. In general, rates of dating violence tend rise when threats of physical violence, aggression toward an object such as throwing or breaking something, and psychologically aggressive behaviors are included. Today, the Centers for Disease and Control

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and Prevention defines dating violence as an actual or threatened physical or sexual violence, psychological or emotional abuse that is directed toward a current or former dating partner. Prevalence of Violence Dating aggression rates are similar to those of adult domestic violence; both have high levels and cross all racial, religious, economic, and social groups. In general, statistics demonstrate that physical violence takes place in every one of three dating relationships among teenagers. Studies conducted at high schools revealed that young women reported inflicting violence on their partner at higher rates than their male counterparts. On the other hand, high school girls reported higher rates of sexual victimization than high school boys. Violence among college-aged dating couples indicated similar results to those reported by high school students. Between 20 and 60 percent of college-aged dating couples reported both physical and verbal aggression with their intimate partner. Another study found that 66 percent of college-aged dating couples noted at least one incident of physical, sexual, and verbal aggression. A more recent study found that intimate partner violence continues to be highly prevalent with both male and female college students in dating relationships, with 86 percent of respondents reporting psychological, physical, and/or sexual victimization. Results also showed that female college students are more likely to engage in psychological and verbal aggression than are males of the same general age. However, consequences of dating aggression such as injuries and negative emotional harm are more severe for females in this age bracket. Violence affects adult dating couples at similar rates to college students. One study using a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States reported that violence occurs in 45 percent of same-sex partners, 34 percent of female victim– male perpetration couples, and 23 percent for male victim–female perpetration partners. In this study, participants’ current, as well as former dating partners, were considered. Understanding Dating Violence In literature, there are numerous conceptualizations of how and why violence happens. Social learning is

the one most often cited. According to this perspective, individuals learn from their environment and then they consider what is and is not appropriate by observing or imitating behavior. Consequently, social learning theory suggests that individuals learn violence in the context of socialization in the family. It was proposed that when children or youth observe violence between parents, they learn that it is an acceptable or effective means of resolving conflicts with partners. Ultimately, family context becomes the training ground for individuals; it is where they learn that hitting the people they love is an appropriate tactic for getting what they want in their relationships. On the other hand, feminist frameworks conceptualize violence against women as a manifestation of male dominance. According to feminist perspectives, gender inequality in patriarchal social systems ensures that men have more resources available to them compared to women. Many feminists perceive the patriarchal social system as justifying and condoning physical violence against women. Research findings using feminist frameworks have indicated that traditional gender roles and imbalance of economic resources could underlie the use of violence. Dating Violence Victimization and Gender Traditionally, only women have been considered to be victims of dating violence, perpetrated by abusive male partners. However, more recent research suggests that men are equally as likely to be victims of dating violence. There is research to suggest that men actually may experience more victimization than women. A study specifically conducted with adolescents found that dating violence perpetrated by men and women are alike, while in adult relationships violence is more likely to be perpetrated by men toward their female partners. Violence committed by men is generally more severe and women are approximately 10 times more likely to be injured or killed by their male partners. The U.S. Department of Justice presented evidence that females are more likely to describe their violent behavior as self-defense, whereas males describe their aggression as motivated by needs to intimidate, control or coerce. Statistics on male victimization may be unreliable due to the stigma associated with men admitting they have fallen prey to a woman.



Same-Sex Relationships and Violence Although much of the discussion on dating violence involves heterosexual couples, some recent studies include same-sex pairs. One study found that samesex partners reported higher levels of violence than heterosexual couples. This is particularly true among teen bisexual and same-sex couples who are in covert relationships. For these teens, much of the physical and emotional abuse occurs during revealing one’s sexual preferences to others. In another study, female victims of same sex-dating violence reported higher percentages of verbal and sexual abuse than male victims of opposite-sex dating pairs. The study of violence in same-sex relationships is challenging in terms of assessing the sexual orientation of participants. In particular, many studies use behaviorally deduced measures of sexual orientation rather than participants’ report of sexual identity. Due to the delicacy of this process, which relies on self reported measures, there is the potential for underreporting and selection biases. Correlates of Dating Violence Research indicates that there are many risk factors associated with dating violence. For example, as compared to nonviolent people, violent individuals are more likely to have been physically and emotionally abused. Other risk factors linked with dating violence include poor communication, problem-solving, and assertiveness skills. Violent partners, versus nonviolent couples, exhibit lower levels of verbal skills. Likewise, physically aggressive men were found to have less competent problem-solving strategies than nonviolent men. In these studies, violent partners appear not to have the essential skills to communicate their level of anger directly and assertively. An individual’s attitudes and beliefs about the acceptability of aggression in dating relationships is found to be a strong predictor of dating violence by young men. Adolescents’ jealousy and controlling behaviors are also shown to be associated with use of physical aggression. Often, verbal aggression, jealousy, and attempts to control one’s partner happen before physical aggression is used. Social pressures that create stress and coping difficulties are also among the risk factors for dating violence. Contributors include cultural values that overlook violence, personality pathologies such as poor impulse control, and drug and alcohol addiction.

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Another layer of research pertained to the justification of dating violence resulting from sexual betrayal. Findings indicated that sexual betrayal or betrayal of sensitive information is linked with violent retaliation such as hitting, getting even, or being angry. Consequences of Dating Violence Dating violence contributes substantially to mental health problems, physical injuries, relationship instability, divorce, and homelessness. A consequence of dating violence is its influence on the victim’s mental health. Previous research findings consistently indicated that dating violence victimization is negatively associated with mental health. While mental health problems encompass a variety of symptoms, most commonly reported ones include depression, anxiety, and somatic health effects. Research has indicated that victims of dating violence are four times more likely to report depression as individuals who are not victims of violence. Similarly, victims of dating violence were consistently more likely to report higher levels of anxiety than nonvictims. Furthermore, victims of dating violence were more likely to suffer from somatic mental health symptoms such as changes in weight, upset stomach, headaches, nervousness, and dizziness. Dating violence is also significantly related to traumatic stress reactions. More severe and frequent exposure to physical violence, including threats against life, use of weapons, sexual violence, and psychological abuse have been shown to be related to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. See Also: Domestic Violence; Domestic Violence Centers; Honor Killings; Rape Crisis Centers. Further Readings Blosnich, John R. “Comparisons of Intimate Partner Violence Among Partners in Same-Sex and Opposite Sex Relationships in the United States.” American Journal of Public Health, v.99 (2009). Bradbury, T. N. and E. Lawrence. “Physical Aggression and the Longitudinal Course of Newlywed Marriage.” In X. Arriaga and S. Oskamp, eds., Violence in Intimate Relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999. Kaura, S. A. and B. J. Lohman. “Dating Violence Victimization, Relationship Satisfaction, Mental Health Problems, and Acceptability of Violence:

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A Comparison of Men and Women.” Journal of Family Violence, v.22 (2007). Marquart, B. S., D. K. Nannini, R. W. Edwards, L. R. Stanley, and J. C. Wayman. “Prevelance of Dating Violence and Victimization: Regional and Gender Differences.” Adolescence, v.42 (2007). O’Leary, K. D. “Physical Aggression Between Spouses: A Social Learning Theory Perspective.” In V. B. Van Hasselt, et al., eds. Handbook of Family Violence. New York: Plenum, 1988. White, J. W. A. “Gendered Approach to Adolescent Dating Violence: Conceptual and Methodological Issues.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, v.33 (2009). Yllo, K. “Through a Feminist Lens: Gender, Power and Violence.” In R. J. Gelles and D. R. Loseke, eds., Current Controversies on Family Violence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1993. Gunnur Karakurt Texas Tech University

DeGeneres, Ellen Popular stand-up comedian and television star Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian in 1997, making her a cultural icon and also engendering tremendous backlash and the cancellation of her popular television show. Coming out, first on The Oprah Winfrey Show and then on her sitcom Ellen, made DeGeneres a pioneering spokeswoman for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues. Subsequently, her relationships, her gender identity, and her sexual orientation have provided many women and men with an accessible, friendly, and down-to-earth model for lesbianism. Her public struggles with homophobia and bad relationships have drawn compassion from many viewers and have highlighted the continued marginalization of lesbian and bisexual women in Hollywood and by the media. DeGeneres was born in Louisiana in 1958, where her parents Betty and Elliott DeGeneres raised her as a Christian Scientist until they separated in 1973. Her mother remarried after the divorce; she and DeGeneres moved from Louisiana to Texas. DeGeneres later returned to New Orleans for college but completed only a semester of school before leaving to

work at a law firm with her cousin. She held a range of odd jobs during this period as she began to pursue stand-up comedy as her profession. Heavily influenced by Woody Allen and Steve Martin, DeGeneres quickly became the emcee at Clyde’s Comedy Club in New Orleans in 1981. After touring with her comedy routine, she was named Showtime’s “Funniest Person in America” in 1982. She achieved substantial success in the 1980s, most notably becoming the first female comedian that Johnny Carson invited over for an onscreen chat after her performance on the Tonight Show in 1986. DeGeneres transformed her stand-up comedy into the sitcom Ellen (originally called These Friends of Mine), which ran from 1994 until 1998. She would not return to serial television until 2001, when The Ellen Show began airing on CBS. In 2003, she turned her attention to a daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. DeGeneres has appeared in several supporting roles in films including Coneheads (1993), Mr. Wrong (1996), and Goodbye Lover (1998). She also garnered rave reviews for her voice work as Dori in the Pixar film Finding Nemo (2003). She has written two books—My Point—And I Do Have One (1995) and The Funny Thing Is . . . (2003). After she came out as a lesbian on The Oprah Winfrey Show, DeGeneres became a pioneering figure for LGBT rights. As Jennifer Baumgardner has suggested in Look Both Ways, DeGeneres “brought a familiar and loved visage to the scary debate” surrounding AIDS and LGBT sexuality during the 1990s. DeGeneres’s relationship with Anne Heche—a relationship in which Heche publicly called DeGeneres her wife but that ended when Heche left DeGeneres for a man—highlighted some of the continuing tensions within LGBT culture between lesbians and bisexuals, and also in media representations of sexual choices. DeGeneres dated Alexandra Hedison from 2001 to 2004, with whom she appeared on the cover of The Advocate; she left Hedison for the Australian actress Portia de Rossi, star of the television shows Ally McBeal and Arrested Development. After California overturned the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, DeGeneres and de Rossi married. In a commencement speech that she delivered at Tulane University on May 16, 2009, DeGeneres urged students to “follow your passion, stay true to yourself.” As a groundbreaking female comic, an out lesbian

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in Hollywood, and an advocate for LGBTQ rights, DeGeneres has founded her career on this wisdom, thereby providing a model of resilience, humor, and passion in Hollywood. See Also: American Idol; Celebrity Women; Comedians, Female; Coming Out; Lesbians; LGBTQ; Reality Television; Winfrey, Oprah. Further Readings Baumgardner, Jennifer. Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 DeGeneres, Ellen. The Funny Thing Is . . . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. DeGeneres, Ellen. My Point—And I Do Have One. New York: Bantam, 1995. Jordan, Julie. “Ellen and Portia Get Married.” People (August 17, 2008). http://www.people.com/people /article/0,,20219790,00.html (accessed August 2009). Emily Bowles Lawrence University

Denmark Denmark has juridical gender equality; however, women in Denmark are disadvantaged by gender gaps in economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, and in healthcare. Due to women’s comparatively high levels of education and participation rates in gainful employment, Denmark ranks globally among the top 10 countries with the lowest average gender gap in 2009, but shows the widest gender gap among the five Nordic nations. The Danish labor market is gender segregated. In 2006, a total of 60 percent of the workforce was employed in jobs dominated almost exclusively by one sex. Women more frequently hold part-time jobs and spend less time on transportation to and from work than men. In 2005, women accounted for 37 percent of the private workforce, 77 percent of employees in local and regional authorities, and 45 percent of those employed by the state. In 2009, 4.04 percent of the female and 3.23 percent of the male adult workforce were unemployed. Employment of women of Danish origin was considerably higher than that of women

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immigrants from non-Western countries. Between 1998 and 2008, the proportion of women in top management remained unchanged at 4 percent. Globally, Denmark ranks number 69 with regard to women’s participation in management. The laws on wage equality and equal treatment of women and men were directly applied to the national juridical system under the authority of the European Commission Treaty. The average gap between women’s and men’s hourly earnings in the Danish economy is 17.7 percent and below the European Union average. In 2007, an average monthly salary for a female employee was 30.974,50 DKK, as compared to a 39.471,82 DKK for male employees. Women Ph.D.s in the private sector earn an average share of 87 percent of the male income, while the share in the public sector is 94 percent. The female–male wage ratio is lowest for legislators, senior officials, and managers. Denmark is a constitutional monarchy with a reigning queen and a parliamentary system of government. Women gained the right to vote in 1915. In 2007–08, women held 36.9 percent of the seats in Parliament. As of 2009, Denmark had not yet had a female head of state. Since 1999, Denmark had a Ministry of Gender Equality, which since 2002 develops action plans to bridge the gender gaps. In 2001, 37.7 percent of the graduates awarded advanced research qualifications in science were women, while there was fewer than one woman for every 10 men in the top grade of university staff. In 2003, 41 percent of the Ph.D. degrees were awarded to women. In 2004, women held 38 percent of the assistant professorships, 24 percent of the associate professorships, and 11 percent of the full professorships. Twenty-nine percent of the women of working age and Danish origin had only completed only primary and lower secondary school, while 6 percent had a higher educational degree. In 2009, maternal mortality per 100,000 live births was three. In 2002, breast cancer ranked among the top 10 causes of death in the Danish population. Thirty-nine percent of the women were overweight, while 7.1 percent were heavily overweight. Twentyfour percent of Danish women smoked daily. Women born in 2004 had a life expectancy of 80 years, and women also had a higher documented rate of stress. Mothers have the right of up to 14 weeks of postpartum parental leave, and fathers can take two

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weeks off. After that, the parents can freely share the joint right to 32 weeks of leave per child. In 2007, mothers took an average of 275 days of leave, as compared to fathers’ 24 days. Public childcare facilities are available. Maintaining a work–life balance for families in general and women in particular is a problem. While the amount of time spent on work and homework is increasing, its gender distribution is still not equal. See Also: Equal Pay; Management, Women in; Working Mothers; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings The Danish Ministry for Equality. “Statistik.” http://www .lige.dk/statistik.asp (accessed June 2010). European Commission. “Gender Pay Gap.” http:// ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=681&langId=en (accessed June 2010). European Commission, Directorate General for Research. “Women in Science. Statistics and Indicators. She Figures 2003.” http://ec.europa.eu/research/science -society/pdf/she_figures_2003.pdf (accessed June 2010). World Economic Forum. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap /report2009.pdf (accessed June 2010). World Health Organization. “Denmark.” http://www.who .int/countries/dnk/en (accessed June 2010). Iris Rittenhofer Aarhus University

Depression Depression is a psychological disorder defined by persistent feelings of sadness, emptiness, and hopelessness. At current estimates, approximately one in five people will have an episode of depression in their lifetime; however, this varies by gender with a ratio of one in four women and one in eight men. According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM IV), there are three main categories of depression: major depressive disorder (MDD), dysthymia, and bipolar disorder. Additionally, there are a number of seasonal and onset specifiers, pro-

ducing subcategories of depression including seasonal affective disorder, postpartum depression, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Depression rates are increasing worldwide with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that by 2020, depression will be the second largest contributor to the global burden of disease in the developed world and the largest contributor in developing nations. Already, depression is the most significant health problem worldwide for people aged 15 to 44 years old. Depression rates have been rising steadily in both rich and poor countries, although controversy remains regarding the rates of diagnosis and the efficacy of treatment. Diagnostic Classification and Symptoms Depression is a whole-body illness that adversely affects both the body and mind of sufferers, including their thought patterns, eating, sleeping, and social interactions. Symptoms include persistent sadness and crying; rumination; feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness; loss of interest in pleasurable activities, including sex; irritability, pessimism, and self-criticism; difficulty concentrating, remembering and making decisions; insomnia or hypersomnia (oversleeping); excessive eating with weight gain or restricted eating with weight loss; withdrawal from social life, including school, work, and leisure activities; persistent aches and pains that are not responsive to treatment; fatigue, loss of energy and motivation; and thoughts of suicide and possible suicide attempts. According to the DSM IV, MDD is diagnosed when some or all of these symptoms are present from at least two weeks to several months or more. Dysthymia, in contrast, is a chronic condition with milder symptoms lasting for at least two years. People with dysthymia may suffer comorbid disorders including episodes of MDD. Bipolar disorder, or “manic depression,” is characterized by disruptive cycles of depressive symptoms alternating with euphoria. There is an increase of risk-taking behaviors such as spending sprees and/or risky sexual escapades during the manic phase of the illness. Bipolar disorder is far less common than MDD and dysthymia. Recent research in developing countries shows that the Western biomedical model of depression fails to capture culture-specific terminology and symptoms. People typically present with multiple somatic com-



plaints such as headaches and fatigue, rather than depression. On closer inspection, however, these problems were not exclusively somatic disorders; further questioning elicited psychological information warranting diagnoses of depression. As such, more refined instruments are required to measure the true incidence of depression in developing countries. New symptom questionnaires such as the 14-item Shona Symptom Questionnaire (SSQ) in Zimbabwe, the Primary Care Psychiatric Questionnaire in India, and the Chinese Health Questionnaire were developed in conjunction with local languages, idioms, and categories of illness to more carefully screen for depression. Moreover, research data from developing countries also show that depression and anxiety are strongly associated, calling into question the validity of discrete diagnoses as outlined in the International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition (ICD-10). Similarly, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression have high rates of comorbidity Etiology of Depression The causes of depression are both genetic and environmental. Genetic factors predisposing individuals to particular personality traits such as shyness and low mood may contribute to the development of depression. Similarly, particular cognitive styles such as the propensity to ruminate on problems, being a perfectionist, as well as sensitive to criticism make one prone to depression. However, these dispositions are only possibilities that are given shape in social context. One’s life experiences have been shown to have a major impact on the etiology, or study of the causes, of depression. For example, depression in most people is preceded by a significant adverse life event such as death of a spouse, divorce, or job loss. On their own, however, such experiences do not satisfactorily explain the occurrence of depression because many people who experience these events do not become depressed. The presence of long-term problems helps explain the vulnerability to depression. These include childhood abuse or neglect, ruptured attachments, living with an abusive or uncaring spouse, long-term unemployment, poverty or economic insecurity, and/ or a history of physical or sexual abuse. The intersection of genetic disposition, long-term problems, and a recent adversity typically culminate in a major depressive episode. Individuals who have had one episode

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of depression become more vulnerable to succeeding depressive events, which may intersect with severe life trials to produce second and subsequent incidents. Recent research on the “psychosocial model” further suggests that vulnerable individuals may produce adverse events through their interactional style that trigger further depressive episodes. In addition, long-term substance abuse, while often taken to ease depressive symptoms, typically perpetuates depression and creates additional problems. In both the developing and developed world, structural factors loom large in the etiology of depression with demographic data indicating much higher rates in the lower classes and in women. In developing countries, the confluence of absolute poverty, poor healthcare services, gender inequality, and chronic daily stress can produce a vicious cycle of poverty, depression and disability. Nonetheless, severe life events such as the death or loss of a spouse and childhood adversities like separation from loved ones like parents, prove remarkably constant triggers for depression worldwide. Women and Depression MDD and dysthymia affect twice as many women as men. This finding is consistent across racial, cultural, national, and socioeconomic groups. Among the suggested reasons for this include role strain and contradiction, socioeconomic status, higher rates of sexual abuse and victimization, domestic violence, reproductive events and hormonal fluctuations, as well as psychological and personality factors. Gender differences in depression rates begin in adolescence when boys and girls undergo significant social, emotional, and physical changes. Research in the West points to the damage done to girls’ self-esteem through ubiquitous sexually objectifying media images, and the pervasive devaluation of females in the culture. In addition, poverty, poor education and childhood sexual abuse are factors in adolescent girls’ higher rates of depression. Given that girls are more likely to internalize their problems and blame themselves for almost everything that goes wrong, are more susceptible to depression. In contrast, troubled boys tend to act out through substance abuse and aggression. Adult women’s higher rates of depression have been linked to greater incidences of stress associated

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with their combined work and family roles. In addition, working women who are responsible for housework, childcare, and aging parents can experience prolonged stress. Socioeconomic factors are also relevant. Women and children comprise three-quarters of all people living under the poverty line. Poverty is now considered by some researchers as one of the key “pathways to depression.” Having a supportive partner can offset the deleterious effects of poverty; however, many women living under the poverty line are lone parents or older women without partners. Low socioeconomic status brings a host of problems including social exclusion, lack of a support network, and a higher incidence of stressful events. In developing countries where poverty is endemic, stressful life events have been linked to depression in women. Case studies from India, Brazil, and Chile show that low income and education coupled with poor relationships are key determinants of depression. Cognitive Behavior and Depression Incidence Particular cognitive styles also have also been considered relevant in women’s higher rates of depression, including the tendency to ruminate on problems, pessimistic thinking, and the perception of having no control. Some researchers suggest that the socialization of girls and women predispose them to adopt a more internalizing, self-blaming stance than a critical or challenging one. Such tendencies may exacerbate the effects of a stressful event and inhibit the ability to recover. Alternatively, it may be that women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression given their propensity to identify problems and seek therapy. In contrast, men tend not to seek help or to talk about their problems. They also have higher rates of alcoholism and physical violence, which can mask symptoms of depression. Additionally, abuse and victimization are significant background factors in the development of depression. Women are almost twice as likely to be sexually molested and/or assaulted as children. Similarly, adult women are more likely to experience sexual assault and sexual harassment than adult men. In addition, domestic violence affects between one-quarter and one-half of women worldwide and is associated with the development of depression.

Many women living under the poverty line—one of the key pathways to depression—are older women without partners.

Reproductive events in the life cycle of women including menstruation, pregnancy, the postpartum period, and menopause also create hormonal fluctuations that have an impact on emotions and mood. In addition, medical or social infertility can cause deep sadness and possible depression given the centrality of motherhood in normative accounts of adult womanhood. While it is not known how hormones are involved in depression, clinicians recognize that they affect brain chemistry. In some women, hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle are associated with mood swings, sadness, crying spells, irritability, and feeling bloated and tired during the luteal phase, or week prior to menstruation. When these symptoms occur over several menstrual periods, it is known as premenstrual syndrome (PMS). A minority of women experience a severe form of PMS known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) that interferes with their normal functioning. These women do not necessarily have unusual hormonal changes; rather, they have amplified responses to these changes.



Women who suffer from PMDD tend to have a history of other mood disorders that make them more sensitive to hormone -elated changes. Women are more vulnerable to depression when they are new mothers. This is due to the profound emotional and physical changes of pregnancy and childbirth and the demands of caring for an infant. Postpartum depression can range from transient “baby blues” a few days after birth that affect most women, to severe incapacitating psychoses that are very rare. Women who experience postpartum depression are more likely to have had previous depressive episodes. Maternal mental health has an impact on infant development. For example, infants of depressed mothers are more likely to experience disorganized attachment and delayed cognitive development. In the developing world, maternal depression has been linked to low birth weight and child malnutrition. Treatments Depression is responsive to psychotherapy and medication, alone or together. Most episodes of depression can be treated with psychotherapy with the preferred evidence based treatment being cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Psychiatrist Aaron Beck developed cognitive therapy, arguing that negative thoughts precede and cause depression rather than the other way around. Typically, the depressed person has what he has termed a negative cognitive triad, generating a “depressed worldview” concerning the self, the world, and the future. Behavioral therapy emerged from the work of psychologist Albert Ellis and focuses on behavioral modification. CBT combines both models and consists of challenging the depressed person’s cognitive schemas and in making behavioral adjustments commensurate with a more positive outlook. For example, if a depressed individual insists they are a failure, a cognitive behavioral therapist will challenge this belief with examples of competence. Additionally, s/he may be encouraged to engage in behavior change that enhances social connections and self-esteem. This form of therapy has proven effective in numerous clinical trials. The healthcare trend of evidence-based treatment has favored CBT over other approaches such as psychodynamic therapy given existing research support. However, treatment is often standardized, with a technique-driven, time-limited approach. This has

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generated criticism among psychodynamic therapists and others concerned that CBT represents a quick-fix solution to deeper problems. Psychodynamic therapy derives from Freudian psychoanalysis but is less orthodox in practice. Therapy is likely to be once weekly facing the therapist for in-depth discussion. Following Sigmund Freud’s classic paper “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917), the depressed person is understood to have suffered a loss, real or symbolic, in childhood and been unable to accept this loss and mourn properly. The child identifies with the lost object, person, or thing and, as a result, turns his/her anger inward. In this view, the feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and worthlessness characteristic of depression relate to the unconscious attack on the lost object now introjected into the self. More recently, the psychoanalyst Sidney Blatt has distinguished between introjective and anaclitic depression. Anaclitic depression is characterized by feelings of helplessness, weakness, and depletion as well as a desperate need to stay close to need-gratifying objects, including persons, things, and places. In contrast, introjective depression is associated with feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and a sense of having failed to live up to expectations. Although Blatt acknowledges the role of genetic and neurochemical factors in the etiology of depression, early parent– infant interactions are identified as central, producing a baseline vulnerability against which life stressors are subsequently experienced. Here the cognitive and psychodynamic theories overlap because Beck also distinguishes between sociotropic or dependent, and autonomous or internal, depression. Again, with the former, sufferers are concerned with real or imagined interpersonal loss and the latter are concerned with feelings of failure. Women are seen to suffer more from anaclitic/sociotropic depression and men from introjective/autonomous depression. Unlike CBT, psychodynamic therapy consists of “talk therapy.” With talk therapy, the patient discloses his or her feelings, life history, dreams, fantasies, thoughts, and fears. Early childhood and significant attachment figures are central to the reconstruction of a personal narrative. Psychodynamic therapists are interested in the origins of symptoms and in their present meaning. The therapist listens and interprets, looking for unconscious conflict and repression with

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a view toward gaining greater awareness. From the basis of insight, the patient can begin the process of behavior change, if necessary or desirable, and realistic assessment of his or her situation, including the need to mourn loss. The relationship with the therapist is paramount because it is believed that the patient’s fears and beliefs about self and others will manifest in the therapeutic encounter or “transference relationship.” There is an increasing evidence base for psychodynamic treatment of depression. In addition to psychotherapy, psychotropic medication is successful in treating depression, particularly major depression, although many experts criticize both the use and effects of medication. Depression has been linked to chemical imbalances in the brain with regard to the neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. Many scientists and physicians believe that modern antidepressant medications are effective, given their ability to alter the balance of neurochemicals and neurochemical receptors at the synapse level within the brain. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as the antidepressants known as Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft as well as the newer antidepressants, the serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), are considered first-choice medication for MDD treatment. Other medications, including the older tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are used as second choices. Most people suffering from depression do not seek treatment for a variety of reasons including, inadequate awareness and access to service , treatment costs, stigma, and logistical problems such as a lack of transportation and childcare, in addition to the inability to take time off work. The WHO has reported that fewer than one in four people affected by depression have access to effective treatment. Nonetheless, over the past 30 years, treatment for depression in high-income countries has greatly expanded with access to psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy increasing significantly for individuals in middle- and higher-income brackets. In the developing world, where resources are sorely lacking, treatment for depression—and mental health problems more generally—ranks low on the scale of priorities. Stigma is a significant barrier to treatment as well as a lack of mental health services and workers. Compared to developed nations,

there are far fewer psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers per person. In addition, in developing nations, up to 20 percent of patients who present themselves at primary care facilities with symptoms of depression and anxiety are misdiagnosed. Thus, while cost-effective interventions are available, they have not been assumed or effectively utilized. Recent intervention research shows that “collaborative care” models that use local knowledge and care systems with locally trained personnel, create more sustainable treatment programs. Psychoeducation and culturally sensitive terminology have also been shown to destigmatize depression. Controversies There are two main controversies regarding diagnosis and treatment of depression: evidence base, medicalization of sadness and related sense. Evidence base is attributed to CBT therapy at the expense of other therapies, in particular psychodynamic therapy. This evidence is challenged on two fronts: first, it is argued that standardized brief therapy treatments do not address the deeper causes and consequences of depression, and psychodynamic therapies are less standardized in generating a methodological disadvantage when it comes to large-scale research. However, an emerging body of scholarship is now providing an evidence base for psychodynamic therapy. Sociologists and some therapists have raised concerns about the medicalization of sadness associated with the high diagnosis rates of depression. Sociologist Allan Horwitz, in particular, has lamented the loss of the old distinction between reactive or socially produced depression and endogenous or internal depression, leading to what he contends is a pervasive treatment of normal sadness. In this view, the widespread use of antidepressant medication is seen as an especially insidious form of collusion between psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries. This critique is linked to a broader social constructionist view, particularly strong in feminist writing on depression, on the social antecedents of depression. Here social, political, and economic solutions are sought rather than diagnoses and drugs for individuals who are having normal reactions to abnormal circumstances such as abuse, poverty, sexual abuse, excessive caregiving responsibilities, and so on.

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There are concerns and controversies regarding the safety and effectiveness of antidepressant drugs. Psychiatrist David Healy has conducted research demonstrating a link between the SSRI Prozac and suicide ideation. He has also argued that there is a great deal of ghost writing in scientific journals funded by pharmaceutical companies. These assertions are strongly contested. Given the rising rates of depression, not surprisingly there are now a variety of culture wars regarding the efficacy of diagnosis and treatment. See Also: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of; Dysthymia in Minority Population; Health, Mental and Physical; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Mental Illness, Biases in Diagnosis; Premenstrual Syndrome; Postpartum Depression. Further Readings Beck, Aaron T. and Brad A. Alford. Depression: Causes and Treatment, 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Blatt, Sidney J. Experiences of Depression: Theoretical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2004. Horwitz, Allan V. and Jerome C. Wakefield. The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into a Depressive Disorder. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007. Leader, Darian. The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2008. National Institute of Mental Health. “Women and Depression: Discovering Hope.” http://www.nimh.nih .gov/health/publications/women-and-depression -discovering-hope/index.shtml (accessed June 2010). Patel, Vikram, Melanie Abas, Jeremy Broadhead, Charles Todd, and Anthony Reeler. “Depression in Developing Countries: Lessons From Zimbabwe.” British Medical Journal, v.322 (2001). Stoppard, Janet M. and Linda M. McMullen, eds. Situating Sadness: Women and Depression in Social Context. New York: New York University Press, 2003. World Health Organization. “Mental Health: Depression.” http://www.who.int/mental_health/management /depression/definition/en (accessed February, 2010). Petra Bueskens University of Melbourne

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Diabetes There are three types of diabetes mellitus: type 1, type 2, and gestational. All are caused by insufficient production of insulin, the hormone that enables glucose (sugar) to be transformed into energy, or by the ineffective use of insulin within the body. Globally, the number of people with diabetes is increasing rapidly due to aging populations and increased rates of obesity and sedentary lifestyles. Lifestyle changes, such as maintaining a healthy body weight and diet, regular exercise, and avoiding smoking are the best ways to reduce the risk of developing the disease. Although diabetes affects men and women, the disease appears to be more prevalent among men. Diabetes poses unique challenges for women at various stages in her life, including pregnancy—which can affect both the mother and her child—and during menopause. Among diabetic women, coronary heart disease is now the biggest cause of death, and a woman’s chance of surviving a heart attack are lower than they are among diabetic men. The Pancreas and Insulin Glucose is a type of sugar that is stored within the cells of the body and turned into energy. In individuals without diabetes, glucose levels in the blood stream are kept within narrow boundaries by a hormone produced in the pancreas called insulin. In diabetics, this hormone is either not produced at a sufficient amount or is not effectively used within the body. The result is that glucose builds up in the blood stream causing a number of complications. Type 1 diabetes, previously referred to as insulindependent, child, or juvenile onset diabetes, occurs when the pancreas is unable to produce sufficient amounts of insulin because the cells that produce it have been attacked and destroyed by the immune system. Approximately 10 percent of all cases of diabetes are type 1. Type 2 diabetes, also called non-insulin-dependent or adult onset diabetes, is caused by either the pancreas not producing enough insulin or the body becoming resistant to the hormone. Unlike type 1 diabetes, the symptoms of type 2 may be less severe. Often, type 2 diabetes goes undiagnosed for years and a large proportion of people with the disease are unaware of they have the condition. Type 2 diabetes

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comprises the largest group of diabetics, approximately 90 percent of all cases. Gestational diabetes occurs when a pregnant woman’s pancreas produces insufficient amounts of insulin to meet the new needs of her body. The condition is often only temporary and disappears around the time that the baby is born. For some women, their gestational diabetes may actually be preexisting type 2 diabetes. If this is the case, their diabetes is unlikely to disappear when their baby is born. Risk factors for gestational diabetes include a family history of the condition, being overweight or obese, polycystic ovary syndrome, and having previously given birth to a large baby. It is estimated that among all pregnancies, as many as 14 percent of women will develop gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes increases the risk of a woman experiencing complications during pregnancy, such as premature birth and high blood pressure caused by preeclampsia. It also increases the risk of a number of complications for the baby, such as increased birth weight and jaundice. For the health of the mother and her unborn baby, it is essential that women with pre-existing or gestational diabetes have their pregnancy regularly monitored. It is also important for pregnant women with diabetes to monitor their blood sugar levels and to see their doctor regularly. Because the pregnancy hormones within a woman’s body can alter blood sugar levels, diabetic women are at a higher risk of complications. There is evidence that the children of diabetic women are at a greater risk of birth defects and of being overweight or obese as children. This, in turn, increases their risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Prior to pregnancy, women with diabetes should talk to their doctor about appropriate contraceptives, as some oral birth control medications may increase blood sugar levels that might aggravate their diabetes. Menopause can cause blood sugar levels to rise and fall more sharply than in a woman’s younger years, and diabetic women are at an increased risk of experiencing early menopause. In addition, women with diabetes may experience recurrent yeast infections as the increased sugar in their blood encourages the growth of these types of infections. The World Health Organization estimates that about 5 percent of the global population have diabetes, with the prevalence of the disease predicted to double every generation. This equates to around

300 million people living with diabetes. India, China, United States, Russia, and Brazil are thought to be the countries with the largest numbers of diabetics. Causes and Symptoms Overall, the increase in diabetes may be caused by the aging population and increasing numbers of obese or physically inactive individuals. Because women tend to live longer than men, clinicians expect that as the population ages the prevalence of the disease among older women will soon be higher than it is among men. More than 60 percent of diabetes cases can be prevented if everyone maintained a healthy body mass index (BMI). Until recently, type 2 diabetes was found only among the adult population, but with rising rates of obesity, the disease also is being diagnosed in children. Higher rates of type 2 diabetes are found in individuals with a family history of the condition and in particular ethnic communities such as Asians, Africans, and Hispanics. The symptoms of diabetes are similar in all forms of the disease, but they are often more severe, and occur more rapidly, among individuals with type 1 diabetes. These include the following: • Increase in frequency and changes in urination, called polyuria thirst or polydipsia • Increased hunger • Increased fatigue • Increased body weight, or rapid weight loss in type 1 • Vision changes • Infections, such as thrush and itchiness around the genitals • Increased risk of damage to blood vessels, kidneys, eyes, nerves, and the heart • Damage to blood vessels, which can result in foot ulcers and eventual limb amputation • Kidney disease and failure occur at increased rates among individuals with diabetes (Diabetes UK estimates that 10 to 20 percent of individuals will die as a result of kidney failure) People who have lived with diabetes for a long time have an increased risk of blindness because the disease can damage to the blood vessels in the eye. The onset of neuropathy, which is a condition that damages the nerves and can result in symptoms such as weakness, numbness, or pain in the feet and hands.



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Up to 50 percent of individuals with diabetes could have nerve damage. An estimated 50 to 80 percent of people with diabetes will die of some form of coronary heart disease. Among women, the link between diabetes and coronary heart disease is particularly strong; heart disease is the leading cause of death among women with diabetes. Diabetic women have similar rates of heart disease to similarly afflicted men, but women are more likely to die of their first heart attack. The American Diabetes Association found that women with diabetes were twice as likely to have a second heart attack and had four times the chance of having heart failure compared to women who did not have diabetes. Women with diabetes are twice as likely to develop sexual dysfunction than nondiabetic women; this may be due to tiredness and depression caused by diabetes, or by other complications of the disease such as vaginal dryness, or as a consequence of the diabetes medication. Diabetics don’t live as long as people without the disease. The life expectancy of type 1 diabetes is reduced by 20 years, while those with the type 2 variety live 10 years less than individuals without the disease. Overall, about one in 20 deaths can be attributed to the disease. In total, around 3 million people die of diabetes globally each year. Individuals with untreated diabetes may experience drowsiness, unconsciousness, and in severe cases, coma and death. Evidence suggests that women with poorly controlled diabetes are 50 percent more likely to experience a diabetic coma compared to men with disease. For type 1 diabetics, there is a range of drugs that can be administered either through injection, an insulin pen or a pump. For those with type 2 diabetes, lifestyle changes may be enough to control the disease; in other instances, oral drugs and/or insulin injections may be required. Diabetes can be confirmed through a blood or urine test undertaken by a doctor. As nothing can prevent aging, and preventing disease is better than treating it. To reduce their risk of developing the disease, women can do the following: 1. Maintain a healthy body weight, which not only helps to reduce the risk of diabetes but also a number of diseases, such as cancer and coronary heart disease. Maintaining a healthy body weight is also an important factor in reducing a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.

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2. Exercise regularly. As little as 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five days a week can improve health. This can be achieved with shorter bouts of at least 10 minutes at a time. 3. Eating five servings of fruit and vegetables every day coupled with a reduced intake of sugar and saturated fats. 4. Avoid smoking. In the United States, approximately 12 percent of type 2 diabetes cases are attributable to smoking. Smoking also impacts an individual’s risk of developing other diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. 5. Among those with diabetes, managing the disease and lifestyle changes, such as moderating alcohol consumption, can reduce the risk of complications. See Also: Health, Mental and Physical; Heart Disease; Women’s Health Clinics. Further Readings American Diabetes Association. http://www.diabetes.org (accessed June 2010). Diabetes UK. http://www.diabetes.org.uk (accessed June 2010). Mindell, J. and P. Zaninotto. “Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes.” Health Survey for England 2004. London: Joint Health Survey Unit NatCen and UCL, 2006. Wild, S., et al. “Global Prevalence of Diabetes.” Diabetes Care, v. 27/5 (May 2004). World Health Organization. “Diabetes Program.” http:// www.who.int/diabetes/en (accessed June 2010). Vanessa Lani Gordon-Dseagu University College London

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the standard assessment handbook used by mental health clinicians in the United States and in many other countries to classify and diagnose mental disorders. It is also used in education, research, and other purposes by government agencies, health insurance

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and pharmaceutical companies, and universities. The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association, and has developed alongside other classification systems of mental disorders, such as sections of the World Health Organization’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). The DSM was first published in 1952 and has undergone several revisions since then: DSM-II in 1968; DSM-III in 1980 and 1987; and DSM-IV in 1994 and 2000. The earliest versions were small and limited, with minimal consideration of women’s mental health, but each consecutive edition gradually paid more attention to the topic. Notably, DSMIII, published in the 1980s, furnished information about the prevalence and prognosis of disorders among men and women, as well as several diagnoses specific to women, mostly in the section on Psychosexual Disorders. The latest edition, DSM-IV (2000), is much more informative and based on a comprehensive review of research literature at that time. It lists data about sex differences in prevalence, symptoms, and course of disorders under a section titled, “Specific Culture, Age, and Gender Features,” and provides some commentary on possible causal mechanisms. In addition, DSM-IV recognizes a number of disorders that are unique or have specific diagnostic criteria to women, particularly relating to childbearing, under the section “Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders.” An example is the inclusion of “Postpartum Onset” in DSM-IV to describe major depression experienced within four weeks of childbirth. A controversial change in DSM-IV was the reclassification of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), which was previously known as late luteal phase dysphoric disorder. PMDD is characterized by severe psychological and emotional symptoms associated with the latter phase of the menstrual cycle. DSM III labeled the condition as an “Unspecified Mental Disorder”; it was reclassified in DSM-IV as a “disorder requiring further study.” This change was largely in response to objections by some psychiatrists and women’s groups which were concerned that labeling PMDD as a psychiatric disorder may stigmatize women. In their view, menstruation is a normal body process and, therefore, any associated psychological changes also should be interpreted as normal. In

contrast to this feminist response, some psychologists and psychiatrists, including women, have argued that PMDD should now be classified as a separate disorder in the DSM, based on considerable research supporting its existence and burden. Similarly, during the development of the DSM, feminist practitioners have objected to inclusion of other disorders such as paraphilic rapism and masochistic personality disorder. These efforts by the women’s movement exemplify the important influence they have on the mental health profession, and also highlight their underlying concerns, particularly the social construction of mental illness. Criticism of the DSM The DSM also has also been criticized for limited coverage of women-only disorders and differences in mental health between women and men. In particular, there has been a call for more focus on mental health related to reproduction, such as during menstrual cycle, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, etc. For instance, although the DSM currently acknowledges Postpartum Onset, it does not acknowledge major depression, which occurs at other times after childbirth or during pregnancy. Other topics poorly covered in the DSM include mental illness across the menstrual cycle; childbirthrelated post-traumatic stress disorder; disorders of mother–baby attachment; bereavement of miscarriage or stillbirth; and histories of sexual or physical abuse. Another criticism is that the DSM follows the biomedical model of health, reducing mental health to a biological basis, overlooking psychosocial and other factors. Yet, gender—socially constructed behaviors and roles considered appropriate for men and women— is important. Beliefs of illness, willingness to accept problems, expression and interpretation of symptoms, treatment-seeking behavior, men and women’s treatment differentials, as well as the myriad of social factors influenced by gender—such as living conditions, money, resources, and power—influence mental health and prevalence of disorders. Women’s mental health is afforded a more prominent position in the latest version of the DSM. However the DSM, and the mental health profession generally, need to be more responsive to society’s notions of gender and mental illness, which will lead



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to improved diagnosis and treatment. This has been a topical issue leading up to the reformulation of the fifth edition (DSM-V), to be published in 2013. See Also: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of; Post-Partum Depression; Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of; Psychology/Psychiatry, Women in. Further Readings American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IVTR, 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2000. Beutler, Larry and Mary Malik. Rethinking the DSM: A Psychological Perspective. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2002. Karasic, Dan and Jack Drescher. Sexual and Gender Diagnoses of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: A Re-Evaluation. London: Routledge, 2006. Gareth Davey Hong Kong Shue Yan University

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association and highly influential in the organization, administration, and assessment of research and treatment in mental health in the United States and internationally, has been and continues to be the subject of diverse critiques and controversies. Gender and sexuality have been central to several such debates. Critiques may address the DSM broadly or present or proposed elements specifically, and may address content, creation, organization, and use. Critiques of the DSM centrally concerned with scientific method question its construct validity and reliability. Critics may argue that inclusion in the DSM pathologizes and medicalizes patterns of feelings or behaviors which are or could be normal, expected, benign, or

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even healthy, that inclusion may minimize personal responsibility, or that inclusion may situate within the domains of mental illness and psychiatry conditions better addressed elsewhere. Critics and contributors have paid growing attention to the relevance of the DSM to diverse populations, including cross-culturally, and to children and adolescents. The inclusion of a condition in the DSM may help bring attention and resources to research and treatment; health insurers, for instance, may require DSM codes to reimburse for care. In some cases critics may argue such attention is actually detrimental. The roles of pharmaceutical companies, and the risks of overmedicating or medicating inappropriately, are common concerns. The DSM has evolved significantly since its first edition in 1952. Its length and its number of diagnostic categories included have greatly increased. Its authors have sought to meet stronger evidential standards. Individual categories have been redefined, divided, merged, and dropped. Conditions may be included in less than a full-fledged way, such as described in an appendix with the provision that they require further study, and this may represent compromise in the face of debate. Individual elements of the DSM can be subject to intense and thorough debate and discussion within psychiatry and mental health, not least by the participants in each revision themselves. A landmark controversy for the DSM concerned its inclusion, from DSM-I in 1952, of homosexuality as a mental disorder. Scholars and social activists argued there was no empirical basis to consider it such, and that its inclusion stigmatized gay men and lesbians and subjected them to sometimes harsh attempts at “conversion.” In 1973, the trustees of the American Psychiatric Association voted unanimously to remove homosexuality from subsequent printings of DSM-II. Proposals to include self-defeating personality disorder (SDPD) won initial support, and such a condition was described in an appendix to DSM-III-R in 1987. Criticism spread, and by 1992, the relevant working group recommended its removal. Critics believed the criteria for SDPD pathologized attributes such as self-sacrifice and deference that were often in fact socially reinforced, especially for women and minorities. They further believed that in some

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cases its criteria represented entirely understandable reactions to abuse, and that rather than identify abuse or abusers as pathological or problematic, the diagnosis of self-defeating personality disorder would shift blame to their victims. The inclusion of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) has long elicited controversy. Among criticisms of its present place, listed as requiring further study, is that there is no clear counterpart for a hormone-related psychiatric disorder for men, or gender neutrally. Issues of gender and sexuality and their biopsychosocial interaction recur in discussion of categories identified as sexual disorders, including paraphilias, dyspareunia and vaginismus, female orgasmic disorder (FOD), female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD), and hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). Considerable attention and debate are currently attached to the diagnostic category of gender identity disorder (GID). The availability of this or some successor DSM diagnosis may help some individual transgender people secure support for treatment, including hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery. Critics charge that inclusion as a mental disorder still stigmatizes transgender or gender variant people, and suggest other approaches could better support access to transgender care. A close counterpart and alternative to the DSM is relevant coverage in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), published by the World Health Organization. Critiques of the DSM may reflect diverse, competing and interacting schools and currents in mental health. The DSM’s authors have generally sought a sort of theory neutrality, while tending over time to shift away from psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches and toward biological and biopsychosocial ones. Critiques of the DSM may also come in hand with broader challenges to theories and practices in psychiatry and mental health. Social movements putting forward such critiques include the antipsychiatry movement, the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement, and the neurodiversity movement. See Also: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Gender Dysphoria; Medical Research, Gender Issues; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Mental Health Treatment, Bias in; Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of; Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

Further Readings Beutler, Larry F. and Mary L. Malik, eds. Rethinking the DSM: A Psychological Perspective. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2002. Caplan, Paula J. They Say You’re Crazy: How the World’s Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who’s Normal. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995. Jonathan J. Whatley Independent Scholar

Diet and Weight Control Social science researchers are intrigued by the fact that dieting or monitoring food consumption with the goal of controlling weight is done mostly by women. This article identifies the social, cultural, and economic reasons that made dieting popular in the life of the modern Western woman; the health problems women face as they diet to control their weight; and recent trends in dieting, especially the growth of dieting institutions in other parts of the world. History of Diet and Weight Control in Women Even before dieting became a popular social practice among Western women in the mid-20th century, the term diet was used to describe the regulation of an activity or behavior. Diet comes from the Greek word diata, which means “a regulated mode of life” and the Latin word dies, which means “day.” Put together, the word diet meant regulation of either an individual or a political body, although with the passage of time diet gained parlance as a term that describes regulated eating patterns. Even though as early as the 16th century, diseases and illnesses in the general population were attributed to a lack of regulated diet, it was only with industrialization that principles of eating less and eating in a manner to promote health were laid down. In 1740, British physicians warned wealthy men of diseases such as “English Melancholy,” which they linked to indulgent eating practices, and introduced the term Diaetetick Management to better manage one’s eating. Although these beliefs about the links among health, body, and food persisted, it was not until after World War II that a dieting industry

Diet and Weight Control emerged and found its most ardent supporter in the modern woman. The cultural and structural changes within Western societies in the 1900s that changed the societal status of women were responsible for fostering the intimate relationship that the modern women would develop with dieting and weight control. As religious institutions and extended family arrangements weakened, so did their dicta of female propriety. Similar to most people encountering modernity, the new woman—now relatively free of religious and familial constraints—turned to the body and fashion as sites for carving out their modern selves. When a couturier culture flourished in the West, the production of clothes and accessories was industrialized and democratized, making fashionable clothes affordable to all women—not just a few rich one. As a consequence, dressmakers started making clothes for abstract and standardized bodies, using the slim body as the starting point. The standard sizing of

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clothes made women in their dressing rooms aware of their bodies’ shapes and sizes, and the inability to fit into these new styles of clothes resulted in regret, shame, and guilt over one’s body. For women, it was the beginning of experiencing a new kind of guilt surrounding their body, or what in contemporary times is referred to as “body image dissatisfaction.” This guilt and ill feeling women were developing about the body was not rooted in abiding religious scriptures or protecting family honor, however, but in a piece of clothing that did not fit their form. Thus, the practice of eating less to control one’s weight—which we today commonly refer to as dieting—became increasingly popular among women. Parallel to the developments in the garment industry was another powerful movement that led to women becoming conscious of their bodies. The practice of monitoring and controlling one’s body and food consumption was also the result of the contact women had with the new sciences of food, eating,

Young men gaze at nude women that today would not be considered desirable in this Peter Paul Rubens painting, c.1632. The term Rubenesque is currently used to describe a woman with a rounded, full figure.

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and the body. The home health guides of the 1920s routinely issued medical warnings against being overweight and promoted the notion that weight control and good health went hand in hand. This health belief was a reflection of the beliefs and practices of the larger medical community, which used data provided by insurance companies to make the claim that body weight was a key predictor of good health. At home, as the caretakers of their families, women were compelled to practice “scientific feeding” for themselves and their families, which involved mastering quantitative techniques of measuring, counting, and tabulating what to cook, and how to feed and eat correctly. The fashion stylists of that time also honed in on the scientific language of food and eating, particularly in their promotion of the calorie count as a method to regulate body weight and fit into clothes. Lulu Hunt Peters, in her best-selling book, Diet and Health: With a Key to the Calories, published in 1981, made counting calories a household term as she vilified fat as aesthetically displeasing. Failure to control weight, for a modern woman, represented lack of commitment to good health, lack of determination, and inability to keep up with changing times. The modern woman’s body was a thin body, and as women joined in large numbers to banish fat from their food and bodies, the term diet came to mean eating less to control or lessen one’s body weight. Dieting and the Pathology of Eating If dieting has given the modern woman as a free agent a tangible medium of exercising self-control and restraint over her body and food, dieting would also become her biggest scourge. Dieting to eat less and alter the shape of the body can prove to be a difficult practice, as it goes against the basic human instinct of hunger and, for some, their genetically preordained body shape. Research has repeatedly shown that weight loss incurred through dieting is short lived, and most women who diet tend to gain their weight back—which makes dieting a frustrating experience. Most important, dieting to lose weight is symptomatic of the body image dissatisfaction that women might experience when they aspire to be a smaller body size. In fact, the increase in the number of women suffering from eating-centered psychological disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, in the 20th century coincided with the growth of the

dieting industry. Although there has been evidence in the past of individuals expressing severe loss of appetite after experiencing emotional trauma or distress, it was not until the 1960s and the 1970s that a large number of women cited “fear of fat” as a motive for their sparse or nonexistent eating. The result for women has been widespread health problems and, occasionally and in extreme cases, the loss of life. Some forms of eating disorders have a long history, but the modern disorders of anorexia nervosa and bulimia are distinct in several ways: Not only do they primarily affect women, but it is especially the young women of the middle and upper classes that are affected. Even today, “fear of fat” assails mostly young women from affluent families, and they account for the majority of women suffering from eating issues. Many argue that the high rate of eating disorders in the modern world is a result of modern women’s slavish obsession with a media-generated beauty norm that celebrates excessive thinness, but feminist scholars believe that the emergence of complications centered in body, food, and eating are symptomatic of a deeper psychological battle that modern women are fighting in today’s male-dominated societies. Women’s problematic relationships with body and food stem from ambiguities and contradictions that characterize women’s identities in modern, patriarchal societies. Free but denied fundamental control over their own lives, women started managing their appetites and bodies, making them their personal domains of control. The anorexic felt a definite sense of achievement in controlling how little they ate, and underlying the “fear of fat” was the fear of losing control over hunger. As early as 1873, Charles Lasegue, the French physician who identified (and named) “anorexia nervosa” as a mental health condition, correctly diagnosed that food refusal in young women was a reflection of intrafamilial conflict between a maturing girl and her bourgeoisie parents. He shifted the focus from the psychology of the patient to the gendered practice of restricting movements of young women by adult members of the family as the key factor that triggered eating problems in women. Thus, the emergence of eating problems in women is highly correlated to women’s changing social status in modern society; in short, women developed pathological eating habits when they could not control their larger environment and turned to food and body as their



locus of control. At the microlevel, we see this process unfold in women who, after having experienced years of sexual abuse or racial and sexual discrimination, resort to food and eating (or noneating) as a way of coping with their trauma and regaining control over their lives. This is not to suggest that women who diet to control their weight always suffer from eating disorders but, instead, that dieting can set women on a treacherous trajectory as food and their bodies become mediums of expressing unresolved anxieties, frustrations, or resentments that stem from women’s subordinate status in larger society. The consensus in the field is that eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa are “multidimensional disorders,” with familial, perceptive, cognitive, and possibly biological factors interacting in varying combinations to produce a “final common pathway,” but the fact that mostly women contract eating disorders encourages examination of the culturally specific roles, statuses, and aspirations of women. In other words, eating issues reflect women’s difficulties in reconciling their new-won freedom with persistent gendered expectations that keep them focused on bodily appearance. Women Continue to Diet In spite of the mental and physical risks involved in excessive dieting and controlling one’s body weight through sparse eating, the dieting phenomenon has flourished. With an estimated worth of $50 billion in the United States, the weight-loss industry is one of the most lucrative business ventures in the country. There are currently 17,000 different diet plans and products in the market, and weight-loss companies such as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig tend to spend millions of dollars on their advertisements. They also make hefty profits; for example, Weight Watchers reported a net income of $174 million in a single year. Surveys repeatedly show that the numbers of women who worry about their weight and diet, particularly young women, is growing by the year. If, a decade back, only 34 percent of high school–age girls believed they were overweight, now 90 percent of them believe they are fat. This trend of worrying about one’s body weight follows young women to their college years, when eating issues become a major problem. In fact, those with rigid dieting routines show

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behavioral symptoms associated with eating disorders even if they do not exhibit the psychological trauma (maturity fears, interpersonal distrust, and perfectionism) that afflicts the anorexic. For instance, similar to anorexics, these women engage in extreme behaviors, such as incessantly obsessing about their weight and body image, dieting, binging, and in some cases using laxatives and diuretics to control their weight. As a result, the symptomatic difference between clinically diagnosed anorexic women and a culturally induced eating disorder in otherwise psychologically normal woman is getting blurred. Some have described this trapped consciousness of millions of women who constantly worry about their body weight, count calories, and think of ways of losing weight as belonging to a “cult of thinness.” The consolidation of the beauty industry (popular media, magazines, movies, fashion), which had started in the early 1900s, as the final authority on what should be considered a beautiful body has further harmed the relationship women have with their own bodies. Over the years, the fashion industries have floated and glamorized an ultrathin body ideal by shrinking the size of women’s clothes. By doing so, they have economically flourished on the failed attempts of women trying to attain a biologically unattainable body. Thin bodies are now touted as not only aesthetically pleasing bodies but successful bodies as well, as can be seen in the ways work clothes for women have changed in the last couple of decades. The cultural fixation of a society on thinness cannot be blamed only on profit motives of the beauty industry, however. It is also the consequence of a backlash women have experienced as they have entered maledominated public institutions of education, health, economy, and law and enforcement agencies. The myth that women have to be thin to be successful and accepted in larger society acts as a constant reminder that her self-worth lies in her appearance and not in her other achievements. It also guarantees her obedience to a bodily norm that has been set up by society. In addition, as research shows that fat women are considered unattractive by men and are less likely to be married or have partners, women are under immense social, as well as professional, pressure to be thin. Therefore, although there is some scholarship indicating that the accomplishment of ultrathin bodies as personal projects of exercising mastery and

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control can be a fulfilling experience for women, the majority of studies indicate that thin bodies bear the anxiety and frustrations women experience as free agents of modern society as they continue to have a subordinate status in larger society. When Caroline Knapp, a best-selling author who fought an eating disorder her entire life, called her personal battle with anorexia a “misunderstood hunger,” she was speaking of women in her own generation and those who were to come later who would starve, binge, or purge in search of solutions to their identity troubles. The two social groups thought to be immune to the thinness ideal and dieting were men and women who belong to minority ethnic groups, but that could be changing as well. In the United States, although being curvy and having a well-rounded body acted as an “alternative beauty aesthetic” among African American and Latina women, this cultural armor is lost when these women climb the social class ladder and get acclimatized to the beauty standards of mainstream society and start dieting and controlling their weight. Contemporary research indicates that men have also started dieting and controlling weight to look good, thereby mimicking a feminine behavior. There have even been some cases of eating disorders among men. Social researchers use the same logic that they had provided for women dieting and controlling their weight—that is, when economic and political opportunities become scarce and physical looks attain a social value, it similarly creates a group of dependent and insecure men who develop eating problems. Dieting in Non-Western Societies Women’s anguish, frustration, and guilt over their bodies are now spreading to non-Western societies, especially those exposed to the Western media, and the “thinness as beauty hypothesis” has become the dominant diagnostic tool used to detect dieting and eating issues in non-Western societies. For example, only three years after American television was introduced in Fiji, where previously the culturally accepted body was of the “robust form,” three of four young girls reported “feeling too fat,” and almost as many said they dieted. It is findings like these that have nourished the fear of non-Western women succumbing to eating problems—just like their Western counterparts. In psychiatric research, the consensus is that the global emergence of eating pathology is linked

to the spread of Western cultural norms that designate particular body shapes as preferable. However, it is important not to overgeneralize the prevalence of dieting and eating issues in women in non-Western societies. For instance, eating disorders in which women express “fear of fat” are rare in countries like Malaysia and India but are so common in Japan that their rates are comparable to the West. Moreover, in the non-Western world, eating issues linked to body image dissatisfaction tend to be concentrated in urban areas, whereas rural women are distinctly less affected. Although such findings support the argument that contact with Western culture through global media and information technology exposes women to the thinness ideal, it also validates the feminist stance that eating issues and body dissatisfaction are a result of women disturbing the status quo in these societies. Therefore, in countries like Japan and urban areas of India, where women are actively involved in the economical, political, and educational institutions of society, there is a concomitant growth of the dieting industry and eating issues. What we see unfold is a repetition of Western women’s experience at the beginning of the 20th century. If modernization has opened up opportunities for women and brought to light her achievements, dieting to attain a slim body has become an important medium to express these women’s new selves. Yet at the same time, as men do not have to satisfy this thinness norm with their own bodies and also play a role in imposing the expectation of a thin body on women, dieting might just be a reflection of inequality of statuses in men and women. See Also: Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Body Image; Diet Industry; Eating Disorders; Fashion Industry, Theoretical Controversies. Further Readings Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Chernin, Kim. The Hungry Self: Women, Eating and Identity. New York: Harper Perennial, 1985. Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy. The Cult of Thinness. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Martin, Courtney. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters. New York: Free Press, 2007.

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Seid, Roberta. Pollack. Never Too Thin: Why Woman Are at War With Their Bodies. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991. Jaita Talukdar Loyola University

Diet Industry Contemporary Western cultures celebrate the slender female body and a muscular male physique. While prevalent today, these ideals have not always been in vogue. For example, by today’s standards, the voluptuous female nudes painted by 17th-century painter Peter Paul Rubens or the 1950s cultural icon Marilyn Monroe would be labeled “overweight.” Today, these hegemonic beauty ideals work hand-in-hand with health discourses to promote weight loss. Cultural ideals dictate that it is unattractive to be “fat” and health discourses label “overweight” and “obesity” unhealthy medical risks. Given these seemingly ubiquitous ideals about beauty and health, it is not surprising that weight-loss practices are prevalent. On a global scale, the World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern that more than 1 billion adults are overweight, with at least 300 million of them obese. The WHO acknowledges multiple ways to address these conditions, including weight loss. In the United States, similar concerns have been expressed by federal, state, and local governments about growing waistlines. Indeed, governmental mandates for weight loss encourage dieting. The belief that weight loss is possible partly fuels high rates of dieting. In Western cultures, an ideology of individualism suggests that many things can be accomplished, including weight loss, simply with determination and a strong work ethic. The body is seen as a product of the psyche and those who are unable to lose weight are deemed morally wanting, lazy, and lacking in willpower. To help individuals lose weight, the diet industry proffers an array of products and services that are widely available on a growing international weight loss and diet management market that is predicted to worth about $586 billion by 2014. These include various weight-loss drugs, diet programs, and related

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products. Estimates indicate that Americans spend over $50 billion a year on dieting. In recent years, there has even been an explosion of dieting submarkets targeting specific niche populations. For example, a growing Christian diet industry provides followers with programs fittingly referred to as Bod4God, the Maker’s Diet, and the Weigh Down Diet. In general, the industry has been subject to criticism about the safety and efficacy of its products and services, and these critiques have given birth to an antidieting ethos stressing physiological and psychological health for individuals of all sizes. Weight-Loss Drugs, Programs, and Other Products Weight-loss drugs have been available to consumers since the 1960s, but have only recently been embraced by the medical community. The U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates only some of these drugs. FDA-regulated prescription weight-loss drugs can be prescribed by a doctor for individuals with a body mass index (BMI) above 30 (what the medical community deems “obese”) or a BMI above 27 (“overweight”) if an individual suffers from ailments such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or sleep apnea. The two most common prescription weight-loss drugs are Sibutramine (Meridia) and Orlistat (Xenical). Sibutramine presumably works by increasing norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine activity in the brain thus enhancing satiety. Orlistat presumably works by preventing the body from absorbing fats. Physicians can also prescribe drugs for short-term use such as phentermine (Adipex-P) that purportedly produces weight loss through appetite suppression. Also available to consumers, both legally and illegally, are numerous nonprescription herbal or dietary supplements. These include ephedra (an appetite suppressant), bitter orange (considered an ephedra substitute that increases the number of calories burned), and chitosan (an off-the-counter drug that blocks the absorption of dietary fat). The FDA-approved Alli, a nonprescription and reduced-strength version of Orlistat. The European Medicines Agency, similar in function to the FDA, has also approved Orlistat without a prescription, providing access to this drug in member countries. While there are many different diet plans consumers can turn to in their quest to shed pounds, the

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Mayo Clinic—an internationally acclaimed not-forprofit medical organization—identifies six common diet plans used by consumers. Low-fat diets come in many forms and involve reducing the consumption of fatty foods that are thought to increase blood cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease. Low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins diet presumably cause weight loss by lowering blood sugar and insulin levels thereby causing the body to burn stored fat. The South Beach diet is an example of a low glycemic-index diet. Some low glycemic-index foods are purportedly more nutrient-rich, less refined, and richer in fiber. The body absorbs these foods more slowly, thus enhancing satiation and preventing overeating. Popular meal-replacement diets such as Slim-Fast provide consumers with meals that are nutritionally complete but contain fewer calories in comparison to regular meals. Meal-provider diets such as NutriSystem vary in weight-loss philosophies and approaches. However, they all offer consumers prepared meals that they then eat on a regular, long-term basis. Last, group approaches such as Weight Watchers or Overeaters Anonymous provide support groups to clients, along with other related diet products (e.g., meal plans, worksheets, or books) that help clients make lifestyles changes. Many of these approaches have an international dimension. For example, Weight Watchers has a presence in over 25 countries. Finally, a large and diverse array of diet food products and books exist on this multibillion-dollar-a-year global market. While some diet plans offer their own foods, many manufacturers provide consumers with diet versions of regular products. From sugar-free cookies to low-fat cheeses to zero-calorie sodas, these products all profess to help consumers lose weight and pursue a healthy lifestyle. Diet books make up a large portion of the trade book market, with such books as the South-Beach Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, and the Abs Diet topping best-seller lists. There are also myriad weight-loss gadgets and devices, ranging from juicing machines to cooking devices, marketed to consumers as tools to help reduce fat intake. Critiques: Health Risks and Ineffectiveness Despite widespread use of these products and services, consumer advocates have questioned both their effectiveness and safety. In 1997, industry leaders came together at a conference sponsored by the

Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission and other branches of the federal government. The conference, titled “Commercial Weight Loss Products and Programs: What Consumers Stand to Gain and Lose, A Public Conference on the Information Consumers Need to Evaluate Weight Loss Products and Programs,” explored perspectives of consumers, providers, scientists, and the government. A major concern expressed at this conference was that many commercial weight-loss programs often withhold information, fail to collect data, or make only partial disclosures about their products. Without this information, consumers are unable to make sound decisions about the long-term and short-term safety and efficacy of these products. For example, in the 1990s, the FDA approved appetite suppressants such as fenfluramine and phentermine. An estimated 10 million Americans used “fen/phen” (the two drugs in combination) to treat overweight or obesity. However, fenfluramine was eventually linked to a serious cardiac-valvular disease. In 1997, the FDA asked manufacturers to withdraw voluntarily both fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine from the market. They complied but not after fen/phen sufferers filed a tort claim against key manufacturer Wyeth. Meridia and Xenical, the two common longterm prescription weight-loss drugs, have many side effects ranging from increased blood pressure, constipation, insomnia, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. Recent reports indicate that Xenical may also cause serious liver injury including liver failure. Short-term prescription drugs like Phentermine also have side effects including nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. Now banned by the FDA, off-the-counter weight-loss drug ephedra was tied to increased blood pressure, heart rate irregularities, seizures, strokes, and even death. In general, the long-term effects of many prescription and nonprescription weight-loss drugs are unknown. Because they are not subject to the same rigorous standards as prescription medications, advocacy groups warn consumers to be especially cautious when taking off-the-counter weight-loss aids. In fact, the law on dietary supplements gives the FDA jurisdiction to spot-check products only after they are on the market and put on store shelves. In sum, critics have accused the diet industry of deceiving consumers by exaggerating the efficacy and healthfulness of products. Even diet or light foods that



are marketed as healthier alternatives are chemically laden and provide minimal health benefits over standard counterparts. Also, critics note that despite the myriad offerings of the diet industry, dieting simply does not work. For example, Meridia and Xenical have been shown to have only modest weight-loss effects. Research studies repeatedly show that the majority of dieters, even after losing weight will regain it, plus some. Specifically, researchers find that in the first six months of a diet, dieters will lose about 5 to 10 percent of their starting weight. However, within four or five years, one-third to two-thirds of theses dieters will regain more weight than they actually lost. Some argue that this may be due in part to the body’s natural gravitation toward a set weight range. Dieting to lose weight is thus often futile and can be especially dangerous because of weight and blood pressure fluctuations. New Paradigm Given the gendered impact of cultural ideals of thinness, feminist scholars and activists have voiced concern about the dieting industry and particularly women’s and girls’ preoccupation with weight loss. They argue that the dieting industry has waged a war against fat, using fear and fat phobia in such a way as to promote the discrimination, bias, and negative treatment of fat individuals. Critics hope for a new culture of body diversity where individuals are free from dieting oppression. For example, the National Organization for Women (NOW) organizes a Love Your Body Campaign that encourages body acceptance. An annual Love Your Body Day critiques the “fake images” of the fashion, beauty, and diet industries; demands images of real, diverse, and strong women; and encourages women and girls to embrace their own definitions of beauty. Internationally, May 6 is No Diet Day, organized to encourage body acceptance and body diversity. A fat acceptance movement that emerged in the 1970s also encourages both women and men to live healthy and active lives regardless of size. For example, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) discourages weight-loss practices and debunks myths about fat individuals, including the myths that an individual cannot be fat and healthy and that weight loss is always possible. Promoting metabolic fitness, NAAFA encourages individuals to focus not on weight and dieting, but instead on main-

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taining a healthy lifestyle by participating in physical activity and consuming healthy foods. On a global level, the International Size Acceptance Association’s mission is to promote size acceptance and fight size discrimination throughout the world by means of advocacy and visible, lawful actions. See Also: Advertising Aimed at Women; Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Bariatric Surgery; Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Body Image; Celebrity Women; Diet and Weight Control; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Fitness; Health, Mental and Physical; Nutrition; Our Bodies, Ourselves; Supermodels. Further Readings Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission. “Commercial Weight Loss Products and Programs: What Consumers Stand to Gain and Lose, A Public Conference on the Information Consumers Need to Evaluate Weight Loss Products and Programs, Report of the Presiding Panel.” http://www.ftc.gov/os/1998/03 /weightlo.rpt.htm#Executive%20Summary (accessed June 2010). Campos, Paul. The Obesity Myth. New York: Gotham Books, 2004. Fraser, L. Losing It: America’s Obsession With Weight and the Industry That Feeds on It. New York: Dutton, 1994. Gaesser, G. A. Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health. Carlsbad, CA: Gürze Books, 2002. Kratina, Karin, Nancy King, and Dayle Hayes. Moving Away From Diets: Healing Eating Problems and Exercise Resistance. Lake Dallas, TX: Helm Publishing, 1996. Mann, Traci A., et al. “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer.” American Psychologist, v.62/3 (2007). Ogden, Jane. Fat Chance! The Myth of Dieting Explained. New York: Routledge, 1992. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity.” Rockville, MD: Office of the Surgeon General, 2001. Samantha Kwan University of Houston

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Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago)

Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago) The Dinner Party (DP), created between 1974 and 1979 by American artist Judy Chicago, is one of the most popular and controversial feminist artworks ever to be exhibited. It gave feminist art an unparalleled visibility, but its critical assessment has changed over the years. Chicago’s project is the result of the increasing interest felt during the 1970s in the oppression and discrimination experienced by women under a patriarchal society and, more specifically, in the problems faced by the woman artist in a sexist art system. Before creating DP, Chicago had been involved in the creation of the first Feminist Art Program, in Fresno, California, in 1970. Together with Miriam Schapiro, Faith Wilding, and students from the Feminist Art Program,

Chicago organized Womanhouse (1972)—one of the first feminist art exhibitions in the country. DP consisted of 39 plates representing the same number of women from history and legend. The plates were then set in an equilateral-triangular table, where for each plate an embroidered runner and a chalice were also displayed. In addition, the names of another 999 women were inscribed in the marble floor. The most controversial part of the work concerned the central raised motives in the plates, which were designed to celebrate the honored women and resembled female genitalia. Through DP, Chicago tried to save women and their work from oblivion, reviving a female history that has run parallel to the masculine and dominant one, and to acknowledge women’s social and cultural contribution. With DP, Chicago also sought to draw attention to art forms traditionally linked to a private, domestic, and feminine sphere, such as ceramics and

Judy Chicago pictured with her work, The Dinner Party. The piece consisted of 39 plates, runners, and chalices representing 39 women from history and legend, set at a triangular table. The names of 999 more women were inscribed in the marble floor.

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needlework, giving them the institutional attention that other media, such as painting and sculpture, had hitherto been given. DP thus aimed to inscribe art traditionally made by women in the public domain of high art, and even in the sacred, as Chicago’s installation also evokes Christ’s last supper. All the previously mentioned aspects justify the effect DP had in the 1970s, both in the art context and in social and political terms, having contributed decisively to the development of the feminist movement in the United States. In Europe, where it arrived in 1984, Chicago’s work enjoyed huge popularity, but it was also heavily criticized, particularly by British feminists. In fact, in the 1970s there was already some ambivalence among feminist critics regarding the nature and gender implications of Chicago’s work. If some hailed DP for promoting an antipatriarchal, alternative culture and celebrating female body and experience, others criticized Chicago for reinforcing a heterosexist and racist view of history (of the 39 women depicted in DP, all but one were white). They also accused the artist of subscribing to the modernist model of art creation, as although the making of DP depended on the participation of over a hundred women, Chicago ran the project in ways that reproduced the ideology of the great master in his studio, and the collaborative dimension of the work was ultimately shadowed by Chicago’s persona. Even more important for its detractors, DP, and more specifically the central core, vaginal imagery employed by Chicago in the plates, suggested a biological and deterministic reading of a woman’s body and a universal female identity. In the 1980s, as a result of a poststructuralist, Marxist and psychoanalytical turn in theory, feminist criticism emphasized the impossibility of a universal feminine experience and stressed the notion of feminine identity as a social construction. Moreover, art critics and historians insisted on discussing the logic of representation that framed the female body. Because of this theoretical background, Chicago’s DP was further accused of essentializing the female body and being a restrictive attempt to redefine femaleness, as well as of not taking into consideration the dynamics of visual representation. At this point, Chicago and her work came to represent the naïveté of 1970s feminism, and ultimately the failure of this feminism to radically change the art establishment.

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In the 1990s, a second wave of feminist art practice refocused attention on the body. That brought a reappraisal of the strategies employed by feminist activists and artists in the 1970s and a rejuvenated interest in Judy Chicago’s work and DP. Such interest emphasized the obstacles women artists had to face and the aggressive audacity of much of the feminist-oriented work of the period. It also linked the political activism of those women, the focus on shared experiences, and the suggestion of universal female characteristics with their need to find and positively affirm a female identity. Finally, it recognized the importance of artists such as Chicago in establishing a relationship between the visual image and female embodiment, a body politic now perceived not so much essentialist as strategic. Eventually, DP was seen as a fundamental part of feminist history. First exhibited in 1979 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the installation spent most of the next 28 years warehoused until 2007, when it opened as a permanent exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. See Also: Art Criticism: Gender Issues; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Chicago, Judy; Feminism, American; Studio Arts, Women in. Further Readings Chicago, Judy. The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation. London: Merrell, 2007. Chicago, Judy. Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist. New York: Doubleday, 1975. Jones, Amelia, ed. Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party in Feminist Art History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Reckitt, Helena and Peggy Phelan, eds. Art and Feminism. London: Phaidon, 2003. Maria Luisa Coelho University of Minho

Direct Sales Direct sales is a U.S. method of selling consumer products person-to-person. It differs from retail sales in that direct selling occurs away from a retail space. This type of marketing allows sales to be completed

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in numerous ways; for example, selling products door to door. In the United States, the most popular method of direct selling is through the home product demonstration party. The “party plan,” as it is called, is completed by a sales consultant or an independent distributor for the parent company. In this way, direct sales relies on those with entrepreneurial thinking to thrive. In the late 19th century, the New Thought Movement sparked positive thinking through writings about the power of thoughts on the human condition. This movement coincided with the rise of consumer culture created through the industrial revolution. Some families and women, for the first time, had access to surplus money. Women used some of these surplus funds for the purpose of “making up,” using cosmetics. This gender-specific compulsion eventually became a standard beauty practice for women. In fact, several compulsory behaviors specific to the feminine gender support a number of the very industries that have done so well through a direct selling marketing plan, such as Tupperware and Mary Kay cosmetics. Female Authority and Woman-to-Woman One of the first direct sales companies created was the California Perfume Company, today known as Avon. David Hall McConnell started the California Perfume Company in 1886, when he discovered women were buying books from him to get free perfume samples. Once women began to ask about these perfume samples, McConnell realized that he held something powerful. Mrs. P. F. Albee became McConnell’s first seller/agent when McConnell hired her with the assumption that women would be more likely to buy from a woman they knew and trusted. It was 1928 before the company would begin selling products under the Avon name; the company name officially changed in 1939. The company became known as “The Company for Women,” and by 1954 more than two-thirds of Avon’s employees were indeed women. Today, Avon Products, Inc., is an international, multi­ billion-dollar company. The door-to-door demonstration model, turned party plan, was a modern-day replica of the sewing circle and the quilting bee, used by women in earlier days to create a product and to maintain social relationships. The party plan also used the method

of information sharing so popular among women in the advertising industry. In this way, the party plan turned what was commonly viewed as gossip into a lucrative form of commerce. It was not until 1902, when Annie Turnbo Malone used the demonstration style of door-to-door sales to sell haircare products, that women not only sold the products but also fashioned the product for sale. Malone trademarked her haircare products for African American women as Poro, which is a West African word indicating spiritual and physical growth. Later, Madam C. J. Walker, a student of Malone, also began a haircare product company for African American women and sold her products in a similar fashion. Tupperware, Mary Kay, and Passion Parties The party plan demonstration form of direct sales boomed in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Women had been in the workplace in large numbers during World War II but were pushed out once men came home from the war. Earl Tupper’s conception was one of the first in which large numbers of women would be able to work for themselves without the hassle of creating their own business identity. Tupper crafted the “wonderbowl” when DuPont gave polyethylene to its employees in a search for product ideas that would successfully sell during peaceful times. Tupper patented his bowl and began to sell it in retail locations. The bowls, however, did not sell as well as he had hoped. A woman from Florida named Brownie Wise began selling the bowls through home demonstrations and won the notice of Tupper when he realized she was selling far more of his product than any other retailer. The patented bowl needed demonstration, as Wise explained, because to work properly, it had to be “burped.” Tupper teamed with Wise, and the two decided to market the product only through home party demonstrations. Wise, a single mother, knew how to motivate the women she recruited. Women came to work for the company part time, and Wise offered praise for their work as no one else had. Wise would eventually lose her position as vice president with the company when Tupper grew jealous of the media attention and credit given to her for the success of the company. In 1963, Mary Kay Ash began the multibillion-dollar international company bearing her name. Mary Kay cosmetics claims to enrich women’s lives while

Dirie, Waris



simultaneously opening the doors of opportunity for them. Ash began the company with the help of her son after she watched the men she trained get promotions she deserved. Ash was named the greatest female entrepreneur in 2003—ahead of Oprah Winfrey. The company’s foundation is built on the premise of the golden rule and making a positive difference in people’s lives. Fortune magazine named Mary Kay one of the 100 best companies to work for and one of the 10 best companies for women. Passion Parties is one of the most popular direct sales party plan companies today. Sex toys distributed by a company whose tag line reads “The Ultimate Girls Night In,” are sold in the comfort of women’s homes. Consultants peddle adult toys for the company, which has won the endorsement of media personalities such as Denise Richards and talk shows like The Doctors. Pat Davis, president and chief executive officer, is commonly known as a “relationship expert” and has garnered a vast number of celebrity endorsements of Passion Party products. Empowering and Committed to Social Responsibility Many of these companies, supported by women’s consumer habits and women’s entrepreneurship, are committed to social responsibility, research for and about women’s health, and empowering women economically, socially, and spiritually. Through Annie Malone and Madam Walker, financial empowerment became connected to social responsibility. Malone began Poro College to serve as a cosmetology training college and social space for African Americans in St. Louis. Malone’s philanthropic work included donating money to such organizations as the Tuskegee Institute, Howard University, and the YWCA, among others. Walker also contributed to the YWCA and the antilynching work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Today, almost every successful direct sales party plan company has a foundation account attached to it, including Avon and Mary Kay. Millions of dollars are contributed every year to everything from breast cancer research and domestic violence to healthy global environments. Because women made up over 86 percent of direct sellers in the United States in 2008, the related philanthropic work is focused on issues women face daily. Women come to these com-

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panies with limited capital, poor access to credit, and a lack of professional training and credentials, and yet they thrive through direct sales—and because of the women, the companies thrive as well. See Also: Business, Women in; Cosmetics Industry; Financial Independence of Women. Further Readings Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center. “About Annie Malone.” http://www.anniemalone.com /about-annie-malone.html (accessed June 2010). Ash, Mary Kay. Miracles Happen: The Life and Timeless Principles of the Founder of Mary Kay, 3rd ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Avon Company. “Avon at a Glance: The Avon Story Unfolds.” http://www.avoncompany.com/about/history .html (accessed June 2010). Clarke, Allison J. Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999. Davis, Pat. The Passion Parties Guide to Great Sex: Secrets and Techniques to Keep Your Relationship Red Hot. New York: Broadway, 2007. Direct Selling Association. http://www.dsa.org (accessed June 2010). Direct Selling Women’s Alliance. http://www.dswa.org (accessed June 2010). Peiss, Kathy. Hope In a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998. Public Broadcasting System. American Experience. “Tupperware!” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex /tupperware (accessed June 2010). K. C. Gott East Tennessee State University

Dirie, Waris Waris Dirie is a former supermodel, internationally known author, human rights activist, and actress. She works to raise awareness and eliminate the practice of female genital mutilation of young girls around the world. Her books have sold over 11 million copies worldwide. She has received critical acclaim for her film, Desert Flower; is the founder of several human

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rights organizations; and has received numerous appointments and awards. Born in a nomadic tribe in Gaalkacyo, Somalia, Dirie can only guess her age, as her clan in Somalia keeps track of seasons—not years. At a young age, Dirie was taken by her mother and sister to become a woman, which meant undergoing female genital mutilation. She was infibulated and later stitched together with thorns, recuperating for weeks alone in a hut, bound from her ankles to her hips. When she was a young adolescent, Dirie’s father arranged for her to marry a much older elderly man. She chose to escape and, during the night, began a painful nine-day journey that would take her from her home in Somalia to Mogadishu. She lived for a time with her older sister and her family, working as a bricklayer. She eventually left with her uncle and his family and moved to London, England, where she worked in her uncle’s home. After her family’s departure from London, Dirie remained and got a job at McDonald’s, attending classes in the evening to learn the English language. She was discovered by a photographer, which began her international modeling career. The first modeling job Dirie received was on the cover of the Pirelli calendar in 1987. That job catapulted her into fashion modeling. She became the face of Chanel, Levi’s, L’Oréal, and Revlon, and she has modeled for high-profile fashion magazines, including Elle, Glamour, Vogue, and Marie Claire. Her successes in those areas led to her walking the catwalks in the fashion industries of the world. She also appeared in The Living Daylights, a James Bond movie, in 1987. During the height of her popularity, Dirie spoke of her painful experience of undergoing female genital mutilation as a child. That interview led to her appointment as a United Nations ambassador to abolish female circumcision around the globe. Dirie wrote her first book, Desert Flower, in 1998. This was followed by Desert Dawn, Letter to My Mother, and Desert Children. Eventually, a movie based on her life experiences was produced in 2009. Being a humanitarian has garnered Dirie numerous awards, including being named Woman of the Year by Glamour and receiving the Women’s World Award from former president of Russia Mikhail Gorbachev, among others. She founded the Waris Dirie Foundation to raise worldwide awareness of female genital mutilation and the Desert Dawn Foundation

to raise money for health and education in Somalia. She also cofounded the Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights. See Also: Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of; Islam; Somalia; Supermodels. Further Readings Dirie, W. Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Korn, F. Born in the Big Rains: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2006. Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University

Disability Definitions Definitions of disability are mediated by individual and collective human perception and interpretation, and vary historically and culturally. Disability definitions, then, are socially constructed rather than inherent in nature. Definitions of disability are found widely in discourses including personal, sociopolitical, medical–therapeutic, legal, educational, and academic. Predominantly, disability has been defined in contrast to what is considered to be “normal,” “healthy,” and “fit.” Most commonly, disability is understood as deficiency, defect, deviance, or injury, and the person with the disability as lacking substantial ability for full participation in society. Typically, disability is seen as an individual’s problem requiring a solution and necessitating eradication, control, repair, or therapy. Because of variation in definition and identification, it is difficult to determine how many women, worldwide, are considered or consider themselves to be disabled. However, it is possible that the incidence of disability for women exceeds the incidence for men. Because gender is a social determinant of health, and because women are at a disadvantage in terms of access to recourses worldwide, women experience higher rates of illness and disease. Furthermore, globally, maternal conditions are leading causes of disability for women.



Despite progress made in the 20th century, disability was and is still defined in contrast to what is considered “normal.”

While categorized variously, disabilities can be understood as developmental, learning, physical, including motor, chronic illness and disease, sensory, psychiatric, and mental health. Disabilities are defined as visible or invisible, and short term or permanent. In most discourses, disability is distinguished from impairment, impairment being loss or abnormality in structure or function, and disability being the restriction or limitation to perform within what is considered a normal range. How disability is defined and by whom has significant personal, social, and political consequences for disabled persons. Dominant definitions of disability have served to exclude and “other” persons who are characterized as deviating from socially constructed norms. Although definitions of disability vary by time, place, and discourse, one might be required to, or choose to self identify as “disabled” so as to become eligible for various types of supports and equitable accommodations that are understood to “level the playing field” in social, political, legal, medical, and educational arenas. However, as Marcia Rioux has noted, for disabled persons, human rights are more

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likely to be treated as charitable privileges than legal entitlements. Unfortunately, regardless of what definition of disability one uses, human rights violations are daily occurrences for disabled persons. Prior to the Enlightenment and the rise of science, disability was viewed as mythical, as a message from an otherworldly reality. In ancient Greece, a visible disability was seen as a message from the gods, and infants born with visible disabilities were often returned to the gods, as offerings, by being left in the elements to die. Ancient Hebrews understood disability as a sign of imperfection that was not compatible with the sacred. Christianity has long been ambivalent about disabled persons, understanding disabled persons as being in need of charity and the disability as a punishment for sin. By the 1800s, in the developed world, people labeled as having intellectual deficiencies or social differences were considered “lunatics,” “idiots,” “morons,” and “imbeciles,” and were housed on poor farms and asylums with others considered to be social deviants requiring exclusion from “normal” society. It was not uncommon, for example, to institutionalize women labeled as “mad” because they did not follow expected social roles or their husband’s rules. By the early 20th century, the rise of science gave way to eugenic theory, which became justification for breeding for a “better,” more “fit” nation, and for sterilization of “defectives” without their consent, as it was feared that individuals understood as inferior would reproduce and become a liability to “normal” society. In the 1950s, medical-therapeutic discourse prevailed, and the field of rehabilitation opened up as it began to be recognized that disabled persons had potential that should be developed. In keeping with this discourse, specially trained teachers, teaching in segregated classes, developed new pedagogical methods for disabled students. Following this in the 1970s, large group homes and sheltered workshops became common, and with this a group of helping professions emerged, and disabled persons were beginning to be referred to as “clients” rather than as “patients.” However, despite reference to being a “client,” professionals maintained authority over disabled persons. Also in the 1970s and early 1980s, following other social movements, the disability rights movement gathered momentum. The United Nations declared 1981 to be the International Year of Disabled Persons, after which, in 1982, Canada’s Charter of Rights and

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Freedoms, for the first time in history, and becoming an international model, referred to disability rights as human rights. It was in the United Kingdom, in the 1990s, that academia took on the interdisciplinary study of disability. With the convergence of the disability rights movement and the academic study of disability came a redefinition of disability, at least in these two circles. Together, disability rights advocacy and academia have worked to shift definitions of disability away from individual medical, pathology, or deviance models wherein disability is seen as an unhealthy state and a personal tragedy and disabled persons as being in need of cure, control, pity, and charity. Also within that model, disabled persons are considered responsible for working toward coming as close as possible to a socially sanctioned state of normalcy. Disability rights advocacy and critical disability studies have redefined disability within a social–political model, through a critique of normalcy, and by shifting responsibility to collective efforts to remove disabling barriers. In this social–political model, it is understood that societies are organized in a hierarchical manner such that an unequal distribution of resources and uneven relations of power operate to oppress some groups, here disabled persons, and favor others, here nondisabled persons. Through this social justice lens, similar to antiracist and feminist social critiques, the concept of disablism is used to recognize a wide range of interpersonal, systemic and institutional, cultural and societal oppressive and exclusionary policies and practices. Thus, the focus within the social–political model is on the barriers in societies that serve to disable individuals and prevent their full social inclusion. These disabling barriers are found in physical and social environments. Definitions of disability understood within a social–political model have been criticized, however, for not sufficiently recognizing individually lived experiences of disability, including the intersection of disability with other forms of identity and oppression. Thus, another shift is occurring to accommodate even greater awareness of the experience of disability. And while some progress has been made in terms of understanding and defining disability, contention remains over the use of language. “Persons first” language, supported by many governments and organizations, promotes reference to a “person with a disability,” to

recognize the person before the disability. In contrast, some disability advocates and disability scholars prefer using “disabled person” to highlight that disability is something done to the person through disabling physical, social, and political barriers. Furthermore, the way individuals define disability and identify as disabled is fluid and subject to change across one’s life course. While the way disability is defined in discourse has shifted considerably in some circles since the latter half of the 20th century, despite some progress toward understanding disabled persons in terms of barriers rather than through individual pathology, disability was and is still defined predominantly in contrast to what is considered “normal,” and therefore is tainted in deviance. Within an individual or medical model, still most prevalent in understanding and defining disability in wider circles, disability remains pathologized and is believed to require individual adaptation and attempts by disabled persons to assimilate and become as “normal” as possible. The wider social and political implications of disability are still not adequately understood or addressed in most disability discourses. What disability advocates are working toward are definitions of disability grounded in autonomy and dignity, lived experience, social inclusion, equity and human rights; the maxim being, “Nothing about us without us.” See Also: Anxiety Disorders; Birth Defects; Health, Mental and Physical; Infanticide; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of; Social Justice Activism; Social Justice Theory; World Health Organization. Further Readings Davis, Lennard J., ed. The Disability Studies Reader, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. Gabel, Susan. “Depressed and Disabled: Some Discursive Problems With Mental Illness.” In Marian Corker and Sally French, eds., Disability Discourse. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1999. Kristiansen, Kristjana, et al. Arguing About Disability: Philosophical Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2009. Oliver, Michael. Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Rioux, Marcia. “Disability, Citizenship and Rights in a Changing World.” In Colin Barnes, Michael Oliver, and

Disc Jockeys

Len Barton, eds., Disability Studies Today. Queensland, Australia: Polity Press, 2002. Swain, John, Sally French, and Colin Cameron. “What’s in a Name?” In Controversial Issues in a Disabling Society. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2003. Titchkosky, Tanya and Rod Michalko, eds. Rethinking Normalcy: A Disability Studies Reader. Toronto: Scholars’ Press, 2009. Deborah Davidson Nancy La Monica York University

Disc Jockeys Becoming a shock jock was a natural progression for many women radio personalities, moving from morning sidekick in the 1990s to center stage in 2000. The shock format, to date, is no longer viewed as frontline defense for sagging ratings. Station owners and companies have grown weary of costly Federal Communication Commission fines and negative publicity that often accompany offensive speech. At the turn of the 21st century, shock radio strongly influenced a new generation of women disc jockeys that competed with male counterparts. Comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg, who was hired in 2006 as a morning radio personality for Clear Channel Communications, publically stated that she would refrain from shock radio gimmicks. The show was nationally syndicated from New York City, and cancelled in 2008 for unspecified reasons. Many women shock disc jockeys dominated the airwaves during the first decade of the new century. 21st-Century Shockettes Karin Begin (aka Darian O’Toole) set her sights on Howard Stern’s throne. She became known in the press as America’s First Shockette during the height of her U.S. radio career in the 1990s. She was born in 1967 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and worked on-air initially in Canada before establishing her persona as a female Stern. O’Toole became a trailblazer for the next generation of female radio broadcasters, but she was fired several times and eventually faded from the airwaves. She died at age 40 in 2008.

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Liz Wilde became the new WMMS-FM morning drive personality around the turn of the 21st century. The addition of Wilde to the Cleveland, Ohio, station was undertaken to help WMMS-FM reclaim its rock-n-roll heritage by revamping its image. With her afternoon show making its debut on more than 20 stations in the United States, she became spokeswoman for Generation X. Like Stern, she spent much of her airtime talking about sex and had been fired in the past for describing a lesbian sex act. New York City’s Leslie Gold, known as Radio Chick, became notorious for on-air controversial pranks and hot talk. Gold made the move to satellite radio, and in 2009, she launched her show as a series of podcasts, or “chickcasts,” as she referred to them. One of the powerhouse personalities in the New York City market is Wendy Williams, the first African American shockette. With lots of self-promotion, including a series of books and television appearances, she is becoming a national icon of shock radio, gossip talk and pop culture. She broadcasts afternoons on New York City’s legendary WBLS-FM in a show called The Wendy Williams Experience. Queer Radio At the start of the new millennium, mainstream radio led the cultural war of words across talk airwaves. Talk radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s antigay commentary caught the attention of press and activists, causing her television show to fall flat before it aired. During this time, lesbian radio deejays and talk hosts began reaching out online to queer audiences through commercial programming. Windy City Queer Cast, originally named Lesbigay Radio, has regularly aired online as part of the Windy City Media Group’s (WCMG) Internet radio offerings. Queer Cast is hosted by Amy Matheny, known as Chicago radio’s lesbian voice. Matheny has brought some major corporate sponsors to her program. In the 21st century, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) audience demanded relevant commercial programming targeted to its needs and interests, and the Internet has helped spur a variety of online and terrestrial radio opportunities. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC’s) radio special Out on Air provided an overview of LGBT influences and setbacks on mainstream airwaves, making evident women’s historical limited opportunities.

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Virtual Radio Station owner Marjorie Dibou’s sultry voice can be heard online introducing an assortment of neo-soul and rhythm & blues artists and her station boasts a weekday lineup of on-air personalities. The station sounds and looks professional, but the personalities are avatars. Dibou is an African American woman disc jockey represented as an avatar. Her outlet, Blacksoulrhythms.com, is a popular stream that broadcasts inside the virtual world of Second Life (SL). Female radio personalities Trinity Serpentine and Nala Galatea, as partners online and offline, became popular virtual disc jockeys on an SL show that ran for five years. Their show, called TriNala, ended in August 2009. Galatea and Serpentine have been compared, respectively, to Stern and his female African American sidekick, Robin Quivers. SL has tapped into a virtual audience that transitions in and out of the real world, and the future of radio is moving women online to unique creative communication forums. See Also: Representation of Women; Rock Music, Women in; Women’s Studies. Further Readings Associated Press. “‘Radiochick’ Gains Satellite Following: From Breasts to Right-to-Life Issues, No Topic Off Limits for Gold.” (July 20, 2005). http://www.msnbc .msn.com/id/8642310/ (accessed January 2010). Berton, J. “Darian O’Toole S.F. Disc Jockey Dies at 40.” SF Gate (April 5, 2008). http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-04 -05/bay-area/17144998_1_disc-jockey-simpson-trial -ms-o-toole (accessed January 2010). Gaywired.com. “BBC Program Explores the Rise and Fall of ‘Gay Radio.’” (February 10, 2007). http://www.conne xion.org/newsstory.cfm?id=8311&returnurl=news .cfm2007/01/22/daily7.html?jst=b_ln_hl (accessed January 2010). Halper, D. Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. Stern, Howard. Private Parts. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Williams, Wendy. Wendy’s Got the Heat. New York: Atria Books, 2003. Phylis Johnson Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Divorce Divorce, like all family topics, is fundamentally intertwined with gender. The causes and consequences of divorce are gendered in various ways because the family itself is historically a gendered institution. Divorce laws, especially in Western societies, have generally moved from laws based on an explicitly gendered marriage contract to more liberalized laws that are gender neutral. However, gender-neutral laws can still have gendered consequences; this is particularly noticeable in the economic consequences of divorce, with women more likely than men to suffer a decline in economic well-being. The causes of increased divorce rates are also gendered, with changes in the expectations of marriage playing a role along with changing employment opportunities for men and women. An individual’s reason for divorcing also varies by gender, with women more likely than men to cite problems with the relationship itself. The consequences of divorce for women vary. In the long term, most divorced women experience levels of well-being similar to that during their marriage. Some women, however, experience a significant decline in well-being while others experience enhanced well-being. Factors that influence the “quality” of the divorce include the quality of the marriage itself, the degree of social support available, the degree to which economic decline is experienced, and the degree to which the woman is able to adapt to her new situation. Finally, there is considerable variation in attitudes toward and laws about divorce both within and across countries. History The two broad types of divorce law are fault-based divorce and no-fault divorce. Although the specifics vary from country to country, the general trend in the 20th and into the 21st century has been the liberalization of divorce laws and increasing divorce rates. This trend is most visible in economically developed countries where Protestantism is the dominant religion and where women have a high level of economic independence. However, divorce rates have increased across the globe, in countries as diverse as Argentina, China, and South Korea. The United States has the highest divorce rates in the world, although the rates has been declining in recent decades.



In Western societies, divorce laws in the 18th and 19th centuries enforced a marriage contract between a man, a woman, and the state. This contract included expectations of monogamy, the husband’s financial support of his wife, and the wife’s domestic service to her husband. This contract was reflected in the faultbased approach; the breaking of the marriage contract was punishable by the state through divorce. During the late 19th and 20th centuries, the marriage contract and normative expectations of marriage shifted toward a model emphasizing romantic love, intimacy, and companionship. The grounds for divorce expanded in turn. As a part of the Women’s Movement, feminists called for increased access to divorce as a way for women to escape bad marriages. An anti-divorce movement also arose that linked divorce to social disorder. These basic debates continue today. By the late 20th century in Western societies, divorce laws increasingly included no-fault grounds, which allowed couples to divorce for reasons like incompatibility and irreconcilable differences. However, the link between divorce laws and divorce rates is tenuous. Cross-national studies have not found a direct relationship between no-fault divorce laws and rates of divorce. In the United States, the increase in divorce rates began prior to the liberalization of divorce laws, also indicating a more complex causal explanation. Causes of Divorce At the societal level, there are several causes of rising (or high) divorce rates. Since the Enlightenment era, marriage in Western societies has increasingly emphasized romantic love and self-fulfillment, in line with a broader trend toward individualism. In contrast to a marriage model that stresses duty and commitment, this individualistic marriage model is more fragile and subject to dissolution. These types of changes have begun to occur in countries with traditionally low rates of divorce—such as Japan, Indian, and Korea—as well. Some commentators emphasize the personal liberation aspect of a “divorce culture,” while others decry the same as reflecting a lack of commitment to marriage. Employment trends also play a role in divorce rates. Theoretically, women’s employment could increase the likelihood of divorce by increasing women’s alter-

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natives for economic support outside of marriage, but alternatively, women’s employment could reduce the likelihood of divorce by raising the standard of living and reducing marital stress. When the cultural norm is a specialized model in which men are workers and women are housewives, the first explanation is supported. This helps to explain rising divorce rates during periods of increasing gender equality. Where there is a gender-specialized model of marriage, women’s employment can be experienced as a destabilizing force in marriage, at the same time contributing to marital conflict and providing an alternative to marriage for women. However, when dual-earner households are the norm, the latter explanation is supported. This may help to explain the stabilization of divorce rates in the United States since the 1980s. Where there is a more gender-egalitarian marriage model, women’s employment can be a stabilizing force for marriage because of the provision of a higher standard of living. At the individual level in the United States, women’s employment has been found to increase the risk of divorce in unhappy marriages but does not appear to destabilize happy marriages. While expectations of women in families have expanded to include breadwinning, expectations of men’s breadwinning have remained constant. Thus, declines in men’s employment opportunities are linked in increasing divorce rates because men’s unemployment or underemployment tends to be a destabilizing force in marriage. While divorce at the individual level reflects such societal trends, the experience and reasons for divorce are expressed differently. Women are more likely than men to cite relationship problems as the reason for divorce—including lack of communication, lack of shared interests, and an unfair division of household labor. Women often cite financial reasons for divorce as well; in marriages with a specialized gender division of labor, this can be a particularly destabilizing force if wives begin to provide a substantial share of the household income. Physical violence is also cited by women as a reason for divorce. Consequences of Divorce for Women The primary consequences of divorce for women can be divided into emotional, financial, and parental impacts. While there is a tendency to talk about

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average responses to divorce, the story of divorce consequences is one of variation. The majority of people—men, women, and children—adjust to divorce reasonably well in the long run, but there is a significant subset experiencing a long-term decline in wellbeing and another experiencing enhanced well-being. Cross-national research indicates that, on average, divorced people have lower levels of psychological well-being than married people. Research is inconclusive as to whether the psychological consequences of divorce differ by gender. The first year after divorce tends to be the most difficult and emotionally unstable. A crisis period is common as household routines are disrupted and the demands, especially for single parents (who are likely to be women), increase. Because women often have more social support than men, the emotional difficulties in the first year may be buffered by social relationships. The ensuing years after divorce tend to be calmer emotionally as people adjust to their new situations and develop new routines. Factors that increase the likelihood of more serious and/or long-term problems include having either sole parenting responsibility or loss of custody of children, losing supporting social networks, continuing conflict with and/or attachment to the ex-spouse, and suffering an economic decline. Factors that tend to moderate the psychological consequences of divorce include an internal locus of control, a higher level of social maturity, higher education, employment, religiosity, social support networks, and the development of a new intimate relationship. On average, a woman’s standard of living tends to drop after a divorce. In the United States, for instance, laws about spousal support, child support, and property distribution have become more gender neutral. However, gender-neutral laws can have unequal impacts when there is broader gender inequality. For instance, spousal support laws often assume that both men and women will be able to support themselves in the labor market following a divorce. However, women experiencing divorce are more likely than their ex-husbands to have forgone work experience for family responsibilities, and are therefore likely to command lower wages in the labor market. Additional factors contributing to women’s lower standard of living after a divorce include gender discrimination in the labor market and custody decisions that favor the mother, especially where the children are

very young. Child support can theoretically make up the financial gender divide after a divorce but child support awards are often unpaid or underpaid. The likelihood of full payment increases with the age and educational attainment of the father. Prior to the 19th century, men typically received custody of children after a divorce; English common law, for instance, assumed that men were the natural guardians of children. Over the course of the 19th century, custody decisions began to be based on the best interests of the children and women began to receive custody more often. By the beginning of the 20th century, women were increasingly understood as the natural caretakers of children and custody decisions typically favored the mother. There are three general types of custodial arrangements—maternal, paternal, and joint—including different combinations of physical and legal custody. In the United States, maternal custody remains the most common although there have been increases in joint legal and physical custody. In general, the trend in custody and visitation has been to encourage children to spend time with both parents; in the United States, the proportion of fathers completely disengaged from their children’s lives has declined significantly. Where women have sole physical custody of children after a divorce, the crisis period in the year following the divorce tends to intensify, especially in situations of economic hardship. Household routines become more chaotic and unpredictable. Mothers, more than fathers in the same situation, tend to feel a sense of guilt over these parental difficulties, which can compound any psychological difficulties in adjustment to the divorce. However, for most families, routines tend to be reestablished by the second or third year after divorce. Consequences of Divorce for Children Because many women experiencing divorce are mothers, it is important to discuss how children respond to divorce. As is the case for adults, children tend to go through a crisis period in the first year after a divorce but tend to stabilize during the ensuing years. On average, children of divorce have lower well-being— including academic success, psychological adjustment, and long-term health—than children of intact families, although the differences tend to be small and are often partially explained by pre-divorce factors.

Djibouti



Again, the story here is one of variation. Most children of divorce develop within the normal range, but a significant minority of children experience more serious and longer-term problems. For example, children of divorce are more likely to drop out of high school and/or experience a teenage birth compared with children from intact families. Negative consequences of divorce for children tend to be more serious where there are one or more of the following factors: decline in parental support and control, disengagement with one parent, continuing conflict between the parents, and significant economic decline. See Also: Domestic Violence; Fatherlessness; Marriage; Poverty; Single Mothers. Further Readings Amato, Paul R. “The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, v.62/4 (2000). Coltrane, Scott and Michele Adams. Gender and Families, 2nd ed. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Greenstein, Theodore N. and Shannon N. Davis. “CrossNational Variation in Divorce: Effects of Women’s Power, Prestige, and Dependence.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies, v.37/2 (2006). Hetherington, Mavis E. and John Kelly. For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Schoen, Robert, Nan Marie Astone, Kendra Rothert, Nicola J. Standish, and Young J. Kim. “Women’s Employment, Marital Happiness, and Divorce.” Social Forces, v.81/2 (2002). Brenda Wilhelm Mesa State College

Djibouti The country that began its history as the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas became Djibouti in 1977. Following two decades of authoritarian rule, civil war broke out but was ended by a peace accord in 2001. Although France maintains a military presence in this eastern African nation, which borders the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, Djibouti also has strong ties

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to the United States and is home to the only American military base in sub-Saharan Africa. Djibouti is considered a strategic point in the battle against global terrorism. Some 87 percent of the population is now urbanized, and two-thirds of the population live in the capital city. Many rural Djiboutians still follow a nomadic lifestyle. With a per capita income of $2,800 and an unemployment rate of almost 60 percent in urban areas and 83 percent in rural areas, 42 percent of the population lives in poverty. Djibouti is heavily dependent on foreign assistance. With a population made up of Somalis (60 percent) and Afars (35 percent), Djibouti is ethnically homogeneous. Ninety-four percent of the population is Muslim, but Djiboutians have adopted Islamic rules to their own customs. Although women hold legal rights to equality, in practice they are held back by religious and cultural practices derived from Shari`a law. Inheritance laws favor males by giving them a larger share than females. Women are also limited in their ability to divorce and travel. After the 2008 elections, the number of women in the Djibouti Parliament rose to nine of 65 seats. Two women sat in the cabinet, and a woman was the president of the Supreme Court. Major problems in Djibouti include the devaluation of women, violence against women, and female gender mutilation. Djibouti has the 41st highest infant mortality in the world (58.33 deaths per 1,000 live births). Female infants (50.01) have a higher survival rate than males (66.41), and the advantage continues into adulthood, resulting in a life expectancy of 62.79 years for women and 57.93 for men. At 17.8 years for women and 18.5 years for men, median ages are extremely low. Women give birth to an average of 2.92 children each. Statistically, there is one physician for every 5,000 persons in Djibouti, and health issues are of major concern. Djibouti has an human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevalence rate of 3.1 percent. The people of Djibouti also have a high risk of contracting bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, typhoid fever, and malaria. Although avian flu has been identified, it is not considered a major issue. Both male (78 percent) and female (58.4 percent) literacy is low. Widespread illiteracy is related to abysmally low educational levels for both men (5 years) and women (4 years).

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Historically, women have not been valued in Djiboutian society, and girls between the ages of 7 and 10 years, particularly those who live in rural areas, undergo female genital mutilation. According to a report issued early in the 21st century, by the age of 7 years, 98 percent of girls have been subjected to female genital mutilation. A campaign to end this practice, which was launched by the Union of Djiboutian Women in 1988, has had only limited success. A 1995 law banning the practice is not enforced. Violence against women does occur, but few women report it. Because of societal pressures, most cases are dealt with by families or clans. The Union of Djiboutian Women worked with the First Lady to create a counseling center for victims of domestic violence. Overall, the government is more concerned with rape, which carries a prison term of up to 20 years since revisions to the penal code in 1995. However, there are no laws specifically dealing with spousal rape. Prostitution flourishes, and there have been numerous reports of police officers battering and raping prostitutes. There are no laws against sexual harassment. See Also: Domestic Violence; Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Islam; Rape, Incidence of; Rape in Conflict Zones. Further Readings Afrol News. “Djibouti.” http://www.afrol.com/Categories /Women/profiles/djibouti_women.htm (accessed February 2010). Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Djibouti.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/dj.html (accessed July 2010). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tripp, Alili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1998; Djibouti.” WIN News, v.25/2 (1999). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Indepedent Scholar

Domestic Violence Domestic violence (DV) occurs in nearly all countries, ethnocultural and socioeconomic groups, and across all ages. Female victims are more likely than men to die at the hands of loved ones. Gender-based violence serves as a reminder that the fight against DV continues, but more women and children are being assisted. There are more services available to assist victims than when the plight of abused women was identified and taken up as a rights issue during the women’s movement of the 1960s. In addition, studies continue to look at how masculine and feminine roles contribute to DV. Statistics gathering continues on an international level but there is a lack of surveillance systems in place to provide accurate estimates of the incidence and prevalence of abuse in more underdeveloped nations. Reliance on studies using shelter populations provides only a partial understanding of the nature and scope of DV. The shame associated with being a victim hinders self-reporting, which is still significant for research. Reported rates of DV vary among countries and within nations, with certain subpopulations, notably aboriginal women reporting disproportionately more DV. There are serious health consequences of DV for women and their children who witness the violence. Services are much more widespread in developed nations and include refined protocols in many sectors. The health sector however, has not advanced much with respect to prevention, however. Terminology DV is widely understood to refer to violence committed against an intimate partner. Numerous other terms are used including wife abuse, woman abuse, spouse abuse, interpersonal violence (IPV), and more recently, interpersonal violence and control (IPVC). DV is widely understood to include more than acts of physical aggression such as pushing, shoving, punching, and hitting; it may be psychological aggression like name calling and demeaning talk. It also may include sexual aggression such as rape, forced pornographic reenactments; economic aggression (e.g., withholding money for essentials); spiritual aggression (e.g., forbidding spiritual practices); or social aggression (e.g., breaking friendships and social ties). It still remains important to be critical of the termi-



nology chosen for any given study or program, or at least to give the definition of one’s term, as domestic violence also can be seen to include any violence that occurs between people who share the domestic or private setting. Partners, parents, children, the elderly, siblings, and others, are named as target groups of the violence. Each of these has generated a different base of academic literature, research traditions, underlying theories and frameworks, and recommendations for treatment or prevention. There are disciplinary differences in how the topics are approached and recommendations for action on policies presented. Thus, one cannot assume that expertise in the area of elder abuse will overlap with expertise in domestic violence against an intimate partner or spouse. From this point on, DV is meant to refer to violence between partners who live together in an intimate relationship. Gender-Based Violence DV is understood by many to be gender based. Sex is a socially constructed binary category of female and male, based on biological characteristics, and is usually assigned at birth. Gender is understood to include the social constructions that shape behaviors, norms and social practices that are believed to distinguish males and females. Gender also may be thought of as a social institution that interacts with other social institutions, such as culture, religion or family. One issue around gender is whether the focus of DV research and activism should be on female victims. One reason for this emphasis is the history of DV. Today’s social movement against DV began with the women’s movement in the 1960s. Although other activists in history had explored the violence that women experienced at the hands of their husbands, before the women’s movement, there was a much greater emphasis on the “appropriate” victim. A sober woman who fulfilled the duties of wife and mother was not appropriate; any other wife may have been seen as at least partially deserving of violence administered by her husband. Feminists understood that debates about appropriate victims were highly gendered; thus, gender was seen as a major explanatory variable in feminist DV theories. The women’s movement linked the violence that females experienced as children, in war, in the workplace, and on the streets to what they experienced in the home. As women’s centers developed—usu-

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ally started by local volunteers to change the status of women in society—calls from desperate women increased and mechanisms were put in place to help victims escape from violent marriages. Although shelters vary in number of beds, length of stay, staffing, and other policies, they generally offer safety and some form of care to women and their children. As the centers proliferated, they became instruments for recording the horrific stories of abuse and for documenting what DV looked like in each community. By the end of the 1990s, a movement began that included many service providers and people not associated with the women’s movement or with feminism. By 2000, networks of shelters and other services existed in most developed countries, but this was not the case in many developing nations. Another area of gender-based controversy is rooted in the underlying theories of violence and whether abuse against women is gender based and linked to patriarchal power at the institutional level. There are many feminist theories regarding DV, but there is generally agreement that DV against women is so extensive and harmful that it is linked to systemic discrimination and the control of females, even if the control is reduced to the individual relationship. Theories from psychology and psychiatry contend that DV is a psychological problem originating in poor impulse control, anger management challenges, or other psychological deficits, including the victim‘s own shortcomings. Others contend that the problem is one of sociobiology and the genetic predispositions of males and females. Still others contend that DV is at least as prevalent in cases where males are the victim and females the perpetrators. Some even contend that a feminist plot exists to hide this fact. As of 2009, the roles of masculine and feminine in generating DV are not well understood and deserve more research. The role of gender in DV is much clearer in some countries where laws do not yet protect women from spousal assault. International Statistics Few countries have surveillance systems that routinely track incidence and prevalence of DV and its consequences. The needed statistics are collected by shelters, including the number of women turned away because beds were unavailable. Other estimates are collected from police and court records. All of these

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provide partial accounts, as many DV women do not use the services available that would fully track victims and incorporate them into the statistics. DV occurs in all socioeconomic groups. There is evidence that women in lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to use shelters and the police, and it is surmised that women in higher socioeconomic groups choose other alternatives to shelters, such as hotels, and use private divorce lawyers without disclosing abuse. Service providers and researchers still report that women feel a sense of shame and embarrassment about their experience. Further hindering accurate estimates is the necessary reliance on self-reporting. These reports are necessary because there are no gold standard assessment tools that determine whether a woman has experienced DV today or in the last year. There also are no

Domestic violence occurs in nearly all countries, and females are more likely than men to die at the hands of loved ones.

set time frames for the abuse that may be relevant in a particular study, without her answering some direct questions. Self-report is impacted both by the shame and reluctance to self-identify. Also, women who have been physically beaten may not attribute the term abuse or violence to that experience. DV rates vary within and between countries, states, provinces, and territories. What is clear, however, is that large numbers of women in every country experience DV. In developed countries, estimates are one in 10 women experience DV in their adult life. In less developed nations, the incidence of DV increases to one in three. Research has found that Aboriginal, First Nations, and American Indian women report much higher rates of DV than other women. This is linked to the experiences of colonialism and disruption of traditional norms and values. Some research indicates that women who immigrate to another country may experience higher rates than nonimmigrants, but this is still inconclusive due to methodological issues. DV is more prevalent in women’s lives than breast cancer, heart disease or traffic deaths. The incidence rate for DV for lesbians and gay men is much lower than it is for couples outside this group, but it is recognized as a problem that does occur and which is complicated by the social discrimination that gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people experience. Research that is not homophobic and is culturally safe has increased, but there is a need for more data and to link theoretical perspectives for improved understanding of DV overall. DV and Health DV has many forms—physical, psychological, spiritual, and social—and ranges in severity. There is a growing tendency to measure the severity in medical terms of observable outcomes, such as, physical injuries such as bruises and broken bones, and psychiatric diagnoses like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Increasingly, research is finding that a history of DV is associated with higher rates of chronic diseases, such as arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, greater rates of illness, and more hospitalizations than among those who do not report abuse. Biological plausibility exists because of the stress hypothesis that the endocrine system is compromised by chronic stress. Many studies in specialty health clinics are finding that a large number



of female patients report experiences of DV, but the etiological role of DV in the disease or in treatment outcomes for the disease is not well understood. Longitudinal studies do not exist that have taken physical measures over time and linked these to the actual experiences of DV; these would be expensive and ethically difficult to conduct. Pregnancy appears to be an especially vulnerable time for women, although readers are cautioned that there is some debate remaining around this topic. It appears that for some victims, DV may begin during pregnancy or that it may worsen at that time. Therefore, pregnant women in particular should be counseled about DV. In some cases, the violence is directed at both the fetus and the woman. DV during pregnancy can have serious consequences for the woman’s physical and mental health and may also result in miscarriage, preterm birth, or low birth weight. DV and Children Recent research has focused on the effects of DV on children who witness the violence. In Canada and the United States, 30 to 40 percent of mothers estimate that their children were present during an event. In countries where homes and habitation norms are much different, there are few if any estimates. While there is still a concern that witnessing DV may indicate that the child has been victimized, the focus has shifted to the psychological consequences for the child both in the short and long term. Problems such as depression and hyperactivity as well as PTSD have been found to be higher in children who witness DV. Such problems are linked to poor school performance, trouble with the law, and other social issues. In the long term, it also is feared that male witnesses will become perpetrators of DV and females will become victims. Research regarding the impact on children remains controversial. However, this has not stopped many jurisdictions from implementing child protection legislation and procedures to protect children who have witness DV. The protection of child witnesses may result in what victims characterize as further victimization by the systems in place to help them. If government agents remove the child from the mother, for instance, she may experience this as punishment for reporting the violence or for being a “bad mother.” In fact, in some places she will be treated overtly as a bad mother.

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Recent research indicates that the systems designed to protect the children often fail to take into consideration the additional risk of violence that the mother experiences from the father when child protection authorities become involved. Furthermore, the child may receive exceptional parenting from the mother (and in some cases the father) and may in fact suffer from the removal and placement in a strange setting. In addition, research has largely ignored the issue of child resiliency and agency across developmental stages. Services In first world countries, shelter services exist in large numbers with more than one shelter available in big urban areas. Still, the reports of long waiting lists persist, and women and children continue to be turned away due to lack of room. Services known as secondand third-stage shelters have been developed, and the shelters providing first point of service have become known as primary stage centers. The suggested length of stay in primary stage will range from a few days to a month or more, though most centers limit the stay to a crisis period of about six weeks. The objective of second stage facilities is to provide a longer period for healing and time for reestablishing a life and a home for the woman and her children. Second-stage centers offer safe havens from a few months to a year or more. Third-stage facilities provide more assisted living programs for longer periods of time than secondstage centers. While the origin of shelters was in the women’s movement and self-help services, shelters in developed countries are no longer established on feminist models of care or understandings of DV. The overall situation of shelters in the third world nations is much the same and varies by the degree of oppression that women experience in the society. Shelters in Afghanistan, for instance, struggle for external financial support and also require armed guards for everyone’s safety, including the staff. Many places around the world have special police units and DV courts designed to make it easier for women to report DV, and to have charges laid against and find protection from their perpetrator. Widespread criticism about the effectiveness of the justice system led to these developments, and research has indicated significant improvements in outcomes for women have resulted. This is not always the case, however. Negative outcomes for the victim, unexpected

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during the policy development stage, may include the victim being jointly charged with abuse of her perpetrator; obstruction, if she allows him to return to the home against court orders; and apprehension of her children. In places where equality rights of women are still in dispute, contacting the police can still result in harassment and more harm for the woman. The health sector continues to be marginally involved in the prevention of DV. Because DV does not fit the same epidemiological model as diseases in terms of clear diagnosis and treatments, some experts have recommended that health professionals not be involved in screening patients for DV. Others argue that the health impacts of DV warrant a role by the health systems that touch so many lives. From a clinical perspective, health professionals should know if DV is causing, complicating, or inhibiting recovery from the conditions they normally treat. Some research shows that victims may not immediately disclose the abuse to a health professional even when asked directly. From a population health perspective, health professionals should play a role in making DV a public issue as opposed to a private one, acknowledging that it has serious health consequences, and providing help and protection when asked. Methodological Issues Accurate numbers on the prevalence of DV depend on a clear and succinct definition of the issue. It is legitimate to study any one of the forms of aggression, or all together. It becomes challenging, however, to develop a basis for comparison; for example, exposure levels may vary: a woman who experiences one instance of psychological abuse may be considered a victim of DV, but so is a woman who has had the same experience reoccurring over several years. The outcomes are unlikely to be the same for these two women, but experts cannot be certain because outcomes also may vary for women based on their resilience and social support. Few longitudinal studies of women who have experienced DV have been conducted but some are presently underway and will appear in future literature. The issue of exposure levels also is important regarding the impact on the children who witness DV. Developmental stages of childhood, the types of abuse observed, the length of time the child was exposed, reactions of the immediate family or of

friends and neighbors, and the type of parenting and relationships experienced should be considered. Ethical issues that may not exist in other research but are raised by ethics review boards in DV research include the safety of the researcher and participant when contact is made; the possibility of disclosure of child abuse that must then be reported to authorities; and perceptions that DV victims are more vulnerable to mental or physical distress that may be precipitated by research and will require professional intervention. The issue of risk for participants who are caught by the perpetrator making disclosures to a researcher is real, as many women have made accounts in shelters of physical violence experienced when she spoke to someone about the abuse. The nature and extent of these risks are obviously impossible to assess experimentally. National surveys, both face-to-face and by telephone, have been developed and implemented meet these concerns. See Also: Crime Victims, Female; Dating Violence; Domestic Violence Centers; Elder Abuse; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Lesbians; Marriage; “Masculinity,” Social Construction of; Perpetrators, Female; Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined; Trafficking, Women and Children; Violence Against Women Act. Further Readings Ahmad, Farah, et al. “Computer-Assisted Screening for Intimate Partner Violence and Control: A Randomized Trial.” Annals of Internal Medicine, v.151 (2009). Logan, T. K., et al. “Combining Ethical Considerations With Recruitment and Follow-Up Strategies for Partner Violence Victimization Research.” Violence Against Women, v.14/11 (2008). Statistics Canada. “Measuring Violence Against Women: Statistical Trends 2006.” http://www.statcan.ca/english /research/85-570-XIE/85-570-XIE2006001.pdf (accessed November 2009). Tutty, Leslie, et al. “I Built My House of Hope: Best Practices to Safely House Abused and Homeless Women.” Final report to the Homelessness Knowledge Development Program, Homeless Partnering Secretariat, Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Calgary, Canada: RESOLVE Alberta, 2009. World Health Organization. “Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against

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Women.” http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who _multicountry_study/en/index.html (accessed March 2007). Wilfreda E. Thurston University of Calgary

Domestic Violence Centers Domestic violence centers in the United States, specifically domestic violence shelters, are a result of the process of organizing for social change to address the problem of domestic violence. Shelters provide safety and refuge for women, as well as basic needs such as housing and food. In addition, domestic violence centers offer continuing support for victims of violence through casework, advocacy, counseling, and other services. The pervasiveness of domestic violence in the United States is widely documented and is often referred to as intimate partner violence (IPV). Thus, IPV is violence perpetrated by a person’s partner, such as a boyfriend, a spouse, a former intimate partner, or other individual intimate known to the victim. Overall, 25.5 percent of U.S. women are victims of intimate partner violence in their lifetime. IPV is also inclusive of many types of violence. Physical abuse includes physical acts of aggression ranging from slapping to assault with a deadly weapon. Approximately 20-25 percent of adult women in the United States have been physically abused by a male intimate partner in their lifetime. Sexual violence perpetrated by an intimate partner is similarly rampant. In a random sample of 8,000 women from the 50 states and Washington, D.C., 7.7 percent of women reported rape by an intimate partner during their lives. Psychological/emotional violence is any behavior in a relationship that undermines or manipulates a person’s self-esteem, sense of control, or safety, including actions meant to destroy a person’s inner self, imply harm, and undermine a person’s competence. The U.S. Department of Justice defines psychological/emotional violence as actions causing fear by intimidation; threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partner’s family or friends; destruction of pets and property; and/or forcing isolation from family, friends, or school or work.

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History In the 1960s and 1970s, as feminist social movements continued to gain momentum in the United States and throughout the world, different organizations chose to focus on eradicating different aspects of inequality. One path led to the domestic violence social movement. Feminist social movement ideologies influenced the missions, activism, and organizational structure of domestic violence programs and organizations. Activism in the domestic violence social movement was rooted in the notion that women’s equality is essential to preserve independence. Activities such as Take Back the Night rallies demonstrate the need for women’s voices and concerns to be recognized and respected in the public eye. In terms of organizational structure, the feminist ideology stressed the democratic, participatory, and interactional forces of a collective group working to achieve a common goal. By the 1970s, women’s organizations were seeking to broaden their scope to redress violence against women. Feminist organizations argued that the U.S. legal system did not provide adequate support for women who were victims of rape or sexual assault, and they responded to this deficiency by lobbying for changes in the law, organizing self-defense training for women, and establishing hotline and medical advocacy services to support victims of sexual assault. In addition, the antiviolence against women movement also had to redefine rape as a “social problem” that warranted the public’s attention. In later years, sexual assault organizations expanded their scope to include advocacy services for victim survivors. Shortly after establishing organizations to respond to sexual assault, domestic violence centers began to emerge. Early in the domestic violence social movement, emergency shelters engaged in consciousnessraising about the systemic roots of male violence and often victim survivors worked as advocates. The first shelter opened in England in 1971 as an advice center for women about their marriages and soon the center focused on the issue of spouse abuse. In 1973, Women’s Advocates in St. Paul, Minnesota, opened a women’s shelter that grew out of a consciousness-raising group focused on violence and abuse against women and girls. Considered the first formal women’s shelter in the United States, it began as an apartment that doubled as staff offices. By 1974, Women’s Advocates

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raised enough money to open a five-bedroom women’s shelter. That same year, a Latina-run organization in Boston, Massachusetts, opened Casa Myma Vasquez to provide women’s shelter services to Latina women affected by violence against women. At the national level, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) formed in 1978 with the goal of uniting women working with women’s shelters. By 1979, over 250 shelters were operating in the United States. Throughout the early 1980s, organizing and advocacy for victims of domestic violence continued to surge. In 1980, the NCADV organized its first conference, which was attended by 600 women from 49 states. In 1981, nearly 500 battered women’s shelters were operating in the United States. In California, Everywomen’s Shelter was opened by a Filipina domestic violence survivor, establishing the first shelter for Asian women in the United States. The NCADV held its second national conference in 1982, where the Battered/Formerly Battered Women’s Task Force and the Child Advocacy Task Force were established. By 1983, over 700 domestic violence shelter programs were operating in the United States, reporting that 91,000 women and 131,000 children received services each year. Themes and Debates The antiviolence against women movement has emerged in a variety of forms across the globe. In the late 1990s, the framing of the domestic violence social movement broadened to include a diverse array of social practices that qualify as violence against women—from wife beating to female genital mutilation. Although the antiviolence against women movement is diverse, common ground includes the notion that women’s rights (to safety, from abuse, from sexual assault, etc.) are human rights and that violence against women is a public health issue. Thus, domestic violence centers respond to a variety of forms of violence against women as defined by different societies across the globe. Notably, the antiviolence against women movement in developing nations was originally funded by foundations and organizations in the first world. This pattern has led to a number of scholarly critiques that argue this practice contributes to the co-optation of women’s issues in the so-called third world by people and organizations operating from the first world. The

tension between the first world and third world has given rise to debates within feminist and women’s studies, and more important for domestic violence centers, this forces frontline workers to broaden their perspective of violence against women and seek to empower and advocate for women within their social context and environment. Furthermore, while the problem of domestic violence or violence against women continues today, it is exacerbated by contemporary problems and trends that are causing domestic violence organizations to shift their practices. For example, in the 1970s, domestic violence organizations started turning to outside sponsors for support of services and programs after historically providing support through individuals. Government and sponsor expectations of professional service provision and the demands of ensuring sustainability forced many organizations to shift their structure. The result was that formerly freestanding domestic violence centers joined with other social services agencies, such as local Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) centers, hospitals, and district attorney’s offices. This caused domestic violence organizations to change or adapt their missions and ideologies in a way that may have departed from the original vision of early antiviolence against women activists. Some feminist scholars associate the collision of domestic violence centers and mother agencies with the demand for increased professionalization and accountability to donors, which is criticized as stalling the movement to end violence against women. Women’s Centers Today Mounting national attention to the issue of domestic violence and the quantity of services supported lobbyists’ efforts to rally for national legislation to support funding for domestic violence programs. In 1984, Congress passed the Family Violence Prevention Services Act to provide funds designated for programs serving domestic violence victims and their children. Increases in service provision nationwide continued to increase, with over 310,000 women and children receiving advocacy services in 1986. In 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as part of the federal Crime Bill. VAWA funds services for domestic violence and rape victims and for training police and court officials about domestic violence. Finally, VAWA funding allowed President Bill Clinton

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to announce a new national 24-hour toll-free hotline in 1996. The momentum continues to build, and in 2008, 2,031 domestic violence shelter programs were listed by NCADV as operating in the United States. See Also: Domestic Violence; Global Feminism; Rape Crisis Centers; Violence Against Women Act. Further Readings Edleson, Jeffrey L., et al., eds. Sourcebook on Violence Against Women. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000. Ferree, Myra Marx and Beth B. Hess. Controversy and Coalition: The New Feminist Movement Across Four Decades of Change. New York: Routledge, 2000. Hemment, Julie. “Global Civil Society and the Local Costs of Belonging: Defining Violence Against Women in Russia.” Signs, v.29/3 (2004). Schechter, Susan. Women and Male Violence: The Visions and Struggles of the Battered Women’s Movement. Boston: South End Press, 1982. Tjaden, Patricia and Nancy Thoennes. Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Research Report. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000. Jennifer R. Wies Xavier University

Domestic Workers Domestic work has been a constant part of millions of women’s lives around the world. This is especially true for low-status females. Female subjugation, slavery, colonialism, and other forms of servitude, have always been features of this work. In contemporary society, care work at home is vital for the wider economy. Expanding economies during the last 20 years created an increase in demand for care work. The use of women in the labor force, aging of societies, and the failure of public policy and legal frameworks to ensure a harmony between family life and work reinforces societal need for domestic workers. Domestic work is carried out within the family, by family members or by other people outside of relatives. Although there is no fundamental distinction

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between work in and outside the home, and no simple definition of public–private, home–workplace and employer–employee, family members, including children are not regarded as domestic workers/employees. Their labor has not been recognized as “real work” by lawmakers and society at large. However, someone who is outside of the employer’s immediate family and paid for his/her work is a domestic worker. A domestic worker is defined as any person working under an employment contract to provide a variety of household services within the employer’s home for wages. A domestic worker’s employment contract embraces the elements of work, wage and dependence on an employer personally and economically. A contract of employment is often assumed to be a clear sign of a formalized relationship and taken for granted in labor legislation. However, in many countries, the ability to establish an employment relationship is deemed sufficient and the employment contract might be in writing or verbal. A written employment contract is an important vehicle to overcome challenges to the existence of an employment relationship and its agreed terms. Written contracts are often required when domestic workers cross national borders to work. Article 5 of Annex I and Article 6 of Annex II of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 97), provide that an employment contract is one of the documents that should be given to migrant workers prior to their departure. Domestics may live at their own home or employer’s house as live-in workers. They can work full time or part time and work regularly or occasionally according to an agreed schedule, which might be hourly, half day, full day, weekly, or monthly. Some of the specific occupational categories of domestic workers are cook, childminder/nanny/ governess/child’s nurse, gardener, laundry personnel, washerwoman, ironing personnel, driver/chauffeur of vehicle for private use, household employee/ housekeeper/house-servant/maid/“boy,” elder caregiver, caregiver to the disabled or infirmed. Also on this list are night attendants, porters, valets, rural domestic workers/farm workers, “au pairs” apprentices, and student babysitters, including occasional/ casual/short-term babysitters/caregivers. Domestic work illustrates the roles of gender, class and ethnicity in placing domestic service at

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the bottom of the employment ladder. The literature reviewed points to the fact that domestic service has remained an activity performed by disadvantaged social groups of society. Since globalization has brought changes in the migration process, which is no longer male dominated, as women in large numbers from developing countries are migrating to developed countries in search of work, the domestic work industry is now dominated by immigrant women. On the other hand, child domestic workers are a familiar sight in most developing countries. This class of worker is defined as people under the age of 18 who work in households of people other than their closest family. Ninety percent of child domestic workers are girls. They comprise the largest population of migrant working children, and they often work in conditions that can be considered among the worst forms of child labor under the ILO’s Eliminating the Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention 1999 (No.182). Today, domestic workers comprise a large portion of the workforce, especially in developing countries, and their number has also been increasing in the industrialized world. Data on the number of domestic workers throughout the world are hard to collect. Therefore, the number of domestic workers worldwide is not known. However, it is estimated that in many countries, domestic workers form a major part of the informal workforce and up to 10 percent of the total workforce. Working Conditions of Domestic Workers Domestic workers are isolated and invisible to regulators, which results in the failure of regulations to protect them. Domestic workers are forced to negotiate conditions one-on-one with employers. They have no control over living or working conditions. Domestic work is not recognized as regular employment protected by the general labor law framework. As a result, domestic work is not specifically included in governmental legislation. Where domestic work is legislated, enforcement is often problematic, thus rendering domestic workers vulnerable to unequal, unfair and often abusive treatment. Domestic workers, especially live-ins, work long hours. They do not have adequate rest periods. Working hours of domestics, especially live-in workers, is the subject of considerable debate and analysis. For example, Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC of the

European Parliament and the Council of the European Union now permits a derogation for “family workers . . . in respect of periods of daily rest, breaks, weekly rest, maximum weekly working time, annual leave and aspects of night work, shift work and patterns of work . . . when, on account of the specific characteristics of the activity concerned, the duration of the working time is not measured and/or predetermined or can be determined by the workers themselves.” Due account is taken “of the principles of the ILO with regard to the organization of working time, including those relating to night work [and of ] . . . the general principles of the protection of the safety and health of workers.” However, the European Court of Justice has paid close attention to the qualitative difference between expecting a worker to be permanently accessible but not necessarily present” (i.e., on standby) and being available at a place determined by the employer for the entire period of on-call duty, to ensure that the weaker party in the contractual relationship is guaranteed predictable and adequate rest. Domestic workers are subjected to low wages and irregular salary compensation. They are forced to accept payment in kind, to eat low quality of food and to live in poor accommodation. They work within an environment of multiple discrimination with poor work conditions, sexual, physical, and psychological harassment. They have inadequate or no social or job security, and rely on exploitive employment agencies. They are not covered by occupational safety and health legislation. Domestic workers have limited access to the kind of measures and protection that could ensure them safe and healthy pregnancies and births, a replacement income when they are on maternity leave and the right to return to their jobs. Despite legal and contractual entitlements to maternity protection in many countries, pregnancies often cause the dismissal of the worker. International migrant domestic workers also are vulnerable to extreme forms of abuse such as forced labor, slavery and slave-like conditions, and human trafficking. The European Court of Human Rights in its landmark decision, Siliadin v. France, identified a violation of the forced labor and servitude provisions of Article 4 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and concluded that there is a positive obligation on the part of



the state to ensure that criminal legislation exists providing domestic workers with practical and effective protection within the criminal and civil justice system. The Council of Europe also has issued two recent recommendations. Recommendation 1523 (2001) on domestic slavery advocates giving accurate information about the risks of working abroad to domestic workers and others when permits are requested, such as at embassies, and avoiding all gender discrimination in the issuing of work permits to domestic workers. Recommendation 1663 (2004) on domestic slavery servitude, au pairs and “mail-order brides” calls, inter alia, for the urgent drafting of a charter of rights for domestic workers; the right for migrants to an immigration status independent of any employer; and the right of recognition of qualifications, training and experience obtained in the host country. It also recommends an accreditation system for agencies placing domestic workers. When many domestic workers lose their employment, they also lose resident status under the labor migration schemes of many countries. The ILO’s Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143), addresses this situation by providing that migrant workers, who are lawfully residing in the territory for employment and who may lose their job prematurely, should not be considered to be in an irregular situation. This means that their residence permit should not be revoked at the time of the loss of their employment. On the other hand, child domestic work involves exploitation and hazardous working conditions. Many child domestics are found in very exploitive, slave-like conditions. Not only are these children forced to work long, hard hours, they are at increased risk of sexual abuse and being trafficked within and across borders. They are deprived of education and play and often see their basic health and nutrition needs ignored. Their well-being is entirely dependent on the whims of their employers. Trade Unions and Domestic Workers Freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively are fundamental workers’ rights, which are guaranteed under the ILO’s Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87) and Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98). Around the

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world, domestic workers demonstrate their awareness of their status as employees and claim these fundamental rights by organizing collectively to improve their working conditions and to earn respect. Despite obstacles to unionization and collective bargaining, unions in various parts of the world have created information centers for migrant workers, including domestic workers. Domestic workers have become a political concern of the international and European trade union movement, including the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Union of Food Workers, the European Trade Union Confederation, and many national trade unions. This increases the possibility of cooperation with domestic workers organizations. Trade unions have played an important role in developing domestic workers’ rights. ILO and a Legislative Framework for Domestic Workers Improving the conditions of domestic workers has been an ILO concern since its early days. As early as 1948, the ILO adopted a resolution concerning the conditions of employment of domestic workers. In 1965, it adopted a resolution calling for normative action in this area, while in 1970 the first survey ever published on the status of domestic workers across the world made its appearance. Resolution concerning the conditions of employment of domestic workers of 1965 recognizes the “urgent need” to establish minimum living standards “compatible with the self-respect and human dignity, which are essential to social justice” for domestic workers in both developed and developing countries. At its 301st Session the ILO Governing Body, which met in Geneva March 6–20, 2008, it was decided that domestic workers should be placed on the agenda of the 99th Session of the International Labour Conference in 2010 with a view to developing an ILO Convention and Recommendation. Therefore, during 2010, the ILO was working on the process of adopting a new minimum labor standard for domestic workers that could possibly lead to a new specific Domestic Workers Convention. See Also: Child Labor; Homemakers and Social Security; Migrant Workers; Sexual Harassment; Trafficking, Women and Children.

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Further Readings Chamoux, A. Fauve, ed. Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity: Understanding the Globalization of Domestic Work, 16th–21st Centuries. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2004. Cullen, H. “Siliadin v France: Positive Obligations Under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights.” Human Rights Law Review, v.6/3 (2006). December 18.net. “Human Rights for Domestic Workers,” http://www.december18.net/article/human-rights -domestic-workers (accessed January 2010). International Labour Conference. Decent Work for Domestic Workers, 99th Session, 2010, Report IV(1). Geneva, Switzerland: ILO, 2010. International Labour Organization. “The Employment and Conditions of Domestic Workers in Private Households: An ILO Survey.” International Labour Review, (October 1970). International Labour Organization. Migrant Workers. Report III (Part 1B) (General Survey), ILC, 87th Session. Geneva, Switzerland: ILO, 1999. Momsen, J. Henshall, ed. Gender, Migration and Domestic Service. London: Routledge, 1999. K. Bakirci Istanbul Technical University

Dominica Dominica is a small (751 square kilometer) island nation in the Caribbean Sea, which became independent of France in 1978. The population of 72,660 (estimated as of July 2009) is primarily black (86.8 percent) with the largest minorities being mixed-race persons (8.9 percent) and Carib Indians (2.9 percent). Roman Catholicism is the most common religion (61.4 percent) with several other Christian sects (about 29 percent total) represented as well as Rastafarian (1.3 percent). Dominicans enjoy long life expectancies of 76 years for women and 71 years for men. Literacy is equal for men and woman at 94 percent. Agriculture was traditionally the mainstay of the economy although recently the tourism industry has played an important role. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was $10,200 in 2009 and 30 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Women constitute

about 40 percent of the nonagricultural work force and 64.6 percent of the part-time labor force. Maternal and child healthcare has been steadily improving in Dominica, as evidence by a drop of over 8 percent in under age 5 mortality between 1990 and 2003. Childhood immunization rates are high and 100 percent of births are attended by skilled healthcare personnel and 100 percent of women receive at least four prenatal care visits. The total fertility is 1.8 children per woman. Abortion is legal in Dominica only to save the mother’s life, but contraceptive use is legal and almost 50 percent of women report using modern methods of contraception. Women in Politics and the Arts Women have played important roles in Dominican politics since the mid-20th century. Phyllis Shand Allfrey served as government minister from 1958 to 1962 when Dominica was part of the Federation of West Indies. Mabel Moir James was the first woman minister in Dominica after the federation dissolved, serving as Minister of Home Affairs from 1967 to 1970. Dame Mary Eugenia Charles became prime minister in 1980 and held that position for 15 years; she was the second female prime minister in the Caribbean and the first to serve a full term. As of 2007, women held 13 percent of seats in the national parliament. A Women’s Bureau was established in 1979 (originally called the Women’s Desk) to report on matters of gender equality, domestic violence (a major concern at the time), and the like. The novelist Jean Rhys was born in Dominica and many of her novels including the award-winning Wide Sargasso Sea recall her Caribbean childhood while also dealing with political themes including inequality and assimilation. The folklorist Mabel Alice Caudeiron was a leader of Creole nationalism (the elite of Dominica looked down on the language). She organized National Day celebrations in Dominica while the country was still a French colony, composed Creole songs, and helped spark a revival of interest in Dominican music and traditional dress. See Also: Domestic Violence; Novelists, Female; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Allport, Ruth. “Presentation of the Commonwealth of Dominica, United Nations Committee on the

Dominican Republic

Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.” http:// www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/statement /DominicaStat_43.pdf (accessed February 2010). Honeychurch, Lennox. “A to Z of Dominica Heritage.” http://www.lennoxhonychurch.com/heritage.cfm (accessed February 2010). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is located with Haiti on Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Caribbean, and has a population of 9.76 million and an annual growth of 1.5 percent. Almost half of the population

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live in rural areas and many are landholders; however, increasing shifts in migration because of the development of tourism and industrial free-trade zones patterns has resulted in many moving to urban areas. There are 3.896 million people working mainly in agriculture (17 percent), industry (24.3 percent), and service (58.7 percent). The unemployment rate is 17 percent. The lives of women are affected by social, cultural, and political traditions, and sex roles are clearly defined, ����������������������������������������� promoting patriarchy at work and matriarchy in the home. Fathers are the head of families and women are responsible for the home and childbearing. Social practices are deep rooted in a conservative Roman Catholic religious heritage and this affects women’s ability to make autonomous decisions about their lives. For example, women are expected to remain in the household until marriage. There has been an increase in the number of working women in the past 20 years and they now represent 40.86 percent of the economically active population

A woman and her granddaughter wait in a remodeled hospital waiting room in Ramón Santana, Dominican Republic. Fourteen Dominican hospitals received assistance from USAID, which included updated their record-keeping systems and training their staff.

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with approximately 42 percent of households having a woman working in market production. However, inequalities still affect them; for example, while women represent 51 percent of professional and technical workers, they earn 30 percent less than men. Lack of Educational Opportunities, Prostitution, and Domestic Violence Three main issues affecting the lives of women are lack of access to education, prostitution, and domestic violence. Women have been disproportionately absent from education and this problem can be traced to childhood. From a young age, girls are expected to help with household chores and this at times means they attend school sporadically or not at all; others become economically active as early as 10 to 14 years old. As a result, many women enter the informal economy, with no prospect of educational attainment and remain with limited financial independence throughout their lives. This situation is closely linked with prostitution, which has developed as a side activity linked to tourism. Prostitution is legal in the country and statistics suggest that the sex trade is not only an increasing activity within the country but the Dominican Republic is the fourth largest exporter of female sex workers in the world after Thailand, Brazil, and the Philippines. The country is a source for trafficked women and to a lesser extent for young girls. Domestic violence against women is also a major problem, particularly attacks of a sexual nature; police records show that on average there are 20 sexual attacks every 24 hours, most of which are against women and in 80 percent of cases are against children. Legislation and support networks for Dominican women are insufficient and their physical integrity is not protected. Institutions have been created to deal with different issues, yet the lack of institutionalisation and the conflicting role of social institutions and culture perpetuate women’s subordination. For example, the Catholic Church has successfully advocated against legalizing any form of abortion, which continues to put the lives of girls and women at risk. Nongovernmental organizations and women’s groups play a fundamental role in advocating for social and political change. See Also: Domestic Violence; Educational Opportunities/Access; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children.

Further Readings Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). “Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: Dominican Republic.” New York: CEDAW, 2003. Liberato, A. S. Q. and D. Fennell. “Gender and Well-Being in the Dominican Republic: The Impact of Free Trade Zone Employment and Female Headship.” World Development, v.35/3 (2007). Morgan, J., R. Espinal, and J. Hartlyn. “Gender Politics in the Dominican Republic: Advances for Women, Ambivalence From Men.” Politics & Gender, v.4 (2008). Jenny K. Rodriguez University of Strathclyde

Dora the Explorer Dora the Explorer is an American animated television series for preschoolers. The series is the top-rated preschool program on commercial television in the United States. The pilot episode for Dora the Explorer aired in 1999; it became regular programming in August 2000 on Nick Jr., and was simultaneously released in 22 Latin American countries. The main character of the 30-minute show is the 7-year-old Latina Dora Marquez, accompanied by her sidekick, Boots the Monkey. In each episode, Dora solves puzzles and problems with the help of Map and Backpack in a magical world of jungles, beaches, and rainforests. The setting has vaguely Latin American features. Most episodes follow a similar pattern. They begin with Dora greeting the audience in Spanish or English. The protagonists then encounter a task to be accomplished or a problem to be solved. With the help of Map, they find their way, and with the help of Backpack they obtain the necessary objects to complete the task or solve the problem. During their quests, Dora and Boots encounter animal characters, including the antagonist Swiper the Fox, who is the only character who does not speak any Spanish. Dora the Explorer claims to teach children basic Spanish words and phrases, as well as mathematics, music skills, and physical coordination, and to

Doulas



develop their analytical thinking and problem-solving skills. According to the show’s creators, the use of Spanish on the show introduces non-Spanish speaking children to a foreign language at a critical period for language learning. The languages used on the show change from one country to another. In the Serbian version, the bilingualism also involves Spanish, but in most versions, including Dutch, German, French, Korean, Japanese, and Swedish, the bilingualism is with English. In some versions, such as the Turkish one, there is trilinguism with English and Spanish. Although the educational and multicultural aspects of the series, created with the help of panels of educators, researchers, and cultural consultants, are often highly praised, there have also been criticisms. The show has been criticized for presenting a generic Latino type with a visual and linguistic representation that glosses over differences of national origin, class, and race among U.S. Latinos and Latin Americans. It has also been argued that the show teaches Spanish to young viewers in a purely instrumental manner, without linking it to ideas about any Latino culture. A study by S. Calvert et al. indicates that girls and white children are more likely to self-identify with Dora than boys and Hispanic children, respectively. This may support the view that the bicultural elements on the show are not strong. The show has been an international marketing success. Dora the Explorer merchandise, including toys such as action figures, plush dolls, board games and play sets, books, DVDs, video games, stationery, and apparel, are distributed globally and enjoy high marketing rates. In 2009, Mattel announced that Dora would undergo a makeover, and they were going to introduce a tween Dora. The news caused a stir among parents and child development experts, who perceived Dora the Explorer as a positive role model for girls and worried that the character might lose these qualities. What was introduced in the end was the Dora Links Website, featuring games, e-books, online shopping, and an online interactive doll that do not conflict with the Dora image. See Also: Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Anime, Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings Berggreen, Shu-Ling C. and Katalin Lustyik. “Lilo vs. Dora: Interculturalism Through the Lens of Disney

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and Nickelodeon.” Second Global Conference of Interculturalism: Exploring Critical Issues, December 2–4, 2004, Vienna, Austria. Calvert, Sandra L., et al. “Interaction and Participation for Young Hispanic and Caucasian Girls’ and Boys’ Learning of Media Content.” Media Psychology, v.9/2 (2010). Casanova, Erynn Masi de. “Spanish Language and Latino Ethnicity in Children’s Television Programs.” Biculturalism, Self Identity and Societal Transformation Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, v.15 (2008). Rustem Ertug Altinay New York University

Doulas Traditionally, a doula was a woman who assisted in childbirth and aftercare. Doula, a term coined in 1976 by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael, originally referred to an experienced mother who assisted new mothers, particularly with breastfeeding and newborn care. Today, doulas, who may or may not have given birth, provide nonclinical, nonmedical physical, emotional, and informational support and advocacy for women before, during, and after childbirth, at home and in hospital. This care work is often referred to as “mothering the mother.” Women have always participated in childbirth; however, when hospital birth, presided over by male physicians with the assistance of female nurses, became the standard practice, lay support during childbirth was not allowed or welcomed. The work of doulas is growing internationally. Childbirth International, an organization that trains doulas in 68 countries, reports that the work of the doula in areas new to doula care includes informing local caregivers and pregnant women about the doula role as well as about less interventionist, more natural childbirth practices. Trainers are required to provide a culturally informed perspective in their training of doulas and in their advocacy for increasing doula participation in these areas. Within a social model of childbirth, prior to maledominated obstetrics, women gave birth at home with the assistance of female family members and friends, as well as from midwives. After birth, these women offered continued support to the new mother. This

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is still the case in locations where medical assistance for childbirth is inaccessible. In the early 20th century, with a growing dominance by medicine, a medical model of childbirth, managed by male physicians, replaced the female-assisted social model of childbirth. As a reaction to the intensification of medical technology and intervention, and depersonalization during pregnancy and childbirth, in the 1980s, childbearing women began seeking out other women for social and emotional support. Also around that time, midwifery became increasingly regulated and medicalized, further contributing to the demand for lay support from other women in and around the time of childbirth. Techniques and Practices Doulas, whether formally trained or not, use a variety of techniques, such as massage, acupressure, position changes, movement, patterned breathing, imagery, and encouragement to soothe and relax the birthing woman. Such techniques have been shown to have positive benefits for mother and baby, including shorter labor, reduced rates of intervention and caesarean births, fewer complications, higher birth scores for newborns, improved mother–child bonding, and more successful breastfeeding. Doulas also interpret medical terminology into lay terms for women and their partners. If a woman’s partner is present during the labor and delivery, the doula encourages verbal and tactile communication between the woman and her partner. As well, the doula may relieve the partner for respite by providing the woman with continuous presence and care. If no partner or other support person is present during labor and birth, the doula acts as the general birth coach. Some doulas are engaged throughout the pregnancy and through the newborn period, some act as lactation consultants only, while others participate only at birth. While doulas may be laywomen without certification, the birthing woman may hire professionally trained doulas. The work of doulas has been shown to be so beneficial that some hospitals now employ certified birth doulas so women who do not have other support or who cannot afford to hire a doula can take advantage of their support. The carework of doulas has also extended from birth to death. Death doulas, or companions in dying, provide comfort and support through that transition.

See Also: Caesarean Section, Rates of; Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural; Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital; Childbirth, Medication in; Postpartum Depression; Reproductive Rights. Further Readings Davis-Floyd, Robbie. Birth Models That Work. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. DONA International. http://www.dona.org (accessed November 2009). Klaus, Marshall H. The Doula Book. New York: Perseus Books, 2002. Deborah Davidson York University

Drag Kings A drag king is an individual who is female-bodied yet dresses and acts in manners that are traditionally associated with males, generally for the purpose of entertainment. Performance is a key component. Drag kings differ from cross dressers in that the male persona and clothing are generally adopted as part of an act, and are not used as fetishes. Less wide spread than drag queen acts, drag kings have recently become more popular, and there are now drag king contests in a number of countries. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term drag king first appeared in print in 1972, meaning a “woman masquerading as a man.” Since then, however, the term has generally been reserved for women performing as men, rather than living as one. Although women who performed in this manner would not have self-identified as drag kings in the past, the phenomenon must be placed in historical context. English Restoration (post 1660 c.e.) theater performances often featured “roaring girls,” female actors dressed in breeches who played male parts. This practice continued into the 19th century in both Britain and the United States. Later, this style would be adopted by some of the early-20th-century blues singers, such as Gladys Bentley, who performed in tuxedoes, and would extend to the impersonation performances in Hollywood and New York, such as the Jewel Box Revue.



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constructed through society and interpersonal interactions. Transgender individuals claim these women demonstrate that shifting gender identities have existed throughout time.

Fudgie Frottage, San Francisco performer and producer of the world’s longest-running drag king contest.

Aside from actors, other artists also performed masculinity. One such artist was the writer George Sand, who created a male persona for her writing, but lived life more generally as a woman. On the other hand, the painter Rosa Bonheur adopted male clothing and lived with women, but still maintained a female identity. Although not drag kings per se, women such as these contribute to the rich history of the tradition of male impersonation. Some infamous women chose to live life entirely as men, though history recognizes them as biologically female. These individuals include Dr. James Barry, a contemporary of Florence Nightingale, and the pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read, who sailed the Caribbean. Theorists debate what these historical performances mean. Many believe they present proof that gender roles are not inborn or essential, but rather are

Today’s Drag Kings Regardless of sexuality, drag kings are women who perform as men, which is different than the lesbian “butch” performance where a woman dresses in masculine clothes. Drag kings, like drag queens, understand that they are performing a parody of the opposite biological sex. Drag kings lack the immediately identifiable models that drag queens enjoy. Marilyn Monroe, Cher, and Liza Minnelli all provide instant connections for many drag queens; there are no similar male counterparts for drag kings to emulate. Many choose wellknown performers such as Wayne Newton or Elvis Presley, yet many choose simply to create a unique male persona. Whomever they imitate, however, many drag king performances have certain features in common. Most bind their breasts to achieve a masculine torso, “stuff ” the front of their trousers, and apply some sort of facial hair. Just as drag queens emphasize breasts, legs, and makeup in exaggerate and highlight femininity, the drag kings focus on the most identifiable portions of male anatomy to achieve their masquerade. Drag kings have grown in popularity since the 1990s, and some, such as Mildred Gerestant, are now widely recognized. Some have been broadly lauded, as drag kings shows are often racially integrated and can provide important social commentary. For instance, in the early 2000s, some drag kings took on the issues of domestic violence and aggressive masculinity to teach women about men. The largest yearly performance is the International Drag King Community Extravaganza (IDKE), which is hosted by a different city each year, and features performers from the United States, Canada, and Europe. The largest drag king contest takes place in San Francisco each year. See Also: Body Image; Dykes on Bikes; “Femininity,” Social Construction of. Further Readings Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. New York: HarperPerennial, 1992.

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Halberstam, Judith and Del LaGrace. The Drag King Book. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1999. Pauliny, Tara. “Erotic Arguments and Persuasive Acts: Discourses of Desire and the Rhetoric of Female-to -Male Drag.” Journal of Homosexuality, v.43 (2002). Toone, Anderson. “The Drag King Timeline.” http:// andersontoone.com/timeline/dktimeline.html (accessed December 2009) Michelle M. Sauer University of North Dakota

Drif-Bitat, Zohra Zohra Drif-Bitat is a retired lawyer and long-time member of the Algerian senate, but she is best known for her participation in the armed wing of the Islamic Algerian nationalist movement of the 1950s. Although many, particularly the French far right, still view her as a terrorist, it is a label she rejects. She is unapologetic for the role she and her companions played in the so-called Café Wars, insisting that the National Liberation Front (FLN) was an organization of freedom fighters determined to deliver Algeria from French tyranny. In the 1950s, young Zohra Drif, the daughter of a respected Islamic judge, was living with her family in Algiers, the capital city of what was then French-occupied Algeria. Nationalism had been on the increase in Algeria since the post–World War I era, and by 1954, the FLN had emerged as the strongest of the native Islamic Algerian nationalist parties. As a high school student, Drif had learned of the massacre of Algerian demonstrators in Sétif at the end of World War II, when an estimated 45,000 deaths/injuries occurred— an incident that many historians consider a main cause of the Algerian war of independence. By the time she was a first-year law student at Algiers University, the guillotining of Ahmed Zabane and Abelkader Ferradj, two FNL members, in Barberousse Prison had radicalized her. Drif joined the FLN’s underground network in 1955. She says that she made a conscious choice of violence in 1956 because political response to French violence had proved ineffective. The FLN, whose activities had been mostly guerrilla tactics in the countryside, decided in 1956 to

extend the conflict to urban areas and to call a nationwide general strike timed to coincide with the United Nations’ consideration of the Algerian situation. The opening attack in the new campaign was to be the Battle of Algiers, which would begin with three women placing bombs at three carefully selected sites, including the downtown office of Air France. One of the three women was Zohra Drif. The 20-year-old Drif was not only beautiful, but also possessed European features—a fact that meant she could blend undetected among the French residents of Algeria. On September 30, 1956, Drif and the other two women involved in the attack removed their veils, dyed and cut their hair, and disguised themselves in the summer dresses worn by European women. The disguises allowed them to pass through military checkpoints to complete their mission. Drif entered the Milk Bar, a popular gathering spot for Europeans returning from a day at the beach. On this Sunday, it was filled with mothers with their children. Drif pushed her bomb-laden beach bag under a chair, paid her check, and left. Within minutes, the scene literally shattered, with shards from the heavy glass walls proving lethal. Three people were dead and more than 50 were injured—a dozen of them with amputated limbs. The bombing captured international media attention and called the world’s attention to the war in Algeria, fulfilling the FLN goal of internationalizing their struggle. Over the next months, the FLN continued its campaign. Authorities were determined to crush those they deemed terrorists, and one act of terror was countered with another. The FLN proved they could strike targets even in the French stronghold of Algiers, Moreover, their appeal to urban Muslims was demonstrably strengthening, and the brutality and torture used by the army was creating doubts in France itself about the French role in Algiers. The following year, in early October, Saadi Yacef, the undisputed leader of the FLN’s armed wing, was captured. With him was his girlfriend, Zohra Drif. Their arrest marked the end of the Battle of Algiers. Drif was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, to be followed by execution at the hands of the military tribunal of Algiers. During her time in Barberousse Prison, the site of the Zabane-Ferradj guillotining that had served as the catalyst for her revolutionary activities, Drif wrote a 20-page treatise, “The Death

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of My Brothers.” She served five years of her sentence before she was pardoned by French president Charles de Gaulle upon Algeria’s receiving its independence. Still a young woman when she was pardoned, Drif completed law school and began a law practice. In 1962, she married Rabah Bitat, one of the cofounders of the FLN. The couple, who had three children, became important figures in political circles, both serving in the Algerian legislative body. Rabah Bitat died in 2000. Zohra Drif-Bitat continued to serve as a senator and to define her past as the necessary actions of a resistance fighter. She is said to be a close friend of Algeria’s president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was elected to a third term in 2009. See Also: Algeria; Islam; Terrorists, Female. Further Readings Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954– 1962. New York: New York Review Books, 2006. Minne, Danièle Djamila Amrane. “Women at War.” Interventions: The International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, v. 9/3 (2007). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Drought Drought is a condition characterized by a lack of precipitation, leading to a shortage of available water for extended periods of time. Although it is an environmental condition, drought has considerable social significance, as human communities rely on consistent access to water for life. Ecological, political, and social factors contribute to droughts and to climate change, which is widely expected to contribute to a rise in droughts in certain regions. Drought may contribute to environmental degradation, political conflicts, and social inequality, affecting environmental quality, political stability, economic livelihoods, food security, and health, and in extreme cases, causing famine. The intensity and breadth of the social consequences of drought are experienced differently based on class and gender, among other social factors. For example, drought may compound poverty and exac-

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erbate existing inequalities, such as gender inequality. Drought is a women’s issue, as the cumulative effect of poverty and gender inequality make women vulnerable to the social consequences of drought. Consequences can include increased burdens on women’s time to locate sources of water, decreased access to financial and other resources that before increasingly scarce within households if water is inadequate or must be purchased (food, clothing, etc.), and pressure to obtain financial and other resources through strategies that may be risky or insecure, such as migrating for work or prostitution. Two major recent and ongoing droughts have occurred, one in southern Africa and one in East Africa. Similar to other natural and social disasters, drought intersects with social relations and may contribute to conflict over resources and exacerbate inequalities, such as gender inequality. Women are more likely to live in poverty, and female-headed households are especially at risk of impoverishment. In some estimates, women make up 70 percent of the world’s poor population. Gender inequality often contributes to women having less access to decision-making positions in society and fewer economic, political, and social resources. Although women are often the primary farmers, they are less likely to be the legal owners of land and, in many countries, have been historically excluded from land ownership. Gender discrimination and patriarchy render women—particularly poor women—vulnerable to increased poverty, food insecurity, and greater inequality, especially in times of drought. Periods of drought can increase household workloads as women search for replacement water or food sources and alternative economic strategies to supplement agriculture or livestock management. These labor burdens are differentially absorbed across households and within households. Poorer families are less able to absorb the burdens of declining economic conditions and increased household labor demands. Within households, women and girls are more likely to work harder to maintain their households during periods of drought. In many parts of the world, women and girls are responsible for household maintenance, including collecting water for their family and responsibilities that rely on water such as cooking, laundry, cleaning, and childcare. When water is locally unavailable or scarce, women and girls often

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absorb the additional labor of seeking out sources of water or accessing the limited available water. Drought negatively affects agricultural productivity, which can affect women in multiple ways. In lessdeveloped countries, women are the primary farmers and food producers in communities relying on smallscale agriculture. In times of drought, women may be responsible for farming under difficult conditions, working harder to produce food for their families or crops for sale. Extended declines in agricultural production or livestock management may lead to malnutrition or nutritional deficiencies. When yields are limited, women may have decreased access to foodstuffs within households (intrahousehold food insecurity), rendering them more nutritionally at risk. Drought also contributes to increased economic uncertainty for households. Food prices may rise during periods of drought, causing increased financial pressure on households, and particularly the poor, who may not be able to access the same quantity or quality of food. When families or households do not have access to replacement resources for lost agricultural yields, or if food prices are prohibitively high, those affected may be more reliant on cash and pressured to access available income opportunities regardless of working conditions. Drought may push people, particularly men, to migrate to cities looking for work or, particularly women, to engage in risky strategies for economic survival, such as sex work. In the recent drought in Kenya, for example, women and children reportedly turned to prostitution in greater numbers as a strategy to survive the economic and social consequences of drought. These strategies come with great personal risks, including potential exposure to sexually transmitted infections, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and violence. Southern Africa has been experiencing drought since 2002, and fluctuating periods of drought have existed throughout East Africa over the last decade. The southern drought has devastated agricultural communities and economies, leading to emergency food shortages in many affected nations, such as Lesotho. In East Africa, the ongoing and spreading drought has left millions of people hungry and has devastated livestock populations, agriculture, and tourism. Tourism largely relies on safari tourists, but game animals are struggling to survive in increasingly

worse drought conditions. Fear of widespread food insecurity and potential famine have led to international aid relief by such organizations as the World Food Programme and the United Nations, but their efforts have been seen as insufficiently supported by the international community. Food aid, such as in East Africa, is often a tool used when drought has become extended and severe. Depending on the particular conditions and contributing causes of a drought, other strategies such as irrigation, water delivery infrastructure, water harvesting, water conservation, and crop rotation can mitigate drought’s consequences. See Also: Climate Change as a Women’s Issue; Environmental Issues, Women and; Famine; Kenya; Lesotho; Poverty; Rural Women; Water, as Women’s Issue. Further Readings Arku, F. and C. Arku. “‘I Cannot Drink Water on an Empty Stomach’: A Gender Perspective on Living With Drought.” Gender & Development, v.18/1 (2010). Tichagwa, W. “The Effects of Drought on the Condition of Women.” Gender & Development, v.2/1 (1994). Yvonne A. Braun University of Oregon

Drug Trade Women are present wherever illegal drugs are grown, processed, sold, stored, trafficked, bought, and consumed. However, research has found that women participate to a lesser extent than men and they occupy the most marginal positions in the drug trade. Over the last decade, the number of women imprisoned for drug offenses has risen at a faster rate than it has for men. Many women imprisoned for drug violations are foreign nationals who were “drug mules.” These are people who carry illegal drugs—usually cocaine and heroin—which have been paid for by someone else, across international borders. This includes all methods of concealment, such as swallowing drugs in capsules, strapping the drugs to the body and concealing them in the luggage. The most common method of concealment is in luggage. Drug



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mules are sometimes referred to as couriers. When caught, they face particular difficulties as a result of being imprisoned far from home. The drug trade is difficult to research. The market relies on secrecy for its success. Also, international markets span continents and may not have any fixed geographic base, making reliable information patchy at best. Furthermore, since research has focused primarily on men, less is known about women. Since the 1990s, research has examined the prevalence and role of women in the international drug trade. Research is clustered into two opposing positions outlined by Lisa Maher in Sexed Work: Gender, Race and Resistance in a Brooklyn Drug Market. From one perspective, women in the drug trade are powerless victims driven by poverty and drug addiction. On the other, women are active actors driven by ambition for money and independence, much like their male counterparts. In her book, Maher points out that both of these explanations are overly simplistic. Her research set the agenda for the future. Through in-depth, ethnographic research she showed how multiple inequalities such as gender, ethnicity and class are reproduced in the drug trade. She also demonstrated that women’s presence in drug markets should not be interpreted as participation, much less equal participation.

roles but are important as vendors and consumers. As consumers, young women are less likely to take drugs than their male counterparts, although this disparity is less pronounced in adulthood. These differences vary internationally. Although females from all social groups may take drugs, prostitutes and homeless women are more likely to be consumers. The relationship between prostitution and drug use is complex rather than causal: women may get involved in prostitution to fund a drug habit, but women also may take drugs to enable them to work as a prostitute. Female vendors are present in diverse markets including cocaine, heroin, and cannabis. Women’s entry into street-level markets has been attributed to structural and cultural changes in the market; their ability to call on family networks to build trust and run their business; and the play on gendered expectations to avoid arrest. Maher’s research found that women occupied marginal positions, offering little financial reward in return for considerable risk. Among the risks are selling injecting equipment and offering sexual services. Other research on women in crack cocaine markets in the United States found that, as the head of the household, they stashed drugs, weapons and money and rented out their apartment as places to process the drugs.

Drug Production and Processing In Latin America, especially Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, female peasants are the majority of those employed to pick coca leaves. Children of both genders also are involved in cultivation. In Bolivia, women are the majority of coca leaf vendors in the markets where there exists a traditional and legal trade. Women also play an important role in cultivating and harvesting opium poppies in Afghanistan. Little research has investigated drug processing worldwide. Anecdotal evidence suggests that drug laboratories in cocaine and heroin are male dominated. Women have been arrested following raids on amphetamine and crack cocaine laboratories in the United States. It is not clear whether they were involved or merely present.

International Drug Trafficking Women are present in diverse aspects of the international drug market, but most are involved as drug mules. The stereotype of the female mule has been popularized in the media, although the 2004 Oscarnominated movie Maria Full of Grace from HBO Films and Fine Line Features offered an even-handed account of a young Colombian woman working as a drug mule. Although it is widely assumed that the majority of drug mules are women, 60 to 70 percent of individuals arrested with drugs at international borders are men. Similarly, 70 percent of drug mules who seek medical attention following problems resulting from swallowing capsules of cocaine or heroin are also men. Research on mules from Latin America and the Caribbean found that many were single parents who became involved because of debts. Researcher Julia Sudbury attributes women’s participation in drug trafficking to neoliberal geopolitics that have particularly affected women through the feminization of poverty.

Street-Level Markets Women’s roles in and around street-level drug markets are well researched, especially in the United States and Australia. Women mainly occupy marginal

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Nonetheless, drug mules are not a homogenous group. People carrying drugs they have bought themselves are referred to as entrepreneurs, solo, or independent traffickers. Very little research has been done on this group but it appears to be dominated by men. Women may be involved in the drug trade at a high level. Research from Argentina and Mexico suggests that women exercise power at a high level indirectly as wives, sisters, and mothers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women may hold the top positions in some Mexican cartels. Females also can be found in a number of auxiliary roles including recruiting and “babysitting” mules while they travel; training and advising mules; hiding money, drugs, and weapons; keeping accounts; receiving packages; serving as brokers; and accompanying men as “covers.” Evidence from arrests suggests that women work in apparently legitimate organizations where money is laundered. Girlfriends and wives also may be arrested as accomplices. Criminal Justice Issues Until the 19th century, the trade in narcotic, hallucinogenic, and psychotropic substances was largely unregulated. In 1961, the United Nations’ Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs replaced previous legislation and international treaties. It is currently the central model for drug prohibition, which is adhered to by almost all nations. The objectives of this treaty were to limit the possession, use, distribution, and international traffic in illegal substances such as heroin, opium, cocaine, and cannabis. Although there is some national diversity in legal status across nations—that is, some countries permit possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use, notably Portugal and the Netherlands— the sale of drugs is a criminal offense. Drug trafficking offenses attract very high sentences worldwide. In the United States, drug trafficking carries mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years to life. Thirty-three countries institute the death penalty for drug traffickers, including Thailand, China, and the United States The number of women imprisoned for drug crimes has risen at a faster rate than it has for men over the last 30 years. While this reflects the rising number of women in the drug trade, punitive sentencing policies also have driven up the number of women imprisoned worldwide. In England and Wales, drug offenders comprise 27 percent of female prisoners, compared to 16 percent of male inmates. This is also

the case in prisons across Latin America, the United States, Australia, and Europe, particularly Spain. The large number of women drug offenders contributes to the massive increase in the female prison population worldwide. Black and ethnic minority women are overrepresented in prison numbers, but especially for drug offenses. The disproportionate population of minorities has led commentators, such as Sudbury, to claim that the “war on drugs” is a war on women, and specifically on women of color. In England and Wales, 20 percent of female inmates are foreign nationals, of which the majority are drug mules. In comparison, only 13 percent of men are foreign nationals. This reality has significant implications for criminal justice systems. Research on foreign nationals in prison has found that if foreign nationals do not speak the language they may not understand the legal procedures. Language barriers can prevent these prisoners from participating in work, rehabilitation, and education programs. As prisoners, foreign nationals often feel extremely isolated and lonely. They have high rates of mental illness, self-harm, and suicide. Many women are single parents who leave children and family behind with no one to care for them. See Also: Bolivia; Colombia; Poverty, “Feminization” of; Prisoners, Female (U.S.). Further Readings Anderson, T. L. “Dimensions of Women’s Power in the Illicit Drug Economy.” Theoretical Criminology, v.9/4 (2005). Maher, L. Sexed Work: Gender, Race, and Resistance in a Brooklyn Drug Market. Oxford, UK, Clarendon Press, 1997. Sudbury, J., ed. Global Lockdown : Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex. New York: Routledge, 2005. Jennifer Fleetwood University of Kent

Duckworth, Tammy Ladda Tammy Duckworth became Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs in April 2009. Her responsibilities in this position include departmental



communications and overseeing programs relating to intergovernmental relations, homeless veterans, consumer affairs, and national rehabilitative special event programs. An Iraq War veteran, Duckworth achieved the rank of Major in the Illinois National Guard, and is a former Army Aviator whose Black Hawk helicopter was hit by an Iraqi rocket propelled grenade in 2004. As a result of that insurgent attack, she is a double amputee who lost both legs and sustained severe injury to her right arm. Duckworth was born in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1968. She comes from a military family. Her father was a U.S. Marine who fought in Vietnam. Her spouse Army National Guard Major Bryan Bowlsbey is a signal officer and an Iraq War veteran. During her formative years, Duckworth’s father’s career at the United Nations and in international companies meant a series of family moves including a move to Hawaii when Duckworth was 16. After high school, she earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawaii and a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University. Duckworth was working on a Ph.D. in political science at Northern Illinois University when she was deployed to Iraq in 2004. After a yearlong recovery from her war injuries in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and acclimation to prosthetic limbs, Duckworth continued her life of public service. In 2006, she ran for an open U.S. House of Representatives seat in the 6th District of Illinois. Her issue positions included support for healthcare reform, immigration reform, gun control, and abortion rights. She expressed opposition to the entry and conduct of the Iraq War, and was critical of the No Child Left Behind Act. After winning a competitive Democratic primary and a wide range of endorsements, Duckworth lost a close general election race to her Republican opponent, Peter Roskam. In 2006, Duckworth was appointed Director of the Illinois Department of Veteran Affairs. In that position, she spearheaded development of state programs granting tax credits to private employers who hire veterans, and increased state grants to service organizations. Among her awards and commendations, Duckworth is a recipient of the Purple Heart, an Air Medal, an Army Commendation Medal, and a 2007 Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award. She was also named the 2008 Disabled Veteran of the Year by the Disabled

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American Veterans, and selected as an American Veterans Silver Helmet award recipient in 2009. Duckworth, who is now fully mobile, skis, swims, scuba dives, cycles, and flies. In fall 2008, she completed the Chicago Marathon in two hours and 26 minutes on a specially equipped bicycle. She declined a medical retirement from the Illinois National Guard and continues her service to this day. See Also: Disability Definitions; Iraq; Military, Women in the; Military Stationed in Muslim Countries; Representation of Women in Government, U.S. Further Readings Holmstedt, Kirsten. Foreword by Major L. Tammy Duckworth. Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. 2007. L. Tammy Duckworth. http://www.duckworthforcongress .com (accessed April 2010). Sue Thomas Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation

Duffy, Carol Ann Carol Ann Duffy was named poet laureate of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in May 2009. Duffy was the first poet laureate chosen in the 21st century. More important, Duffy was the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly bisexual person to hold the prestigious, crownappointed position. Duffy is known for writing in a variety of genres, but each of her works whether song, drama, children’s fiction, or poem explores controversial themes, including violence, sexuality, education, gender, and more. Despite the complex subject matter of her work, Duffy is known for her fluid and accessible style that, in recent years, has made her work popular in both public schools and university classrooms. Although Duffy was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1955, she was raised in Stafford, England. Duffy’s first recognition as a poet came when she was just 16, when a teacher sent her work off to a publisher of pamphlets. From age 16, Duffy lived with famous British poet and painter, Adrian Henri. She attended Liverpool University, where she has admitted she

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applied, simply to be close to Henri. She graduated in 1977 with a degree in philosophy. Duffy and Henri split in 1982. Duffy worked for The Guardian from 1988–89 as a poetry critic, and she later served as an editor for Ambit, a poetry magazine. In 1996, Duffy was appointed to a lecturer position in poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and later was named the creative director of the university’s school of writing. Critical Claim and Awards It was widely assumed that Duffy would be named poet laureate in 1999, after the death of Ted Hughes. It is likely that Duffy’s public, lesbian affair with fellow Scottish poet and novelist Jackie Kay made the appointment politically impossible, and, ultimately, Duffy lost to Andrew Motion. Since 1999, Duffy has claimed that she, and her young daughter, would not have welcomed the public attention, and that she

would have declined the position even if it had been offered. In that same year, Duffy’s work The World’s Wife was published to critical acclaim. This collection of narrative, short poetry was written in the voices of the “wives”—both real and fictional—of history’s most famous men and was the first to earn her mass appeal both in the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1995, Duffy was awarded an Order of the British Empire, and in 2002, she was awarded Commander of the British Empire. In 2005, she published a collection of intimate poems, Rapture, in which she charts the course of a long love affair in poetic form. This collection earned her the T. S. Eliot Prize and £10,000. Duffy’s first poem as poet laureate solidified her position as a “new voice” for the United Kingdom; this 14-line sonnet explored the political scandal surrounding the allowances and expenses claimed by Members of Parliament.

Carol Anne Duffy (right) speaking at the Hay Festival with Gillian Clarke. Duffy was the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly bisexual person to be named poet laureate of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Bisexuality; College and University Faculty; Government, Women in; Poets, Female; Novelists, Female; United Kingdom. Further Readings Allen Randolph, Jody. “Remembering Life Before Thatcher: Selected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy.” Women’s Review of Books, v.12/8 (May 1995). Edemariam, Aida. “Carol Ann Duffy: I Don’t Have Ambassadorial Talents.” The Guardian (May 26, 2009). Michelis, Angelica and Antony Rowland, eds. The Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy: Choosing Tough Words. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003. Donna McKinney Souder Colorado State University, Pueblo

Dykes on Bikes Dykes on Bikes is an international coalition of women’s motorcycle groups that includes both lesbian and nonlesbian riders and supporters. These groups are known best for their participation in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and women’s rights parades and marches but are also active in community service projects as well as other nonpolitical riding ventures. Dykes on Bikes has been in the press for their annual riding in the San Francisco Pride Parade—a procession that they lead—and for their legal battle to trademark their controversial name, which ended in 2007. The primary goals of this group are to create community between women motorcyclists, to empower women and lesbians, to participate in philanthropic and political ventures relating to LGBT and women’s issues, and to share a love of motorcycling among women. Women have ridden motorcycles throughout the 1900s. In World War II, as women mobilized to assist in the war effort at home and the boundaries of what it meant to be feminine were pushed as women took on a number of roles and responsibilities previously assigned to men, women began to operate motor vehicles, including motorcycles, in record numbers. Dykes on Bikes is the largest and most well-known community of women riders in history. In 1976, Dykes on Bikes made its first official appearance as a group in

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the San Francisco Pride Parade. Because of some of the motorcycles’ engines overheating as they attempted to move at the slow speed of the parade, the group, now known as the San Francisco Women’s Motorcycle Contingent, was soon moved to the front of the parade, where they have stayed visible for more than 30 years. During this time, chapters of Dykes on Bikes have emerged across the United States and in several other countries worldwide; these chapters continue to be active in their respective local communities. Although women continue to ride alongside, and apart from, men, biking is still largely considered a masculine undertaking, and women riders are often labeled as manly, or as “dykes”—a historically negative term for lesbians. Dykes on Bikes includes the term in its name as a way of reclaiming this term by the communities of women whom it was initially used to offend. Thus, use of the term is an act of resistance against discrimination. In February 2004, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused the group’s request to trademark the name “Dykes on Bikes,” as it was said to violate section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, which will not register a trademark that includes terms that disparage or disrepute a group of people. With the help of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and representation from the Brooke Oliver Law Group, Dykes on Bikes fought this decision, which was eventually overturned in 2007 by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Dykes on Bikes continues to be met with mixed reviews by the public, including feminist and lesbian communities. Some see the group as a strong example of cultural resistance, whereas others believe that the group confirms negative stereotypes about lesbians. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Feminism, American; Lesbians. Further Readings OutHistory.org. “The History of Dykes on Bikes San Francisco, CA 1976–2010.” http://www.outhistory.org /wiki/Dykes_on_Bikes:_San_Francisco,_CA_1976-2010 (accessed June 2010). San Francisco Dykes on Bikes Women’s Motorcycle Contingent. http://www.dykesonbikes.org/index.php (accessed June 2010). Katy N. Kreitler University of San Francisco

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Dysthymia in Minority Population Dysthymic disorder, also called dysthymia, is a less severe but chronic form of depression and is characterized by depressive symptoms that prevent one from functioning normally for at least two years. Depressive disorders in women often coexist with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and anxiety disorders such as panic disorders, social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder. Substance abuse can also cooccur with dysthymia, although this is more common among men than women. Studies have shown that both women and men who have depression and a serious medical illness, such as heart disease and diabetes, tend to have more severe symptoms of both illnesses. This entry will examine dysthemia incidence and treatment in the United States. Approximately 3 percent of the U.S. population has dysthymia, and a disproportionate number of those are women. Thought to be caused partly by genetics, as studies are beginning to show that depressive disorders are more likely to occur in women with family histories of depression, researchers suggest that chemicals and hormones also play a significant role. Obtaining more accurate rates of the disorder is difficult for several reasons, especially misdiagnosis, because the symptoms of dysthymia are often confused with normal life stressors or major depression. A historical bias against minorities has also resulted in over diagnosis of mental disorders in minority populations. In addition, studies find that minorities are more likely to experience chronic environmental and social stressors like poverty and crime and thus may not recognize dysthymic symptoms. Literature on rates of dysthymia and depression by race/ethnicity has not illustrated a consistent relationship between the two, partly because cultures express emotions differently. For example, some nonWestern groups, such as some Asian cultures, do not have the same concrete definition of mental illness that Western mental health professionals base diagnoses upon, which results in lower numbers of diagnosed persons in some populations. Other reasons for poor estimates of dysthymia in minority populations are barriers to effective care, such as a lack of transportation to a medical facility, lack of childcare, lack of insurance to cover office visits,

medication, and/or a specialist, lack of time off from work to visit a doctor and/or obtain medication, language barriers, stigma associated with having a mental illness, mistrust of the medical establishment, and physical health taking priority over mental health. Nevertheless, the implications of untreated dysthymia can be serious. Persons with dysthymia can experience one or more periods of major depression in their lives, and approximately 10 percent later develop major depression. One study of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–positive individuals found that minority women with dysthymia were less likely to receive the most effective treatment therapy available than both minority women without dysthymia and men. Treatment for dysthymic disorders often includes both antidepressant medication and psychotherapy. Women often find medication to be easier and less time consuming than therapy. The effectiveness of various treatment plans for minorities is contingent upon the recognition of the heterogenity of minorities, and culturally specific treatment is needed. Evidence-based practices and programs have typically been created and evaluated based on whites and persons with higher social and economic status (SES), which is problematic because abundant literature show the necessity of culturally specific treatment programs for minorities, who also tend to have lower SES. Further, some minority populations utilize more informal mental health services which must be acknowledged and supported by healthcare providers to provide the best treatment possible. See Also: Depression; Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of. Further Readings Akiskal, H. and G. Cassano. Dysthymia and the Spectrum of Chronic Depressions. New York: Guilford Press, 1997. Bell, Janet L. Chronic Physical Illness & Depression Among Ethnic Minority Elderly. London: Routledge, 1992. National Institute of Mental Health. “Women and Depression: Discovering Hope.” http://www.nimh.nih .gov/health/publications/women-and-depression -discovering-hope/complete-index.shtml#pub2 (accessed June 2010). Valerie R. Stackman Howard University

E Eagle Forum The Eagle Forum is a national conservative organization that promotes grassroots involvement in policymaking. Phyllis Schlafly (1924– ) founded the Eagle Forum in 1972 and continues to serve as its president. The organization was formed to defeat legislation called the Equal Rights Amendment, primarily because Schlafly believed that it would result in taxfunded abortions and same-sex marriage. After a 10-year battle, Schlafly and her followers succeeded in blocking the amendment’s ratification, and the organization gained prominence as a political force to mobilize the Christian Right. At this time, the Eagle Forum reports that it has 80,000 members in 45 branches. It has offices on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and in Alton, Illinois. Born to a Catholic family in St. Louis, Missouri, Schlafly earned a master’s degree in government from Radcliffe (Harvard) in 1945 and a law degree at Washington University in 1978. In 1949, she married the late Fred Schlafly, a Catholic lawyer from Alton, Illinois, who was a conservative anti-Communist. The couple raised six children. Schlafly’s political involvement began in 1946, when she worked as a campaign manager for a Republican congressional bid. She has attended every Republican National Convention since 1952 and wrote a best-selling book about her experience called Choice Not an Echo (1964), which was influ-

ential in promoting Barry Goldwater’s candidacy. After Schlafly lost a 1967 bid for the presidency of the National Federation of Republican Women, she began publishing a monthly newsletter to unite her conservative supporters, called the Phyllis Schlafly Report. She rose to prominence in the early 1970s, when she started her fight against what she calls “the radical feminist movement.” Schlafly has appeared regularly on television and radio and, since 1989, has produced a weekly radio show called Eagle Forum Live. She has authored or edited 20 books that offer a conservative perspective on subjects ranging from home schooling to nuclear strategy. Schlafly also developed a phonics system to fight illiteracy. Major Political Causes and Controversies The Eagle Forum’s slogan is “Leading the pro-family movement since 1972.” Schlafly promotes traditionalist Christian values, drawing together a broad coalition of grassroots conservatives. Although Schlafly is Catholic, her main constituency is right-wing evangelicals and fundamentalists. Some of the Eagle Forum’s causes include promoting English as the country’s sole official language, opposing “encroachments” on the United States (e.g., United Nations treaties), promoting tax reductions, and opposing antigun legislation. Schlafly’s key campaigns are protecting female homemaker’s rights and opposing abortion. In 1990, she founded the Republican National Coalition for Life. 435

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Schlafly is strongly against same-sex marriage, weathering a 1992 media storm when it came out that her eldest son is gay. At this time, Schlafly is focused on curbing “activist judges,” who she believes will extend marriage to same-sex couples and threaten prayer in schools. Her latest book is The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It (2004). Over her 60-year career, Schlafly has received numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate from Washington University (2008). The Ladies’ Home Journal named her one of the 100 most influential women of the 20th century, and Ann Coulter has called Schlafly her political hero. See Also: Antifeminism; Equal Rights Amendment; Evangelical Protestantism; Fundamentalist Christianity; Religion, Women in; Religious Fundamentalism, CrossCultural Context of. Further Readings Bellafante, Ginia. “A Feminine Mystique All Her Own.” New York Times (March 30, 2006). http://www .nytimes.com/2006/03/30/garden/30phyllis .html?sq=&pagewanted=all (accessed June 2010). Critchlow, Donald T. Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Felsenthal, Carol. The Biography of Phyllis Schlafly: The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority. New York: Doubleday, 1981. Kolbert, E. “Firebrand: Phyllis Schlafly and the Conservative Revolution.” The New Yorker (November 7, 2005). Hillary Kaell Harvard University

Earth Science, Women in Earth science, like most of the other sciences, remains a male-dominated field. The percentage of women in the earth or geosciences steadily decreases from elementary to secondary to higher education levels and into the career level, a phenomenon researchers term the “leaky” or “shrinking pipeline.” Reasons for gender inequities in the field include gender stereotypes, gendered educational experiences, lack of mentors and

role models, and work–family responsibilities that mirror those found in the other sciences. A number of organizations have arisen to attract more women to the field and improve working conditions. Women in Earth Sciences Studies Increasing numbers of female students enroll in science courses at the secondary school level, but many of these gains have not translated to significant enrollment increases at the college or university level. One reason posited is that differences in attitudes toward and interest in traditionally gendered subjects as the sciences begin to emerge even in very young girls. Another reason posited is the gendered expectations that women students in nontraditional fields such as the earth science encounter, including a so-called “chilly” classroom environment that discourages female participation and lowered expectations for female achievement. Asian girls, on the other hand, may experience increased expectations and pressures to succeed. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the percentage of women degree earners in the earth sciences has been rising steadily since the late 20th century, standing at 43 percent in 2009. This figure is approximately double that from 20 years ago. The percentage of female earth sciences students in the United Kingdom has risen to approximately 25 to 30 percent by the beginning of 21st century. Across Europe, women comprise 56 percent of all college and university degree recipients, but represent only a minority of graduates in nontraditional fields such as science. There is also a larger gap in the earth sciences when compared to other science fields such as chemistry and the life sciences, although the percentage of women in the earth sciences is higher than that of physics. There are also differences within the earth sciences themselves. There are a variety of subspecialty fields within the earth sciences, such as geology, oceanography, paleontology, climatology, volcanology, and sedimentology. More women pursue such subspecialties as geology and oceanography, while fewer women pursue such subspecialties as atmospheric science or climatology. U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) statistics show, however, that the gender gap widens considerably at the graduate level. In the physical sciences as a whole in the United States, women comprised 43



percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2005, but only 27 percent of all doctorates awarded that same year. In Germany, the percentages of female students in the earth sciences dropped from 30 percent of firstyear students to a low of only 15 percent of awarded doctorates. Women’s rates of postdoctoral participation are even lower. Women at the graduate level faced increased difficulties balancing work and family responsibilities due to the length of study and workintensive nature of such programs. Women in Earth Sciences Careers A significant gender gap also exists in terms of women who pursue academic careers in the earth sciences after graduation. Career opportunities in the earth sciences within academia include faculty and research positions at all educational levels, as well as museum positions; however, most women are clustered at the lower educational levels. According to the NSF, women in the United States comprise the majority of teachers at the elementary and secondary levels as well as those at two-year and junior colleges. NSF statistics for the year 2006 show that women comprised 31.7 percent of all science faculty, 20.6 percent of all full professors, 32.9 percent of all associate professors, and 39.4 percent of all assistant professors in the United States. 1994 figures for Germany showed that women comprised only 1 percent of all geology professors. According to research conducted by the European Union research organization the Helsinki Group, women comprised a minority of research scientists in the physical sciences, ranging from a high of 48 percent in Portugal to a low of 8 percent in the Netherlands. Women comprise only 14 percent of all full professors in European colleges and universities. Career opportunities in the earth sciences outside of academia include a variety of industry and government occupations, with most female earth scientists employed in the government sector. Although more women earth sciences degree earners pursue nonacademic careers, the workforce percentages remain low for women who pursue earth sciences careers in industry. NSF statistics show that women in the United States comprise 27 percent of all those employed in science and engineering careers, 21 percent of all those employed in business and industry careers, and 27 percent of all those employed through the federal government. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,

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the percentage of women in earth sciences occupations has remained at 30 percent or below since 2003. Eurostat figures showed that women comprised only 29 percent of European scientists and engineers in 2004. The earth sciences comprise only a small portion of all degree earners at the higher education level. In the United States, an average of 4,000 bachelor’s degrees and 800 doctorates in the earth sciences are awarded annually. Attracting women and minorities to earth science and other scientific fields has become increasingly important to the growth of such departments in countries such as the United States, where women comprise a majority of all college students and degree earners at the bachelor’s level and where the economic recession of the early 21st century has reduced funding levels in higher education. The lack of women in the earth sciences can hurt female enrollment and pursuit of careers in the field as they find few role models and mentors. Women in earth sciences careers face a number of gender-related challenges. Women tend to hold less prestigious positions and to have to demonstrate higher achievement levels than their male counterparts to receive similar performance appraisals. A gender pay gap and more limited advancement opportunities still exist at both the academic and industry levels, as is the case for many other fields. Women’s minority status in the field provides less mentoring and networking opportunities and can increase workload demands or marginalization in the laboratory. Many women also face the challenges of balancing work and family responsibilities or the perception that they may be less dedicated to their work. Women in the earth sciences have formed a variety of organizations dedicated to closing the gender gap by attracting more women to the field and by aiding those women already in the field at all levels. Prominent U.S.-based organizations include the Earth Science Women’s Network (ESWN), the Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG), the Association for Women in Science, Graduate Women in Science, and the National Research Council Committee on Women in Science and Engineering as well various committees with specialty organizations. International organizations include Women in Global Science and Technology, the European Platform of Women Scientists (EPWS), the Helsinki Group on women and science, and the EU Women in Science and Technology group.

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These organizations collaborate with other institutions, governments, organizations, and industries to increase women’s presence in the earth sciences. They also aid both students and professionals in the field through mentoring, networking, and professional development opportunities and assistance with gender-related and other issues. Broader organizations, such as the American Association of University Women, also pursue many of the same issues. See Also: College and University Faculty; Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Science, Women in; Science Education for Girls. Further Readings Adamuti-Trache, M., et al. “Embarking on and Persisting in Scientific Fields of Study: Cultural Capital, Gender, and Curriculum Along the Science Pipeline.” International Journal of Science Education, v.30/12 (2008). Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology Development. “Land of Plenty: Diversity as America’s Competitive Edge in Science, Engineering and Technology.” Arlington, VA: U.S. National Science Foundation, 2000. DeWandre, N. “Women in Science: European Strategies for Promoting Women in Science.” Science, v.295 (2002). Etzkowitz, H., et al. Athena Unbound: The Advancement of Women in Science and Technology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Gabel, Dorothy. Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning. New York: Macmillan, 1994. Hall, Linley Erin. Who’s Afraid of Marie Curie? The Challenges Facing Women in Science and Technology. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2007. James, A. N. Teaching the Female Brain: How Girls Learn Math and Science. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2009. Monosson, Emily. Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Morse, Mary. Women Changing Science: Voices From a Field in Transition. New York: Insight Books, 1995. Sheffield, Suzanne Le-May. Women and Science: Social Impact and Interaction. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 2004. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

East Timor East Timor (Timor-Leste) became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002, after 25 years of Indonesian occupation. Population estimates range from 800,000 to 1.1 million people as of July 2009. The key issues concerning women include challenges in accessing justice, sexual and other forms of violence, and the impact of traditional values. In 2002, the United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) helped establish a Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR) to investigate human rights violations committed between during Indonesian occupation, with specific attention given to women. However, access to justice for victims of sexual and other forms of violence and for those who were displaced by the conflict remains a challenge. A number of cultural norms continue to impact the lives of women, including forced and early marriage, polygamy, bride price, and barriers to inheritance and property ownership. Violence against women is prevalent and frequently resolved through traditional methods including mediation. In March 2009, East Timor enacted a penal code which criminalizes most sexual crimes. There have been delays in enacting a law addressing domestic violence. The enrollment rate of girls in secondary and higher education is low. Traditional attitudes, early pregnancy and marriage, abuse and harassment by teachers and sexual harassment and violence while traveling to school are among the causes of high drop out rates for girls. High wage gaps and occupational segregation persist, with a concentration of women in the informal sector. East Timor had a maternal mortality rate of 380 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2005. Women face inadequate access to pre- and postnatal care, particularly in rural areas, with many women giving birth at home. East Timor is one of two predominantly Roman Catholic countries in the Asia region, the other being the Philippines, which has contributed to restrictions imposed on access to abortion. High rates of unsafe abortion have been documented. Despite the establishment of a Secretary of the State for the Promotion of Equality, in 2008, women continue to be underrepresented in decision-making positions. A large number of organizations are work-

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ing to strengthen protections for women’s human rights including the Alola Foundation and Fokupers. See Also: Conflict Zones; Domestic Violence; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Babo-Soares, Dionisio. “Nahe Biti: The Philosophy and Process of Grassroots Reconciliation (and Justice) in East Timor.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, v.5/1 (2004). Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). “Concluding Observations: TimorLeste.” CEDAW/C/TLS/CO/1 (August 7, 2009). Kingsbury, Damien and Leach, M, eds. East Timor: Beyong Independence. Melbourne, Australia: Monash University Press, 2007. Ramona Vijeyarasa University of New South Wales

Eating Disorders Large numbers of women around the world manifest emotional distress in a variety of disordered eating patterns. For years, eating disorders associated with body image dissatisfaction were confined primarily to Western, developed countries. Evidence from around the world indicates that this is no longer the case. The globalization of Western ideals of beauty, which glorify thinness, has begun to have a profound affect on women everywhere. For example, work by Anne Becker and her colleagues documented the impact television, new to the Fiji islands, had on adolescent girls. This work, which was publicized extensively in the Western media, demonstrated that within three years of access to television, disordered eating and a preoccupation with dieting, virtually unheard of in Fiji prior to the introduction of television, had emerged among a substantial percentage of the young women studied. Many subsequent investigations of this same issue have indicated that access to Western ideals of beauty quickly counteract traditional aesthetic values, which have tended to embrace a more curvaceous and plump woman’s body as the ideal. In many cultures, especially

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within those where food is often scarce, women of larger size have traditionally been seen as especially beautiful and desirable because their higher weight is presumed to indicate greater health, wealth, sexual pleasure, and the ability to produce viable children. While differences regarding feminine beauty persist, women in the higher socioeconomic classes who live in urban areas with the greatest access to Western ideals of beauty through magazines, films, television, Internet, and beauty pageants, demonstrate the most significant changes in the concept of beauty. With these changes comes the desire to perfect the body through dieting, self-induced vomiting and excessive exercise, the hallmarks of disordered eating and distorted body image. Eating Disorders Most Common in Females The prevalence of eating disorders varies depending on the type of problematic eating. The evidence from all sources is clear: disordered eating is much more commonly found in women than in men, with between 85 and 95 percent of all diagnosed cases occurring in women. In the United States, for example, one in five women will struggle with a diagnosable eating disorder within her lifetime. The forms of eating disorders discussed most often include a pattern of self-starvation referred to as anorexia nervosa and a variety of binge–purge patterns called bulimia nervosa. While self-starvation and other forms of restricted eating have been seen throughout the centuries among women, from mystics striving for complete control of all bodily needs to rebellious and unhappy adolescents diagnosed with hysteria during the Victorian period, current Western approaches to understanding eating disorders began in earnest in the late 1960s. At that time, the prevailing images of female beauty in developed countries began to change from full-bodied women, symbolic of feminine sexuality and fecundity, to child-like, androgynous bodies epitomized by the iconic British model of that time period, Twiggy. Her long limbs, soulful eyes, 5’ 7” frame weighing in at 98 pounds, came to represent perfection in the eyes of many in the developed world. Not long after Twiggy captured great attention, Hilde Bruch’s important work, Eating Disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa, and the Person Within was published in 1973 for a professional audience, followed closely in 1978 with The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa, for all readers interested in the growing problem of self-starvation.

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Psychological Diagnoses of Disordered Eating As disordered eating became a more commonly described pattern of psychological disturbance, formal descriptions of the criteria required for clinical diagnosis were put forth in the official guide to psychological disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current version of this text, called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TR (fourth edition, text revision), provides the category scheme for psychiatric disorders accepted by mental health workers across the United States and other industrialized nations of the West. In this manual, eating disorders are currently divided into three main categories, namely anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and what the manual calls eating disorders, not otherwise specified. The draft proposal for the next revision of this manual, the DSM-V, due out in 2013, indicates some modification to this structure and includes binge-eating disorder as a separate diagnosable entity. According to the DSM-IV-TR, anorexia nervosa is diagnosed when a person’s body weight is only 85 percent of what is expected for an individual with a given height, age, and frame size; and, in women, when the menstrual period has been lost for at least three consecutive cycles if this loss cannot be explained by other factors. Two additional important diagnostic criteria include an expressed abhorrence for body fat, and a persistent fear of gaining weight even when a very low weight is maintained. Individuals with anorexia nervosa also manifest the strong belief that weight and body shape are central to self-worth. Often in anorexia nervosa excessive exercise is observed, along with a distorted perception of the body, causing the sufferer, who is generally a woman, to experience herself as much heavier than she is. Often, the self-starvation seen in anorexia nervosa results in bodily discomfort such as constipation, dry and itchy skin, and an inability to keep warm; it also can result in serious physical harm, including brittle bones, anemia, and heart muscle damage. In 1983, when Karen Carpenter, a popular performer of the time, collapsed and died from cardiac arrest following her prolonged struggle with anorexia, the disorder became widely appreciated. Anorexia Nervosa One of the more difficult aspects in treating anorexia nervosa is that until the disorder becomes severe,

In the United States one in five women will struggle with a diagnosable eating disorder within her lifetime.

many women gain substantial self-esteem from the weight loss they have achieved, and they feel elated with the self-discipline inherent in their behavior. Women, who are losing weight, exercising often, and finding success in other areas of their lives due to the rigid control and perfectionist standards they have been able to apply to themselves, are often met with praise by other women who also have been influenced by the culture to believe that being thin is the ultimate good. As thinness is embraced worldwide as the standard of beauty and the preeminent symbol of entry into the “modern world,” the peer support for excessive dieting and purging of food is evidenced globally. This affirmation, in turn, contributes to the resistance to treatment expressed by many in the early phases of anorexia. While it is certainly true that an anorexic woman, who has been able to transform her body



through discipline, self-denial, and hours of exercise often feels proud of her accomplishment, this pride is difficult for her to sustain because each day requires this same control and restriction; and each hour calls out for continued perfection. Any minor deviation from the standards she set for herself is experienced as a painful failure. Bulimia Nervosa Bulimia nervosa shares some characteristics with anorexia, including an excessive preoccupation with weight and body shape as crucial to self-worth, but it has unique features as well. According the DSM-IVTR, bulimia nervosa is diagnosed when an individual engages in binge eating, namely the consumption of especially large quantities of food in a relatively short period of time, at least twice a week for three months and who uses a variety of methods, such as self-induced vomiting, overuse of laxatives, fasting, or excessive exercise, to rid the body of the food consumed during a binge. Unlike individuals diagnosed with anorexia, individuals struggling with bulimia often feel out of control, weak willed, and ashamed. Binging and purging are often done in secret and the woman often feels deeply discouraged by her repeated failure to meet her weight loss goals. Most women diagnosed with bulimia are of average weight so they do not receive the admiration of a culture obsessed with thinness, and often their deep distress is not known to those who might offer support. Like anorexics, bulimics often restrict their food intake and plan ambitious exercise regimens, but because they are less successful with self-discipline, the hunger and feelings of deprivation associated with fasting or food restriction often trigger additional binge–purge cycles. The self-induced vomiting, excessive laxative use, enemas, and diuretics employed to purge unwanted calories are especially problematic as they can result in serious medical problems such as electrolyte imbalances, swollen salivary glands, damaged tooth enamel, irritated throat tissue, and gag reflex difficulties. The emotional dimensions and the physical toll taken on an individual diagnosed with bulimia nervosa became better understood when Diana, Princess of Wales, disclosed her eating problems and the functions they served for her during her unhappy marriage to Prince Charles.

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Binge-Eating Disorder In addition to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, the DSM-IV-TR includes within its section, Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified, the term bingeeating disorder. This disorder applies to individuals who binge regularly but who do not engage in purging or other inappropriate ways of riding the body of food. Recent evidence suggests that this form of disordered eating is even more common than either anorexia or bulimia. Beyond eating patterns the DSM-IV-TR includes in its formal listing, some within psychology suggest that obesity and chronic dieting also qualify as forms of problematic eating because they share with the formally diagnosed eating disorders concerns about body image, depression, and an intense preoccupation with food. It is also the case that chronic dieting is a frequent precursor for anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. If obesity and chronic dieting are included as eating disorders, the extent of women’s highly troubled relationship with food—the substance necessary to sustain life—is clearly revealed. Large numbers of women in industrialized countries and urban areas of developing nations diet during significant portions of their lives. They fear obesity, and frequently express deep dissatisfaction about their weight and shape. The fact that many women believe—and the media promotes—the idea that eating is an activity to be associated with guilt and shame provide additional evidence of the extent to which women’s relationship to food has been distorted. Conforming to Societal Norms In attempting to explain the prevalence of eating disorders among women within the modern, globalized world, a variety of concepts have been put forth amid a good deal of controversy and conflict. Some of the early approaches to these disorders, especially anorexia, derived from psychoanalytic thinking. It argued that women engaged in self-starvation to terminate menstruation, avoid taking on secondary sex characteristics, and to symbolically reject sexual maturity. As a consequence of this analysis, women showing the symptoms of anorexia were often seen as acting like recalcitrant children, refusing to accept the responsibilities of womanhood and motherhood. The treatment techniques derived from this view were geared to fostering the transition to and confor-

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mity with traditional definitions of femininity. Sadly, in circumstances where such techniques failed, hospitalization, force feeding, and the monitoring of all aspects of a woman’s life, including her trips to the bathroom, were seen as necessary to get her to eat and accept the prescribed definitions of womanhood. Feminist theorists partially agreed with the analysis that disordered eating reflected problems in a woman’s ability to conform to the expectations of femininity, but asserted that the problem was not to be found within the woman herself, but rather within a cultural prescription of womanhood that is too narrow and oppressive. Some argue that in many ways anorexic women are actually complying fully with the mandates for femininity by agreeing to take up as little space in the world as possible, by concerning themselves with the feeding and nurturance of others instead of themselves, and by working to control all elements of the body fully to avoid the sense of “messiness” often attributed to women’s bodies. Their writings suggest that the observed control of body needs, to the point of seeming to overcome its need for food, is emblematic of efforts to suppress, as required by the culture, all emotional needs as well. The anorectic adjustment, however, can be seen as paradoxical as well because in taking the cultural prescriptions for womanhood to their extremes, the destructiveness of these expectations for women’s well being is brought into sharp focus. Others have added to the analysis of eating disorders by focusing on the cultural requirement to achieve beauty, which includes thinness. While modern women in developed countries have succeeded in legally freeing themselves from second-class citizenship, they have remained imprisoned by accepting confining images of beauty and by participating in the cultural myth that a transformation of the physical body will replace internal discontent with self-assurance and happiness. Developed societies have a huge stake in this action as the cosmetics, fashion and diet industries are multibillion-dollar endeavors that ignore the devastating emotional consequences of promoting beauty images that are impossible for most women to achieve. Understanding why some women develop eating disorders of great severity while others, exposed to the same pressures for thinness, do not remains unclear. Evidence suggests that women with low selfesteem, which predates the onset of the disorder, who

grow up in families requiring perfection from their daughters, or who have suffered trauma that undermines their feelings of self-worth, are particularly vulnerable. Those with anorexia find ways to achieve the coveted prize of extreme thinness, while those who binge struggle daily with their failure to do so. While it is especially difficult to treat eating disorders within a cultural context that glorifies thinness, many effective treatments and supportive services are available within mental health settings. See Also: Diet and Weight Control; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of; Health, Mental and Physical; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of. Further Readings American Psychiatric Association (APA). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed., text rev. Washington, DC: APA, 2000. Bruch, Hilde. Eating Disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa, and the Person Within. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Bruch, Hilde. Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978. Fallon, Patricia, Melanie A. Katzman, and Susan C. Wooley, eds. Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders. New York: Guilford Press, 1994. Nasser, Mervat, Melanie A. Katzman, and Richard A. Gordon, eds. Eating Disorders and Cultures in Transition. New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2001. Orbach, Susie. Hunger Strike: The Anorectic’s Struggle as a Metaphor for Our Age. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. Regina Edmonds Assumption College

Ebadi, Shirin Shirin Ebadi is a lawyer, human rights activist, and author. In 2003, she became the first Iranian as well as the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Ebadi has received numerous awards for her humanitarian work with women’s and children’s rights, been bestowed with honorary doctoral degrees



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Nobel Peace Prize award winner Shirin Ebadi in Paris at the nongovernmental organization, International Federation for Human Rights. Ebadi cofounded the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child, and the Human Rights Defense Center.

from colleges and universities, is an internationally known speaker, and has cofounded several nonprofit organizations to aid women and children in Iran. Born in Hamadan, Iran, on June 21, 1947, Ebadi and her family moved to Tehran in 1948. Upon graduation from school, she attended the University of Tehran in 1965, completed her law degree in 1969 and later obtained her master’s degree in law in 1971. She became a judge, and was the first woman in Iran to head a legislative court. During the 1979 revolution, Iran’s clerics deemed that the laws of Islam prohibited women from being judges, and demoted all female judges, including Ebadi, to clerks. The women protested this decision and later received a new classification, that of legal experts. Unhappy and frustrated with the situation, Ebadi resigned. She did not practice law again until 1993. Ebadi spent many years working toward democracy in Iran and fighting for the rights of women and

children. She has spent her life as a well-known and polarizing figure in Iran. She is celebrated for taking on legal cases of individuals and families that have fallen out of favor with the country’s governing body due to their political convictions. She has been an outspoken critic on the influence of the Western world, believing that Iran should become democratic without interference from outsiders. She brought a lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department for refusing to allow her to publish her memoir because of the United States’s trade with Iran. United States trade laws prohibit writers from embargoed countries from being published here. Ebadi was successful in the lawuit, and her book was published in 2006. In 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the 11th woman to receive that honor. She was criticized by conservatives in Iran for not covering her head when she received her award. Because

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Ebadi is an outspoken proponent of democracy in Iran, she has received numerous death threats. Her family has been imprisoned and harassed in an effort to silence her. In 2009, Ebadi claimed that the Iranian government had broken into her safe deposit box and stolen her Nobel Peace Prize medal. The government has denied all claims of wrongdoing. Ebadi fled to the United Kingdom in 2009 and lives in exile there, away from the increasing persecution of individuals critical of the ruling Iranian government. Ebadi is the founder and/or cofounder of several groups, including the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child, the Association for Support of Children’s Rights and the Human Rights Defense Center. She continues to represent persecuted people and those who have been murdered for political beliefs against the Iranian government. See Also: Iran; Iranian Feminism; Islam; Islamic Feminism. Further Readings Ebadi, S. and A. Moaveni. Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope. New York: Random House, 2006. Ebadi, Shirin and A. Moaveni. Iran Awakening: One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country. New York: Random House, 2007. Hubbard-Brown, J. and Shirin Ebadi: Modern Peacemakers. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2007. Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University

Ecofeminism Ecofeminism, a relatively new version of ecological ethics, is a set of environmental philosophies and movements rooted at the intersection of feminist and ecological theories. The first known usage of the term ecofeminism can be found in Françoise d’Eaubonne’s 1974 book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (Feminism or Death). In this work, she declared that a direct link can be drawn between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature; consequently, understanding the nature of these connections is essential to any real understanding of both the oppression of women and of nature. Thus,

for d’Eaubonne, all feminist theory and praxis must include an environmental perspective. Conversely, any solutions to environmental problems must, of necessity, incorporate a feminist perspective. Although all ecofeminists generally agree that many important parallels can be drawn between how both women and nature are unjustly dominated under the patriarchal/androcentric systems that tend to prevail around the world, there are disagreements about the nature of these comparisons and whether they are potentially liberatory or simply reinforce harmful stereotypes about women. In her work Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters (2002), philosopher Karen J. Warren identifies 10 categories of what she terms “women-other human Others-nature interconnections” that tend to appear in the literature concerning ecofeminism. This article makes use of those conceptual categories in this brief overview of ecofeminist thought. Historical/Causal Interconnections In light of the historical ubiquity of patriarchal domination over women and nature, some ecofeminists have expressed the idea that androcentrism is the root cause of environmental destruction. Among these writers, however, there is a difference of opinion as to when such destructive attitudes took root and became predominant. One such thinker representative of this school of thought is Riane Eisler. In her book The Chalice and the Blade, for example, she traces the origins of this domination and destruction back to the invasion of Indo-European societies by nomadic tribes from Eurasia between the 6th and 3rd millennia b.c.e. Others such as Carolyn Merchant in The Death of Nature, however, locate the historical turning point in the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. Disagreeing with both Eisler and Merchant, on the other hand, is philosopher Val Plumwood, who argues that the roots of this domination of nature can be traced back to classical Greek philosophy and the rationalist tradition, which elevates humans over nonhuman animals and nature due to the superior reasoning abilities of humans. Conceptual and Empirical Interconnections According to Karen J. Warren, conceptual interconnections are at the heart of ecofeminist philosophy. In her discussion concerning conceptual interconnec-



tions, she refers to Val Plumwood again since Plumwood locates the conceptual basis of structures of domination in value dualisms that are hierarchically organized (for example, reason ranks over emotion, as does culture over nature, human over nature, and man over woman). Other intellectuals such as ecofeminist sociologist Ariel Salleh, though, tend to focus on sex-gender differences, arguing that female bodily experiences such as childbearing and childrearing as social constructs place women in a very different relationship with nonhuman nature than it does men. From these sex-gender differences arise variances in female and male “ways of knowing” and interacting with the natural world. Given that certain groups of humans such as women, people of color, the underclass, and children have often been found in scientific studies to suffer disproportionately from the impacts of low-level radiation, pesticides, toxins, and other pollutants, the works of many ecofeminists focus on furnishing scientific and empirical evidence to document and validate such claims. Prominent among such writers are scientists Theo Colborn and Sandra Steingraber. In her coauthored book Our Stolen Future (1997), for example, Colborn, a zoologist, offers an examination of the ways that certain synthetic chemicals interfere with hormonal messages involved in the control of growth and development, especially in the fetus. Similarly, Steingraber, a plant ecologist and cancer survivor, has written many works that examine the links between human rights and the environment, with a particular focus on chemical contamination. Socioeconomic Interconnections While the thinkers in this group rely extensively upon the use of scientific and empirical data in their works, they also infuse their analyses with a historical materialist approach in their critiques of capitalist patriarchy. A renowned representative of this school of thought is Vandana Shiva, a physicist by training and a celebrated global activist. Shiva’s many writings focus primarily on socioeconomic structures and phenomena that construct and contribute to the exploitation of women, their bodies, and their labor as well as to the exploitation of nature. Arguing that the Western concept of development, where all work that does not produce profits and/or capital is defined as unproductive work, is in reality “maldevelopment,” she believes

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that markets need to respect and care for the environment and the people that sustain it or all of humanity will suffer. Similarly, Maria Mies and Mary Mellor reason that patriarchy is not simply a cultural form of domination but also a material/economic one. Linguistic, Symbolic, and Literary Interconnections Many ecofeminists maintain that language plays an essential role in reinforcing sexist, racist, and naturist views of women, people of color, and nonhuman nature. A prominent example of this line of thinking can be found in Carol Adams’s The Sexual Politics of Meat. In this work, she argues that the roots of the domination of women and nature (more particularly, nonhuman animals) can be located in language that feminizes nature and naturalizes women. For example, women are frequently referred to by animal terms that are meant to be pejorative: alternatively, they have been called chicks, dogs, pussies, cows, and sows, among many other denigrating words. Thus, this linguistic process of animalizing women in a patriarchal culture is a powerful way of reinforcing and validating women’s subaltern status. In recent years, some thinkers have attempted to incorporate ecofeminist thinking into the wider arena of academic discourse to demonstrate the utility of ecofeminism as a practical movement for practical social activism. An excellent example of such work can be found in Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy’s edited volume Ecofeminist Literary Criticism. In the work, the writers look at how ecofeminist theory can strengthen literary criticism and argue for activist applications of academic theory in an attempt to have more of an impact on those in the nonacademic world. Spiritual/Religious Interconnections One of the major concerns of thinkers often included under this rubric are speculations about the ability of patriarchal religions to reform themselves from the inside in order to eliminate their traditional biases against women and nature, since both are usually placed at the bottom of spiritual pyramids of dominance and status. Prominent writers in this tradition include Elizabeth Dodson Gray (Green Paradise Lost), Mary Daly (GynEcology and Amazon Grace), Starhawk (Truth or Dare), and Rosemary Radford Ruether

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(Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization, and World Religions). Echoing Ruether’s call for a look at ecofeminism through the eyes of women from the global South, Mary Judith Ress’s book Ecofeminism in Latin America (2005) explores the emergence of a postpatriarchal, ecofeminist theology in Latin America.

cerning humans and the environment. Theorists such as Chris Cuomo and Ynestra King are typical representatives of such work. In particular, King’s work is notable because she is one of the first North American theorists to actively support an ecofeminist ethic that draws upon socialist feminism.

Epistemological Interconnections Given that epistemology is a field of study preoccupied with the nature of knowledge (for example, how does one come to know what one knows?), many ecofeminists have focused a lot of their work on deconstructing some of the following prototypical Western views about knowledge: (1) the notion that knowledge is objective; (2) that the “knower” is an objective, detached, independent, and rational observer; and (3) nonhuman nature simply exists as a passive object of knowledge. To buttress their arguments, many such thinkers turn to the works of feminist philosopher of science Sandra Harding, arguing that in order to find a solution to current environmental crises, we need to consider the perspective of those at the bottom of the social ladder. Prominent representatives of such lines of reasoning can be found in the works of Lori Gruen and Donna Haraway.

Critiques of Ecofeminism Given that there are so many variants of ecofeminism, it is rather difficult to offer a comprehensive discussion of critiques of such a wide-ranging body of literature in this brief overview. At the most general level, however, it may be said that some frequently cited criticisms include the charge that ecofeminists err in reducing women to the sum of their bodies or that women’s potential and abilities are limited to characteristics traditionally associated with their purported “caring nature.” Others have criticized spiritual ecofeminists for focusing too much on religion instead of on politics. A work representative of some of these critiques can be found in Noël Sturgeon’s Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory, and Political Action.

Political and Ethical Interconnections As a grassroots movement concerned with practical solutions to urgent problems such as women’s health and environmental health, the treatment of animals, and the prudent use of science and technology, most ecofeminist analyses are concerned with the development of theories that can guide praxis in the construction of more viable social and political structures that will allow humans to coexist harmoniously with nature. The works of thinkers and activists such as Winona LaDuke, Cynthia Hamilton, Sherilyn MacGregor, and Joni Seager are representative of concerns among ecofeminists about pivotal connections between politics and the environment. A major focus of ecofeminist philosophers has always been upon environmental ethics because they believe that thinking about the conceptualization and treatment of women, other oppressed humans, animals, and the rest of nature calls for a feminist ethical analysis and response. As such, their main goal is to develop theories and practices that are not male biased and that can serve as a guide to action con-

See Also: Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Justice; Gibbs, Lois; Green Belt Movement; LaDuke, Winona; Maathai, Wangari; Navdanya; Shiva, Vandana; Social Justice Activism; Social Justice Theory. Further Readings Gaard, Greta and Patrick D. Murphy, eds. Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Mellor, Mary. Feminism and Ecology. New York: New York University Press, 1997. Salleh, Ariel. Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx, and the Postmodern. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. Sandilands, Catriona. The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Sturgeon, Noël. Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory, and Political Action. New York: Routledge, 1997. Warren, Karen J. Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Danielle Roth-Johnson University of Nevada, Las Vegas



Economics, Women in Because economics is concerned with analyzing and describing the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth, certain demands are made on individuals who choose to study this social science. Mathematical skills, which have long been considered the province of males, are needed even at the basic level. Since the 1960s, intensive efforts have been made in the United States and in other nations to close the gender gap in science and math that allowed males to outperform females in both fields. Recent studies, such as a 2008 study by Janet Hyde and a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, indicate that there are currently no statistical differences between the performances of girls and boys on standardized tests in these subjects. Despite this, there is considerable evidence to indicate that females continue to be greatly underrepresented in the field of economics. In 1997, for instance, approximately 80 percent of all Ph.D.s in economics were male. While the existence of the gender gap is generally acknowledged, the reasons for it are not clearly understood. In the past, a lack of interest on the part of females and the failure to grasp complex mathematical concepts were frequently given as explanations, but more recent research, particularly that produced by female scholars, gives credence to the theory that a lack of mentoring and a scarcity of positive role models for female economic students may be at the root of the problem. Another possible explanation is that females are more likely to pursue economic-related fields such as applied economics, business, public policy, and environmental economics because these fields are more concerned than pure economics with issues that are important to women. Some scholars, particularly Kevin Rask and Jill Tiefenthaler, argue that the imbalance is a result of too many males in the profession, rather than too few females. In order to promote the presence of women in economics, feminist economists are now creating both domestic and international partnerships with businesses to enhance the potential of female economic students. Sweden, for instance, has partnered with American Express to provide an annual scholarship to the top Female Economist of the Year at Stockholm School of Economics. Female graduate students in economics may also receive fellowships from organi-

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zations such as the Instute of International Education. However, the most positive step in attracting women to the field is the success of those women who are already practicing economists. Female Students The choice of whether or not to pursue a career in economics generally begins in the college classroom. Many of those decisions are made in introductory classes where students form their first impressions of economics professors and the field of economics. Contradicting some of the earlier literature on why there are so few women in the field of economics, Elizabeth Jensen and Ann Owen found in a multischool study that many female students were more likely to continue in the field if they began their studies under a female professor and if they felt involved in the class through high grades, group projects, and class interaction. They were less likely to experience this feeling of involvement in classes where male students dominated. Their overall conclusion was that women choose career paths for different reasons than men because of their distinct interests and aspirations, and females exhibit less interest in careers in economics because their performance in economics classes is generally lower than that of males. Numerous studies have dealt with the disinclination of females toward economics as a career path. Christopher Bollinger et al. argue, for example, that women are able to perform as well as men in economics classes, but they are unlikely to do so because they enter introductory classes with negative attitudes that become stronger as their exposure to economics continues. Cynthia Bansak and Martha Starr support this thesis, but they also suggest that female attitudes are shaped in large part by an ingrained belief that economics is heavily dependent on mathematical skills and that it is solidly based in the business world. Bollinger et al. suggest that if economics professors played up the importance of ecnomics as a tool in social welfare analysis, the field would attract and retain more women. Career Paths A large number of individuals choosing economics as a career enter the field of academicia, but female economists tend to move up the academic ladder at a slower pace than do their male cohorts. According

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to a report of the American Economics Association Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, only 6 percent of tenured professors of economics are women. Peter Bell, executive director of the New York Council on Economic Education, offered two possible reasons for that showing: what’s being taught and who’s teaching it. Bell points to the fact that on average, only one to two pages in economics textbooks deal with gender and minority issues. Second, he suggests that the predominance of male economics professors results in a lack of role models for female students. According to the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates, between 1974 and 2000, the number of women earning doctorates in economics more than trebled, rising from 8.7 to 26.9. However, that growth has now leveled out and is expected to regress in the future. A 2004 study undertaken by Donna Ginther and Shulamit Kahn provided new insights into the academic careers of those new female economists, reporting that in their first appointments, women in economics were less likely than women in other fields to obtain tenure and that those who did achieve tenure tended to take longer to do so than their cohorts in other disciplines. While acknowledging the fact that women tend to progress more slowly than men in their careers because of giving birth and shouldering the lion’s share of family responsibilities, Ginther and Kahn believe that their study identifies several other reasons for the wide gap in the career paths of male and female economists, contending that female economists are hindered by the fact that they have fewer publications to their credit—possibly because they are more likely than males to be in nontenuretrack positions that are free of the “publish or perish” mandate or because more female academicians devote the majority of their time to teaching or administration. Other possible reasons for the gender gap include the well-documented lack of mentors and exclusion from academic networks. Similar findings have been reported in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. The average female salary remains lower than the corresponding male salary at each level of the academic career. Even in the same economics department, male professors are often paid more than females with the corresponding years of experience. One important explanation could be the impact of outside job offers, as there is some evidence that men

receive more outside offers than women positioned at a comparable level. They also gain higher pay increases in response to those offers. The rise of the women’s movement in the 1970s began focusing attention on these economic differences. Two decades later, the establishment of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and the launching of the Journal of Feminist Economics (1994) provided female economists with a forum for calling public attention to gender differences in the economics profession. The American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP), established in 1971, has also played a significant role in enhancing the status of women economists. Like CSEWP, the Royal Economic Society’s Committee for Women in Economics is comprised of members drawn from academia, business, and the civil service in the United Kingdom. Both committees seek to reverse the underrepresentation of women in economics and establish networks to promote the careers of female economists, particularly those at entry level. In Australia, the Committee for Women in Economics operates in a similar fashion, monitoring and promoting the presence of females in the field of economics and providing them with a network for advancing their careers. Significant Contributors It is generally believed that women have made few contributions to the history of economic thought, and the significance of the works of women such as American Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935), the feminist author of Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution (1898), might have been ignored if feminists had not resurrected them. Joan Robinson’s (1903–83) career as an English economist was similar to that of other women around the world. Although she became a full University of Cambridge lecturer in 1937, it was not until 1965 that she achieved the status of full professor of Girton College. Robinson did not reach the pinnacle of her success until 1979 when she became the first female fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. By the 21st century, female economists had begun to receive more recognition for their contributions to the field. In 2007, Harvard economist Susan Carleton Athey, who specializes in microeconomic theory,



industrial organization, and econometrics, became the first female economist in history to win the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, which is awarded to economists under the age of 40 who have made significant contributions to economic thought and knowledge. Three years later, Esther Duflo became the second female to win this award. Duflo, who directs the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT, is heavily involved in the economic issues of politics, gender, and education, with a focus on India. She has also conducted research in Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, and Kenya. Another wellknown American economist, Claudia Goldin, who is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard and the director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Development of the American Economy program, focuses her attention on economics of both the past and the present. Much of her work, including Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (1990) deals with the impact of economics on women’s lives. In 2009, Elinor Olstrom became the first women to win the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences since the award was established in 1968. Olstrom, who is the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and the codirector of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University in Bloomington as well as the founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University, was recognized for her “analysis of economic governance, especially the commons” in response to her studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins in India, Nepal, and Kenya. She concluded that common property may safely be left to the management of individuals rather than governments or businesses. Her award was particularly significant for female economists because it acknowledged the significance of work outside the scope of mainstream economics. Around the world, in addition to academia, female economists are taking their place in government, business, and international organizations. In 2010. two female economists headed the list of candidates for Finance Minister. The position was open because Sri Mulyani Indrawati, a technocrat reformer intent on eradicating graft within the government, resigned amid great controversy. She accepted a new position with the World Bank. Although a male was ultimately

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chosen as the Indonesian finance minister, Anny Ratnawati, the Director of General Budgeting, and Salsiah Alisjahbana, the head of the National Development Planning Board, are excellent examples of female economists who have battered down gender barriers to achieve prominence in the field. Another example is Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, who began serving as the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan in 2005. She was the first female to ever hold that position. Dr. Akhtar had honed her skills by working with the Asian Development Bank. Despite the fact that economics continues to be a male-dominated field, in large part because of the discipline’s inability to attract and retain female students, the women who make up the field are redefining economics in a number of significant ways. As they participate in the professional world, these women are battering down obstacles to their advancement and paving the way for other women who follow in their footsteps. See Also: Business, Women in; Chief Executive Officers, Female; Equal Pay; Glass Ceiling; Management, Women in; Professions by Gender; Women’s Studies. Further Readings Bansak, C. and M. Starr. “Gender Differences in Predispositions Towards Economics.” (May 2006). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract _id=908899 (accessed July 2010). Bollinger, C. R., et al. “Chicks Don’t Dig It: Gender Attitude and Performance in Principles of Economics Classes.” (September 2006). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers .cfm?abstract_id=931670 (accessed July 2010). Booth, A. and J. Burton, with K. Mumford. “The Position of Women in UK Academic Economics." The Economic Journal, v.110/464 (June 2000). Cobb, K. “Where Are the Women Ph.D.s In Economics?” http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications _papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3556 (accessed July 2010). Dynan, K. E. and C. E. Rause. “The Under Representation of Women in Economics. A Study of Undergraduate Economic Students.” Journal of Economic Education, v.28/4 (Fall 1997). Ginther, D. K. and S. Kahn. “Women in Economics: Moving Up or Falling Off the Academic Career Ladder?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, v.18/3 (Summer 2004).

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Goldin, C. “The Quite Revolution That Transformed Women Employment Education and Family.” American Economic Review (May 2008). Jensen, E. J. and A. L. Owen. “Pedagogy, Gender, and Interest in Economics.” Journal of Economic Education, v.32/4 (Fall 2001). Jonung, C. and A. C. Stahlberg. “Reaching the Top. On Gender Balance in the Economic Professions,” Econ Journal Watch, v.5/2 (May 2008). Rask, K. and J. Tiefenthaler. “Too Few Women?—Or Too Many Men? The Gender Imbalance in Undergraduate Economics.” (August 2004). http://papers.ssrn.com /sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=595222 (accessed July 2010). Graziella Fornengo University of Turin

Ecuador The Republic of Ecuador is a multicultural country located in the western portion of South America and is the second smallest country in South America. Most of the population is of mixed descent and is known as mestizaje. The predominant culture is Hispanic and the predominant religion is Roman Catholic. Ecuador has one of the largest indigenous populations in South America. Traditional maledominated gender roles remain even though women have civic and legal equality. Ecuador ranked 23rd of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Gender Gap Report. Domestic arrangements vary by region and ethnicity. There is a strong emphasis on family life, with both nuclear and extended family arrangements common. The 2009 fertility rate was 2.6 births per woman. Although 73 percent of married women use contraceptives, the Catholic Church does not condone the practice. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 21 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate was 210 per 100,000 live births. Domestic violence remains a problem despite national laws. Many houses feature separate areas for male and female family members. Hispanic culture generally emphasizes the father’s role as financial supporter and disciplinarian and the mother’s role as house-

In Ecuador, a woman harvests Amazonian cacao beans that will be processed into chocolate and sold worldwide.

keeper and childcare provider. Middle- and upperclass households tend to follow a European lifestyle. The state education system is both bilingual and multicultural. Female school attendance rates stand at 97 percent at the primary level, 60 percent at the secondary level, and 39 percent at the tertiary level. The 2009 female literacy rate was only slightly less than that of males, at 91 percent and 94 percent, respectively. Ecuadorian society is highly stratified, with a small white elite, a mestizaje middle class, and a lower class of mestizaje, blacks, and indigenous peoples. A strong historical emphasis on skin color and racial and ethnic discrimination remain. National welfare programs include social security and healthcare, although pro-

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grams often lack the financing needed to make them effective. Western-style medicine is largely limited to urban areas and most Ecuadorians view hospitals as places of last resort. There is a strong belief in traditional medicine. Life expectancy rates are age 64 for females and age 60 for men. With 50 percent of the population living in poverty, 54 percent of women work outside the home, many because of financial necessity. Women constitute 37 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 49 percent of professional and technical workers. Women workers are most represented in the banking and finance industry, higher education, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Women represent the majority of teachers at the primary level, half of the teachers at the secondary level, and close to 30 percent at the tertiary level. A gender gap still exists in terms of average estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which is $5,189 for women and $9,075 for men, and unemployment rates, which are 10.84 percent for women and 5.79 percent for men. Women have the right to vote. Women have played a prominent role in some political issues, including indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian rights movements. Women hold 32 percent of parliamentary seats and 35 percent of ministerial positions as well as high judicial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. An increasing number of NGOs and the Ecuadorian Women’s Permanent National Forum advocate women’s issues. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Machismo/Marianismo. Further Readings Dore, Elizabeth and Maxine Molyneux. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Save the Children, “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

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Education, Women in Women’s access to formal education remains a relatively recent and still unevenly accessible phenomenon. In poorer countries, many girls and women are excluded from education altogether. In richer nations where there is equal access to education, inequality persists within girls and women’s educational experiences and choices. These gender differences have provoked a variety of explanations and activism. The Historical Context In the northern states of the United States, there is a long tradition of educating women from the upper classes, through home tutoring. However, it was only from the mid-19th century that working-class and middle-class women gained access to free, basic education. Even then, their right to education remained restricted. First, they stayed in the education system for short periods of time and were largely confined to elementary schooling, as secondary and college education remained a male preserve. They had access to a more restricted and less prestigious curriculum in which home economics was prominent, while men dedicated time to the study of classics and sciences. During the 19th and 20th centuries, access to basic education became increasingly available to girls, as it prepared them for their responsibilities as wives and mothers; advanced studies were perceived as dangerous to their mental and physical health. More generally, women’s access to advanced education was seen as a threat to family structures and to the foundations of society. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, women started entering secondary and, later, higher education on a wider scale. The provision of education became less gender differentiated and the formal barriers that stopped women from accessing the same curricular provision broke down. The aftermath of the 1960s and 1970s civil rights movement in which women and black and minority ethnic groups demanded the same rights as white men, brought the implementation in many countries of equal opportunities legislation. This legislation meant that “equivalent,” rather than equal, educational provisions became illegal, and often brought an end to gender-differentiated curricular routes. In 1967, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural

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Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution that stressed access to the same education (i.e., the same provision, curriculum, and standards) for all. In 1972, in the United States Title IX was passed to eliminate discrimination based on sex within federally funded educational programs. The Educational Achievement and Participation of Girls and Women These days, in most of the developed world, women’s participation and achievement in education has become increasingly similar to men’s. In some countries, women’s have attained higher educational achievements than men. In the United States, the numbers of women enrolled in colleges caught up with and began to overtake men in 1980. However, they remain slightly underrepresented among doctoral students. In 2006, women comprised 49 percent of all Ph.D. graduates in the United States and 45 percent in nations of the European Union (EU). Similarly, in many countries, women’s performance in external examinations often equals, and sometimes exceeds, that of men. In Anglo-Saxon countries (especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia), this has led to the emergence of what is known as the “boys’ underachievement debate.” According to some experts, schools and universities have become increasingly feminized, both in the composition of the teaching workforce and of institutional values. As a result, it is argued that girls are now at an advantage educationally. Such views have been challenged, especially by feminist academics, who have highlighted theoretical problems and a lack of empirical evidence to support the claims. In particular, the gender achievement gap has been described as small, often not significant, limited to particular subjects and tiny compared to gaps by social class and ethnicity. Further girls’ higher educational achievements do not convert to better opportunities in the labor market where the gender pay differential continues to favor men and where women remain under-represented in high-ranking positions. The emergence of the boys’ underachievement debate has been linked to a broader backlash against feminism and to the current standards agenda in education, which prioritizes test results and is typified by the United States’s No Child Left Behind policy.

Despite women’s participation rates and achievement becoming increasingly similar to men’s, a number of issues remain. In the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, millions of girls’ lack access to even the most basic levels of education. One of the Millennium Development Goal targets of the United Nations is to “Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.” This target has been missed. A major rationale behind policy intervention in developing nations is that women’s access to education will bring economic development, improved health, social change, and gender equality. More broadly, a large proportion of women are concentrated in a small number of subjects, generally the ones attracting less prestige and returns in the labor market. In particular, women are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, which together are known as STEM. As noted previously, accomplishments in these subjects by boys and girls, as in other educational areas, has become increasingly similar. This is true in many countries, including the United States. Yet, decisions to pursue STEM subjects once they cease being compulsory remain highly gendered. For example, in the United States in 2006, women represented only 21 percent of Ph.D. graduates in engineering, manufacturing, and construction, and 38 percent in science, mathematics, and computing. In EU nations, these figures were 25 percent and 41 percent, respectively. In other broad fields of study, women equaled or outnumbered men. Further, even within these disciplines, important variations remain by narrow field of study. There are national variations as well. For example, in engineering, manufacturing, and construction, women constitute only 11 percent of Ph.D. holders in Japan, but 59 percent in Estonia. In many industrialized nations, “women in STEM” or “women in science” have been targeted for policy intervention, as these work concentrations are viewed as hindering women’s talent. This interference can carry with it social justice and economic implications. The Educational Experiences of Girls and Women The educational experiences that girls and women have as students and teachers are a key to gender dis-



crimination. Research has established that despite the increased perception that schools and universities are feminized spaces, they remain male-dominated institutions. There are multiple reasons for this. These include a lack of women in powerful positions; widespread gender stereotyping in textbooks, the mass media and in the views of parents, teachers and peers; the domination of boys on school lessons, classroom space, resources (particularly technological equipment), interactions and teacher time, as well as on the playground; sexual harassment in schools from sexist language to physically threatening behavior toward female staff and students; and the social devaluation of subjects in which females excel. Research shows that these factors can strongly influence students’ educational, and ultimately career, choices. Schoolrelated factors are embedded in wider societal patterns. For example, some have argued that the wider societal association between masculinity and STEM can deter women from these subjects. Historically, teaching has been seen as an appropriate occupation for women, which has provided them with employment opportunities. However, there is also evidence that female teachers’ experiences are characterized by gender discrimination. Over time, female teachers have received less pay than their male colleagues and in some countries have had to leave teaching once they were married—known as the “marriage bar.” Although such overt discrimination has now become illegal in many countries, female teachers continue to face a number of barriers to career progression. In most countries, women are disproportionately over represented in the teaching of young children, in line with a view of women as naturally caring. As a result, teaching younger age groups is often perceived as a low status activity with limited progression opportunities. These teachers are disproportionately underrepresented in the highest ranks of the profession, particularly among head teachers, as they are less likely to be promoted. Women dominate in low-status occupations in schools, such as teaching assistants and other support staff occupations. Theoretical Perspectives on the Education of Girls and Women Mainstream theories of education have largely ignored women as a category. This has been characteristic of research on students and teachers. Increas-

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ingly, though, women’s position in education and their differences with men—in relation to attainment, participation, subject choice, or, more generally, to experiences of education—have become legitimate topics of investigation. Explanations for gender differences can be crudely but usefully categorized as biological or social constructionist. Biological approaches may explain educational disparities between men and women—by locating attainment differences within the brain. This viewpoint, which dates back to antiquity, still finds some resonance today. In January 2005, Harvard University president Lawrence Summers suggested in a speech that the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering in U.S. elite universities was related to their intrinsic aptitudes. Biological theories have been criticized for being essentialist in nature, considering gender as fixed and for failing to explain historical, cultural and national variations in gender differences in attainment. They also have been criticized for ignoring the effects of structural barriers to women’s education and how the brain is affected by social factors. Social constructionists explain gender differences in education through the influence of social factors. Social constructionism encompasses a wide range of theoretical positions. One particularly influential strand has looked to gender socialization processes to explain why girls disproportionately study “female subjects,” or why women teachers are reluctant to access particular disciplines and roles. Here gender socialization processes refer to the ways girls and boys learn their sex roles, including from parents, teachers, peers, and the mass media. Socialization and sex role theories remain widespread. Among social constructionists, poststructuralists occupy a distinct position. Within socialization theory there is a distinction between gender, the social aspects of being female or male, and sex, the biological aspects of being female or male. However, within poststructuralism, this distinction is seen as problematic, for biological sex itself is socially constructed and produced by social processes. Poststructuralist theorists have highlighted the capacity of individuals to resist the dominant norms, something largely absent from socialization theory, drawing on ideas of power as relational. In this perspective, educational experiences, choices, and achievement are related to gender identity and are explained in terms of negotiating par-

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ticular positions. Poststructuralists have stressed that identities are multiple and that gender intersects with social class, race, sexuality, disability, and so on. Wellknown poststructuralist education theorists include Bronwyn Davies and Valerie Walkerdine. Poststructuralist work now dominates research on gender and education generally and feminist work specifically. This has led to a focus on the meanings of education and gender and of their effects, and to increased work on how gender interacts with other aspects of identity in educational settings. Activism in the Education of Women and Girls Many activists in the education of girls and women have drawn on feminist theoretical perspectives. There are many feminist positions. They share a social constructionist approach to gender and a conception of gender as a power relation, differentiated and hierarchical. A common distinction in early second-wave feminist activism in the 1970s and 1980s is between liberal and radical approaches, although in practice there was considerable overlap between these factions. Liberal feminist approaches emphasized the need to bring more girls and women into male-dominated structures. These have been criticized for wanting to include women without changing the structure and educational organization. In contrast, radical feminist perspectives emphasized the need to challenge educational structures and definitions of knowledge. In addition to ensuring equal rights for women in all areas of social life, including in education, the women’s movement endeavored to establish alternative forms of education. Since the 1960s, this has led to the establishment of continuing education and community programs, as well as the creation of academic programs. The ambition behind these courses is to address the invisibility of women in mainstream education—a liberal approach known as “add women and stir”—and/or to include a female perspective to education. This was a radical approach to transforming curricular content as well as the pedagogical tools for its delivery. Many universities now include undergraduate and/or postgraduate courses or programs in women’s or gender studies. However, recently, some of these programs have faced closure, due to a lack of institutional support during challenging economic times. In some countries, such as the United States, Australia, some parts of the United Kingdom, and the Middle East, there are

a significant numbers of girls and women who attend single-sex schools and women’s colleges. Although single-sex education is tied to various concerns, including religious ones, some feminists have supported their development as a way of increasing girls’ educational attainment and self-esteem. These programs also offer fewer gender-stereotyped subject choices. The benefits of single-sex schooling remain unclear as there is conflicting research evidence. In recent history, women’s educational experiences have changed considerably. Once excluded from formal education, girls and women now participate and achieve very similarly to boys and men. Yet, some issues remain. In the less developed nations, girls’ access to even the most basic forms of education remain a concern. In developed nations, formal barriers have been broken, yet women continue to be underrepresented at the higher levels of education and within key high status subjects. They also remain more likely to experience discrimination and sexual harassment. See Also: “Girl-Friendly” Schools; High School Teachers; No Child Left Behind; Science, Women in; Single-Sex Education; STEM Coalition; Women’s Colleges. Further Readings Davies, B. Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales: Preschool Children and Gender. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1989. European Commission. She Figures 2009: Statistics and Indicators on Gender Equality in Science. Brussels: European Commission, 2009. Francis, B., C. Skelton, and L. Smulyan, eds. Sage Handbook on Gender and Education. London: Sage, 2006. Martin, J. and J. Goodman. Women and Education 1800– 1980. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Spender, D. and E. Sarah, eds. Learning to Lose: Sexism and Education. London: The Women’s Press, 1980. Unterhalter, E. Gender, Schooling and Global Social Justice. London: Routledge, 2006. Walkerdine, V. The Mastery of Reason: Cognitive Development and the Production of Rationality. London: Routledge, 1988. Marie-Pierre Moreau University of Bedfordshire Heather Mendick Goldsmiths, University of London



Educational Administrators, College and University

Educational Administrators, College and University Women’s presence in educational administration at the college and university level increased in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but the higher education administration remains a male-dominated field. Women administrators also face a gender gap in salary, gender segregation in terms of types and levels of positions held, and more limited opportunities for advancement. Women are clustered in lower level and less visible positions, and while promotion rates have increased with gender equity legislation, many they are often limited to certain career tracks. Women administrators also face the challenges of having few role models and of gendered expectations and management styles. Women in higher administration work in a variety of positions and administrative units, such as academic, student, business, or external affairs. The percentage of women educational administrators at the college and university level has steadily increased in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but a significant gender gap still exists, even as women’s increased presence in higher education overall have made them the majority of college students in some countries, such as the United States. Gender Gap The gender gap in higher education administration is lowest in entry-level administrative positions and at small, public, and two-year colleges, and increases at the higher administrative levels and at doctoral degree–granting and research universities. There are more qualified women than female higher education administrators, and those stuck in administrative positions often have equivalent education and greater experience than their male counterparts. Researchers have posited a variety of reasons for the gender gap in higher education administration, reaching little consensus as to the causes. Women in higher education are disproportionately represented in entry-level administrative staff positions, while in 2003 they held only 27 percent of deanships and15 percent of provost positions. An American Council on Education study found that 45 percent of senior administrators and 38 percent of chief aca-

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demic officers were women. Figures (2010) from the Chronicle of Higher Education place the percentage of female college and university presidents at 23 percent. The percentages are much lower for minority men and women. Women are also disproportionately represented in positions that some researchers feel are earmarked for women, such as positions that were previously held by a woman, work with women or minority students, or were specifically created to meet equal opportunity or affirmative action legislation, such as those that passed in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Such legislation has had both positive and potentially negative impacts. While these placements have increased women’s employment and advancement opportunities within higher education administration, many of these positions do not have the advancement potential to the highest administrative levels. Similar figures hold for women college and university faculty, where they are clustered in adjunct and other nontenure-track positions with little chance of advancing into the administrative ranks through department chairmanships or other avenues. Perceptions of Female Administrators Women in higher education administration also face challenges to their achievement of further career success through promotions and increased responsibilities. When women began entering the workforce in greater numbers in the second half of the 20th century, it was common to speak of a “glass ceiling” in higher education administration as well as other fields that prevented women from advancing to the highest levels of the field. Women’s overrepresentation in lower level and peripheral jobs not viewed as part of the career ladder to the highest administrative positions often results in lower salaries, responsibilities, visibility, and expectations than their male counterparts. Many women administrators face gender stereotypes and gendered expectations in their careers. Traditionally, many societies held lower expectations for female success or leadership capabilities. Women often bear more family and childcare responsibilities at home, making it harder for them to achieve a balance between career and family and adding to the perception that women administrators have less time

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to devote to their careers, or the opposite perception that hardworking women administrators are neglecting their traditional family responsibilities. Although heightened awareness and antidiscrimination laws have greatly reduced overt gender discrimination and provided legal avenues for recourse in many countries, these subtle, less detectable forms of gender discrimination remain. They can affect women’s ability to obtain or advance in higher education administrative positions as employers evaluate more subjective job qualifications, such as communicative and leadership abilities. They can also affect women administrators’ job evaluations if she is perceived as violating such expectations through the exhibition of a nonfeminine management style. Differences in women’s and men’s leadership and communication styles also affect female administrators. Traditional gender stereotypes can lead to positive perceptions of strong, assertive male administrators who work long hours, and negative perceptions of the equivalent female administrators. Women administrators may also be stereotyped as too emotional, unable to handle complicated budget information and financial decisions, and unable to fight for scarce resources. The fact that there are fewer women administrators can increase such perceptions by placing their performance under more scrutiny. Women administrators may also face difficulties working or socializing with mostly male counterparts, or fitting into the traditional “old boys network” of the academic culture. Several organizations dedicated to women in higher education administration, such as the American Association of University Women and the Higher Education Resource Services (HERS), were created to help women overcome these challenges and further increase their presence in higher education administration. Such organizations provide women administrators with leadership and management development opportunities, as well as providing the collaboration and mentoring networks that pioneering women administrators lacked. HERS also maintains an international component, running an annual academy for women in higher education in Africa. See Also: American Association of University Women; College and University Faculty; Community Colleges; Management, Women in; Management Styles, Gendered.

Further Readings Chliwniak, Luba. Higher Education Leadership: Analyzing the Gender Gap. Washington, DC: Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University, 1997. Eggins, Heather. Women as Leaders and Managers in Higher Education. Philadelphia: Society for Research Into Higher Education, Open University Press, 1997. Johnsrud, Linda K. and Ronald H. Heck. “Administrative Promotion Within a University: The Cumulative Impact of Gender.” Journal of Higher Education, v.65/1 (1994). Mitchell, Patricia Turner. Cracking the Wall: Women in Higher Education Administration. Knoxville, TN: College & University Personnel Association, 1994. Nidiffer, Jana and Carolyn Terry Bashaw. Women Administrators in Higher Education: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Sagaria, Mary Ann Danowitz. Women, Universities, and Change: Gender Equality in the European Union and the United States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Shakeshaft, Charol. Women in Educational Administration. London: Corwin, 1989. Tinsley, A. and C. Secor. Women in Higher Education Administration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984. Welch, Lynne Brodie. Women in Higher Education: Changes and Challenges. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1990. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Educational Administrators, Elementary and High School Educational administration is a field of study that trains educators to lead school districts and individual schools. Elementary, middle/junior, and high schools are usually led by administrators referred to as principals or head teachers. Although the teaching ranks consist mostly of women, school administrators have historically been men. However, in the last two decades, the principal ranks have grown to include increasing numbers of women. Although many scholars and practitioners praise modern trends and consequent changes in the cadre



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of school administrators, they are also quick to point out the need for continued transformation within the educational administration profession. Because principals and head teachers are usually chosen from the teaching ranks, it is important to examine the makeup of and attitudes about the teaching profession. In addition, it is vital to study the higher education programs that prepare male and female teachers to become state-certified school administrators. The Gendering of Teachers and Leaders Since the 1800s, teaching has been viewed as women’s work because of the supposed inherent female qualities that engendered women as the appropriate people to work with children. Even today, teaching— especially in the field of early childhood—is viewed by some as an extension of women’s natural parenting roles. Conversely, school administration has been viewed by many as men’s work because our culture has historically viewed men as natural leaders. Thus, a paradox emerged and has continued for over 200 years: Most teachers are women, and most principals, who are recruited from the teaching ranks, are men. As a consequence, the ratio of female to male school leaders has been severely imbalanced for most of education’s history. During modern times, American schools have increased in size and become more complex. Likewise, school district governance structures have also grown in size and complexity. Since 2000, educational administration researchers such as Catherine Marshall, Linda Skrla, and Michelle Young have documented numerous accounts of sexual harassment and discrimination against women in educational administration. The difficulties women face in the educational administration field increase in severity in parallel with each level that is examined within the hierarchy of school district governance. For example, women in the education ranks represent four-fifths of teachers, one-half of elementary school principals, one-quarter of secondary school principals, and onetenth of school district superintendents. Educational Leadership Preparation Programs Researchers examined the educational leadership preparation programs in universities and colleges and found that at least one-half of all educational administration students are women. In turn, this means

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most school districts have relatively equal numbers of women and men from which to choose principals, superintendents, and other management positions within the school district hierarchy. At the same time, the current political environment is sated with accounts of the disappearing principal and the fact that we just don’t have enough principal candidates to take their places. Some researchers argue that discussions about the principal shortage ignore gender discrimination as a related issue. The belief is that there are suitable female candidates to choose from among the teaching ranks: If school district hierarchy were more open to hiring women as leaders of adults—rather than just teachers of children—the principal shortage might be alleviated to a considerable degree.

In the last two decades, ranks of elementary school principals have grown to include increasing numbers of women.

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Women’s Ways of Leading Schools Similar to the “women’s ways of knowing” that Mary Belenky and colleagues brought to the debate, there are differing opinions among educational administration researchers whether or not women and men lead schools differently. For some, focusing on the differences between female and male leaders is not politically expedient. Rather, to increase the numbers of women in leadership positions, one must convince society that women are as good as men—which is often communicated and interpreted as saying they are alike. For others, studying difference is positive politically because it is believed that by doing so, society is introduced to a broader, richer interpretation of how good leaders look and act. For example, two leaders of differing races, genders, and class backgrounds might lead differently, yet be equally effective, with varying strengths and weaknesses. Charol Shakeshaft is one of the first educational administration researchers to focus on women who have broken the “glass ceiling” in educational administration and explore the differences between the ways men and women lead schools, and specifically, how the work environment, leadership styles, communication abilities, conflict-resolution skills, and decision-making techniques differ between male and female school leaders. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, College and University; Management, Women in; Management Styles, Gendered. Further Readings Belenky, Mary, et al. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Blount, Jackie, M. Destined to Rule the Schools: Women and the Superintendency, 1873–1995. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Marshall, Catherine. “Imagining Leadership.” Educational Administration Quarterly, v.31/3 (1995). Rusch, Edith. A. “Gender and Race in Leadership Preparation: A Constrained Discourse.” Educational Administration Quarterly, v.40/1 (2004). Shakeshaft, Charol. Women in Educational Administration. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1989. Skrla, Linda. “The Social Construction of Gender in the Superintendency.” Journal of Education Policy, v.15/3 (2000).

Young, Michelle D. “Shifting Away From Women’s Issues in Educational Leadership in the U.S.: Evidence of a Backlash?” International Studies in Educational Administration, v.33/2 (2005). Young, Michelle D. and Linda Skrla, eds. Reconsidering Feminist Research in Educational Administration. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Katherine Cumings Mansfield University of Texas at Austin

Educational Attainment, Effect of Unpaid Labor on Most children in developing countries combine education with paid or unpaid labor. There are significant gender differences in the types and location of this labor, but research indicates that heavy work burdens for children reduce school attendance rates and academic achievement. Worldwide, girls are significantly more likely than boys to be involved in unpaid household labor (commonly called “chores”), and boys are slightly more likely than girls to be employed outside the household. Unpaid household labor may include caring for siblings, fetching water, cooking, or other similar activities but does not include income-generating agricultural work on a family’s land. Data from a household survey conducted in the 2000s in 16 developing countries provide a profile of work activities. Although there is significant crosscountry variation, on average, 21 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls aged 5 to 14 years were employed outside the home during the past decade. Boys worked an average of 20.2 hours per week and girls an average of 19.2 hours. However, when unpaid household labor is considered, both the participation rates and hours worked are higher for girls. More than 70 percent of girls in this age group performed unpaid household services (for an average of 11.12 hours per week), whereas just over half of boys worked in the home (for 8.5 hours per week). A combined measure of work that includes both economic and household activities shows that there are more girls working than boys for all of the survey regions.



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School attendance rates are lower for girls than for boys in most developing countries. The Millennium Development Goals include targets for universal primary school education and gender parity in education access by 2015. Enrollment in primary education has improved significantly over the past decade, reaching a high of 88 percent of children in 2007. However, of the 72 million children out of school in 2007, half had never been inside a classroom. Although gender disparities have been reduced, there are still only 94 girls for every 100 boys enrolled in secondary schools in developing countries, with significantly greater disparities in Africa and south Asia. Family income is a major predictor of school enrollment: only 31 percent of girls (and 41 percent of boys) from the poorest income quintile enroll in secondary school. Most girls who do not attend school are members of excluded groups (e.g., ethnic or tribal minorities). Furthermore, children who live in rural areas are significantly less likely to attend school than children in urban areas. Evidence on the Effect of Unpaid Household Labor on Education Work, whether inside or outside the home, can compete directly with the time a child spends attending school and studying. Long hours or difficult work may result in exhaustion that reduces school achievement. However, a child’s work also may provide essential income for a family (or free an adult to work in the labor market), supplying the money needed to pay school fees. Cross-country data reveal a strong negative relationship between child market work and school attendance rates. Chores also have a negative effect on school attendance, but the effect is smaller than that of paid labor. Many children combine paid work with education (and even more combine household chores with education). For children involved solely in unpaid household labor (and not paid market work), over 84 percent of boys and 81 percent of girls are enrolled in school. However, only 65 percent of boys and 61 percent of girls who work for pay are enrolled in school. Because most children do combine paid or unpaid work with school, the most relevant question is whether there is some maximum number of hours of work that children can perform before school atten-

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dance or learning suffers. Evidence seems to point to a threshold of 14 to 20 hours of work per week of paid market work or somewhat more hours of unpaid household work; work hours beyond this threshold are associated with significantly lower school attendance rates. In other words, children can combine some work with schooling, and household chores are not quite as detrimental to school attendance as paid market work, all other things held constant. Work hours also affect other important measures of educational attainment. Research clearly shows that children who combine school with work are more likely to lag behind their expected school grade levels than children who do not work. Grade repetition is likely to result in early dropout from school. In addition, nonworking children significantly outperform working children on academic tests. Both paid market work and unpaid household work reduce test scores, although again, paid market work has a stronger negative effect. Household chores may present a lower barrier to education than paid market work because chore hours may be more flexible. Survey data suggest that the need to generate income for one’s family is a more frequent explanation for school nonattendance than the need to perform household chores. Other factors influencing family decisions about their children’s educations include the inability to pay school fees, the low quality of many developing country schools, and low rates of return to schooling, particularly for girls. Health problems may also interfere with school attendance or performance. See Also: Child Labor; Children’s Rights; Convention on the Rights of the Child; Global Campaign for Education; Unpaid Labor. Further Readings Blanco Allais, Federico. Assessing the Gender Gap: Evidence From SIMPOC Surveys. Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2009. Dorman, Peter. Child Labor, Education and Health: A Review of the Literature. Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2008. Lewis, Maureen A. and Marlaine E. Lockheed. Inexcusable Absence. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2006.

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United Nations. “The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009.” http://mdgs.un.org (accessed April 2010). Amy McCormick Diduch Mary Baldwin College

Educational Opportunities/ Access For most of coeducational schooling’s history, the public school was thought to be gender-, class-, and race-blind or neutral. It is often assumed that students are given equal access to educational materials and a similar quality of teachers and have identical opportunities to succeed in comparable facilities. However, during the past few decades, numerous researchers concur that characteristics such as socioeconomic class, race, and gender significantly influence educational opportunities and access. A person’s level of access and achievement differs not only according to their gender, age, and wealth but also in their ability to convert resources into valued outcomes. Socioeconomic Status Socioeconomic status or class is an important concern when examining educational access and achievement. Chances are that if a student lives in an economically depressed area, he or she will also attend inferior schooling resulting from a school finance arrangement that creates an educational caste system. School boards with sufficient funding have ensuing control over level of teacher pay, classroom size, and whether libraries are stocked with encyclopedias and computers. However, when school boards do not have sufficient funding, they have only what Jonathon Kozol referred to as “negative control,” or choices over which of the children’s needs go unfulfilled. In fact, poor children in high-poverty schools perform worse than similarly poor children who attend schools without a high poverty rate. Likewise, children who are not poor perform less well in schools of concentrated poverty. In addition to facing inequalities when they go through their local schools, poor children enter classrooms with appreciably lower cognitive skills

than their peers with more advantages. In addition to a poor diet, families living in racially and economically isolated areas also suffer from the effects of severe pollution and other health complexities. Lack of healthcare facilities, affordable housing, and grocery stores, accompanied by a lack of private and public transportation avenues, magnify poor families’ attempts to ameliorate their situation. In addition, families who differ from the white, middle-class norm of most public school personnel face additional difficulties negotiating relationships and policies in schools. Race Race, which is closely tied with socioeconomic status, is another chief consideration when probing educational access and achievement. Poverty is a direct cause of social segregation, but it is nearly impossible to separate poverty from race, especially when one considers the consequences of racial discrimination in housing. The neighborhoods in which racial minorities settle have important consequences. Racial segregation results in lack of contact with middleclass white Americans, which in turn affects students’ exposure to mainstream English usage and valuable networks that lead to desirable jobs and high-quality schooling. Concentrated poverty and racial isolation have devastating effects on all students, but the increased likelihood of teenage pregnancy especially affects girls, who consequently drop out of school. In addition to importunate racism in the housing market, schools have historically segregated students according to race, mostly by using separate educational tracks. It is well known that black and Hispanic students are disproportionately underrepresented in gifted and advanced placement programs, while conversely being disproportionately overrepresented in special education programs. Blacks and Hispanics are also disciplined more often and more harshly and drop out of school at disproportionately higher rates than white or Asian students. Some researchers have found that race, socioeconomic status, and gender are closely tied. For example, most poor, female, minorities performed higher than their male counterparts, but when both boys and girls of poor, racial minority status were placed in college-bound tracks, there was a leveling effect, or an erasure of gender differences in achievement. In addition, when it comes to learning

Educational Opportunities/Access computer science, studies indicate that in addition to gender, race is a factor in access and achievement. Gender Considering gender as a variable while studying educational opportunity and access is precarious because socioeconomic status and race complicate the relationship between gender and achievement. The educational experiences of girls and boys are profoundly influenced by their contradictory material and cultural circumstances that are directly related to the additional identity markers of race and class. Although those most vulnerable to school failure are poor, racial minority boys, female students, as a gendered class, experience more difficulties than boys as a group. Eighty percent of school-age girls have experienced some form of sexual harassment, with 20 percent

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experiencing an escalation of the harassment to physical or sexual abuse. In addition to safety concerns, there are also health issues to consider when discussing the state of female students. For example, girls participate in physical education and other vigorous exercise half as much as boys do. Moreover, girls are more often than not the ones who bear most of the hardships of pregnancy and parenthood if students become parents during their teen years. Although most educators acknowledge that boys repeat grades more often and drop out at a higher rate than girls, girls who repeat a grade are more likely to drop out than male grade repeaters. In addition to racial segregation, gifted education programs can also have segregative effects when it comes to gender. For example, equal numbers of boys and girls are usually identified for gifted programs in elementary school. However,

Afghan girls participate in an accelerated learning class in 2007. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, there were virtually no girls being educated. In 2010, a reported 2.5 million girls attended school.

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during the early teenage years, girls begin dropping out of gifted programs. Moreover, when it comes to math and science gifted programs, girls are scarce. Many researchers admit that blatant barriers women and girls experienced in past decades have diminished significantly, but girls and women still lag behind men in participation in science, technological, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields. Although cause-and-effect relationships are difficult to ascertain, some contend that girls still face a culture in schools that indicates they do not belong in STEM fields. Other researchers point to the cumulative effect of how girls are socialized to refrain from interest, achievement, and careers in STEM. See Also: Computer Science, Women in; Education, Women in; Engineering, Women in; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Science Education for Girls; Single-Sex Education; STEM Coalition; Title IX. Further Readings Datnow, Amanda and Lea Hubbard. Gender in Policy and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2002. Dickert-Conlin, Stacy and Ross Rubenstein. Economic Inequality and Higher Education. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Lee, Valerie E. and David T. Burkam. Inequality at the Starting Gate. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2002. Marshall, Catherine and Maricela Oliva, eds. Leadership for Social Justice: Making Revolutions in Education, 2nd ed. New York: Allyn & Bacon, 2009. Mickelson, Roslyn A. “Gender, Bourdieu, and the Anomaly of Women’s Achievement Redux.” Sociology of Education, v.76/4 (2003). Oakes, Jeannie. Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality, 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. Southworth, Stephanie and Roslyn A. Mickelson. “The Interactive Effects of Race, Gender and School Composition on College Track Placement.” Social Forces, v.86/2 (2007). Katherine Cumings Mansfield University of Texas at Austin

Egypt Home to one of the world’s oldest ongoing civilizations, Egypt lies along the shores of both the Mediterranean and Red seas in northeast Africa. The Nile River continues to be of utmost importance to the Egyptian economy. Almost a third of the workforce is employed in the agricultural sector, but 43 percent of Egyptians now live in urban areas. Egypt’s resources are overtaxed by having the largest population in the Arab world, and global economic woes have affected the economy, resulting in a per capita income of $6,000 and an unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. A fifth of the population now lives in poverty. Culturally and religiously, Egypt has more in common with the Middle East than with Africa. More than 99 percent of the population are Egyptian, and 90 percent are Muslim. The majority of Egyptians are Sunni, but there is also a Coptic Christian minority. The mores that govern women’s lives are heavily dependent on geographical location, social class, religious background, and political orientation. Although women have legal rights to equality, in practice they are discriminated against in both the public and private spheres. Violence against women and the virtually universal practice of female genital mutilation are major concerns. Although the National Council for Women was established in 2000, nongovernmental organizations bear the brunt of promoting and protecting women’s rights. Egyptian law is based on Islamic Shari`a law, and women are encouraged to remain in their homes and subjugate themselves. Females younger than 21 years need the permission of a male guardian to obtain a passport or travel. Male relatives can perform “honor killings” in cases of perceived female immorality, and if convicted, they receive only light punishment. In rural areas, arranged marriages for young girls are still common. A female’s inheritance rights are half those of male heirs, and if the only child is a daughter, the remaining half is distributed among male relatives. Non-Muslim widows have no inheritance rights at all. From 70 to 80 percent of Egyptian women wear the veil in public, either as a means of avoiding male attention or as a religious statement. While at school, primary schoolgirls are banned from wearing the veil. Secondary and preparatory schoolgirls need parental permission to do so.



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Seven-year-old Do’a Ali (center) has a favorite place in the new Hamata School in Egypt: the library. She is just learning to read, but she has already looked through all of the books, and her goal is to read every one.

There have been a number of reforms that have improved women’s lives, but the ability to exercise those rights is dependent on the social factors that control women’s lives. Women are now employed in government, medicine, law, academia, and the arts, but their presence is still somewhat limited in business, and they are still restricted in their ability to own land and obtain bank loans. Equal pay is now mandated by law, and women can now divorce without spousal consent, but they may be left without financial resources. Mothers who marry non-Muslim males can now confer citizenship on their children. However, mothers have no legal rights over children except for physical custody of children younger than 15 years. In 2008, women held nine of 454 seats in the People’s Assembly and 21 of 264 seats in the Shura Council. Two of 32 cabinet ministers were female.

Egypt ranks 81st in the world in infant mortality (27.26 deaths per 1,000 live births), with female infants (25.51 deaths per 1,000 live births) having a slight advantage over males (28.93 deaths per 1,000 live births). With a life expectancy of 74.81 years, adult women also have an advantage over men (69.56 years). The median age of 25.2 for women is slightly higher than that of men (24.4 years). Egyptian women have a fertility rate of 3.05 children—the 71st highest in the world. Egyptians have an intermediate risk of contracting bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, Rift Valley fever, and schistosomiasis. Avian flu has also been identified. Access to education is limited for women, who have a literacy rate of only 59.4 percent compared with 83 percent for males. Feminists argue that illiteracy and lack of education have been used to discriminate against women.

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Various reports suggest that from 86 to 97 percent of girls undergo female genital mutilation between the ages of 7 and 10 years. Although the law prohibits the practice of infibulation, the most dangerous form of female genital mutilation, it is still used in parts of southern Egypt. The government has used the media to inform parents about health hazards associated with female genital mutilation. Violence against women is of major concern, but few official data exist. In most cases, family members and neighbors tend to limit the scope of violence. Eyewitnesses are required to prove that domestic violence occurred. Nongovernmental organizations have taken the responsibility for providing support for victims of abuse. Rapists may be sentenced to prison terms up to 25 years, but most cases are never reported. There are no laws against spousal rape. Although prostitution is illegal, it is a problem in large cities, and many street children are forced into prostitution. As such, sexual harassment is not illegal, but it has been prosecuted under morals statutes. One 2009 report revealed that 83 percent of Egyptians and 98 percent of foreign women had been sexually harassed. See Also: Domestic Violence; Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; Honor Killings. Further Readings Abu-Lughod, Lila. “The Active Social Life of ‘Muslim Women’s Rights’: A Plea for Ethnography, Not Polemic, With Cases From Egypt and Palestine.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, v.6/1 (2010). Afrol News. “Egypt.” http://www.afrol.com/Categories /Women/profiles/egypt_women.htm (accessed February 2010). Baron, Beth. Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Egypt.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/eg.html (accessed February 2010). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Social Institutions and Gender Index. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Egypt.” http://genderindex

.org/country/egypt-arab-rephttp://genderindex.org /country/egypt-arab-rep (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Ehrenreich, Barbara Barbara Ehrenreich is an American social critic and women’s advocate. Since the late 1960s, Ehrenreich has authored over 20 social critiques addressing the effects of capitalism on American society, the status of women’s health, American foreign policy, and the evolving concept of the American dream. In addition to her scholarship, Ehrenreich is active in local and national-level labor disputes. Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, in 1941 and raised in a blue-collar family. During her childhood, her father worked as a miner, but was later able to move his family up the economic ladder after attending the Butte School of Mines. After earning a doctorate in cell biology, Ehrenreich went to work for a small nonprofit organization in New York City that advocated better healthcare for the city’s poor. She writes: “One of the things we did was put out a monthly bulletin and I found myself enjoying doing investigative stories for it. There was no decision to become a writer; that was just something I started doing.” Following the birth of her first child in 1970, she coauthored her first social critique, a small pamphlet, which recounted her firsthand experiences with sexism in the medical field during the birthing process. Ehrenreich went on to accept a teaching job at the State University of New York Old Westbury while working on freelance writing projects. She later published on a range of American social issues and has written for magazines including The Nation, Time, and The Progressive. In one of her first widely read nonfiction pieces, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (1990), Ehrenreich argues that middle-class Americans have lost their class consciousness and no longer demonstrate solidarity with working-class Americans on the issue of economic equality. Her best-selling critique Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001) chronicles her

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personal struggle to survive while working minimumwage jobs across America. In researching the book, Ehrenreich purposely took jobs such as Walmart clerk, waitress, maid, and nursing home assistant. Nickel and Dimed describes how despite her level of education, broad life experience, and intellect, she found it difficult to earn a living wage working minimum-wage jobs. Nickel and Dimed has been criticized by some conservatives, who argue that the book advocates socialism and is anti-American, but Ehrenreich’s work has been generally well received by mainstream commentators and has frequently been used by colleges and universities as required reading for freshman students. Her newest book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (2009), critiques the American cultural tendency toward optimism. Ehrenreich wrote the book as a response to social pressure she felt to adopt a positive attitude after a recent breast cancer diagnosis. Ehrenreich is also a socially active culture critic and regularly participates in protests, rallies, and speaking engagements on behalf of marginalized workers. In 2006, she founded the nonprofit group United Professionals, which aims to “reach out to all unemployed, underemployed and anxiously employed workers—people who bought the American dream that education and credentials could lead to a secure middle class life, but now find their lives disrupted by forced beyond their control.” Ehrenreich says, “I cannot imagine doing anything other than what I do. Sure, I could have more stability and financial security if I’d stuck to science or teaching. But I chose adventure and I’ve never for a moment regretted it.”

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El Salvador

See Also: Journalists, Print Media; Poverty, “Feminization” of; Social Justice Activism; Unions.

The Republic of El Salvador is one of the most densely populated countries in central America. With 97 percent of the population mestizo, the dominant culture is Hispanic with indigenous influences and the dominant religion is Roman Catholic. Women who took leadership roles in the struggle against social inequalities have also questioned gender inequalities. Traditional expectations of male dominance continue to limit women’s economic, political, and social advances. El Salvador ranked 54th out of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Marriage and extended families are emphasized. Both church and common-law marriages are common and legally recognized. Many celebrate church marriages after the birth of children. The average age of marriage is in the early 20s. The 2009 fertility rate is 2.7 births per woman. Skilled healthcare practitioners attend 69 percent of births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 22 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate was 170 per 100,000 live births. The state social security system and employers provide women with 12 weeks of paid maternity leave at 75 percent of their wages. Despite the Catholic Church’s policy against birth control, 67 percent of married women use contraceptives. Men are legally required to support any children born out of wedlock. Domestic violence is common. Common-law marriages are easily dissolved, but there is strong religious pressure against divorce.

Further Readings Barbara Ehrenreich. http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com /index.htm (accessed November 2009). Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class. New York: Perennial, 1990.

Education and Employment Women are responsible for both housework and childcare. The children of most lower-class women accompany them as they work or perform domestic chores while the children of many middle- and upper-class women are left in the care of nannies. Education is compulsory through age 13, but many lower-class children do not attend school. Women

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have less educational access than men. Female school attendance rates stand at 92 percent at the primary level, 56 percent at the secondary level, and 24 percent at the tertiary level. There is a slight gender gap in the literacy rate, which is 81 percent for women and 87 percent for men. Problems include lack of clean drinking water, urban crime, and a large gap between the wealthy landowners and the marginalized poor. Western-style clinics and hospitals exist in urban areas while rural residents rely on traveling health promoters, midwives, and traditional healers known as curanderos. Life expectancy is age 62 for women and age 57 for men. Approximately half of all El Salvadoran families live in poverty; many of these are single-parent households headed by women. Many women and children work outside the home for low wages and remain dependent on their husbands for economic support. About 50 percent of women participate in the labor force. Women represent 49 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 48 percent of professional and technical workers. Many women and children have informal employment, for example working as street food vendors. Women are the majority of garment workers in foreign-owned textile factories known as maquilas, where they work in poor conditions for low wages. Women are the majority of primary school teachers, half of secondary school teachers, and one-third of tertiary level teachers. Many families also receive remittances from family members working abroad. A gender gap remains in terms of average estimated earned income of $3,670 for women and $7,343 for men, and unemployment rates, of 3.89 percent for women and 8.45 percent for men. Women have the right to vote but are underrepresented in politics. Women hold 19 percent of parliamentary seats and 39 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Machismo/Marianismo; Maquiladores. Further Readings Boland, Roy. Culture and Customs of El Salvador. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006.

White, Christopher M. The History of El Salvador. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 2008. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Elder Abuse Elder abuse refers to the mistreatment of an older individual by a known individual. Unlike in a common crime where the perpetrator is typically unknown to the victim, elder abuse occurs when the assailant is familiar. An additional form of elder abuse is self-neglect, which occurs when an older person fails to properly care for themselves. Corresponding with the increased number of aging Americans, reports of elder abuse in the United States are becoming increasingly common. Elder abuse is a serious, multifaceted problem in the United States; the crime of elder abuse takes multiple forms. The most common type of elder abuse is neglect, when an older person’s needs are not being met. An elder may need assistance with daily tasks, such as bathing, toileting, or food preparation. They may also need assistance getting to medical appointments or being transported to other places. Elders may also have needs and desires regarding social interaction, especially if they are living alone and have little mobility. Neglect is a form of elder abuse that can take both passive and active forms. With passive neglect, an elderly person’s needs are not addressed. In this circumstance, the maltreatment of the older person is unintentional. The caregiver may be unaware of the elder’s inability to care for himself or herself. The caregiver may also be preoccupied with other tasks, may be exhausted from caretaking, or may not be aware of how to appropriately care for an older person. In contrast, active neglect occurs when the caregiver is aware of the older person’s needs and purposefully fails to meet those needs. Approximately 50 percent of elder abuse is neglect. Financial Abuse Financial abuse is another common form of elder abuse. In this type of abuse, a perpetrator takes advantage of an older person’s material wealth. They may seek financial favors from the older person, such as



pocket money or small financial sums. Abusers may attempt to live with older people and provide them with a semblance of companionship in return for household goods or living expenses. In more extreme cases, perpetrators may take control of an older person’s finances. They may deny the elder access to his or her own money, while siphoning off the funds for themselves. Such financial misappropriation may be especially easy for a family member to perpetrate if the elder had previously asked the family member to be in charge of his or her finances. A final form of financial abuse may occur if the elder is nefariously persuaded to change his or her will or trust to benefit the abuse perpetrator. Twelve percent of abuse cases are related to financial exploitation. Physical and Sexual Abuse Physical abuse is an additional form of elder abuse. Physical abuse can include hitting, slapping, or otherwise hurting an elderly person. Physical abuse can also include purposefully restraining an older person in order to cause pain. A key criterion for physical abuse is that the pain is intentionally inflicted upon the older person. Fifteen percent of elderly abuse is physical abuse. Psychological and emotional abuse is seen when an older person is berated by a caregiver. The elder may be yelled at, insulted, threatened, or demeaned. A central aspect of psychological abuse is that the perpetrator intentionally inflicts mental harm upon the victim. Approximately 8 percent of elder abuse cases are related to psychological abuse. Sexual abuse of elderly people can also occur. This includes rape, molestation, exhibitionism, and other types of coerced sexual activity. Sexual abuse of older people constitutes less than 1 percent of reported elder abuse cases. Gender Differences There are significant gender differences in elder abuse cases. Most victims of elder abuse are women. In 1996, 67 percent of abused elders were women and 33 percent of abused elders were men. This statistic indicates that women are more likely to suffer abuse than men. This statistic may also be a reflection of genderbased life expectancies, where females routinely live longer than their male counterparts. An additional form of elder abuse is self-neglect. With self-neglect, the elder individual gradually stops

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caring for his or her own physical, psychological, and social needs. They may begin to live in increasingly shoddy circumstances, stop eating nutritious foods, and may fail to seek the care that they need. This type of elder abuse is frequently overlooked, as older people who neglect themselves are often unseen. Self-neglect in older age may be related to a lifelong pattern of selfneglect. In contrast, self-neglect may begin in older age as a person develops a mental or physical condition that impedes the ability to care for themselves, such as depression, cancer, or dementia. There are numerous types of people who abuse the elderly. Abusers include spouses and other romantic partners, adult children and grandchildren, siblings, and other family members. Adult children are the most frequent abusers of the elderly; adult children comprise 36 percent of abusers. In contrast, spouses comprise 12 percent of abusers and grandchildren comprise 7 percent of abuse perpetrators. These statistics likely reflect the preponderance of older individuals who receive care from their adult children. As older individuals age, younger relatives frequently take over some of their routine daily tasks, including banking, medication management, shopping, and driving. Abuse perpetrators may take advantage of an older individual’s declining level of autonomy. Non-relatives, including paid or unpaid caregivers, friends, neighbors, and other community members can also be abusers of elderly people. Often, these abusers will gain the trust of the older individual before beginning to misuse them. Elderly people are more likely to be victimized by acquaintances, friends, and community members than younger people for a number of reasons. Older people are more likely to be isolated in their homes and they may be dependent on others to provide for them. Older people may feel uncomfortable with technology or other now-common tasks, and they may allow younger friends and acquaintances to have access to their private information. Caretakers in nursing homes and assisted living facilities can also be perpetrators of elder abuse. Once older individuals go to live in these types of facilities, they frequently lose much of their ability to control their lives. Many times, elders in care facilities do not have control over their finances and may not be aware of caregivers who are taking advantage of their finances. These elders are additionally dependent upon caretakers for tasks such as assisting them

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to the toilet, bathing, eating, and mobility. Nursing home staff may perpetuate elder abuse by failing to promptly care for residents. Women and men are equally likely to be abusers of the elderly, 50 percent of elder abuse is perpetuated by women and 50 percent by men. The lack of gender difference initially indicates that gender does not shape individuals’ propensity to abuse elders. However, women are more likely to care for older people than men are. Given women’s disproportionately high rates of caretaking, men are more likely to abuse the elderly than women are. See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward; Child Abuse, Perpetrators; Child Abuse, Victims; Elder Care. Further Readings Anetzberger, G. “Elder Abuse Identification and Referral: The Importance of Screening Tools and Referral Protocols.” Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect, v.13/2 (2001). Hudson, M. and J. Carlson. “Elder Abuse: Expert and Public Perceptions on Tts Meaning.” Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect, v.9/4 (1998). Lachs, M., et al. “Risk Factors for Reported Elder Abuse and Neglect: A Nine Year Observational Cohort Study.” The Gerontologist, v.37/4 (1997). National Center on Elder Abuse. “Trends in Elder Abuse in Domestic Settings.” http://www.ncea.aoa.gov/ NCEAroot/Main_Site/pdf/basics/fact2.pdf (accessed November 2009). Patricia Drew California State University

Elder Care Elder care can be defined as meeting the specific needs of elderly people in their everyday life. These specific needs, including medical treatment, everyday care, psychological help, and human attention, are required by more and more people all over the world. According to the United Nations, people older than 60 years account for 11 percent of the world population, and this percentage will double by 2050. The process of population aging is most significant in developed countries.

In Europe, charity for the elderly poor has existed since the medieval ages. At that time, public concern about the elderly was limited to securing their minimal needs for physical existence. In fact, being old was a sort of social deviation—more a social problem than a social phenomenon. It was not until after World War II that the state and the public started paying attention to the quality of life of the older generation. Today, scholars agree that the process of aging is highly individual and that in each case, particular requirements need to be satisfied. Taking care of an elderly person is a specific care task. Scholars, politicians, and caregivers see the main aim of elder care as the preservation of personal autonomy and the ability to thrive. These goals are often seen as related. Elder care can be provided by an institution as well as close relatives. In Europe, two-thirds of elder care is accomplished by family, with the level of family care often compensating the lack of public care. Studies in different countries show that if family members took care of an elderly relative before he or she moved to a nursing home, they will go on giving care once the person is there. Importantly, relatives and friends are the only people able to perform some specific tasks that can be referred to as “caring about someone.” If an elderly person is to be washed, fed, and cured in a nursing home, the staff members have little time to talk to him or her about his or her concerns or life in general. Lack of information about the previous life of the residents and the difficulty of the elderly in creating new relationships are also obstacles to close relations with nursing home staff. So for most elderly people, even for those living in a care facility, family and friends remain a privileged source of nonmaterial care. In modern society, elder care is usually women’s business. This is, first of all, because most elderly people are women, as a woman’s life expectancy is generally several years longer than that of a man. In addition, as some studies show, women tend to have poorer health than men of the same age, and so need more care. Second, most professional and informal caregivers are women. Women and Elder Care: Controversies and Critiques The main controversy concerning elder care in modern society is the one between the burden of care-



An elderly woman in a small village in Romania. In Europe, charity for the elderly has existed since medieval times.

giving tasks and the lack of social recognition for those who do them. The professions that provide childcare and nursing and elder care are low paid and have low social status. Professional caregivers tend to be recruited between socially disadvantaged, poorly educated women, often coming from immigrant groups. The people who care for their elder relatives sacrifice their work, their hobbies, and their social life to these physically and morally exhausting tasks. Some scholars analyze informal caregiving as a “secondary dependence” construction, as a woman providing care often becomes materially dependent on a third party. The main question about elder care is why it is always women who find themselves in the role of caregivers. Feminist researchers have formulated two explanations for the relationship between gender and caregiving. Their interpretation of the fact that women are

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almost exclusive caregivers derives from their point of view on gender and sex relationships. The first explanation, presented by the essentialist feminists, claims that gender is the same thing as sex. Proponents of this explanation see no difference between an individual’s biological sex and its social reflection. Gender and gender roles are conceived as something naturally given to a person, with caregiving being an important part of the feminine identity. The first person to express this point of view was psychologist Carol Gilligan, who studied differences between children of the two sexes while solving moral problems. Boys made their decision relative to social norms and looked for an instrumental solution of the problem. Girls, in contrast, tended to resolve problems referring to human relations. From this result, it can be extrapolated that the disposition to provide care is seen as an inborn feminine trait, which suggests that if an elderly man needs care, his wife would be the first one to take care of him; if he has no wife, his daughter would assume this task; if he has neither a wife nor a daughter, his daughterin-law or his granddaughter will carry the burden. In fact, according to different studies, this caregiving configuration is the most frequent. However, as international statistics show, male caregivers, though rare, do exist. Other feminists—ones who reject the essentialist vision of gender—tend to underline the social effect in elaboration of gender roles. In opposition to the essentialist trend, they suppose that gender is not biologically determined but is socially constructed. According to this feminist movement, no gender identity, disposition, or role is natural: All of them are acquired by a person during the socialization process. The feminine disposition toward providing care to others is also interpreted as a socially constructed trait taught to women from childhood via socially approved female values, games, and behavior patterns. Prospective and Empowerment Scholars discussing the future of elder care emphasize three main and contradictory trends: first, population aging; second, general deficit of public means; and third, the necessity of ensuring the well-being of cared-for elderly people. Some nonfeminist scholars propose to reduce the public cost of elder care by reducing public investment

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in it, thus transferring elder care activity mostly to families. Their critics emphasize that, in this case, the tendency of the growing proportion of dependant persons and longer period of needed care risks reducing female employment and reinforcing gender inequality. In all modern welfare regimes, the main obstacle to quality in elder care is seen as the lack of social and economic recognition for caregiving work. All feminist scholars agree that care is a labor—an occupation that consumes time and physical and psychological effort. There is a general consensus that deprived and poor people have difficulty in providing high-quality care for the elderly. As a result, most feminists see care-valuing as the only way to increase the caregivers’ social status and reward, and thus attract wider social groups to care work. Most specialists agree that gender diversification of caregivers would contribute to better elder care. Another way to ensure high-quality care for the growing number of the elderly may be seen in a creation of a “care fair”—a market of caregiving services. Scholars who defend this idea believe that the economic attraction of caregiving jobs would reduce gender inequalities and increase the quality of elder care. In contrast, feminist authors, even those who consider paid services to be caregiving, find this idea undermining to the basic principle of caring and to its relational and affective aspects. As for the empowerment of informal caregivers, most feminists agree that the only solution is the recognition of the services they provide. The right means for this recognition are, however, difficult to find. A salary paid by social services to a relative who gives up his or her career to care for an elderly person might be a possible option. However, as the French experience shows, this measure can instead lead to a diminution of the caregiver’s perceived status and a reduction of the quality of the care provided. For this reason, the recognition of caregiving may require more profound social changes. Some feminists of the nonessentialist trend pledge for a “caring society”—a society in which care is recognized as a form of labor, in which those who need care are perceived as full members of the society, and in which caregiving is valued and duly rewarded. The best means to achieve this goal is placing caregiving in the center of social citizenship rights and making it a value important to both sexes.

See Also: Attitudes Toward Aging; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Welfare. Further Readings Feder Kittay, Eva and Ellen K. Feder, eds. The Subject of Care: Feminist Perspectives on Dependency. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Ginn, Jay and Sarah Arber, eds. Connecting Gender and Ageing. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1995. Held, Virginia. The Ethics of Care. Personal, Political, and Global. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Tronto, Joan C. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge, 1993. Veronika Duprat-Kushtanina Ecole des Hauts Etudes en Sciences Sociales

Elders, Joycelyn Joycelyn Elders is a physician and health administrator who serving in the Clinton administration as the first African American and second woman Surgeon General of the United States. She was trained as a pediatrician, and became a faculty member at the University of Arkansas Medical Center (UAMC) in 1967. As Surgeon General, she was best known for her discussions of sensitive issues like drug legalization, teenage sexuality, and distribution of contraception in schools. Elders was born Minnie Lee Jones in Schaal, Arkansas, and later changed her name to Minnie Joycelyn Lee. She grew up in a poor family; her father worked as a sharecropper. Elders received her B.S. degree in Biology from Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1952. She then worked as a nurse’s aide in a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before joining the U.S. Army in May 1953. In the Army, Elders trained as a physical therapist. After her tour of duty, she attended the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), and in 1960 earned her medical degree. She completed an internship at the University of Minnesota Hospital, followed by a residency in pediatrics at the UAMS. She also earned an M.S. degree in Biochemistry. As a UAMC faculty member, Elders advanced from assistant professor to professor by 1976. She received a National Institutes of



Health career development award, and in 1978 gained certification as a pediatric endocrinologist. Elders’s political and administrative career began in 1987 when then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton appointed her Director of the Arkansas Department of Health. Among her proudest achievements during that time included a tenfold increase in the number of annual early childhood screenings, and the near doubling of the immunization rates of 2-year-old children. Elders pushed aggressively to reduce teen pregnancy in Arkansas by making birth control and sex education more readily available. She also endorsed human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing and counseling. Elders was elected president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers in 1992. In January 1993, President Clinton tapped Elders to become the U.S. Surgeon General. She was a strong supporter of his health plan, and became a controversial nominee whose appointment was not confirmed until September of that year. She was a strong, outspo-

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ken advocate for many health-related causes, including the distribution of contraceptives in school, the exploration of drug legalization, and abortion rights. In 1994, at a speech at the United Nations, Elders said schools should consider teaching masturbation to students as a means to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. This statement was attacked by right-wing activists, and the ensuing controversy led President Bill Clinton to remove her from office in December 1994. Elders returned to the UAMC and became a regular on the lecture circuit, speaking on issues related to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and teen pregnancy. Semi-retired, Elders lives in Little Rock, and is a professor emeritus at UAMC. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Pregnancy; Sex Education, Comprehensive; Sexually Transmitted Infections. Further Readings Elders, Joycelyn. Joycelyn Elders, M.D.: From Sharecropper’s Daughter to Surgeon General of the United States of America. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. “Changing the Face of Medicine: Dr. Joycelyn Elders.” http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceof medicine/physicians/biography_98.html (accessed June 2010). “Then & Now: Joycelyn Elders.” 2005. CNN. http://www .cnn.com/2005/US/07/18/cnn25.tan.elders/index.html (accessed June 2010). Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld Arizona State University

Elementary Educators

Elders’s political career began when President Bill Clinton appointed her Director of the Arkansas Department of Health.

Elementary educators typically teach children between the ages of 5 and 12 years, or from the end of preschool until the children are ready for secondary school education. Similar to early-childhood educators, childcare workers, and others whose work centers around caring for and nurturing children, elementary educators are typically among the lower-paid, lower-status professionals in industrialized nations. The majority of elementary educators are also women, with the percentage of women in

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that field increasingly dramatically in recent years in some Western contexts. This increase is known as the “feminization” of teaching. Although this phenomenon varies in both intensity and scope across contexts, elementary education has been, and continues to be, gendered work. Beginnings and Professional Preparation Research has suggested a variety of reasons for individuals choosing to become teachers. These may include having a teacher in the family, having had positive experiences in school, identifying strongly with a favorite teacher, or seeing the work and nature of teachers’ schedules as compatible with family and other life choices. Dan Lortie’s landmark study of U.S. teachers and the social environment of the school focused on career discernment as a product of various life experiences, especially the relationship that the prospective teacher had with his or her teachers and in his or her own schooling. These decisions are also influenced by the media images and status associated with teachers and teaching in the prospective teacher’s cultural milieu. In most industrialized nations, elementary teachers are required to complete an undergraduate college or university degree in a relevant area of study, as well as earn a teaching license or credential reflecting their understanding of pedagogical as well as content knowledge for the elementary grades. Some states in the United States require that teachers obtain or actively pursue a graduate degree, or have licensure only available at the graduate level. In several countries worldwide, there are also movements to create alternative routes to licensure that enable teacher candidates to complete their licensure requirements while working. These are especially encouraged in areas where a teacher shortage has made the fulfillment of compulsory elementary education difficult. In the United States, elementary teachers who have training and can teach in bilingual/English-as-a-second-language and math- and science-focused classrooms are particularly in demand and can be granted alternative licensure structures. Teacher preparation has changed radically in the last quarter century, in part as a result of the increasing demands being placed on teachers and the widening parameters of teachers’ work, but also as a function of the now nearly universal national poli-

cies around compulsory elementary education. With more and more children in school, and government pressure to find ways to support schooling for all children, the needs for preparing teachers both competitively and quickly create special dilemmas worldwide. This means that organizations that prepare, and in some cases license, teachers must balance efficiency with quality in unique ways. One contemporary means of addressing this tension lies in the standardization of teacher education at the elementary level. Organizations such as the Association for Childhood Education International offer standards that define a quality elementary teacher as a candidate who • has studied and understands the curricular content at the elementary level; • has an excellent understanding of child development and what constitutes developmentally appropriate practice in planning, implementing, and assessing instruction; and • is prepared to teach diverse learners and communicate with families and communities through multiple fieldwork opportunities in which the candidate may practice his or her growing professional skills. Elementary Educators’ Work Elementary educators typically work in classrooms with children grouped by age into grades or loose grade/ability groups. The educators then guide their students through the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, social studies, science, health, and the arts. Unlike in the secondary or postbaccalaureate contexts, the elementary teacher does not specialize—his or her classroom is the site for integrated learning across content areas. In systems in which elementary education is compulsory, the elementary educator is often charged with promoting cultural ideals, such as democratic citizenship and participation, in addition to ensuring that all pupils have the academic skills necessary for full citizenship later on. Adding to this, elementary educators must often fulfill diverse roles for their student that build on and extend the work of the teacher: they must be teacher, but also mother, father, social worker, nurse, friend, and behavioral specialist, to name a few. This can create a work environment that is exciting and dynamic,



but it can also contribute to stress, exhaustion, and early workplace fatigue and attrition without proper support. Given the stress placed on teachers in an era of compulsory elementary-level high-stakes testing, such as has been in place in the United States for the past 10 years, finding ways to complete all of the different facets of the work while also finding time to build relationships with the children in one’s care creates a difficult task for any elementary educator. Some research, notably that of Harvard-based scholars Susan Moore Johnson and Sarah Birkeland, suggests that reduced stress and increased feelings of professionalism and competency are more common for teachers working in schools where there is a formal, organized support structure, including explicit activities, to encourage professional growth. Teaching is considered professional work in most cultural contexts worldwide. However, in some industrialized nations, elementary teachers are actually considered low-status workers. Amitai Etzioni’s research on work suggests that elementary educators hold semiprofessional status, meaning that they have less autonomy than other professionals. For example, as Margaret LeCompte and Kathleen Bennet DeMarrais have found, elementary educators typically work in bureaucracies and are heavily surveilled in their daily work and in their entry to the profession, and although they may have professional status and solidarity, their training and certification are in the hands of nonteachers—people outside of their work set the standards for professional status and promotion. However, despite these image difficulties, being an elementary educator in the United States has been a professionalizing and economic step up for many who pursue it, including those who were barred from participating in other labor markets, such as people of color and women. Feminization of Teaching Despite contemporary appearances, most elementary educators have, historically, been men. The shift to women’s entry into the profession has been interpreted as concomitant with the move to compulsory elementary schooling in the United States and the resulting teacher shortage, as well as girls’ increasingly commonplace formal schooling. Contemporary teaching at the elementary level has been constructed as feminized in complex cultural, political, and historical ways. As Regina Cortina and Sonsoles San

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Román point out in their work on women in teaching, feminization in English-speaking North American and United Kingdom contexts is framed as a function of women’s persistence after the departure of men from the profession. Meanwhile, they suggest, historically Roman Catholic and other contexts began in a feminized stance as a function of the cultural, social, and religious encouragement for women to do caring, nurturing work, such as teaching children. This in part ensured that there would always be an adequate supply of elementary educators, but it also served to perpetuate rigid gender roles for male and female students and to keep women out of administrative positions in schools and school districts. Implicit in the discourse of feminization is a panic over boys’ underachievement at the elementary level, particularly in the United States. This panic ranges from claims that boys are being disadvantaged because their elementary teachers are women to worries that they are being feminized and emasculated by a feminized environment and disproportionately punished by a cabal of women teachers bent on their academic destruction. Despite research suggesting that boys and girls do equally well socially, emotionally, and academically, regardless of the gender of their teacher, the Boy Panic continues, and schools and school districts in the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted to address this panic by adding more men to the elementary classroom, with varied success. Interestingly, there has been no correlated panic over how female students fare when their college professors are overwhelmingly male, especially in the mathematics and sciences, as is the case in the contemporary United States. Many scholars have also suggested that the feminization of schools is not the problem it is made out to be, despite contemporary panics. Instead, it has been suggested that the dominant belief structures that pervade a given culture and define what constitutes appropriate masculinity and femininity in that culture are the real source of the problem. For example, it has been suggested that fewer men become elementary educators because men are not taught in overt or tacit ways that masculinity is compatible with caring and nurturing children. In their work on men and teaching, Sheelagh Drudy writes that the belief systems at work here operate at the national priority level as well: caring for and teaching children is not emphasized as

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important work in remunerative terms, which may result in teaching at the elementary level (and caring and nurturing in general) being constructed as less important, lower-status work. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Working Mothers. Further Readings Carrington, B. and A. McPhee. “Boys’ ‘Underachievement’ and the Feminization of Teaching.” Journal of Education for Teaching, v.342 (2008). Cortina, Regina and Sonsoles San Román. Women and Teaching: Global Perspectives on the Feminization of a Profession. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. DeMarrais, K. B. and M. D. LeCompte. The Way Schools Work: A Sociological Analysis of Education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1996. Drudy, S., et al. Men and the Classroom: Gender Imbalances and Teaching. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2005. Johnson, Susan Moore and Sarah E. Birkeland. “Pursuing a ‘Sense of Success’: New Teachers Explain Their Career Decisions.” American Educational Research Journal, v.40/3 (2003). Lortie, Dan. Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Noddings, Nel. Caring, a Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Okopny, C. “Why Jimmy Isn’t Failing: The Myth of the Boy Crisis.” Feminist Teacher, v.18/3 (2008). Ringrose, J. “Successful Girls? Complicating PostFeminist, Neoliberal Discourses of Educational Achievement and Gender Equality.” Gender and Education, v.19/4 (2007). Simpson, R. L. and I. H. Simpson. “Women and Bureaucracy in the Semi-Professions.” In A. Etzioni, ed., The Semi-Professions and Their Organization: Teachers, Nurses and Social Workers. New York: The Free Press, 1969. Skelton, C. “Primary Boys and Hegemonic Masculinities.” British Journal of Sociology of Education, v.18/3 (1997). Trotman, Janina. Girls Becoming Teachers: An Historical Analysis of Western Australian Women Teachers, 1911– 1940. Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2008. Sally Campbell Galman University of Massachusetts, Amherst

EMILY’S List Early Money Is Like Yeast, otherwise known as EMILY’s List, was founded in 1985 by Ellen Malcolm to fund pro-choice Democratic women candidates for office. Organized as a political action committee (PAC), EMILY’s List’s primary goal is early funding of women candidates. From the 1990 election cycle to the 1992 election cycle, contributions grew from $770,000 to $6 million, helping support and elect EMILY’s List candidates in the 1992 “Year of the Woman.” In 2008, the PAC distributed $35 million to women candidates. Although EMILY’s List’s activities remain focused on PAC funding, it also engages in other interest group activities that include increasing the number of women interested in pursuing public office and mobilizing women voters. The “Year of the Woman” represented significant progress for female representation, with 24 Congresswomen and five Senators elected. In this election cycle, favorable conditions led to EMILY’s List’s membership growing from 3,500 to 24,000 members and also led to the group receiving contributions of over $6 million. EMILY’s List was the largest PAC during the 1992 campaign, contributing $4.6 million to 55 candidates. The PAC’s support in 1992 helped elect Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro, who was then executive director of EMILY’s List and future pay equity advocate. EMILY’s List engages in a variety of activities aside from distributing funds to candidates. The group’s Political Opportunity Program focuses on training potential candidates and their staffs in the most effective campaign strategies. To explore different campaign strategies, EMILY’s List uses its own Women’s Monitor surveys and conducts its own research. Through its Campaign Corps training programs it encourages recent female college graduates to run for political office. Further, EMILY’s List focuses on mobilizing the women’s vote and keeping women informed through its WOMEN VOTE! Program. The Democratic Party recognized the influence of the PAC in mobilizing women voters in 1996, when the two organizations teamed up to research the gender gap. The main focus for EMILY’s List remains its role as a PAC. The PAC funds candidates using “bundling” and traditional straight donations. Bundling involves individual donors writing checks to specific candidates,



which EMILY’s List collects and distributes. The group also raises funds through general donations to the EMILY’s List PAC. EMILY’s List fought against limitations on donations to nonprofit PACs citing regulations, citing them as limiting free speech. In September 2009, EMILY’s List’s free speech appeal was successful—the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in EMILY’s List v. FEC, struck down the $5,000 limitation on contributions to nonprofit PACs. In 2009, EMILY’s List entered new territory when it, for the first time, became extensively involved in the presidential race by endorsing Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton. Leading up to the Iowa Caucus, EMILY’s List made $500,000 in independent expenditures to support the campaign. EMILY's List’s actions have not always been seen positively—the PAC has been criticized for not supporting both male and female candidates who support a woman’s right to choose. The model produced by Ellen Malcolm and EMILY’s List has been exported throughout the world. Groups like EMILY’s List Australia aim to get women elected to higher office, believing that women’s representation in Parliament is critical to increasing the civil rights of women internationally. Similar to EMILY’s List in the United States, the group also tries to support pro-choice candidates. These groups are emerging not only in Australia but also in other countries like the United Kingdom. See Also: Clinton, Hilary; Government, Women in; League of Women Voters; National Organization of Women; National Women’s Political Caucus; Representation of Women in Government, U.S.; Social Justice Activism. Further Readings Darcy, R., et al. Women, Elections, and Representations. Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. Day, Christine L. and Charles D. Hadley. “Feminist Diversity: The Policy Preferences of Women’s PAC Contributors.” Political Research Quarterly, v.54/3 (September 2001). Day, Christine L., et al. “Gender, Feminism, and Partisanship Among Women’s PAC Contributors.” Social Science Quarterly, v.82/4 (2001). Franke-Ruta, Garance. “EMILY’s List Hissed.” http://www .prospect.org/cs/articles?article=emilys_list_hissed (accessed June 2010).

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Pimlott, Jamie Pamelia. “This Isn’t Your Mother’s Tupperware Party: How EMILY’s List Changed the American Political Landscape.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 2007. Angela L. Bos Alexander Lans College of Wooster

Engineering, Women in Engineering is traditionally perceived to be a male occupation, which reflects the historically close relationship between masculinity and technology. The proportion of women in engineering remains low despite women’s greater access to higher education and to the workplace, and initiatives aimed at tackling women’s entry into engineering. The lack of women in engineering and some of the obstacles women face in the sector are part of wider societal perceptions that identify engineering occupations as men’s domains. There are a series of aspects to understanding women’s nonparticipation in engineering including gaining the right qualifications, translating qualifications into employment, and retention of women and career progression. There has been a lot of emphasis on getting women onto engineering courses, but less focus on their experiences there. Evidence suggests that increasing the numbers of women in engineering occupations on its own is an inadequate strategy. Thus, it is important to note how engineering education and engineering organizations interact with a more diverse student and professional engineering population. Women in Engineering Education In most Western countries, women now make up over 50 percent of the higher education student population, but make up a much smaller proportion in engineering education. For example, in 2008, women made up only 18 percent of engineering students in the United Kingdom even though they represent over 55 percent of the higher education student body. Despite the apparent inequality of access, women as a percentage of engineering students has been steadily increasing over the last four decades, which for some

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has been seen as a mark of progress. However, some emphasize that gender differentiation by discipline remains despite women’s access to higher education and that the increase in the percentage of women in engineering is better understood as relating to the general increase of women at university and a decline in the interest in engineering by males, rather than an increase in the interest of women in engineering. Taking into consideration women’s increase in access to higher education, we can see that women’s interest in taking up engineering at university has not increased over the last four decades, remaining around 2 to 4 percent since the 1970s in the United Kingdom (UK). A closer look at participation rates in subdisciplines of engineering shows that women are more likely to choose subjects like architecture or chemical engineering than mechanical engineering or electrical and electronic engineering. The reasons are complex. It may be that women choose subjects that more closely align with so-called feminine interests, or that women who have the skills and interests for engineering education are drawn to subdisciplines in which women are already participating in greater numbers. It has also been suggested than innovative curriculum is more likely to attract and retain women students than a more traditional curriculum. Interdisciplinary engineering education is seen to make engineering more socially relevant and better reflects the reality of working as an engineer, which also emphasizes a broader range of skills (such as communication and teamwork). However, while there have been moves toward adopting multidisciplinary approaches and more innovative teaching methods, these are not usually developed with gender mainstreaming in mind. Instead, these innovations are about making engineering more relevant to industry and to students themselves (as paying customers). Thus, it is also essential to point out that developments in engineering education are closely linked to the changing needs of industry. Women in Engineering Professions The proportion of women in the engineering professions is generally lower than the proportion of women in engineering education, which suggests that women who have the interests and skills for a career in engineering are not remaining in the profession. Data on women professionals by discipline

in engineering reflect trends identified in the student statistics—for example, that women are participating more as architects, than as professionals in other types of engineering. Theoretical Approaches Conceptualizations of gender are complex and sometimes confusing, particularly for those who do not accept biological determinist accounts while also wishing to speak for, to, or about women as group. We can see that the abandoning of essential notions of gender makes questions about gender and identity more complex. Here we can understand the idea that gender is not given, but produced in social and cultural interactions. These kinds of conceptions are a move away from essentialist ideas about what it means to be a man or woman, but how does this help the equality project when we all live in cultures where biological deterministic ideology is dominant? Also, there are difficulties in speaking about women as a homogenized group because doing so can overemphasize the differences between men and women and overlook differences among men and among women. Conversely, there may be some commonality in women’s experiences of being the “other” in workplaces dominated by men. Clearly, there are issues about how far gender research itself reinforces the gender binary of female/male and whether it can speak of women as a group. Policy For more than 20 years, numerous initiatives have attempted to redress the underrepresentation of women in engineering, but their impact has been limited. In 1984, for example, the Women Into Science and Engineering (WISE) campaign was established, with the support of the Equal Opportunities Commission and Engineering Council, and more recently the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET (Science, Engineering, and Technology). Contracted to 2008, the aim of the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET was to increase the participation and position of women in SET. Its mission was to establish a center that provides accessible, high-quality information and advisory services to industry, academia, professional institutes, education, and research councils within the SET, and build environment professions, while supporting women entering, returning, and progressing in SET careers.



An increase in government commissioned reports shows a change in attitudes and the need for cultural change, rather than an onus on women to fit into existing cultures. Policy is also moving in the right direction. For example, the Gender Equality Duty (GED) came into force in April 2007, which means that all public authorities in England, Wales, and Scotland must demonstrate that they are promoting equality for women and men and that they are eliminating sexual harassment and discrimination. GED is particularly significant because public authorities have to be proactive in eliminating unlawful discrimination and harassment, rather than reacting to individuals taking cases against them, and promoting equality of opportunity, not just avoiding discrimination. Academic Research on Women in Engineering The experiences of women in the engineering have been well researched over the last two decades and, despite some advances and progress, the literature suggests that women’s experiences have changed little over this period. Academic research has sought to explore the critical and empirical knowledge base to establish how the cultures of the engineering professions shape both horizontal and vertical occupational segregation within them. The competitive nature of industry often means that arguments for increasing women’s entry to engineering have been based solely on business needs rather than a move toward inclusive cultures. For women to progress they have to make accommodations, which many find unpalatable. Some of the key ways in which engineering cultures are seen to favor men are summarized below: • Competitive workplace cultures mean that employers value economic efficiency more than employee well-being. • Women are viewed in a biologically determinist way, which means they are visible by their sex (they are in a minority) and invisible as engineers. • Work–life balance and flexible working opportunities are viewed as rhetorical and as a women’s issue, despite their availability to men, as a result their take-up is perceived to have negative consequences on careers. • Success is measured by traditionally masculine notions such as total commitment—family and

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personal commitments are thus interpreted as a distraction. • Perceived dualisms between masculinity and technology that exist both within engineering and society in general mean that women are often sidelined. • Women are often assimilated into the dominant masculine culture, which can mean that they fail to recognize the impact of their gender and reinforce the traditionally masculine norms. • Women are often excluded from formal and informal networks, which has important consequences for career success. At the same time, there have been some positive changes for women in engineering. In terms of actual workplace culture, there have been a number of gender inclusive dynamics developing within engineering workplace cultures, including respectful interactions between male and female engineers, wide-ranging and inclusive topics of conversation and humor, mixed-sex socializing and close friendships, and care taken to avoid or challenge potentially offensive jokes and language. See Also: Chemistry, Women in; Physics, Women in; Science, Women in; STEM Coalition. Further Readings Bagilhole, B. Women in Non-Traditional Occupations: Challenging Men. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Bagilhole, B., A. Powell, S. Barnard, and A. Dainty. Researching Cultures in Science, Engineering and Technology: An Analysis of Current and Past Literature. Bradford, UK: Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, 2007. Carter, R. and G. Kirkup. Women in Engineering: A Good Place to Be? Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1990. Evetts, J. Gender and Career in Science and Engineering. London: Taylor & Francis, 1996. Faulkner, W. “Genders in/of Engineering: A Research Report.” University of Edinburgh, UK. http://extra.shu .ac.uk/nrc/section_2/publications/reports/Faulkner _Genders_in_Engineering_Report.pdf (accessed January 2007). Phipps, A. Women in Science, Engineering and Technology: Three Decades of UK Initiatives. Stoke-on-Trent, UK: Trentham Books, 2008.

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Powell, A., et al. “How Women Engineers Do and Undo Gender: Consequences for Gender Equality.” Gender, Work and Organization, v.16/4 (2009). Sarah Barnard Barbara Bagilhole Loughborough University

England, Lynndie Lynndie England was catapulted onto the international stage as the face of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal during the United States’ Iraqi occupation. Pictures surfaced of England in a series of humiliating and degrading poses with detainees at the Baghdad prison. The incident has since come to be known as the “prisoner abuse scandal.” Although England insisted that she was following orders, she was sentenced to three years in prison and received a dishonorable discharge from the United States military. Born in Ashland, Kentucky, England moved to Fort Ashby, West Virginia at the age of 2. In her junior year of high school, England joined the United States Army Reserve. She married young and was soon divorced. In 2003, she was deployed to Iraq, and served as a Specialist in the 372nd Military Police Company. In April 2004, pictures depicting abuse of detainees surfaced worldwide. In the photos, England was seen posing with naked prisoners. The most infamous include her holding a leash tied around a prisoner’s neck; standing with another soldier giving the thumbs up sign in front of naked men in a pyramid formation; and pointing at prisoners forced to masturbate with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Although England was not the only soldier implicated in this scandal, nor the only female soldier involved, she became the public face of military torture. During the time of the scandal, England was romantically involved with fellow soldier Charles Graner, who was seen in some of the incriminating photos. He was later sentenced in the case. In October 2004, England gave birth to a son fathered by Graner. The pair eventually separated and Graner married Megan Ambuhl, another soldier involved in the abuse scandal. In May 2005, England went to court to plead guilty to conspiracy, dereliction of duty, and multiple counts

of mistreating prisoners. The judge did not accept her plea bargain, however, after Graner testified that his actions signaled to England a command from a superior to participate in the abuse. At her retrial in September, England was convicted of conspiracy, four counts of abusing prisoners, and one count of performing an indecent act. She was sentenced to three years in prison and served almost half of her sentence. She was released in March 2007. England’s case continues to be debated. She is viewed by some as villainous for her role in the Abu Ghraib abuse case, while others believe she was a scapegoat for the military. Still others suggest England is a heroic soldier who participated in military interrogation tactics. Currently, England lives in her hometown with her young son, unable to find employment due to her public notoriety. England continues to insist that she had no physical contact with the prisoners and merely followed orders. In July 2009, an autobiography of her experiences in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was published. See Also: Abu Ghraib; Iraq; Military, Women in; Prison Guards, Female (U.S.). Further Readings Danner, Mark. Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror. New York: The New York Review of Books, 2004. McKelvey, Tara, ed. One of the Guys: Women as Aggressors and Torturers. Jackson, TN: Seal Press, 2007. Winkler, Gary. Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs That Shocked the World. Keyser, WV: Bad Apple Books, 2009. Leesha M. Thrower Northern Kentucky University

Ensler, Eve Eve Ensler (born May 25, 1953) is an American feminist, dramatist, journalist, filmmaker, actor, and activist who is best known as the author of The Vagina Monologues and founder of V-Day, a global movement that campaigns to prevent violence against girls and women. Her other plays include Conviction, Nec-



essary Targets, Lemonade, and The Depot. She also has authored and edited several books about issues facing the lives of girls and women, such as The Good Body (2004), A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer (2007), and I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World (2010). Ensler has a written for the magazines Glamour and Marie Claire, as well as contributing to The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Utne Reader. She also contributes a regular column to O Magazine. Ensler grew up in Scarsdale, New York. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a company executive. Ensler has recounted that she was sexually and physically abused by her father during her childhood and that this abuse triggered her to selfmedicate with alcohol throughout her teens and early twenties. Despite these issues, she attended Middlebury College, where she studied poetry and drama. Ensler graduated in 1975. Three years later, she married Richard McDermott and adopted his teenage son, Dylan. Although Ensler’s marriage ended in 1988, she sustained a mutually supportive relationship with her adopted son, who is now a successful actor. Ensler began work on The Vagina Monologues in 1996 after interviewing over 200 women about their experiences of sex, relationships, and violence. These interviews inspired her to focus on the complex ways in which women relate to their bodies. The Vagina Monologues explores this theme through a collection of monologues that touch on the subjects of sex, menstruation, birth, masturbation, rape, and body image. The play opened at the HERE Arts Center in New York, with Ensler performing all the monologues herself, before transferring to the off-Broadway Westside Theatre. It has since been translated into 45 languages and been performed in over 130 countries. The extensive roll-call of actors who have performed in The Vagina Monologues includes Cynthia Nixon, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Whoopi Goldberg, Winona Ryder, Salma Hayek, Jane Fonda, and Sandra Oh. In 1998, Ensler launched the V-Day campaign, promoting creative events—including performances of The Vagina Monologues—as catalysts to generate awareness of violence against girls and women and to raise money on behalf of antiviolence organizations. Causes highlighted by V-Day activism include campaigns against female genital mutilation, rape, and sexual trafficking. In 2003, a V-Day delegation visited

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Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Jordan. The V-Day documentary film Until the Violence Stops premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. In 2008, V-Day marked its 10-year anniversary with over 4,000 benefits around the world, as well as a special “V to the Tenth” celebration at the New Orleans Arena and Louisiana Superdome, which was attended by more than 30,000 people. In its first decade of activism, V-Day has raised a total of more than $70 million in funding. The “V” in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine, and Vagina. Ensler’s creative and campaigning work has been recognized with numerous honors and awards, including honorary doctorates from Manhattanville College, Simmons College, and her alma mater, Middlebury College. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Playwriting in 1999, the Elliot Norton prize for Outstanding Solo Performance in 2001, and a Sundance Freedom of Expression award for What I Want My Words to Do to You in 2003. Her work through V-Day has been recognized by organizations including Amnesty International, Planned Parenthood, and The Women’s Prison Association, as well as being awarded a City of New York Proclamation in 2006. She continues to actively oversee the V-Day organization, as well as pursuing her literary career. See Also: Body Image; Censorship; Fonda, Jane; Vagina Monologues, The. Further Readings Ensler, Eve. The Vagina Monologues. London: Virago, 2001. Kattwinkel, Susan. “Spreading American Feminism: The Vagina Monologues and Cultural Identity.” In Marc Maufort and Caroline De Wagter, eds., Signatures of the Past: Cultural Memory in Contemporary Anglophone North American Theatre. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang, 2008. Reger, Jo and Lacey Story. “Talking About My Vagina: Two College Campuses and The Vagina Monologues.” In Jo Reger, ed., Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement. London: Routledge, 2005. V-Day: A Global Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls. http://www.vday.org (accessed June 2010). Siân Harris Newcastle University

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Entrepreneurs Women’s entrepreneurial activities have changed the landscape of the business world. While womenowned businesses are found across all industrial sectors, women entrepreneurs are most likely to run businesses that provide a service to consumers. Their enterprises are smaller, have fewer employees and lower revenues.These enterprises also grow at a slower pace than businesses owned by men. Women’s businesses charting the highest rates of early stage and established entrepreneurial activity are in low/ middle-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, followed similar economic profiles within Europe and Asia. Micro-entrepreneurship benefits women, their families and the national economy of their countries. Female entrepreneurs are motivated by necessity, opportunity, autonomy, and personal satisfaction. Additional motivators include intellectual growth, flexibility, income, and prestige. Socioeconomic factors also influence the decision to start a business. Limited funding and family responsibilities often combine to limit the size of women’s business enterprises. Women entrepreneurs define success beyond the bottom line. Major Contributors Women own more than 10 million U.S. firms, comprising about 40 percent of all privately held companies in the country. These businesses have more than 13 million employees and generated almost $2 trillion in sales in 2008. Women are majority owners (51 percent or more) of about 75 percent of these firms or 7.2 million companies. The growth rate of privately held, women-owned businesses from 1997 to 2004 was twice that of all other U.S. firms. Women own 20 percent of U.S. companies with revenues of $1 million or more. Women of color are majority owners of almost 2 million firms in the United States, employing more than 1 million people and generating annual revenues of $165 billion. In 2004, Latina women owned almost 39 percent of all American firms owned by women of color. While women-owned businesses are found across all industrial sectors, women entrepreneurs are most likely to run businesses that provide a service to consumers. Women’s ventures are more likely than men’s to be in the service sector for both early stage and

established entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs in Latin American and Caribbean low- to middleincome countries have the highest participation in service industries (74.3 percent), whereas women in high-income countries have greater participation rates in extractive, transforming, and business services sectors (52.1 percent). Increasing numbers of women are starting up and running high-growth industries such as financial services, biotechnology, and software. Women entrepreneurs exist across a wide range of countries and circumstances. Women’s entrepreneurial ventures make an important contribution to the economy in diverse countries across the globe; their input may be critical to the economic growth of low- and middle-income countries, such as those found in the Caribbean and Latin America. Globally, the size, scope, and setup of womenowned businesses are very different from those owned by men in terms of size, number of employees and revenues. Women-owned enterprises are smaller, typically employ fewer persons, generate lower revenues, and are less growth oriented. Women-owned companies are more resilient than men-owned businesses, and ventures owned by women of color are more likely to remain in business. Micro- and small businesses comprise 90 percent of all enterprises in countries with the lowest level of development as well as in developing countries. Women have a large share of these micro-enterprises. Women involved in micro-entrepreneurship typically conduct activities that are traditionally female. Micro-Entrepreneurs A micro-enterprise is a company with 10 or fewer employees, including family workers, and operates as an informal business. Micro-entrepreneurship provides a means for low-income women to escape from poverty and provide in their families. Women microentrepreneurs create a safety net for their families and their communities while making a large contribution to their country’s economy. In 2002, two-thirds of the 3.7 micro-entrepreneurs who received U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding were women. In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 80 percent of businesses are micro-enterprises. Latin American and Caribbean women own and operate between 30 and 60 percent of micro-enterprises in their countries.



Throughout Latin America, female entrepreneurs own up to half of all rural micro-enterprises. Women micro entrepreneurs work as street vendors, caterers, farmers, haircutters, and craftswomen. Rural women often work in retail trade and marketing. Asian women typically sell vegetables and other foodstuffs. Balinese women create and sell handicrafts to U.S. importers. Many rural women raise small livestock that they can sell to generate income. In the Republic of Moldova, Europe’s poorest country, the Women’s Micro-Enterprise Development Activity initiative has supported in-kind equipment grants and technical assistance to 75 young women. Technical assistance and in-kind equipment grants help the women to start new businesses and income-generation activities. Country Comparisons Across the globe, women are much less likely than men to be involved in a new business venture or own a business, although their rates vary greatly by country. Data from 2007 showed Japan and Peru were the only two countries in which women were more active than men in entrepreneurial activities. Significant gender gaps exist in high-income countries and lowto middle-income nations, with the gender gap the widest in high-income country groups. The highest rates of female early-stage entrepreneurial activity and established business ownership are in low- to middle-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, followed by European and Asian low- to middle-income countries. The rate of women’s early stage entrepreneurial activity is four times higher in Latin American and Caribbean low- to middle-income countries and two times higher in European and Asian low- to middle-income countries countries than in high-income countries. High-income nations also had the lowest rates of female-established business ownership. Women in high-income countries are half as likely as men to own a business in the early or established phase. Exceptions include Japan, Thailand, Peru, and Brazil, where women’s early entrepreneurial activity equals or exceeds men’s. Recent reports suggest that the proportion of self-employed women is highest in Canada. One of the contributing factors to the gender gap in early- and established-stage entrepreneurial activity includes limited access to education and training. Women in developing countries face few business and

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management programs that are readily accessible. Other barriers include local market restrictions, legal and property rights, and access to capital. Women earn less than men across country lines, making it harder for them to have cash on hand to begin a new business. Women generally have less access to loans and venture capital. Motivation and Characteristics Necessity entrepreneurs start a business because they either have few other options for work or the limited options are not satisfactory. In contrast, opportunity entrepreneurs start a business in response to a perceived business prospect. In general, the likelihood of a woman starting a business out of necessity increases with the poverty level of her country. Although a gender gap exists in opportunity entrepreneurship, no gender gap exists in necessity entrepreneurship. While most early-stage women entrepreneurs respond to a perceived business opportunity, significant differences exist in terms of the ratio of opportunity to necessity entrepreneurship between high-income countries and low- to middle-income nations. Women who are at the early stages of entrepreneurship in higher-income countries are more likely to have opportunity as their motivation than women early-stage entrepreneurs in low- to middleincome countries. Besides opportunity and necessity, additional motivators for women entrepreneurs include personal satisfaction and growth, independence and autonomy, intellectual enrichment, flexibility, income, and prestige. Several socioeconomic factors influence the decision to start a business. These factors include age, employment status, education, income, social connections, and values or perceptions. Employment may be a more important factor than education in contributing to women’s involvement in entrepreneurship. Women who work outside the home are three to four times more likely than nonworking and retired women, or female students to be entrepreneurs. Women in low- to middle-income countries are most likely to be involved in early-stage entrepreneurship from age 25 to 34, and become established from age 35 to 44. In contrast, women in high-income countries are most likely to be involved in early-stage entrepreneurship from age 25 to 44, and established from age 35 to 54.

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Regardless of the country’s income level, women who are established business owners do not have higher educational attainment than women at the early stages of entrepreneurship. Women entrepreneurs in high-income countries have greater average educational attainment than women entrepreneurs in low-income countries. Women entrepreneurs are more confident than women without such enterprising activity, and are less fearful. They are more likely to be acquainted with other entrepreneurs, and are more oriented toward untapped opportunities. Women entrepreneurs are willing to take large risks to achieve independence. Values are at the core of how women run their businesses. Women entrepreneurs create organizational cultures that reflect their basic beliefs about fairness, growth, and community. They promote equity, achievement, and camaraderie among their employees and a strong sense of community, extending the culture of their companies to their customers. They lead by orchestration rather than micro-management. Barriers and Successes Limited funding and family responsibilities often combine to limit the size of women’s business enterprises. Women entrepreneurs often face barriers in obtaining the funding needed to start and grow their businesses. Women receive a very small percentage of venture capital investments. Women entrepreneurs may also face exclusion from formal and informal networks. Juggling the demands of a family and a business also poses a challenge for many women entrepreneurs. Despite expanded career opportunities, many women still bear primary responsibility for family and home. Family responsibilities may limit the time available to women entrepreneurs to dedicate to their businesses. Women and men differ in how they define business success. Although men-owned businesses outperform their female counterparts in pure growth, women entrepreneurs define success more broadly. Success indicators for women entrepreneurs include quality, customer satisfaction, meaningful community involvement, and sustainable business practices. Successful entrepreneurship also means being able to combine a business that generates sufficient income while leading a fulfilling life that extends beyond the business.

Entrepreneurship takes many forms around the globe. The following women represent the different faces of women entrepreneurs and their endeavors: • Farah Khan Kunder, one of India’s most successful film directors and choreographers, was named Asia Pacific Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008. Her films have received international acclaim. • Guler Sabanci of Turkey, chair of the industrial conglomerate Sabanci Holding, is the country’s most celebrated woman entrepreneur. She also heads the philanthropy side of the business, the Sabanci Foundation. • Margaret Manning is the chief executive officer of Reading Room Ltd., of London. Reading Room is a digital communications agency that works with businesses, and cultural and governmental institutions to create quality digital dialogues with their target audiences. Manning won the 2009 Stevie Award for Best Entrepreneur in Europe, Middle East and Africa. • Marta Arango is the founder of the International Center for Education and Human Development (CINDE) in Colombia. CINDE’s comprehensive approach to development and education of children under the age of 6 has been implemented in 27 countries. • Wangari Maathai began Kenya’s Green Belt Movement with a small tree nursery in her own backyard. Her goal was to replace cut-down trees to protect Kenyans land for future generations. Today, African women in more than a dozen countries plant and sell seedlings to make a living from the land. Wangari also helped to found the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, which advocates for women’s equality in global policy. • Oprah Winfrey overcame poverty and considerable hardship in her youth to run her own production company, which produces her internationally syndicated talk show. Winfrey also is an actress, literary critic, and magazine publisher, and is considered one of the most influential women in the world. See Also: Business, Women in; Direct Sales; Financial Independence of Women; Winfrey, Oprah.

Environmental Activism, Grassroots

Further Readings Allen, Elaine I., Amanda Elam, Nan Langowitz, and Monica Dean. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship. Boston: Babson College: The Center on Women’s Leadership, 2008. Brush, Candida G., Nancy M. Carter, Elizabeth J. Gatewood, Patricia G. Greene, and Myra M. Hart. Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High-Growth Business. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2004. Brush, Candida G., Nancy N. Carter, Elizabeth J. Gatewood, Patricia G. Greene, and Myra M. Hart, eds. Growth-Oriented Women Entrepreneurs and Their Businesses: A Global Research Perspective. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2006. Heffernan, Margaret. How She Does It: How Women Entrepreneurs Are Changing the Rules of Business Success. New York: Viking, 2007. Keri L. Heitner University of Phoenix School of Advanced Studies

Environmental Activism, Grassroots Women’s participation in grassroots environmental movements is well documented worldwide. In 1974, author Françoise d’Eaubonne used the term dcofeminism for the first time in her book “Le féminisme ou la Mort!” In it, she called attention to a specific relationship women have with nature and their potential to foster an ecological revolution. After she established the concept of ecofeminism, it became the name of a theoretical branch of feminist theory that defends the existence of a female-specific concern for the environment. Ecofeminism puts emphasis on the role women play in protecting nature and the environment via grassroots movements worldwide. The role of women in grassroots activism has been an issue of debate in ecofeminism circles. Essentialist interpretations consider women’s capacity to produce and maintain life as the root of their environmental concern. On the contrary, ecofeminists who emphasize social and political perspectives think women show specific responsibilities, concerns, and interests for nature because of their gendered roles and socialization.

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Differences between women’s environmental activism in developing and developed countries are related to specific environmental, social, and economic contexts, as well as to the diversity of women’s social roles and everyday responsibilities. In developing nations, women fight against the degradation or loss of natural resources that put the community’s survival at risk. In these countries, health concerns plus security and landscape conservation are the main reasons women are called to action. Women’s capacity to influence environmentrelated political agendas is biased by their power inside grassroots organizations. In the case of gendermixed grassroots groups, there is an unequal distribution of roles and power positions between men and women. By contrast, grassroots organizations dominated by female activists have linked feminist and ecological interests, bringing forth alternative analysis. In this way, women’s perspectives on nature and the environment have influenced political agendas at local and international levels. Environmental Concerns In developing countries, women are more likely to be affected by the environment’s deterioration and suffer the result of diminished resources due to their disadvantaged social roles and economic positions. In poor countries, women used to have little control of land and natural resources; they also have limited access to training and technologies, despite shouldering the bulk of agricultural work. These are the primary reasons behind the growth of women’s environmental activism. The Chipko or “Embrace the Tree” movement took place in the Garhwal Himalaya area of India in the early 1970s and spread to most of the country. A group of peasants embraced the trees with their bodies and reclaimed their traditional forest rights. Although the initial claims pointed to a fair redistribution of resources, it soon evolved into an ecological movement. The Chipko movement was led by men, but the strong presence and support of women made it of interest to ecofeminist politics. Indian physician and feminist leader Vandana Shiva analyzed the Chipko movement in a number of articles and was primarily responsible for its diffusion worldwide. The Green Belt movement was possible thanks to the work of biologist and feminist Wangari

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Maathai, who encouraged rural women to plant trees as part of a soil conservation effort to avert desertification of their land. The project started in Kenya and expanded to other African countries. The role of women in protecting the environment also has been documented for industrialized countries. During the 1980s, emblematic cases of female activism, like the Greenham peace movement, included European women’s protests against Chernobyl, and the mobilization started by the young Niagara Falls, New York, housewife Lois Gibbs against a toxic waste dump under the Love Canal community. Women’s concern for health and security drove the high level of participation in grassroots organizations during the 1980s and 1990s, particularly against toxic waste disposal operations. More recently, gender tendencies in grassroots activism have been observed in environmental conflicts related to landscape and resources conservation. Women tend to focus on basic issues: the impact on future generations, quality of life, and sense of belonging. Women’s Roles and Power in Grassroots Groups While women’s presence in political parties and ecological organizations is rather low, they are more likely to participate on the grassroots level because they are attracted to local issues. Also, the groups present low hierarchical structures. Therefore, environment-related grassroots movements are relevant to women’s political empowerment because they are the arenas that influence political decision making. Analysis of female participation at a grassroots level points to the sexual distribution of roles. Men used to be the leaders while women took up mainly supporting activities. Currently, women are assuming leading or active roles in grassroots organizations. Women apply gendered strategies when engaging in resistance activities, such as combining the grassroots’ actions with reproductive tasks and engaging their children in the daily needs of the movements. In this way, female activists challenge traditional androcentric divisions of space and social organization, such as private/personal/home and public/ impersonal/political. Female environmental activists have developed specific organizations in which feminist and ecological claims are linked. The connections

between environmental politics and issues related to daily life, home, and community have been seen as specific characteristics of feminist environmental politics. In this sense, women’s consumption in the private sphere is used as a powerful mechanism to lobby the industry and government regarding environmental issues. Women’s groups have developed campaigns to empower females and to press for environmental policies regarding production and waste management. A well-known case is the English female-oriented organization Women’s Environment Network (WEN). It lobbies the industry against the negative effects on the environment as well as the impact on women and children’s health. Examples of successful campaigns include the request to reduce chlorine in sanitary protection and diapers, the claim on excess packaging in supermarkets’ products, and the work in raising awareness about the environmental impact of disposable diapers, among others. Female environmental organizations also protest against women’s exclusion from business and political decisions concerning production, and they have denounced industry for manipulating female consumers. Women need a high level of knowledge to make environmentally and socially friendly decisions about consumption. In addition, a responsible consumption also is limited by the economic and time constraints of many women. Global Environmental Politics One of the most relevant contributions of women’s environmental activists for sustainable development has been the lobby of international politics on the environment. In 1972, the Environmental Liaison Center International (ELCI) organized a seminar titled, “Women and the Environmental Crisis.” Women’s attention to environmental issues only took on a global dimension in the 1985 United Nations Third World Congress on Women in Nairobi, Kenya. For the first time, women brought to an official symposium their concern about the global deterioration of the environment and how it was negatively affecting women’s everyday lives worldwide. The Nairobi’s conference was an assessment of 1976–85 and resulted in the adoption of Nairobi’s Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women (NFLS).



In 1991, the Women’s International Policy Action Committee (IPAC) and Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) organized the First Women’s World Congress for a Healthy Planet that took place in Miami, Florida. A main objective of the congress was to join women’s opinions on the environmental crisis. The result of the consultation and discussion process was the Women’s Action Agenda 21 that was presented to the Earth Summit one year later. In 1992, during the Earth Summit, women’s lobbying helped to highlight the relevance of gender equity for sustainable development. As a result, women’s key role in the management of the environment was included in Principle 20 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. In addition, women’s issues were considered main topics dealt by the program of action of Agenda 21, in addition to one chapter entirely dedicated to gender titled, “Global Action for Women Towards Sustainable and Equitable Development.” The environment was again a topic of discussion at the United Nations (UN) Fourth World Congress on Women that took place in 1995 in Beijing, China. Also in 2000, the UN Millennium Summit focused attention on gender and the environment. In 2002, the Johannesburg Rio+10 took place, which had the purpose of assessing the progress made since the 1992 Earth Summit. Women’s groups started to work two years in advance under the umbrella of the Women’s Caucus, which flourished after the Rio Summit and with the leading role of WEDO. Compromises claimed in the Women’s Action Agenda 21 were updated, with the resulting document titled, Women’s Action Agenda for a Peaceful and Healthy Planet 2015. The new women’s agenda listed critical arguments and proposals on the environmental crisis according to five chapters: peace and human rights, globalization and sustainability, access and control to resources, environmental security and health, and governance for sustainable development. The assessment of the general increment of militarism and armed conflicts during the previous decade led women to advocate peace and respect for human rights to ensure sustainable development. A particular attention was also paid to the gender bias of governance. Women denounced the concentration of power in the hands of males

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from Western countries, and the low female participation in policy-making bodies all over the world. See Also: Ecofeminism; Environmental Issues, Women and; Environmental Justice; Women’s Environment and Development Organization. Further Readings Agarwal, B. "Conceptualising Environmental Collective Action: Why Gender Matters." Cambridge Journal of Economics, no. 24 (2000). Brú-Bistuer, J. et al. “A Gendered Politics of the Environment.” In Lynn A. Staeheli, et al., eds. Mapping Women, Making Politics: Feminist Perspectives on Political Geography. New York: Routledge, 2004. Caiazza, A. and A. Barret. Engaging Women in Environmental Activism: Recommendations for Rachel’s Network. Washington, DC: Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2003. Littig, B. Feminist Perspectives on Environment and Society. London: Pearson Education, 2001. Rocheleau, D., B. Thomas-Slayter, and E. Wangari, ed. Feminist Political Ecology. London: Routledge, 1996. Sachs, C. E., ed. Women Working in the Environment. Oxfordshire, UK: Taylor & Francis, 1997. M. Agüera University of Girona

Environmental Issues, Women and Since the beginning of human history, women have had to contend with the impact of the natural environment on the health and well-being of their communities in concrete and pragmatic ways to ensure their continued collective survival. For example, in many societies around the world today, women remain primarily responsible for the collection of firewood for cooking and heating. In the absence of infrastructure to deliver water, they are also often called upon to transport this precious resource back to their communities or to find new sources. When the historical record is examined, women are in the forefront of activism, teaching, and research about environmental issues.

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Women and the History of Environmentalism Although the most recent Chipko movement— which means “stick it” in Hindi—was led primarily by female peasants in India in the early 1970s to stop deforestation through nonviolent resistance. The first recorded Chipko event took place in 1730 when Amrita Devi and her followers sacrificed their lives by hugging the trees to protect them. For these women, the removal of the trees represented an end to their survival because, for them, food production began with the forest. In addition to providing them with fuel, food, and fodder, the forest also provided them with building materials, medicinal herbs, and raw materials for local crafts. Thus, a major environmental issue for women around the world has long been one of sustainability. A little over a century after Amrita Devi’s death, Ellen Swallow’s concern about water quality in the United States and its impacts on public health inspired her to become the first woman to seek admission to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a chemistry student. Although many disapproved of her ambition at first, her exemplary academic performance and analytical skills in the laboratory soon gained her the attention and respect of her professors. Convinced that access to clean drinking water was a basic human right—a key belief of most female environmentalists today—Swallow quickly became an internationally recognized expert in water analysis through her pioneering study of the sewage and water supply throughout Massachusetts. Swallow has been referred to as the “First Lady of Environmental Science” due to her efforts to introduce environmental science courses into universities and schools, as well as her work to convince cities to clean up their air and improve the handling of waste and establish sewage treatment systems. Five decades later, marine biologist, naturalist, and writer Rachel Carson warned the general public in the book Silent Spring that unless humanity began to take better care of its environment, the very resources upon which life and the future depends would be destroyed or radically changed. Scrupulously researched, this pioneering work discussed both the short- and long-term dangers of the indiscriminate use of synthetic chemical pesticides on living beings and the ecosystem.

Following the publication of Silent Spring in 1962, an increasing number of female scientists and lay activists begin to echo with increasing intensity Carson’s concerns about the deleterious health effects of environmental toxins on humans and other living beings. After the poisoning of thousands of villagers from the dumping of industrial wastes such as methyl mercury into the nearby bay of Minamata, Japan, Michiko Ishimuri (a local housewife and mother who became a poet and writer) chronicled the impact the devastation had on the families. She chronicled her findings of the environmental disaster in her best-selling book, Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow, published in 1969. Similarly, in the past few decades, American women such as Lois Gibbs, Alexis Jetter, Patsy Ruth Oliver, and Dollie Burwell became environmental activists. They were called to action after experiencing and witnessing firsthand the health issues associated with the dumping of environmental toxins in their neighborhoods. During this same period, other women such as Karen Silkwood and Erin Brockovich raised questions about environmental accountability and responsibility in the workplace when they blew the whistle on what they believed to be violations of health regulations. Silkwood is credited with making the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) aware of safety conditions at the Kerr-McGee plutonium processing plant at which she worked in Oklahoma. Brockovich is known for her exhaustive research into Pacific Gas & Electric’s leaking of hexavalent chromium into the ground water in Hinkley, California. In both cases, the environmental activism of these two women was chronicled, respectively, in the feature-length films Silkwood (1983) and Erin Brockovich (2000). In more recent years, a number of well-respected female scientists, physicians, and academics have written many works that offer ample evidence to support lay activists’ fears about the extensive and harmful health effects of environmental pollution. Prominent among them are such writers as Theo Colborn, whose work focuses on the health effects of endocrine disruption due to synthetic chemicals, and Sandra Steingraber, a plant ecologist who has written extensively about environmental links to cancer. Involved in the antinuclear movement since the early 1970s, Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician, continues her campaign to educate people about the health dangers of nuclear technologies.



Ecofeminism Another important concern expressed by many has been that the oppression of women cannot be separated from the assault on nature. In Françoise d’Eaubonne’s 1974 work, Le Féminisme ou la Mort (Feminism or Death), for example, the first appearance of the term ecofeminism appears. It is a concept that articulates a direct connection between women’s liberation and the state of the natural environment. According to ecofeminist thinkers, solutions to environmental problems must include a feminist perspective if they are to be successful. Conversely, the same thinkers also believe that both feminist theory and established skill need to include environmental perspectives if the issue of women’s oppression can be properly tackled. A transformative ecofeminism, as articulated by philosopher Karen J. Warren, would encompass six major features. It would make the interconnections between all systems of oppression explicit; stress the diversity of women’s experience; reject the logic of domination; attempt to determine whether “consciousness” and reason are truly attributes that position humans as “better” than nonhumans; be based on an ethic that stresses virtues traditionally designated as “feminine” through a nonhierarchically structured society with more of a collective and cooperative spirit; and endorse the use of science and technology only so long as such discoveries don’t harm the environment. Women, Government, and the Environment Although most women environmentalists would probably agree that adherence to the tenets of a transformative ecofeminism is a necessary condition for the survival of humanity and all the other species on earth, there often is a difference of opinion about the most effective strategies for the concrete realization of such ideals in society. Some women believe that activists should maintain an independent stance from mainstream environmental groups and government agencies to hold political officials accountable for the passage and actual enforcement of environmental laws. Others, however, contend that real change will only occur when people espousing these ideas manage to gain access to the reins of power in large organizations and government agencies. As a result, many women have viewed election to political office

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or appointment to governmental bodies as a way of accomplishing such goals. Prominent among women in this group are figures such as Carol Browner, the first female appointed as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992; Gro Harlem Brundtland, a Norwegian minister of the environment who eventually became Norway’s first woman prime minister, serving from 1981 until 1996; and Petra Kelly, cofounder of the German Green Party, founded in 1980. Environmental Justice In the 1980s, a new environmental justice movement emerged that based its approach on a civil rights and social justice perspectives. It was propelled by the mounting concern expressed by people within indigenous, African American, and Latina/o communities in the United States about the hazardous and polluting industries that had been sited primarily in their neighborhoods. Because most mainstream environmental organizations at that time had not incorporated environmental justice goals into their programs in any meaningful way, many people from the traditionally underrepresented groups began to form their own grassroots organizations around the country to address environmental issues in their local communities. One such woman-led organization, Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA), was founded in response to proposals to locate an environmentally unsound incinerator and a chemical plant in their neighborhood. Today, there are grassroots initiatives in place to ensure that environmental justice remains at the forefront of the world’s consciousness. Among the groups are MELA; HOME (Healing Our Mother Earth, founded to educate the public about nuclear issues); the Shundahai Network, formed at the Nevada Test Site in 1994 at the request of Corbin Harney, a Western Shoshone spiritual leader, to abolish nuclear weapons and end nuclear testing; and the Great Louisiana Toxics March, organized to bring attention to the high levels of illness and pollution in the state’s industrial corridor, a region characterized by high levels of unemployment, poverty, and illiteracy. In the vanguard of such movements, both laywomen and women with scientific expertise, are forming coalitions to effect both social and environmental change in their respective communities.

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Environmental Issues in Postsocialist States Shortly before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the concept of glasnost, a policy to encourage greater openness and transparency in governmental affairs. In the wake of this change in philosophy, many Russians began to talk to each other more openly about the impact of rampant pollution on the health of the country’s citizens as a way to compel changes in the nation’s industrial and environmental policy. One such activist was chemist Tatyana Artyomkina, one of the leaders of the Ryazan Green Movement. Convinced that people struggling for social change have to be empowered economically as well as politically, she has endeavored to provide funding to local scientists to help them develop environmental engineering solutions to the daunting problems faced by the postsocialist Russian state. Because waterways and air know no political boundaries, she, along with many other women environmentalists, believes that people must think beyond the borders of their own particular nation-states if they wish to find a solution to the earth’s current ecological crisis. She also thinks that an end to wars and the practical adoption of sustainable development principles must be realized before global ecological problems can be resolved. Other women in the postsocialist states of Russia and Poland have focused their energies on spotlighting the consequences of environmental degradation on human health. Because children represent the future of all nations, Maria Cherkasova, a Russian ecologist and journalist, has focused her attentions on the impact of pollution on children’s health. As a scientist who specializes in studying rare and endangered animals, she has concluded that in some areas of the country such as the southern Urals, the human population is experiencing what she has termed genocide by ecocide. Before her death in 1998, Polish physician Maria Gumińska acted upon her belief that everyone has a moral obligation to protect earth’s resources through her leadership of the Polish Ecological Club (PKE), the first independent environmental nongovernmental organization in Poland. Gumińska also popularized environmental issues within the general public and scientific community through her many publications on such expansive issues as fluoride poisoning and other environmental health problems.

Global South Versus Global North: Differing Perspectives on Environmental Issues Much of recent activism has been in the “global north” or the “two-thirds world,” as feminist theorist Chandra Mohanty refers to it. Mohanty has estimated that this segment of the world contains one-third of the world’s population, but consumes two-thirds of its resources, and that the postsocialist states have centered on the long-term effects of industrialization and hazardous wastes on human health and the ecosystem. In the “global south” or Mohanty’s “one-third world,” the portion of the globe containing two-thirds of the population, consumes just one-third of its resources. However, people have had to contend with increasing pressures from multinational corporations and institutions in the global north to “develop” their economies along the lines of those in the postindustrial North. Hence, many women environmentalists in the global south have responded to such calls for changes in the existing economic and social structures as simply a new form of colonialism that further encourages environmental degradation and robs people of the resources they have traditionally managed collectively to sustain themselves and their communities. A prominent critic of this type of development discourse is Vandana Shiva, an Indian scientist and ecofeminist, who argues that the global north has become rich at the expense of the global south through “biopiracy,” a term she uses to describe the monopolization—usually through patents—of genetic resources and traditional knowledge originally taken freely from people in the global south. Through such a process, the people who supplied the original resources, which used to be freely available, are legally deprived of the right to use them, unless they pay a fee to the entity or corporation that has patented it. In her book, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit, Shiva analyzes how corporate attempts to privatize water around the world are depriving people in the global south, in particular, of a precious resource that she believes should be freely available to all. In China, Shiva’s concerns about water issues have been reflected in the struggles journalist and engineer Dai Qing has encountered and protested against, including the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. In other parts of the global south, women such as Wangari Maathai are challenging the notion that only

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“experts” possess the requisite skills to reverse environmental degradation around the world. Through her Green Belt Movement in Kenya—for which she received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004—Maathai, a scientist, proved that a broad-based grassroots organization could effectively reduce poverty and conserve the environment through tree planting in areas that had previously been devastated by deforestation. See Also: Birth Defects, Environmental Factors and; Brockovich, Erin; Cancer, Environmental Factors and; Ecofeminism; Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Justice; Green Belt Movement; Maathai, Wangari; Shiva, Vandana; Water, as Women’s Issue; Women’s Environment and Development Organization. Further Readings Boswell-Penc, Maia. Tainted Milk: Breastmilk, Feminisms and the Politics of Environmental Degradation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Caldicott, Helen. Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer. New York: The New Press, 2007. Colborn, Theo, et al. Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival? New York: Dutton, 1996. Hofrichter, Richard, ed. Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2002. Maathai, Wangari. The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. New York: Lantern Books, 2003. Shiva, Vandana. Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002. Warren, Karen J. Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Danielle Roth-Johnson Kimberly Sanford University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Environmental Justice Environmental justice refers to the movements aimed at ensuring that people of color, low-income individuals, women, and indigenous communities are not dis-

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proportionately harmed by environmental risks and harm. Environmental justice has many historic roots but is seen as culminating in the 1980s and 1990s. Movements include the struggle of working-class communities and communities of color against environmental hazards from toxins and pollution, indigenous mobilization against the exploitation and commoditization of natural resources, farm workers organizing against pesticide exposure, and international struggles against the exporting of hazardous materials, rapid overindustrialization, and climate change, among others. Because of cultural inequities, women can face heightened risk and harm, but they also often take a lead in environmental justice struggles. Environmental justice movements differ from the environmental movement in many ways. The environment is understood not as nature per se, but as where people live, work, and play. The movements are often grassroots, responding to incidences of environmental injustice as they occur. The law is often regarded as suspect because of its historic abuse in upholding inequality, and litigation is seen as only one strategy in a broader array of tactics including direct action, community mobilization, and political participation in local decision-making processes. Environmental justice issues are a result, and therefore an extension, of social inequalities. During the Civil Rights Movement, activists noted the prevalence of waste and toxic chemicals near communities of color and saw such environmental pollution as a civil rights violation. In 1987, the United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice researched the issue and issued a report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, which found that toxic waste facilities were disproportionately placed in minority communities. Later studies found both race and income to be strong predictors in the siting of locally unwanted land uses, such as landfills, incinerators, and abandoned toxic waste dumps. Race has also been correlated to disproportionately higher levels of air pollution, contaminated local food, and child lead poisoning. Such discriminatory risk—or environmental racism—has its roots in the history of residential segregation, redlining, zoning practices, discriminatory access in local planning decisions, as well as unequal regulatory enforcement. Environmental justice was given another boost by the growth of the antitoxins movement set off by the

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Love Canal incident of the late 1970s. A neighborhood in New York, the primarily white, working-class Love Canal community unknowingly had toxic waste buried beneath their local school. After an investigation by resident Lois Gibbs, whose son suffered multiple illnesses, awareness grew of the hazard and attention was drawn to the slow response of government agencies, as well as the prevalence and danger of abandoned toxic waste sites throughout the country. In 1980, Congress passed the Superfund Act, which holds polluters accountable for cleaning up such sites, although the program has since suffered from a lack of funding. The struggles of farm workers and Native Americans have also been identified as incidences of environmental injustice. As part of their organizing efforts in the late 1960s, activists such as César Chávez of the United Farm Workers began organizing for stronger work contracts, including the right not to use and be habitually exposed to certain pesticides such as DDT. Native Americans are sometimes referred to as early environmental justice activists, having long fought against overdevelopment and continuing to struggle against hazardous resource extraction and toxins in their communities, as well as for equal access to natural resources. As these movements culminated under the term environmental justice, activists and social scientists met with the Environmental Protection Agency and created the Office of Environmental Equity (later Justice) in 1992. In 1994, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order requiring that each federal agency develop an environmental justice strategy. Such legislation has provided environmental justice movements with greater legal protection in battling continuing incidences of disproportionate risk. However, the struggle continues, as can be seen with the inadequate government response to Hurricane Katrina, the policing of local communities afterward, and the use of postdisaster funds for gentrification projects instead of community rebuilding. International Struggles Environmental justice can also be seen in broader international struggles. Scholars and activists have argued that widespread poverty and thirst are environmental justice issues, resulting from not natural causes but the unequal distribution of resources. Globalization has been linked to heightened environmen-

tal risks, encouraging rapid industrialization through the growth of factories such as maquiladoras and coal plants. In addition, the desire of the first world to avoid exposure to hazardous and toxic substances can lead to the exporting of such material, such as banned pesticides, used batteries, toxic waste, and old electronics, to the third world for use, recycling, or dumping. Environmental justice is also manifesting with climate change. The growing effects from climate change, such as increases in disease, water and food shortages, extreme weather events, and incidences of migration and dislocation, are most prevalent in rural and poor populations. The reasons overlap with the causes of environmental injustice: greater dependence on natural resources and lack of social resources such as insurance, reliable healthcare, stable housing, emergency supplies, political representation, and government assistance. Regardless, such communities rarely have a voice in international climate change treaties. This has led to a growing climate justice movement. See Also: Bolivia; Cancer, Environmental Factors; Ecofeminism; Environmental Issues, Women and; Indigenous Women’s Rights; Love Canal; Toxic Waste, as Women’s Issue. Further Readings Bullard, Robert D. Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices From the Grassroots. Cambridge, MA: South End, 1993. Bullard, Robert D., ed. The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 2005. Cole, Luke and Sheila Foster. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Christine Shearer University of California, Santa Barbara

Equal Pay Equal pay refers to remuneration parity for men and women who do equivalent work. It is one aspect of gender equality in the labor market. The principle of



equal pay is legally recognized and enforced by most modern states. The rationale to support equal pay rests in the neoliberal formulation of equal rights, according to which nothing should exclude women from the general rights and obligations of citizenship. The pay gap between men and women is closely linked with and depends upon other aspects of labor market inequalities like horizontal and vertical segregation of occupations. The vertical segregation refers to the specialization of women in certain professions, which are associated with “feminine” skills derived from caretaking and nurturing. These occupations pay less than jobs traditionally associated with men’s work, and are considered less valuable and prestigious. Occupations like education, health, secretarial work, and administrative assistance are paid less than technology, engineering, architecture, or finance jobs where men are usually dominant. Does it mean that the pay gap decreases when women enter male-dominated occupations? Evidence shows that as women entered some of the formerly male-dominated occupations en masse, the pay rates declined because of the increase in work force supply. Occupational segregation, and the pay gap, is closely linked to the division of labor in households where women are traditionally ascribed domestic and caretaking duties. The burden of family care determines why women more often than men take parttime jobs that provide them with a lower income, but which also leaves them more time to perform unpaid housework. At the same time, the gender pay gap corresponds to horizontal segregation, characterized by the “glass ceiling.” This barrier to advancement is why the better paid, leadership positions in companies are occupied predominantly by white men. Women tend to fill positions with lower hierarchical leverage and income. However, the pay gap is lower in places with a tradition of collective bargaining and powerful trade unions. Pay scales are also more likely to be lower in public sectors than in the private ones, and in situations where job classification systems are used for determining salary minimums. Who Is Paid Less? It is essential to state that the differences in pay between the two genders are corroborated by variations within groups of women, including by age, edu-

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cation, civil status, work experience, priorities, and life choices. The most evident differences appear when comparing cohorts of women. It is evident that the older a woman, the lower her wages, when compared to younger women. This indicates that the gender pay gap is narrowing and that welfare policies have produced expected results by progressively integrating women into the labor market. At the same time, marriage and motherhood require women to spend more time in the household, negatively impacting the wages from paid labor. Education level is a predictor of the gender gap: more educated women have better possibilities of higher wages. It is interesting to note that the pay among racial or ethnic minorities and majority is even higher than the inert-gender pay gap. Consequently, if taking into account the two gaps, it is evident that minority women are the ones who carry the heavier burdens of a pay gap. Equal Pay: Indicators and Trends The research on wages and equal pay uses primarily quantitative econometric methods measurement tools. Banks of data are gathered and indicators are developed by governmental and international organizations concerned with the monitoring inequalities within labor markets. Data on average earnings usually derive from payroll sources supplied by countrylevel census and statistics or various establishments. Labor force surveys and administrative sources, including social insurance and tax records, are also weighed. Micro-surveys offer an additional look at the individual-level factors that describe and explain individual wages. Possible data sources for country comparisons may be found at the International Labour Organization, Eurostat, Household Panel for European Union Member States, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The methodology used in the calculation of pay gap indicators considers the ratio of female to male wages, expressed in percentages. Equal pay indicators are computed by wage sector and then generalized. A main assumption for this is “ceteris paribus” or more commonly known as “all other things being equal”: the men–women comparison is done only when all the contextual and individual conditions are the same with regard to workers’ education, experiences, labor skills, and so on.

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World Trends, Comparison, and Expectations The general statistics of current data and trends show that in recent years the pay gap has been narrowing since the beginning of the 1950s, at the dawn of the movement for gender equality in the labor market. The early statistics registered that women in the United States and throughout Europe earned a low 50 to 55 percent of a man’s salary. The current available data show that the average pay gap runs from a low 13 percent to a high of 26 percent across the world. Or, looked at another way, women now earn on average 74 to 87 percent of men’s income. Still, the research is incomplete. It does not include the income women earn in the informal economy, and information is not available for some African and Asian states. The pay–work equation is not different in the former communist countries. The dominance of state property assured women wages that were rather close to those of men. At the same time, because the state was the main employer, it was virtually impossible for women to complain about eventual pay disparities. The transition period negatively impacted women’s employment and increased the degree of unequal treatment between the sexes with identical productivity characteristics. According to a recent World Bank report, women with the highest productivity potential are the ones who faced the highest level of unequal treatment during transition. Still, the overall gender pay gap has remained relatively narrow in most transitional economies when compared to the rest of the world. Solutions to Ensure Equal Pay A primary cause for the gender pay gap relates to women as latecomers in a labor market progressively embedded by gendered patterns of occupational and educational choices, as well as to persistent social stereotypes. Solutions to reduce the pay gap must tackle individual and structural factors. Specific legal provisions that enforce the principle of equal pay, welfare policies envisaged to reduce gender discrimination in employment, and mainstreaming gender equality in specific policies are among the solutions modern states are taking to assure equal pay. The legal regulation of employment and wages is the solution most preferred by governments and feminist activists. Internationally, there is a variation in equal pay traditions and institutional applications. Generally, these pieces of law are written in various degrees of abstraction, which result

in different levels of interpretation and application. The adoption the provision, Convention 100 Concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value, by the International Labour Organization in 1951 represents the main international starting point for the right to equal pay for work of equal value in nation-state legislation. This convention was ratified by more than 160 countries, but its implementation is far from complete. At the European Union level, it is the Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome that forms the basis of equal pay legislation and policy provisions. However, it was only with the involvement of the European Court of Justice that this article started to be applied by individuals to protect their rights. By 1975, the European Economic Community (EEC) reinforced this article with a binding and directly applicable Directive 117, that restated “the principle of equal pay for men and women outlined in Article 119 . . . [as], for the same work or for work to which equal value is attributed, the elimination of all discrimination on grounds of sex with regard to all aspects and conditions of remuneration.” The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is the United States’ legal provision regulating the equal pay of men and women and states: “for equal work on jobs[,] the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to a seniority system; a merit system; a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or a differential based on any other factor other than sex.” At the beginning of 2009, another law reinforced the equal pay principle by granting it greater applicability. In Australia, the equal pay principle was adopted in the 1970s with a second entitlement addressing equal remuneration, was introduced into the Federal Labour Law in 1993. As in other countries, in just one case these legislative provisions have advanced arbitration and no equal remuneration orders have been issued. Mainstreaming and Welfare Policies Along with the legal provisions for equal pay, specific national policies are adopted by governments to enhance the integration of women in the labor market. These are policies designed to help working women reconcile public and private spheres. So-called “work–life balance” policies include childcare facilities, economic

Equal Rights Amendment



help to single mothers, paternity leave, and more. The mechanism of mainstreaming gender equality is a process of re-examining policy areas using a gender lens, assessing implications of all policies for women and men. Some moves would ease the entrance of women in male-dominated occupations and increase the value of the skills considered essentially female. The main critique of state intervention on gender equality has been raised by the neoliberalists who call for a totally free market where such conditions as free trade, absence of regulation, and legal structure would spring the market competition and eliminate the discriminatory behavior. In this view, the absence of regulation and the freedom to exchange goods and services are essential features of market orientation. As a result, open discrimination against women would become less possible and women would have more favorable conditions to compete with men. See Also: Domestic Workers; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Part-Time Work; Working Mothers; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Blau, F. D. and L. M. Kahn. “Understanding International Differences in the Gender Pay Gap.” Journal of Labor Economics, v.21/1 (2003). Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook.” (2009). http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-data book2009.htm (accessed June 2010). Chicha, M. T. “Promoting Equity: Gender-Neutral Job Evaluation for Equal Pay. A Step-by-Step Guide.” Brussels, Belgium: International Labour Organization, 2009. http://www.ilo.org/declaration/info/publications /lang--en/docName--WCMS_101325/index.htm (accessed June 2010). Chubb, C., et al. International Trade Union Confederation Reports, The Global Gender Pay Gap. Brussels, Belgium: International Labor Organization, 2008. Dey, J. G. and C. Hill. Behind the Pay Gap. Washington, DC: American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, 2007. Rubery, J. and F. Grimshaw. “How to Close the Gender Pay Gap in Europe: Towards Gender Mainstreaming of Pay Policy.” Industrial Relations Journal, v.36/3 (2005). Angela Movileanu University of Siena

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Equal Rights Amendment In 1972, the U.S. Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which stated that federal and state law would not discriminate against anyone based on sex. From 1972 to 1982, 35 U.S. states ratified the ERA, a number that fell three short of the necessary total. During the ratification period, the amendment became the subject of controversy and served as a divisive issue among women in the United States. Since 1982, the Equal Rights Amendment has been introduced into every session of U.S. Congress, but Congress has not passed the amendment again. U.S. suffragist Alice Paul authored the ERA, and from 1923 to 1972, the ERA was introduced into every session of Congress. In 1946, the Senate voted on the ERA, but the amendment failed. During the 1950s, the Senate had two different, successful votes on the ERA. Each time, the ERA was sent to the House to be voted upon, but the House did not act before the session ended. One reason the ERA enjoyed Senate support during the 1950s was the attachment of the Hayden Rider, safeguarding women’s existing legal benefits. Proponents of the ERA saw the Hayden Rider as problematic. Due to the efforts of the National Organization for Women, from 1970 to 1972, the Senate and the House held hearings on the ERA. On March 23, 1972, Congress passed the ERA, and gave the ERA’s ratification a time limit of seven years—until 1979. Support was initially swift and strong. Hawaii ratified the ERA within hours, and a total of 30 states ratified the ERA by the end of the amendment’s first calendar year. However, soon after this, the number of ratifications decreased sharply; in 1977, Indiana became the 35th and last state to ratify. Supporters of the ERA persuaded Congress to extend the amendment’s deadline to 1982. Meanwhile, five states’ legislatures had rescinded, or taken back, their ratifications of the ERA. Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Tennessee justified rescission by stating that they had ratified too hastily and did not appreciate the possible deleterious effects of the ERA on women and the family. South Dakota rescinded as a protest against the amendment’s deadline extension. These rescissions were of questionable legality and caused controversy.

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E. G. Miller, Democratic National committeewoman, and Senator Edward Burke, author of the Burke Constitutional Amendment for Equal Rights for Women. Miller stated that women have “felt the ruinious effects of discriminatory and so-called protective legislation.”

The arguments in support of the ERA focused on the principle of equality. The ERA would guarantee that women had the same constitutional rights that men had. Proponents claimed that this would apply to the government and the law, but would have no impact on private actions and private relationships. They also observed that a constitutional amendment would be a fast, consistent, and relatively permanent path to sexual equality, preferable to piecemeal legal reform. In the 1970s, pro-ERA organizations included the National Organization for Women, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, and the League of Women Voters. Until 1973, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) opposed the ERA due to the threat ERA posed to protective labor laws; in 1973, the AFL-CIO changed its position to

one of support for the ERA. This shift was due to the growing legal trend of rendering labor laws equal by including male workers in protective legislation. The arguments against the ERA were varied. Opponents believed the ERA would lead to changes that the majority of American women did not want and that Congress had not intended. One of the opposition’s most damaging arguments was that the ERA would cause women to be conscripted for military service and combat duty. Proponents of the ERA agreed that this was possible, but countered that the federal government already had the power to conscript women in wartime. Some proponents also suggested that conscription and combat duty were necessary if women were ever to achieve equal opportunity in military careers. The fact that proponents agreed with opponents regarding conscription



and combat duty was widely used by opponents in their anti-ERA campaigns. Opponents contended that the Supreme Court would unpredictably interpret the ERA, leading to outcomes that Congress had not intended, such as unisex public toilets and prisons, the invalidation of rape laws, homosexual marriage, and homosexual couples adopting children. After the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, opponents insisted the ERA would require the federal government to fund abortions on demand for poor women. Pointing to section two of the ERA, which granted Congress the right to pass laws to enforce the amendment, opponents asserted that the ERA would erode states’ rights in favor of a more powerful federal government. Many opponents maintained that the ERA would harm women, the traditional family, and society in general. They warned that women would be required to place their children in daycare and would be forced to work to earn 50 percent of the family income, or that women would not be entitled to alimony in the case of divorce. Still others held that the ERA was superfluous due to the equal protection afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment. Some declared that a constitutional amendment was not necessary because the Equal Pay Act and other laws already provided women with all the legal recourse they needed if faced with sexual discrimination. Conservative activist and lawyer Phyllis Schlafly is the most well known anti-ERA leader of the 1970s. Through her organizations, the Eagle Forum and StopERA, she mobilized a grassroots campaign of previously apolitical housewives to oppose the amendment. The Mormon Church was also widely known for its organized opposition to the ERA. Currently, there is a three-state strategy to include the ERA in the U.S. Constitution. According to the strategy’s supporters, the deadline for ratification was not part of the text of the amendment, so it should not prevent three more states from ratifying now. This strategy gained greater credibility in the aftermath of the ratification of the Madison Amendment in 1992—over 200 years after Congress passed it. Recent analyses of the ERA battle of 1972 to 1982 suggest that, although ERA opponents won in the short term, they lost in the long term. These studies

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contend that despite the ERA’s failure, proponents have achieved their goals through the use of the courts and the passage of more laws targeting sex discrimination. In addition, some have argued that when Congress reconsidered the ERA in 1983–84, the debates surrounding the amendment caused feminist activists to refine the goals of the women’s movement. According to this view, legal feminism from then on focused less on an abstract principle of equality and more on actual equality in circumstances. As a result, feminist activists would challenge laws that appeared to be equal but which in practice had a disproportionately negative impact on women. See Also: Antifeminism; Combat, Women in; Eagle Forum; Feminism, American; Military, Women in; Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; National Organization for Women. Further Readings Becker, Susan D. The Origins of the Equal Rights Amendment: American Feminism Between the Wars. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981. Berry, Mary Frances. Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Boles, Janet K. The Politics of the Equal Rights Amendment: Conflict and the Decision Process. New York: Longman, 1979. Critchlow, Donald T. Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Held, Allison L., Sheryl L. Herndon, and Danielle M. Stager. “The Equal Rights Amendment: Why the ERA Remains Legally Viable and Properly Before the States.” William and Mary Law Journal, v.3 (1997). Mansbridge, Jane J. Why We Lost the ERA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Mathews, Donald G. and Jane Sherron De Hart. Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA: A State and a Nation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990. Mayeri, Serena. “A New E.R.A. or a New Era? Amendment Advocacy and the Reconstitution of Feminism.” Northwestern University Law Review, v.103/3 (2009). Nancy E. Baker Sam Houston State University

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Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea Located in western Africa, Equatorial Guinea gained its independence from Spain in 1968. The country now has a per capita income of $36,100, but the standard of living has improved only minimally since the discovery of oil reserves propelled Equatorial Guinea into position as the third largest oil exporter in subSaharan Africa. Some 39 percent of the population is now urbanized, but many families are still engaged in subsistence farming. More than 85 percent of agricultural workers are women. The overall unemployment rate is 30 percent. Although the majority ethnic group is Fang (85.7 percent), there are also small groups of Bubi (6.5 percent), Mdowe (3.6 percent), Annobon (1.6 percent), and Bujeba (1.1 percent). Spanish and French are the official languages, but each ethnic group also speaks its own dialect. Most Equatoguineans are nominally Roman Catholic, but many also participate in indigenous practices. International institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have suspended aid to the country because of corruption and mismanagement. Because it has the poorest human rights record in Africa, Equatorial Guinea, where women are treated as property, is often a hostile environment for women and girls, and women’s rights nongovernmental organizations have a difficult time because the government refuses to register them. Gender inequities and domestic violence are major problems, and reports suggest that human trafficking may also be an issue. Although the constitution grants equality to both men and women, cultural practices demand their subservience. Polygamy is widespread within the Fang culture. Early marriages are also common, and a 2004 United Nations Report indicated that 26 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years were married, divorced, or widowed. Although women hold equal legal rights to inheritance and property, in practice men take precedence. In line with the perception of women as property, a divorced woman must return a marriage dowry paid to her family, and those who cannot repay the dowry may be imprisoned. Husbands maintain custody of children, but customary law grants women responsibility for caring for children until the age of 7 years. In the late 1990s, there were two women in the 42-member cabinet and five in the 80-member

legislature. By 2008, five women sat in the 100-seat Parliament, and one woman was in the cabinet. As a result of extreme poverty, 65 percent of the population have no reliable access to healthcare. Equatorial Guinea has the 16th highest infant mortality rate (81.58 deaths per 1,000 live births) in the world, and a maternal mortality rate of 820 deaths per 100,000 live births. Female infants (80.46 deaths per 1,000 live births) fare better than male infants (82.68 deaths per 1,000 live births), as do adult women, who have a life expectancy of 62.54 years compared with 60.71 years for men. The median age for women (19.6 years) is also higher than that of men (18.3 years). Ranking 25th in the world in fertility, women give birth to an average of 5.08 children. Equatorial Guinea ranks 20th in the world in human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) (3.4 percent) prevalence. Equatoguineans also have a very high risk of contracting bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, yellow fever, and rabies. Spending only 0.6 percent of its budget on education, the government has not made education a priority. Women (80.5 percent) lag behind men (93.4 percent) in literacy. Officially, women (9 years) average 1 year less education than men (10 years), but in practice, it is estimated that girls reach only one-fifth of male educational attainment. It is illegal for a man to beat his wife in public, but the government turns a blind eye when violence occurs inside the home, even thought that is also illegal. Rape laws are rarely enforced because of the perceived shame attached to the victim. No law specifically bans spousal rape. The government has engaged in a public campaign designed to combat violence against women. Although common, both prostitution and sexual harassment are illegal. See Also: Domestic Violence; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Property Rights. Further Readings Afrol News. “Equatorial Guinea.” http://www.afrol.com /Categories/Women/profiles/equatorialguinea _women.htm (accessed February 2010). Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Equatorial Guinea.” https://www.cia.gov/library /publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ek.html (accessed February 2010).

Eritrea

Helms, Jesse, et al. “Women and Human Rights.” WIN News, v.23/2 (1997). Social Institutions and Gender Index. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Equatorial Guinea.” http:// genderindex.org/country/equatorial-guinea (accessed February 2010). U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Equatorial Guinea.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls /hrrpt/2008/af/118999.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Eritrea Situated in East Africa along the shores of the Red Sea, Eritrea was involved in a 30-year struggle before winning independence in 1991 in response to a rebel victory over Ethiopian forces. As members of the National Service, women, including some who were pregnant, fought alongside men. Seven years later, the two countries were at war again over a contested border, but international brokering of the conflict has been unsuccessful. In the 21st century, less than a fourth of the population is urbanized. Ethnically, Eritreans tend to be either Tigrinya (50 percent) or Tigre and Kunama (40 percent). There is more diversity in religion, as Eritreans identify as Muslim, Coptic Christian, Roman Catholic, or Protestant. Although the government of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front is committed to granting more equality to women through enforcement of constitutional and legal stipulations, Eritrea is still basically a patriarchal society, and women are discriminated against in both private and public spheres. During the years of Ethiopian domination, Eritrean women were expected to marry early and remain subservient— wives could not even eat in the presence of husbands. The status of women is steadily improving, partly in response to the efforts of women’s rights groups, such as the National Union of Eritrean Women, who have pressured women to participate in society rather than remain secluded in their homes. Arranged marriages are outlawed, and women gained the right of divorce and equitable property settlements. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front has also instituted efforts to

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equalize land ownership, and women now run businesses. However, female genital mutilation is almost universal in Eritrea, and there are major problems with violence against women. Girls continue to marry at a young age, and the United Nations reports that 38 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years are married, divorced, or widowed. Polygamy is now legal, and men may take up to four wives. Mothers have equal rights with fathers over children, but fathers usually gain custody of children in divorce cases. Women generally inherit only half of what male heirs inherit. By the beginning of the 21st century, both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Labor and Human Welfare were women. Women held 22 seats in Parliament, 11.1 percent of ambassadorships, and 16 percent of judicial positions. In 2008, the ministers of Justice, Labor and Human Welfare, and Tourism were women, and a number of women served as mayors and regional administrators. Eritrea ranks 64th in the world in infant mortality (43.33 deaths per 1,000 live births) and has a maternal mortality rate of 1,400 per 100,000 live births. Females (37.51 deaths per 1,000 live births) have a considerable advantage over males (48.97 deaths per 1,000 live births) that continues throughout life, resulting in a life expectancy of 63.9 years for women and 59.71 for men. Median ages for both men (18 years) and women (18.8 years) are low. Eritrea ranks 34th in the world in fertility, and women give birth to an average of 4.72 children. Similar to many African countries, Eritrea has a problem with human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) (1.3 percent) prevalence. Eritreans also have a high risk of contracting bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, and malaria. Female literacy (47.6 percent) is considerably lower than that of men (69.9 percent). Educational levels are also low for both men (6 years) and women (4 years). At the highest end of the social scale, many Eritreans are educated in the United States or Europe. Wife beating is extensive, and according to a 2001 report, more than 65 percent of women who live in the Asmara area have been abused. Although violence against women is illegal, domestic violence is not specifically against the law, and although rape is illegal, there are no specific laws dealing with spousal rape.

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Women who are raped are often encouraged to marry their attackers, but women who have intercourse with foreigners are subject to arrest. Prostitution is a major problem. Sexual harassment is illegal, but incidences are rarely reported. See Also: Domestic Violence; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Property Rights. Further Readings Afrol News. “Eritrea.” http://www.afrol.com/Categories /Women/profiles/eritrea_women.htm (accessed February 2010). Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Eritrea.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/er.html (accessed February 2010). Kowalski, B.J. “Eritrean Women Determined to Survive and Succeed.” Listen Real Loud, v.8/2 (1987). “Sacrificing Womanhood at the Altar of a Greater Society: The Eritrean Women’s Testimonies.” Impact (December 2001). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Social Institutions and Gender Index. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Eritrea.” http://genderindex .org/country/eritrea (accessed February 2010). Tripp, Aili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Eritrea.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /af/119000.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Estonia Estonia gained its independence from centuries of foreign rule at the end of World War I in 1918. The nation was subsequently forced to join the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1940, but again achieved independence when the union dissolved in 1991.

Since that time, Estonia has steadily increased ties to the West, joining the European Union in 2004. By the 21st century, 69 percent of Estonians had become urbanized. Although the majority of the population is Estonian (67.9 percent), Russians (25.6 percent) are also well represented. Diversity reigns in religion, with Evangelical Lutherans (13.6) having a slight majority. With a per capita income of $18,800, Estonia is one of the richest countries in central Europe, in part because of an economy dependent on strong electronics and telecommunications. Sixty-one percent of the workforce is engaged in service. Constitutionally and legally, Estonian women have the same rights as males, and those rights are generally enforced. Economic problems in 2008 led to an unemployment rate of 14.3 percent, and 5 percent of the population now lives below the poverty line. Even though a policy of women’s rights includes the right to equal pay, media reports indicate that, despite higher levels of female education, there is a 25-percent wage gap in male and female salaries. Women also face problems with domestic violence, sexual harassment, and human trafficking. Estonia’s infant mortality rate is 7.32 deaths per 1,000 live births, and the country ranks 168th in this area in the world. The infant mortality rate of females (6.08) gives them a survival advantage over males (8.48) that continues to adulthood, resulting in a female life expectancy of 78.53 years, as compared to 67.45 years for males. The median age for females is 43.5 years. Estonian women have an average fertility rate of 1.42 children. Estonians face major health risks, including an intermediate risk of contracting bacterial diarrhea and tickborne encephalitis. Estonia has a human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevalence rate of 1.3 percent. Literacy is virtually universal (99.8 percent), and Estonians are well educated. With a 17-year school life expectancy, females outrank males (15 years). Women have consistently been underrepresented in politics. In 1998, only 11 of 101 Members of Parliament were female. Six members of the cabinet were female, and one female ran for president. A decade later, the number of women in Parliament had risen to 21, and both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker were female. The number of women in the cabinet had more than doubled.

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Both women’s rights groups and the media have repeatedly called attention to the issue of domestic violence. Officially, it is not considered pervasive, but nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) report that one in four women has been a victim of physical, sexual, or emotional domestic violence. In most cases, victims choose not to file charges. There are no laws specifically designed to deal with violence against women, but perpetrators are prosecuted under regular criminal codes. The government provides support for victims through social services, and NGOs are also actively involved in assisting victims. Spousal rape, like other forms of rape, is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Evidence suggests that Estonia has a problem with the trafficking of women into Nordic countries for the purposes of prostitution. Prostitution is not illegal in Estonia, but pimping is against the law. There are laws designed to prevent sexual harassment, but issues may be addressed in administrative hearings rather than in a court of law. Victims do have the right to seek compensation for damages. See Also: Domestic Violence; Infant Mortality; Prostitution, Legal; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Estonia.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/en.html (accessed February 2010). U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Estonia.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /eur/119077.htm (accessed February 2010). “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997; Estonia.” WIN News, v.24/2 (1998). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Ethiopia Ethiopia, one of the oldest countries in the world and the oldest independent nation in Africa, is a landlocked country located in the horn of Africa. With a population of approximately 60 million, Ethiopia is

This child progressed tremendously after being brought to a stabilization and therapeutic center near Konso, Ethiopia.

the second most populous country in Africa. Ethiopia is a country characterized by diversity in landscape, ethnicity, religion, and language, with the country being home to at least 80 different ethnic groups. Each group has its own culture, language, and traditions, infusing elements of both African and Middle Eastern customs, yet only nine so-called nationalities are formally recognized in the Constitution of the country. Ethiopia has a largely rural population, and accordingly has the largest livestock population on the continent. Despite the fact that the country is overwhelmingly rural, recent decades have seen mass influx to the urban centers, with the capital city Addis Ababa becoming a melting pot of cultures. Ethiopia’s recent history has been characterized by decades of political turmoil, civil war, economic reces-

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sion, and famine, that was particularly pronounced in the 1980s, when impoverished children from Ethiopia becoming recognized at the “face of Africa,” and approximately 1 million people lost their lives due to war and starvation. Recently, Ethiopia has made strong headway in building its economy, and is currently recognized as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with the largest economy in East Africa and a growth rate from $9 billion in the 1990s to an estimated $33.9 billion in 2009. This phenomenal growth rate is based primarily on its honey, cut flower, and coffee production and exports. Despite the economic growth rate, the majority of Ethiopians remain exceptionally poor, with many surviving on less than $1 per day. Ethiopia has historically had very clearly defined, specific gender roles for males and females, with males being entrusted as providers, while females have largely been relegated to the home sphere, engaging in domestic chores and childcare. Parents have also traditionally raised boys with more leeway than their female counterparts, and girls have, from an early age, assumed domestic responsibilities. With the patrilineal extended family being the core structure in terms of family and social life, girl children have historically assisted their elders on the domestic front, largely with cooking, cleaning, and childcare but have been prohibited from inheriting unless a girl’s father has died prior to her marriage or there are no sons eligible to inherent. Marriage is legally only permissible in Ethiopian law at the age of 18, yet approximately 30 percent of females in Ethiopia between the ages of 15 and 19 are either married, divorced, or widowed and female abduction for the purpose of marriage remains high despite contravening Ethiopian law. In addition, Ethiopia has one of the highest partner abuse statistics in the world, with 59 percent of Ethiopian women reporting that they have been raped by a partner. Eighty percent of the female population is also subject to female genital mutilation, although this cultural practice is punishable by incarceration or a hefty fine. Despite strict gender-based divisions, the position and social status of females in Ethiopian society has, and continues to be, elevated through military involvement. Women engaging in military activities and embracing military virtues are permitted to claim property through traditional inheritance chan-

nels after serving in military mobilization efforts—a scenario that allows females to assume the status normally attributed to male heirs only. The military has therefore served as a leveling device in which females have been able to challenge the subordinate gendered positions to which mainstream Ethiopian society relegates them, and has led to women becoming increasingly aware of, and engaging in, gender issues. Despite the patriarchic emphasis in mainstream society and the fact that views on specified gendered roles continue, predefined roles are in the contemporary era being challenged and renegotiated. This is so far specific to urban areas, where women are frequently assuming major positions in all areas of employment, and men are increasingly engaging in domestic duties as women are drawn into full-time employment. See Also: Divorce; Domestic Violence; Gender, Defined; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural. Further Readings Abbi K. and L. Admasachew. “Violence Against Women in Ethiopia.” Gender, Place and Culture, v.17/4 (2010). Bahru Z. A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1974. Athens, Ohio University Press, 2003. Harold, M. A History of Ethiopia. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2002. Sullivan, M., et al. “For Us It Is Like Living in the Dark: Ethiopian Women’s Experiences With Domestic Violence.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, v.20/8 (2005). Tseday, A. “Queens, Spies and Servants: A History of Ethiopian Women in Military Affairs.” http://www .tadias.com/08/11/2008/queens-spies-and-servants -a-history-of-ethiopian-women-in-military-affairs-2 (accessed July 2010). Susan Elizabeth de la Porte University of KwaZulu-Natal

Evangelical Protestantism Evangelical is a very capacious term, and both scholars and conservative Protestants themselves struggle to define the boundaries of this religious community. Some people apply the term to groups as divergent as



Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, and more conservative branches of Methodism, Lutheranism, and Presbyterianism. Complicating this definition, however, is the reality that not all of the members of each of these groups would self-identify as evangelicals. In general, several key beliefs and practices tend to characterize evangelical cultures. To begin with, a profound conversion experience, often called a “born again” experience, refers to the belief that lives must be transformed through a direct relationship with Jesus Christ. Evangelicals understand themselves to have a “great commission” to spreading the message of Jesus Christ, and they have long had a vibrant missions community. Many, but not all, evangelicals perceive the Bible as inerrant, but the Bible remains of great importance to even those evangelicals who do not read it literally. On a daily basis, many evangelicals engage in prayer and Bible study. This article will explore the roll of women within this religious community, as this fast-growing religion has distinctive ideas about gender norms. Numbers of Evangelicals in the United States and in the World Struggling to find the right questions to identity the number of evangelicals within the United States, the Gallup polls and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have suggested differing numbers for this population. In 2005, the Gallup Poll suggested that 43 percent of United States population self-identify as evangelicals. In contrast, the Pew Forum’s Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007, asserts that just over 26 percent of American adults would call themselves evangelicals. In both cases, however, the data confirmed that slightly more than half of those people identifying themselves as evangelicals are female. Within the United States, approximately half of the evangelical churches are in the South, and the Northeast has the fewest evangelical churches. Globally, evangelical Protestantism—particularly if Pentecostal groups are included in this category— is among the fastest growing religions in the world. Asia, Africa, and South America, particularly South American countries that formerly had large number of Catholics, have all seen large increases in the numbers of evangelicals in recent years. In the first decade of 2000, combining evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Great Commission Christians produces a number of approximately 1.4 billion evangelicals—or 23 percent

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of the world’s population. Twenty-five years later, the World Christian Encyclopedia offers a projection that the world will have approximately 2 billion evangelicals, or 26 percent of the world’s population. Gender Dynamics and Family Formation A key aspect of evangelical ideology doctrine is male headship, which is the understanding that the New Testament instructs men to lead the family and make significant household decisions. While this philosophy of marriage instructs women to submit to their husbands’ wills, it also portrays “headship” as a kind of burden in which the husband must be extremely willing to care and sacrifice for his wife. While lived reality does not always exhibit this rigid hierarchy, many evangelicals make an effort to follow some version of male headship. In an extreme version of wifely submission, some women chose to obey even nonreligious or neglectful husbands, with the idea that their very submission will affect a change in their husbands’ beliefs and behavior. Within churches, small, group meetings, usually focused on Bible study, frequently serve to buttress these conservative views of gender relations. Often divided into men’s groups and women’s groups, the small meetings frequently focus more on leadership in the men’s groups and devotional practices in the women’s groups. Additionally, some parachurch groups exist almost exclusively for the purpose of prescribing and maintaining unegalitarian gender roles. Promise Keepers, for example, asks men to “take back” their biblically ordained headship even if their wives are opposed to this shift. While divorce is frowned upon, the numbers of divorced evangelicals are similar to those of Americans in the broader culture. Acknowledging this reality, many evangelical churches have support groups for single parents and other divorced members. While most evangelicals elect to employ birth control, a minority does not, and the “Quiverfull” movement aims to support those evangelicals who “trust the Lord for family size” and thus raise families of nine or ten children. Though some evangelicals might prefer otherwise, a large percentage of married, female evangelicals with children work. In many cases, working mothers understand their families to be unable to survive economically without two incomes, but there are also many evangelical women actively pursuing

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careers as a means of personal satisfaction. For those evangelical mothers who do stay at home with their children, the practice of homeschooling is growing. With opposition to the teaching of evolution and concerns about lax morals in public schools, homeschooling strikes many evangelicals as an ideal means of circumventing the public schools, and the publishing business dedicated to providing Christian texts for homeschoolers is flourishing. In fact, in 2000, Patrick Henry College first opened its doors, aiming to educate academically high-achieving evangelical youth. A large percentage of the students who attend the college were homeschooled, and women who attend Patrick Henry understand that they will end their careers upon having children. Youth Culture Evangelical youth culture, created as an alternative to popular secular youth entertainment, has experienced explosive growth in recent years. Rock music, fiction, and apparel buttress and prescribe gendered behavior of the variety that is appropriate in conservative Protestant circles. For example, the evangelical publishing house Thomas Nelson has created Old and New Testaments with additional content for both young men and women. Teenage girls can read Revolve: The Complete New Testament, a magazine that merges the New Testament with dating, school, and fashion advice in the glossy format of a Seventeen magazine. For both young men and women—but particularly for young women—the need to promise virginity until marriage occupies a great deal of rhetorical space. As part of the Silver Ring Thing, both genders can don rings that tell the world they have entered into a relationship with Jesus that enables them to withstand the temptations of premarital sex. Taking their fathers as dates, young women can also attend “purity balls,” prom-like events that aim to enhance the bond between fathers and daughters and ensure that the fathers help their daughters remain chaste until marriage. Politics Within the United States, a majority of evangelicals identify as politically conservatives. As such, the evangelical vote played a large role in electing George W. Bush to the United States presidency in the elections of 2000 and 2004. Influencing this conserva-

tive trend is an opposition to abortion and a belief in that biblically ordained heterosexual marriage precludes any approval of homosexual marriage. Nonetheless, the “religious Right,” which is comprised of some Catholics, evangelicals, and Mormons, should not be conflated with a system of beliefs held by all evangelicals, as evangelicals express a range of political views and choose to have varied approaches to allowing politics into their lives. For example, race informs political affiliation as much or more than religion, and a large majority of African American conservative Protestants identify as Democrats. In a study in the late 1990s, sociologist Christian Smith found that 92 percent of the evangelicals he queried believed that Christians should be engaged in trying to make the United States a place that better represents their understanding of God’s will. Further, Smith’s studies revealed that evangelicals participated in social activism—such as volunteering for a church program that serves the community or giving money or time to a Christian political candidate—significantly more than did liberal Protestants. Nonetheless, while groups such as Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family actively mobilize their members to enter into political activity, most American evangelicals do not belong to these kinds of lobbying and political activist groups. Some evangelical woman possess alternative means of approaching politics. In her study of Aglow, an evangelical women’s prayer group, historian R. Marie Griffith found that explicit political activity was against the rules for women. The women, however, understood themselves as able to influence politics through prayer. Recognizing the great power of stay at home moms, Focus on the Family has attempted to mobilize stay at home mothers by offering them lists of politicians to email, as well as politicians and social issues to pray for. A small but important faction of evangelical culture, the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC) expresses the mission of inclusiveness. Employing the word expansiveness in reference to their understanding of God’s love, with this emphasis on inclusion, the EEWC supports gay marriage, something that few other evangelical groups do. Founded in 1973 as an outgrowth of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Evangelical Women’s Caucus (as it was known until 1990 when it expanded to include

Exercise Science



nonevangelical members) initially sought to speak out against what they perceived to be the unfair treatment and lack of opportunities for women in evangelical churches. See Also: Christianity; Focus on the Family; Fundamentalist Christian Identity; Home Schooling; Purity Balls; Religion, Women in. Further Readings Barrett, David B., George T. Kurion, and Todd M. Johnson, eds. World Christian Encyclopedia. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001. Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus. http://www .eewc.com/About.htm (accessed November 2009). Evangelical Climate Initiative. “Climate Change: Call to Action.” http://christiansandclimate.org/learn /call-to-action/ (accessed November 2009). Gallagher, S. K. Evangelical Identity & Gendered Family Life. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Joyce, Katherine. Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009. “Pew Forum Religion Landscape Survey,” http://religions .pewforum.org (accessed November 2009). Smith, Christian. Christian America: What Evangelicals Really Want, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Eliza Barstow Harvard University

Exercise Science Exercise science is the science of human movement and the associated functional responses and adaptations. Students who are studying exercise sciences learn how to help people live healthier lives through exercise, physical rehabilitation, and nutrition. Subfields within exercise science may include sports management, athletic training, pre-physical therapy, and almost always kinesiology (the mechanics and anatomy of human movement, the most science oriented of the subfields). As a field of academic study, exercise science grew from the physical culture movement of the 1800s, whose goal was to improve the health of the working

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class through dance and sports. Early university programs were created before 1900 such as the Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Physical Training at Harvard University. While this program focused on science training and premedical studies, that aspect diminished and the growth was in physical education programs in universities in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.Another push for growth in this field came after World War I, and again after World War II, because there were concerns about the number of young men who failed physical fitness tests for entry into the military or during military training. Another indicator of growth for the field was the creation of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory in 1927, which many experts view as the beginning of the field of exercise physiology. Another important aspect of the history of the field was using research to disprove a number of misunderstandings about exercise that had once been widely believed. In the 1930s and 1940s, many experts argued that weight training would slow an athlete and most athletic coaches banned weight training. In the same period, high-volume endurance training was thought to be bad for the heart. By the 1950s and 1960s, exercise was thought to be helpful to some age groups of people but not all, and exercise was not recommended for older people and endurance exercise was thought to be harmful to women. These ideas have now been disproved. The Study of Kinesiology Kinesiology is an essential subpart of exercise science. It involves the study of all of the body’s organ systems in response to movement, muscle contraction or exercise, and exercise training. Kinesiology includes research that examines the control of movement by the central nervous system (CNS), including how the CNS develops (motor behavior); the molecular, biochemical, and physiological responses of all the body’s organ systems to exercise and exercise training (exercise physiology); and the interaction of the mind and body related to health and exercise (exercise/health psychology). Some topics, such as health psychology, include material that kinesiologists need to learn, but are their own specialties. Exercise physiology and its study of the function of the human body during exercise stages and conditions is one of the major subparts. While exercise science programs differ widely in what they cover, most require that students complete an introductory course

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in exercise physiology as the basic study of the movements and coordination of all the body’s parts and systems, such as the bones and muscles. The biology of exercise is also usually a topic of study. The term kinesiology is derived from the Greek words kinesis (“movement”) and kinein (“to move”), and an earlier term was human kinetics. Kinesiologists today work in research, the fitness industry, clinically, and industrial environments. Specific terms in exercise science and kinesiology can easily be confused with fields that are not really related, such as the use of the term applied kinesiology, which refers to a more controversial alternative medicine technique related to chiropractic approaches. Generally, kinesiology is better known as a scientific field of study, although there are applied aspects. In the province of Ontario in Canada, for example, kinesiology was made a regulated health profession in summer 2007.

women and girls to participate in sports. The focus is on women to have equal opportunities as men on a whole, not on an individual basis, so it is not the case that all school teams, for example, must be open to women but rather that in areas such as athletic financial assistance and accommodation of athletic interests and abilities, the opportunities be similar for women and men. Both in high schools and colleges now, there is much greater involvement of women. This has increased the need for people in the field and the interest in understanding movement differences between men and women. In the last few years, there has been a growth of concern about high rates of certain types of injuries among female athletes and a call for more research on this topic. Some experts in the field now believe that major areas of future research will be research on gender differences in exercise and injury and on activity levels as people age.

The Field of Sports Medicine Sports medicine is a related field to exercise science and is the field of medicine concerned with injuries that occur in athletic activities, including the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of those injuries. Maintenance of optimal health is a major goal. While in the past, sports medicine was a field for physicians, who mostly worked with professional and Olympic athletes, the term now includes areas within exercise science such as athletic trainers, experts in biomechanics, and exercise physiologists and is a growing area in which exercise scientists are employed, because college and even high school–level teams may now have athletic trainers and use the services of exercise physiologists and experts in biomechanics as consultants. Title IX and its call for equal participation of women in academic institutions that receive federal funding have led to many increased opportunities for

See Also: Health, Mental and Physical; Science Education for Girls; Sports, Women in; Title IX. Further Readings American College of Sports Medicine. “Careers in Sports Medicine and Exercise Science.” http://www.acsm.org /AM/Template.cfm?Section=home_page&Template =/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=1340 (accessed June 2010). American Kinesiology Association. “Careers in Kinesiology.” http://www.americankinesiology.org /careers-in-kinesiology (accessed June 2010). American Medical Association. “Exercise Science.” http:// www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/40/ah07 -exercise-science.pdf (accessed June 2010). Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld Arizona State University

F Faculty, Adjunct and Contingent Contingent workers are those individuals without any expectation of long-term or continuous employment within an organization. Within the field of higher education, contingent workers include parttime adjuncts and full-time nontenure-track faculty members. The use of contingent faculty has increased over the years, particularly within the field of higher education. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics analyst Steven Hipple, 25 percent of the contingent workers holding advanced degrees in 1999 were college or university instructors. The 2009 Almanac of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in 2007, 51 percent of faculty members were full-time compared with 49 percent categorized as part-time. The use of part-time adjuncts has been a common and long-standing practice among universities; however, in recent years many universities have increased the number of adjuncts and full-time faculty not on the tenure track. Jack Schuster indicates that adjunct appointments represented 22 percent of all faculty in 1970 compared with 46 percent in 1998, and the use of full-time nontenure-track faculty has increased at a greater rate. The American Association of University Professors reports that nontenure-track appointments accounted for only 3.3 percent of full-time faculty positions in 1969 compared with 28.1 percent in 1998.

The use of contingent faculty provides cost savings and greater flexibility to university administrations, which frequently attribute constrained budgets and the ability to meet fluctuating demands as the main reasons for the increased use of adjuncts and fulltime nontenure track faculty. The National Study of Postsecondary Faculty Institution Survey found that 40 percent of all institutions implemented policies to reduce the number of full-time faculty, including the replacement of tenured positions among retiring faculty with full-time nontenure-track faculty. Among the advantages cited by faculty members occupying contingent positions are flexibility in meeting competing demands and less pressure as a result of lighter research expectations. In addition, contingent positions provide the opportunity for graduate students to develop their teaching skills and for professionals without terminal degrees to enhance their resumes while serving their communities by bringing their work experience to the classroom. In contrast, individuals and institutions may also be disadvantaged by contingent faculty positions. At the individual level, contingent faculty members are more likely to teach the courses that full-time faculty members wish to, avoid particularly introductory courses, large sections, or evening schedules. Although contingent faculty members typically receive much lower pay than traditional faculty, adjuncts are particularly disadvantaged because they rarely qualify for health or retirement benefits. In 505

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addition, professional development, and travel support are nearly nonexistent for contingent faculty. At the institutional level, the use of contingent faculty members may exacerbate gender inequity, negatively affect the quality of instruction and academic freedom, and inhibit faculty governance. Regarding gender inequity, there tends to be an overrepresentation of women in contingent positions in higher education. Women represented 48 percent of part-time faculty positions and 39 percent of full-time positions in 2003. The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession reveals that in 2004, women were 10 to 15 percent less likely than men to occupy tenuretrack positions. A recent report on women’s progress in higher education indicates that women occupy 52 percent of the nontenure-track contingent positions at doctoral institutions, 54 percent at master’s institutions, 53 percent at associate institutions, and 49 percent at baccalaureate institutions. Regarding quality of instruction, the argument is often put forth that discourse within the classroom is limited among contingent faculty for fear of reprisal. In addition, student access to adjunct faculty members is frequently limited because instructors work full-time elsewhere and often do not have a designated office on campus. Regarding faculty governance, many contingent faculty members are prohibited from participating in department meetings, faculty senate meetings, or serving on university-wide committees. See Also: American Association of University Women; Attainment, Graduate Degree; College and University Faculty. Further Readings American Association of University Professors. “Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession.” http://www.aaup.org/statements /SpchState/contingent.htm (accessed July 2010). “Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession: 2004–05.” Academe, v.91/2 (2005). Berger, Andrea, et al. Institutional Policies and Practice Results From the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, Institution Survey. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2001. Bradburn, Ellen M., et al. Gender and Racial/Ethnic Differences in Salary and Other Characteristics of

Postsecondary Faculty: Fall 1998. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2002. Euben, Donna R. “Win Some, Lose Some.” Chronicle of Higher Education, v.52/2 (2006). Hipple, Steven. “Contingent Work in the Late 1990’s.” Monthly Labor Review (March 2001). Shuster, Jack H. “Reconfiguring the Professoriate: An Overview.” Academe, v.84/1 (1998). Touchton, J., et al. A Measure of Equity: Women’s Progress in Higher Education. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2008. Heather Wyatt-Nichol University of Baltimore

Fair Trade Fair Trade is a trading arrangement intended to provide more equitable international trade by creating better conditions for disadvantaged and/or marginalized producers of goods. These practices include, for example, paying fair wages, supporting participatory workplaces, supporting environmentally sustainable production, and developing long-term and sympathetic buyer–producer relationships (typically between a buyer in a developed nation who is purchasing products from a producer in a developing country). Fair Trade results in a smaller margin of profit for (and sometimes the complete elimination of) the middleperson, whereas the producer or grower of the product receives a larger portion of the product’s ultimate price. The increased income producers and growers earn is intended to enable them to move from economic vulnerability to greater self-sufficiency and from powerlessness in relation to their products to greater involvement and financial empowerment. For example, by purchasing directly from farmers, the Fair Trade premium price is significantly higher than the world market price and is also a stable price. This allows farmers to afford basic costs of living such as food, health, and education. At this time, the world market price for coffee is $0.50 to $0.80 per pound (growers often receive less than this), whereas the stable Fair Trade price for coffee is $1.21 per pound for nonorganic and $1.41 per pound for organically grown coffee.



Fair Trade is mostly about making changes to conventional trade, which frequently fails to deliver on promises of sustainable livelihoods and opportunities for individuals living in the poorest countries in the world. Poverty and hardship limit individuals’ choices, and market forces tend to further marginalize and exclude them. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation, whether as farmers and artisans or as hired workers within larger businesses, or even as small entrepreneurs. This is particularly the case for women. Indeed, women in small, medium, and microenterprises, as workers and entrepreneurs, are important contributors to world trade. Women are at the same time profoundly affected by trade liberalization, as they are often not benefiting from concomitant market access and employment opportunities. The fact that 2 billion of the world’s citizens survive on less than $2 per day, despite working extremely

Workers at a fair trade coffee grower in El Salvador. The premium price allows workers to afford basic necessities.

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hard, suggests that there is indeed a problem. Women even survive on less money, often while providing for the entire household. Although Fair Trade seeks to change the terms of trade for the products consumers can buy to ensure that the farmers and artisans behind those products get a better deal, most often this is understood to mean ensuring better prices for producers. It often includes longer-term and more meaningful trading relationships, which particularly could benefit women when they are the head of the household. Women and Fair Trade Practices Women are at the forefront of exploring possible challenges and limitations of Fair Trade export. A typical example is the development of Fair Trade exports of shea butter from Burkina Faso. Processed by rural West African women and desired by wealthy Northern consumers of natural beauty products, shea butter seems a prime candidate for Fair Trade; yet to date, there has been little study of this industry, taking into account the context in which shea is produced and sold locally and internationally, the concept of Fair Trade, and the effect of gender relations on shea production. However, such development must occur, with proper consideration of possible challenges and limitations, for the industry to remain sustainable and viable for rural female producers. Free Trade may have its virtues, but it is not always fair. Big business aims to buy cheaply from producers and sell at a much higher price to consumers, enhancing its profit margins and shareholder value. Although 80 percent of the world’s resources are consumed by the richest 20 percent of the world’s population, largely living in the global north, an increasing proportion of the world’s resources is produced by 80 percent of the world’s population, living mostly in the global south. This means Northern consumers grow richer and richer while turning Southern producers into wage slaves—hence the notion of consumer capitalism. Women are particularly vulnerable to this cycle because the female half of the world’s human capital is undervalued and underutilized. Indeed, as a group, women and their potential contributions to economic advances, social progress, and environmental protection have been marginalized. For example, better use of the world’s female population could increase economic growth, reduce poverty, enhance societal well-

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being, and help ensure sustainable development in all countries, both developed and developing.

leadership and success in their homes, communities, and businesses.

See Also: Business, Women in; Homemaking; Poverty; Women in Farm Economy; Women’s Cooperatives.

Leaders, Not Homemakers Founded in 1945 as the Future Homemakers of America, a sister organization to Future Farmers of America, the group changed its name in 1999. FCCLA has more than 220,000 members in about 7,500 chapters. That number has fallen significantly from its peak of over 600,000 members in the 1960s; however, the number of young men involved has increased to about 20 percent and the overall membership has increased by about 3,000 participants since the name change. The change from “homemakers” to “leaders” and the growing involvement of young men reflect shifts in family structure and gender-role expectations. Instead of training young women in sewing, cooking, and child raising, as the group did in past decades, FCCLA now prepares all its members for multiple roles, expecting that both women and men will be active in the workplace, at home, and in the community. The organization’s continued growth also reflects a renewed cultural interest in skills such as culinary arts, sewing and fabric arts, and interior design. These pursuits have gained popularity among younger generations now that they are seen as voluntary activities available to both women and men—not expectations or “women’s roles.” FCCLA encourages young men to learn these skills and others, such as childcare, and to understand that as adults they will share in domestic responsibilities and child raising.

Further Readings Alvarez, J. A Cafecito Story. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2001. Barrat Brown, M. Fair Trade: Reform and Realities in the International Trading System. London: ZED Books, 1993. Dicum, G. and N. Luttinger. The Coffee Book: Anatomy of an Industry—From Crop to the Last Drop. New York: New Press, 2000. Greig, D. “Shea Butter: Connecting Rural Burkinabè Women to International Markets Through Fair Trade.” Development in Practice, v.16/5 (2006). Grimes, K. M., et al., eds. Artisans and Cooperatives: Developing Alternative Trade for the Global Economy. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 2000. Howes, D. Cross-Cultural Consumption: Global Markets, Local Realities. London: Routledge, 1996. Nash, J. Crafts in the World Market: The Impact of Global Exchange. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Rupert, M. and S. Solomon. Globalization and International Political Economy. Oxford, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Nicoletta Policek University of Lincoln

Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) is a career and technical student organization for middle and high school students that functions within Family and Consumer Science Education curriculum and promotes related occupations. The organization has shifted its focus on gender roles and domestic skills and now includes both young women and men and encourages all members to prepare for

Programs and Goals FCCLA’s central focus continues to be on the family, but it also prepares students to become leaders and develop personal, business, and social skills. Across all of its programs, students develop life skills—from planning, critical thinking, and problem solving to interpersonal communication and practical knowledge—that are important for success in all areas of leadership. To that end, chapter projects explore a wide range of youth concerns, including many related to family (such as parenting and family relationships) and career exploration (including business organization and management, culinary arts, and interior design). Other topics include health (such as nutrition, fitness, and substance abuse prevention), as well as

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community service, traffic safety, financial planning, and environmental issues. Programs aimed at young women include awareness and prevention of teen pregnancy, dating violence, and sexual harassment. These programs often include leadership training, peer-to-peer outreach, and community involvement. For example, through the program STOP the Violence, participants learn to recognize and report the signs of youth violence, engage in conflict resolution, and educate their classmates about warning signs of youth violence and bullying. They also collaborate with schools and communities to develop action plans to reduce youth crime and school violence. FCCLA members also compete in STAR (Students Taking Action with Recognition) events—the organization’s competitive events in leadership and job-related skills. Students compete in events ranging from fashion design, early childhood, culinary arts, and environmental programs to job interviewing, interpersonal communication, and promotion and publicity. See Also: Business, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Homemaking. Further Readings Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America. “The Ultimate Leadership Experience.” http://www.fcclainc .org (accessed June 2010). Miller, Lisa M. “Where the Boys Are: Home Ec.” New York Times (December 16, 1993). http://www.nytimes .com/1993/12/16/garden/where-the-boys-are-home -ec.html (accessed July 2010). Reinhartz, Judy and Don M. Beach. Educational Leadership: Changing Schools, Changing Roles. London: Allyn & Bacon, 2003. Vanessa Baker Bowling Green State University

Family and Consumer Sciences The field of family and consumer sciences is an offshoot of home economics, which entered the public psyche in the mid-1800s, chiefly through the efforts of

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Catherine Beecher Stowe, who believed that women should be educated in the domestic sciences. By the middle of the century, there was a push to add “dom sci,” as it was called, to the curricula of land-grant colleges, so that women would be prepared to help husbands run family farms. In the late 19th century, Ellen Swallow Richards began applying scientific methods to domestic work and gave birth to the home economics movement. Despite its continued association with home economics, the contemporary field of family and consumer sciences has a broader reach that combines social and natural sciences to encompass all aspects of family, domestic, and community life in areas such as political and social change, nutrition, parenting, aging, the environment, and consumerism. Many schools at the K–12 level now offer courses in family and consumer sciences, and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America serves as a career and technical resource in a large number of schools. A national survey of students in family and consumer science programs conducted in 2003 revealed that there was relative gender equity at the middle school level, with boys making up 49.7 percent of all students and girls making up 50.3 percent. That equity disappeared at the high school level, where boys made up only 37 percent of the student population in such classes compared with the 63 percent that were girls. At the college and university level, family and consumer science is dominated by women. A number of prestigious institutions, including Iowa, Texas, and Florida State universities, offer degrees in family and consumer sciences, and East Carolina University offers degrees through the College of Human Ecology. In some countries, entire facilities are devoted to the discipline. Australia has the Home Economic Institute, and the Philippines has the University of the Philippines, Diliman College of Home Economics. Courses included under the umbrella of family and consumer sciences may vary across institutions, but they are many commonalities. At Eastern Kentucky University, for instance, students may obtain associate degrees in Early Childhood Development. Fouryear degrees are available in Apparel Design and Merchandising, Child and Family Studies, Family and Consumer Sciences Education, and General Dietetics. Master’s degrees focus on teaching, community nutrition, and health. Individuals with degrees in family and consumer sciences are employed in jobs that

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range from teaching and research to social and consumer services. There are a number of associations designed to meet the needs of those involved in family and consumer sciences. For instance, in the 21st century, the American Association of Family and Consumer Science had more than 7,000 members who had expressed commitment to improving the well-being of individuals, families, and communities; raising their voices concerning the development, delivery, and evaluation of consumer goods and services; lobbying for public policies that promoted their interests; and shaping social changes designed to improve life in the United States. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Homemaking. Further Readings American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. “A Brief History.” http://www.aafcs.org/about/history .html (accessed April 2010). East Kentucky University. “Department of Family and Consumer Sciences.” http://www.fcs.eku.edu/degree programs.php (accessed April 2010). Haslett, Jacqueline. “Mary Hemenway: A Woman Ahead of Her Time.” Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, v.1/191 (1998). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Family Research Council The Family Research Council (FRC) is an American Christian Right political organization, established in 1983 and based in Washington, D.C. FRC merged with Focus on the Family, another large Christian Right organization, in 1988; the two organizations have retained discrete roles, with FRC maintaining a political focus while Focus on the Family concentrates on ministry. FRC is currently headed by Tony Perkins, who has been its president since 2003. FRC’s goal is to promote heterosexual marriage and the traditional family and to campaign against any perceived threats to these institutions or to the sanctity of human life.

The Christian Right is an umbrella term for a number of conservative evangelical Protestant denominations and organizations that have been particularly active in the United States since the 1980s and 1990s, and which are distinct from more liberal Protestant denominations. Similar to other Christian Right organizations, FRC aligns itself with right-wing, conservative politics and adheres to a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. Also in common with other Christian Right organizations, FRC adopts a conservative stance on gender roles, emphasizing women’s primary roles as wives and mothers. In spite of, or perhaps because of, this endorsement of traditional gender roles, Martin Durham claims that the Christian Right receives greater support from women than from men. Although the Christian Right does not receive widespread support across American society, it nonetheless attracts substantial numbers. Glenn Utter and James True’s secondary analysis of General Social Survey data identified 36 fundamentalist denominations with over 37 million supporters in total in 2000; this figure is likely to be higher because of the existence of smaller fundamentalist congregations omitted from the survey. FRC does not publish its membership figures on its Website. However, the organization Right Wing Watch, which monitors right-wing groups, claimed in 2003 that FRC had 455,000 members. The actions of FRC include contributing profamily and pro-life perspectives to public policy debates and new legislation, as well as disseminating profamily and pro-life research evidence via the media, its many publications, and its “Washington Watch” radio broadcasts. FRC policy experts monitor proposed legislation for its implications for the family and are called on to offer expert testimony on the benefits and drawbacks of proposed legislation. The FRC Website identifies six focal issues for its work: human sexuality, human life and bioethics, marriage and family, religion and culture, media, and the courts. The perceived threat of homosexuality to traditional marriage and family is one of its greatest concerns. FRC helped to develop the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman and allows states to refuse to legally recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state. FRC also encourages its

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members to campaign against “gay–straight” alliances in their children’s schools, as well as opposing other practices that they fear promote homosexuality, such as lesbian and gay content in the school curriculum or resources and the recruitment of openly gay teachers. FRC adheres to a strong prolife stance that condemns abortion and euthanasia. It actively campaigns against pro-choice organizations such as Planned Parenthood, and its Website claims that it has contributed toward redirecting public monies away from Planned Parenthood and into the care of pregnant women and abstinence education. Another area of concern for the FRC is premarital sex and its association with pregnancy outside of marriage and sexually transmitted infections. As a consequence, FRC favors abstinence-only sex education. FRC also campaigns against pornography and sexually explicit and violent content on television. It seeks to protect religious freedom and therefore opposes hate crime legislation, which it argues would restrict freedom of expression against homosexuality. FRC supports the autonomy of the family but advocates federal support for families, with a key success being its role in securing family tax credits through the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. Running parallel to FRC is FRC Action, previously known as American Renewal. Established in 1992, FRC Action shares FRC’s values, but its classification as a lobbying organization legitimates endorsement of political candidates, in contrast to the requirement for FRC to remain nonpartisan as an educational and research organization. FRC Action produces voting guides to enable members to vote for profamily candidates and encourages members to lobby senators to make pro-family choices when voting for new legislation. See Also: Focus on the Family; Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes; Planned Parenthood; Pro-Life Movement; Sex Education, Abstinence-Only. Further Readings Durham, Martin The Christian Right, the Far Right and the Boundaries of American Conservatism. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000. Family Research Council (FRC). “Issues.” http://www.frc .org/issues (accessed January 2010).

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Martin, William. With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. Right Wing Watch. “Organization Profile: Family Research Council.” http://www.rightwingwatch.org /content/family-research-council (accessed January 2010). Utter, Glenn H. and James L. True. Conservative Christians and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Rebecca Barnes University of Derby

Famine Famine is a condition characterized by a drastic and widespread shortage of food, often leading to increased associated diseases and increased mortality from hunger, as well as social dislocation and disruption more generally. Whereas famines are commonly associated with death from starvation, famines are best viewed as a continuum, with mass death being the most extreme form. Less severe forms of famine might involve other social crises such as mass migration, dislocation of people from their livelihoods, or society-wide economic recessions. Along this continuum, the pandemic of infectious diseases that typically arise in famine-struck areas is also an important driver of increased morbidity. Famines may result from environmental, political, and social conditions including climate change, crop failure, market changes, or government or corporate policies regarding the distribution and pricing of food. Whereas famine has commonly been discussed as a sudden event occurring as a result of an environmental crisis, such as drought, or as a result of individuals’ choices, such as deforestation by the poor in search of fuel, famine is better understood as an endpoint in a long gestation of decreasing food access that typically occurs over multiple agricultural seasons. Famine is closely related to food insecurity, which is uncertain access to a sufficient quantity and quality of food necessary for health and well-being. Famine can thus be defined as a period of extended and extreme food insecurity likely leading to drastic consequences,

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Groups of people most vulnerable to famine include landless laborers, fisherpeople, and pastoralists.

such as death, deficiency, or disease, for individuals and societies living in famine-affected areas. Famines hold an important place in history, punctuating affected societies with some of the most tragic events in world history. For example, Ireland’s Great Famine in the mid-19th century led to the deaths of more than 1 million and the displacement of nearly 2 million people. More recently, famines in East and southern Africa in the early to mid-2000s are estimated to have affected over 14 million people and contributed to rises in mortality, migration, dislocation, food insecurity, and human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS)—each patterned by gender and mediated by gender inequalities. Research on famine has historically tended to focus on individual or family factors and choices such as turning forests into farmland or fuel, or on environmental conditions that contribute to famine, such as periods of extended drought. Each of these factors continues to be significant, particularly as droughts

are often an antecedent to famine, and climate change promises to increase the prevalence of droughts in at-risk regions. However, although most researchers agree that these foci are important factors in understanding famine, critiques have also shown that these factors are insufficient to explain famine. Current research has pointed to the driving influences of markets, politics, and regional factors in producing famine. For example, deforestation for fuel, which is often done by the poor, who have no other heating options for food preparation, light, or warmth, was perceived as a main source of environmental degradation creating flooding, erosion, or drought—all contributors to famine conditions. Although these behaviors are still deemed problematic, research has shown that most of the deforestation in the world has not been created by the poor but, rather, is a result of for-profit industry. Famine thus develops over time and is driven by a combination of complex political, ecological, and social conditions within famine-prone regions. Because famine is a process, early detection is possible and necessary, but has proved difficult as a result of the complexity and ambiguity of famine’s driving factors and conditions. Social Aspects of Famine Similar to other natural and social disasters, famine intersects with social relations and may contribute to conflict over resources and exacerbate inequalities, such as gender inequality. Women are more likely to be in poverty, and female-headed households are especially at risk of impoverishment. In some estimates, women make up 70 percent of the world’s poor population. Gender inequality often contributes to women having less access to decision-making positions in society and fewer economic, political, and social resources. Although women are often the primary farmers, they are less likely to be the legal owners of land and, in many countries, have been historically excluded from land ownership. Gender discrimination and patriarchy render women, and particularly poor women, vulnerable to increased poverty, food insecurity, and greater inequality, especially in times of drought and famine. Research has shown that men’s and women’s mortality are affected differently by famine, as are their experiences of the social and economic consequences.



Men are more likely to die as a result of famine than women, and socioeconomically, women are more likely to suffer from the effects of famine on their households and as individuals. Women are more subject to the effects of famine-related migration, often losing resources previously available to them (such as land), experiencing a decline in social support and services, and having access to fewer financial or other resources to cope effectively with famine resulting from entrenched gender inequality. Famine, similar to drought, increases household workloads as women search for replacement water or food sources and alternative economic strategies to supplement dwindling agricultural, livestock management, or fishing resources. These labor burdens are differentially absorbed across households and within households. Poorer families are less able to absorb the burdens of declining economic conditions and increased household labor demands. Within households, women and girls are more likely to work harder to maintain their households during periods of famine. In many parts of the world, women and girls are responsible for household maintenance, including collecting water for their family, farming fields or gardens for subsistence, and preparing and cooking food for the family. When food is unavailable or scarce, women and girls often absorb the additional labor of seeking out sources of food, such as wild vegetables, or using informal opportunities, such as sex work, to access money in times of distress. Economic Aspects of Famine Extended and severe drought negatively affects agricultural productivity, which can lead to famine or famine-related conditions, affecting women in multiple ways. In less-developed countries, women are the primary farmers and food producers in communities relying on small-scale agriculture. In times of drought, women may be responsible for farming under difficult conditions—working harder to produce food for their families or crops for sale. Extended declines in agricultural production or livestock management in times of famine contribute to malnutrition, hunger, and at times, starvation. When yields are limited, women are more likely to suffer from intrahousehold food insecurity, in which female members of households are given fewer foodstuffs relative to male members.

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Famine also contributes to increased economic uncertainty for households. Food prices may rise during periods of famine, causing increased financial pressure on households—particularly the poor, who may not be able to access the same quantity or quality of food previously available. Research increasingly reflects the role of governments, corporations, and markets in affecting the pricing and distribution of food in periods of famine, or what is termed the “political causes of famine.” The consequences of economic liberalization in southern Africa in the 1990s, colonial policies in 19th-century India, and Ethiopia’s declining terms of trade for animal protein versus grain in the 1970s are now largely understood to have contributed over time to increasing specific populations’ vulnerability to famine. Groups of people most vulnerable to famine include landless laborers, fisherpeople, and pastoralists, who are more likely to lose resources or livelihoods and to be most negatively affected by declining terms of trade. When families or households do not have access to replacement resources for lost agricultural yields or animal sales, or if food prices are prohibitively high, those affected by famine are more reliant on cash and pressured to access available income opportunities, regardless of working conditions. Famine can push people to migrate to cities looking for work or to engage in risky strategies for economic survival, such as sex work. During recent famines, women and children have been documented turning to prostitution and sex work for financial resources or foodstuffs in hunger-induced desperation. In the East African drought and famine in the mid-2000s, international agencies such as the World Food Programme and the United Nations reported increased prostitution among women and children looking for food and money to survive the social and economic consequences of severe and extended drought and famine. Sex work as a strategy involves great personal risks such as exposure to violence, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV/AIDS. Health Aspects of Famine HIV/AIDS is both a contributing factor to and an outcome of famine. Similarly, gender inequality is widely acknowledged to be both a driver and an outcome of HIV/AIDS infection and, thus, famine. HIV/AIDS cuts the productive capacity of house-

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holds as members become too sick to work and others, usually women, must take care of those afflicted. In predominantly farming communities, HIV/AIDS and the consequent caregiving affects agricultural productivity at the household level and availability of food at community and societal levels. Lowered productivity contributes to there being less available food resources for households, and possibly to less income as a result of the loss of surplus agricultural products. The decline in available financial and food resources contributes to ongoing and severe food insecurity, creating pressure to find alternate economic means. On a large scale, this may contribute to a rise in migration among people looking for work that becomes increasingly competitive and less available as economic conditions worsen throughout the society. A contemporary theory—new variant famine, or NVF—posits that recent famines are different than those of the past as a result of the role of HIV/AIDS. According to Andy Gibbs, “if, because of the impact of the HIV epidemic, new patterns of vulnerability to famine emerge, alongside new trajectories of destitution, accompanied by an increase in HIV incidence, a famine or food crisis can be classified as an instance of NVF.” The theory postulates that the patterns of NVF can be experienced as more geographically dispersed than traditional famines, resulting in fewer political demands and potentially contributing to less-effective responses from governments or international institutions. Critics of the theory suggest that NVF may not be that different from traditional famines and that the NVF framework needs a greater centralization of gender analysis to understand the interaction between gender, famine, and HIV/AIDS. See Also: Climate Change as a Women’s Issue; Drought; Environmental Issues, Women and; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Poverty; Rural Women; Water, as Women’s Issue. Further Readings Baro, Mamadou and Tara F. Deubel. “Persistent Hunger: Perspectives on Vulnerability, Famine and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Annual Review of Anthropology, v.35/521 (2006). de Waal, A. and A. Whiteside. “ ‘New Variant Famine’: AIDS and Food Crisis in Southern Africa.” The Lancet, v.362/1234 (2003).

Field, John Osgood. The Challenge of Famine. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian, 1993. Gibbs, Andy. “Gender, Famine and HIV/AIDS: Rethinking New Variant Famine in Malawi.” African Journal of AIDS Research, v.7/1 (2008). Kynch, Jocelyn. “Famine and Transformations in Gender Relations.” In Cecile Jackson and Ruth Pearson, eds., Feminist Visions of Development: Gender Analysis and Policy. New York: Routledge, 1998. Vaughan, Meghan. The Story of an African Famine: Gender and Famine in Twentieth-Century Malawi. Oxford, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Yvonne A. Braun University of Oregon

Fashion Industry, Theoretical Controversies For over half a century, scholars have identified the notion of “industry” as a producer of ideologies and material goods for audiences. In an early seminal work on the topic, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” Frankfurt School theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer propose that a “culture industry” produces and reproduces mass culture, effectively homogenizing cultural products and audience identities. Along the lines of these theorists, the fashion industry can be considered a contemporary culture industry. The fashion industry can be viewed as comprised of cosmetic/beauty, fashion, and other companies/industries that propagate Western cultural values of female beauty. The fashion industry promotes narrow messages of female beauty, thereby functioning to socialize people and mediate their reality; the fashion industry’s function thus carries economic, political, cultural, and social effects. It produces ideologies through media texts that engage a network of ideological and hegemonic institutions; these texts include advertisements, public relations campaigns, magazines, television programs, films, and new media. The characterization of the fashion industry as a culture industry is reflected in its urging of a capitalist lifestyle, which is uncritically consented to by the audience. For Adorno and Horkheimer, this view of passive audiences striving toward



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a narrow, industry-defined ideology was a hallmark of a culture industry. Significantly, the fashion industry’s messaging functions as a prescription of female beauty that is thin, young, Caucasian, and generally blonde. Up to current time, ideologies produced by the fashion industry reinforce the oppressive patriarchal norms and roles of women and places women in subordinate roles to men. The ideologies of the fashion industry are communicated through the representation of women in their texts, such as advertisements, as well as through the bodies of famous women (like celebrities or models) who similarly serve as living and breathing advertisements for a fashion brand. The “Male Gaze” The work of feminist theorist Laura Mulvey on “the male gaze” is relevant to understanding the representation of women produced by the fashion indus-

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try that circulates in mass culture. In her discussion about spectatorship and gender representation in media texts in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey employed a psychoanalytic lens, and suggested that the female role is negative and involuntary in media texts since the action of ownership of the gaze is inherently male, and the female is the object of the gaze. The role of women in media texts is only in relation to, and thus subordinate to the desires of, men because the female functions as an object of the spectator’s gaze. The male gaze—viewed both as the patriarchal structure and the actual men who look at women—objectifies women by emphasizing their bodies as their entire self worth and devaluing a woman’s mind or emotions. This viewpoint aligns with the fashion industry’s material desires as well— the consumption by audiences of its products, which are worn on the body as signs of social status and, as many people interpret, as signs of self-worth.

The dominant images of women (particularly of celebrity women and fashion models) present ultra-thin bodies for the approval and pleasure of the “male gaze.” This type of female body has become widely accepted as the desirable female identity.

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The fashion industry has created a culture wherein women constantly feel monitored and assessed by others about their beauty. To a greater or lesser degree, women have absorbed the cultural ideologies, and have learned how to monitor themselves. The dominant representations of women (particularly of celebrity women and fashion models) present ultrathin bodies for the approval and pleasure of the “male gaze.” This type of female body expresses the culturally desirable female identity. In Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, feminist cultural theorist Susan Bordo analyzes girls’ (and women’s) internalization of the “male gaze,” and how it has led to a cultural norm for female self-discipline of their bodies. Bordo and other feminist theorists who maintain that women self-monitor their bodies for an invisible male spectator aligns with feminist readings of French philosopher Michel Foucault regarding the functioning of institutional power in society. Foucauldian feminists find Foucault’s conceptualization of philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s work on the panopticon, a prison architecture that allows the person in charge (such as a guard) to view simultaneously the behavior of all prisoners, to be a relevant framework for understanding the relationship between cultural ideologies of gender and meanings of the female body. Like the panopticon, social institutions (understood as male authority or “patriarchy”) obtain power by impressing their ubiquitous nature upon subjects. Consequently, female subjects discipline themselves for an omnipresent yet potentially invisible male gaze. Foucault further articulated that social institutions establish these complex power relations through a variety of disciplinary practices (such as surveillance) that shape subjects as “docile” bodies that conform to the desired social ideology. In this sense, the fashion industry can be seen as a culture industry that promotes the notion of the male gaze and creates representations of the female body as passive for male pleasures (such as looking). For Foucauldian feminists, the theory of the panopticon is a useful way to unpack the patriarchal construction of female subjectivities. These thinkers also welcome the Foucauldian emphasis on the body as a site of contentious power relations between the individual and the social structure. Foucauldian feminists utilize Foucault’s ideas to understand how women’s identities are shaped through social meaning(s) that

are imposed on the female body. As Sandra Bartky argues in Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression, the beauty industry’s discourse connects a woman’s lack of conformity to the dominant representation of female beauty with consequences (such as failure to attract a mate) that speak to the fulfillment of gender roles and, tangentially, to a woman’s sense of personal happiness. The fashion industry as a culture industry persuades women to strive toward fulfillment of the patriarchal representation and thus enlists ideological and physical conformity. Brands and the Fashion Industry The fashion industry, in a less theoretical sense, is comprised of brands. Simply put, a brand is the name of a fashion company that audiences are familiar with due to its promotion through mass media outlets. Fashion brands can be “luxury” or “mass”; the categorization of a fashion brand is often a critical part of a fashion company’s marketing plan, whose goal is to create a brand image and price point for the item, as well as target a specific socioeconomic demographic. Examples of high fashion brands include Dolce & Gabbana, Stella McCartney, Stuart Weitzman, and Cole Haan. Mass fashion brands include Jaclyn Smith’s clothing line and the Mossimo line promoted by Target stores. Taking shape in the 1990s, branding is a contemporary integrated marketing strategy that utilizes techniques of persuasion to make the brand become a seamless part of an individual’s everyday life. Practices of brand management are achieved through different forms of overt (such as advertisements) and covert marketing (such as peer-to-peer, guerrilla, and affective). Opportunities for branding include television, radio, movies, direct marketing, events, sponsorships, the Internet, product placement in the mass media, billboards, posters, point-of-purchase displays, using product packaging as a marketing tool, logos used as a status symbol, and social networking sites. Strategies of brand development include marketing campaigns accompanied by public relations techniques to place stories about products into the news, and tie-ins with retailers through mass media mediums (such as newspapers and magazines) and mall events. When brands originated in the late 19th century, they were labels that identified the manufacturer or



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distributor responsible for the product’s quality. Today, branding similarly serves to trademark corporate identity, but it is also a means of social communication, as eloquently described by media scholar Adam Arvidsson in Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture. When people purchase a brand based on the corporate identity that has been attached to it, human socialization occurs through a common association with the brand (i.e., two people who purchase Kate Spade products may bond in person or in online communities based on this mutual consumption and presumed shared identity characteristics). Their socialization, then, is mediated through the brand’s role in their lives, and their attachment to the brand serves to secure the brand’s place in culture and in people’s social networks. Sharing a brand identity with others also means sharing an ideology, and this, in turn, can affect personal identity. On many levels, then, fashion brands thus play a significant role in shaping an individual’s subjectivity. Contrasting Adorno and Horkheimer’s view of the culture industry and passive audiences, some current media scholars see audience engagement with brands as a means for individual agency (agency is characterized by many theorists as being resistant to structural ideologies, such as those constructed and promoted by the fashion industry). Fashion and Feminist Thought Contemporary feminist thought and practice show conflicts with many ideologies of the fashion industry. While second-wave and some third-wave feminist theorists regarded the beauty industry as a medium that intends to shape girls and women into ideological and material consumers, and henceforth rejected its products and ideologies, some third-wave feminist and postfeminist lines of thought embraced a feminine appearance that denotes consumption of cosmetics, fashion, and hairstyling. These contemporary feminist groups see self-beautification as a site of empowerment where women can express their sense of self. These third-wave feminists seek to reclaim the meaning and appearance of femininity from the male gaze, and the use of parody is recognized in contemporary feminist circles as a form of activism. One visible group within the third-wave that exemplifies this sort of parody are the “Girlies,” as third wave feminists Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards write in Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future.

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It is generally acknowledged that postfeminists argue for the embrace of femininity without the parody of the third wavers. The conception of agency in many third-wave and postfeminist theories deals with how women interpret the personal and societal meanings of female beauty and the body. In our current media world, public and private spaces offer the possibility of transforming people from content consumers into content producers and engaging with the fashion industry in a way that may reflect a sense of agency. Thus, media technology affords new conceptions of individual power in social networks. Participatory media—that is, “being online”—emphasizes individual agency through self-expression and a sense of community that, subsequently, may provide a sense of social identity. Twenty-first century consumers demand the right to participate how, when, and where they want in cultural spaces, and they interact with the media in a more open-ended fashion. Some media scholars offer that audience engagement with media messages is more under their control than in previous times. However, one online community that engages with fashion brands and ideologies offers a mixed understanding of female agency in relation to the fashion industry. The “pro-ana” (proanorexic) is a community that shares a social identity online. These female users have reclaimed the meaning of their eating disorder by promoting it as a positive lifestyle (a self-branded community). This ideology contrasts the view held by many psychologists that people with eating disorders are victims. These girls and women post images of fashion models, chat about fashion brands, and, importantly, discuss how to emulate the bodies of fashion models. This group point to the complex issues of agency and the fashion industry in contemporary society. See Also: Body Image; Cosmetic Industry; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Internet; McCartney, Stella; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women; Supermodels; Third Wave. Further Readings Arvidsson, Adam. Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture. New York: Routledge, 2006. Bartky, Sandra Lee. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge, 1990.

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Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards. Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor Adorno. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, eds., Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, eds., Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. Dara Persis Murray Rutgers University

Fatherlessness Fatherlessness is a term that refers to father absence, in general, but more specifically to the absence of a biological father from his children’s home. Public concern and controversy over fatherlessness is a relatively recent phenomenon, developing along with concerns over “family values” more generally. Commentators concerned with contemporary fatherlessness cite the higher likelihood of children with absent fathers to experience a variety of negative consequences. Critics argue that these commentators overstate the negative consequences as well as the degree to which fathers are actually absent. One side of this debate laments the loss of the traditional family while the other side celebrates increasing diversity of family forms—including single mother and lesbian families. There are at least two significant and related difficulties with studying fatherlessness. One difficulty is the ambiguity of the concept—children can have absent fathers for different lengths of time, at different ages, with different levels of paternal involvement, and with varying father–child relationship quality. Most nonresident fathers actually do have at least some involvement with their children, although that involvement may be minimal. The reasons for father

absence include reasons as varied as death, divorce, unmarried parenthood, military service, and prison. Developing an understanding of the consequences of father absence for children requires taking this variation into account. A second difficulty has to do with the politicized nature of the term fatherlessness, which tends to create an image of children with no father involvement at all set in stark contrast to an image of children with a perfectly involved biological father. Both are extreme images that distort a debate that might otherwise allow for variation in involvement of both residential and nonresidential fathers. Furthermore, although father absence may be due to any of the causes listed above, the term fatherlessness is generally used only to refer to situations of divorce, out-of-wedlock childbearing, or death. The controversy over fatherlessness centers on father absence due to divorce and unmarried motherhood, both of which have become more common than paternal death and both of which are at least somewhat voluntary in nature. Negative Consequences Despite these problems, the research does indicate that father absence is associated with a variety of long-term negative consequences for a significant minority of children, including lower levels of educational attainment, higher levels of childhood behavioral problems, higher rates of psychological problems that can persist into adulthood, higher rates of substance abuse, higher rates of delinquency, earlier sexual onset, higher rates of teenage pregnancy, poorer physical health, lower rates of satisfaction with intimate relations in adulthood, higher rates of union dissolution, and lower levels of economic well-being in adulthood. Some of these effects can be mediated by the presence of other adults, but the presence of a stepfather does not generally mediate the effects of father absence. There is debate in the literature over the causes of the above problems. One explanation is that absent fathers take with them their ability to serve as a male role model, as well as their ability to help support and control their children; this explanation has received moderate support in the literature. Another explanation is that preexisting conditions, such as poverty and parental conflict, cause the observed problems; the evidence indicates that preexisting conditions

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can partially explain some but not all negative consequences of father absence. A third explanation is that there are significant disadvantages—in economic security, in quality of mothering, and in social capital—that are associated with father absence. There is evidence that higher levels of these three factors moderate the effects of father absence, so that children who are better off economically, whose mothers are able to provide sufficient support and control, and who retain connections to significant others such as teachers and family members are less likely to suffer serious harm as a result of father absence. See Also: Addiction and Substance Abuse; Divorce; Single Mothers; Teen Pregnancy. Further Readings Amato, Paul R., Catherine E. Meyers, and Robert E. Emery. “Changes in Nonresident Father–Child Contact From 1976 to 2002.” Family Relations, v.58 (2009). Daniels, C. R., ed. Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Sigle-Rushton, Wendy and Sara McLanahan. “Father Absence and Child Well-Being: A Critical Review.” In Daniel P. Moynihan, Timothy M. Smeeding, and Lee Rainwater, eds., The Future of the Family. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004. Brenda Wilhelm Mesa State College

Faust, Drew Gilpin Drew Gilpin Faust (born Catharine Drew Gilpin, September 18, 1947) became the 28th president of Harvard University on July 1, 2007—the first woman to serve in this capacity, as well as the fifth woman to hold the office of president of an Ivy League institution. Faust joined Harvard in 2001 after being appointed dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, formerly the all-women’s Radcliffe College. Before her tenure at Harvard, Faust taught at the University of Pennsylvania for 25 years, where she was appointed Walter Annenberg Professor of History as well as the chair of the Department of American Civilization and the director of the Women’s Studies Program.

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Faust, the Lincoln Professor of History at Harvard, specializes in the culture and gender histories of the antebellum and Civil War South. Her six books examine topics including, among others, the roles played by white slaveholding women during the Civil War, intellectuals in the Old South, African American life in the pre–Civil War South, and the aftermath and effect of these events on the modern era. In her book Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (1996), Faust examines how secession, battle, and defeat affected white Confederate women, ultimately leading them toward greater social challenges and financial responsibilities. In 1997, this book won the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize. In This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008), Faust considers how the Civil War generation dealt with the war’s traumatic effects and how the unprecedented soldier death toll continued to affect American life from the 19th century onward. This Republic of Suffering received the 2009 Bancroft Prize from Columbia University after being a finalist for both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, and it was listed among the 10 Best Books of 2008 by the New York Times. Accomplishments As president of Harvard University, Faust has undertaken numerous initiatives—in particular, overseeing the creation of new programs including the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee. Faust is committed to enhancing undergraduate education and revitalizing the undergraduate curriculum, as well as attracting the most promising and talented students regardless of their financial situation. Faust is dedicated to “opening [Harvard’s] doors more widely to people of different backgrounds, different experiences, and different economic means.” She states: “we have learned, more and more, that our commitment to excellence depends on a commitment to inclusiveness.” In November 2009, Faust was the first Harvard president to travel to Africa, where she toured South Africa and Botswana to oversee Harvard programs such as fellowships for human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) research. It is her custom, during most of her official trips abroad, to visit local girls’ schools, such as in March 2008, when she visited Shanghai No. 3 Girls High School.

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Born in New York City, Faust was raised in Clarke County, Virginia, in a prominent family. Her ancestors include the Rev. Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), third president of Princeton University, and Senator Lawrence Tyson (1861–1929) from Tennessee. As was customary for women at that time, Catharine Mellick Gilpin, Faust’s mother, did not attend college, and she conveyed to Faust that “it’s a man’s world.” Accordingly, Faust was raised with this principle in mind and with the Southern rules of graceful manners and genteel etiquette that were expected from her gender. Yet throughout her formative years, Faust resisted—even rebelled—against her social milieu’s expectations, declining to become a debutante. She attended the then–all-girls Concord Academy preparatory boarding high school in Massachusetts, and in 1968, after graduating from Bryn Mawr with a B.A. in history, magna cum laude with honors, she pursued graduate studies, obtaining first a master’s degree, then a doctorate in 1975 in American Civilization at the University of Pennsylvania. Faust claims that female mentors were invaluable throughout most of her academic life; she names, in particular, Mary Maples Dunn, her professor at Bryn Mawr, who went on to become president of Smith College and who preceded her as dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Honors and Awards Faust’s numerous honors include teaching awards from the University of Pennsylvania; honorary doctorates from Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Bowdoin College; and being listed as one of the “Time 100” by Time magazine in 2007. In 1993, Faust was inducted into the Society of American Historians; in 1994, into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and in 2004, into the American Philosophical Society. She was president of the Southern Historical Association, vice president of the American Historical Association, and member of the executive board of the Organization of American Historians and the Society of American Historians. Faust has also served several times on editorial boards and awards committees, including the Pulitzer Prize history jury. She has been a trustee of the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and Bryn Mawr College and is on the educational advisory board of the Guggenheim Foundation.

Faust is married to Charles Rosenberg, Professor of the History of Science and Ernest E. Monrad Professor in the Social Sciences at Harvard University. Her stepdaughter, Leah Rosenberg, holds a Ph.D. from Cornell and is an associate professor of English at the University of Florida, specializing in Caribbean literature. Her daughter, Jessica Rosenberg, who graduated from Harvard summa cum laude in 2004, is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. See Also: American Association of University Women; College and University Faculty; Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, College and University; Feminism on College Campuses; Mentoring; Representation of Women; Women’s Colleges. Further Readings Faust, Drew G. “Installation Address: Unleashing Our Most Ambitious Imaginings.” http://www.president .harvard.edu/speeches/faust/071012_installation.php (accessed June 2010). Faust, Drew G. “Living History: A Schoolgirl’s Letter to ‘Mr. Eisenhower’ Illuminates a Childhood in the Segregated South.”Harvard Magazine (May–June 2003). http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/05/living -history.html (accessed June 2010). Faust, Drew G.. Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Faust, Drew G. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Jiang, Athena Y. and June W. Qu. “Around the World With Faust: Faust Resumes Major International Trips, Promoting Harvard in Africa and Asia.” The Harvard Crimson (December 18, 2009). http://www.thecrimson .com/article/2009/12/18/faust-university-harvard -alumni/?print=1 (accessed June 2010). Rimer, Sara. “A ‘Rebellious Daughter’ to Lead Harvard.” New York Times (February 12, 2007). http://www.ny times.com/2007/02/12/education/12harvard.html? _r=1 (accessed June 2010). “The Ten Best Books of 2008.” New York Times (December 3, 2008). http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/books /review/10Best-t.htm?_r=1 (accessed June 2010). Marcelline Block Princeton University



Fecundity Fecundity refers to the biological capacity to procreate, or the probability that a woman will conceive in any given month. Fecundity is typically measured by the time to pregnancy (TTP) or the length of time that it takes for a couple to conceive. TTP is used to calculate the probability of conception or the fecundability odds ratio (FOR). Direct biological markers of fecundity are not easily isolated from the social, environmental, and behavioral factors that promote or reduce the odds of conception and the sustained implantation of the fertilized egg. Some of these factors are the age at which women and men try to conceive, their overall health status, reproductive health (e.g., menstrual cycle regularity, endometriosis, sexually transmitted infections), disease and medication history (e.g., diabetes, chemotherapy), family planning and contraceptive use, the availability of reproductive technologies, exposure to environmental contaminants (e.g., radiation, lead, cigarette smoke), and social and lifestyle factors (e.g., stress, alcohol use, education level, frequency of sexual intercourse). Although there is some evidence that fecundity may have a significant genetic component, research in this area is still scarce. Symbols of fecundity and rituals that promote and celebrate pregnancy are common, and reflect the importance of women’s reproductivity in community and social life. Typically a young, healthy, well-nourished woman who is having frequent unprotected sex will conceive within six months. A prolonged TTP of six months to two years is an indicator of reduced fecundity or infertility. As a woman ages, the probability of conception decreases. Health Status and the Ability to Conceive TTP is closely linked to health status, regularity of menstrual cycles, and body weight. Body mass index (BMI) is a mathematical ratio of height and weight used to estimate body fat and to evaluate health and nutritional status. Women with an average BMI (20 to 24) are more likely to have good health and regular menstrual cycles that support conception and pregnancy. Fecundity is decreased among women who are overweight (BMI over 24) and more likely to have menstrual irregularity. Although the physiological mechanisms are unclear, researchers suggest

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that elevated levels of estrogen, insulin, and leptin common among obese women may interfere with the normal functioning of the ovaries and ovulation. Women who are underweight (BMI less than 15) also have reduced fecundity, often related to poorer nutrition and menstrual irregularity or cessation. Damage to women’s reproductive organs caused by, for instance, moderate or severe endometriosis, may also interfere with her ability to conceive. Exposure to some environmental contaminants is shown to reduce fecundity. For example, adults working in a lead battery factory were found to have elevated lead levels, lower sperm counts and prolonged TTP. Females exposed to cigarette smoke in utero and during childhood have decreased fecundity as adults. Researchers speculate that exposures to second hand smoke interfere with normal hormone regulation during the critical stages when sexual organs are developing in utero and during adolescence. Women who smoke have longer TTP than their nonsmoking counterparts, partly because smoking during pregnancy is associated with increased risk of miscarriage. Cultural practices and diverse forms of symbolic expression reflect the universal valuing of women’s procreativity and can be found in many ancient and contemporary cultures. Hens and chicks are symbols of fecundity, and appeared on footwear worn by Chinese women in Zhejiang province in the early 20th century. Rural Albanian narratives are replete with references to eating blueberries, mandrake root, apples, and rituals, such as being immersed in water or dunked in mud and water to promote fecundity. Contemporary women monitor their basal temperature to predict ovulation and increase the likelihood of conception. See Also: Contraception; Fertility; Infertility, Incidence of; Infertility, Treatments for; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Doja, Albert. “Dreaming of Fecundity in Rural Albania.” Rural History, v.16/2 (2005). Peppone, L. J., K. M. Piazza, M. C. Mahoney, G. R. Morrow, K. M. Mustian, O. G. Palesh, and A. Hyland. “Associations Between Adult and Childhood Secondhand Smoke Exposures and Fecundity and Fetal Loss Among Women Who Visited a Cancer Hospital.” Tobacco Control, v.18 (2009).

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Yilmaz, Nafiye, Sevtap Kilic, Mine Kanat-Pektas, Cavidan Gulerman, and Leyla Mollamahmutoglu, “The Relationship Between Obesity and Fecundity.” Journal of Women’s Health, v.18/5 (2009). Diana L. Gustafson Memorial University

Feinberg, Leslie Leslie Feinberg was born on September 1, 1949, and is an internationally recognized trade unionist, journalist, and grassroots activist. Feinberg refers to “hirself” as polygendered or complexly gendered, and prefers to use neutral pronouns, such as “hir” and “ze.” Feinberg Lives with hir longtime partner, poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt, in New York. Feinberg has been severely ill on and off over the last few decades, and has been struggling with a number of tickborne diseases for several years. Although Feinberg is known for challenging transgender bias, ze is also deeply committed to a broad array of antiracist, anti-imperialist, feminist, and socialist causes. Overall, Feinberg’s writing and activism focuses on making visible the connections between movements in defense of women, oppressed nationalities, the disabled, sexual minorities, transgendered individuals, and the working class. In particular, hir work often deals with the areas where transliberation fits into contemporary progressive movements. Feinberg helped to create bonds between the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans communities and was instrumental in persuading the international network of Pride celebration organizers to add bisexual and transgender to their name. Feinberg is best known for the groundbreaking 1993 novel, Stone Butch Blues. Hir latest novel, Drag King Dreams, was published in 2006. The novel is set in New York City, post–9/11 and centers on the story of Max Rabinowitz, a transgender character struggling with the day-to-day concerns of maintaining a job and a safe place to live, as well as the murder of hir friend Vick/Vickie. The novel makes visible Feinberg’s antiwar stance, hir solidarity with Arab, south Asian, and Muslim immigrants in the United States, and the importance of activism.

Feinberg is a national leader of the Workers World Party and managing editor of Workers World Newspaper, which has run hir weekly column, “Lavender and Red,” since 2004. The column examines how issues of sex, gender, and sexuality have been dealt with in revolutionary movements over the last century and a half. In 2001, Feinberg had a published article, “Trans Health Crisis: For Us It’s Life or Death,” in the American Journal of Public Health. Feinberg’s latest book, Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba, was published in November 2009, and is based on 25 columns from hir “Lavender and Red” series. Feinberg’s text examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) life in Cuba from the colonial period to the current century, including political and institutional initiatives to combat prejudice against LGBT people. Feinberg has been active in protesting the wars waged by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in promoting the cause of Palestinian Liberation. Ze cofounded Rainbow Flags for Mumia, a coalition of LGBTQ people demanding a new trial for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Ze has also been involved with Rainbow Solidarity for the Cuban Five, a group of LGBTQ individuals protesting the imprisonment of five Cubans in America. The five men were arrested on charges of espionage, but insist they were protecting Cuba from terrorist attacks by the United States. Feinberg also collaborates with the International Action Center, an activist group that resists war, corporate greed, and oppression. In 2000, the Leslie Feinberg Room was established in The Women’s Building in San Francisco, and Feinberg gave the commencement Keynote at Antioch College. In 2002, ze gave a speech at an international retreat held by Al-Fatiha, an International organization for LGBT Muslims. On May 28, 2009, Feinberg was awarded the Lambda Literary Foundation lifetime achievement award. See Also: Drag Kings; Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; LGBTQ; Political Ideologies; Transgender. Further Readings Feinberg, Leslie. Drag King Dreams. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006. Feinberg, Leslie. Rainbow Solidarity: In Defense of Cuba. New York: World View Forum, 2009.



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Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. New York: Alyson Books, 2003. Feinberg, Leslie. Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999. Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors: Making History From Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Stacy Weida Indiana University

Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution Female genital surgery (FGS), also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation, and female circumcision, is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for cultural or other nontherapeutic reasons. The majority of women and girls who have undergone the procedure live in Africa, where it is reported in 28 countries, mainly across a belt reaching from Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east. A broad spectrum of FGS practices exists, ranging from symbolic cutting to more invasive procedures, such as clitoridectomy, excision, and infibulation. In each context, there is marked variation in prevalence, in the type of surgery performed, and in the rituals associated with it. Even within the same geographic region, the nature of the practice, its rationalization, and the age at which it is performed can vary greatly by ethnicity and class. The WHO currently classifies the procedure as follows: • Type I: excision of the prepuce, with or without excision of part or all of the clitoris; • Type II: excision of the clitoris with partial or total removal of the labia minora; • Type III: excision of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching or narrowing of the vaginal opening (infibulation); • Type IV: (unclassified) all other procedures that involve partial or total removal of the female external genitalia and/or injury to the female genital organs for cultural or any other nontherapeutic reasons.

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The most severe forms of FGS, Types III and IV, are found in the Greater Horn of Africa. However FGS, as a traditional practice, occurs throughout the world. The WHO estimates that between 100 and 140 million women and girls worldwide have undergone the procedure. FGS in Africa has been reported in nearly all societies north of the equator, except in matrilineal ones, and in the belt stretching south from southern Sudan through Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, to western Kenya. However, not all the inhabitants of these areas practice FGS, and most studies indicate that the custom is primarily an ethnic one, having little to do with political boundaries. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that around 3 million girls are subjected to the practice each year. Of these, almost half are from two countries: Egypt and Ethiopia. There are reports, but no clear data, on a limited incidence of FGS in Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Gaza). The practice has also been reported among certain populations in Indonesia and Malaysia. In India, a small Muslim sect, the Daudi Bohra, practice clitoridectomy. However, reliable data on the prevalence of the practice in Asia and the Middle East is scant. There have been accounts of FGS among certain indigenous groups in Central and South America, but little information is available. Global Distribution Shifting migration flows in the post–World War II period have altered the geographic distribution of FGS, meaning that it is no longer restricted to countries where it has been a traditional practice. The procedure is therefore increasingly found in Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, chiefly among diaspora from countries where it is traditionally practiced. Migratory patterns from Africa to industrialized countries commonly reflect ties to the colonial past, and thus UNICEF reports that migrants from Benin, Chad, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal tend to choose France as their destination, while many Kenyan, Nigerian, and Ugandan citizens have migrated to the United Kingdom. In addition, the wars, civil unrest, and drought experienced by several African countries in the 1970s, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, resulted in an flow of refugees to countries such as Norway, Sweden, and

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Denmark, which had hitherto been relatively unaffected by migration. Current data on the prevalence and nature of FGS in industrialized countries remains largely anecdotal, and extrapolations are sometimes used to gain insight on the extent of the practice. For example, by combining data from the office of migration with data on prevalence from countries of origin, the Swiss National Committee for UNICEF estimated that, in Switzerland, around 6,700 girls and women have either undergone FGS or are likely to undergo the procedure. Of these, more than one-third are of Somali origin. Health authorities in Italy estimate that 40,000 women of African origin, mostly Somalis, have undergone the practice. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that, in the United States alone, more than 150,000 women and girls of African origin have undergone FGS, or may have the operation performed on them. Data are better available for regions where FGS is a traditional custom. Excision (Type II) is found throughout Africa, including Egypt, Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, and Senegal. The excision and stitching that constitute infibulation (Type III) comprise the minority of cases (15 percent) and can be found in northern Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, and parts of Côte d’Ivoire. WHO estimates that almost 80 percemt of all cases of FGS on a world basis can be categorized as Type II. FGS has been documented among Muslim communities in the Philippines, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. However, although often associated with religion, in particular Islam, it is important to note that FGS is not a religious practice. It predates the arrival of both Christianity and Islam in Africa, and FGS is not known in many Muslim countries. WHO reports that in cultures where it is an accepted norm, FGS is practiced by followers of all religious beliefs, as well as animists and nonbelievers, and is practiced by members of a number of different religions in the countries concerned, including Christians (Catholics, Protestants, and Copts), animists, and Jews (Falashas in Ethiopia). Where found, FGS practices tend to be deeply embedded in local traditional belief systems. FGS may be performed on prepubescent girls aged 4 to 12, although in Senegal and Mali it is sometimes performed on babies as young as 1 month old. In countries such as Sudan, FGS is normally performed

by traditional birth attendants on young girls, with trained midwives performing around one-third, whereas medical doctors perform less than 1 percent of operations. Traditional cutters may vary across different ethnic groups. Apart from traditional birth attendants, barbers may perform the procedure, as is the case in Egypt and northern Nigeria. In northern Zaire the traditional “circumciser” is a male priest. Across the African continent, implements used include razor blades, scissors, knives, and pieces of glass. The specific form that FGS takes can vary widely from one community to another and classification may be problematic, as girls and women may not always be certain of which procedure was performed on them. In cases where they were cut at an early age, girls may not even recall the procedure. See Also: Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Caldwell, John C., I. O. Orubuloye, and Pat Caldwell. “Female Genital Mutilation: Conditions of Decline.” Population Research and Policy Review, v.19 (2000). United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “Changing a Harmful Social Convention: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting.” UNICEF Innocenti Digest (2005). United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Statistical Exploration.” (2005). http://www.unicef.org/publications/index _29994.html (accessed July 2010). Yoder, P. Stanley and Shane Khan. “Numbers of Women Circumcised in Africa: The Production of a Total.” DHS Working Papers (2008). Máire Ní Mhórdha University of St. Andrews

Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of It is estimated that at least 2 to 3 million girls and women worldwide undergo some form of female genital surgery on an annual basis, although the exact



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Community outreach workers and teachers in Egypt help educate parents on the dangers of female genital cutting. Researchers have found that using the phrase female genital mutilation can hamper their interactions in countries where the practice is common.

number is difficult to determine due to underreporting. Female genital surgeries may be performed for a variety of cultural, religious, social, aesthetic, and cosmetic reasons. Surgeries typically involve the cutting, scarring, piercing, burning, or removal of external female genitalia, although the specific type and extent of procedures vary significantly. In recent years, increased attention by scholars, activists, healthcare providers, and politicians has generated much debate about female genital surgeries. One of the key aspects of this debate has been the terminology that is used to describe such procedures—including “female genital mutilation,” “female circumcision,” “female genital cutting,” and “female genital surgery”—and the political dimensions inherent in such terminology. Commentators typically distinguish between two categories of female genital surgery: those that are performed for cosmetic or aesthetic reasons, and those that are carried out in the name of culture, religion, or tradition. Cosmetic genital surgeries are most often

performed on adult women, although some children may undergo such procedures to address anatomical anomalies. Cosmetic genital surgeries are performed in a medical setting by a trained healthcare provider, with consent, and with the use of pain medication. Such surgeries are most common in industrialized nations including in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Surgeries done for cultural, religious, or traditional reasons are most common in northeast Africa, including Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Somalia, and Sudan. This type of surgery may be performed on females any time from infancy through adulthood, is typically done without consent, outside of a medical setting, and without the use of anesthesia or pain-relieving drugs or antibiotics. Female Genital Mutilation The phrase female genital mutilation is frequently used to refer to both categories of female genital surgery, and the use of the word mutilation con-

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notes a clear condemnation of such practices. This phrasing has been criticized as neocolonialist, particularly as it has been used by Westerners to critique surgeries done for cultural, religious, or traditional reasons in developing nations. Furthermore, researchers and practitioners have found that using the phrase female genital mutilation tends to hamper their interactions with populations in countries where such practices are common. Consequently, use of this terminology can lead to underreporting and limited gains in treating health problems commonly associated with female genital surgeries. Such phrasing, when used in campaigns aimed at reducing or eliminating female genital surgeries or at promoting alternative rituals, can also lead to increased resistance to social change and, in some cases, drive surgeries underground. The use of the word mutilation also implies that female genital surgeries are completed with the intent of disfiguring the individuals upon whom they are performed. Yet as many researchers and practitioners have pointed out, this is simply not the case. In fact, some surgeries are promoted with the explicit aim of enhancing female beauty. This appears to be the case in the United States, where women can elect to undergo surgeries that tighten or reduce the size of the labia in order to give the external genitalia a more “youthful” appearance. Female Circumcision The phrase female circumcision is often preferred because it translates easily into the various languages used where female genital surgeries are commonly performed in the name of religion, culture, or tradition. However, this phrasing is problematic, insofar as it suggests that female genital surgeries are akin to male circumcision. While male circumcision involves the removal of some or all the foreskin from the penis, female genital surgeries vary greatly. In their simplest form, they involve the removal of the clitoral hood and the piercing, nicking, or removal of the clitoris (commonly referred to as Type I or clitoridectomy). However, some types of female genital surgeries also include the removal of the labia minora and the labia majora (Type II or excision), and others involve the sewing together of remaining external genital tissue in order to decrease the size of the vaginal opening (Type III, also known as infibulation or Pharaonic

circumcision). In addition, the risks associated with female genital surgeries are typically much greater— both short term and long term—than those associated with male circumcision. Consequently, many regard the use of the phrase female circumcision as unhelpful and inaccurate. Female Genital Cutting The phrase female genital cutting has been adopted by many, and reflects the fact that many female genital surgeries involve cutting of the female external genitalia, including the clitoris, the labia majora, and the labia minora. However, not all surgeries involve cutting. In fact, some involve only piercing, burning, scarring, or stretching of the genitalia. Thus, “cutting” is only accurate in describing some surgeries. Moreover, the use of the term cutting might be regarded as an attempt to sensationalize female genital surgeries, particularly as it brings to mind images of wounds and injury, while failing to attend to the cultural, religious, or ritual foundations of such practices in many cultures. Female Genital Surgery Some commentators advocate using the phrase female genital surgery because they feel it is less judgmental and value laden. This terminology is accurate when used to describe those procedures that actually are surgeries—that is, those conducted in accordance with accepted medical standards. Yet to apply the term surgery to procedures carried out without the use of anesthesia, in unsterile conditions, and without the assistance of trained medical personnel is both inaccurate and minimizes the political dimensions of such practices. After all, many of these so-called surgeries are completed with the explicit aim of controlling women’s sexual behavior and, thus, are part of broader cultural systems that perpetuate the oppression of women and help maintain gender inequality. Indeed, such “surgeries” have been critiqued in accordance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). They have been similarly evaluated as violating principles set forth by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In light of such debates, the term female genital surgery may be too benign to accurately capture the ways

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in which such practices can constitute a form of violence against women and children and violate their basic human rights. See Also: Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Convention on the Rights of the Child; Cosmetic Surgery; Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; HIV/ AIDS: Africa; Violence Against Women Act. Further Readings Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa. Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. James, Stanlie and Claire C. Robertson. Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Sarkis, Marianne. “Female Genital Cutting (FGC): An Introduction.” The Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project. http://www.fgmnetwork.org (accessed August 2009). Skaine, Rosemarie. Female Genital Mutilation: Legal, Cultural, and Medical Issues. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005. World Health Organization. Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation: An Interagency Statement. http://www .who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/fgm (accessed November 2009). J. Duquaine-Watson University of Texas at Dallas

Female Genital Surgery, Types of Female genital surgery (FGS) refers to practices that involve the cutting, scarification, cauterization, piercing, tightening, and/or removal of female genitalia. Such surgeries are typically divided into two categories: (1) traditional practices (often termed female circumcision, female genital cutting, or female genital mutilation) that are most common in developing countries; and (2) medical procedures done for cosmetic reasons, which are most common in industrialized nations.

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Traditional female genital surgeries are carried out for religious, aesthetic, social, or other nonmedical reasons. They have come under intense international scrutiny, particularly from human rights advocates. Surgeries are generally conducted without consent, without anesthesia, and are often performed by a midwife or elder female community member. They may be performed on girls anytime from infancy throughout adolescence (and on adult women, in some countries). A knife, razor blade, piece of glass, or other sharp object is used to cut or remove genital flesh. It is estimated that 2 to 3 million girls and women undergo traditional FGS annually, and over 120 million worldwide have had such surgeries. Traditional FGS practices are most common in Africa, but have also been documented in Asia, the Middle East, Central America, and South America. The World Health Organization (WHO) has divided traditional FGS into four main types. Type I, commonly referred to as clitoridectomy, is the most common. The prepuce or clitoral hood is removed. The clitoris may also be partially or totally removed. Common side effects include bleeding, pain and shock, cysts, infection, keloid scars, nerve damage and loss of sensation, and transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), hepatitis, or other bloodborne pathogens as the cutting instrument may be used on multiple girls and is generally not sterilized. Individuals who undergo clitoridectomy may also experience psychological trauma. Type II, or excision, involves the partial or total removal of the clitoris and labia minora. The labia majora may also be removed, and the wound is not stitched close. Side effects are similar to those experienced with Type I surgeries; however, scarring and blood loss are often more extensive with Type II surgeries. Together, Type I and Type II surgeries account for 80 to 85 percent of all traditional FGS practices. Type III, infibulation (or Pharaonic circumcision), aims to narrow the vaginal opening by creating a covering or seal of skin and scar tissue. First, the labia majora and labia minora are cut or scraped away. The clitoris may also be removed. Next, the raw edges are brought together and secured with thorns or sewn shut so the wound may heal. An opening is maintained to allow for urine and menstrual blood to pass. When the infibulated individual is married

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the opening must be sufficiently dilated in order to allow intercourse to take place; if the opening is very small, it is cut open. Short-term risks associated with infibulation include those discussed above, as well as hemorrhage and septicemia. Long-term risks include recurrent urinary tract infections, pelvic disorders, and a variety of obstetrical complications, such as perineal tears, fetal obstruction, fistulas, and hemorrhaging. Infibulation has also been linked to higher maternal and neonatal mortality rates. After giving birth, a woman may be reinfibulated. Infibulation accounts for 10 to 15 percent of all traditional FGS surgeries worldwide; it is the most common type of FGS performed in Djibouti, Somalia, and northern Sudan. Type IV, or “unclassified,” includes all forms of piercing, pricking, cauterization, scraping, cutting, or stretching of the external genitalia done for social or religious purposes and not included in Types I–III. Type IV carry risks similar to those associated with Type I surgeries. Medical Procedures These surgeries are performed on adult women, most often for aesthetic reasons or to increase sexual pleasure (though they are sometimes performed for medical reasons). Commonly referred to as elective genitoplasty or genital plastic surgery, these types of FGS are conducted by medical personnel, under either local or general anesthesia, in sterile conditions, and with informed consent. Procedures may include reduction of either/both the labia minora and labia majora, removal or reduction of the prepuce, tightening of the vaginal muscles or perineum, or shortening of the vagina. Risks include pain, scarring, blood loss, infection, nerve damage, and loss of sensation. These surgeries are most common in industrialized nations including the United States and have been linked to cultural standards of beauty. See Also: Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Cosmetic Surgery; Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of; HIV/AIDS:Africa; World Health Organization. Further Readings Braum, V. “In Search of (Better) Sexual Pleasure: Female Genital ‘Cosmetic’ Surgery.” Sexualities, v.8/4 (2005).

Navarro, Mireya. “The Most Private of Makeovers.” New York Times (November 28, 2004). http://www.nytimes .com/2004/11/28/fashion/28PLAS.html (accessed September 2009). Population Reference Bureau. Female Genital Mutilation/ Cutting: Data and Trends. http://www.prb.org/pdf08/ fgm-wallchart.pdf (accessed August 2009). Sarkis, Marianne. “Female Genital Cutting (FGC): An Introduction.” The Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project. http://www.fgmnetwork.org (accessed August 2009). World Health Organization. Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation: An Interagency Statement. http://www .who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/fgm (accessed November 2009). J. Duquaine-Watson University of Texas at Dallas

“Femininity,” Social Construction of Social constructionism is based on the notion that human beings create the societies that they inhabit. William Isaac Thomas and the sociologists of the Chicago School and various phenomenological sociologists and philosophers have been credited with generating the term. However, the term only came into popular use in the 1960s with the publication of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality, which synthesized ideas developed previously by French sociologist Emile Durkheim and American philosopher George Herbert Mead. While Berger and Luckman focused most of their studies on religion, their work has also been used to explain the development of “femininity” as a concept. Thus, according to the dictates of social constructionism, the concept of “femininity” was constructed by beliefs, attitudes, and reactions formed within particular cultures over time. All societies were assumed to assign certain characteristics and behaviors to those that were born female, teaching both girls and boys that females were supposed to be timid, soft, delicate, beautiful, and nurturing and imbuing females with responsibility for perpetuating constructs of feminin-



ity that were consistent with the views of the particular society that they inhabited. Likewise, the term masculinity was socially constructed to explain how those of the male sex should behave and how males were viewed by the world around them. According to feminist thought, the system of patriarchy dictated that masculinity has historically been privileged in most cultures, including modern western culture, which gave birth to the legal emancipation of women. French writer and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir argues that in this way, males were defined as they norm, and females, by definition, become the “other.” Since females were viewed as extensions of males rather than as individuals in their own rights, the social constructionist argument contended that females were expected to fit into idealized representations promoted within popular culture that called on them to be “feminine,” denoting particular body types, which were usually thin, youthful, well proportioned, alluring, and free of body hair. Sexuality became imbued with paradoxical constraints, suggesting that women should simultaneously be sexually attractive, alluring, and available, yet behave in an appropriately “lady-like” fashion. Heterosexuality was generally presumed, and femininity was expressed as submissive, passive, and responsive to men’s advances. Expressions of femininity that deviated from the social prescriptions of normalized behavior were viewed as deviant. Over time, definitions of femininity evolved to embrace the changing roles of women that resulted from women’s movements in individual countries. Essentialists and constructivists originally took up polarized locations on the issue of the relation between the social and the natural. Essentialists held that the natural was repressed by the social, whereas constructivists posited that the natural was constructed by the social. This thought was epitomized in Simone de Beauvoir’s famous axiom: woman is made, not born. For women, the long-held belief about their proper roles evolved out of the conviction that in large part because of their reproduction capabilities, they were best suited to the private realm. Males, who were assigned the role of protecting and providing for their families, were assumed to be more at home in the public world. Today, the lines between the two schools of thought have become less distinct, with biological

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determinists contending that evolution rather than biology may be responsible for behaviors associated with gender roles. Evolving Concepts of Femininity The qualities of femininity and masculinity are typically mapped onto bodies at birth. The first question asked of parents of a baby is “Is it a boy or a girl?” If genitalia are obvious, and this is not always the case, a gender is proscribed onto the body of the child. Gendered role prescriptions come with expectations that males will express and conform to the accepted dictates of masculinity, and females will meet expectations associated with being feminine. The myriad influences that construct individuals as feminine or masculine are a result of the integration of attitudes, values, expectations, memories, dispositions, relationships and activities produced in particular sociopolitical, historical and cultural contexts. The qualities of femininity and masculinity are not stable or universal categories. Instead, identity unfolds as an ongoing story that signals where individuals have been, and what choices they have made. The qualities of femininity and masculinity are constantly being reinforced through patterns of socialization produced by social institutions that include families, churches, schools, and the media. As societies evolve, so do expectations associated with femininity. Around the world, but particularly in western societies, the birth of the women’s movement and the rise of feminism resulted in extremely different definitions of what constitutes femininity in the 21st century as opposed to how the feminine was understood by the Classical Greeks or the Renaissance French. Feminists rejected that notion that biology was responsible for creating “feminine” women who were predestined to behave in a certain way. They adopted the ideas put forth by Mary Wollstonecraft (1759– 97) in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she maintains that females who had been socialized into dependency would have acted very differently if they had been brought up to act as independent individuals. As a result, feminists promoted the notion that most of the perceived differences in males and females were the result of nurture rather than nature. The emphasis on “the personal is political” brought women’s issues into the public realm, and women claimed the right to be actively involved in making

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political and social decisions that affected their own lives and those of their children. Many women began rejecting the notion that being female required them to marry and reproduce. Others rejected the notion of heterosexuality altogether. Over the course of the 20th century, women continued to throw off old restrictions about what constituted the proper behavior for females. Although many rejected the label of feminism, they enjoyed the societal benefits made possible by feminist reforms. By the end of the century, large numbers of women had begun defining themselves according to the socalled new femininity. Journalist Nikki Goldstein opined in The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia) that this “new femininity” celebrated womanhood. She based her argument in part on trends in the fashion and cosmetic industries, which had adopted more “feminine” styles such as feathers, frills, sequins, and lace. Goldstein argued that the new emphasis on femininity was indicative of women expressing their individuality as they moved away from the mandate of power dressing. She contended that those born after 1980, known as Generation Y or Millennials, had embraced icons from American television such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and the three sister witches of Charmed (1998–2006) because of their sense of fashion as well as their “Girlie Power.” Goldstein’s argument was supported by Catherine Lumby of Sydney University, who stated that the symbols long associated with masculinity and femininity had eroded. Four years later, Anthea Taylor took major issue with Goldstein’s thesis, suggesting that she, along with many texts and contemporary media sites, had mistakenly used the term girlpower to find common ground between feminism and femininity. Even as women of the West attempted to define themselves in response to the frequently competing dictates of the popular media and feminist thought, in many cultures, women were still struggling for the right to choose the means by which they asserted themselves as women. For instance, in Turkey, where 99.8 percent of the population is Muslim, even in the 21st century, traditional Turkish culture characterized females according to 20th-century constructs that defined them according to their reproductive function and relegated them to the private sphere of hearth and home. In response to these efforts to

continue the subordination of women, an active feminist movement surfaced, and women’s studies programs were established in many Turkish universities. Although modern reforms granted women equal rights under the law as a result of Turkey’s adoption of the Swiss Civil Code in 1926, traditional social constructs continued to mandate that Turkish women hide their femininity whenever they venture into the public realm, and they were expected to remain subservient to male family members within their homes. Women who had become “westernized” were not always bound by those restrictions. Millennials and Feminism The four women of the American television show, Sex and the City (1998–2004) came to represent for many the popular ideal of both feminism and femininity of the 21st century. The show became so much a part of the popular culture that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) began offering a course that allowed students to analyze the new concepts of women’s roles as portrayed by Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York, and Miranda Hobbes as they related to their own lives. While the four characters are successful career women, they are also overtly sexual beings who are generally interested in finding the ideal life partner. Over the course of the show, various members of the cast give birth, marry, divorce, and engage in promiscuity. Carrie, portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker, the star of the show, is obsessed with fashion, and her wardrobe exerted a major influence on young women around the world. In their many conversations, the characters explore the meaning of masculinity and femininity in relation to themselves. Elizabeth Kaufer Busch argues that the show, along with Ally McBeal and Desperate Housewives blamed feminism for women’s dissatisfaction with their lives. Feminist reaction to the success of Sex and the City was mixed. Some feminists lauded the open sexuality, but others complained that it perpetuated the agenda of liberal feminism, which had been shaped by reactions to the subjugation and objectification of white females while ignoring the exploitation of women of color, lesbians, bisexuals, and others who did not conform to white middle-class ideals. In general, the lines between male and female, black and white, gay and straight are not as clearly



draw for women of the millennial generation as for those of the past, and Millennials are more willing than other generations to allow others to “pursue happiness” according to their own dictates. In the United States, women of the millennial generation, like those of other generations, believe that parenthood and marriage are more important than career and financial success. However, in 2010, only a fifth of all Millennials were married. More than a third of millennial females between the ages of 18 and 29 had given birth outside of marriage. The PEW Research Center reports that as a group Millennials are more confident, more self-expressive, more liberal, more upbeat, more open to change, and more ethnically and racially diverse than earlier generations. They are also much better educated, which exposes them to different ideas and cultures, and they are less likely than others to consider themselves religious. Millennials are more likely than other generations to approve of gay couples raising children, mothers of young children working outside the home, cohabitation, and biracial marriage. They are also less strict in their definition of gender roles, and male and female Millennials approach life in a similar fashion. Government reports indicate that during the recession of the early 21st century, women were more likely than men to be employed. Some 71 percent of those with children under the age of 18 were employed. Studies of millennial attitudes suggest that females are just as ambitious as males, exhibiting similar desires to assume greater job responsibilities and advance in their careers. Women now earn 44 percent of household incomes, and millennial women tend to be better educated than their male cohorts. Among married Millennials, both females and males spend more time with their children than parents of any other generation, particularly those of Generation X, and millennial men are taking on a greater share of domestic duties in households where wives are employed outside the home. All of these social factors affecting the lives of Millennials have resulted in a much broader definition of femininity that embraces feminist thought without acknowledging it and welcoming diversity and the rights of the individual, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

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See Also: Celebrity Women; Gender, Defined; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Islam; “Masculinity,” Social Construction of; Representation of Women; Single Mothers; Social Construction of Masculinity; Stereotypes of Women; Teen Pregnancy. Further Readings Beauvoir, Simone de, H. M. Parsley, trans. The Second Sex. New York: Knopf, 1975. Berger, Peter L. and Tomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books, 1967. Bradfield, Rebecca. “Rereading Sex and the City: Exposing the Hegemonic Feminist Narrative.” Journal of Popular Film and Television, v.34/3 (Fall 2006). Busch, Elizabeth Kaufer. “Ally McBeal to Desperate Housewives: A Brief History of the Postfeminist Heroine.” Perspectives on Political Science, v.38/2 (Spring 2009). Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. London: Routledge, 1990. Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. London: Routledge, 2004. Cook, Sarah Gibbard. “Millennial Women Bring New Roles, Expectations to Campus.” Women in Higher Education, v.18/8 (August 2009). Cosar, Simten. “Women in Turkish Political Thought: Between Tradition and Modernity.” Feminist Review, v.86 (July 2007). de Lauretis, Teresa. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Fuss, Diana. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature & Difference. New York: Routledge, 1989. Goldstein, Nikki. “Girlie Power.” The Sun Herald (July 25, 1999). Pew Research Center. “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.” http://pewsocialtrends.org /pubs/751/millennials-confident-connected-open -to-change (accessed July 2010). Taylor, Anthea. “What’s New About ‘the New Femininity’? Feminism, Femininity, and the Discourse of the New.” Hectate, v.29/2 (2003). Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302 /texts/wollstonecraft/woman-contents.html (accessed July 2010). J. Mortenson University of British Columbia, Okanagan

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Feminism, American Simply put, feminism is a political philosophy and practice centering on the concerns of women and opposing gender inequality.  There is no one universally accepted way of conceptualizing feminism or of being a feminist; therefore, many contemporary feminists feel that the plural term feminisms best encompasses the great diversity among approaches to feminism.  Generally speaking, the various contemporary approaches to feminism overlap in their dedication to opposing sexism, misogyny, and structural inequalities between women and men, as well as inequalities between girls and boys. Many types of feminism also emphasize the importance of women’s personal experiences, arguing that “the personal is political.” Additionally, most contemporary feminisms share an intellectual and ethical commitment to addressing forms of structural inequality that intersect with gender, such as racism, classism, heterosexism, ageism, xenophobia, and/or sizeism. Although some media sources and opponents of women’s equality have called into question the contemporary relevance, or even existence of contemporary feminism, feminism remains both alive and necessary in the 21st century. Women still earn less than men, and this wage gap is greatest for women of color. Physical violence perpetrated against women by their current or former romantic partners remains prevalent and continues to constitute a leading cause of injury to women. Globally, women receive inferior healthcare and education to men, and wield less political and economic power than men. And in many countries, including the United States, constituents have yet to elect a female head of state. With a long history, extending back to the 19th century, feminism seeks to eradicate these and other injustices through a variety of means. Feminism has transformed not only higher education but language itself. Women, men, and people of varying gender identities who are aligned with the goals of feminism continue to strive for gender equality in numerous ways, including engagement with scholarly and/or artistic work, and by participating in social movements. The Wave Metaphor and Feminism Feminism has been conceptualized as occurring in three “waves.” The first wave of feminism is most

closely associated with 19th and early 20th century struggles for women’s suffrage. In the United States, feminist activism became less visible in the years following 1920, when voting rights were finally secured for women. However, feminist organizing reemerged in the late 1960s. This “second wave” of feminist activism and scholarship blossomed as female activists became increasingly dissatisfied with their experiences in mainstream civil rights and antiwar movements dominated by men. Second wave feminism subsequently took a variety of forms, both liberal and radical, including the genesis of the Women’s Liberation Movement, resistance to violence against women via the creation of rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters, and organized efforts to change women’s relationships with mainstream institutions such as law enforcement and the mainstream medical establishment. During the second wave of feminism, women also gathered together and engaged in what came to be known as “consciousness raising” (CR): the sharing of personal stories in an effort to uncover commonalities of experience and understand the underlying social structures that served as the foundation of women’s subjugation. Defending the second-wave feminist practice of consciousness raising against claims that CR amounted to little more than a form of apolitical group therapy, Carol Hanisch is reputed to have coined what would become a feminist mantra: “The personal is political.” Second-wave feminists who embraced this premise came to realize that their experiences, previously understood as private and personal, were connected to gender inequality and other intersecting forms of oppression; this realization made political analysis and collective action possible. This feminist emphasis on the value of personal experience remains an important cornerstone of contemporary strains of feminism. Although second-wave feminists achieved many legal and social victories, including the (still contested) legalization of abortion and various legal protections and remedies for female workers and spouses, the ideologies and practices of second wave feminism were not completely unproblematic. In particular, second-wave feminists frequently theorized women as universal, ignoring the differences between and among categories of women. Working-class women, women of color, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgen-



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In this striking photograph taken in 1917, suffragists are picketing in front of the White House asking the president, “How long must women wait for liberty?” The National Woman’s Party utilized open public demonstrations to gain popular attention.

dered women found themselves alienated from a mainstream feminism, which all too frequently centered on the perspectives and needs of women with economic, racial, and other privileges. The third wave of feminism is considered a corrective to many of the shortcomings of second wave feminism. These contemporary feminists highlight a multiplicity of voices, emphasizing intersections of identity beyond gender, including race, class, and sexuality. Additionally, whereas second wave feminism has been seen as encouraging a “cult of victimization” among women, contemporary feminists place a greater emphasis on women’s agency. For example, this third wave has seen the increasing emergence of sex-positive writing and activism, particularly by sex worker rights activists, scholars, and writers. Other focal points for third wave feminism include movements for the inclusion of transgender and genderqueer practices, and in the case of globalization, an emergence of transnational feminisms that extend and/or challenge Euro-American feminist goals.

Although there is some speculation about an existing or imminent fourth wave of feminism, as of this writing it is nonetheless more common to consider contemporary feminisms as part of an ongoing third wave. However, the wave metaphor has recently drawn criticism from feminist scholars; conceptualizing feminism as occurring in three waves may encourage an understanding of feminism as disjointed, or consisting of temporally and ideologically discrete approaches. Feminism and the Academy Dissatisfied with disciplinary canons dominated by the writings and perspectives of “dead white men,” late-20th-century feminist professors and students made a concerted effort to imbue higher education with a feminist perspective that honored the work of feminist scholars and adequately addressed the reality of diverse women’s lives. Today, feminist professors located within traditional disciplines throughout the humanities, social sciences, and hard sciences

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continue to integrate women’s perspectives into their coursework, and adopt a curriculum that fosters students’ critical examination of gender inequalities. When possible, such professors often seek to reclaim the work of disciplinary foremothers. For example, early feminist sociologists such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Jane Addams, Marion Talbott, and Edith Talbott were completely eclipsed by their male contemporaries until feminist sociologists began integrating them into the theoretical curriculum. However, the still developing approach to teaching now known as feminist pedagogy goes beyond simply integrating the work of female researchers and writers into the existing curriculum. Professors and other instructors who adopt a feminist pedagogical stance are critical of the power differential that exists between student and teacher, and often seek to dismantle classroom hierarchies in a variety of ways. Students are not constructed as obedient recipients of their teacher’s expert knowledge; rather they too are understood as having knowledge worth contributing. In particular, the sharing of personal experiences in the classroom is believed to provide students with an opportunity to make concrete connections between theoretical course concepts and the lived experience they know intimately. In some feminist classrooms, students share responsibility for curricular development. In addition to attending to power dynamics in the classroom, feminist teachers aim to devise curriculum that highlights power and inequalities, and one that features diverse perspectives. Feminism has also transformed how many academics approach their research. As with feminist pedagogy, feminist research is characterized by an acknowledgment of the power differential between researcher and participant, as well as an attempt to minimize such hierarchies in the research process. Rather than extracting knowledge from passive “subjects,” feminist researchers conceptualize the people with whom they work as participants in the truest sense of the word, capable of sharing knowledge and making concrete contributions to the research process. In feminist participatory research, the investigator may go as far as to design her or his study in concert with her or his participants, tailoring the goals of the study to participants’ needs, and sharing the contents and/or ownership of the finished product with them.

Feminism permeates many progressive academic departments within traditional disciplines, but has also become an object of study itself. In the latter part of the 20th century, feminist academics organized across disciplines to create interdisciplinary women’s studies programs and departments. Such departments are now commonplace on college campuses, although the contemporary trend is toward the development of departments devoted to gender studies or feminist studies, indicating a move away from a focus on women as subjects of inquiry, and toward a feminist approach of studying a broad variety of topics. Feminism and Language Because language shapes the way in which we think about the social and political world, many feminists are concerned with the ways that language can be used to reinforce or challenge power. In the latter 20th century, feminists developed a critique of language that they understood as demeaning women, as well as androcentric language that erased women’s existence, such as use of the term men to stand in for people. Whereas these earlier feminists have at times been accused of overpolicing language, more contemporary feminists have utilized an ethic of co-optation rather than censorship. For instance, rather than disallowing language or words such as “whore,” “spinster,” “slut,” and “bitch,” many contemporary feminists have co-opted these words, redefining them and utilizing them in a way that empowers rather than degrades women. A few examples of this co-optation of language is reflected in the work of editors and writers for print media such as Bitch, Spread Magazine: Illuminating the Sex Industry, and in the work of feminist and antiracist writer Inga Muscio, author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. Similarly, some members of contemporary size acceptance or body diversity movements, many of whom are aligned with feminism, have reclaimed the word fat, fashioning both terms and identities that celebrate rather than denigrate fatness. Theoretical Trends, Activism, and New Possibilities Contemporary feminism and its related activism coincide with a dramatic shift in the theoretical and practical conceptualization of feminism and gender. Judith Butler and other queer theorists have been at the forefront of this shift. Whereas some early feminist



theorists made essential the categories “women” and “men,” postmodern theorists have invigorated feminism by destabilizing these categories. For example, Butler’s gender performances describe how gender organizes social relations and spaces. This and other related work, which focuses on the use of space, body comportment, and gender maneuvering/performance, marks a direct shift away from viewing gender as a fixed category. Nonetheless, although feminist writers such as Judith Butler have called for fluid, nonessentialist analyses of gender, other theorists and writers such as Peter Hennen have reminded us to remain cognizant of the body and the real, material consequences of gender inequality, issues that have often been lost in contemporary feminism’s postmodern shuffle. For example, in his recent study Faeries, Bears, and Leathermen, Hennen found that in contrast with the aforementioned theoretical developments, his interviewees described themselves in very essentialist terms. Hennen concludes that although postmodern theories are useful and necessary, those writing about issues of gender need to be sensitive to how people continue to understand their own identities. The postmodern turn in gender theory and constructions of the category “woman” have, at the same time, led to a proliferation of activism around genderqueer identities and practices. Both gender activists and theorists are redefining the category “woman” and exploding binaries of gender and sexuality. There are a number of contemporary examples of how these shifts in discourse are being realized in practice and everyday life. In the pornography industry, for example, queer porn has infiltrated the larger mainstream industry and continues to break gender and sexual boundaries that remain prevalent in mainstream porn. Other contemporary feminist activist engagements include the growing reproductive justice movement, global struggles for land and water rights, and movements promoting disability rights. See Also: Antifeminism; Critical Race Feminism; Feminism on College Campuses; Feminist Jurisprudence; Feminist Publishing; Feminist Theology; Global Feminism; Third Wave; Womanism; Women’s Studies. Further Readings Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge, 1990.

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Hennen, Peter. Faeries, Bears, and Leathermen: Men in Community Queering the Masculine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Hokulani, K. Aikau, Karla A. Erickson, and Jennifer Pierce, eds. Feminist Waves, Feminist Generations: Life Stories From the Academy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Muscio, Inga. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. New York: Seal Press, 1998. Tracy Royce Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo University of California

Feminism on College Campuses In the early 1970s in the United States, feminism began to grow on college campuses, mainly as a result of the development of women’s studies programs, which was considered the academic arm of the feminist movement. In the 21st century, college campuses continue to be an active site of the evolving feminist movement as many national feminist and women’s organizations have a presence on college campuses. Feminism on campuses today largely revolves around issues of sexual violence, reproductive choice, and feminist identity. Women’s Studies Given its origins in the feminist movement, women’s studies programs have been activist in their framework, seeking not only to develop theories about women’s roles in society, but also to implement strategies to change these roles. Today, women’s and gender studies continue to be a hotbed for the emergence of feminist identity as well as a motivator for feminist activism on college campuses. Studies by Jayne Stake and Debra Kaysen indicate that women’s studies classes are one of the most prevalent ways that individuals are exposed to feminist ideas. They claim that women and gender studies educators have deemed it especially important that college students be encouraged toward activism, since they are the most likely demographic to engage in feminist and other kinds of activism. Additionally, engaging student activists has

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long-term benefits for the feminist movement. Students who have participated in activism during college are more likely to be more politically active later in their lives. Consequently, many national feminist organizations, such as the Feminist Majority Foundation, the National Organization for Women, and Feminist for Life started college campus outreach programs in the 1990s. Feminist Activism In addition to women’s and gender studies programs and courses, student organizations are an active site of feminism on college campuses. Many students form their own organizations, or join already established groups, often connected to national organizations. While some student organizations center on general “feminist” issues, such as body image and equal pay, others focus on issues like sexual violence or reproductive choice. As a result of the work of women’s studies scholaractivists, such as Susan Brownmiller, Maria Ochoa, Barbara Ige, and Andrea Dworkin, college campuses have become the focus of learning how theory influences practice in the antiviolence movement. The high prevalence of rape and sexual assault on college campuses has been, and continues to be, a major mobilizing area of concern for feminists. In response to on-campus rapes, students often organize and lobby administration for reform of sexual assault policies. On a systemic level, campaigns and events to address this problem, such as Take Back the Night (TBTN), V-Day, and the Clothesline Project arose, and are present on colleges and universities around the world. While many of these international and national antiviolence campaigns did not originate on college campuses, today campuses are a primary target audience for such campaigns. The first TBTN March in the United States was held in 1976 in New York. The TBTN marches consist of a public demonstration through city streets at night in order to reclaim public spaces that are normally unsafe for women to walk in alone. Early rallies focused on protesting local pornographic vendors, yet today’s marches focus more on raising awareness and healing survivors on college campuses and communities. In 1990, during a TBTN event in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the first Clothesline Project event took place. Influenced by the AIDS Quilt, visual artist Rachel Carey-Harper conceived of the idea of dis-

playing shirts decorated by female survivors of violence on a clothesline to raise awareness. As of 2010, the Clothesline Project estimated that there were 500 projects nationally and internationally, many of which were on college campuses. In 1998, the V-Day movement grew from the success of Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues. In 2009, 1,400 colleges and communities hosted V-Day events. College and community activists raised an annual average of $4 million for local domestic violence shelters and rape crises centers through benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues. While these international antiviolence organizations increasingly prioritize their presence on college campuses, they are still met with resistance. According to V-Day’s Website, in 2005, Catholic colleges accounted for approximately 40 of the over 1,100 colleges and communities that held V-Day events globally. Yet since 2003, the Cardinal Newman Society, a group dedicated to “the renewal of Catholic identity” in Catholic higher education (and not to be confused with the national network of campus Catholic chaplaincies or Newman Centers), has campaigned against the V-Day productions at Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. Similarly, TBTN’s Website cites that campus rallies have sometimes been met with confrontation, especially when passing by fraternity houses. However, in recent years, TBTN states that some fraternities have displayed pro-TBTN banners and have cheered on marchers. Reproductive choice is also a rallying point of feminism on college campuses. National organizations purport to advance feminism both from pro-choice and pro-life stances. The National Organization for Women’s Campus Action Networks and the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Feminist Majority Leadership Alliances both explicitly state support of “safe, legal and accessible abortion” in their college affiliation documents. On the other side, Feminists for Life’s College Outreach Program seeks to provide resources for pregnant and parenting students, and to challenge what they believe is the hegemony of the pro-choice discourse that dominates college campuses. Feminist Identity Some studies indicate a limited, positive perception of feminists among college students. However, scholars such as Alyssa Zucker believes that the preponderance



of research suggests the contrary; that the perception of feminists as deviants and the perceived threat to heterosexuality dominates the opinions held by young women and men. In a 2001 study by Miriam Liss, Christy O’Connor, Elena Morosky, and Mary Crawford, of predominantly Caucasian undergraduate students at the University of Connecticut, 77.6 percent of women did not consider themselves to be feminists. Moreover, 81 percent of women in this study who did not consider themselves feminists agreed with some goals of the feminist movement and agreed with the statement, “I am not a feminist but. . . .” Scholars such as Alyssa Zucker believe this trend of disavowing feminist identification among college students may be because these women grew up in an era influenced by the feminist movement, and thus were not exposed to the severe sexism of earlier generations. Another study by Kia Lilly Caldwell and Margaret Hunter shows that women college students of color similarly express a negative attitude toward feminism, as well as toward the term woman of color. However, after having taken a 15-week class about women of color and feminist thought, most female students acquired positive views of the terms. Caldwell and Hunter believe that helping students of color to positively identify with the phrase woman of color can help forge a feminist presence on a campus where the majority of students are minorities. Feminism on college campuses continually faces barriers, whether in the form of opposition by fraternities and Catholic organizations, or by the challenge of students not identifying with the term feminist. Nonetheless, a multiplicity of feminist, women’s, and antiviolence campaigns and organizations are present at an increasing number of colleges and universities around the world. Furthermore, with the growing establishment of women’s studies, college campuses will likely be an active site for the feminist movement for generations to come. See Also: Feminist Majority Foundation; Feminists for Life; National Organization for Women; Take Back the Night; Vagina Monologues, The; Women’s Studies. Further Readings Caldwell, K. L. and M. Hunter. “Creating a Feminist Community on a Woman of Color Campus.” Frontiers, v.25 (2004).

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Feminist Majority Foundation. “Choices Campus Leadership Program.” http://www.feministcampus.org /default.asp (accessed April 2010). Feminists for Life. “College Outreach Program.” http:// www.feministsforlife.org/cop/index.htm (accessed April 2010). Kaysen, D. and J. E. Stake. “From Thought to Deed: Understanding Abortion Activism.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, v.31 (2001). Liss, M., C. O’Connor, E. Morosky, and M. Crawford. “What Makes a Feminist? Predictors and Correlates of a Feminist Social Identity in College Women.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, v.25 (2001). National Organization for Women. “NOW on Campus.” http://www.now.org/chapters/campus/index.html (accessed April 2010). Take Back the Night. “History.” http://www.takebackthe night.org/index.html (accessed April 2010). Zucker, A. “Disavowing Social Identities: What It Means When Women Say, “I’m Not a Feminist, But…” Psychology of Women Quarterly, v.28 (2004). Pamela O’Leary Independent Scholar

Feminist Jurisprudence To define feminist jurisprudence, it is useful first to consider its component parts. Jurisprudence is the philosophy or theory of the law. Feminism is the belief in—and support of—the political, economic, social, and legal equality of women and men. Feminism rejects patriarchy and gender bias, and is fundamentally results oriented. Feminist jurisprudence is a feminist analysis of the law that emerged in legal scholarship in the 1960s as a rejection of law’s patriarchal bias, its use of men as the “norm,” and its view of women as the “other.” It argues that reform requires more than accommodation and assimilation into existing structures, and imagines the law as if women and men mattered equally. This is no small feat, as there is a long-standing tendency to think of the law as neutral and fair, and to overlook institutional biases that favor males. Catherine MacKinnon, in Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: Toward Feminist Jurisprudence, argues that

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male dominance is probably the most persistent and insidious system of power in history. Law is, among other things, a means of classifying things. Parties to every lawsuit are classified, arguments are classified, and decisions are classified. One reason the law is assumed to be neutral is the fact that legal judgments are phrased, or classified, in such a way as to be applicable in future cases involving other parties. Yet, making laws universally applicable requires making assumptions about people in order to delineate similarities and differences among groups, so that the same law can apply to future parties. Many feminist legal scholars believe that gender bias is inherent in our assumptions about groups of people, and that genuine objectivity is impossible, and that without objectivity, abstract universality is unworkable. Far from thinking of the law as neutral and fair, many see the patriarchal assumptions that pervade it and believe it to be inherently unfair. While feminist theories differ, they all reject the patriarchal bias inherent in the law. Feminist jurisprudence critiques the law for patriarchal assumptions and gender bias, and attempts to expand it to accommodate women as well as men. Traditionally, the idea of equality has involved the equal or similar treatment of people. However, most cultures, and the schools of jurisprudence and laws arising from them, have traditionally treated women and men differently. Rights have varied by gender in the areas of marriage, child custody, land ownership, the right to enter into contracts, and myriad others. Attempts have been made to redress these biases, with varying degrees of success, at both the national and international levels. The goal of feminist jurisprudence, nationally and internationally, has been to expand the law to include women’s experience. International Definitions In the United States, the first Supreme Court equal protection case decided favorably for women was Reed v. Reed in 1971, when the court decided that Idaho could not deny women the right to administer estates, since women and men are “similarly situated” with regard to administering estates. Complications arise when women and men are not “similarly situated,” such as in the case of pregnancy. Just which differences—biological, sociological, and so on—should be legally relevant has been the subject of much debate, and has given

rise to the idea of “special rights” for women. However, the special rights approach focuses on women’s differences from men, and many argue that it accommodates the assumption of men as the norm. In many countries, such as Iceland, Norway, and Canada, the most obvious barriers to women’s participation and inclusion in public life have been lifted, as women have won the right to vote, the right to work, the right to attend school, the right to own property, the right to enter into contracts, and the right to name and have custody of their children. Because of these advances, many believe that equal treatment under the law already exists in these countries. Yet even when overt discrimination is eliminated, there sometimes remain areas where male-centered laws aren’t easily adaptable to women (such as self-defense, pregnancy, and reproductive rights). In many other countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), women’s inequality remains overt in custom and in law, and international efforts have been made to improve the rights of women in their own countries, as well as to provide a means of appealing to the international community when their countries’ laws fail to address their needs adequately, or when the problems are transnational in nature, such as in the case of human trafficking and violence against women in areas of conflict. Women’s and human rights activists have advocated for an international feminist jurisprudence, and the opportunities for women to seek legal remedies through international systems when their domestic systems prove inadequate have greatly evolved over the last decade, in both their capacity to accommodate complaints and their ability to monitor compliance with international standards. One example of an international mechanism to promote accountability when national criminal systems fail is the International Criminal Court (ICC), created by the Rome Statute. The International Labour Organization (ILO) is another venue to which complaints can be made when domestic systems prove inadequate. Two important instruments used to promote women’s rights internationally are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Optional Protocol to CEDAW, which improved complaints procedures and enforcement mechanisms, and enabled the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against



Women to suggest specific changes to a nation’s discriminatory laws. Proponents of international feminist jurisprudence seek to establish definitions, procedures and legal standards at the international level that can serve as a model for nations interested in reforming their legal systems. The International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, for example, have employed procedures and standards that can be adopted at the national level. Postconflict areas transitioning to more democratic societies also offer opportunities for creating more just legal frameworks and institutions, and for advancing women’s rights under the law. Promoting Equal Jurisprudence Arguments against international efforts to promote a more feminist jurisprudence are often grounded in the idea that they violate national sovereignty, particularly in developing countries, and disregard local custom, including the traditional status and roles of women. Feminist jurisprudence and feminist theory are closely intertwined. The roots of today’s feminist jurisprudence lie in the liberal tradition of placing a premium on universal human rights, and arguments surrounding women’s rights have long centered on whether women and men are fundamentally similar or different. Liberal feminism argues that women and men are fundamentally similar, and that a genderblind society would best eliminate barriers to women’s participation in public life. In the United States, many formal barriers were removed in the 1960s and 1970s, and more women were able to participate in public life, however they still experienced discrimination and stereotyping, and they tended to retain primary responsibility for work in the home in addition to their responsibilities in the workplace. These shortcomings in classical liberalism’s focus on removing institutional barriers gave rise to modern (welfare) liberalism as a solution to the persistent problems that women faced. Both classical and modern liberalism argue for equal opportunity on the basis that women and men are fundamentally alike, but modern liberalism argues that institutions should be supportive of the particular needs of women and their families. Radical feminism argues that liberalism is too limited in its focus (on removing institutional barriers, etc.) to ever bring an end to women’s disadvantage.

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It argues that eliminating patriarchal bias requires changing the way society thinks about and constructs gender and gender roles. Without an awareness of our assumptions about gender, it argues, we cannot begin to fundamentally change patriarchal structures and customs. Relational feminism, reminiscent of theories from the early 1900s, rejects liberalism’s assumption that women and men are fundamentally alike, arguing that they are not, and that rather than keeping the male as the norm, women’s and men’s differences should both be recognized and valued. Relational feminists believe it better to adapt male-modeled institutions to women rather than vice versa. Carol Gilligan, a Harvard educational psychologist, popularized the idea of valuing differences in her 1982 book In a Different Voice, where she detailed the results of her studies on moral development in both women and men, and concluded that whereas men evolve what she calls an “ethic of justice” centered on rules and rights, women evolve an “ethic of care” centered on relationships and responsibilities. Marxist feminism focuses on the role of capitalism, private property, and class in women’s economic disadvantage and lower socioeconomic status. Modern Socialist feminists agree with Marxist feminists, to some extent, but argue that the Marxist explanation falls short when attempting to explain women’s lower status outside the workplace. Postmodern (or French) feminism challenges the use of broad generalizations and the assumption that universal rules and doctrines can address all situations. It holds that theories attempting to explain women’s disadvantage are too limited in scope; in fact, that any attempt to find one theory to explain something so deep-rooted, complex and diverse is futile. Pragmatic feminism (associated with legal realist theory) is also skeptical of the usefulness of general theories and abstract categories, but believes that law should be a dynamic system capable of adapting to address the needs of particular individuals in particular contexts. Regardless of the theoretical bases and their many and varied means for changing the law to include women, the main purpose of feminist jurisprudence is to find ways in which women can be empowered and equally valued in the eyes of the law. Many writers and legal theorists have been instrumental in the development of feminist jurisprudence. Among them are

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Andrea Dworkin, Ann C. Scales, Carol Gilligan, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Catherine A. MacKinnon, Christine A. Littleton, Clare Dalton, Deborah L. Rhode, Elizabeth M. Schneider, Elizabeth Wolgast, Frances Olsen, Gloria Steinem, Heather Ruth Wishik, Herma Hill Kay, Joan Williams, Judy Scales-Trent, Kate Millet, Katha Pollitt, Katherine Bartlett, Katherine Franke, Kathleen Waits, Kelly Dawn Askin, Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, Leslie Bender, Linda McClain, Lynn Henderson, Margaret Jane Radin, Mari Matsuda, Martha Fineman, Martha Minow, Nadine Taub, Nan D. Hunter, Regina Austin, Robin West, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Susan Brownmiller, Susan Estrich, Susan Faludi, Sylvia Law, Wendy W. Williams, and many others. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Divorce; Feminism, American; Rape, Legal Definitions of. Further Readings Fineman, Martha and Thomadsen, N. At the Boundaries of Law: Feminism and Legal Theory. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991. Law, Sylvia. “Rethinking Sex and the Constitution.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, v.132 (1984). Littleton, Christine A. “Reconstructing Sexual Equality.” California Law Review, v.75/4 (1987). MacKinnon, Catherine A. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Rhode, Deborah. Justice and Gender. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Scales, Ann C. “The Emergence of Feminist Jurisprudence: An Essay.” Yale Law Journal, v.95 (1986). West, Robin, “Jurisprudence and Gender.” University of Chicago Law Review, v. 55 (2008). Charis Varnum Columbia University

Feminist Majority Foundation The Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) is a noprofit organization dedicated to research and action by, about, and for women and feminists. Founded in 1987, the FMF is the sister organization of the Femi-

nist Majority, with the former being focused on feminist research and education and the later focused on the legal and political means of ensuring female and male equality. The FMF is also the publisher of Ms. magazine—the premier popular magazine of the women’s movement. Eleanor Smeal is the founder and president of the FMF. Smeal is a 1961 graduate of Duke University who began her feminist activism while a student, working for the complete integration of women into Duke. She has also earned a master’s degree in political science from the University of Florida. Smeal eventually joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1970 and served two terms as president of NOW between 1977–82 and 1985–87. Smeal gained national media attention for NOW during her first term as an organizer and spokesperson for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. During her second term as president of NOW, Smeal organized a national abortion rights march that drew more than 10,000 activists to Washington, D.C. After leaving NOW in 1987, Smeal founded the FMF as an organization dedicated to research, education, and political action. Smeal named the organization after a 1986 Newsweek/Gallup poll revealed that 56 percent of women identified themselves as feminists, and noting that this number constitutes a majority. Smeal founded the FMF to unite the men and women who were part of the feminist majority and to provide a clearinghouse for education and research that could affect social policy. The stated goals of the FMF are to advance women’s equality, nonviolence, economic development, and the general empowerment of women and girls across national boundaries, and the FMF has used a variety of techniques to advance these goals. For example, in the late 1980s, the FMF developed the National Clinic Access Project in response to violence enacted by antiabortion advocates, which threatened women’s access to reproductive healthcare clinics. The project has trained over 45,000 individuals in nonviolent clinic defense techniques; these individuals have protected clinics in 26 states. The FMF also started an outreach program to inform young feminists about feminist issues including threats to reproductive rights for women, violence toward women on college campuses, and other



issues related to women and equality. The program, called Choices Campus Program, in part helps students organize and maintain pro-choice feminist activist groups, called Feminist Majority Leadership Alliances, on their home campuses. At this time, the FMF has aligned with over 700 college campuses to promote these organizations for young feminists. In 2001, the FMF and Eleanor Smeal purchased Liberty Media for Women, LLC, publishers of Ms. magazine. The magazine was launched in the early 1970s as a voice for the liberal feminist movement and has continued for several decades as an advertising-free publication dedicated to feminist investigative journalism and critical, political analysis. The acquisition of Liberty Media for Women by the FMF was considered a positive change by the magazine’s cofounders and Liberty Media copartners Gloria Steinem and Marcia Gillespie. The magazine has retained its original format and thematic focus since the FMF assumed responsibility for its publication. The FMF hosts a series of yearly conferences and meetings to promote their education, research, and social networking goals. For example, each year the FMF hosts the FMF Global Women’s Rights Awards, an event at which a few individuals are honored for their work to advance the rights or women and girls. Honorees have included Nobel Prize winner Betty Williams, Iraqi feminist Yanar Mohammed, and journalist Christiane Amanpour. In addition, the FMF also holds conferences for Women of Color, Women in Policing, and Young Women Leaders on an annual basis. The FMF maintains an active Website that serves as a clearinghouse for news and events of interest to members and feminist students, researchers, and educators. The FMF also hosts a feminist blog on its Website and provides a resource center of books and other research materials. See Also: Amanpour, Christiane; Equal Rights Amendment; Feminism, American; National Organization for Women. Further Readings Feminist Majority Foundation. http://www.feminist.org /default.asp (accessed June 2010). Feminist Majority Foundation. “Help Afghan Women.” http://www.helpafghanwomen.com (accessed June 2010).

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Myers, Kristen A., et al., eds. Feminist Foundations: Toward Transforming Sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998. Jennifer Adams DePauw University

Feminist Publishing For feminists, publishing has been an important way to share information, promote ideas, develop new theories and strategies, and organize for change. During the past 30 years, the publishing industry increasingly has consolidated into large media conglomerates, resulting in fewer publishing outlets for feminist voices. At the same time, the digital revolution, which is as significant for publishing as the development of the Gutenberg printing press in the middle of the 15th century, is creating new opportunities and challenges for feminist publishing. At the beginning of the 21st century, some feminist publishes, founded during the Women’s Liberation Movement, continue to flourish. Ms. magazine, which published its first issue in July 1972 under the editorial leadership of Letty Cottin Pogrebin, continues to publish now under the non-profit auspices of the Feminist Majority Foundation. A wide array of feminist journalists, writers, and theorists have written for Ms. magazine and been involved in its editorial leadership. Ms. magazine, like other feminist institutions suffered during its history from financial challenges, including problems with advertising revenue, but a flexible approach to publishing and the ability to change have produced an enduring periodical. While dozens of periodicals that were the lifeblood of the Women’s Liberation Movement during the 1970s and 1980s have shuttered, others, like Ms. magazine, continue. Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal founded in 1976 by Catherine Nicholson and Harriet Ellenberg (Desmoines), Calyx Journal, also founded in 1976 and focusing on publishing creative work by women writers, Herizons, a quarterly Canadian feminist magazine founded in 1979, and Lesbian Connection, a community gathering of news, notices, and ideas founded in 1974, all continue to publish. Newer

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feminist magazines, Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture and Bust magazine, both founded in the 1990s, publish feminist voices of a generation of women who came of age during the 1980s and 1990s. The newest print magazine, make/shift, reflects a newly revitalized feminism with publishing focused on antiracist, transnational, and queer work from a feminist perspective. During the Women’s Liberation Movement, book publishers flourished, but in the early 21st century only a few independent, feminist book publishers survive. The Feminist Press and Spinifex Press in Australia are two feminist publishers that continue to publish a robust catalog of significant books. Other publishers who have continue to publish independently in their feminist mission are New Victoria Press, which focuses on fiction, Alice James Books, which publishes poetry, and Paris Press, which publishes work by women writers that has been overlooked by the literary and publishing world including Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry. Seal Press in the United States and Virago Press in the United Kingdom both were purchased by corporate publishers but continue to publish feminist books. In the past decade, new publishers have been founded. Redbone Press is a literary publisher of writers of color; Kore Press is dedicated to publishing poetry and prose by women; Perugia Press publishes poetry by women; Bella Books publishes popular lesbian novels; Bold Stroke Books publishes lesbian romance novels. Although print publishing continues for some feminist publishers, other feminist publications have migrated from print to the Web publishing. On The Issues, the progressive women’s magazine published by Merle Hoffman, migrated in 2008 to an online format after 25 years of print-based published. Similarly, Trivia, which published as a print journal from 1982 until 1995, resumed publishing in 2004 as an electronic journal. Blogging, Websites that publish daily entries of commentary and reportage, are a popular form of contemporary feminist publishing. Blogging has developed as a hybrid form of citizen journalism, political commentary, as well as social networking. Notable feminist blogs include Feministing, Feministe, The Angry Black Woman, and Jezebel. Blogs with multiple contributors are increasingly popular and

develop a wide audience as well as an online community. BlogHer is an organization founded to promote women’s blogging activities and to bring more exposure to women bloggers and is a contemporary example of how feminist communities grow from publishing ventures. Feminists continue to explore and utilize new technology for publishing and communications both online and in print. New technologies, including print-on-demand, social media like Facebook and Twitter, electronic book publishing, and content aggregation, as well as older strategies like publishing cooperatives and nonprofit publishing, all offer new horizons and possibilities for feminist publishing while retaining the goals of building an informed and engaged movement for transformation social change. Feminist publishing will continue to be a vital part of a system of communications and organizing during the next decades. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Feminism, American; Journalists, Print Media; Romance Novels. Further Readings Danky, James Philip and Wayne A. Wiegand, eds. Women in Print: Essays on the Print Culture of American Women From the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. Endres, Kathleen L. and Therese L. Lueck, eds. Women’s Periodicals in the United States: Social and Political Issues. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. Goldsmith, Elizabeth A. and Goodman, Dena. Going Public: Women and Publishing in Early Modern France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. Julie R. Enszer University of Maryland

Feminist Theology Feminist theology is the global search for a usable past, a just present, and a better future, especially for women, in relation to religious traditions. If feminism, which feminist theology is intertwined with in many ways, is defined as the radical notion that women are people, and theology is understood as God-talk, femi-



nist theology could then be described as the radical notion that women are made in God’s image. This is so because feminist theology takes feminist critique and reconstruction of gender paradigms into the theological domain. It is both a critique of the patriarchy embedded in religious texts, beliefs, and practices and, at the same time, a social vision geared toward the full recognition and incorporation of women into the people of God. To be sure, feminist theology is done across religious traditions. Those who have done significant work in traditions other than Christianity include Judith Plaskow and Adele Reinhartz for Judaism, Rita Gross and Ven. Dhammanda (formerly Chatsumarn Kabilsingh) for Buddhism, and Ghazala Anwar and Nayereh Tohidi for Islam. Carol Christ is also noteworthy for her work on Wiccan or neo-pagan spirituality. Without a doubt, however, much of feminist theology’s herstory as well as its more prevalent and systematized form has a Christian face and it is for this reason that this entry focuses on Christianity. Herstory It is no secret that androcentrism or the dominance of the male experience and perspective in understanding divinity and humanity is embedded in the texts and history Christianity. For centuries, this androcentric worldview silenced and marginalized women in theology. Indeed, breaking out of this invisibility has not been easy for women. Women’s venture into the theological realm can be traced to female spiritual writers in the Middle Ages like Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich who were able to gain some theological education and wrote what were later on accepted as theological texts. In the Renaissance period Christine de Pizan (sometimes spelled as Pisan), poet, author, and invited member of the court of Charles V and Jeanne de Bourbon is often mentioned in feminist theological history, particularly for The Book of the City of Ladies where she literally argues that there is no doubt that women belong to the people of God and the human race as much as men and that women are not another species or dissimilar race. Other critical texts written by women in what is usually considered as the first wave of feminist theology include Margaret Fell’s essay “Women’s Preaching Justified According to the Scriptures” (1666), Mary Astell’s book A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694), the poems and essays of the Mexican poet,

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At left, Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, and a page from The Woman’s Bible, signed by Elizabeth Stanton.

Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (d.1694), and the biblical commentary The Woman’s Bible (1895) by American women Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony. Although the first wave of feminist theology is obviously dominated by European women, the second wave was started by Euro-American women who entered seminaries and/or pursued graduate studies in theology and came up with books and essays that would eventually be considered as critical texts if not classics in Christian feminist theology. This group of women includes Rosemary Radford Ruether, Mary Daly, Letty Russell, Beverly Wildung Harrison, and Phyllis Trible. These women’s efforts were matched around this time in Europe by British spiritual feminists like Daphne Hampson, Mary Grey, and Grace Jantzen, and, in particular, by Dutch feminist theologian Catharina Halkes who is known for holding the first chair in feminist theology in a university worldwide, namely the Chair for Feminism and Christianity in what was then known as the Catholic University of Nijmegen (now called Radboud University Nijmegen). The German feminist theologian Uta Ranke-Heineman was the first woman appointed to a chair in Catholic theology at the University of Duisburg-Essen, in which position she served until her excommunication upon the publication of Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven (1988). She remains on the faculty, as a professor of the history of religion.

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Today, in what may very well be the third wave of feminist theology, women of color and the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, stand side by side with their white sisters in giving voice to and struggling for the full recognition and participation of women in religion and society. But this did not also come easily for white women theologians and, in particular, women of color theologians. In fact, this significant change came out of the critique by women theologians of color that classic (read: white) feminist theology does not take into account the experience of racism, colonialism, and more pronounced economic exploitation that women of color experience simultaneously with sexism. Women of color theologians pointed out that women’s experience as understood and articulated in classic feminist theology is based on the experience of white middle-class women. This could be seen, for instance, in the emergence of womanist theology and mujerista theology that takes into account the multidimensional experience of oppression by African American and Hispanic women in the United States, respectively. African American theologian Delores Williams and Cuban American theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz are considered as pioneers of these forms of feminist theology. In the Third World, in the meantime, women theologians who are often considered as foremothers (in Third World feminist theology) include Mercy Amba Oduyoye (Nigeria), Ivone Gebara (Brazil), and Mary John Mananzan (Philippines). Types and Forms Since its emergence in the late 1960s, modern feminist theology has taken on various types and forms. Consequently, various labels and categories have arisen to delineate one from the other or add one to the other. Most notable of these are those that more heavily intersects with economics, racial and cultural boundaries, as well as historical contexts, particularly the experience of colonialism and neocolonialism. Examples are womanist, mujerista, First World, and Third World feminist theologies. There have been attempts, however, toward a more comprehensive way of categorizing the different feminist theologies into types. Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, for example, analyzed and described feminist theology under the headings of “revolutionary” and “reformist” in their introduction to the criti-

cally acclaimed work Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979). Anne Clifford builds on this in her book Introducing Feminist Theology, in what could be considered the most systematic analysis of the types of feminist theology to date. In this analysis feminist theology is classified as revolutionary, reformist, and reconstructionist. The first comes mainly from the works of post-Christian feminists many of whom have turned to ancient Goddess traditions believing that the symbol of the Goddess more appropriately and meaningfully takes into account the creative power of women. With regard to reformist feminist theology, while this type does agree that women have experienced and continue to experience some kind of oppression and want some changes, the changes it envisions are usually not definitive or categorical enough. Evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant women who might be considered reformist feminist theologians, for example, argue that the problems on women’s secondary status, particularly in the Bible, could be solved by better translations of the Bible and greater emphasis on egalitarian passages. Within the Roman Catholic tradition, in the meantime, one could also see this type of feminist theology with women theologians who argue for the inclusion of women in the life and leadership in the Church but are, for the most part, uncritical of the structures of the institutional church as well as of church teachings that limit women participation, particularly in ordained ministry. The last, reconstructionist feminist theology, seeks a more liberating theological core for women within Christianity. Like the reformists, feminist theologians who could be considered reconstructionists have a deep commitment to the Christian tradition. They, however, envision more profound transformation and genuine reconstruction not only of church structures but also of civil society. Most important, unlike revolutionary feminist theologians who believe that Christianity is irredeemably sexist and reformist feminist theologians who would rather not tinker with the tradition, reconstructionist feminist theologians believe that it is possible and desirable to reinterpret the traditional symbols and ideas of Christianity without rejecting or abandoning the God revealed in Jesus Christ. In one way or another, however, most of these types attend to what could be considered as the three tasks of feminist theology: (1) provide a gender-sen-

Feminists for Life



sitive critique of the Christian tradition; (2) recover women’s stories from the past and present to show the gifts and insights of women throughout history; and (3) reimagine traditional Christian doctrine and practice in way that they become more liberating for all, especially for women. See Also: Body Image; Christianity; Mujerista Theology; Nuns, Roman Catholic; Poverty; Religion, Women in; Roman Catholic Church; Virgin Mary; Womanist Theology. Further Readings Clifford, A. Introducing Feminist Theology. New York: Orbis, 2001. Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler and M. Shawn Copeland, eds. Feminist Theology in Different Contexts. London: SCM Press, 1996. Hampson, D. Theology and Feminism. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1990. Isherwood, L. and D. McEwan, eds. An A to Z of Feminist Theology. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Pui-lan, K. “Feminist Theology as Intercultural Discourse.” In Susan Frank Parsons, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Ruether, Rosemary Radford, ed. Feminist Theologies: Legacy and Prospect. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007. Gemma Tulud Cruz DePaul University

Feminists for Life Feminists for Life (FFL) is an antiabortion feminist organization. As of 2010, Serrin Foster was the president and Sally Winn was the vice president of FFL. It is the most prominent pro-life feminist group in the United States and does not associate itself with any particular religious or political faction or party. FFL, which was founded in 1972, seeks to appeal to people who identify themselves as pro-woman and pro-life, and it advocates a legislative agenda that includes overturning Roe v. Wade. Since the mid-1990s, the organization has focused especially on reaching a college-aged audience through its College Outreach

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Program. According to its Website, the group’s mottoes are “Refuse to Choose” and “Women Deserve Better.” Over the course of the group’s existence, many members have come to FFL because they believe that they can be both feminist and opposed to abortion. In large part, FFL uses its own interpretation of historical feminists’ ideas as proof that its pro-life stance is consistent with the politics of feminism. However, pro-choice, mainstream feminist organizations tend to object to the very idea of a pro-life feminist, believing that this is a contradiction in terms. Feminists for Life was formed in 1972 in Columbus, Ohio, by Pat Goltz and Cathy Callaghan. The organization’s statement of purpose took two stances: equal rights for women in all areas and the right of every baby to be born. Goltz and other early members were deeply troubled by the reproductive policies of mainstream feminist groups such as the National Organization of Women (NOW). Members felt that their objections to abortion stemmed from feminist principles (they considered abortion to be violence against women) and were angered that their position was rejected by other feminist organizations. FFL considers abortion to be a choice women make out of desperation: because of a lack of resources and support, and an anti-motherhood bias, women resort to abortion in order to avoid the perceived disadvantages of pregnancy and parenting to their career and education. Activities and Organizations FFL’s College Outreach Program, which was begun in 1994, is one of the group’s main activities. It seeks to attract college students to the FFL and to provide a feminist-identified organizational home as an alternative to mainstream, pro-choice feminist groups on campuses. The program also aims to prevent pregnant college students with limited campus resources from either ending their pregnancies through abortion or dropping out of school in order to parent. The College Outreach Program features speakers who give personal testimonies about their experiences with abortion, pregnancy, parenting, and feminism. In encouraging their audiences to refuse abortion and instead asking that colleges provide their students with services for pregnancy and parenting women, these speakers seek to provide viable alternatives to abortion and to encourage college students to associate feminism with pro-life politics.

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Beginning in 1972, FFL published a newsletter titled Sisterlife, which included both original articles by FFL members as well as pieces from other pro-life organizations and publications. The American Feminist succeeded Sisterlife in 1994 and is the official publication of FFL. Issues regularly include biographical articles on first-wave feminists, which emphasize their anti-abortion and/or maternal views; personal testimonies from women who have “survived” abortions but regret having them; reports on the College Outreach Program’s success; accounts of women who have died after having abortions; essays on the joys of being a mother; and pieces that offer parenting advice. A central component to FFL’s rhetoric, ideological justification, and outreach is the group’s use of history. FFL’s Website, organizational materials, and American Feminist issues feature anti-abortion quotes from historical feminists from the 19th and 20th centuries, including activists like Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Dorothy Day, and Fannie Lou Hamer. These quotes and articles collectively argue for a different narrative from that of mainstream feminists—one that places a pro-life ethic at the center of feminist history. FFL has shared many interests with other feminist groups over the past four decades. For example, media portrayals of women, women’s equality in the workplace, the sexual exploitation of women through pornography, and violence against women have all been issues of concern for the organization. In addition, FFL worked from 1972 to 1982 with other feminist groups, such as NOW, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and the National Women’s Political Caucus in a failed effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. In more recent years, FFL has found common interest with other feminist organizations on issues such as working to pass the Violence Against Women Act (1994), fighting to omit “family caps” in welfare reform, and encouraging stricter enforcement of child support laws. Despite working toward certain similar legislative goals, however, FFL has been almost universally rejected by mainstream feminist organizations because of its stance on abortion rights. FFL has found willing allies in the pro-life movement, with which it has become increasingly associated since the 1980s.

See Also: Feminism; Feminism on College Campuses; Pro-Life Movement; Reproductive Rights; Roe v. Wade. Further Readings Andrusko, Dave. “March for Life and National Abortion Rights.” National Right to Life News, v.25/3 (February 11, 1998). Feminists for Life. http://www.feministsforlife.org (accessed May 2010). Oaks, Laury. “What Are Pro-Life Feminists Doing on Campus?” NWSA Journal 21, v.21/1 (2009). Sarah Rowley Indiana University

Fertility Fertility refers to the human ability to produce a child through sexual intercourse. For statistical purposes, however, fertility is defined as a female’s ability to conceive and carry a pregnancy to full term. According to this gendered definition, fertility rates measure the number of children born to a woman during her childbearing years. Fertility requires the production of a mature egg that is released from one of a woman’s two ovaries and passed through the fallopian tube to the uterus, where it is fertilized by one of millions of sperm produced by a male and ejaculated into the vagina. The fertilized egg or zygote must successfully implant into the uterine lining within three to four days of ovulation. The developing embryo requires an environment rich in the appropriate levels of hormones, nutrients, and oxygen throughout a 40-week gestation until the pregnancy ends with a live birth. A number of individual factors influence female fertility, with less known about how male fertility impacts on fertility rates. Systemic and structural factors, such as poverty and exposure to environmental contaminants and nationalist attitudes toward overpopulation also affect fertility rates. Pharmaceutical interventions and other reproductive biotechnologies have changed if, how, and under what conditions conception, pregnancy, and childbirth occur. Similarly, symbols and rituals dating back to ancient Greece reflect the cultural goal of promoting fertility.



A female becomes fertile or able to conceive at puberty, and remains fertile until ovarian hormone levels decline with menopause, and ovulation ceases. Every month during her childbearing years, a woman has a 48- to 72-hour window of fertility after she ovulates, which typically occurs about 10 to 14 days after the start of menstruation. As a woman ages, the probability of conceiving and carrying a fetus to full term decreases. A young woman in optimal health, with good nutrition and regular menstrual cycles who is having frequent unprotected sex, has a high probability of becoming pregnant. Women who are the least likely to become pregnant are those with ovulation problems or other medical conditions, such as a blocked fallopian tube. Older women, those engaged in prolonged breastfeeding, those who exercise excessively, or those who are above or below normal weight ranges are less likely to have normal menstrual cycles that would support conception and pregnancy. Smoking, alcohol and substance use, hormonal imbalances, or extended use of oral contraceptives also interfere with ovulation and implantation of the zygote. About onethird of female infertility problems are linked to issues that may been caused by a sexually transmitted infection, pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis, or a congenital anomaly of the female reproductive system. Psychological stress and mental illness, cancer treatment, a history of chronic illness and drug therapy, and male infertility also make it less likely that a woman will conceive or produce a live birth. Fertility rates fluctuate over time with differences within and between groups of women. A number of systemic factors may account for this: income and social status, education levels, level of engagement in paid workforce, access to childcare, exposure to environmental contaminants and radiation, miscarriage rates, access to abortion and effective contraception, migration and shifts in the supply of marriageable partners, access to adequate reproductive healthcare, religious attitudes toward contraceptive use and family planning, pronatalist beliefs, and political policies that stem population growth. International Fertility Issues Fertility rates in developed countries (calculated as the average number of children born to a woman in her childbearing years) rose dramatically after World

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War II, peaking in 1967 at 3.8 children. Fertility rates slumped in the 1970s, rising again in the 1980s and 1990s when baby boomers began to have children. Fertility rates in the United States at the turn of the 21st century were at replacement levels of 2.1 children per woman. Some sources indicate that fertility rates are on the rise again as more women, including unmarried women of all ages, give birth. The world fertility rate average is 2.6, with developed countries such as Brazil at 2.2, Australia at 1.7, the United Kingdom at 1.6, and Canada at 1.5, compared with less-developed countries, such as Burundi at 6.8, Sierra Leone at 6.5, and Rwanda at 6 children per woman. Differences in fertility rates between native-born and immigrant groups within the same country, and between highand low-income countries has lead to political anxieties about cultural annihilation, national survival, and overpopulation with laws regulating childbearing. At the Fourth World Conference on Women held in 1995 in Beijing, China, participating governments declared that it was every woman’s right to have access to reproductive healthcare, including the right to determine if, when, and how often to have children. The platform for action focused on providing accurate information, access to appropriate healthcare services, safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning, and a choice of contraceptive methods. Fertility Research Considerable biomedical research is devoted to understanding the functioning of women’s bodies and various aspects of fertility, infertility, and reproductive health. There is significantly less attention devoted to understanding male fertility and infertility, contraception, sexual behavior, and reproductive health issues, despite the fact that the healthy male is fertile (produces sperm) from the time he reaches puberty until the time he dies. The promotion of gender-based analysis in health research is addressing this deficit. An advantage of the attention on women’s reproductive health is the variety of options available to women for controlling their fertility. Temporary measures vary in effectiveness, and include the diaphragm, contraceptive sponge, spermicidal foams and creams, the intrauterine device (IUD) or coil, the birth control pill and, most recently, contraceptive implants for longer-term solutions. Pharmaceutical contraceptives

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that interfere with hormonal cycles have the highest effectiveness rates. Abstinence, condoms, the rhythm method, and the withdrawal method require the cooperation of a woman’s male partner, and are generally less effective. Permanent measures are also highly effective. A tubal ligation is a surgical procedure that permanently blocks the fallopian tubes so that an egg may not travel to the uterus for fertilization. Some women are unable to conceive. Infertility refers to the inability to conceive after six months or two years (depending on the source) of frequent unprotected sex, and/or the inability to carry a pregnancy to full term because of miscarriage or fetal death. Comprehensive and reliable data on the prevalence of infertility are difficult to find. Infertility rates are not routinely gathered, and vary depending on whether or not women who have been sterilized for noncontraceptive reasons (having a hysterectomy as a result of cancer treatment, for instance) are included in the calculation of infertility rates. A comparison of American surveys of family growth completed between 1965 and 1995 suggests that the infertility rate was stable at about 10.2 percent. There is, however, the perception that infertility rates are increasing. Four factors may contribute to this perception: (1) the absolute numbers of women (particularly older women) seeking infertility services may be increasing compared with previous decades, when the absolute number of women taking active steps to prevent conception was higher; (2) there is an increased availability of reproductive technologies and care providers specializing in infertility to serve infertile women; (3) the media devotes considerable space to the discussion of reproductive technologies; and (4) there appears to be less cultural stigma associated with discussing infertility, as evidenced, in part, by celebrity testimonials about their experiences with infertility and its treatment. Increasing Fertility A number of reproductive technologies may increase the likelihood that a woman will conceive. With artificial insemination, the process of inserting sperm into the vagina replaces sexual intercourse as an option for women who do not have a fertile partner or a male partner. Invitro fertilization refers to manually combining the egg and sperm in a laboratory setting, and transferring the fertilized egg into a receptive

uterus. Fertility drugs, such as Clomid, can be used alone to stimulate egg production, or in conjunction with other therapies. Surgical options include repair caused by scarring, mechanical obstruction of the fallopian tubes, or the insertion of a purse string suture to secure the cervix and increase the likelihood that the pregnancy will continue to full term. Natural or alternative methods for promoting fertility aim to improve a woman’s overall physical and mental health, and include acupuncture, hydrotherapy, aromatherapy, massage, dietary changes, herbal supplements, homeopathy, and naturopathy. Cultural symbols associated with fertility can be traced to ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks considered the pomegranate a sacred symbol of life, regeneration, and marriage. After Hades, the lord of the underworld, abducted Persephone, she ate the seeds of a pomegranate, symbolizing their eternal marriage. References to this multiseeded fruit appear in Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Buddhist traditions. In the Song of Solomon, a bride’s cheeks are compared to the two halves of a pomegranate. Today, this fruit appears in religious regalia, on Chinese ceramic art, and is featured on the British Medical Association coat of arms. Pollen signified fertility among the Apache, and it was rubbed into deer skin footwear, giving it a yellow tint. The use of pollen, especially in girls’ puberty rituals, was a reference to the tale of the first Apache woman impregnated by the sun. The moon symbolizes fertility to the Sandawe of central Tanzania and to other world cultures. The waxing and waning of the lunar cycle is associated with the cyclic qualities of menstruation, and the possibility of conception and the swelling of the pregnant maternal body, followed by the body shrinking after birth. Followers of Jungian thought recognize the symbolic use of the moon in Thornton Wilder’s well-known play, Our Town, as representing the archetypal female, femininity, wisdom, productivity, and fertility. In contrast, symbols of male fertility, such as the crocodile depicted in Bantu rock art, and the bull represented in eastern antiquity and reproduced in contemporary body art, are associated with physical strength, virility and power. See Also: Contraception Methods; Fecundity; Infertility; Overpopulation; Sterilization, Involuntary; Sterilization, Voluntary.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

Further Readings Brown, Jessica Autumn and Myra Marx. “Close Your Eyes and Think of England: Pronatalism in the British Print Media.” Gender & Society, v.19/1 (2005). Bryant, John. “Theories of Fertility Decline and the Evidence From Development Indicators.” Population and Development Review, v.33/1 (2007). Chavez, Leo R. “A Glass Half Empty: Latina Reproduction and Public Discourse.” Human Organization, v.63/2 (2004). Greer, Gill. “To Have or Not to Have: The Critical Importance of Reproductive Rights to the Paradox of Population Policies in the 21st Century.” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, v.106 (2009). Kelly-Weeder, Susan and Cheryl Lorane Cox. “The Impact of Lifestyle Risk Factors on Female Infertility.” Women & Health, v.44/4 (2006). Langley, Patricia. “Why a Pomegranate?” British Medical Journal, v.321/4 (2000). Diana L. Gustafson Memorial University, St. John’s

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Fetal alcohol syndrome disorders (FASD) is an umbrella term to describe the range of birth defects caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy. FASDs are the most common nonhereditary cause of mental retardation and the leading cause of preventable birth defects and developmental disabilities. Among the diagnoses subsumed with the FASD are: Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), the most severe form of FASD, which is characterized by a cluster of facial defects, growth deficiencies, and central nervous system dysfunctions; partial FAS (pFAS), which consists of most, but not all of the growth deficiencies and facial dysmorphologies of FAS; alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorders (ARNDs), characterized by central nervous system damage; and alcohol-related birth defects (ARBDs), which consist of abnormalities of the skeleton and certain organ systems. According to the U.S. Institutes of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, “Of all the substances of abuse (including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana),

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alcohol produces by far the most serious neurobehavioral effects in the fetus.” Unlike the effects of some other licit and illicit substances, FASDs are lifelong. Despite the serious and long-term effects of alcohol use during pregnancy, prevention efforts are challenging because not every pregnant woman who consumes alcohol will have a child with FASD, and it is not clear exactly how much alcohol during pregnancy is harmful to a fetus. Nevertheless, because it is clear that alcohol consumption during pregnancy can be exceedingly harmful to fetuses, FASDs are 100 percent preventable, and all alcoholic beverages cause damage, medical experts recommend that avoidance throughout pregnancy. Because damage is especially severe in the first trimester, many experts recommend that women of childbearing age refrain from alcohol consumption, especially heavy consumption, if they are trying to become or suspect they might be pregnant. How Prevalent Is FASD? Accurate prevalence rates for FASD are somewhat problematic because an immediate diagnosis is only possible when the effects on infants are especially severe or of a particular type (such as facial dysmorphology). Otherwise, it may take months or years for a child to be diagnosed. Many of the symptoms, such as intellectual deficits or motor deficits, are not apparent until children are older. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reports that FASDs affect approximately 40,000 infants each year in the United States. Between five and 20 live births per 10,000 are FAS-affected, and at least 100 per 10,000 live births are affected by FAS, ARND, and ARBD combined each year. It is even more difficult to ascertain rates of FASDs cross-nationally because standardized and complete diagnostic criteria are not used universally, and because some nations do not gather data routinely. An often cited worldwide estimate for FAS alone is 1 to 3 births per 1,000—although substantial variation occurs across and within nations. The highest reported rates in the world are in the Western Cape region of South Africa, where binge drinking is prevalent. Estimates of FAS incidence are between 46 and 74 per 1,000 births. To acknowledge FASD as a serious public health concern, International FASDAY was launched in 1999. It has been commemorated every year since then on September 9.

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Despite the dangers, drinking among women of childbearing age, including binge drinking, has increased over time. More than half of all U.S. women of childbearing age report that they drink alcohol, and approximately 1 in 30 engage in risky drinking. Social, Economic, Cultural, and Political Perspectives on FASD Although the deleterious effects of alcohol use during pregnancy have been raised throughout history, scientifically linking alcohol to physical, emotional, cognitive and behavioral effects on fetuses arose in the latter part of the 20th century. In the United States, Drs. David Smith and Kenneth Lyons Jones coined the term fetal alcohol syndrome in 1973. The idea that alcohol is a teratogen (a substance capable of interfering with the development of a fetus and causing birth defects) had been raised by others, but was met with disbelief. Initially, Smith and Jones faced similar doubts, but enough support soon

Despite the dangers, drinking among women of childbearing age, including binge drinking, has increased over time.

emerged to propel a movement of research, public health information dissemination, and medical screenings of pregnant women. Costs to those affected by FASD as well as to their families and society are high. The most recent estimates available indicate that in 2003, average lifetime health costs for each child with FAS alone ranged from $860,000 to $4.2 million. Additionally, FAS is estimated to cost the United States nearly $5.4 billion each year including direct costs to the health, social welfare, and justice systems, and indirect costs of increased mortality, morbidity, disability, and incarceration of those with FASDs. As the damage to fetuses of alcohol use during pregnancy was established through scientific research, federal, state and local governments responded. In 1981, the U.S. Surgeon General issued the first federal advisory warning that alcohol use by pregnant women was risky. In 1989, the U.S. DHHS mandated warning labels on alcohol. Since 1980, a host of state statutes have been enacted across the nation. Two approaches predominate: the first is an environmental or public health approach which seeks to provide information, early intervention, and treatment to pregnant women. Mandates for priority substance abuse treatment, warning signs in bars, liquor stores, and other retail outlets, and appropriations for publicly funded substance abuse treatment all fall into this category. The second approach is individualistic, law enforcement-oriented, and seeks to control pregnant women’s behavior. Policies emanating from this approach include civilly committing pregnant women, requirements to report pregnant women who use or are suspected of using alcohol to law enforcement and/ or child welfare agencies, and initiating child welfare proceedings to temporarily remove children from mothers or terminate parental rights. A vigorous public debate exists about the effects of environmental and individualistic approaches to alcohol and pregnancy policies. Proponents of providing services and treatment cite evidence that prosecuting pregnant women, involuntary committing them, or requiring reports of suspicion or evidence of alcohol use discourage women from seeking prenatal care and substance abuse treatment. The problem may be worst for poor women and women of color, in part, because these populations are most vulnerable



to exposure of their conditions as they seek publicly funded services. On the other hand, proponents of punitive policies question the effectiveness of environmental approaches and maintain that only by restricting pregnant women’s access to alcohol can healthy babies result. They maintain that if women cannot restrain their behavior, then governments have no choice but to preclude the possibility of bringing children with lifelong physical, emotional, and behavioral problems into society. On one level, this debate addresses individual responsibility versus collective action. On another, it is a commentary on the nature of gender and power. Much pertaining to the former approach rests on cultural analyses of morality, virtue, purity, and the elevation of motherhood as women’s highest responsibility. As a result, pregnant women with substance abuse disorders can be treated as deviant, dangerous, and lacking moral fiber. Many report experiencing harassment and stigmatization, and some face criminal prosecution. Feminists decry this situation as injurious to women’s independent agency and as outgrowths of deeply patriarchal institutional, political, economic, social and cultural structures. They maintain that punitive approaches elevate the rights of fetuses above those of pregnant women. As scholar Janet Golden notes, “At the heart of these paradoxes lies our profound cultural ambivalence about women’s obligations as mothers, about the status of the fetus, about personal responsibility, and about alcoholism.” Children and Adults With FASD Depending on the severity of their diagnosis, FASD children and adults may have an array of difficulties including (1) cognitive deficits: low IQ, impaired reading, spelling, and math and abstract reasoning abilities, slow information processing, reduced ability to make sound decisions, poor executive functioning, and difficulty sustaining attention; (2) physical deficits: poor balance, coordination, and motor skills, and susceptibility to sensory overload; (3) emotional difficulties: reduced ability to fit in socially and read social cues, tendency to be oppositional or uncooperative, inability to learn from mistakes, inability to complete routine tasks, tendency to be unresponsive to rewards, susceptibility to peer pressure; gullibility; difficulty with self-entertainment, and appearing to be lazy or unmotivated; (4) behavioral difficulties:

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repeated rule-breaking, trouble with the law, inappropriate sexual behavior, alcohol and other drug problems, employment problems, and difficulty staying in school. In addition to the difficulties associated with having FASDs, children and adults with these diagnoses have an array of strengths. With early diagnosis and treatment, good care, and positive life conditions (such as stable homes and good quality parental and family care), those with FASDs can be hardworking, helpful, friendly, verbal, and willing to meet the challenges they face. Early intervention is critical to improving the development of those with FASDs, and the period from birth to 3 years is especially important. Useful treatments include speech, physical, behavioral, and occupational therapies, and special education. Additional information on FASDs can be found from various U.S. DSSH agencies including Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, as well as the March of Dimes, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. See Also: Addiction and Substance Abuse; Birth Defects, Envioronmental Factors and; Fertility. Further Readings Armstrong, Elizabeth M. Conceiving Risk Bearing Responsibility: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome & the Diagnosis of Moral Disorder. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Schroedel, Jean Reith. Is the Fetus a Person? A Comparison of Policies Across the Fifty States, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. Stratton, Kathleen, Cynthia Howe, and Frederick C. Battaglia, eds. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Diagnosis, Epidemiology, Prevention, and Treatment. Washington, DC: Committee to Study Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Institute of Medicine, 1996. Thomas, Sue, Lisa Rickert, and Carol Cannon. “The Meaning, Status, and Future of Reproductive Autonomy: The Case of Alcohol Use During Pregnancy.” UCLA Women’s Law Journal. v.15/41 (2006). Sue Thomas Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation

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Fiber Arts, Women in Fiber art today differs from its centuries-old origin in the domestic, utilitarian, and decorative field created primarily by women (e.g., fabric, clothing, and household necessities). The industrial revolution, manufacturing, marketing, and an abundance of consumer goods lessened the burden of the need for spinning, weaving, or carpet and basket making production in the home. What it did not do was to eliminate the innate aesthetic creativity of some women. Because of the long-standing belief in women’s inferiority, and inability to produce innovative works of art, women’s association with the decorative and the utilitarian aspects of craft, the so-called lesser arts, such as fiber art, were considered less important than fine art (i.e., painting and sculpture). During the 20th century, this viewpoint gave impetus to the creation of separate museums for craft, and more specifically textile art museums, and even guilds for fiber artists, and international exhibitions. In recent years, a reversal of opinion both about women’s abilities and about the place of craft in the overall picture of the arts has surfaced. New Methods and Materials Beginning in the 1960s, but especially since the 21st century, fiber artists have utilized new methods and materials that encouraged museums, galleries, and collectors to accept fiber art as a form of fine art. The traditional materials and methods of fiber art—weaving, embroidery, collage, quilting, and couching using fabrics such as cotton, linen, and wool on a flat twodimensional surface—have been creatively expanded to include works of art as three-dimensional sculptural objects. The increasing interaction between artists and cultures through travel and the Internet have spread knowledge about materials and methods used elsewhere—for example, the incorporation of metal and wood, or Haitian knotting techniques, or Chinese yarn wrapping in work that is primarily considered fiber art. Experiments with knitting and crocheting with unusual materials such as wire; the use of synthetic threads in weaving and embroidery; incorporating screen prints, photography, Xerox transfers, leather, grass, birch bark, bamboo, rubber bands, nails, and a variety of detritus reflects the willingness on the part of artists, exhibition judges, and collectors to accept the possibilities of a new aesthetic.

Color is a large component in the work of many fiber artists who sometimes dye their material to suit their purpose. For some that means vibrant colors; for others it means more neutral, subdued, or even somber colors depending on the intended mood of the piece. Words as surface decoration or embedded in various ways, including but not exclusively utilizing a variety of materials and methods also form messages of encouragement or urge activism for causes. More than decorative, some art is propaganda, a crossover addition from popular culture as well as socalled fine art in other media. One area of fiber art not generally included in museum collections (other than ethnographic or anthropological) is art to wear, better known as “wearable art.” Couture is collected by museums but not wearable art, which may actually have more to do with fashion than with fiber art. Both fashion and wearable art have their roots in the 19th century Arts and Crafts Movement. Wearable art artists today, however, tend to be more interested in the textile than the finished garment. Even though exhibitions and sales of wearable art are generally separate from fiber art exhibitions and sales, they both are part of the fiber art movement. Although both men and women create works designated as fiber art, it is an art primarily dominated by women. Exhibitions Exhibitions, such as Fiber Arts International, held triennially in the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts by the Society for Contemporary Craft, have increasingly drawn exhibitors from across the world. In 2007, fiber artists from 18 countries were represented: Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Wales, and the United States. This is in contrast to only 10 years earlier, when only eight countries were represented. Because of the interdisciplinary nature and use of mixed media in many works designated as fiber art, the role of traditional techniques such as weaving and surface decoration in two-dimensional works of art, no longer constitute the primary criteria for judging fiber art. By using aesthetic judgment in color, texture, and composition and strong individuality of design the innovative artist can avoid conventional forms. As more museums recognize that fiber art is part of the cultural representation of an age of expanding ideas,

Fields of Study



the more fiber artists can help redefine what constitutes fine art in postmodern times. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); National Museum of Women in the Arts; Studio Arts, Women in. Further Readings Artspan. “Introduction to Fiber Arts.” http://www.artspan .com/fiber-arts (accessed June 2010). Editors of Creative Publishing. Exploring Textile Arts. Minneapolis: Creative Publishing International, 2002. Kieffer. S. M. Fiberarts Design Book 7. New York: Lark Books, 2004.

Connie Koppelman State University of New York, Stony Brook

Fields of Study Women have become the majority of students in higher education in many countries, and have closed but not eliminated gender segregation within fields of study or majors. Women students still comprise a minority in nontraditional fields of study, such as business, engineering, information technology, mathematics, and the physical sciences, but have enjoyed larger percentage gains in many of these fields than men due to their previous underrepresentation. Gender stereotypes and gendered educational experiences that limit choice of fields of study show up early in the educational process and have lasting impacts. Gender inequities within fields of study can have long reaching impacts on career opportunities, earnings, and composition of the labor force. Women have attained much greater access to higher education since the mid- to late-20th century. Women comprise the majority of undergraduate students and degree recipients at the college and university level, and held higher grade point averages and other measures of achievement in many countries. According to the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, women received 57 percent of U.S. bachelor’s degrees awarded in the 2004–05 academic year. In Europe, women comprise 56 percent of all higher education graduates, but

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are a minority of graduates in the sciences and other male-dominated fields. The percentages are even lower in many low-income and developing countries. Despite the achievement of gender parity in enrollment and completion rates, however, fields of study and majors pursued remained segregated by gender although the gap has narrowed since the mid20th century. The 2001 U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that the gender gap in enrollment and performance in nontraditional fields such as science has been eliminated at the lower educational levels, but reappears and widens at higher educational levels. Gender inequities in fields of study and career paths grow larger higher up the educational ladder, in what some researchers have termed the “shrinking pipeline.” Gender segregation in fields of study can be found in both academic and professional (trade or vocational) education. Female-dominated academic fields of study include the humanities, the fine and performing arts, education, foreign languages, literature, professional fields, and social and life sciences, while male-dominated fields of study include business, engineering, mathematics, information technology, and the physical sciences. Female-dominated vocational fields of study include family and consumer sciences (home economics), clerical and general office work, and beauty careers, such as cosmetology and hairdressing. Maledominated vocational fields of study include industrial, mechanical, and construction fields. U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) statistics show that in 2005, women comprised 22 percent of U.S. bachelor’s degrees in computer science (information technology), 43 percent of U.S. bachelor’s degrees in the physical sciences, and 45 percent of U.S. bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and statistics. The percentages of female majors in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics drop even further at the graduate levels. Women also experienced the drop in majors that occurred among all students, beginning in the late 20th century, within education, the social sciences, and liberal arts, and the rise in majors within engineering and business. Women in engineering and business experienced even more dramatic percentage gains than men due to their previous relative absence in these fields of study, although they still remain minorities in these majors. Some of these gains have

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been lost, however, in the early 21st century. The percentages for female mathematics, statistics, and computer science bachelor’s degree recipients in the United States all showed declines in that period. A student’s field of study is one of the prime determinants of their skills, career opportunities, and choices, as well as their earnings and career success potentials, which can have a cumulative lifetime effect on financial welfare. Research has linked the narrowed gender gap in fields of study with narrowing gender pay gaps in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The distribution of women in fields of study also correlates with their distribution in the workforce, with many male-dominated fields of study leading the way toward male-dominated careers in those fields. Women’s improved access and enrollment in nontraditional fields of study that have historically held better salaries can translate into better future financial security. See Also: Attainment, College Degree; Community Colleges; Education, Women in; Professional Education. Further Readings Adamuti-Trache, Maria and Robert Sweet. “Vocational Training Choices of Women: Public and Private Colleges.” Gender and Education, v.20/2 (2008). Adamuti-Trache, Maria and L. Andres. “Embarking on and Persisting in Scientific Fields of Study: Cultural Capital, Gender, and Curriculum along the Science Pipeline.” International Journal of Science Education, v.30/12 (2008). American Association of University Women. http://www .aauw.org (accessed July 2010). Biklen, Sari Knopp and Diane Pollard. Gender and Education. Chicago: NSSE, University of Chicago Press, 1993. DeWandre, N. “Women in Science: European Strategies for Promoting Women in Science.” Science, v.295 (2002). Gabel, Dorothy. Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning. New York: Macmillan, 1994. International Rescue Committee. “Assessment Report on Female Enrollment in Technical and Vocational Training, Particularly in Non-Traditional Occupations for Women.” (2009). http://legacyinitiative.net/pubs /TVET_final.pdf (accessed July 2010). James, Abigail Norfleet. Teaching the Female Brain: How Girls Learn Math and Science. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2009.

McWhirter, Ellen. “Perceived Barriers to Education and Career: Ethnic and Gender Differences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, v.50/ 1 (1997). Solomon, Barbara Miller. In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Figure Skating Ice skating originated in Europe, but American Jackson Haines (1840–75) was the first to combine ice skating with dance in the 1860s. Haines’s international style of figure skating became immediately popular in Europe and America by the 1900s. The International Skating Union (ISU) formed in 1892 for men’s competition, adding an event for ladies in 1906, pairs in 1908, and ice dancing in 1952. World War I interrupted the advance of figure skating, but the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA) formed in 1921, fueling the development of ice skating as a competitive sport. Champions like Sonja Henie pioneered professional skating in tours and movies from the 1920s. Each generation of figure skaters has added new elements, increased difficulty levels, and innovation to the artistry and athleticism of the sport. The center of the sport has shifted several times. European skaters dominated competition prior to the World Wars, after which North American skaters triumphed in the 1950s. In 1961, an American figure skating team and their coaches died in a plane crash while traveling to the World Championships in Prague. Consequently, the Soviet Union dominated figure skating, particularly pairs skating and ice dancing. A Russian team won the gold at every Winter Olympic Games from 1964 until 2006, one of the longest winning streaks in all of sports history. American skaters continue to compete well, but many of skating’s rising stars are South Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. Olympic Skating Skating has four Olympic disciplines: singles, pair skating, ice dancing, and synchronized skating. Jumping is the most athletic element of figure skat-



American figure skater Caroline Zhang performing her short program during the Eric Bompard Trophy competition in 2008.

ing. There are six jumps: salchow, toe loop, loop, flip, lutz, and axel. Elite skaters may use transitional jumps to add difficulty to their programs, and sometimes jumps are performed in combination. Typically, individual female skaters perform triple jumps and double axels, though Midori Ito, Tonya Harding, and Mao Asada have landed triple axels in competition. Individual ladies have only recently consistently performed triple lutzes, and few perform triple– triple combinations. Individual men may complete several triple–triple combinations, with a handful performing quadruple salchows or toe loops. Spins are some of the most difficult elements of figure skating because of the balance and edge control they require. There are three basic spin positions: sit spin, camel spin, and upright spins, though many variations of these basic positions exist. Flying spins begin through a jump and land in a spin. Some spins may transition the outside to the inside edge during

Figure Skating

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the spin, considered a change of edge spin. Spin combinations may transition through several positions and switch spinning directions. Pair skaters can spin side by side, or may hold on to each other, spinning around the same axis. Footwork, or step, sequences are a series of edge patterns that follow a straight, circular, or three-ring pattern. All four Olympic disciplines require footwork sequences in competition. Many skaters use short footwork sequences to transition between elements. Perhaps the most famous figure skating element, the spiral, refers to a skater gliding on one foot, the other leg extended above the head. American ladies figure skating competitors are world-renowned for their exceptional spirals, often lifting to an almost perfect splits position. Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, and Sasha Cohen are particularly known for their exquisite flexibility and grace. Skaters may use weights, yoga, plyometrics, and cardio training for off-ice conditioning. A typical training schedule for an elite skater includes several hours of on- and off-ice daily training. Many training rinks have created academies on site for skaters’ education. Elite skaters may pay more than $700 per week for training. Icenetwork.com, an affiliate of the USFSA, has advanced skater training by giving skaters access to videos of all levels of figure skating competition and professional exhibitions, allowing skaters to learn from each other and monitor their competition. Skating has also advanced significantly because of improved equipment, primarily through the development of lighter and tougher skating boots and blades. Figure skating costumes resemble theatrical costumes, and lightweight, well-designed costumes are preferred. Elite skaters may spend between $700 and $10,000 on their costumes. For training, skaters have adopted specialty fabrics for cold-weather sports that are thin, warm, and sweat resistant. Judging Competitive Skating Historically, skaters have been judged by a subjective 6.0 system. After a Franco–Russian collusion in pair skating competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics, the ISU instituted an international judging system (IJS). A technical specialist names each completed element and determines its base value through reviewing elements for correctness. The judges assign a Grade of

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Execution of plus or minus three points, based on their evaluation of each move. Every judging panel includes one alternate judge in case cheating is suspected. A recent phenomenon in competitive skating is the multinational competitor. For instance, 2010 Olympic Gold Medalist Kim Yu-Na competes for her native South Korea, but trains in Canada. Many Russian and Canadian skaters train in the United States. The ISU allows pair or dance teams to compete for a country if one team skater is a citizen. Many skaters who cannot find pairs or ice dancing partners domestically recruit internationally or skate for another country to improve their chances of winning. Skaters may be considered either amateurs or professionals. As long as skaters receive no compensation for their skating, they are amateur and eligible for competition. When skaters choose to become professionals, they may tour with a professional show or become coaches. The historic Ice Capades has been replaced with the Stars on Ice tour, produced by Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic, and typically features Olympic medalists and national and world champions. Kristi Yamaguchi, Katarina Witt, Michelle Kwan, Sasha Cohen, and Evan Lysacek are some of the most recent Stars on Ice headliners. There are also dozens of regional ice shows, as well as shows affiliated with amusement parks and cruise lines. Some skaters have toured professionally and later returned to competition, including Michelle Kwan, Todd Eldredge, and Sasha Cohen. Challenges and Successes for Female Skaters While the rigorous training schedule for figure skaters keeps them in excellent condition, many female skaters have struggled with body weight. Dorothy Hamil, Elaine Zayak, Rosalyn Sumners, Nicole Bobek, Nancy Kerrigan, and Oksana Baiul have all made public statements about their struggles with body weight, including anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders. While figure skaters have no weight requirements, the unspoken rule is that thinner is better, particularly for women. In the early 1990s, many coaches were removed from the USFSA for administering pills that delayed the onset of puberty, keeping their skaters at prepubescent, aerodynamically low body weights. Now, competitors endure mandatory drug screenings that somewhat deter unhealthy dieting habits. Advances in nutritional science have produced performance foods for athletes that provide

needed energy and nutrition in a healthy way. However, among young, aspiring skaters, managing body weight remains one of the concerns for those who are serious about the sport, and many girls face pressure to maintain a certain body weight, primarily pressure from coaches, at a very young age. Women have made an indelible mark upon figure skating. In the 1960s and 1970s, Irina Rodnina transformed the roles of women skaters in pair skating. Kristi Yamaguchi marked the transition from the graceful ladies’ skating of Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming into modern, athletic figure skating, combining the best of both styles; she also resembled Sonja Henie in her extended professional figure skating career. Katarina Witt is the only woman to have won two consecutive Olympic gold medals, and Irina Rodnina and Sonja Henie each won three. Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding made international headlines during the 1994 Winter Olympics. Harding’s boyfriend arranged for someone to strike one of Kerrigan’s knees with a crow bar in hope of eliminating Harding’s competition. The USFSA named Kerrigan, Harding, and Kwan to the 1994 Olympic team. Harding gave a disappointing performance, while Kerrigan gave one of the best in her career, only to place second behind the newcomer Ukranian sensation, Oksana Baiul. The Harding-Kerrigan scandal rocketed competitive figure skating to be one of the top-rated broadcast sports. After the Olympics, Harding was found guilty of conspiring to injure Kerrigan and was banned from the USFSA. Michelle Kwan, one of the most successful ladies’ figure skaters of all time, eventually broke every competitive record for American female skaters, including most national and world titles. Though never a gold medal winner, Kwan’s legacy of performance and skating excellence has paved the way for today’s ladies to strive to match or top her performance, grace, and athleticism. One innovator is Miki Ondo, who has advanced the athleticism in ladies’ figure skating when she was the first woman to land big triple–triple combinations and a quadruple jump. Kim Yu-Na may become the best ladies’ figure skater of all time because of her athleticism, impeccable technique, and exquisite performing ability. See Also: Kim, Yu-Na; Olympics, Winter; Sports, Women in; Sports Officials, Female.

Fiji

Further Readings Hines, James R. Figure Skating: A History. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Kestnbaum, Ellyn. Culture on Ice: Figure Skating and Cultural Meaning. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003. Petkevich, John Misha. Sports Illustrated Figure Skating: Championship Techniques. New York: Time, 1989. Courtney Lyons Baylor University

Fiji The Republic of the Fiji Islands is located in the Pacific Ocean. The population is multicultural, with the two main groups consisting of ethnic and IndoFijians. The largest religions are Christian, Hindu, and Muslim. Traditional gender roles are still emphasized, although increased urbanization is eroding many traditional ways of life. Women enjoy full constitutional rights, but have limited leadership roles. Fiji ranked 103rd of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Most people choose their own spouse, and the traditional practice of polygany is no longer common. The 2009 fertility rate was 2.8 births per woman. Skilled healthcare practitioners attend almost all births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 16 per 1,000 live births, and the maternal mortality rate was 210 per 100,000 live births. Employers provide women with 84 days of paid maternity leave. The government has also begun family planning programs. Divorce and remarriage are both acceptable and common.The traditional role of Fiji women is that of wife, homemaker, and mother, and obedience to her husband is expected. Nuclear families are increasingly common in urban areas, while extended families predominate in rural areas. Single-parent female-headed households are increasing. The husband’s place as head of household is reinforced by cultural practices such as serving him first at meals. Domestic violence, incest, and rape rates are high. Fijians publicly socialize by gender. Some rural IndoFijians also maintain traditional domestic gender segregation. Education is not compulsory, but children are

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guaranteed access through secondary school. Female school attendance rates stand at 91 percent at the primary level, and 83 percent at the secondary level, but only 17 percent at the tertiary level. There is a slight gender gap between male and female literacy rates, which stand at 92 percent and 96 percent, respectively. Both Western-style and traditional forms of medicine are utilized. Problems include rising poverty levels, crime and juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, unwanted pregnancies, and inadequate healthcare. Life expectancy is age 61 for women and 57 for men. While men are the primary wage earners, many females work to supplement family income. 41 percent of women work, comprising 30 percent of paid nonagricultural workers and 9 percent of professional and technical workers. Women are employed in mostly low-paying jobs, such as in foreign-owned garment factories. Females comprise at least half of teachers through the secondary levels. Other employment for women includes healthcare, artisan crafts, and agriculture. Females cannot legally work in mining. A gender gap still exists in the average estimated earned income at $2,967 for women and $6,079 for men and unemployment rates, which stand at 5.9 percent for women and 4.1 percent for men. Women have the right to vote; however, women hold only 11 percent of parliamentary seats and 8 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. The National Council of Women, Women’s Action for Change, and the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement are among the organizations that represent women’s issues. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Sweatshops. Further Readings Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Jones, Sharyn. Food and Gender in Fiji: Ethnoarchaeological Explorations. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009. World Health Organization. “Fiji.” http://www.who.int /countries/fji/en (accessed July 2010). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

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Film Actors, Female Female film actors have been important participants in the movie industry since its inception, and have made significant contributions both on- and offscreen. Silent film icon and “America’s Sweetheart” Mary Pickford (1892–1979) was one of the most influential female actors. She co-founded the United Artists Studio and was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Pickford’s immense popularity changed the very notion of film acting as a specific art, rather than filmed theater. She also used her star power to advocate for causes such as Liberty Bonds. Pickford also created charities for impoverished actors, thus exemplifying the historical, cultural, and political importance as well as the impact of leading female film actors. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, female film actors have continued humanitarian work. Oscarwinning Angelina Jolie (1974– ) is well known for her global humanitarian initiatives, particularly on behalf of impoverished and/or displaced women and children, refugees, and asylum seekers from war-torn countries. Jolie was named a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Goodwill Ambassador in 2001. Sophia Loren (1934– ) also served as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Film actors appointed as United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill Ambassadors include Angela Bassett (1958– ), Audrey Hepburn (1929–93), Mia Farrow (1945–), Whoopi Goldberg (1955–), Jessica Lange (1949– ), Lucy Liu (1968– ), Vanessa Redgrave (1937– ), Susan Sarandon (1946– ), and Liv Tyler (1977– ). Nicole Kidman (1967– ) is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Australia. Other film actors known for their controversial activism include Jane Fonda (1937– ), Vanessa Redgrave (1937– ), and Sharon Stone (1958– ). Brigitte Bardot (1934– ) has created controversy as a zealous activist for animal rights. Powerful Cultural Icons Female film actors are visible and powerful cultural arbiters of the modern era, whose legacies continue to influence generations of spectators, often long after their deaths. Among the various examples, Marilyn Monroe (1926–62), is one of the greatest iconic sex symbols. Others include Bardot, Jean Harlow

(1911–37), Jayne Mansfield (1933–67), Lana Turner (1921–95), and Mae West (1893–1980). Renowned for their impeccable grace, elegance, and near-regal demeanor are Ingrid Bergman (1925–82), Catherine Deneuve (1943– ), Greta Garbo (1905–90), Grace Kelly (1929–82)—who became a princess upon her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco—Audrey Hepburn, and Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003). Deneuve was chosen to represent the French Republic as Marianne, the national symbol of France. Her face and bust decorated all the city halls throughout France from 1985–89, a particularly important time, as it was during the bicentennial of the French Revolution (1789). In 1999, the American Film Institute released its list of the top 50 (25 male and 25 female) stars of U.S. cinema. According to the list, the top 25 female stars are ranked as follows: Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Grace Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Mae West, Vivien Leigh, Lillian Gish, Shirley Temple, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, Sophia Loren, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Ava Gardner. In receiving worldwide recognition, many female film actors have broken gender, race, and age barriers as well as those of nationality. Hattie McDaniel (1895–1952) was the first African American to win an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Wind, 1939). Jessica Tandy (1909–94), at age 80, was the oldest female actor awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress (Driving Miss Daisy, 1989). Simone Signoret (1921–85) was the first French person to win an Oscar (Best Actress for 1959’s Room at the Top). The first female actor to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance was Sophia Loren (for Two Women in 1962). Vanessa Redgrave is one of only 12 performers to win an actor’s Triple Crown: the Oscar (for Julia, 1977); the Emmy for Playing for Time (1981) and If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000); and the Tony for Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2003). She is also the only British female actor to have won the Cannes, Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar, Screen Actors Guild, and Tony awards. In 1983, Linda Hunt (1945– ) became the first person to win an Academy Award for playing a character of the opposite sex when she won the Best Supporting



Actress Oscar for her performance as Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously. Mary Louise “Meryl” Streep (1949– ) holds the record for most Academy Award nominations of any actor (16 nominations since 1979) and is the most nominated actor for the Golden Globe, with 25 nominations. Moreover, Streep’s 2010 win for Julie and Julia has secured her the most overall Golden Globes won by any actor. In April 2010, Streep was the first actor inaugurated as an honorary member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. Demi Moore (1962– ) was the first actress to be paid $10 million for her voiceover role in the animated 1996 Hunchback of Notre Dame. Tatum O’Neal (1963– ), at age 10, became the youngest actor to win an Academy Award, the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Paper Moon (1974). In 2001, Halle Berry (1966– ) became the first and only woman of African American descent to win the Oscar for Best Actress for Monster’s Ball. Kate Winslet (1975– ) is the youngest female actor to have been nominated for two Academy Awards, at age 20 and 22, respectively, for Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Titantic (1997). Winslet is the youngest actor to have received six Academy Award nominations. Compensation Equality Although leading female film actors have made big strides in pay equality with their male counterparts,on the whole females are outpaced by males. A notable exception is Julia Roberts (1967– ), the highest grossing actress. According to Vanity Fair’s list of the highest paid actors in Hollywood in 2009, only two women, Cameron Diaz (1972– ) and Emma Watson (1990– ), were included in the top 20. In 2009, Reese Witherspoon (1976– ) was the only female actor in the Top 10 of the Ulmer Scale (which measures overall “star power,” based on bankability). The complex dynamics of the female film actor– male director relationship is legendary. Many female actors have become the muses as well as often the romantic partners of their male directors: examples include Roger Vadim and his wives Brigitte Bardot, Annette Vadim (1936–2005) and Jane Fonda; Danishborn Anna Karina (1940– ) inspired Jean-Luc Godard; and Gong Li (1965– ), was often cast in leading roles by Zhang Yimou, including his Ju Dou (1989), the first film from China to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

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See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Celebrity Women; Film Production, Women in; Trotta, Margarethe von; United Kingdom; United States. Further Readings Holston, Kim. Starlet: Biographies, Filmographies, TV Credits and Photos of 54 Famous and Not So Famous Leading Ladies of the Sixties. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Classics, 2000. Jordan, Jessica Hope. The Sex Goddess in American film, 1930–1965: Jean Harlow, Mae West, Lana Turner, and Jayne Mansfield. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2009. Majumdar, Neepa. Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!: Female Stardom and Cinema in India, 1930s–1950s. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009. McCann, Bob. Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Menefee, David. The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. Negra, Diane. Off-White Hollywood: American Culture and Ethnic Female Stardom. London: Routledge, 2001. Stoila, Tytti, ed. Stellar Encounters: Stardom in Popular European Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. Vincendeau, Ginette. Stars and Stardom in French Cinema. London; New York: Continuum, 2000. Willis, Andy. Film Stars: Hollywood and Beyond. New York: Palgrave, 2004. Marcelline Block Princeton University

Film Directors, Female: Europe The contributions of European female film directors have been central to the development of the film industry, both in Europe and in Hollywood. La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy, 1896)—what is considered the first narrative film of all time—was directed by Parisian-born Alice Guy Blaché (1873–1968). Blaché became a pioneering filmmaker in the United States, developing the East Coast film industry, heading a production company, and working as a director, writer, and/or producer of over 700 films. Blaché’s protégée, the American Lois Weber (1881–1939), was the first

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woman to direct a feature-length film, The Merchant of Venice (1914). Although she stopped making films in 1922, the French government awarded Blaché the Legion of Honor in 1953. The first comprehensive retrospective devoted to Blaché’s life and work was held at the Whitney Museum in New York City from November 2009 to January 2010, and was organized by Joan Simon. Not only was the first narrative film made by a European woman director, but the first female director ever nominated for the Academy Award for Achievement in Directing also hailed from Europe— Swiss-Italian director Lina Wertmüller (1928– )—for the film Seven Beauties (1976). French and French-Speaking Directors Along with Blaché, some of the most renowned European female film directors are from France or Frenchspeaking countries, including Germaine Dulac (1882–1942), whose experimental silent films include her 1922 The Smiling Madame Beudet, which is generally considered one of the original feminist feature films; her film The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) is considered the first surrealist film. Another significant independent and avant-garde French-language female filmmaker writer and director was Marguerite Duras (1914–96), born in French Indochina near Saigon, whose best-known film is perhaps Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), for which she wrote the screenplay (the film itself was directed by Alain Resnais). Duras, however, wrote and directed 14 feature films and numerous shorts, the most well known of which are Nathalie Granger (1972), La Femme du Gange (1974), India Song (1975), and Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta Désert (1976). Duras’s films explore the female psyche by radically experimenting with the cinematic medium itself, which has been commented on extensively by Gilles Deleuze, among other critics. Agnès Varda, another pivotal and prolific figure in European cinema, was born in Brussels in 1928 and began making films in 1954, beginning with La pointe courte, which is considered a predecessor to the French New Wave. Indeed, Varda’s moniker is “the mother [or grandmother] of the French New Wave”— a somewhat dubious title, as the New Wave itself is marked for its noticeable lack of female directors. At the 63rd Cannes Film Festival in May 2010, Varda was be honored by the Society of Film Directors’ Carrosse

d’Or (“Golden Coach”)—the lifetime achievement award given to legendary filmmakers, and one of the most prestigious awards for film directing. Similar to Varda, Chantal Akerman (1950– ) was born in Belgium. Akerman made her groundbreaking, epic film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) when she was 25 years old. Jeanne Dielman is considered the first masterpiece of feminist filmmaking and employed an all-female crew. This movie revolutionized filmmaking by liberating its female protagonist from the oppressive and dominant “male gaze,” about which British director and feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey (1941– ) wrote in her article, now a classic of feminist film theory, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” This article was published in the British film journal Screen the same year as the release of Jeanne Dielman. Mulvey is a filmmaker as well as a critic, and her films, made with her husband, Peter Wollen, mark a break with conventional filmmaking and include, among others, Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), which reimagines the Oedipus myth from a female perspective. Along with Mulvey, groundbreaking female directors from the United Kingdom include Sally Potter (1949– ), whose critically acclaimed Orlando (1992) was based on Virginia Woolf ’s classic novel. In 2010, Potter was awarded the Salento International Film Festival’s Director award for “visionary achievement in cinema” at a ceremony in London. Continental Directors Continental European female film directors include the German-born Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003)— an innovative documentary filmmaker whose best known work, Triumph of the Will (1934), a Nazi propaganda film, brought her lifelong international fame as well as infamy because of her personal ties to Hitler. Riefenstahl was arrested after World War II (although released without being charged). Berlin-born Helke Sander (1937– ) founded Frauen und Film, the first European feminist film journal, in 1974 (International Women’s Year). The avant-garde films of German-born Ulrike Ottinger (1942– ) are often held in contrast to her male counterparts in New German Cinema, such as Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Werner Herzog. Margarethe von Trotta (1942– ), who acted in many of Fassbinder’s films, is a member of the New German



Cinema movement and is considered the most prominent female filmmaker working in Germany. Von Trotta is perhaps best known for The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), which she cowrote and codirected with her then-husband, Volker Schlöndorff. The openly lesbian German filmmaker Monika Treut (1954– ) is best known for her 1985 Seduction: The Cruel Woman, which is about sadomasochism. Leontine Sagan (1889–1974), although born in Budapest, was an Austrian actor and director who was best known for Mädchen in Uniform (1931), which she directed with Carl Froelich. This controversial, antifascist film, with an all-female cast, is considered the first openly pro-lesbian film and was initially banned in the United States. The Austrian feminist performance artist known as VALIE EXPORT (born in 1940 as Waltraud Lehner) challenges the concept of cinema as a form of female objectification with her Tap and Touch Cinema, performed throughout Europe from 1968 to 1971, as well as by publicly disrupting a pornography theater in Munich by overtaking it in her 1969 Action Pants: Genital Panic. Antonia’s Line (1995), by outspoken feminist director Marleen Gorris (born in 1948 in the Netherlands), won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film. Antonia’s Line depicts a matriarchal community in a small Dutch village over a 40-year period and is described by Gorris as a “feminist fairy tale.” In Italy, Elvia Notari (1875–1946) was the first female film director, and her work is considered a precursor to Italian neorealism. Liliana Cavani (1937– ) is best known for her highly controversial and transgressive film Il Portiere di Notte (The Night Porter), which explores themes of sadomasochim set within the context of the Holocaust and its aftermath. Eastern European Maya Deren (1917–61), although born in Kiev, became a major figure of American avant-garde filmmaking. Her Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is one of the most acclaimed and influential avant-garde films of all time. Europa Europa (1990), by Polish director Agnieszka Holland (1948– ), won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. In Scandinavia, Swedish director Mai Zetterling (1925–94) made controversial films such as such as Loving Couples (1964) and Night Games (1966), which frankly depicted sexuality, causing them to be banned from film festivals.

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Notable current European female directors include, among others, Algerian-born French Nicole Garcia (1946– ); Catherine Breillat and Claire Denis, who were both born in France in 1948; Indian British director Pratibha Parmar (1955– ); French-Algerian Yamina Benguigui (1957– ); Anne Fontaine (1959– ) of France; Isabel Coixet (1960– ) of Spain; Agnès Jaoui (1964– ) of France; African British Ngozi Onwurah (1964– ); and Asia Argento (1975– ), daughter of the Italian horror master director Dario Argento. See Also: Coppola, Sofia; Film Directors, Female: Latin America; Film Directors, Female: United States; Film Production, Women in; Trotta, Margarethe von; Guerrilla Girls; Stereotypes of Women; von Trotta, Margarethe; Women Make Movies. Further Readings Acker, Ally. Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1986 to the Present. New York: Continuum, 1991. Bell, Melanie and Melanie Williams. British Women’s Cinema. London: Routledge, 2010. Beugnet, Martine. Claire Denis. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004. Block, Marcelline, ed. Situating the Feminist Gaze and Spectatorship in Postwar Cinema. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2008. Cheu, Hoi F. Cinematic Howling: Women’s Films, Women’s Film Theories. Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press, 2007. Ferrán, Ofelia and Kathleen M. Glenn, eds. Women’s Narrative and Film in Twentieth-Century Spain: A World of Difference(s). London: Routledge, 2002. Linville, Susan E. Feminism, Film, Fascism: Women’s Auto/biographical Film in Postwar Germany. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. Quart, Barbara K. Women Directors: The Emergence of a New Cinema. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1988. Redding, Judith and A. Victoria. Brownworth. Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors. Seattle, WA: Seal, 1997. Sullivan, Kaye. Films for, by, and About Women. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1979. Weber-Feve, Stacey. Re-Hybridizing Transnational Domesticity and Femininity: Women’s Contemporary Filmmaking and Lifewriting in France, Algeria, and Tunisia. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. Marcelline Block Princeton University

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Film Directors, Female: International During the 82nd annual Academy Awards on March 7, 2010, Kathryn Bigelow (1951– ) became the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Achievement in Directing for her 2008 The Hurt Locker, a film that also received the award for Best Picture, the first time a film directed by a woman has received this honor. Bigelow’s historic achievement—which took place during Women’s History Month, and on the eve of International Woman’s Day—is perhaps the most significant accolade bestowed on a female director. Moreover, Bigelow is the first woman to win all three major directing awards—the Academy, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and the Directors Guild of America (DGA)—for the same film. In receiving the highest award from the Hollywood establishment, the Columbia-educated Bigelow never lost sight of her intellectual and feminist background and coming of age during the heyday of semiotics in the late 1970s and early 1980s: Bigelow’s first film, The Setup (1978), features a voice-over by the Columbia professor and semiotician Sylvère Lotringer, who deconstructs the onscreen images of men fighting. Bigelow was involved with Lotringer’s Semiotext(e), the journal and publishing house, contributing to its 1980 Polysexuality issue. Bigelow also acted in Lizzie Borden’s (1958– ) groundbreaking Born in Flames (1983), which has since become a classic of feminist and women’s cinema. The wideranging scope of Bigelow’s oeuvre often treats traditionally male-dominated genres—including horror (Near Dark, 1987), action/adventure (Point Break, 1991), and war (K-19: The Widowmaker, 2002)—thus challenging prevailing assumptions about female directing and filmmaking (such as what types of films female directors make) as well as the social construction of femininity itself. While Bigelow’s Oscars and other recognition for directing The Hurt Locker are certainly triumphs for female film directors and the film industry in general, they also highlight the lack of interest for women’s contributions to the male-dominated world of film directing. Indeed, before Bigelow, only three women were ever nominated for the Oscar for directing: the Italian Lina Wertmüller (1928– ), who in 1976 was the

first woman director nominated for her Seven Beauties; Jane Campion (born in 1954 in New Zealand), for The Piano (1993); and the U.S. director Sofia Coppola (1971– ), for Lost in Translation (2003). Gender Disparity in Field of Directing While Bigelow’s historic victory demonstrates that significant strides are being made by women film directors in their long struggle—both in Hollywood and elsewhere—for recognition and standing on par with their male counterparts, much work remains to be done to achieve gender equality in the field of directing. In 2009, 7 percent of directors were women, a 2 percent decrease from 2008 and a figure that shows no change since 1987, according to Martha M. Lauzen, a professor at San Diego State University, in her annual study of female employment in the top 250 films. According to Lauzen, the percentage of women directors has been decreasing in the early years of the 21st century: from 7 percent in 2002, 6 percent in 2003, 4 percent in 2004 (although this represents an increase from the statistics of the DGA, which found that in 1983, 3 percent of film directors were female). The higher the film’s budget, the less likely for it to be directed by a woman: according to Stacy Smith of the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California, of the 100 highest-grossing films of 2007, only 2.7 percent of the directors were women. Indeed, only one film franchise, 2008’s Twilight—grossing over $385 million— was directed by U.S. director Catherine Hardwicke (1955– ). Twilight’s opening was the biggest weekend ever for a film directed by a woman. Yet, Hardwicke was not reinstated for the sequels in this series, the second film of which, New Moon (2009), was in fact directed by male director Chris Weitz. However grim these statistics may seem, they do not necessarily reflect the full scope of the role women directors have played historically and globally in the film industry. Indeed, the very first narrative film, La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy, 1896) was directed by a woman, Parisian-born Alice Guy Blaché (1873–1968). Blaché became a pioneering filmmaker in the United States, developing the East Coast film industry, heading a production company, and working as a director, writer, and/or producer of more than 700 films. Blaché was an initiator of narrative film and an innovator of special effects



techniques. Although she stopped making films in 1922, the French government awarded her the Legion of Honor in 1953. Lois Weber (1881–1939), Blaché’s protegée, was the first woman to direct a featurelength film, The Merchant of Venice (1914). While Weber would eventually become the highest paid female director of her era, she died in poverty and was completely forgotten. In Hollywood, women directors blossomed in the silent film era only to see their influence and standing drastically reduced with the advent of the talking pictures and after the Hays Code of 1929, with the notable exception of Dorothy Arzner (1897–1979), whose career as a director flourished from the 1920s until she stopped making films in 1943. Another major female director of the classic Hollywood era, British-born Ida Lupino (1918–95), gained momentum in the 1940s. Among other initiatives, she was the first woman to direct a noir film, The Hitchhiker (1953). Lupino’s Outrage (1950) was the first Hollywood studio film directed by a woman since Arzner stopped directing. After Lupino’s 1966 The Trouble With Angels, the first Hollywood studio film directed by a woman would be Elaine May’s (1932– ) The Heartbreak Kid in 1972. Women Directors Gain Success in Independent, Art House, and Avant-Garde Films Women have gained much ground in directing independent, art house, and avant-garde films, often flourishing artistically outside of the male-dominated studio system with films not necessarily intended for mass audiences and/or distribution. Germaine Dulac (1882–1942) was an experimental French director; her 1922 film The Smiling Madame Beudet is generally considered an original feminist feature film, while The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) is considered the first surrealist film. Other major independent and avant-garde French-language female filmmakers include French Indochina–born writer and director Marguerite Duras (1914–96) and Agnès Varda (born in 1928 in Brussels). Elvia Notari (1875–1946) was the first female director in Italy, and her work is considered a precursor to Italian neorealism. Leni Riefenstahl (born in Germany, 1902–2003), an innovative documentary filmmaker, leaves a dubious legacy for her best known work, Triumph of the Will (1934), a Nazi propaganda film, which brought her lifelong, international fame as well as infamy due to her per-

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sonal ties to Hitler and her arrest after World War II (although she was released without being charged). Kinuyo Tanaka (1909–77), the first Japanese woman film director, made six films beginning with 1953’s Love Letter. Maya Deren (1917–61), born in Kiev, was a major figure of U.S. avant-garde filmmaking, and her Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is one of the most influential avant-garde films of all time. Deren’s work was recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other awards, and Meshes of the Afternoon won the Grand Prix International for 16mm experimental film at the Cannes Festival. A pioneer of New American Cinema, Deren’s legacy includes the American Film Institute’s Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Artists Award, created in 1985. One recipient of this award (1991) is contemporary Vietnamese American film director, scholar and theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha (1952– ), renown for her first film Reassemblage (1982), among others. Films by Swedish director Mai Zetterling (1925–94) were highly controversial due to their frank depictions of sexuality, even causing some to be banned from the Cannes and Venice festivals, such as Loving Couples (1964) and Night Games (1966), respectively. The avantgarde films of German-born Ulrike Ottinger (1942– ) are often held in contrast to her male counterparts of New German Cinema, such as Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Werner Herzog. Second wave feminism in the 1970s greatly impacted many female film directors who sought to liberate filmmaking from traditional patriarchal domination and bias and whose films often focused on social issues such as injustice. The Austrian feminist performance artist known as VALIE EXPORT (1940– )—who spells her name with capital letters— challenged the very concept of cinema as a form of female objectification with her Tap and Touch Cinema, performed throughout Europe from 1968 to 1971 as well as publicly disrupting a pornography theater in Munich by overtaking it in her 1969 public action Action Pants: Genital Panic. In 1972, the U.S. nonprofit organization Women Make Movies was founded to specifically address the training and promotion of female film directors. Important femaledirected films of this period include Wanda (1970) by American Barbara Loden (1932–80); the highly controversial 1974 The Night Porter, directed by Italian Liliana Cavani (1937– ); the 1975 Letter from the Vil-

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lage by Senegalese ethnologist Safi Faye (1943– ), the first sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film; and Barbara Kopple’s (1946– ) Harlan County, USA (1976), winner of the Academy Award for best documentary feature; Gillian Armstrong (1950– ), with My Brilliant Career (1979), became the first Australian woman to direct a feature film in nearly 50 years. Berlin-born Helke Sander (1937– ) founded Frauen und Film, the first European feminist film journal, in 1974 (International Women’s Year). That same year, the National Film Board of Canada created Studio D, the first government-funded film studio dedicated to female directors and filmmakers. Although it closed in 1996, Studio D greatly advanced the cause of female filmmaking, as the films it produced gained much critical acclaim. Some of the watershed moments of 1970s cinema include Belgian-born Chantal Akerman’s (1950– ) epic Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which is generally considered the first masterpiece of feminist filmmaking and revolutionized filmmaking in general, as it liberates its female protagonist from the oppressive and dominant “male gaze” about which British director and feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey (1941– ) wrote in her groundbreaking article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” published in the British film journal Screen in the same year as the release of Jeanne Dielman. The notable and prolific post–World War II generation of currently working female directors include, among others, Algerian-born French director Nicole Garcia (1946– ); Ann Hui (1947– ), a pioneer of the Hong Kong New Wave; Catherine Breillat and Claire Denis, both born in France in 1948; Polishborn Agnieszka Holland (1948– ); the British director Sally Potter (1949– ); Germany’s Monika Treut (1954– ); Indian British director Pratibha Parmar (1955– ); Anne Fontaine (1959– ) of France; Agnès Jaoui (1964– ) of France; and African British Ngozi Onwurah (1964– ). The 1980s and 1990s witnessed important progress for female film directors, including Lizzie Borden’s independent sci-fi mockumentary Born in Flames (1983); Daughters of the Dust (1991), the first feature film with general theatrical release written and directed by an African American woman Julie Dash (1952– ); and, in 1994, Darnell Martin (1964– ) was the first African American woman to

write and direct a film, I Like It Like That, produced by a major studio (Columbia Pictures). Other significant moments in female film directing from the 1980s and 1990s include critically acclaimed Indian filmmaker Aparna Sen’s (1945– ) 36 Chowringee Lane (1981); Salaam Bombay! (1988), the debut film by Indian-born Mira Nair (1957– ), which won the Golden Camera at the Cannes Festival and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; the Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa (1990), which won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film; Barbara Kopple winning her second Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for 1991’s American Dream; and Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time, which won numerous Academy Awards, including Best Actress (Holly Hunter), Best Screenplay-Original (Jane Campion), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin, who at age 11, became the second youngest winner of this award), as well as the Cannes Golden Palm and the César for Best Foreign Language Film. Women Directors in the 21st Century In the 21st century, female directors continued to make major strides. Nancy Meyers’s (1949– ) What Women Want (2000) became the highest-grossing film directed by a woman, earning more than $370 million. Nowhere in Africa (2001), directed by German Caroline Link (1964– ) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time, My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), was directed by Greek Canadian American Nia Vardalos (1962– ). In 2002, Mexican American film director Lourdes Portillo (1944– ) received the Special Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival for Missing Young Woman. Although Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) did not win the Academy Award for Best Director, Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. In 2005, British-born director Zana Briski (1966– ), and her male codirector Ross Kauffman, won the Academy Award for best documentary for Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids. With her first film, Phat Girlz (2006), Nnegest Likké (1970– ) became the first African American woman to direct, act in, and write a full-length feature released by a major studio (Fox Searchlight Pictures). Japanese director Naomi Kawase (1969– ) won the



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2007 Grand Prix at Cannes for The Mourning Forest. In the first decade of the 21st century, women directors are visibly taking on more importance, challenging previously held assumptions. Although many female film directors work independently or in the mainstream genre of the romantic comedy and depict archetypal “female issues” such as love and family, some of the most successful female directors currently making films, such as Kathryn Bigelow, work in what have been typically male-oriented genres such as biker, war, and horror films that portray primarily male protagonists, for example, Blue Steel (1990) is an example of what Monica Soare calls the career-woman-in-peril thriller. Since their initial prominence in the early film industry at the end of the 19th century, the role of female film directors was diminished during the advent of the talking picture, the Hays Code, and the rise of the studio system. Female film directors are now making significant gains and achieving new recognition in directing. Yet, they are still far from achieving parity with male counterparts. Kathryn Bigelow’s victory with her Best Director and Best Picture Oscars in March 2010 opens new perspectives that probably will encourage more women to break ground, overcome barriers, and destroy taboos that were in place in film directing—an old boy network—from which women had been excluded for far too long.

Erens, Patricia. Sexual Stratagems: the World of Women in Film. New York: Horizon Press, 1979. Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. Hurd, Mary G. Women Directors & Their Films. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Jermyn, Deborah and Sean Redmond, eds. The Cinema of Kathryn Bigelow: Hollywood Transgressor. London: Wallflower Press, 2003. Kaplan, Ann. Women & Film. New York: Routledge, 1990. Kuhn, Annette, ed. Queen of the B’s: Ida Lupino Behind the Camera. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. Laviosa, Flavia and Laura Mulvey. Visions of Struggle in Women’s Filmmaking in the Mediterranean. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Mayne, Judith. The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Women’s Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Polan, Dana. Jane Campion. London: British Film Institute, 2002. Rashkin, Elissa. Women Filmmakers in Mexico: The Country of Which We Dream. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Coppola, Sofia; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Film Directors, Female: Europe; Film Directors, Female: Latin America; Film Directors, Female: United States; Film Production, Women in; Guerrilla Girls; Professions by Gender; Stereotypes of Women; Women Make Movies; Women’s History Month. Further Readings Abramowitz, Rachel. Is That a Gun in Your Pocket? Women’s Experience of Power in Hollywood. New York: Random House, 2000. Bobo, Jacqueline, ed. Black Women Film and Video Artists. London: Routledge, 1998. Ching, Yau. Filming Margins: Tang Shu Shuen, A Forgotten Hong Kong Woman Film Director. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004. Dale, Holly and Janis Cole. Calling the Shots: Profiles of Women Filmmakers. Dallas, TX: Quarry Press, 1994.

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Marcelline Block Princeton University

Film Directors, Female: Latin America The 1960s brought about worldwide awakening to a new political consciousness, a renewed sense of social awareness, and a need to place societal demands in a public and visible sphere. Latin American intellectuals and artists, who had been greatly invigorated by the 1959 Cuban Revolution, were at the forefront of this activism. A movement called the New Latin American Cinema produced explicit and didactic movies reflecting an engaged cinema of the revolution and theories that conceptualize the social and political in cinema. The urgency of the time was to confront imperialism and colonialism, and in many ways, this singular goal overshadowed the presence and contribution of women to film.

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During the 1980s, we witnessed the materialization of the connections between feminist theories and film practices that was imbued with two decades of women’s movements. The films of Mexican and Argentinean women directors represent the most direct, prominent, and well-distributed work within the Latin American context. El Secreto de Romelia (1988) by Busi Cortés and Señora de Nadie (1982) by María Luisa Bemberg are just two examples of the thoughts and actions these films intended to promote—they were decidedly and unapologetically feminist works that investigated women’s interpersonal and social relations, as well as the historical and political conditions that create and support patriarchal structures. Growing Number of Women in Film Industry The number of women actively and visibly working in the film industry in Latin America has grown exponentially from the 1990s to the present time. Women are not only acting, writing, editing, and assisting but they also have carved a prominent space in their roles as directors and producers. The increase in women’s participation is due in large part to the creation of film schools and the configuration of the film industry in Latin America. Film schools have made obsolete a male-run meritocracy within the film industry by which men seemed to effortlessly advance and women were relegated to second- or third-tier positions. With legitimate and respected degrees from prestigious film schools, women have had the opportunity to enter the film industry without having to start as assistants, and with the real possibility of being directors and writers. The fact that most Latin American countries have government agencies that sponsor and fund filmmaking has also contributed to the advancement of women in a traditionally male industry. Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico Within the Latin American countries, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico have the largest film industries with a fairly wide distribution. Films such as Nueve reinas (2000) by Fabián Bielinsky, Diarios de Motocicleta (2004) by Walter Salles, and Y tu Mama También (2001) by Alfonso Cuarón will sound familiar to audiences in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. These are also the countries with the largest number of women film directors, with Mexico count-

ing 106, Argentina 82, and Brazil 70. The numbers are encouraging and promising, but they do not always translate easily into what is necessary and desirable— the distribution of films made by women. The following list of directors and films serves as a mere illustration of the variety and scope of the work women are currently producing in some of the most active Latin American film industries. Thematically, technically, structurally these films cannot be conceived of as a unified corpus, but rather they represent a variety of approaches to topics and considerations that affect women as active agents in society. For each of the three countries, the list contains internationally recognized directors and a small sampling of their acclaimed films. Contemporary Argentinean women film directors and producers have been internationally recognized, although their films have not become household names. A few examples are: Lucrecia Martel. La Ciénaga (2000), La Niña Santa (2003), and La Mujer Sin Cabeza (2008) Carmen Guarini. H.I.J.O.S el Alma en dos (2002) and Maykinof (2005) Albertina Carri. No Quiero Volver a Casa (2000), Los rubios (2003), Géminis (2005), and La Rabia (2008) Paula Hernández. Herencia (2001), La Familia Lugones (2007), and Lluvia (2008) Julia Solomonoff. Hermanas (2005) and El Último Verano de La Boyita (2008) Lucía Puenzo. XXY (2007) and El niño pez (2009) Some of the most renowned names of Mexican women filmmakers are: Patricia Riggen. Retrato de Familia (2005) and La Misma Luna (2007) Natalia Almada. La Memoria Perfecta del Alma (2001), Al Otro Lado (2004), and El General (2009) Marisa Sistach. Anoche Soñé Contigo (1992), La Línea Paterna (1995), El Cometa (1998), Perfume de Violetas, Nadie te Oye (2000), La Niña de Piedra (Nadie te ve) (2006), and El Brassier de Emma (2007) Maria Novaro. Danzón (1991), Otoñal (1992), El Jardín del Edén (1994), Azul Celeste (1988), Sin Dejar Huella ( 2000), and La Morena (2005) Guita Shyfter. Los Laberintos de la Memoria (2007), Las Caras de la Luna (2002), Sucesos Distantes (1994), and Novia que te Vea (1993)



The following film directors are examples of the extensive and wide-ranging production of Brazilian women filmmakers: Tetê Moraes. Tierra para Rose (1987), Nuestro Aire de Todos los Días (1992), O Sonho de Rose (2002), and O Sol Caminando Contra o Vento (2005) Tata Amaral. Um Céu de Estrelas (1996), Através da Janela (2000), Antônia (2006), and O Rei do Carimã (2009) Suzana Amaral. A Hora da Estrela (1985), Uma vida em Segredo (2001), and Hotel Atlântico (2009) Tizuka Yamasaki. Fica Comigo (1998), Xuxa Requebra (1999), O Barato é ser Careta (2000), Xuxa Popstar (2004), and Gajin-ama-me como sou (2005) Marília Rocha. Abojo (2005), Descaminhos (2007), and Acácio (2008) International and national film festivals have traditionally been the spaces where women filmmakers can exhibit their work and get the much-deserved recognition they have earned through talent and dedication. Lucrecia Martel, for example, won the Alfred Bauer prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2001 with her movie La Ciénaga. Tetê Moraes’s O Sonho de Rose won at the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, La Habana, 2000, and also took best documentary prize at the Festival de Río de Janeiro, 2000. Patricia Riggen won the Oscar for the best student work in 2003 for her short La milpa, and also the prize for best documentary for Retrato de familia in the Aspen Short Film Festival. Film festivals specifically created for the presentation of women’s work are, in the mind of some directors and critics, a double-edged sword. They provide a much needed forum for women to put their work on display, but they also can be perceived as exclusive spaces, and hence perpetuate the idea that a “feminine” mode of production is not equal to and cannot compete with men’s cinema or traditional cinema. Women filmmakers have consistently rejected the category of “women’s films” and the consideration of their films as a genre in itself, and hence are sometimes ambivalent about the value of these film festivals. Yet, women film festivals are still a vibrant part of the dialogue, with Mexico’ s Muestra Internacional de Mujeres en el Cine y la Televisión in its sixth year, and the Argentinean Mujeres en Foco: Festival Inter-

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nacional de Cine y Mujer por la Equidad de Género planning its first gathering for May 2010. There is a young but growing body of scholarship on women’s filmmaking in Latin America that exhibits the same distribution and recognition challenges as its subject of study. The increasing importance and widespread reach of electronic resources will provide greater exposure for critical and analytical studies of filmmaking by women. The availability and access to technology will also increase the distribution of information about women’s filmmaking, and also the distribution of their work. See Also: Film Directors, Female: Europe; Film Directors, Female: United States; Film Production, Women in; Professions by Gender; Stereotypes of Women; Women Make Movies. Further Readings Rangil, V. Otro Punto de Vista: Mujer y Cine en Argentina. Rosario, Argentina: Editorial Beatriz Viterbo, 2005. Rashkin, Elisa. Women Filmmakers in Mexico: The Country of Which We Dream. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Richard, Nelly. Masculine/Feminine: Practices of Difference(s). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Torres San Martín, Patricia, ed. Mujeres y Cine en América Latina. Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2004. Viviana Rangil Skidmore College

Film Directors, Female: United States A film director is charged with the creative direction of the making of a film, video, or television program. She is the person responsible for the visual translation of the written script to the screen. She must pre-visualize, plan, and direct a film’s artistic and dramatic aspects, working closely with cinematographer (or director of photography [DP]), guiding the technical crew, and working with the actors in the fulfillment of her vision. Directors are responsible for the overall storytelling and aesthetics of a film. She plans the shot list, determines

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each shot’s framing and composition, angle, and the movement of the camera. Working closely with the DP, she devises the mood and tone of the piece, achieved through lighting style, production design, wardrobe, and the other components. She must block the scene (plan the actors and camera’s coordinated movements) and direct the actors’ performance. She oversees the project’s storytelling structure and overall aesthetic (look) through the many phases of filmmaking: preproduction (planning), production (filming), and postproduction (editing). Women directors are often categorized by the types of films that they direct, such as narrative feature and short films (including studio, large-budget projects and independent, lower-budget films), documentary feature and short films, theatrically distributed films, cable and made-for-television projects, Web-based videos, and art-house films that screen at specialty theaters, film festivals, and categorized by aspects such as DVD, home video, and educational distribution of their title films. Much of the academic and popular press studies of women film directors either focus on a short list of accomplished women filmmakers in Hollywood, determining their success by the amount their films gross, or discuss independent women filmmakers who produce films and videos praised by scholars, critics, and film festivals, acknowledging that this work is seen by comparatively smaller audiences. A new director in Hollywood, who is a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), might earn as little as $20,000 a year, while the most successful director can earn over $500,000 and even millions per film, in some cases. It has been said that women directors have to make a choice: either they maintain creative control over their filmmaking and work as a lower budget independent filmmaker or they give up creative control to a studio or a producer to work with larger budgets in the Hollywood studio system. Still, the more affordable digital technologies are increasing the number of women directing films, videos and other multimedia projects. In early Hollywood cinema, films were distributed only in theatrical release (meaning they were shown in theaters), which is an expensive and exclusive market that serves only feature length films. In the 1970s, nonprofit feminist organizations such as Women Makes Movies offered production workshops to women to direct short films, and began showing their

work in women’s film festivals. By the late 1990s and 2000s, there are numerous feminist and educational distributors of women’s films, women-themed film festivals, cable television channels that celebrate independent films such as the Sundance Channel and IFC, and channels targeted at women. Additionally, new online markets such as sales, rentals, and streaming video on the Internet help create a whole new landscape where women filmmakers can create low(er) budget work and distribute it to an audience, without studios and distributors. History of Female Directors Women have been directing films since the invention of cinema in 1893. The first was French producerdirector Alice Guy Blaché (1873–1968). In 1896, she directed La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy), and she is considered the first director of fiction “narrative” film. She pioneered some early camera techniques, and in 1910 was the production manager for Gaumont Studios in New Jersey, the largest preHollywood studio. Julia Crawford Ivers, a U.S. screenwriter and director, became the general manager of Bosworth, Inc., an early Hollywood studio, and in 1919, with her son James Van Trees, cofounded the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), the union for cinematographers. The ASC didn’t allow camerawomen membership for 61 years. In her 48-year career as an actor-director, Ida Lupino (1918–1985), considered a pioneer filmmaker, formed an independent production company with her husband Collier Young, called The Filmmakers, where she became a producer, director, and screenplay writer of low-budget “women’s issue”–oriented films that addressed topics such as rape. Lupino was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the fields of television and motion pictures. A Woman’s Error is the first film written, produced, and directed by an African American woman, Tressie Souders, in 1922. The International Black Women’s Film Festival established the Tressie Souders Award (“Tressies”), which celebrates the accomplishments of black women in film, television, and media. In 1993, Leslie Harris directed Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., the first feature film directed by an African American woman that was released by a major theatrical distributor (Miramax). In 1994, Darnell Martin, a woman of black and Puerto Rican heritage, directed



I Like It Like That, celebrated as the first major studio produced film by an African American woman. Advancements for Women Since 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has nominated directors working in the motion picture industry for the Academy Award for Achievement in Directing (Best Director), considered the highest honor for a director working in Hollywood. The nominations for best director are made by members in the Academy’s directing branch, the award winners are selected by the Academy membership as a whole, and are presented during the prestigious Oscar Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Italian director Lina Wertmüller became the first woman to receive a best director nomination in 1977, and a nomination for best screenplay written directly for the screen. Four women have been nominated in the best director category: Lina Wertmüller for 1976’s Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for 1993’s The Piano, Sofia Coppola for 2003’s Lost in Translation, and Kathryn Bigelow for 2009’s The Hurt Locker. In 2010, Bigelow became the first woman to win the Oscar for best directing and best picture. She also won the 2009 DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for directing The Hurt Locker; she is the first woman to win these top prizes for directing. The DGA represents over 14,000 members, of which, 3,080 are listed as women directors and assistant directors (January 2010). In 2002, Martha Coolidge, a DGA member since 1983, was elected as the first female president of the DGA. Studies done by the DGA specifically reports on Women and Minority Hiring in Hollywood, reveal that of the 12,000guild membership, few women or minority directors are actually working as directors. See Also: Coppola, Sofia; Film Directors, Female: Europe; Film Directors, Female: Latin America; Film Production, Women in; Professions by Gender; Women Make Movies. Further Readings Foster, G. A. Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. Hurd, M. G. Women Directors and Their Films. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.

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Juhasz, A. Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Lane, C. Feminist Hollywood: From Born in Flames to Point Break. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2000. Unterburger, Amy L., ed. The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia: Women on the Other Side of the Camera. Farmington Hills, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1999. Rachel Raimist University of Alabama

Film Production, Women in Film production includes all aspects of the behind-thescenes workings of motion pictures, videos, and television. The production (filming) and postproduction (editing) crew, hired by a producer or production company, is distinguished from the talent, meaning the cast of actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters who appear onscreen. The crew is divided into different departments, including camera department, sound department, art department (set and production design), hair and makeup, wardrobe (costumes), grip, electrical, and editorial. Since the advent of filmmaking, women have worked in all of the various crew positions including “above the line” jobs such as screenwriter, producer, executive producer, director and actor, and the numerous “below the line” positions such as the director of photography (DP or cinematographer), assistant director, editor, composer, sound recordist, boom operator, camera crew, grip, gaffer, art director, wardrobe, makeup, and production designer. The terminology of above and below the line comes from the early Hollywood studio days when the top sheet of the budget pages included a line drawn to separate the key above the line position salaries with the below-the-line costs including the salaries of the non-lead cast members and the technical crew, equipment, travel, location, and catering costs, and all the costs of film production. Women Pioneers in the Film Industry Lois Weber (1882–1939), the first consistently successful U.S. film director, was paid $5,000 per week, making her the highest paid female director of the

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silent film era. In 1919, Mary Pickford (1892–1979) became the first actress to receive $1 million per year, and in 1920 U.S. actress Lillian Gish (1896–1993) directed an “all woman” production, Remodeling Her Husband; she cowrote the screenplay with her sister who starred in the film. Dorothy Arzner (1897–1979) started her film career as a typist, reader, and script supervisor at Paramount Studios. She was promoted to film editor in 1922, and directed her first film in 1927. In 1936, Arzner became the first woman to join the newly formed Directors Guild of America (DGA). She is also credited as being the inventor of the boom microphone and the camera crane. In 1967, film editor Dede Allen (1925– ) became the first editor to receive a solo credit in the film titles. She pioneered editing techniques such as the use of audio overlaps and stylized jump cuts, which until that point had not been used in Hollywood film editing style. In 1973, Pamela Douglas became the first African American woman producer at Universal; she is the first woman of color to work as a producer at a major motion-picture studio. Sherry Lansing (1944– ) was the first woman to head a Hollywood studio and the first woman studio head to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And in 2010, Kathryn Bigelow (1951– ) became the first woman director to win an Oscar. Many women have experienced success working in film production in more than one key crew position such as screenwriter/producer/director Nora Ephron, producer/director/actor Jodie Foster, and cinematographer/director Ellen Kuras. Kuras is most known as a cinematographer who has filmed many award-winning pictures including Angela (1995) and Personal Velocity (2002), both directed by writer/ director Rebecca Miller, 4 Little Girls (1997), Summer of Sam (1999), and Bamboozled (2000), directed by Spike Lee, as well as indie films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Be Kind Rewind (2008). Kuras also directed the 2008 Academy Award winning documentary Nerakhoon (The Betrayal), and demonstrates the range of talents in creative and technical aspects of women working film production crew positions. Union Membership Unions have long controlled film sets in Hollywood. The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC),

established in 1919 by 15 cameramen, prohibited membership to women behind the camera for 61 years, until in 1980 membership was offered to cinematographer Brianne Murphy (1933–2003), the first woman cinematographer at a major studio. In 1984, Murphy and other women behind the camera established their own organization, Behind the Lens: An Association of Professional Camerawomen. Cinematographer Nancy Schreiber (1949– ) was the first female gaffer to join New York’s National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) guild, and has worked behind the camera on over 70 films. Production professionals belong to unions such as the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA), the Director’s Guild of America (DGA), the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), the American Cinema Editors (ACE), and as a result can now enjoy much success as women working in critical crew roles on major motion pictures and television programs. Some guilds, such as SAG and WGA, boast tremendous numbers of women who enjoy membership, although according to research studies, women and minority members often work far less in proportion to other guild members. Founded in 2009, Women in Film is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women achieve their highest potential within the global entertainment, communications, and media industries and is committed to preserving the legacy of women. Under the helm of screenwriter and WGA member Mollie Gregory, the organization established For the Record, an interview CD and book project that documents, for the first time, the complete history of women in film production on record. See Also: Film Directors, Female: United States; Women Make Movies. Further Readings Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film. http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/index.html (accessed June 2010). Gregory, Mollie. Women Who Run the Show: How a Brilliant and Creative New Generation of Women Stormed Hollywood. New York: St. Martin’s, 2003. Krasilovsky, Alexis. Women Behind the Camera: Conversations With Camerawomen. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

Financial Independence of Women

Women in Film. http://www.wif.org (accessed January 2010). Rachel Raimist University of Alabama

Financial Independence of Women Women’s increased rates of educational attainment and workforce participation, as well as their increased financial knowledge and involvement in personal finances, have increased women’s rates of financial independence, especially in industrialized countries. Many women, however, still face a number of gender inequities that hinder financial independence. Segregated labor markets and a shrinking but still present gender pay gap lower women’s incomes, savings, and retirement investments, and have cumulative effects on their lifestyle. In developing countries, microfinance, cooperatives, and other financial programs have dramatically improved women’s economic and entrepreneurial knowledge and opportunities, aiding both family and community development. Women’s financial knowledge is crucial as most women become solely responsible for their personal finances at some point in their lives. Industrialized Countries Women’s financial independence in industrialized countries is aided by their high rates of participation in higher education and the workforce, increasing presence at higher professional levels and nontraditional careers, and increased entrepreneurship rates. There are still several key obstacles, however, that hinder the financial independence of women in industrialized countries. Women generally work fewer years than men, as they traditionally bear more family caregiver responsibilities and are more likely to take career breaks to raise children or care for elderly or ill family members. They also continue to face a gender pay gap and are still underrepresented in nontraditional careers and executive positions. The 2008 “Global Gender Pay Gap” report found that pay inequities persist, despite the existence of antigender discrimination and equal pay legislation

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in many countries. Older, minority, and highly educated women faced the biggest pay gaps by gender, while women in unions or under collective bargaining agreements had lower pay gaps. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the 2009 U.S. ratio of female full-time workers’ median weekly earnings to men’s was 80.2 percent, and the 2008 U.S. ratio of full-time year-round women’s to men’s median annual earnings was 77.1 percent. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the median full-time earnings for women in all industrialized countries were 17.6 percent lower than men’s. The European figure was almost identical. Asian countries, such as South Korea and Japan, experienced the largest wage gaps among industrialized countries, with women’s earnings more than 30 percent lower than those of men, while Belgium experienced the smallest gap at 9.3 percent. Other countries in the higher ranges included Slovakia, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Germany, the United Kingdom, Greece, Estonia, and Austria, while other countries in the lower ranges included Italy, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, and Belgium. A lower pay gap, however, may be a reflection of low female employment rates rather than greater gender equity. Overall, the remaining gender gap is decreasing at a slower pace and in some industrialized countries it is even widening. Reasons for pay inequities include gender discrimination, the careers chosen by or open to women due to gender stereotypes and social pressures, segregated labor markets, family responsibilities, less bonus and overtime earnings as compared with men, and a higher percentage of female part-time workers. Over the course of a woman’s career, the lost income due to pay inequities can represent billions of dollars in lost potential income. Lost work years and lower incomes also mean that women have lower savings rates and participation rates in employer pension, 401(k), or other retirement investment plans. Women in industrialized countries have also increased their financial knowledge and investing rates, but a gender gap remains in these areas. Traditionally, women were not expected to be knowledgeable about personal finance, and men typically managed family finances. Research has shown that many women still lack the necessary financial knowledge and are more hesitant to discuss financial matters.

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Surveys have found that almost half of U.S. women felt that they were not knowledgeable about choosing investment options and that their total consumer debt was greater than their savings and investments, findings that bear a strong correlation. Researchers have also found gender differences in investment behavior that both aid and hinder female investors. Women are less likely to invest or to choose high risk, high reward investment options out of risk aversion or the feeling that they do not have enough financial knowledge. Women investors are thus more likely to hold conservative portfolios and less likely to make frequent trades that can yield high results, but are more likely to wait out short-term market instabilities, tend to do well over the long term, and are less likely to be victimized by financial scams. Women also tend to spend more time researching investments, attending financial seminars or workshops, and asking for information than men do. Women investors are viewed as more comfortable in collaborative settings, such as investment clubs. Women’s financial independence, or their lack of such independence, plays a key role in shaping other aspects of their lives. Financial knowledge and independence are important, as most women will become the sole financial decision makers at some point in their lives. Divorce rates in many industrialized countries hover around 50 percent, and the number of female single-parent households is on the rise. The average woman’s standard of living decreases substantially postdivorce and female single-parent households are one of the leading categories of those living below the poverty level. A lack of financial independence reduces a woman’s control over other aspects of her life. Gender-based financial inequities are often cumulative over a woman’s lifetime, having the greatest impact on the elderly. Almost half of all women over the age of 50 are single, bearing the sole financial responsibility for themselves as well as any dependent children or family members. Women in the United States, on average, have life expectancies that are seven to 10 years longer than those of men, with the average age of widowhood at 55 years. Figures for other industrialized countries are similar. Due to the gender gap in pay, years worked, and reduced contributions to savings and retirement plans that are largely tied to earnings, women on average

receive much lower retirement benefits than men. Many of these women face limited retirement incomes that are less than half of their male counterparts on average, continued work out of financial necessity, and an increased reliance on Social Security or other forms of government-subsidized aid. In the United States, Social Security is the only source of income for 25 percent of all women aged 65 or older, and more than 70 percent of that same group live in poverty. Developing Countries Women in developing countries have much lower rates of financial independence and face many barriers to achieving such independence. One such barrier is the high global poverty rate. Statistics show that approximately 50 percent of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day, and that most of those living in poverty are women. Such poverty also affects women’s health and longevity, with lowered life expectancies. Women are also more likely to work in low-skilled, low-paying jobs, face chronic unemployment or underemployment, work in the informal sector of the economy, and be denied access to formal financial institutions or a role in family financial decisions. Women are forced to rely on moneylenders who charge exorbitant interest rates to gain the funds to start microenterprises or to cover household, educational, or emergency expenses. Lack of financial knowledge, cultural attitudes, and lack of access to formal financial institutions also affects women’s savings rates in developing countries. Although research has shown that many of those living in poverty in developing countries do maintain savings, they often do so through less secure informal means. Studies have also shown that women tend to be the primary savers in most families. Although women are the main savers in poor families, they tend to keep their savings at home because they are denied access to secure formal savings institutions due to inconvenient locations, high fees, or the inflexible nature of accounts that do not allow easy access to funds. Global campaigns to increase financial literacy, reduce mistrust of banks and other formal savings institutions, and change cultural attitudes about savings and gender stereotypes in finance have increased women’s opportunities to become more active financial participants and decision makers. In the late 20th century, many international nongovernmental organi-

Finland



zations (NGOs) began working with local NGOs and financial institutions to increase the access of poor women in developing countries to financial services. Microfinancing became a prominent component of these funding efforts, beginning in the 1980s. Such programs and their local counterparts also provide women entrepreneurs with job skills training, expert business advice and assistance, and increased access to formal financial institutions. Key organizations working toward the financial independence of lowincome women around the globe include Women’s World Banking (WWB), Women for Women International, the International Network of Women’s Funds (INWF), the International Alliance for Women (TIAW) and its Micro Enterprise Development Program, and the Financial Women’s Association. Women’s thrift, credit, industry, insurance, and other cooperatives are another rapidly growing movement that has provided an important avenue for the achievement of female financial independence in poor or developing countries. These voluntary associations of women or mixed genders establish their own mutually agreed upon terms and conditions for mutual aid through credit, loans, insurance, or other financial tools. Many women who do not understand banking or trust banks are willing to utilize such alternative financial institutions. Although these programs have rapidly expanded, they still reach only a small percentage of the women around the world who would benefit from their services. Microfinance and other efforts have proven that helping low-income women achieve financial independence aids both their families and their communities, and is a sound business decision. Women’s repayment rates for microloans are extremely good, often as high as 98 percent, and their decreased reliance on moneylenders can help them break generational cycles of poverty and indebtedness. The World Bank has also found that women are much more likely to reinvest the income they earn into their families and communities than men, and are more likely to hire poor and women workers within their communities. Women entrepreneurs are also much more likely to increase their financial knowledge and role in family financial decisions, and reduce their vulnerability to disasters, conflicts, or other external shocks. As a result, such women are more likely to achieve and maintain financial independence.

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See Also: Business, Women in; Entrepreneurs; Homemakers and Social Security; Poverty; Women’s Thrift Cooperatives. Further Readings Counts, Alex. Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance Are Changing the World. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008. Gilbert, Lucia Albino. Two Careers, One Family: The Promise of Gender Equality. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993. Jordan, William C. Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Developing Countries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Patterson, Martha Priddy. The New Working Woman’s Guide to Retirement Planning. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Shefrin, Hersh. Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Shipler, David K. The Working Poor: Invisible in America. New York: Knopf, 2004. Sohrab, Julia A. Sexing the Benefit: Women, Social Security, and Financial Independence in EC Sex Equality Law. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth, 1996. Sullivan, Teresa A., Elizabeth Warren, and Jay Lawrence Westbrook. The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Wall, Ginita. Our Money, Our Selves: Money Management for Each Stage of a Woman’s Life. Yonkers, NY: Consumer Reports Books, 1992. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Finland After centuries of being a grand duchy under Sweden, Finland became an autonomous grand duchy of Russia, its much larger neighbor, after 1809. Finland established itself as an independent republic during World War I, and maintained that independence throughout World War II. Finns tend to be extremely homogenous, and 93.4 percent of the population is Finnish. This homogeneity extends to religion, and

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82.5 percent of Finns are associated with the Lutheran Church of Finland. By the 21st century, 63 percent of the population had become urbanized. With a per capita income of $34,900, Finland is the 34th richest country in the world; but the global economic crisis of the early 21st century has resulted in an unemployment rate of 8.6. At the national level, women’s rights are protected by the Ombudsman for Equality, the Equality Union, and the Council for Equality. While Finland, which passed a comprehensive equal rights law in 1985, is considered to provide one of the best environments for women in the world, the nation continues to experience problems with domestic violence and the trafficking of females and children into Finland for the purposes of prostitution and pornography. Despite strong government measures to ensure equality, women make only 80 percent of what males make. Finland is a social welfare state, and it provides a maternity grant for pregnant women and a child supplement to mothers of children under the age of 17. This supplement is higher for single mothers. Nevertheless, women are more likely than men to be poor.

is well educated. Females are more likely than males to pursue higher education. Prostitution is legal in Finland, but there have been strict laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation of minors since 1999. Finnish women’s rights groups have been heavily involved in the campaign to end the practice of trafficking women from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into Finland and other Nordic Countries to be used as prostitutes. In 2003, police officials estimated that each year 3,000 women and children were trafficked from former Soviet republics into these areas, and 12,000 each year were brought into western Europe. Finland has strong laws that ban violence against women, and the Union of Shelter Homes and each municipality provides assistance for victims. Statistics generated by these shelters indicate that the typical victim of domestic violence is a female between the ages of 25 and 35 who is either married or cohabitating. Approximately a fifth of all victims are immigrants. Nongovernmental organizations also provide a valuable service for women who are victimized. A 2008 report released by the National Research Institute

Leader in Gender Equality Finland, which ranks 12th on the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) list of countries with Very High Human Development, has a long history of gender inclusion. In 1907, 19 female Members of Parliament were elected around the world. Thirteen of those were elected in Finland. The women of Finland were the first in the world to win suffrage and the right to stand for office. In 1926, Miina Sillanpää became Finland’s first female minister. At the beginning of the 21st century, Tarja Halonen became Finland’s first female president. In 2003, Anneli Jätteenmäki became the country’s first prime minister. By 2007, Finland had the highest female political participation rate in the world. Sixty percent of the Finnish Cabinet was female, and women held 84 of 200 seats in Parliament. Finland has a fertility rate of 1.73, and an infant mortality rate of 3.47 deaths per 1,000 live births. The female health advantage begins at birth, and continues throughout life, resulting in a life expectancy of 82.61 years for females as opposed to 75.48 years for males. The median age for females is 43.7 years. Finland has a 100 percent literacy rate, and its citizenry

A street scene in Helsinki. Finland is thought to provide one of the best environments for women in the world.

Fitness



of Legal Policy and the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control estimated that a fifth of all Finnish women had experienced some form of abuse. Domestic violence is dealt with through various laws, which carry prison terms varying from six months to 10 years. A media campaign to raise public awareness about domestic violence has resulted in more victims coming forward to report abuse. Spousal rape is illegal in Finland, and carries a prison term of seven years. Estimates of unreported rape cases are as high as 75 percent. Specific laws prohibit sexual harassment in Finland, and these laws are generally well enforced. See Also: Domestic Violence; Heads of State, Female; Prostitution, Legal; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca V. Mbuh. Women in the Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Finland.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/fi.html (accessed February 2010). “Finland: Conference Examines Trafficking of Women and Children.” WIN News, v.29/3 (2003). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status of Women in 140 Countries, 1997–1998. New York: Random House, 1997. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Fitness Fitness is defined using various characteristics that pertain to a person’s ability to participate in physical activity and exercise. Moderate to high levels of fitness are important to a person’s ability to engage in daily living activities without major stress and strain to the various body systems, and with enough energy left over to participate in recreational activities. Articles written as early as 1894 indicated that most exercises were too dangerous for women to engage in for fear of the development of various unattractive manly physical qualities. The only physical activity recommended

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for women was walking, which was said to be the most conducive to physical beauty. Since that time, the value of exercise for women has been researched and the benefits of physical activity participation far exceed that of physical beauty. During the early 1980s, Jane Fonda introduced aerobic dance to the nation and many women were attracted to it because it incorporated dance moves to music. Women who had not participated in any type of exercise program prior began to get involved with this popular method of exercise. Today, women of all ages are still involved in group fitness classes that combine exercise with socialization. Today, women participate in not only aerobic dance, but other popular group fitness classes such as spinning, step aerobics, kick boxing, yoga, pilates, tai chi, zumba, and other fitness classes that offer a combination of cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, and endurance activities. The popularity of the group fitness concept combined with the desire many women have for exercising with other women, or more specifically, without men, has transpired into the development of “women only” fitness centers. One of the most popular of these centers is Curves for women. In 2005, Curves was the fastest growing franchise in U.S. history reporting over 8,500 franchises worldwide. The reasons men and women cite for exercise participation are often very different. A survey conducted by America Sports Data indicates that women’s primary motivation in exercising is to control their weight. Men, on the other hand, are more interested in the development of muscle mass. Women have often worried that, by lifting weights, they would become too bulky and develop large muscles that are seen in some fitness or body building magazines; however, this is a myth. Most women are not genetically predisposed to the development of large muscles. The desire to control weight is rightly in the forefront of women’s minds, as there are many health risks associated with being overweight or obese. Women, in particular, see an increased risk in diseases such as arthritis, birth defects, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, gallbladder disease, obstetrical and gynecological complications, urinary stress, incontinence, and pften suffer from stigma and discrimination issues. In addition, participation in exercise sessions is critical to the management of stress common to all women.

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Risks and Recommendations The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2008) provided guidelines for participation for specific populations in physical fitness activities. The recommendations below are for women at significant times in their lives. Premenopausal Women. Osteoporosis is most often associated with older women, but it is actually a disease that begins in earlier on, but does not present problems until the later years of a woman’s life. The U.S. Surgeon General recommends that all women, young and old, reduce their risk of osteoporosis through participation in an exercise program and eating a healthy diet. In order to prevent osteoporosis, as well as the health problems associated with being overweight or obese, premenopausal women should participate in a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five days per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week. More extensive benefits can be obtained when that time is increased to five hours of moderate activity, or 30 minutes of vigorous activity five days per week. Ten-minute sessions of aerobic exercise are recommended for women who are not capable of doing longer bouts, as long as the intensity is moderate to vigorous. Strength training exercises should be incorporated at least two times per week, with at least 48 hours of rest between each workout. Pregnant Women. Exercise is recommended for healthy pregnant women who have been cleared by their physician. Pregnant women should get at least 75 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week, such as brisk walking or low impact aerobics. Women who engage in vigorous exercise such as running, aerobics, or weight training should be able to continue to do so, with some modifications, unless they have been told not to participate by their physician. Women who are pregnant should avoid activities that involve lying on their backs, or that could cause injury to the abdominal area, such as soccer and other team sports. Menopausal/Post-Menopausal Women. Older women should get at least 30 minutes of accumulated moderate physical activity five days per week or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week. In addition to physical activity, special attention should be paid to resistance and flexibility exercises for two sessions per week. Participation in aforementioned physical activities and a diet low in fat and high in fiber

and calcium can help reduce the symptoms of menopause, such as increase in weight gain, osteoporosis, and heart disease. Other menopausal symptoms such as loss of bladder control, irritability, and depression can also be reduced with proper physical activity and diet. If safe for the individual to do so, involvement in cardiorespiratory and strength training exercises have been shown to reduce the afore mentioned risks. In general, the health benefits, both physiological and psychological, that women experience from participation in structured exercise far exceeds expectations. Psychological reports include increased self-esteem, increased body satisfaction, greater happiness, and increased self-value. In addition, exercise participants report having more energy for their daily routines and for life in general. See Also: Cancer, Women and; Diabetes; Exercise Science; Health, Mental and Physical; Heart Disease; Menopause, Medical Aspects of; Nutrition; Pilates; Pregnancy. Further Readings American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription. Baltimore, MD: ACSM, 2010. American Obesity Association. “Women and Obesity.” http://obesity1.tempdomainname.com/subs/fastfacts /obesity_women.shtml (accessed December 2009). Fahey, T. D., et al. Fit and Well. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Physical Activity for Everyone.” http://www.cdc .gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/index.html (accessed December 2009). Jennifer J. Kane University of North Florida Julie Schlegel Maina Roanoke College

Flannery, Sarah As a 16-year old, Sarah Flannery achieved fame when she became the winner of the Esat Young Scientist Exhibit in 1998, the Irish Young Scientist of the Year



Award. Based on her internship-related work, which was conducted with researchers at Baltimore Technologies, she also received the European Young Scientist of the Year Award in 1999 for her instrumental work in the development of cryptography’s Cayley-Pulser algorithm, named after the 19th-century British mathematician (Cayley), modeled after the mathematician (Pulser) who inspired her during her internship. Three years later, in 2002, Sarah Flannery cowrote the book In Code: A Mathematical Journey, with her father, David Flannery. The book covers public-key cryptography, her work in developing this particular algorithm, and her interest in solving mathematical puzzles. After having graduated with a B.A. in the field of computer science from the University of Cambridge’s Peterhouse College in 2003, Flannery went to work for video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts. According to Biographies of Women Mathematicians, as of 2009, Sarah Flannery was working as a chief scientist at Tirnua, an institution that she helped to establish. According to Rafe Jones, Sarah Flannery’s book In Code: A Mathematical Journey is valuable for shedding insight into the mind of a teenager who achieved acclaim for her work in mathematics. The book also provides an energetic introduction into public-key cryptography, and more precisely, the RSA and the alternate algorithms that Flannery created. Finally, Jones advocates reading Flannery’s book because of the sheer joy that it brings with it. Flannery describes her process of discovery: “all of this was an unusual experience for me,” but that she “had a great feeling of excitement. I think it was because I was working on something that no one had worked on before. I worked constantly for whole days on end, and it was exhilarating.” To commemorate Flannery’s accomplishments, the lights on St. Patrick’s Street, one of the main areas of her home city of Cork, Ireland, are named after her. See Also: Ireland; Mathematics, Women in; Mentoring. Further Readings Agnes Scott College. “Biographies of Women Mathematicians.” http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle /women/women.htm (cited June 2010). Flannery, Sarah and David Flannery. In Code: A Mathematical Journey. New York: Algonquin Books, 2002.

Flight Attendants

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Jones, Rafe. “In Code: A Mathematical Journey.” Notices of the AMS, v.50/4 (April 2003). Claudine Boros Touro College

Flight Attendants Flight attendants are the cabin crew, required by law to be hired and trained by the airlines to ensure the security and safety of air travelers. Their training ranges from first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and defibrillation to in-flight firefighting and surviving in the sea or ice. Flight attendants also provide routine in-flight customer services, such as distributing food and drink, making passengers as comfortable as possible. This is a female-dominated occupation; men represent only 10–20 percent of the total work force. Wages and benefits vary among airlines. According to latest data from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for flight attendants in the United States was $35,930 in May 2008 compared with $43,140 in 2002 and $38,820 in 2000. In 1922, the British-based Daimler Airway hired the world’s first stewards to weigh and load mail and passengers. These “cabin boys” began to be replaced by female cabin crews in 1930, when Ellen Church, an American registered nurse, persuaded the managers of Boeing Air Transport (later United Airlines) that nurses were well qualified to take care of air travelers’ welfare. Church thus became one of the “Original Eight”—the world’s first female flight attendants, or stewardesses. In the beginning, the requirements for stewardesses were strict: In addition to being registered nurses, they had to be single, younger than 25 years, weigh less than 115 pounds, and be a maximum of 5’4” tall. The original physical qualifications reflected the early aircrafts’ interior designs—low ceilings and narrow aisles, with maximum space allotted for mail and cargo—yet they also reinforced the image of stewardesses that endured for generations: pretty, slim, young “sky girls.” In the post–World War II era, the aviation industry expanded dramatically, and the airlines dropped their requirement that flight attendants be registered nurses. Soon female flight attendants became

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the focus of airline marketing and an icon of popular culture. In the 1950s, stewardesses were depicted in American advertisements as “perfect wives”: young, attractive, modern women who were excellent at providing various services and caring for others. In the 1960s, both airline marketing and the media such as Life magazine displayed flight attendants as sexy “glamour girls.” The stewardesses on Japan Airlines dressed in kimonos and played geisha music as they served the first-class passengers. The femininity and hospitality of their flight attendants have become part of the branding strategy of certain Asian airlines, such as Japan Airlines, China Airlines, Cathay Pacific, THAI, and Malaysia Airlines. Given the popularization of female flight attendants as icons of femininity, it is not surprising that the public is often unaware of flight attendants’ professionalism and working experience. Emerging studies from social sciences and occupational medicine reveal the physical and emotional demands placed on flight attendants as part of coping with their challenging working conditions. Flight attendants have higher risks for cancers and respiratory tract diseases as a result of workplace exposure to cosmic radiation, chemicals (fuel, jet engine exhausts, cabin air pollutants, pesticides), electromagnetic fields, and ozone toxicity. They also suffer from work-related illnesses involving, for example, musculoskeletal, sound perception, and gastrointestinal symptoms. The lifestyles they lead as a result of their job requirements— disrupted sleep patterns and night shift work—also make them more vulnerable to breast cancer, menstrual irregularities and infertility, and fatigue. Flight attendants are also subjected to mental distress such as sexual harassment and verbal abuse by passengers and are prey for posttraumatic stress disorder, especially since September 11, 2001. Over the years, the trade unions of flight attendants have fought for and won significant improvements in the professional status and well-being of crew members. Mandatory resignation because of marital status, age, and pregnancy was struck down in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. The unions also advocated for safer and healthier cabins by requiring floor-level exit lights, less-flammable cabin interiors, and smoking bans in the 1980s and 1990s. The economic recession and the severe competition within the industry in the first decade of the 21st century

have worsened working conditions, however. Airlines have cut jobs, increased the workload for those remaining on duty, and decreased employee benefits and pay. Passengers’ dissatisfaction with overbooked and overcrowded flights increasingly turns to air rage, and flight attendants are often the targets. As market competition has intensified and the glamour of flying has diminished, the reality of flight attendants as pink-collar workers in the burgeoning service sectors has begun to emerge. See Also: “Feminity,” Social Construction of; Professions by Gender; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Association of Flight Attendants. http://www.afanet.org (accessed June 2010). Barry, Kathleen Morgan. Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. 20th anniversary ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Nagda, Niren L. and Michael D. Koontz. “Review of Studies on Flight Attendant Health and Comfort in Airline Cabins.” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, v.74/2 (2003). Omelia, Johanna and Michael Waldock. Come Fly With Us! A Global History of the Airline Hostess. Portland, OR: Collectors, 2006. Whitelegg, Drew. Working the Skies: The Fast-Paced, Disorienting World of the Flight Attendant. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Yu-ling Huang State University of New York, Binghampton

Focus on the Family Focus on the Family began as a family advice radio broadcast in March 1977. Later that year, Focus on the Family was founded as a nonprofit, conservative, Christian-based organization by Dr. James Dobson, and had a staff of two. Dobson has since stepped down as board chairman of the group. As of 2010, Focus on the Family was based in Colorado Springs,



Colorado and employed approximately 1,300 people. Focus on the Family reaches out to millions of people across North America and the world, broadcast in 27 languages, to spread the word of Jesus Christ and the importance of the institution of the family via radio, satellite, literature, film, and the Internet. Media Utilization With Christ and the Bible as its foundation, Focus on the Family strives to teach about the importance of its view of the family unit by providing an array of resources. According to the Focus on the Family Website, its “ministry is therefore based upon six guiding philosophies that are apparent at every level throughout the organization. These “pillars” are drawn from the wisdom of the Bible and the Judeo-Christian ethic, rather than from the humanistic notions of today’s theorists.” These guiding philosophies include: the preeminence of evangelism, the permanence of marriage, the value of children, the sanctity of human life, and the importance of social responsibility. Radio broadcasts, which range from 15 to 30 minute time slots, include topics such as living by Christian example, effective parenting with children of all ages, marital relationships, sexuality, infidelity, healthy living, depression, finances, and weight loss. To enhance its ministry, Focus on the Family also publishes magazines for all age groups such as Clubhouse, Clubhouse Jr., Thriving Family, and Citizen magazines. Other Rescources of Communication The Focus on the Family Website includes many other resources that communicate its mission. Topics include relationship and marriage, addressing issues such as finances, conflict, marriage challenges, and reviving marriages. The parenting link includes issues such as helping kids grow spiritually, dealing with teens, relationships, and education. The faith link includes the group’s definition of what it means to be a Christian and to live one’s faith, and the study of God. The entertainment link offers its supporters information regarding children’s exposure to media. This includes articles and movie reviews to orient parents on the pros and cons of popular culture outlets, from prime time programming to popular movies. The life challenges section of the Website addresses emotional issues, addiction, abuse, life transitions,

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love, sex, and support for dealing with death, grief, pain, and depression. The social issues link addresses issues involving abstinence, bioethics, the sanctity of life, education, gambling, the law and the courts, pornography, and sexual identity. Their midlife and beyond resources offers support in areas such as the empty nest syndrome, parenting adult children, staying happily married once the kids leave home, grandparenting, and dealing with a midlife crisis. Focus on the Family is one of the largest Christian organizations in the United States. In its attempt to conserve what it perceives as traditional values and the structure of the family, Focus on the Family supports the Defense of Marriage Act, and is opposed to same-sex marriage. It also opposes homosexuality and offer conferences for those who struggle with “such tendencies.” In essence, these conferences are designed to teach individuals that homosexuality is preventable and can be treated. Focus on the Family’s controversial position is that the inability for gays to change their sexual orientation calls for sexual abstinence. In addition to keeping a close watch on the gay movement, Focus on the Family is also highly involved in educational environments. Focus on the Family has attempted to bring back prayer into school systems, but only prayer that is led by students. Student-led prayer is supported over teacher-led prayer, due to ots belief that teachers may lead their students to pray to a power other than the Christian God. Focus on the Family also believes families should have the right to choose their child’s education. Thirty years have passed since the first Focus on the Family radio show. The group is now one of the largest nonprofit, conservative, Christian organizations in the United States, and has become a resource for millions of people. Although its conservative message is not for everyone, it draws an extensive audience and is impacting society. See Also: Christian Identity; Christianity; Fundamentalist Christianity; Same-Sex Marriage; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States. Further Readings Focus on the Family. http://www.focusonthefamily.com (accessed December 2009). Horovitz, Bruce. “Focus on the Family Got Super Bowl Buzz It Wanted.” USA Today (February 9, 2010). http://

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Christine Pease-Hernandez Slippery Rock University

the Vietnamese were not the enemy. After the United States left Vietnam for good in 1975, Fonda and thenhusband Tom Hayden began the Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED) to express opposition to nuclear power. Fonda used some of the money raised through the CED to produce the film, The China Syndrome in 1979, a story about corporate greed and a nuclear power plant accident cover-up.

Jane Fonda, born December 21, 1937, is a renowned actress, activist, feminist, author, and fitness guru. While Fonda is known worldwide for her Oscar-winning performances in Klute (1972) and Coming Home (1979), she has worked tirelessly for decades on antiwar campaigns, reproductive health issues for teens, physical fitness promotion, and for civil and women’s rights both locally and internationally. Beginning in the 1960s, Fonda used her wealth and celebrity to stage protests and raise money to fight against the Vietnam War. In 1972, she traveled to Hanoi to investigate reports that the United States was intentionally bombing dikes that held back the Red River in North Vietnam. She recorded proof of these attacks, as well as interviews with Vietnamese soldiers, but her film allegedly disappeared once she returned to the United States. Fonda chose to speak publicly on Radio Hanoi about her strong antiwar sentiments. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency obtained transcripts of these radio shows, and monitored her closely, along with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the White House. Rather than highlight her antiwar efforts, these institutions, along with the international media, focused on a photograph of Fonda sitting on an antiaircraft battery. The photo earned her the nickname “Hanoi Jane.” She apologizes for the lapse in judgment that led to the photograph, but remains unapologetic for her antiwar protests. Despite the scrutiny, Fonda created the Indochina Peace Campaign (IPC) with the goal of moving the antiwar campaign from demonstrations and rallies into local communities. Through the IPC, she produced a film about ordinary Vietnamese people titled Introduction to the Enemy to prove to Americans that

A New Aspect to Her Career In the 1980s, Fonda turned her sights toward physical fitness with the Jane Fonda Workout Book and Jane Fonda Workout video. She made home fitness fun, and encouraged women and men alike to “feel the burn.” The Jane Fonda Workout video sold more than 17 million copies and boosted sales of the video cassette recorder (VCR) as well. Fonda became vocal about international human rights for women and girls in the 1990s and increased her activism worldwide. She visited Cairo in 1994 to speak at the International Conference on Population and Development as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. This trip exposed Fonda to extreme poverty and inspired her to found the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. The campaign helps young girls to make informed choices about pregnancy, family planning, reproductive health, and raising children, while also encouraging young men to be attentive fathers. In 1995, Fonda traveled to Beijing to participate in the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. A few years later, she went to the Nigeria to film a documentary titled Generation 2000: Changing Girls’ Realities about innovative schools in Nigeria that help foster girls’ self-esteem with a solid education. In the new millennium Fonda has devoted her time and energies to the VDay movement, with the mission of ending violence against women everywhere. She serves on the V-Board and has been a regular participant in benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues since 2001. In 2001, she also founded the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent and Reproductive Health at Emory University. Fonda cofounded the Women’s Media Center (WMC) in 2005, a nonprofit progressive women’s media organization, with fellow activists Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan. The WMC seeks to make women more visible in the media.

www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2010 -02-09-focusfolo09_ST_N.htm (accessed July 2010). Right Wing Watch. “Focus on the Family.” (2006). http:// www.rightwingwatch.org/content/focus-family (accessed July 2010).

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See Also: Celebrity Women; Ensler, Eve; Fitness; Pacifism, Female; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Vagina Monologues, The. Further Readings Fonda, Jane. My Life So Far. New York: Random House, 2006. Hershberger, M. Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an Antiwar Icon. New York: New Press, 2005. Hershberger, M., ed. Jane Fonda’s Words of Politics and Compassion. New York: The New Press, 2006. Katie M. White University of Maryland

Forum for African Women Educationalists The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) is an African nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Nairobi, Kenya, with the goal of advancing the education and overall opportunities of African women. FAWE was developed in 1992 by five women serving as ministers of education from several African countries including Fay Chung of Zimbabwe, Simone Testa from the Seychelles, Paulette Moussavon-Missambo of Gabon, Alice Tiendrebengo representing Burkina Faso, and Vida Yeboah from Ghana. Pan-African in scope, the mission of FAWE is to promote the education of women and girls in subSaharan Africa. Creating FAWE evolved following a series of pivotal global conferences and initiatives such as the United Nation’s Women’s Decade Conference (1985), the World Declaration on Education for All (1990), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990), and the Jontiem World Conference (1990). As a result of these events, the women who created FAWE examined the data on education worldwide indicating that 60 million girls around the world, primarily in developing countries, had little or no access to education while two-thirds of the world’s illiterate were women. The first official meeting of FAWE took place in October 1992 in Bellagio, Italy. Members of FAWE include ministers of education, university vice chancellors, education policy makers, human rights activists, and gender specialists. Currently, FAWE has

Eight-year-old Najmo in war-torn Somalia can continue her education through daily, radio-based programs.

a network of 32 national chapters across the African continent. Through these chapters and “centers of excellence” (COEs) ordinary schools are revitalized with programs that target the physical, academic, and social aspects of education. Integrating genderresponsive pedagogy in their academic programming, focusing on the needs of individual learners, FAWE has made significant achievements in girls’ retention and performance in educational facilities throughout the African continent. According to many statistics, the dropout rate of girls in Third World countries is relatively high as compared with their male counterparts. FAWE believes that the key to improving the lives of young girls is providing a fair and equitable education system while simultaneously, through educational programming, addressing long-standing oppressive societal norms that impact the lives of women. It is the belief of FAWE that many girls drop out of school due to “unfavorable learning environments.”

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Implementing gender-sensitive learning materials, within a supportive community environment, helps to encourage young girls to remain in school and this is the cornerstone FAWE initiatives.

compared with those nations without FAWE centers. FAWE has been recognized as one of the most important voices on the education of women in Africa today.

Strategic Objectives and Goals The strategic goals and objectives of FAWE focus on reducing gender disparities while advocating education for all (EFA); working together with partners to encourage positive societal attitudes; supporting policies that focus on equity for girls in terms of access, retention, and educational quality. Working with stakeholders throughout the African continent, FAWE seeks to influence the transformation of educational systems in Africa. These goals and objectives are articulated through a four-pronged approach outlined as (1) influencing policy in favor of the education of women; (2) creating awareness through advocating the importance of girls’ education; (3) demonstrating what works in addressing constraints to girls’ access, retention, and performance; and (4) influencing replication and mainstreaming of best practices related the development of education for girls and young women.

See Also: Africa; “Girl-Friendly” Schools; Nongovermental Organizations Worldwide.

Programs The first national chapters of FAWE were created in 1993 in the locales of Ghana, Malawi, and Seychelles. In 1994, eight more chapters were created in Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. FAWE programs include the Science, Math, and Technology Endeavor (SMT) instituted in 1995, the Tuseme (Let Us Speak Out) inaugurated in 1996 that utilizes theater techniques to encourage girls to address social concerns that may compromise educational achievement, and the COEs created in 1999 to transform existing educational facilities into quality institutions of excellence. The Tuseme approach has been incorporated into the curriculum of places such as Kenya and Tanzania. FAWE centers of excellence are present in 13 schools in 10 countries. These centers feature the SMT program for girls, gender responsive pedagogy, and sexual maturation management programs. FAWE has also advanced programs to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.

Becoming a foster mother, as the term implies, refers to raising a child who is not biologically a women’s offspring, on either a short-term basis or for an extended period of time. Children placed in the care of a foster mother are either removed from the biological parent as the parent is deemed unfit or unsuitable by the state to raise the child, or alternatively, the process of child transferal to an alternative caregiver is a voluntary process that does not involve state intervention. Being a foster mother differs considerably from formal adoption as in the case of adoption the biological child is permanently removed from the parent–child unit and the biological parents cede all rights to the child. Alternatively, in the case of fostering, the biological parents retain the right to intercede in decisions taken with respect to the child and the child still maintains the right to legally inherit assets from the biological parents. In cases where fostering has been ratified by the state, the foster mother does not automatically assume the role of guardian to the child in her care, rather, this position is retained by the state, and the state is, for all intents and purposes, regarded as the custodian of the child. As such, the state has the

Achievements Countries with FAWE national centers have significantly higher levels of literacy and retention as

Further Readings Forum for African Women Educationalists. http://www .fawe.org (accessed January 2010). Kane, Eileen. Seeing for Yourself: Researchers Handbook for Girls’ Education in Africa. New York: World Bank Publications, 1995. Kwesiga, Joy. Women’s Access to Higher Education in Africa. Kampala, Uganda: Fountain, 2002. Hettie V. Williams Monmouth University

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right to remove the child at any stage in the fostering process, and if deemed appropriate, may reunite the child with his or her biological parents whose rights are viewed by the state as superseding those of the foster mother. Studies indicate that reasons for opting to become a foster mother are diverse and based on altruistic intentions as well as the need to fulfill a personal void. Common reasons for fostering cited by foster mothers include the will to help children in need, maternal desire, and “a calling from God.” While legal requirements in terms of becoming a foster mother vary from country to country, foster mothers are thoroughly screened, and in the case of state fostering, frequently receive training in an attempt to ensure suitability and preparation for the role. Once accepted as a suitable candidate, foster mothers may opt to foster on a short-term basis or for extended periods of time. Longer term fostering frequently results in a natural and enduring emotional bond forming between a foster mother and the child/children in her care. While the emotional investment in the child is beneficial in terms of the child receiving psychosocial support during what is often a traumatic time, the severing of the bonds formed if the child is reunited with the biological parents, or moved to an alterative caregiver, may be detrimental to both the foster mother and the child/children in her care. Voluntary Fostering In many parts of the world, such as South America, Asia, and Africa, children have historically been, and continue to be, fostered on a voluntary basis. In such instances, the child is fostered through a sociocultural arrangement made between the biological parents and the foster parents and such a fosterage system does not normally require state intervention. In the case of voluntary fostering, the child maintains a close bond with his or her biological parents but is raised by alternative kin caregivers, allowing for skills to be transferred or acquired, labor to be offered, kin ties to be strengthened, education opportunities to be sought, and companionship and care to be given. However, the nature of informal, voluntary fostering has changed considerably with the onset of the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic. HIV/AIDS has resulted in the demise of many prime-age caregiv-

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ers who have historically been the first line of defense against a child becoming destitute. As a result, the number of children being absorbed into households able to provide care has risen at an unprecedented rate, resulting in care-dependency ratios increasing dramatically. Social theorists have argued that in many regions of the world but most specifically in sub-Saharan Africa, voluntary fostering has now been replaced by crisis fostering. While non-kin fostering has historically been an anomaly in Africa, Asia, and many parts of South America, HIV/AIDS has resulted in the growth of this care sector. Models of foster care, such as global SOS Villages have become a natural response to the pandemic. In such fostering schemes, cluster fostering is the norm and individual foster mothers are required to raise a number of children in an individual homestead within a cluster village scenario. This type of foster care is regarded as a remarkable improvement to the typical residential “orphanage” model of care that arose with the industrial revolution and has become synonymous with care for orphaned and destitute children in many Western countries. While some assert that cluster fostering is likely to be the answer to the care challenges created by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, critics argue that such capital-intensive schemes are not likely to be easily replicated on a mass scale. A further aspect of foster care that has received both media and academic attention in recent years is the issue of interracial fostering. Interracial fostering has had a sporadic history, being virtually absent prior to the World War II, gaining precedence with the civil rights movement in the United States, dwindling significantly in the 1990s and resurging in popularity since the turn of the century. Historically, there has been a strong dichotomy with respect to interracial fostering. Debates have hinged on the positive and negatives attributes, with those in favor stressing the benefits of a stable home, a unique opportunity for learning culture through dual enculturation, and keeping children out of the less-favored residential orphanage system. On the flip side of the coin, critiques of interracial fostering have stressed the risk of developing poor racial, cultural, and ethnic identity as well as the possibility of experiencing appearance discomfort. With the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and the concentration of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, cross-border

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trans-racial fostering, frequently culminating in more permanent adoption, has gained scope. As foster mothering is hinged on sociocultural and economic premises, the nature of foster mothering is constantly shifting and being renegotiated in response to the changing environment and childcare prerogatives. As a result, new foster care initiatives that are culturally and socially appropriate are likely to emerge as the HIV pandemic unfolds and societal status quos shift. See Also: Adoption; Childlessness as Choice; Children’s Rights; Convention on the Rights of the Child; HIV/AIDS: Africa. Further Readings Brown, J. “Challenges of Transcultural Placements: Foster Parent Perspectives.” Child Welfare, v.88/3 (2009). Campbell, C., and S. Whitelaw Downs. “The Impact of Economic Incentives on Foster Parents.” Social Science Review, v.61/4 (1987). Denby, R., N. Rindfleisch, and G. Bean. “Predictors of Foster Parents’ Satisfaction and Intent to Continue to Foster.” Child Abuse and Neglect, v.23/3 (1999). Jones, S. “Children on the Move: Parenting, Mobility and Birth-Status Among Migrants.” Questionable Issue: Illegitimacy in South Africa. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1992. Oleke, C., A. Blystad, and O. Rekdal. “When the Obvious Brother Is Not There: Political and Cultural Contexts of the Orphan Challenge in Northern Uganda.” Social Science and Medicine, v.61/12 (2005). Rushton, A. and H. Minnis. “Research Review: Transracial Placements: A Commentary on a New Adult Outcome Study.” Adoption and Fostering, v.24/1 (2000). Susan de la Porte University of KwaZulu-Natal

France In the aftermaths of World War I and World War II, France lost wealth, colonial territories, labor force, and previously held prestige or “grandeur,” a favorite term of Charles de Gaulle. Yet, France has emerged as one of the leaders of the European Union, particularly

as far as economic policy and cooperation with other European nations such as Germany is concerned, while also maintaining strong diplomatic ties with the United States. In 2009, France ranked 28th in the world in per capita income ($32,800) and is listed 8th overall on the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Human Development Report list of countries with Very High Human Development, placing 7th in terms of life expectancy at birth (81 years). According to the World Factbook, France’s population is mainly Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Indochinese, and Basque minorities, while in terms of religion, 88 percent of the country are Roman Catholic, with a significant Muslim population (5-10 percent), along with Protestant (2 percent), and Jewish (1 percent) communities. Approximately 4 percent of the population have no religious affiliation. Birth of Women’s Rights Movement in the 18th Century The struggle for women’s rights in France began in the 18th century during the French Revolution, when Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) famously penned the “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen” in 1791, demanding female equality and legal representation in response to the 1789 “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” De Gouges was guillotined in 1793 during the Reign of Terror. In 1776, guilds of tailors and seamstresses allowed women to join, while divorce was legalized in 1792 (only to be abolished in 1816, although it would once again be made legal in 1884). The first woman to be recognized with the Légion d’honneur—the highest award given by the French Republic for service to the nation—was Angelique Marie Joseph Duchemion who was given the honor by Louis-Napoleon, President of the Republic, in 1851. The demand for female suffrage began in the early 19th century, but women were not granted the vote in France until October 1944. In the early 19th century, women accounted for one-third of the labor force (4.5 million women). By 1911, 36 percent of the workforce was female, and 50 percent of all women of working age worked. The decline of female employment between 1920 and 1945 leveled off and increased in the 1960s. In 2000, the total employment rates of women age 25 to 49 was 80.6 percent, broken down as follows: 87.7 percent of single women, 86.6 percent of married women with



no children, 85.2 percent of married women with 1 child (under age 16), 75 percent of women with 2 children (under age 16), 51.1 percent of married women with more than 2 children (under age 16). Women overall have a higher unemployment rate than men: in March 2000, the unemployment rate was 10 percent: 11.9 percent for women and 8.5 percent for men. In 2009, the unemployment rate for women was 8.5 percent while it was 7.4 percent for men. Women on average earn 25 percent less than men, which can be partially explained by the fact that women are more often part-time workers and work in lower paid fields. Yet even when employed in equal lines of work and with similar qualifications, a 7-percent pay gap persists between men and women. According to the Global Gender Gap Report of 2009, France was ranked 123st for wage equality for similar work. In 2009, women’s estimated earned income was $24,529; men’s was $39,731. This same report found that 64 percent of French women participated in the workforce while 74 percent of men did and that women formed 38 percent of legislators, senior officials, and managers as opposed to 62 percent of men. French Social Security provides a 16-week maternity leave, with 100 percent of wages paid (up to a ceiling). In 2009, France has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world (3.33 deaths/1,000 live births). Female babies (2.99) have a significant advantage over males (3.66). The same is true for life expectancy, which is 84.3 years for women as opposed to 77.8 for men (life expectancy at birth for the entire population averages to 80.9 years). Women have a fertility rate of 1.98 children, ranking 133st in comparison to the rest of the world. The median age for women is 40.9 years while for men it is 38 years. While the literacy rate is 99 percent for both males and females, the school life expectancy for women is slightly higher (17 years) than for men (16 years). In 2007, France spent 77 billion euros, or 28 percent of its national budget on education (6.9 percent per inhabitant). It ranked 46th in the world in educational spending. Women and Politics In October 1945, women made up 5.6 percent of deputies elected to the National Assembly, dropping to 1.5 percent in 1958 and climbing to 3.5 percent in

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1961. By 1986, the figure was 5.9 percent, dipping to 5.7 percent in 1988, and reaching 6.1 percent after the 1993 parliamentary elections. Since 1997, the Parti socialiste (PS) has reserved 28 percent of its constituencies for female candidates. As of 2009, France was ranked 16th for political empowerment by the Global Gender Gap report, with 63 women in Parliament (4 in ministerial positions). At the end of the 1970s, France was second only to Sweden for the highest number of women in high-ranking government positions. In 1974, Arlette Laguiller (1940– ) was the first woman to attempt a presidential campaign as part of the Workers’ Struggle Party—­and she would continue to run for president in 1981, 1988, 1995, 2002, and 2007. There were nine women ministers during the presidency of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing from 1974­–81, including Françoise Giroud (1916–2003), minister for women, and Simone Veil (1927– ), minister of health. Veil would go to on to be elected the first female president and the first president altogether of the European Parliament in 1979. The presidential candidacy of François Mitterrand (1916–96) was supported by many feminists in 1981. Mitterrand’s victory in May of that year brought much success to the French women’s movement, including the 1983 passage of the Yvette Roudy— sponsored anti-sexism law as well as the creation of the Ministère des droits de la femme (Ministry of Women’s Rights) and the Secretariat à la condition féminine (Women’s Secretariat). One of the setbacks for the French women’s movement occurred with Mitterrand’s appointment of Edith Cresson (1934– ) as the first French female prime minister, whose tenure was short lived and marked by her unpopularity due to her homophobic, sexist, and racist statements. Cresson resigned after less than one year in office (the shortest of any Fifth Republic prime minister). The end of the 20th century in France witnessed an increase in feminist organizations and activity. A few of the most important women’s rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were created in the late 20th century including the Chiennes de guarde (Female Guard Dogs) founded in 1999 by Florence Montreynaud (1948– ); Ni Putes, Ni Soumises (Neither Whores, Nor Doormats), created in 2002 by young French Muslim women in response to violence against them; and the Collectif des féministes indigènes (Collective

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of Indigenous Feminists), started in 2007, against sexism, racism, and how its members consider that nonWestern women are dominated by Western feminists. The year 2007 also saw the first national French female presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal (1953– )​ of the Socialist Party. Nicolas Sarkozy (1955– ) of the Conservative UMP defeated Royal. Former model, actress, and singer Carla Bruni (1967– ) married Sarkozy in February 2008, becoming France’s first lady. Sarkozy appointed Fadela Amara (1964– ) as Secretary of State for Urban Policies in the 2nd UMP government of Prime Minister François Fillon. Amara­—who founded the Association des femmes pour l’échange intercommunautaire (Women’s Association for Intercommunal Exchange) when she was 18 years old—is a supporter of the controversial 2004 French Law on Secularity (headscarf ban). In September 2010, the lower house of French Parliament voted in favor of banning the burka in public. Laws to Protect Women French law penalizes rape with a minimum prison sentence of 15 years; 10,277 rapes were reported in 2008, an increase from the 10,132 reported in 2007. The number of women killed by their spouses decreased in 2008 to 156 from 166 in 2007. The Global Gender Gap Report found that on a scale of 0 to 1 (0 being the best score), France received a score of .25 for the existence of legislation punishing acts of violence against women. Female genital mutilation is against the law. Prostitution is legal, although there are strict regulations that are often difficult to maintain. Sex tourism and trafficking continue to plague France despite legal and political measures to combat them. Most victims of trafficking are women taken to France from Africa (Cameroon and Nigeria), Asia (China), Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria and Romania), and the former Soviet Union for sexual servitude. In the 2009 Global Gender Gap Report, France was ranked 18 out of 134 countries, a drop from the previous year when it ranked 15 out of 130 countries. Yet these are both significant improvements over previous rankings: 51 (out of 128) in 2007 and 70 (out of 115) in 2006. See Also: Domestic Violence; Professions by Gender; Representation of Women in Government, International;

Sarkozy, Carla Bruni; Secularity Law, France; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Amara, F. and S. Zappi. Ni Putes ni Soumises. Paris: La Découverte, 2003. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: France.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/fr.html (accessed April 2010). Jardine, A. and A. Menke, eds. Shifting Scenes: Interviews on Women, Writing, and Politics in Post-’68 France. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Mossuz-Lavau, Janine. “Gender Parity in Politics.” http:// www.ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article612 (accessed June 2010). Samuel, Henri. “Burka Is ‘an Affront to French Values,’ Parliament Rules.” The Telegraph (May 11, 2010). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe /france/7711510/Burka-is-an-affront-to-French -values-parliament-rules.html (accessed May 2010). Scott, J. W. Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. United Nations Development Programme. “Human Development Report 2009, France.” http://hdrstats. undp.org/en/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs _FRA.html (accessed June 2010). U.S. Department of State. “2009 Human Rights Report: France.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/ eur/136031.htm (June 2010). World Economic Forum. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009: Country Profiles and Highlights, France.” http:// www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap2009/France.pdf (June 2010). Marcelline Block Princeton University

Freedom of Choice Act The Freedom of Choice Act was first introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 21, 2004, by Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and in the Senate on January 22, 2004 by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) during the 108th session of Congress, and was designed to reinforce the Roe v. Wade decision.



The Freedom of Choice Act specifically states that a woman has the right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy before the fetus is viable, or to terminate a pregnancy after the fetus is viable when necessary to protect her own life or health. Additionally, it states that federal, state, and local governments may not deny or interfere with a woman’s right to make these choices, nor may they discriminate against the exercise of these rights in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information. Finally, the act concludes by stating that these provisions should apply retroactively and that anyone who is harmed through a violation of this act shall be entitled to relief, even against a government, through filing a civil action. After being introduced into the House and Senate, the Freedom of Choice Act was referred in both cases to the Committee on Judiciary. The 108th session of Congress ended prior to the act being passed by the Senate and the House, and therefore needed to be introduced again in a following session on Congress before it can be acted upon again. The Freedom of Choice Act was introduced again during the 110th session of Congress on April 19, 2007, in both the House and the Senate. Both bodies again referred the act to the Committee on Judiciary, and again it failed to make it out of the committee prior to the end of this session of Congress. As of 2010, it has not been reintroduced for consideration in either the House of the Senate. Opponents One of the largest opponents of the Freedom of Choice Act is the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). This group argues that the Act would invalidate laws that protect women from unsafe abortion clinics, require taxpayer monies to be spent on abortion services, require states to allow partial-birth and late-term abortions, allow abortions to be performed by nonphysicians, ban laws that protect conscientious objection to abortion, and deny parents the opportunity to be involved in their minor daughter’s abortion decision. Organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL that support the act refute all these arguments and argue that it would serve to protect a woman’s right to have an abortion even if the Supreme Court reverses the Roe v. Wade decision. Independent ana-

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lysts assert that the impact of the Freedom of Choice Act, if passed, is unclear since much of the language in the Act is vague and therefore open to interpretation. They also argue that some of the claims of the USCCB may not transpire with the passage of the Act as it only applies to governments and not to private hospital facilities. Additionally, they argue that the Freedom of Choice Act would not supersede the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion, and is reaffirmed each year by Congress. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, United States; NARAL; Planned Parenthood; Pregnancy; Pro-Life Movement; Roe v. Wade. Further Readings Hull, N. E. H. and Peter C. Hoffer. Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in American History (Landmark Law Cases and American Society.) Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Freedom of Choice Act: Most Radical Abortion Legislation in History.” http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/FOCA/FOCA _FactSheet08.pdf (Accessed December 2009). U.S. Library of Congress. “Freedom of Choice Act.” http:// thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1173 (accessed December 2009). C. L. Cokely Curry College

“Freedom of Conscience” Legislation Freedom of conscience legislation refers to laws and legislative measures that protect the right of pharmacists, physicians, and other healthcare workers to refuse to provide healthcare services if doing so would conflict with their personal beliefs. Such legislation permits healthcare professionals to withhold these services without fear of penalty or discrimination. Conscience clauses, also known as “refusal clauses,” have recently become a source of increased scrutiny and debate. At the heart of public debate regarding freedom of conscience legislation is the question of how to balance the provider’s moral or religious

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beliefs, especially the right to act in accordance with one’s conscience, with the professional duty of care, or collective obligation to fulfill patient needs and provide nondiscriminatory access to professional services regardless of personal objections. Although freedom of conscience legislation is most often evoked in relation to the provision of abortion and sterilization procedures, it has implications for a wide range of healthcare issues, including emergency contraception for rape victims; the receipt or provision of abortion training; in vitro fertilization for infertile couples; therapies developed with the use of fetal tissue or embryonic stem cells, including vaccines; and end-of-life care. Constitutional Foundation and Recent Laws Freedom of conscience legislation is premised on the right to freedom of thought or conscience, characterized by United States Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo as the foundation for every other form of freedom, and recognized as a cornerstone of international human rights law. Such legislation represents an emerging front in the abortion wars nationwide. It protects the rights of “healthcare entities,” typically defined as individual physicians, postgraduate physician training programs, and participants in health professions training programs, although recent legislation has proposed to expand this definition. The first conscience clause in the United States, the Church Amendment, was passed in 1973 immediately following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113). Drafted as a clause of the Public Health Service Act, it allowed health workers at private hospitals receiving federal funds to refuse to perform abortion or sterilization procedures on the basis of moral or religious convictions. By 1978, nearly every state had enacted similar legislation to protect the rights of health providers to refuse treatment against their conscience. Currently, 46 states have adopted some form of freedom of conscience legislation. Notably, these laws do not allow health providers to prevent or deter patients from receiving such care elsewhere. Congress enacted additional conscience clauses throughout the 1990s. Legislation passed in 1997 extends the coverage of conscience clauses beyond the individual health provider to the companies that pay for healthcare under the Medicaid and Medicare pro-

grams. It also expands the scope of earlier conscience clauses by allowing health plans funded by Medicare and Medicaid to refuse to provide counseling and referral for abortion services, whereas earlier legislation had only impacted the actual provision of these services. The Obama administration has proposed to reverse the Provider Refusal Rule, a 2008 expansion of existing conscience clauses that enables providers to define contraception as abortion and “human life” as beginning prior to the implantation of a fertilized egg, contrary to medical definitions of these terms. Practices in the Marketplace Pharmacists’ conscience clauses have proven especially controversial within the past decade. Some pharmacies, including CVS and Target, allow their pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control pills under the pharmacist’s conscience clause. Although not all pharmacies require their employees to refer their patients to alternative providers, Target upholds a corporate policy of “refuse and refer,” that is, employees who evoke the refusal clause must refer their patients to another Target location that will fill their prescriptions. Health providers and agencies opposed to abortion support conscience clauses because they uphold the right of health providers to make professional judgments based on ethical convictions. For example, Catholic hospitals advocate freedom of conscience laws because they reinforce the church’s moral stance on life and choice. Yet many healthcare and reproductive rights organizations, including the American Medical Association, Planned Parenthood, and National Abortion Rights Action League, suggest that conscience clauses obstruct patient care, especially by limiting women’s access to reproductive healthcare services. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Appel, Jacob M. “‘Conscience’ vs. Care: How Refusal Clauses Are Reshaping the Rights Revolution.” Medicine and Health, Rhode Island, v.88/8 (2005). Feder, Jody. “The History and Effect of Abortion Conscience Clause Laws.” Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress (January 14, 2005). http://

Fundamentalist Christianity

www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocu ments/RS2142801142005.pdf (accessed July 2010). Rovner, Julie. “Legislatures Grapple With ‘Conscience Laws.’” Weekend Edition Saturday. (May 14, 2005). http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story .php?storyId=4652240 (accessed November 2009). Karina Eileraas University of California, Los Angeles

Fundamentalist Christianity Fundamentalism originated in the 1920s, in the urban North in the United States, in reaction to 19th century secularism and was largely unsuccessful. In the 1930s, Fundamentalism became a separatist movement. During the 1970s and 1980s, Fundamentalism resurfaced through the political efforts of the “Moral Majority.” After successfully overtaking the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Fundamentalists have revised denominational history to support their dogma and limited women from ministerial leadership. In the late 19th century, several intellectual ideas challenged American evangelical Protestant Christian hegemony. The Enlightenment advocated individualism, reason, freedom, and progress. Biblical criticism questioned biblical inspiration and historicity. Evolutionary theory doubted Intelligent Design. Liberal theology attempted to reconcile the Enlightenment, biblical criticism, and evolution with Christianity. Rising secularism incited Protestant opposition to liberalism. California entrepreneurs Lyman and Milton Stewart commissioned 12 pamphlets containing 90 articles on The Fundamentals between 1910 and 1915, to be distributed freely to Christian leaders globally. In 1920, Northern Baptist newspaper editor Curtis Lee Laws authored a column labeling adherents to the fundamentals as “Fundamentalists.” In the 1920s and 1930s, Fundamentalists, primarily centered in the urban North, lost public battles and failed to dominate any major denomination. The most famous battle was the Scopes trial in 1925, in which Tennessee public school teacher John Scopes was sued for violating an earlier prohibition of teaching evolution. Though defense attorney Clarence Darrow

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defeated the prosecution, led by William Jennings Bryan, heavy trial press led to increasing public disapproval of Fundamentalism. The second most significant public loss for Fundamentalists occurred in 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt’s administration repealed Prohibition. In the 1930s, Fundamentalist leadership shifted from scholars to Bible teachers and evangelists. Fundamentalists separated themselves from mainstream culture and promoted their beliefs through radio, revivals, Bible colleges and seminaries, and missions. In the 1970s, Fundamentalism resurged into national discourse through the political campaigning of Jerry Falwell and the “Moral Majority” who sought legislation to protect Christian morality in America, namely: conservative social values, increased national defense, and capitalism. Fundamentalism is now primarily associated with the SBC. Fundamentalism originated without a governing authority; however, most early Fundamentalists subscribed to biblical inerrancy, dispensational premillennialism, and pietism. Biblical inerrancy specifically rejected biblical criticism and claimed inspired authorship and historical accuracy of the Bible. Dispensational premillennialism upheld a specific series of events to happen surrounding the return of Christ and the end of the world, which many Fundamentalists believe is imminent. Pietism, also known as the deeper life, connected D. L. Moody’s evangelism campaign with the Bible conference movement, advocating for strict holy living among believers. The Fundamentals rejected biblical criticism, evolution, and liberal theology and addressed threatened Fundamentalist beliefs. In 1910, the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church affirmed a list of five elements of fundamentalist doctrine: biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, Christ’s bodily resurrection, and the authenticity of biblical miracles. From the 1920s, “the five fundamentals” referred to this list, though sometimes the premillennial return of Christ appeared instead of the authenticity of miracles, and the deity of Christ was often added as a sixth fundamental. Biblical inerrancy is the foundation of Fundamentalist doctrine: the original manuscripts of biblical texts were flawless in theology, ethics, history, and science. Affirmation of the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the authenticity of miracles similarly

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defend the historicity of the Bible. Substitionary atonement comes from John Calvin’s theology; its inclusion in the list reflects intra-Christian debate concerning the nature of the atonement rather than secularist influence. Premillennialism originated in the 19th century and proposes that the world is progressively becoming more sinful and that Christ will rapture Christians before seven years of tribulation, after which Christ and Christians will defeat Satan in the battle of Armageddon, and Christ will reign on Earth for a thousand years before God’s final judgment. Southern Baptists and Women In the early 20th century, several Fundamentalist churches were removed from the SBC and created independent Baptist circles. In 1979, the Convention hosted extensive controversy in which Fundamentalist leaders captured leadership of every Convention agency and moved the Convention toward Fundamentalism, away from Baptist distinctives local church autonomy and the separation of church and state. The 1963 Baptist Faith and Message (BFM) did not include any gender role statements concerning church ministry, and Baptists have historically affirmed women in ministry. The Fundamentalist-driven 2000 BFM specifically forbade women pastors, affirmed men as household spiritual leaders, and elevated Scripture as commensurate with deity. In addition to rejecting its more than 1,600 ordained women, the Convention has also removed its support of female military chaplains. During the 1980s and 1990s, SBC seminaries removed all female faculty teaching core disciplines. Convention’s missionaries are required to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, and women missionaries are limited in how they may serve. Fundamentalists interpret scripture concerning women and ministerial leadership literally rather than contextually and encourage women to find freedom through dying to themselves as Christ on the cross by submitting to the headship of their fathers then their husbands, and accepting their ministry through serving their male authorities. Fundamentalists prioritize Scripture over the ministry of Jesus, which included women apostles and preachers. See Also: Christian Identity; Christianity; Evangelical Protestantism; Feminist Theology; Focus on the Family; Ministry, Protestant; Religion, Women in; Religious

Fundamentalisms, Cross-Cultural Context of; Southern Baptist Convention. Further Readings Ammerman, Nancy. Baptist Battles: Social Change and Religious Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. Humphreys, Fisher and Philip Wise. Fundamentalism. Macon, GA: Smith & Helwys, 2004. Joyce, Kathryn. Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009. Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism in American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Courtney Lyons Baylor University

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Known most famously for its support of plural marriage (polygamy), the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), based on the revelations of Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr., encourages its female congregants to remain subservient to the men in their community. Though many female members of the FLDS subscribe to this belief system, others have rebelled against these traditional notions and have left the Church altogether. Scholars like Stephen Singular, author of When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, and the Women Who Fought Back, draw special attention to Smith’s revelations and passages of Mormon scripture which form the crux for the FLDS’s views on women. Smith had a revelation in which he realized that to be granted salvation, a man needed to have more than one woman acting as his wife. A specific piece of scripture states that a man may have 10 women of his own and that since they “belong” to him, the man cannot be found guilty of committing adultery. Though the FLDS supports men having multiple partners, women may have only one. Singular analyzes another piece of Mormon scripture that clarifies the notion of women remaining faithful to one man; the



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The FLDS community in Eldorado, Texas, made international news in 2008 when state troopers and child welfare authorities stormed the church compound and removed over 400 children from their mothers’ care.

passage concerns Joseph Smith’s wife Emma, and how God commands her to keep only Smith as her partner, and that not doing so would incur God’s wrath. Women’s Roles in Recent Views Recent leaders in the FLDS continuously emphasize women’s roles as subservient to their husband. Warren Jeffs, who came under scrutiny and was placed on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Most Wanted List. After Jeffs was captured, he tried for crimes including incest and sexual relations with minors. Jeffs abandoned his many wives while attempting to outrun the law; these wives were simply assigned to other men. Jeffs further emphasized his view of men having ownership over women when, as Singular cites in When Men Become Gods, he reminded FLDS female students during their lessons that their husbands should have absolute rule over them. Though women’s roles in the FLDS remain strictly defined, and although women are expected to behave obediently without questioning male authority, several women have successfully left the FLDS, often taking their children from their polygamous (and often abusive) marriages with them. Women like Carolyn Jessop

(wife of Merril Jessop, a former FLDS leader), Flora Jessop (Carolyn’s cousin, who was forced to marry her first cousin Phillip at the age of 16), and Elissa Wall (one of Warren Jeff’s child brides) have separated themselves from the church and their polygamist marriages. With the help of counseling and other forms of support, these women have adjusted to life outside the FLDS. Tellingly, each of these women have also written autobiographies in which they chronicle their lives in the FLDS and, as they refer to it, their “escape” from the FLDS and its stifling expectations concerning women. The FLDS community in Eldorado, Texas, made international news in 2008 when state troopers and child welfare authorities stormed the church compound and removed over 400 children from their mothers’ care. While Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) claimed this action was taken for the children’s own good, the Texas Supreme Court subsequently ordered the return of the children to their mothers. The phone call that precipitated the CPS action was subsequently determined to have been a hoax. See Also: Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered;

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Religion, Women in; Religious Fundamentalism, CrossCultural Context of; Representation of Women. Further Readings Jessop, Carolyn. Escape. New York: Broadway Books, 2007. Jessop, Flora. Church of Lies. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 2009. Singular, Stephen. When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, and the

Women Who Fought Back. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. Wall, Elissa. Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs. New York: William Morrow, 2008. Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

G Gabon Located in western Africa, the Gabonese Republic is one of the most politically stable countries in Africa. The per capita income ($13,700) is four times that of many sub-Saharan African nations, but poverty is extensive. Although 85 percent of the population are urbanized, 60 percent of the workforce are engaged in agriculture, and more than a fifth of the workforce is unemployed. Most Gabonese belong to one of four tribes: Fang, Bapounou, Nzebi, or Obamba. There are also large groups of other Africans, Europeans, and Gabonese of mixed heritage. From half to three-fourths of the population are Christian. Although French is the official language, most Gabonese also speak tribal dialects. Women have only limited rights, and the extent of those rights is often determined by family position and custom. Gabon has major problems with social discrimination of women and girls, teenage pregnancies, illegal abortions, and violence against women. Women’s rights groups, which make up a third of all human rights groups in Gabon, have had some success. In 2008, 18 of 120 seats in the National Assembly were filled by women, as were 13 of 49 cabinet posts. Abortion is now legal to save the life of a mother or in cases of fetal abnormality. Fifteen years is the legal age for marriage, and a 2004 United Nations Report revealed that 22 percent

of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years were married, divorced, or widowed. At the time of marriage, couples are required to choose between monogamy and polygamy, but husbands are not bound by their decisions. According to inheritance laws, widows only inherit if they obtain written permission from the late husband’s family. If women remarry outside that family, they then lose the right to use or control inherited property. Women are required to obtain their husbands’ permission to travel. All land rights reside with the husband, but ownership of other property may be joint or separate, according to the regime that governs the marriage. Gabon has the 48th highest infant mortality rate (51.78 deaths per 1,000 live births) in the world. Female infants (43.15 deaths per 1,000 live births) have a significant advantage over male infants (60.17 deaths per 1,000 live births), but that advantage narrows over time. Women have a life expectancy of 54.05 years compared with 52.19 years for men. For both men (18.4 years) and women (18.9 years), the median age is comparatively low. Gabonese women produce an average of 4.65 children each. Low survival rates are partly the result of the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/ AIDS) adult prevalence rate (5.9 percent) and the very high risk of contracting bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, chikungunya, schistosomiasis, and rabies. Male literacy (73.7 percent) is considerably higher than that of women (53.3 percent). More than 593

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94 percent of children attend primary school, but rates drop to around 34 percent at the secondary level. Gabon, similar to many African countries, has only limited access to abortion, but according to one report, 23.8 percent of teenage girls and 48.1 percent of all teenage boys are sexually active by the age of 15 years. As a result, teenage pregnancy is a major social issue. In 2004, the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks revealed that one in four pregnancy-related deaths in Gabon are the result of illegal abortions. Violence against women is a major problem. There is little help for victims, and few cases are ever reported. Rape, including spousal rape, is also widespread, but victims rarely receive either medical or legal assistance. There is evidence to suggest that police officers frequently rape foreigners and prostitutes. It is believed that female genital mutilation occurs only among the non-Gabonese African population. Sexual harassment is widespread, but no official actions have been taken to deal with it. See Also: Domestic Violence; Property Rights; Teen Pregnancy. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Gabon.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/gb.html (accessed February 2010). Fallon, Kathleen M. Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Integrated Regional Information Networks. “Gabon: Illegal Abortions Cause One in Four PregnancyRelated Deaths.” http://www.irinnews.org/report .aspx?reportid=52524 (accessed June 2010). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Social Institutions and Gender Index. Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Gabon.” http://genderindex.org/country/gabon (accessed February 2010). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Gabon.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /af/119002.htm (accessed March 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Gambia The Republic of The Gambia is the smallest nation in continental Africa, its borders reflecting the British colonial possession of the area surrounding the Gambia River in the midst of otherwise French-controlled West Africa. One of the poorest countries in the world, the majority (90 percent) of its 1.7 million people are Muslims, with the remainder following Christian denominations or indigenous religions. Women constitute 70 percent of the agricultural workforce and are responsible for most of the food production. However, their access to training and the means of production is limited, and women have few rights to land ownership. Women make up 4.9 percent of the qualified workforce and 61.9 percent of the unqualified workforce. The 1997 Constitution confers women with equal rights to men and prohibits discrimination based on gender, but it also explicitly proclaims the need to preserve traditions and customs. In 1992, Gambia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. However, Gambia has not integrated many of the legislative and legal provisions contained in the convention into its legislation. Domestic law is therefore often in contradiction to the convention, and especially to those articles concerning family law. The country’s legal system allows the coexistence of civil law, customary law, and Islamic Shari`a. The lives of most Gambian women are subject to the law of the Shari`a and/or customary law. Shari`a decrees are generally viewed to be discriminatory toward women, in particular regarding marriage, divorce, and inheritance rights. Marriages in Gambia are frequently arranged, and polygamy is practiced (a Muslim man may take up to four wives). Women in polygamous unions have property and other rights arising from the marriage, including the option to divorce, but have no legal entitlement to approve or be advised in advance of subsequent marriages. There is no minimum legal age for marriage, and child betrothal is still practiced under customary law, resulting in a high rate of early marriage: a 2004 United Nations report places 39 percent of Gambian girls aged between 15 and 19 years as married, widowed, or divorced. Such traditional practices, including wife inheritance and female genital surgery (FGS) expose Gambian women and girls to reproductive and health

Gandhi, Sonia



problems. FGS, a traditional practice involving the alteration or removal of the external female genitalia, is widespread in Gambia, particularly in rural areas, with data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicating that at least 78 percent of Gambian women have undergone FGS. The custom is not illegal in Gambia, the president of the Republic having stated that the practice is part of Gambian culture and cannot be prohibited. However, in recent years awareness-raising campaigns have increased at the grassroots level, promoted by nongovernmental organizations concerned with women’s health. Maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world, with an average rate of 1,000 out of 100,000, climbing to 1,600 out of 100,000 in rural areas. This is linked to the frequency of early marriage, as many girls are married as soon as they reach puberty. Because their needs are traditionally treated as secondary, women are more likely than men to suffer from nutritional deficiencies, particularly at times when agricultural work is hardest. Female life expectancy averages 55.4 years, and the rate of female literacy lags behind that of men (25 percent vs. 53 percent), as families tend to give priority to sons’ education over that of daughters.” In recent years, the government has increased its efforts in this area through provision of free primary level education and creating “girl-friendly schools,” which encourage the education of girls. However, no measures have been taken to outlaw practices preventing the education of girls, such as early marriage and employment in domestic service.

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Gandhi, Sonia Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the ruling Indian National Congress party and a Member of Parliament from Rae Bareilly, the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Sonia Gandhi is possibly the most powerful individual in India, holding unquestioned leadership of the most prominent political party and proven outreach to the poor masses. She also has the support of the prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh—a man largely perceived to be qualified and ethical. Sonia Gandhi’s emergence as a public figure is intertwined with the family that she became related to after her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi. Her husband Rajiv belonged to India’s most prominent political family, which includes Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and his daughter Indira Gandhi, a four-time prime minister of India. Sonia Gandhi (born as Edvige Antonia Albina Maino) was born December 9, 1946, in Lusiana, Italy,

See Also: Female Genital Surgery, Types of; “GirlFriendly Schools; Shari`a Law. Further Readings Schroeder, Richard A. Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in The Gambia (California Studies in Critical Human Geography). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. International Federation of Human Rights. “Note on the Situation of Women in Gambia.” (2005). http:// www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/49d095180.pdf (accessed June 2010). Máire Ní Mhórdha University of St. Andrews

Sonia Gandhi is possibly the most powerful individual in India and the leader of the Indian National Congress party.

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into the middle-class family of Stefano and Paolo Maino. She was raised with strict Catholic values. Gandhi was attending Cambridge University when she met Rajiv and married him in 1968. Gandhi moved to India, where her husband worked as an airline pilot. They resided in her mother in-law’s home, as she was then the prime minister of India. Sonia Gandhi was reclusive, and focused on one of her passions—restoring art. Gandhi has a published book titled Rajiv, and is the editor of a volume on letters exchanged between Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi from 1922 to 1964 titled Freedom’s Daughter: Letters Between Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and Two Alone, Two Together: Letters Between Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru 1940–1964. Her publicly proclaimed aversion to politics ended when her husband became the prime minister and joined the political foray after his mother and prime minister Indira’s assassination. Seven years after the assassination of her husband Rajiv, Sonia Gandhi campaigned and became an office holder in the Congress Party. Gandhi’s campaign resulted in the party reemerging as the largest party, which eventually formed the government at the center in the semi-federal structure of governance in India. She was recognized for her successful debut as a stellar campaigner, and displayed her mastery over the official language of India (Hindi) and for understanding the common man. In the process of her own political initiation, she has single handedly revamped and reorganized the leaderless Congress Party, according to popular and political commentary. She gained a spot in Indian history, in the true Gandhian style, when she turned down the post of prime minister, recognizing that many considered it inappropriate for a nonIndian-born candidate to hold the position of highest authority in a country with a long history of colonization by British. In her role as senior politician and party head, Gandhi has proven her political savvy by forging and maintaining political ties with numerous regional parties. She has managed to rekindle the Gandhi–Nehru legacy of a poor-oriented, ruralfocused, and secular Congress. In addition, she is given credit for facilitating the efforts to create a more transparent and effective administration through various laws and bills, such as the passage of Right to Information Act 2005 and Rural Employment Scheme. Surmounting controver-

sies and personal tragedies, this woman of European descent is now considered a leader among the varied population of India. See Also: India; Overpopulation; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Ansari, Yusuf. Sonia Gandhi: Triumph of Will. New Delhi, India: India Research Press, 2006. Gandhi, Sonia. Freedom’s Daughter: Letters Between Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989. Gandhi, Sonia. Rajiv. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1992. Gandhi, Sonia. Two Alone, Two Together: Letters Between Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru 1940–1964. New York: Viking, 2005. Sonia Gandhi. http://www.soniagandhi.org (accessed June 2010). Shweta Singh Loyola University Chicago

Gardasil Gardasil is a widely available vaccine against certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus that infects skin and mucous membranes in humans. Gardasil was developed by Merck, and is effective against four types of HPV: types 6 and 11, which are responsible for 90 percent of cases of genital warts in females, and types 16 and 18, which are responsible for approximately 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. The vaccine consists of virus-like particles very similar to HPV, that, when injected, cause an immune response that generates antibodies against HPV. When administered appropriately (three doses within a six-month period) Gardasil is nearly 100 percent effective in preventing the development of precancerous cervical cells. Gardasil is effective for at least four years, and some preliminary studies suggest its protective effects probably last much longer. Since it only prevents (rather than treats) HPV infection, it is most effective if given before becoming sexually active, typically between the ages of 11 and 25 years.

Gardening



However, when Gardasil is given to women already infected with one HPV type, the vaccine still protects them from the other types. It is currently approved for use in females and has recently been approved for males aged 9 to 26. The four types of HPV targeted by Gardasil are associated with other genital cancers in both men and women, including vulvar, vaginal, anal, and penile cancer. In rare cases, HPV is associated with head, neck, throat, and lung cancers. Although uncommon, HPV can be passed from mother to newborn, particularly if she has an outbreak of genital warts at the time of delivery. Despite the fact that Gardasil is not advertised to do so, it clearly has the potential to reduce rates of these other diseases. Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) consider Gardasil to be safe, and it has been approved for use in more than 112 countries. Side effects from the vaccine are considered minor, and include headache, fatigue, and soreness around the injection area. Because the vaccine does not contain a complete virus, only virus-like particles, there is no chance of the virus reproducing in the body and causing disease. Merck and some legislators have suggested making Gardasil mandatory for school attendance. However, some groups are concerned that vaccination with Gardasil will stop women from getting Pap smears, and that it might give young girls a false sense of security regarding safer sex practices. Vaccination against HPV is a cost-effective healthcare strategy. In addition to reducing the incidence of cervical cancer by 70 percent, fewer HPV infections means fewer biopsies following uncertain Pap test results, and a reduced need for long-term management of genital warts. However, achieving mass vaccination may be difficult since the vaccine currently costs $360 ($120/dose plus any additional physician fees) and is not covered by all insurance companies. See Also: Cancer, Women and; Reproductive Health Issues; Sexually Transmitted Infections. Further Readings Nack, Adina. Damaged Goods?: Women Living With Incurable Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2007.

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U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Reports of Health Concerns Following HPV Vaccination.” http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety /vaccines/hpv/gardasil.html (accessed June 2010). U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Vaccines, Blood & Biologics: Gardisil.” http://www.fda.gov/biologicsblood vaccines/vaccines/approvedproducts/ucm094042.htm (accessed June 2010). Kelly Myer Polacek Independent Scholar

Gardening Food gardening is an increasingly popular means of food security and healthy eating. Through individual and community gardens, farmer’s markets, and school gardens, gardening increases food availability in all types of communities. It can also improve living conditions and income for women, particularly in low-income areas. Gardening is a positive answer to growing concerns about environmentalism and sustainability. Urban Agriculture Although flower gardening continues to be a popular pastime, food gardening in many forms has become increasingly appealing, partly due to interest in organic and sustainable living; concerns about pesticides and processed food; and a growing slow food movement and locavore (“local-eating”) culture. Information about gardening is popularly available through such magazines as Organic Gardening, Better Homes and Gardens, and Martha Stewart Living, which are largely marketed toward women. Many cities feature community gardens, which may be large shared gardens or collections of small plots. Community gardens are an important part of urban agriculture, which also includes rooftop and balcony gardens, raised beds donated to low-income neighborhoods or senior centers, or crops grown for a local restaurant or donated to a food shelter. Garden sharing, which matches a gardener with a landowner, and small-scale urban and peri-urban farming are also popular. Both in the United States and around the world, women play an important role in urban agriculture.

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Community-Supported Agriculture Small- and mid-scale farmers, market gardeners, and community gardeners sell their produce through face-to-face interaction with local customers at nearly 5,000 farmers markets throughout the United States. The majority of farmers markets accept coupons distributed through the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Farmers’ Market Nutritional Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, and the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Acceptance Program (SNAP). Market gardeners are defined as people working a small amount of land as their business or primary income. Along with small-scale farmers, they may also sell their produce through community-supported agriculture (CSA). In this model, community “shareholders” subscribe in exchange for weekly delivery of just-picked, usually organic produce throughout the growing season. Educational Gardening Children also benefit from gardening. Through programs such as the Edible Schoolyard, created by chef Alice Waters for a Berkeley, California, middle school, students participate in all aspects of gardening in an on-site lot, through gardening and culinary classes, and through the garden’s integration into the full curriculum. The garden’s harvest may be eaten in cafeteria meals, donated to food banks, and/or sold at farmers markets to raise funds for the school. Children also eat fresh produce through farm-to-school programs, where schools connect with and receive seasonal produce directly from a nearby farm. These programs teach children about healthy eating and food production and promote school lunch reform. Education was also central to Michelle Obama’s White House garden, a plot planted by the First Lady and local students in March 2009. Besides providing produce for the White House and a local soup kitchen, the garden was also intended to encourage healthy eating, especially among children, and raise awareness about the importance of organic and sustainable food production. Gardening, Women, and Poverty With rising food prices and food insecurity, several organizations are encouraging and educating many of the world’s poorest citizens, both urban and rural,

to participate in individual and community gardening and urban agriculture; others are working to increase women’s access to land and the microloans needed to start small farms. Raising food and animals allows families to feed their children and often gain a small income. Having direct access to nutritional food particularly benefits women and girls, who may receive smaller portions than wage-earning men and boys. A varied, healthy diet is also vitally important to small children and individuals who have illnesses such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). See Also: Locavorism/Slow Food Movement; Microcredit; Obama, Michelle; Women in Farm Economy. Further Readings The Edible Schoolyard. www.edibleschoolyard.org (accessed June 2010). Lappe, Anna and Bryant Terry. Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. New York: Penguin, 2006. Vanessa Baker Bowling Green State University

Gay and Lesbian Advocacy The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement has undergone many transformations since the first gay rights organizations of the 1950s. In understanding the movement’s advocacy experiences it is important to comprehend both the diversity and similarity of issues facing LGBT people. At times it has been important for the movement to work in solidarity for the recognition of identity and rights of all LGBT people. It has also been necessary to organize separately, both geographically and around specific identity politics of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, as well as around specific issues because successes, in recognition of LGBT rights, have not been achieved evenly globally, and the issues taken up are not necessarily the same for all LGBT people. For example, although gay men were more involved in the fight against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS),



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A crowd gathers to watch the floating Canal Parade, part of Gay Pride Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The weekend-long festival is celebrated with street parties, sporting events, and art exhibitions promoting gay themes and advocacy.

many lesbian women have aligned their struggle with the women’s movement. Although the LGBT movement is global, the advocacy it has engaged in has followed different trajectories in various countries and continents, depending on specific contexts and issues. Furthermore, the movement has been involved in both LGBT rightsbased and issue-based struggles, as well as LGBT people having been active in many other struggles, including broader human, women’s, civil rights, and socioeconomic struggles. Identity politics is an important factor in the LGBT movement: identity as all-encompassing, as well as separate identities of lesbian women, gay men, and trans-diverse populations. Elements within the broader movement have at times organized separately, which has been important in building specific identities and addressing critical issues in a more focused and sustained way.

Although 1969 is viewed as the year that the gay rights movement came into its own, it must be acknowledged that before this year, there was informal organizing and networking that formed the basis for the nascent movement. On June 27, 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York, as they had done many times before. On this date, however, the people frequenting the bar fought back, and three days of protest ensued. The Gay Liberation Front was formed as a result, and similar organizations sprang up in Europe and Canada. The organized LGBT movements in Latin America emerged as early as the 1960s with Asian and African LGBT movements gaining momentum during the 1970s and the 1980s. Movements in developing countries continue to grow, despite the repressive and sometime dangerous contexts in which they organize. Although global solidarity is important, movements

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in the global South have developed in their own ways, taking into account the issues of their own constituencies and not mirroring the issues or tactics of the Northern movements. During the 1990s and beyond, regional movements have started to flourish, which adds to the power that national movements wield. Tactics The LGBT movement has used many different tactics to raise the issues of LGBT communities, including activism, advocacy, and litigation. Direct activism, including marches, sit-ins, and protests, has been used to raise issues around HIV and AIDS and civil union partnerships and rights. The annual pride march is held in many countries in the world and serves to raise LGBT visibility and issues and to commemorate Stonewall. Advocacy and lobbying has been an important tool of the movement, involving less radical and more negotiation strategies. In America, advances in the recognition of LGBT rights are a direct result of concentrated advocacy that took place over years. In Cameroon, following a raid on a bar in Yaounde in 2005 in which 11 men were arrested and imprisoned on charges of suspected homosexuality, intensive local, regional, and global advocacy to the United Nations Working group on arbitrary detention resulted in the United Nations making a public statement that the arrest was contrary to the International Convention Civil and Political Rights; the men were released in late 2006. Litigation is also a strategic tactic that has been used to great effect, especially in the global North, and increasingly in the global South. Some notable examples of successful litigation include two important cases: a constitutional court challenge in 2005 in South Africa, which ruled that the exclusion of samesex couples from common law definition of marriage was unconstitutional, and in India, where the High Court of Delhi in 2009 found that Indian Penal Code, in criminalizing consensual sexual acts of adults in private, was in violation of the constitution. Tactics have also included alignment with other, broader movements. For example, in South Africa from mid-1980s on there was explicit political organizing by the gay community against apartheid. Through building coalitions with antiapartheid groups, LGBT activists were able to get gay rights onto the public agenda and incorporate them into the broader strug-

gle for human rights. This resulted in the inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the equality clause contained in the constitution—this was seen, globally, as a victory for LGBT and intersexed people. Lesbian women have been an integral, if not sometimes marginalized, part of the feminist/women’s movement, and their contribution has assisted in the gains made against the oppression of women. The advocacy agenda in the women’s movement was at times contradictory to what was seen as the maledominated gay rights agenda, often placing women in an opposing position. Successful Advocacy The successes of the movement through decades of sustained activism and advocacy have been immense, and yet human rights violations against LGBT people are still a daily feature in many parts of the world. Some of the issues that people have fought for include the decriminalization of same-sex activity and abolition of the sodomy laws, the right for same-sex couples and single gay and lesbian people to adopt, recognition of relationships allowing for marriage and civil union rights, nondiscrimination in the workplace, and nondiscrimination in the military. In a growing number of countries, the rights of LGBT people are being realized. For example, although the number of countries recognizing gay marriage is relatively small, there are increasingly more countries recognizing civil unions and partnerships. Even more countries allow same-sex couples’ adoptions. However the struggle for LGBT rights and equality is far from over, and groups across the globe continue to fight oppression, including criminalization, hate crimes, and equal recognition of relationships. The advent of HIV and AIDS in the late 1970s to early 1980s forced LGBT health issues into the spotlight. Initially conceived of as a “gay disease,” and named accordingly as Gay-Related Immune Disease (GRID), HIV and AIDS galvanized an intensive and quick response from the LGBT movement, especially gay men, during the early 1980s. Activist organizations such as the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which had a predominately gay membership, both advocated for research and treatment and set up prevention, care, and treatment services in the United States and Europe. In Africa, gay and lesbian groups were active in the 1980s in dispel-



ling the myth that HIV was a gay disease to minimize discrimination and are now fighting for recognition and resources for LGBT groups, whose issues and vulnerabilities have been lost in generalized HIV and AIDS epidemics. Current Struggles and Emerging Issues The current attention of the LGBT movement is on Uganda, where a new bill has been proposed that will criminalize same-sex behavior, leading to imprisonment, and even in some cases will apply the death penalty. There is intensive advocacy to stop the bill from being passed by LGBT groups in Uganda and the rest of Africa; part of the strategy is to build alliances with civil society groups in an attempt to broaden the range of organizations opposed to such draconian measures. At the present time, the transgendered movement is at the forefront of LGBT advocacy and activism to challenge the current definition of gender identity disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, 5th Edition, which pathologizes an expression of human sexuality. Information on and services for lesbian women who are living with HIV and AIDS are virtually nonexistent in Africa, yet there is growing evidence to suggest that lesbian women are at risk of HIV infection and that infection rates may be as high as 8 percent in some lesbian communities. Lesbian groups are working on raising visibility of lesbians affected by and infected with HIV. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; HIV/AIDS: North America; Lesbians; LGBTQ. Further Readings Drucker, Peter. “‘In the Tropics There Is No Sin’: Sexuality and Gay-Lesbian Movements in the Third World.” New Left Review, v.218 (1996). Gevisser, M. and E. Cameron. Defiant Desire. Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. London: Routledge, 1994. Marcus, E. Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945–1990: An Oral History. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Sanfort, T. Lesbian and Gay Studies: An Introductory Interdisciplinary Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000. Shilts, R. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York: St. Martin’s, 2007.

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Stein, M. Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History in America, vol. 2. New York: Thomson Gale, 2004. Vicci Tallis Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa

Gender, Defined To be born a man or a woman in any society is more than a simple biological fact. The differences between men and women may be divided into two large sections: one having to do with sex and the other concerned with gender. Sex is determined by the specific nature in the characters that, within the same species, distinguish persons differently concerning the reproductive function: hormonal levels, internal and external sexual organs, reproductive capacity, and so on. Gender, a term used for the first time in scientific discourse by Gayle Rubin in the article “The Traffic in Women” to indicate the set of the processes and forms of behavior and relationship with which society transforms sexual bodies and organizes the division of roles and tasks between men and women, socially differentiating them from each other, is something else. It has to do with the socially constructed differences between the two sexes and with the relationships set up between them in terms of distinctive, “appropriate,” and “culturally approved” behaviors. On the one hand, the concept indicates that sexual belonging in itself is not sufficient to define being a woman or being a man. In the human species, femininity and masculinity are not rigidly determined by the physical and biological dimension. Upbringing and culture are, in fact, highly important—culture seen as the set of values that the members of a given group share; of the rules, regulations, and principles that they respect and are called upon to observe; of the material assets that they produce. It includes many dimensions, including family life, work models, religious ceremonies, the use of time—and their transmission and assimilation. On the other hand, the term differs from the concept of feminine condition in that it shifts the focus of attention from the “woman” to the “relationship” between the two sexes,

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a dialectic relationship, of continuous exchange and constantly changing. The gender approach assumes and takes over the criticism of biological determinism—by focusing on the aspect of the transformation of sexuality in activities and behaviors—and reveals the essentiality of the relational component underlying the construction of male and female roles. Gender and Feminist Debate The relationship between the social and the biological aspect (between sex and gender) is a highly charged issue, central in the (neo)feminist debate for many years. In the 1960s and 1970s, feminist scholars explored the complex themes in the relation between gender and power, focusing above all on female subordination and the production, reproduction, and institutionalization of male supremacy. What was being challenged was the presumed “inferiority” of the female gender that, throughout history, had been taken as congenital to the natural order of things. These researchers saw the seed of discrimination in the transformation of biological difference into differences between roles and social differences: this sanctioned the different involvement of the two sexes in the sphere of family tasks and production activities. In fact, while it is possible that the lesser capacity to carry out physically demanding activities in the last few months of pregnancy and the first months of their babies’ lives favored the division of work between the sexes in premodern societies—when pregnancies followed each other with high frequency and the lives of babies depended exclusively on their mother’s milk— in modern societies, with the gradual elimination of physically heavy work, less numerous pregnancies, and artificial feeding, these factors can no longer explain the evident differences between female and male participation in production and reproduction activities. It was Simone de Beauvoir who cleared the way for this intuition; in 1949, The Second Sex was published, laying down the bases for the start of a new phase in Western feminist discourse. On the one hand, the author stated the need to overcome a hierarchical vision of feminine otherness as inferior and in which the male is taken as the “norm” and feminine as “other,” as the “second sex.” On the other hand, the way was paved to what was to be described as “gender perspective,” reflecting on the social influence in the construction of masculinity and femininity. The need was

felt to challenge the process of constructing feminine identity, always strongly constrained by biological and physical destiny and hence flattened onto the maternal and reproductive role. For these reasons, the term gender has often assumed the “opposite” meaning to the word sex. This tended to emphasise the process of social construction in contrast to the concreteness and “unchangeability” of the biological datum. Being and becoming a woman and, at the same time, being and becoming a man are processes that are closely correlated—women and men observe each other, like each other, desire each other, and reject each other—and undergo constant metamorphosis. Only an examination of the reciprocal influence of femininity and masculinity, of their ties and their contrasts may enable us to understand what the “feminine” and “masculine condition” is. Gender is therefore not a synonym for “woman,” “gender issues” are not only “things for women,” although, compared to men, women have utilized, encouraged, and contributed more to the consolidation of the theoretical perspective and that of gender-sensitive research—that is, to the characteristics, needs, and specific demands of women and men. On the one hand, this perspective has had the aim of giving back visibility and value and to retrieve what, in history, has been overshadowed by the claim for male universality. On the other hand, it has been difficult to name masculinity as the central level of the symbolic conflict: it has remained in the shade because it was not supposed to be drawn into the debate in its finiteness and vulnerability. The traces of a systematic study on the male gender are not evident. Becoming “men” has signified “achieving” a strong, neutral subject, who has silenced his body, at the same time imposing his power over other bodies. Therefore, although there is a general reluctance to reason in terms of women and men (often the differences emerge in fields in which questions linked to sexuality are at stake), gender is not a contrasting concept, but one of union, synthesis, and comparison; gender considers women in relation to the other sex (and vice versa). It is therefore pointless to oppose women to men, but we must deal contemporaneously with women, men, their relations, and their way of interacting, summing up the socially determined differences between the two sexes: the social transformation of sexual belonging is the function of reciprocal perception and interaction (present, past, and future).



The relationship between sex and gender is also historical and dynamic. Being a woman and being a man are the products of a historical process that has traversed the various cultures and societies, within which male and female have been differently defined, creating specific collective and individual identities. Biological sex is thus represented and channelled toward different roles according to culturally variable approaches. Simultaneously, with the evolution of customs, lifestyles, and—more generally—the complex relationship between economy and society, some prerogatives distinguishing the male and female genders have come up against numerous variations and will undergo an equal number in the future. Gender relationships—referring to the social relations between women and men and summing up their relative positions in the division of resources and responsibilities, benefits and rights, power and privileges—also change constantly, as the social rules regulating and approving individual behaviors also vary. Masculinity and femininity constitute collections of meanings in constant change, which we construct through relations with ourselves, with each other, and with the world in which we are immersed. Gender is therefore a concept that makes it possible to connect the microand macro–social levels of analysis. Gender appears to be a clearly useful factor in the field of theoretic reflection and social research. It does not merely translate a concept but a way of defining and perceiving reality, which continually underpins conceptions of male and female. A gender-sensitive perspective may therefore increase the depth of categories and practices for interpretation and research. Demographic models and those of cohabitation, institutions, values and beliefs, stereotypes, the system of inequalities evolve and are structured in that they are molded, constructed, contracted, interpreted, and defined by different genders. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Feminism, American; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; “Masculinity,” Social Construction of; Stereotypes of Women; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings Connell, Raewyn. Gender. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2002.

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de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books, 1973. Kimmel, Michael. The Gendered Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Lorber, Judith. Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. Rubin, Gayle. “The Traffic in Women. Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.” In Rayne R. Reiter, ed., Towards an Anthropology of Women, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975. Elisabetta Ruspini University of Milano, Bicocca

Gender Dysphoria Gender dysphoria is a condition in which a person feels dissatisfied with the biological sex assigned to them at birth. A person experiencing gender dysphoria typically identifies more with the sex they were not assigned and even feels an aversion to behaviors typically associated with the gender they were assigned at birth. Most scholars believe that people are born with gender dysphoria but have also documented cases in which the dysphoria does not occur until adolescence or (most uncommonly) in adulthood. Women experiencing gender dysphoria, like men in the same situation, can suffer from low self-esteem, emotional strain, and even physical pain. Many important developments concerning gender dysphoria have occurred since the start of the 21st century. Contemporary society allows for more open discussion about gender dysphoria, compared with 30 years ago when many people automatically assigned this term (and other related terms like transvestitism and transsexuals) a negative association—usually that of perversion. The Internet, in particular, provides information and resources for not only people suffering from gender dysphoria but for their families and friends as well. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Gender Dysphoria Organization serve as two helpful online resources. WPATH (formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association) consists of a team of sex disorder specialists who published a standards of care booklet. This booklet advocates

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fair and appropriate treatment for dysphoria patients and includes detailed advice for both clinicians and patients considering treatment or gender reassignment surgery. The Gender Dysphoria Organization aims to educate readers about gender dysphoria and provides links to personal resources, medical resources, and support networks. According to the article “Diagnosing and Treating Gender Identity Disorder in Women,” women who experience gender dysphoria grow up feeling uncomfortable in situations in which they were confined to stereotypical female behaviors; they often identify themselves as tomboys, enjoyed sports with physical contact, and disliked wearing female clothing like dresses. Females suffering from gender dysphoria also often report unsatisfied feelings over sexual encounters with men; when these women experiencing dysphoria are sexually intimate with another female, they often serve as the male and set strict boundaries with their partner, who usually is not allowed to touch the dysphoric person’s genital area. Women with gender dysphoria also feel uncomfortable with their biological female anatomy and desire biological male anatomy instead. The sincerity of some women with gender dysphoria has been questioned, simply because men—in most parts of the world—have more privileges and power than women. Similarly, some studies demonstrate that in countries where life for women is more difficult, more women experience gender dysphoria and undergo gender reassignment surgery than men. Clinicians take gender dysphoria very seriously and, with the help of materials like WPATH’s book on standards of care and other resources, can help patients live comfortably with their biologically assigned gender or undertake the necessary measures to adopt a new gender. In “Gender Dysphoria and Transgender Experiences,” Richard Carroll describes the vital steps in counseling patients with gender dysphoria. Carroll stresses the importance of chronicling a patient’s gender history, paying special attention to elements like (but not limited to) how a patient played as a child, how they preferred to dress, and reactions to sexual experiences. Carroll also examines the intended outcomes when working with gender dysphoria patients, which include helping patients understand themselves as individuals and educating them (and their families) about alternatives, therapies, and gender reassignment surgery.

Men and women around the world struggle with gender assigned to them based on a physical examination at birth. These people experiencing gender dysphoria must work and cope with bodies of biological gender that do not align with the gender of their minds. The last 40 years—but especially the last decade—have witnessed positive developments in the studies of sexual conditions that, after time, are viewed less as diseases and more as natural conditions. The wealth of contemporary support systems available makes gender transition somewhat more comfortable for men and women alike. See Also: Coming Out; Drag Kings; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender, Defined; Gender Reassignment Surgery; Intersex; LGBTQ; “Masculinity,” Social Construction of; Transgender; Transsexuality; “Two-Spirit.” Further Readings Callahan, G. N. Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2009. Carroll, R. A. “Gender Dysphoria and Transgender Experiences.” In S. Leiblum, ed., Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy. New York: Guilford Press, 2007. “Diagnosing and Treating Gender Identity Disorder in Women.” Medscape Psychiatry and Mental Health eJournal. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle /430853 (accessed June 2010). Gender Dysphoria Organization. http://www.gender dysphoria.org (accessed June 2010). Rudacille, D. The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights. New York: Pantheon, 2005. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health. http://www.wpath.org (accessed June 2010). Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

Gender Quotas in Government Quotas for women are provided to ensure that a minimum number of women attain appointments in a parliamentary assembly, a committee, a govern-



ment, and/or inclusion in candidates lists. The quota system places the burden of recruitment not on the individual woman but on those who control the recruitment process. Quotas for women represent a development of the concept of equality. The classic liberal notion of equality was that of “equal opportunity” or “competitive equality.” Removing formal barriers was considered sufficient. Feminist pressure during the last few decades (as expressed, for instance, in the Beijing “Platform for Action” of 1995), an additional concept of equality is gaining ground and support: the notion of “equality of result.” Quotas and other forms of positive measures are thus a means toward equality of result. This argument is based on the experience that equality as a goal cannot be reached by formal equal treatment. If barriers exist, it is argued, compensatory measures must be introduced as a means to reach equality of result. From this perspective, quotas are not discrimination (against men) but compensation for structural barriers that women meet in the electoral process. Today, quota systems aim at ensuring that women constitute a large minority of 20, 30, or 40 percent or even aim at ensuring true gender balance of 50–50 percent. Reserved seats, legal candidate quotas, and political party quotas are the main quota types in use today. Sanctions for noncompliance are also important. Quotas alone do not remove all the other barriers to women’s full citizenship. But under certain conditions, electoral gender quotas can lead to historical leaps in women’s political representation. The establishment of quotas is meeting fierce resistance. Not all women support quotas—not even all feminists. Men are also divided on the issue. International and European Instruments on Gender Quotas Today, the international community recommends that a number of measures be taken in order to promote a more balanced representation of men and women in decision-making bodies. This shift in equality policy toward affirmative action policies is supported by the United Nations (UN) instruments. These instruments have been important for legitimizing the demands for gender balance in politics put forward by women’s organizations. Articles 7 and 8 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

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deal with women’s participation in political and public life. The adoption of temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women shall not be considered discrimination (Article 4). The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women provided additional guidance in the implementation of the convention in 1997 in its General Recommendation 23. One of the 12 objectives of the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, was formulated for women’s equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision making. There is a clearly stated aim in the document to achieve gender balance in the nomination process as well as in all decision-making processes. The platform talks about “discriminatory attitudes and practices” and “unequal power relations,” thus shifting the focus from women’s (lack of ) resources to the practice of political institutions and political parties. Consequently, affirmative strategies are recommended, even if the controversial word quotas is not mentioned. In its resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace, and security, the Security Council called on member states to increase the representation of women. The importance of the issue has been recognized within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals, which is the outcome of the 2005 World Summit. One of the indicators for monitoring Millennium Development Goals on gender equality is the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments. Gender balance in decision making is a stated goal of the European Union (EU), and recommendations such as Recommendation 96/694/EC on the balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process (1996) have been adopted by all the EU’s major institutions. The Council of Europe (COE) has also been very active in this field. The Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation (2003) 3 on balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision making, Declaration titled “Making Gender Equality a Reality” (2009), Parliamentary Assembly’s Recommendation 1676 (2004) on women’s participation in elections, Resolution 1489 (2006) on mechanisms to ensure women’s participation in decision making, Resolution 1706 (2010) on increasing women’s representation in politics through the electoral system,

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the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the COE’s Recommendation 273 (2009) on equal access to local and regional elections, and the COE’s European Commission for Democracy through law (Venice Commission) Report on the impact of electoral systems on women’s representation in politics (2009) are the main documents on this issue. Europe has not been in the forefront of this new development; however, recently many new measures have been adopted in order to achieve gender balance in political assemblies. Percentage of Women in Governments Around the world, quotas have become a part of the electoral landscape. In the decade prior to 1985, four countries introduced quotas. As of 2010, more than 90 countries have some form of quota. However, equal participation of women and men in political life has remained an ideal rather than becoming a reality. In 1975, women held 10.9 percent of all parliamentary seats worldwide. As of January 1, 2010, women hold 18.8 percent of all parliamentary seats according to the “The World Map of Women in Politics 2010.” That is still far from the 30 percent target reaffirmed by the Beijing Platform. About one-quarter of the world’s countries did not have electoral systems amenable to quotas. Progress is variable among the different regions of the world. Since the Beijing Conference, the Americas have been in the forefront, followed by Europe and Asia. Arab countries have made the least progress, but progress is being made. For women in executive and head of state positions, overall progress is very slow. There are 9 women among the 151 elected heads of state (6 percent) in 2010. This is up from just 8 women leaders in 2005. On average, women hold 16 percent of ministerial posts. Thirty countries have more than 30 percent women members, with Cape Verde, Finland, Norway, and Spain achieving over 50 percent women ministers. At the other end of the spectrum, the number of countries with no women ministers has increased— from 13 in 2008 to 16 in 2010. The majority of these states are found in the Arab region, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands. See Also: Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Heads of State, Female;

Representation of Women in Government, International; Voting Rights. Further Readings Dahlerup, D. “Electoral Gender Quotas: Between Equality of Opportunity and Equality of Results.” Representation, v.43/2 (July 2007). Dahlerup, D. “Increasing Women’s Political Representation: New Trends in Gender Quotas.” Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers. A Revised Edition. Stockholm, Sweden: International IDEA, 2005. Dahlerup, D., ed. Women, Quotas and Politics. New York: Routledge, 2006. Dahlerup, D. and L. Freidenvall. “Electoral Gender Quota Systems and their Implementation in Europe.” Brussels, Belgium: European Parliament, 2008 http://www .europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/studies /download.do?file=22091 (accessed June 2010). Tripp, A. M., et al. “The Global Impact of Quotas on the Fast Track to Increased Female Legislative Representation.” Comparative Political Studies, v.41/3 (2008). United Nations. “World Map of Women in Politics 2010.” http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2010/100303 _IPU.doc.htm (accessed June 2010). Kadriye Bakirci Istanbul Technical University

Gender Reassignment Surgery Gender reassignment surgery (GRS) is a procedure that changes genital organs from one gender to another. Some transsexual people opt for reassignment surgery to better align their physical sexual characteristics with their gender identity, but it may also be performed on intersex people, often in infancy. GRS includes feminizing genitoplasty or penectomy, orchiectomy/orchidectomy, and vaginoplasty for trans women (male to female). In the case of trans men, genital reconstruction may involve either construction of a penis (phalloplasty) or metoidioplasty (an alternative to phalloplasty). To be more precise, penectomy is the complete (or sometimes partial) removal of the penis. Orchiectomy is the surgical removal of one or both testicles, or testes, in the



human male. It is also called an orchidectomy, particularly in British publications. Vaginoplasty is the surgical construction of a vagina through skin inversion. It involves removing the organs and erectile tissue of the penis. The skin and tissue is used to create a vaginal opening, clitoris, clitoral hood, and labia (lips). Phalloplasty involves the construction of a penis using donor skin from other areas of the body. Depending on the type of phalloplasty procedure, skin is typically taken from the abdomen, groin/leg, and/or forearm and grafted onto the pubic area. Phalloplasty often involves a urethral lengthening procedure so that the patient can urinate through the penis. Erections are usually achieved with either a malleable rod implanted permanently or inserted temporarily in the penis, or with an implanted pump device. Metoidioplasty—a surgical procedure developed in the 1970s—takes advantage of the fact that ongoing testosterone treatment in a trans man typically causes his clitoris to grow longer. The amount of clitoral growth varies with each individual, but it is not uncommon to see an increase in size to about the length of one’s thumb. By cutting the ligament that holds the clitoris in place under the pubic bone, as well as cutting away some of the surrounding tissue, the surgeon is able to create a small phallus from the elongated clitoris. Cost and Expectations While for the man–woman conversion, the aesthetic-functional results may be described as satisfactory, the woman–man transformation continues to remain a true surgical challenge, whose results rarely fully satisfy the patient’s expectations. In particular, penis reconstruction surgery today remains one of the most controversial surgical fields due to the difficulty of reaching optimal results from both an aesthetic and functional point of view. There currently does not exist a standard technique and frequent complications may arise, especially in the case when the reconstruction of the urinary tract is requested. Consequently, a calm assessment of the pros and cons becomes indispensable. An honest, transparent relationship between physician and patient plays a considerably important role. Reassignment surgery in the United States can cost between $10,000 and $20,000, not including the addi-

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tional cost of pre and post therapy. The therapies that may accompany the GRS are in fact numerous, costly, and lengthy, from hormonal therapy to the (many) forms of aesthetic surgery. First, the transition must necessarily be accompanied by a hormonal treatment. The authorization of hormone replacement therapy (estrogens and antiandrogens for male to female (MtF) patients and androgens for female to male patients (FtM)) generally calls for a psychotherapeutic course, according to approaches that may vary significantly. The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association provides the following eligibility and readiness criteria for transgender adults seeking hormone therapy: legal age of majority (age 18 in the United States); demonstrable knowledge of what hormones can and cannot medically do and hormone benefits and risks; either real-life experience (RLE) of at least three months or a period of psychotherapy (usually at least three months) specified by a mental health professional. RLE is a process where trans people live in their preferred gender role for a period of time in order to demonstrate that they can function in the preferred role. In Italy, the startup of hormone therapy depends on the patient’s having started and carried out, according to agreed approaches, a psychotherapeutic relationship of at least six months. For a woman undertaking the course toward masculinity, the hormone therapy has the twofold aim of terminating the production of female hormones (so that menstruation ceases and the breasts lose volume and consistency) and to induce the masculinization of the voice pitch and the increase of muscular mass. The pharmaceutical product used is testosterone, that is, the natural male hormone. Some changes are seen even after the first three months of therapy. After the operation, testosterone continues to be taken for the rest of one’s life. Regarding aesthetic correction, many possible treatments are available, which are more or less invasive, complex, painful, and costly. Chest surgery is the most common surgical procedure sought by trans men. The goal of chest surgery is to create a contoured, malelooking chest. In the case of MTF patients, the treatment is definitely more complex. It usually involves the definitive depilation of facial hair and, if necessary, of body hair; additive mastoplastic surgery (to increase breast volume); and possibly rhinoplasty. Many other

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surgical operations may be added to this list: cheiloplasty (lip reduction/augmentation), buttock enhancement surgery, addominoplasty to slim the hips, shave the knee bones, elbows, and wrists, and so on, voice feminization surgery (surgeries that can elevate the vocal pitch/sound of the voice), and feminilization facial surgery (FFS), which may take many forms. The modification of facial contours utilized in FFS also modifies the angle of the jaws and, by increasing the protrusion of the cheekbones, makes it possible to enhance the femininity of the face. The modification of the forehead is often associated with the raising of the temples (through lifting) and the advancement of the scalp. Regarding the lower contours of the face at the sides, intervention generally takes place on the angle of the jaws by reducing the muscular mass and the jaw bone, without an external operation but through incisions inside the mouth. The modification of the nose is one of the most common aspects generally undertaken in these operations and leads to a considerable reduction, associating the operation, in the case of breathing difficulties, with aesthetic surgery to correct of the deformities causing these problems. For the remodeling of the cheekbones and the creation of a greater protrusion, the use of prostheses is made, almost always introduced through the mouth and hence without leaving an external scar. The chin plays a fundamental role in this operation: the aim is to move from a typically masculine chin to a narrower, more pointed one, which is slightly more protruding (in general, this is associated with rhinoplastic with the aim of improving the patient’s profile). Intervention on the thyroid cartilage, the so-called Adam’s apple, is today almost an imperative in the process of feminization, because it is a feature exclusively belonging to the male gender. The operation takes place with a small lateral incision with a consequent reduction of the cartilage and may also be carried out separately with a local anaesthetic. The type of surgery and the number of the facial areas involved obviously vary according to the individual case, and so this technique involves a series of medical but also radiographic diagnoses, anthropological measuring of the face, photographs, and the achievement of face masks. Aesthetic surgery is not a compulsory step and, following hormone therapies and/or favorable hereditary features, invasive interventions are often not necessary. The approach to surgery may therefore be expe-

rienced in very different ways, in that it is a diversity underlining the variety of the transition experiences, the variety of starting points and the significance given to the change—which may not necessarily lead to a precise goal: for example, hormone treatment may be the first step, and for some the only step toward the change of their body and their identity. We may conclude by pointing out that the “clinical approach” alone cannot guarantee the success of a gender reassignment. May the removal or restructuring of parts of the body be sufficient to transform a man into a woman and vice versa? If gender is the outcome of a complex historical-social construction, then the transition between one gender and the other is necessarily full of profound implications, both at an individual level and a collective one. Creating a new gender identity (i.e., forming a feminine and/or masculine self ) signifies learning and adopting complex relational rituals (in terms of apparel, way of walking, tone of voice, language, etc.) that must synergetically interact with “formal/legal” strategies: change in personal data, documents such as passport, driving license, credit cards. See Also: Cosmetic Surgery; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; Gender, Defined; Gender Dysphoria; Intersex; Transgender. Further Readings Garfinkel, H. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967. Hudson’s FtM Resource Guide. “FtM Genital Reconstruction Surgery (GRS).” http://www.ftmguide .org/grs.html (accessed June 2010). Israel, G. E. and D. E. Tarver. Transgender Care: Recommended Guidelines, Practical Information and Personal Accounts. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997. Prosser, Jay. Second Skins. The Body Narratives of Transexuality. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Roen, K. “But We Have to Do Something: Surgical Correction of Atypical Genitalia.” Body and Society, v.14 (2008). TransCare, Gender Transition. “Hormones: A Guide for FtMs.” http://transhealth.vch.ca/resources/library /tcpdocs/consumer/hormones-FTM.pdf (accessed June 2010).

Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural

TransCare, Gender Transition. “Hormones: A Guide for MtFs.” http://transhealth.vch.ca/resources/library/tcp docs/consumer/hormones-MTF.pdf (accessed June 2010). Elisabetta Ruspini University of Milano, Bicocca

Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural Gender roles are acquired social identities as male or female, socially constructed, assigned, negotiated, and mutable. What constitutes cultural difference between gender roles, and between female roles, ultimately depends on how gender and culture are defined and theorized in terms of the other—a central and ongoing problem in gender studies. An abundant amount of research traces gender roles across contemporary cultures, against a background of worldwide reconfigurations of labor, leisure patterns, reproductive technologies, domestic tasks, and global media. Below are outlined some of the ongoing theoretical challenges to studying gender roles across cultures; the internationalization of gender monitoring; use of standardized cross-culturally comparative research; and emergent research contexts. Theoretical Terms and Problems A strict opposition of sex (biology) and gender (culture) is often unhelpful in definitions of gender, and easily becomes complicit with normative assumptions. It can more productively be argued that biology provides an assortment of potentials, while socialization factors delimit, select, and channel these. Remarkable consistencies in gendered worldwide and world-defining phenomena such as military conflict result from an amalgam of gender role prescriptions and proscriptions with real but modest biological differences. The case of a pregnant transgender man (according to Thomas Beatie in 2008) demonstrates that medical technology continues to recalibrate what constitutes “female biology.” How gender relates to culture, however, is a complex question. Some take culture to be either an obstacle to, a potential asset in, or a background factor for global calls for gender equity. Others argue that gen-

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der is one of many interrelated ways in which cultural identity is asserted and imposed both locally and globally. Nuances in these formulations necessarily occupy center stage in all “gender and culture” debates. An example of culturally demarcated gender role concepts, marianismo (sporadically called hembrismo) comprises a Latina gender orthodoxy gravitating onto the cult of the Virgin Mary as the core of religious loyalty and the epitome of feminine decorum. A term coined in 1973 by political scientist Evelyn P. Stevens, it encompasses notions of self-sacrifice, passivity, caretaking, duty, honor, abstinence, and mothering, with variously explicit references to martyrdom and moral excellence of the Virgin Mary. As such it has variously been considered the pendant or “other side” of machismo (exemplary masculinity) and considered applicable across a variety of Latino/a cultures. In their 1996 book The Maria Paradox, Rosa Maria Gil and Carmen Inoa Vazquez describe marianismo as a set of Ten Commandments including, for instance, Commandment 5, “Do not wish for more in life than being a housewife.” Research in the past decade suggest that both marianismo and machismo pose major obstacles to healthcare programs related to human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and contribute to HIV infection risk and intimate partner violence. Critics, however, contest the implied image of passive complementation and acquiescence, and that the concept is a flawed extrapolation of impressionistic data to a continent-wide stereotype. The same, incidentally, has been argued by several critics of machismo. Not unrelated to the question whether internationalization empowers or disempowers social movements, the current mainstreaming of gender as a policy parameter can have varied implications for understanding gender as a cross-culturally diverse construct. For instance, to speak of “femininities” may fit a theoretical perspective interested in (cross-cultural) diversity and (interculturally) hierarchical distribution of power, but may also risk reifying gender as a circumscribed and necessary if mutable set of attributes, or as a single unifying predicament the world over. From this perspective, it has long been argued that both notions of “gender role” and “gender traits” should be abandoned for formulations and theories more attuned to narratives, discourses, representations, and performances, and

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thus on cultural idioms and ethnotheories of gender. The notion of gender role figures centrally in theories including role congruity theory, which posits that behavior will be positively evaluated when its characteristics are perceived to align with the requirements of the group’s typical social roles. A recent development is the diversification of gender studies by the scope of masculinity studies, which ranges from a focus on men’s rights to pro-feminism, but on the whole provides support for the contention that men’s participation is essential for overcoming worldwide gender inequalities. Gender roles have been researched predominantly in terms of socialization, mutability, and change, and both Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (since 2008) and Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies (since 2007) exemplify the ongoing introduction of thematic accents against a multicultural and international background. Intergovernmental Monitoring and Gender Roles Any cultural perspective will centralize the relational, contextual, and contestable parameters of gender roles, and that gender, articulated through role prescriptions, comes to pervade the various institutes of social life. Researchers have argued that women and femininities occupy a problematic and contradictory place in the often masculinized spaces of organizational, ideological, institutional, and military assertion, given their position both as collaborators and contesters, consumers and critics, opponents and participants, (re)producers and reformers of gender orders. How to demarcate or theorize either “gender,” “gender role,” or “culture” in this respect has been open for discussion. The anthropological drive for cross-cultural study of gender has been importantly legitimated, but also constrained, by interrelated global frameworks such as the post–World War II vista of international aid and development, new arenas of decision making such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and United Nations, as well as the transnationalization of the women’s movement. International development saw several paradigms from representing women in projects (WID: Women in Development), to adding gender to projects (GAD: Gender and Development), to, finally, making gender part of projects from the very start of their being

thought through (Gender Mainstreaming: GM). It is now consensus that the last, current paradigm will need to be culture sensitive. The ways in which this is being realized is likely to have direct and diverse effects on the worldwide gendering of “roles.” What constitutes a gender role may accordingly come to be defined in terms of the worldwide variable clustering of gendered tasks in what thus become distinct, gendered task domains. The cross-cultural applicability of feminism, or rather the theoretical, regional, and national diversity of feminisms, constitutes a central problematic for discussions of gender in anthropology and intergovernmental norm-setting by such infrastructures as the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (UNDAW), and the Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW), as well as the World Conference on Women, as can be read in academic outlets such as Women’s Studies International Forum. Whereas these structures push for internationalizing equity as an ultimate index of gender relations, here have been a number of indications that the scope of feminism is being diversified (or fractured, depending on perspective) across denominations, nationalisms, globalisms, internationalisms, diasporas, and migrations. Islamic or Muslim feminism, for example, can be seen as an emerging global movement, advocating critical and fair exegesis of Qur’anic and other sacred verse, and accommodating critical commentary simultaneously on Western and Islamic discourses, including reinterpretation of Shari`a (Islamic) law. Some readings may foreground alignments with powers and markets promoting Western ideas such as universal suffrage, human rights, and access to education. Cross-National and Cross-Cultural Comparison In anthropology, the most cited quantitative tool has been the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) covering 186, mostly preindustrial cultures rated for a large number of variables, ranging from women’s domestic authority and female participation in public political arenas, to consequences for adolescent girls of premarital pregnancy, ideology of male superiority, and relative importance of mothers. The relevance for contemporary cultures is limited given that sample cultures are pinpointed in history, meaning that change, globalization, migration, and so on, can-



not be studied. A widely used instrument facilitating qualitative comparison of cultures is eHRAF World Cultures, an online cross-cultural database containing full-text (also recent) ethnographic sources on all aspects of cultural and social life. It allows subjectbased searches by established codes including gender status, division of labor by gender, and gender roles and issues. The database is annually updated from microfiche; by 2013, approximately 150 cultures will be featured. A lot of comparative work on gender includes questionnaire-based cross-national research on consistency of sex differences in psychological traits that are found to have predictable effects on occupational preferences, health-related outcomes, and leisure behaviors. Such sex differences often form the discursive basis for “essentialist” or acultural formulations of gender (social) roles. Both in attribution and self-report data, Asian and African cultures generally show the smallest sex differences, whereas European and American cultures show the largest. New Contexts Gender roles are examined in relation to a wide variety of subjects, from women’s reproductive lives and among the matrilineal Khasi to portrayals of gender in Bulgarian television advertisements, and crossnational differences in marriage, cohabitation, and divorce. In the past decade, work by pioneering Australian gender sociologist Raewyn Connell, Charlotte Hooper, Carla Freeman, and others have focused on questions of globalization and internationalization. These require a focus on emergent areas for the articulation of gender relations, on new gender orders: the internal gender regimes of transnational corporations; the world of international diplomacy and the supranational state; global media; global markets (capital, commodity, service, labor). It has been observed, for instance, that considerably egalitarian Scandinavian gender relations can be overridden by transnational business models based on a managerial masculinity as competitive, mobile, and work driven, with a tendency to commoditize relations with women. This model of “transnational business masculinity” would be tied to a neoliberal agenda of globalization which tends to negatively impact social programs in which women and children are principal beneficiaries.

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Some ways of “doing femininity” may prove complicit with the benefits of hegemonic global masculinities, while others may be negatively impacted, or foundational to other-globalization or antiglobalization movements. One case study here is what has been called the global “power femininity” incorporating feminist signifiers of emancipation and empowerment next to popular postfeminist declarations of the already arrived possibility for women to “have it all.” Consumer-friendly idioms of female power, then, can be read as a capitalist response to feminism; as dimension of “consumer femininities” they signal the emptying out and appropriation of an originally emancipatory message. An comparable example is Japan’s kawai’i culture, a rapidly globalized consumer style based on inoffensive cuteness which originated in the 1970s as a countercultural statement by school girls. Of specific interest, finally, are emergent digital environments inviting cybersociological and cyberanthropological views on gender identities and gender relations, especially with regard to e-languages and communication environments; small e-business; access, literacy, and mobility; and user interfaces. The vista of digital socialities encompasses decentralized avatar- and network-based communicative and political structures which may, in various ways, replicate gender traditionalisms but may also provide less gendered, other-gendered, and (for some) anonymously transgendered performances. It certainly entails enhanced “trickling down” of gender theories and criticism, as well as a generally expanding range of practices, whether in terms of expressive needs (identity, desire, consumption) or political urgency (the idea of community, ethics). Contemporary users of instant messaging, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, or Second Life will undoubtedly realize the multifaceted implications for gender as an index of cultural assertion. Research will clearly need to proceed beyond content analysis, and centralize audience response and cultural bricolage. See Also: Gender, Defined; Global Feminism; Machismo/ Marianismo; Transgender; Transsexuality. Further Readings Bonvillain, Nancy. Women and Men: Cultural Constructs of Gender, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.

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Bose, Christine and Minjeong Kim. Global Gender Research: Transnational Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2009. Burn, Shawn. Women Across Cultures: A Global Perspective, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Ember, Carol and Melvin Ember. Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Men and Women in the World’s Cultures. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003. Gelb, Joyce and Marian Lief Palley, eds. Women and Politics Around the World: A Comparative History and Survey. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Laurie, Nina. Geographies of New Femininities. New York: Pearson Education, 1999. Lazar, Michelle. “‘Discover the Power of Femininity!’ ‘Global Power Femininity’ in Local Advertising.” Feminist Media Studies, v.6 (2006). Price, Anne. “Colonial History, Muslim Presence, and Gender Equity Ideology. A Cross-National Analysis.” International Journal of Sociology, v.38 (2008). Diederik F. Janssen Independent Scholar

General Union of Palestinian Women The General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW) was founded in 1965, and it operated as a unit under the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that served as the only political representative of the people of Palestine. Established a year later than the PLO, the essential rationale of the GUPW was similar to that of the PLO: the liberation of Palestine. The main objective of the organization was to mobilize and organize Palestinian women toward the goal of an independent Palestine. Hence, it provided women with an opportunity to participate in the national struggle with Palestinian men. During the initial years of the GUPW, the role of its members was confined to serving as caregivers to poor and needy Palestinians. The military aspect of the Palestine liberation movement was dominated by men. After the 1967 Israeli occupation, women’s responsibilities began to transform and many women started to take participate actively in the national struggle side by side with men. As a result, the GUPW

started to offer vocational and military training to Palestinian women during this period. The major objective of the GUPW is to mobilize Palestinian women for political action against Israeli occupation. The GUPW encourages women’s participation in the Palestinian struggle through organizing demonstrations or sit-ins against the arbitrary measures adopted by the Israeli government. In addition to that, the GUPW aspires to promote gender equality in legal as well as political spheres and seeks to increase literacy levels among Palestinian women. It runs vocational training centers where courses on sewing, embroidery, and typing are offered with the aim of providing young women with necessary skills in order for them to find jobs and participate in the well-being of the community. The GUPW organizes various seminars in order to educate women in preventative medicine, first aid and nursing, educational and cultural activities, and civil defense training. In addition to women, the GUPW targets Palestinian children as well. It runs nurseries and kindergartens in Palestinian refugee camps in order to provide children with an education and healthcare as well as to share the burden with working mothers.Today, the GUPW has 16 branches in Palestine and neighboring countries. These include al-Quds, Ramallah, Tulkarem, al-Khalil, Gaza, Rafah, Khan Yunis, Al Wosta, Alshmal, Jericho, Nablus, Qalqilia, Tubas, Bethlehem, Lebanon, and Egypt. Through its activities and organizations, the GUPW aspires to represent and serve to the interests of Palestinian women living in dispersed communities all around the world. See Also: Arab Feminism; Egypt; Islam; Lebanon; Military, Women in the; Palestine. Further Readings General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW). http:// www.gupw.net (accessed April 2010). Jad, Islah. “From Salons to the Popular Committees: Palestinian Women, 1919–89.” In Pappe Ilan, ed., The Israel/Palestine Question. London: Routledge, 1999. Joseph, Suad. Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Kawar, Amal. Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestine National Movement. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

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Nakhleh, Khalil and Elia Zureik. The Sociology of the Palestinians. London: Taylor & Francis, 1980. Sabbagh, Suha. Palestinian Women of Gaza and the West Bank. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Zeynep Selen Artan The Graduate Center, The City University of New York

Georgia A country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, near the Black Sea, Georgia was originally formed in 1000 b.c.e. and reached the height of its power during its Golden Age in the 12th and 13th centuries. Throughout its history, it has repeatedly been invaded by larger empires, from Rome to Russia. Georgia was part of the Soviet Union from 1921 to 1990, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, the country became the Republic of Georgia. It created a constitution and became a democratic republic. However, like many countries of the former Soviet bloc, Georgia has suffered from political instability, financial crisis, corruption, and internal strife. The lack of a stable infrastructure has prevented any serious attention to the status of women. While Georgian women are guaranteed equal rights under the Constitution, there is no practical enforcement to protect their rights. Women have equal access to education, and are well represented in universities, both as students and professors. However, instability and the economic crisis have undermined women’s rights, as sexual discrimination and violence against women have escalated. The Georgian Constitution asserts that every person is “free and equal.” Yet, those guarantees are not implemented. There is no state initiative to address the status of women. Women face increasing problems in the workforce, as sexual harassment has become more of a problem. There are no laws regarding gender equity in the workplace, and a lack of education on sexual harassment issues. As the country has faced crisis and upheaval, domestic violence against women has sharply risen. There are also no laws regarding spousal abuse, although spousal rape is outlawed. There are no shelters for women who want to leave a dangerous relationship, and no governmental systems in place to

A health advocate teaches young women how to examine their breasts at a Walk to Save Lives in Kutaisi, Georgia.

address the problem. Kidnapping a woman to marry her, especially in rural areas, continues to be a problem that the government ignores. Laws against prostitution do not exist, which has skyrocketed during the crises. Not only is organized prostitution on the rise, so too is sex trafficking. With their constitutional guarantees, women do exercise their right to vote. Women comprise 63 percent of the members of the various political parties. However, the have no substantial representation in elected or nonelected governmental positions. There are several different women’s organizations in Georgia that are fighting to bring attention to women’s rights, such as Women for Democracy, the Women’s Center, and the Georgian Young Lawyers Association. Like many women in countries developing since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgian women suffer from the economic, political, and social upheaval caused by the reorganization. Their Constitution guarantees them basic equal rights, but Georgia has no

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specific laws to address gender equity or discrimination. As the country suffers from the world economic downturn, women face increasing domestic violence and workplace harassment. See Also: Domestic Violence; Equal Rights Amendment; Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined; Russia. Further Readings Asmus, Ronald. A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Avdeyeva, Olaga. “When Do States Comply With International Treaties? Policies on Violence Against Women in Post-Communist Countries.” International Studies Quarterly, v.51/4 (2007). King, Charles. The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pelkmans, Mathijs. Defending the Border: Identity, Religion, and Modernity in the Republic of Georgia (Culture and Society After Socialism). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

Germany Women constitute 51 percent of Germany’s population of 82 million. They are still underrepresented in many key areas of social life, despite Germany’s basic law stipulating equal rights for women. They also earn less money and provide most of the unpaid care of family members. Recent demographic developments in Germany include a low birth rate, increasing life expectancy, and because of this, an aging society. The fertility rate (1.4 children per woman) is one of the lowest in the world. Life expectancy has risen continuously and is now 77 years for men and 82 years for women. This aging society has been perceived as one of the greatest challenges facing Germany today, especially in regard to health insurance and pension plans, and has caused the implementation of many familyrelated measures to increase the number of children. Despite the increase of nontraditional relationships, the nuclear family still plays a predominant

role. In 2004, nearly 90 percent of couples were married. The average age of women at their first marriage is 29.4 years. Women in Germany also tend to have children relatively late in life. In 2006, the average age of women at the birth of their first child was 30.1 years. In 74 percent of families, the parents were married, 18 percent were single parents (mainly women), and 8 percent were living with a domestic partner. Regarding wages and salaries, there continue to be differences between the sexes: female workers earn just 74 percent of their male counterparts’ pay, and a mere 71 percent were salaried staff. For the most part, this is due to the fact that women frequently work in lower positions. Women are noticeably absent in the top tiers of German business. In 2002, women only held 9.2 percent of upper- and middle-management positions. The same holds true for women in education: While almost half of university graduates are women, less than 10 percent of tenured professors are female. More than half of all women are employed in the services sector. Jobs in manufacturing, conversely, are dominated by men by a ratio of four to one. This shows that career choices are still made on a gender-specific basis. Gender differences are even more pronounced in regard to full-time versus part-time work: while 45 percent of employed persons are female, 42 percent of these employed women are part-time workers. This rate is even higher for mothers. In stark contrast, only 3 percent of employed fathers work part time. More so than many other European countries, Germany has maintained the belief that mothers need to stay home with their children. Germans have even coined the highly derogatory term rabenmutter, raven mother, to describe a woman who apparently spends too little time with her children. Because of this, many mothers decide to abandon paid work or cut back on their employment obligations in order to reconcile family and job responsibilities. In 2004, only 20 percent of West German mothers worked full-time. In the territory of the former East Germany, this rate was substantially higher; there, 48 percent of mothers worked full time. This shows the significant cultural differences that still exist between East and West Germany, especially in regard to parenting and gender roles.

Ghana



The availability of childcare is a highly contested issue for Germans. Parts of western Germany offer only a bare minimum of preschool facilities for children under 3 years of age. And since, traditionally, German primary school students end their day before lunch, many mothers find it difficult to work outside the home. Instead, they are expected to cook a warm meal and then care for their children at home. Women also tend to provide most of the care for older relatives. In 2001, legislation was strengthened to establish equal job opportunities for men and women and to increase the compatibility of work and family life. A key component of this legislation is the parental leave act that stipulates that a mother or a father can receive 67 percent of their net income before the birth of their child for up to 12 months. In an effort to increase fathers’ active participation in child rearing, two more months will be granted if the other partner demands parental leave as well. The standard of medical care in Germany is very high. Breast cancer is the most frequent cause of inpatient treatment for German women. Heart failure ranks second. Rates of infant mortality and maternal death are very low. In 2003, every fourth delivery was by caesarean section. Abortions are available and legal (after obligatory consultation) during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Financially, almost 36 percent of women depend on benefits from relatives. This holds true even for gainfully employed women: every seventh employed woman cannot finance most of her living expenses from employment. Women earned least in typically female occupations like cashier and salesperson. Despite this gender gap, most people in Germany are financially secure. Germany also boasts one of the most comprehensive welfare systems that includes healthcare, unemployment insurance, and state-run pension plans. Regarding political representation, women have made great strides. Whereas in 1980 they made up just 8 percent of all Members of Parliament, in 2005 this figure had risen to almost 32 percent. Seventy-eight percent of eligible female voters participated in the 2005 elections. That same year, Angela Merkel became the first woman to be elected German chancellor. See Also: Breast Cancer; Equal Pay; Heads of State, Female; Merkel, Angela.

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Further Readings Biehl, Jody K. “Women in Germany: Berlin May Get a Female Chancellor, but It’s Still a Man’s World.” http:// www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,371204,00.html (accessed June 2010). Facts About Germany. http://www.tatsachen-ueber -deutschland.de/en/home1.html (accessed June 2010). Federal Statistical Office. “In the Spotlight: Women in Germany 2006.” doku.iab.de/externe/2006/k060907f17 .pdf (accessed June 2010). Heike Henderson Boise State University

Ghana Ghana has a total population of 23.4 million and an annual growth rate of 2.1 percent. Although it is a low-income country in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana has recently achieved impressive gains in economic growth and poverty reduction, with an average economic growth of more than 5 percent since 2001. Income inequality across regions and between men and women, however, remains high and has even increased during the period of economic growth beginning in the 1990s. Women continue to earn much less than men, and poor women are the most economically vulnerable subset of the population. Almost half of Ghana’s population lives in urban areas. Rural–urban migrations continue unabated, putting pressure on the already high urban unemployment levels. Both men and women play substantial economic roles in an economy that depends on agriculture. Many women (57 percent) are involved in farming or related commerce. Urban market women specialize in trading manufactured goods. Other common occupations for women with little or no education in the informal sector are hairdressing and dressmaking. The ratio of female to male primary enrollment is 98.7, but ensuring that girls complete school and continue education remains a challenge, partly as a result of girls marrying early or becoming pregnant. A majority of people still see childbirth as essential for women, but only 44 percent of births are attended by skilled health staff, and maternal and infant mortality remain high (210 out of 100,000, and 7.6 percent).

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Women are poorly represented at different levels of government. The number of women in Parliament is only 9 percent. Traditional gender politics in Ghana are characterized by the concept of gender complementarity. In southern Ghana, female leaders, referred to as queen mothers, are the counterparts of the male chiefs in the traditional system of leadership. Although (post)colonial policies undermined women’s traditional authority, at present queen mothers have formed associations in various regions and work together for women and children’s welfare. In Ghana, over 60 percent of the population adheres to the Christian faith. In the north, Islam predominates, and among all ethnic groups, traditional religions have maintained their influence. Women were usually among the first to convert to Christianity in the orthodox mission churches, although they were not allowed to play major roles. Ghanaian women were founders of several Spiritual Churches, widely known as African Independent Churches. The charismatic churches are the newest form of African Independent Churches in Ghana. These churches have generated a new type of gendered leadership for the wives of today’s charismatic pastors akin to the prominent roles that wives of heads of state have come to play in African politics. Members, especially the female ones, defer to them as icons of spiritual power and support. Certain traditional notions such as witchcraft and the demonization of childless women still persist, and biblical ideas that women must submit to their husbands have not been challenged in charismatic discourse, but in principle, charismatic churches may promote gender equality, as charismatic Christianity is explicit on the spiritual equality of believers. See Also: Christianity; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality; Poverty, “Feminization” of; Religion, Women in; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Soothill, Jane E. Gender, Social Change and Spiritual Power: Charismatic Christianity in Ghana. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2007. Steegstra, Marijke. “Krobo Queen Mothers: Gender, Power, and Contemporary Female Traditional Authority in Ghana.” Africa Today, v.55/3 (2009).

World Bank. “Ghana. Strategic Country Gender Assessment.” http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTA FRREGTOPGENDER/Resources/GhanaCGA-R.pdf (accessed January 2010). M. Steegstra Radboud University of Nijmegen

Ghozlan, Engy Ayman Engy Ayman Ghozlan is a project director for the Making Egypt Safer for Women program of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR). Charged with implementing the center’s strategies in their campaign against sexual harassment, Ghozlan has worked with the media to raise awareness of the problem. In this role, she has become the voice and face that many associate with the effort to end sexual harassment on the streets of Egypt. Ghozlan was born in Cairo in 1985. She graduated from Cairo University in 2007 with a baccalaureate degree in mass communication. Troubled by her silence in response to the sexual harassment that she endured, she decided that action was the solution. This decision led her to ECWR, whose campaign against sexual harassment was already in process. Becoming aware of the paucity of data on sexual harassment, ECWR launched its campaign against sexual harassment in 2005 with a pilot study that would allow it to understand the scope of the harassment Egyptian women were exposed to on Egyptian streets. The survey revealed that women of all ages and social classes endured inappropriate touching, verbal taunts, and other forms of harassment. Nearly one-third of the respondents reported being the victim of harassment daily, but few of them bothered to report the offenses, as Egyptian society, including the police and legal system, often blames women for inviting their harassment. The survey, which included more than 2,800 women from all around Cairo, the Egyptian capital, and five other Egyptian governorates, also made clear that many women accepted the guilt imposed by their culture and blamed themselves for the insults and unwanted touching. ECWR decided to approach the problem by targeting all of Egyptian society—persuading women that

Gibbs, Lois



they did not deserve to be harassed and educating men on the psychological and sociological effects of sexual harassment on women. This was the environment into which Ghozlan entered when she joined ECWR. She began holding awareness days at youth centers, coordinating an increasing number of volunteers, and undertaking outreach and education with schools and the media. Because Egypt lacked a clear, legal definition of sexual harassment, it was important to raise awareness that sexual harassment encompasses any uninvited behavior that is sexual in nature and makes women feel uncomfortable or unsafe. Labeling the campaign to do this “Making Egypt’s Streets Safe for All” attracted media attention. Throughout 2008, Ghozlan appeared on television and was quoted in newspapers and online as she gave interviews and issued press statements on behalf of ECWR. Ghozlan became known for her readiness to speak the truth without sugarcoating it. When Middle East Online asked Ghozlan about Egypt’s Ministry of Interior’s statement that 20,000 women are raped each year in Egypt, she answered that a more accurate figure would be 10 times that number, as most rape victims do not report attacks. She also reminded her questioner that in a 2007 ECWR study, 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women in Egypt reported being harassed. Ghozlan made clear to Daily News Egypt that two-thirds of men participating in the ECWR survey admitted to routinely harassing women. Ghozlan and the ECWR are actively campaigning for legal reforms that will criminalize sexual harassment—a campaign that gained momentum when warnings by the United Kingdom and the United States to their female citizens traveling to Egypt showed that sexual harassment could carry an economic cost. See Also: Egypt; Representation of Women in Government, International; Sexual Harassment. Further Readings Carr, Sarah. “Women’s Rights Group Demands Legislation on Sexual Harassment.” Daily News Egypt (May 14, 2008). http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article .aspx?ArticleID=13694 (accessed June 2010). International Museum of Women. “Danger in the Streets: Egyptian Women Fight Public Sexual Harassment.”

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http://www.imow.org/wpp/stories/view Story?storyid=1228 (accessed March 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Gibbs, Lois An American environmental activist, Lois Marie Gibbs was born in 1951. Gibbs organized her neighbors, the residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, after her discovery that her 7-year-old son’s elementary school and much of her entire neighborhood was built on industrial toxic waste dumped there decades before. Hooker’s Chemical Company’s successor Occidental Petroleum had burned the banned pesticides lindane and benzene, and known toxics like chloroform, dioxin, trichlorethane, and tetrahlnetrane. According to Ecology of Fame (2001), after her son became sick and was hospitalized for pneumonia, Gibbs, a young housewife and a high school graduate, educated herself about toxic waste issues and organized her (approximately 1,000) neighbors, creating the Love Canal Homeowner’s Association and becoming its spokesperson. She went from door to door with a clipboard and a petition stating, “My name is Lois Gibbs. I am concerned about the 99th Street School. I want to know if you are concerned as well.” As the head of the Love Canal Homeowner’s Association, she transformed herself into a powerful voice for treating “hazardous wastes” as something that cannot just be “thrown away” without costing a terrible price to be paid by the community and its environment. President Jimmy Carter issued an order allowing for the paid evacuation of the about 900 families living at Love Canal in October 1980, starting the process known as Superfund to clean up our country’s hazardous sites. A cleanup of Love Canal was initiated, leading to national press coverage and making Lois Gibbs a household name. Gibbs’s unwavering endeavors were instrumental in the reaction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Comprehensive Environmental Response. Compensation via the Liability Act, or

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Superfund, has now become instrumental in locating and in cleaning up toxic waste sites throughout the United States. Gibbs formed what was to be called the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice (CHEJ), formerly the Citizen’s Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, in 1980, where she currently serves as executive director. A grassroots environmental crisis center, the CHEJ provides resources, information, training, technical help, and support to the nation’s community groups, aid that is needed to empower other communities to organize themselves to eliminate and reduce threats from toxic substances and various other environmental ills. Having shown concern for the effects of toxic waste, Gibbs has also shown the significance of citizen activists who protect the health of the environment in their communities, as well as the environment as a whole. In addition to having been awarded the Codrigan Environmental Prize (1990), and the John Garner Leadership Award from the Independent Sector (1999), she has also written several books. Her story was dramatized in the made-for-TV movie Lois Gibbs: The Love Canal Story, which aired in 1982, in which her character was portrayed by Marsha Mason.

Ginsburg, Ruth Bader Ruth Bader Ginsburg stands out as an American role model and tireless advocate for women’s rights. A former law school professor and founder of the American Civil Liberties Union Women’s Rights Project, Ginsburg is the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Throughout her lengthy career, she has ardently researched and promoted women’s political, economic, educational, and health rights, taking a stand on controversial issues. Ginsburg was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, to Nathan Bader and Celia Amster Bader. She received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1954. She attended Harvard Law School, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School in 1959, where she was a Kent Scholar and a member of the Columbia Law Review. Following graduation, she clerked for the Hon-

See Also: Ecofeminism; Love Canal; Toxic Waste, as Women’s Issue; United States. Further Readings Brewton, Barbara, ed. “The Heinz Awards: Lois Gibbs.” The Heinz Awards. http://www.heinzawards.net /recipients/lois-gibbs (accessed July 2010). Gibbs, Lois Marie and Ralph Nader. Love Canal: The Story Continues. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1998. Lee, Paul, ed. “Ecology Hall of Fame: Lois Gibbs.” EcoTopia: A Design Strategy for the New Millennium. http://ecotopia.org/ecology-hall-of-fame/lois-gibbs (accessed July 2010). Raeburn, Paul. “Okay, You Want to Fight Back?” Audubon Magazine, (November-December, 2008). http://www .audubonmagazine.org/profile/profile0811.html (accessed July 2010). Claudine Boros Independent Scholar

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court as an associate justice in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.

Girl Gangs



orable Edmund L. Palmieri of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York (1959–61). She subsequently entered legal academia as a research associate and associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure (1961–63). She became a professor at Rutgers University School of Law (1963–72), where she cofounded the first law journal to focus exclusively on Women’s Rights, the Women’s Rights Law Reporter. She then joined the Columbia Law School faculty (1972–80), where she became the first woman to receive tenure. She was also a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (1977–78) and served as a visiting professor at New York University School of Law, Harvard Law School, and several universities in western Europe. During her academic career, Ginsburg helped establish the American Civil Liberties Union Women’s Rights Project. As the project’s chief litigator, she successfully argued cases advocating for women’s rights before the Supreme Court. Her publications include several coauthored books: Civil Procedure in Sweden (1965), written with Anders Bruzelius; Text, Cases, and Materials on Sex-Based Discrimination (1974), written with Herma Hill Kay and Kenneth M. Davidson, the first law school case book on sex discrimination; and the Art of Oral Advocacy, with David Frederick (2003). She has also published numerous articles in law reviews and other periodicals on civil procedure, conflict of laws, constitutional law, and comparative law. In 1980, Ginsburg left academia for the judiciary. Nominated by President Jimmy Carter, Ginsburg became a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. In 1993, Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court as an associate justice by President Bill Clinton and became the second woman and the first Jewish woman to serve on the highest court. Ginsburg has continued to promote women’s rights as a Supreme Court justice. She supported women’s abortion rights in the court’s decision to strike down Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban in Stenberg v. Carhart 530 U.S. 914 (2000). Ginsburg advocated for equal pay for women in her dissenting opinion in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), which ultimately led to the establishment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009. Ginsburg also wrote the majority opinion for United States v.

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Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), which struck down the Virginia Military Institute’s long-standing male-only admission policy as unjustifiable sex discrimination. Ginsburg has been married to Martin Ginsburg, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, since 1954. They have two children, Jane, a professor at Columbia Law School, and James, a classical music producer. She continues to serve on the Supreme Court despite having been diagnosed with cancer. See Also: Attorneys, Female; Education, Women in; Feminist Jurisprudence; Judges, Women as; Lilly Ledbetter Act; Reproductive Rights. Further Readings Campbell, Amy Leigh. Raising the Bar: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. New York: Xlibris, 2004. Strebeigh, Fred. Equal: Women Reshape American Law. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009. Supreme Court of the United States. “The Justices of the Supreme Court.” www.supremecourtus.gov/about /biographiescurrent.pdf (accessed November 2009). Judith R. Halasz State University of New York, New Paltz

Girl Gangs The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, published results from the National Youth Gang Survey from 2007 revealing that gang activity declined from 1996 to 2001. However, gang activity and problems associated with gang activity (e.g., crime) have been steadily increasing since then. Further results from this study indicate that 27,000 gangs were operating in 2007, with approximately 788,000 gang members. Gangs are also predominately located in the urban centers of a city, but they do operate in suburban and rural (albeit a smaller percentage) areas of a city. Finally, results from this study indicate that gang members are predominately older than 18 years and are men, with women accounting for approximately 10 percent of gang membership nationwide. Although the media portrays a perception that female

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gang activity and membership are on the rise, the U.S. Department of Justice reports that this is not the case. However, the National Gang Threat Assessment, published in 2009, reports that female entry into maledominated gangs has burgeoned. This entry describes the risk factors for female juvenile gang involvement, gang life for female juvenile gang members, and policy implications for reducing female gang involvement and facilitating the transition from living the gang life to being a law-abiding citizen. Risk Factors for Gang Involvement Research has consistently supported prior sexual abuse as a moderate to strong predictor of female offending. Given this reality, it is not surprising that researchers have found that childhood sexual abuse is a pathway for female onset into juvenile gang involvement. After all, these juveniles most often are sexually victimized by a male family member (i.e., father, stepfather, uncle, or brother) before running away from home and turning to the streets for survival. If these juveniles are not ensnared by prostitution, they turn to gang membership to establish a new “family” and to provide emotional and financial support. Numerous research studies have attempted to identify the risk factors for female gang involvement. In a 1998 study, Walker-Barnes, Arrue, and Mason identified the risk factors for female gang involvement, which included family influences (i.e., parental affection, family conflict, abuse, and modeling), peer influences (i.e., peer pressure, making friends), neighborhood (i.e., high crime area, presence of gangs), and self (i.e., respect). Predominately, the researchers found that friends have a significant effect on juvenile gang involvement—more so than the other risk factors. Some researchers have also found that low selfesteem is a precursor to gang membership. More recently, Archer and Grascia have stated that women may join a gang to maintain a relationship with a boyfriend already in a gang, as a method for seeking protection from other neighborhood gangs, or because a close friend joined a gang. Clearly, friends, or peer pressure, are a consistent predictor of juvenile female gang involvement in the literature. Gang Life One of the first academic studies that discussed female gang involvement was conducted by Thrasher

in 1936. At the time, Thrasher stated that female gang members were auxiliary members to their male counterparts. Women who have enter gangs come from all different racial and ethnic backgrounds, from differing socioeconomic backgrounds, and from different parts of a city (i.e., urban, suburban, and rural). For women wanting to join a gang, initiation practices differ by city. In some gangs, females are “jumped in,” where they have to endure a beating by other gang members. This initiation method is used to establish loyalty to the gang by the inductee and for the inductee to demonstrate her toughness. Other gangs may require that a female be “sexed in,” where the female is required to engage in sexual activities with one or more members of the gang. Depending on the gang the woman joins, her role may be that of a “sex object,” where she is expected to engage in sexual activities with her male counterparts. Once initiated, women may take a more active role in committing delinquent acts and crimes, both economic (e.g., theft, drug selling, prostitution) and violent (e.g., aggravated assault, homicide). In fact, researchers have found that gang members engage in two to three times more delinquency when compared with non-gang members. However, female gang members are more likely to engage in property offenses as part of a gang, as opposed to violent crimes. When women do engage in violence, it is often the result of a perceived threat to their reputation. Typically, female gang members are less likely to engage in criminal activities than male gang members, but they do engage in similar levels of drug use. Given the increased attention to juvenile female gang membership in the last few decades by the media and researchers, it is necessary to understand how to assist these women in transitioning out of the gang life. Klein noted that “gang prevention programs have been rare” because of the complexity of accurately identifying the risk factors for gang membership and the causes of gang formation. The U.S. Department of Justice recommends several strategies for reducing gang activity, including school-based prevention programs, secondary prevention programs in the community (e.g., Boys & Girls Club), and tertiary prevention programs (e.g., programs helping those already in gangs). More research is needed on female gangs to assist policy makers in developing effective programs thwarting

Girl Scouts



gang formation and aiding in the successful transition from gang life. See Also: Drug Trade; Gun Control; Prisoners, Female (U.S.). Further Readings Archer, L. and A. M. Grascia. “Girls, Gangs and Crime: Profile of the Young Female Offender.” Journal of Gang Research, v.13/2 (2006). Chesney-Lind, Meda, et al. Female Gangs in America: Essays on Girls, Gangs and Gender. Chicago: Lake View Press, 1999. Miller, Jody. One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs, and Gender. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Valdez, A. Mexican American Girls and Gang Violence: Beyond Risk. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Elaine Gunnison Seattle University

Girl Scouts The Girl Scout organization in the United States is dedicated to building courage, confidence, and character in girls and encourages girls and young women to use what they know to make the world a better place. Girl Scouting in the United States was begun in Savannah, Georgia, by Juliette Gordon Low. After returning from a trip to England and witnessing the activities of the Boy Scout and Girl Guides organizations there, Low was committed to giving girls in the United States the same opportunities to learn outdoor skills, to contribute to their communities, and to develop their leadership abilities. The first Girl Scout troop consisted of 18 girls, and the first meeting was held on March 12, 1912—a date now celebrated by current Girl Scouts as the birthday of Girl Scouting in the United States. Girls can enter Girl Scouting as a Daisy in kindergarten. They progress to the Brownie level in 2nd grade, to the junior level in 4th grade, to the Cadette level in 6th grade, the Senior level in 9th grade, and the Ambassador level in 11th grade. Those who are in the Daisy, Brownie, and Junior levels meet with other girls and their adult leaders in a troop or group setting. Those at the Cadette, Senior, and Ambas-

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sador levels have the flexibility to design their own program and activities while working with an adult adviser/mentor. As girls move through the various levels of Girl Scouting, they are expected to take on more ownership and leadership for their Girl Scouting experience, and the adults move from being the leaders of the troop to advisors for the girls as they lead on their own. The three highest awards for girls in Girl Scouting are the Bronze Award for Junior Girl Scouts, the Silver Award for girls aged 11 to 14 years, and the Gold Award for girls aged 14 to 18 years. The Girl Scout organization strives to be inclusive and makes concerted efforts to engage in outreach to girls from diverse populations and communities. In the early decades of the Girl Scout movement, troops were established for girls with physical challenges, for girls from the Onondaga nation in New York, and for Mexican American girls in Texas. In the 1930s, Girl Scout materials were translated into Braille so that they would be accessible to girls who were blind. In the 1950s, efforts were made to include girls from both migrant families and military families, as well as girls from various American Indian nations. In the 1960s and 1970s, Girl Scouts worked on antisegregation campaigns and also assisted Viet-

A group of Girl Scouts learning to sew in 1918. The first Girl Scout meeting was held in March 1912.

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nam refugee children settle into homes in the United States. In the 1980s, global understanding projects were undertaken by Girl Scouts to gain a better sense of social issues affecting girls around the world. In the 1990s, Girl Scouts began outreach to two distinct populations through its Girl Scouts Beyond Bars and Girl Scouting in Detention Centers programs. The Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program is designed to offer a scouting experience for girls whose mothers are incarcerated. Troop leaders work with the incarcerated mothers to plan programming that will enable the girls to interact with their mothers on a regular basis at troop meetings that are held at the correctional institutions. These activities promote positive parenting and mother–daughter interactions that are beneficial to both parties involved. The Girl Scouting in Detention Centers program is an off shoot of the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program and is designed to bring Girl Scouting to girls who are being adjudicated, are wards of the court, or who are court-referred delinquents. Girl Scout staff and/or volunteers bring the programming into the detention centers with the goal of developing the girls’ self-esteem and skills and offering them positive models for dealing with problems they are facing in their lives. See Also: Adolescence; Alternative Education; Girls, Inc.; Prisoners, Female (U.S.). Further Readings Girl Scouts. “Girl Scouts Timeline.” http://www.girlscouts .org/who_we_are/history/timeline/today.asp (accessed November 29, 2009). Miller, Susan A. Growing Girls: The Natural Origins of Girls’ Organizations in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007. Proctor, Tammy M. Scouting for Girls: A Century of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009. C. L. Cokely Curry College

“Girl-Friendly” Schools In many areas, education is known as the key to success. It has widely been accepted as the vessel toward

upward mobility as its benefits have the capacity to positively change lives. For some, however, the mere notion of attending school on a regular basis is not a reality. Challenges in access and equality permeate through many communities, tribes, and villages with many students denied basic fundamental rights to a quality education. Socioeconomic barriers and longstanding traditions have equated to educational disparities in many areas but these inequities are most profound in developing countries. Through worldwide initiatives and programs, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) focuses on the largest group denied educational rights—girls. In many remote and conflict-ridden areas, the state of education has been negative, if not nonexistent, for girls. In these populations, poverty rates and unequal power relations between genders are extremely high and girls are expected to contribute to their families’ economic needs through household chores. Many young women are forced into marriages that occur before the age of 16 and subsequently, give birth to multiple children at a very young age. These gender inequities result in girls’ inability to attend school. For the fortunate girls that are able, attending school presents yet another challenge. Schools in developing countries such as Niger, Thailand, and Sri Lanka have traditionally had accessibility and equality difficulties for the girls in attendance. These schools, like many others, are substantially distant from their homes, lack private toilet facilities, embody a curriculum that is malecentered, and lack the existence of female teachers with whom young women can identify. Girls attending these schools face sexual harassment and violation on their way to and from school, often do not attend during their menstrual cycle due to lack of privacy and sanitary napkins, and eventually drop out or have diminished enrollment. In response to these disparities in education for girls, UNICEF created girl-friendly schools from their child-friendly schools initiative. Dimishing Barriers Girl-friendly schools (GFS) were created in developing countries to diminish barriers to girls’ education while simultaneously bridging the gap of possibilities between the genders. These schools are for both male and female students but aim to eliminate gender

Girls Inc.



inequalities in education. Working in conjunction with educational conglomerates and local school leaders, UNICEF assists many schools by considering the local circumstances and specific needs of each community before establishing approaches to equal education for girls. GFS are intended to foster the education of girls by creating a safe and secure atmosphere of learning. Children attempting to attend these schools would find their walk to school much shorter, and subsequently, safer. GFS are geographically situated closer to homes within the local community in an effort to decrease physical and sexual assaults on girls as they walk to and from school. Since many girls choose not to attend school based on the distance and the potential for acts of violence, creating schools in closer proximity increases their access to education. Furthering their commitment to provide safety at school, GFS also encompasses private toilet facilities for girls in each building. Although the designs of these facilities differ between countries and local communities, girls attending these schools are provided separate toileting space from boys and clean water and soap to use while washing their hands. Having these separate facilities is needed for their safety but is equally important while they are menstruating. Many girls in developing countries do not have access to sanitary napkins thus making it difficult for them to attend school while menstruating. A UNICEF study in Uganda stated that out of 300 female, primary school participants, 94 percent reported having issues at school while on their period. Three out of five girls reported not attending school at all during this time. GFS provide free or subsidized sanitary napkins to menstruating girls at school and offer hygiene education from an increased presence of female teachers in their schools. In addition to increasing the amount of female teachers and lessons on hygiene, the GFS curriculum further narrows the gender gap by incorporating lessons that address the plight of women and encourages goal setting and aspirations for the future. Students receive education surrounding tolerance and respect to decrease incidences of violence in the school and local community. These practical lessons promote positive outlooks for girls that would serve as the impetus for sustainable learning thus teaching them to be active participants in their education.

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See Also: Children’s Rights; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Equal Rights Amendment; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Girls, Inc. Further Readings Chabbot, Colette. “UNICEF’s Child-Friendly Schools: Uganda Case Study.” Washington, DC: United Nations, 2010. SSHE Global Sharing Project. “Girl-Friendly Toilets for School Girls: Helping Adolescent Girls.” http://www.irc .nl/url/21187 (accessed March 2010). United Nations Children’s Fund. “Basic Education and Gender Equality.” http://www.unicef.org/girlseducation (accessed March 2010). Women Watch. “Education and Training of Women and the Girl-Child.” http://www.un.org/womenwatch /forums/review/education/unicef_bg_info.html (accessed March 2010). Corrie L. Davis Kennesaw State University

Girls Inc. Girls Inc., a national U.S. nonprofit girls’ organization, aims to encourage all girls to be “strong, smart, and bold.” It operates primarily in low-income neighborhoods by providing informal educational programs to its single-sex youth centers and to affiliate schools, churches, housing projects, and community centers. In 2005, Girls Inc. served approximately 800,000 girls, ages 5 to 18 years. Girls Inc. traces its origins to the 1860s, when reformers opened girls’ centers in the northeast to offer home like social spaces for young women who were textile and factory workers. In 1945, 19 similar organizations came together to form the Girls Clubs of America, and in 1990, the organization became Girls Inc. Until the 1970s, activities emphasized traditional female pursuits such as homemaking and developing charm. In response to the civil rights and women’s movements, Girls Inc. redefined its mission toward girls’ empowerment, confirming its belief in the benefits of single-sex recreation and education for girls.

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In addition to offering recreational activities, Girls Inc. lobbies on girls’ behalf and undertakes research to illuminate girls’ status and needs. Girls Inc.’s commitment to political advocacy is symbolized by its adoption of a Girls’ Bill of Rights, rather than the more traditional laws and pledges of many youth organizations. Girls Inc. insists that girls have the right to: “be themselves and to resist gender stereotypes . . . express themselves with originality and enthusiasm . . . take risks, to strive freely, and to take pride in success . . . accept and appreciate their bodies . . . have confidence in themselves and to be safe in the world . . . [and] prepare for interesting work and economic independence.” Its publications include national studies such as The Supergirl Dilemma, which argues that as girls’ opportunities in math, science, and athletics have expanded, pressures to look right and speak softly persist, creating high levels of stress among today’s girls, and advice workbooks for girls like Girls Inc. Presents: You’re Amazing! which helps girls identify their talents, deal with stress, and define beauty on their own terms. Girls Inc.’s most popular program encourages girls in math and science to prepare them for future technology careers. Girls take apart machinery, experiment, and learn to take the risks necessary for achievement in these fields. A Time Warner Foundation grant in 2003 enabled Girls Inc. to revitalize its media literacy program and give girls access to media tools to create their own media images. Girls Inc.’s sex education program provides practical knowledge and builds communicative relationships between mothers and girls as a cornerstone to making wise sexual choices and postponing sexual intercourse. Still, its feminist spirit has brought controversy. In 2005, a fundraising partnership with Mattel’s American Girl doll led several conservative groups to criticize the organizations’ support for girls of all sexual orientations and of reproductive rights. See Also: American Girl Dolls; Adolescence; Girl Scouts; Science Education for Girls. Further Readings Girls Inc. “Celebrating Girls’ Voices Since 1864.” http:// www.girlsinc.org/index.html (accessed August 2009). Girls Inc. The Supergirl Dilemma: Girls Grapple With the Mounting Pressure of Expectations. New York: Girls Inc., 2006.

Mysko, Claire. Girls Inc. Presents: You’re Amazing! A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2008. Jennifer Helgren University of the Pacific

Glass Ceiling Coined in the early 1980s, the term glass ceiling refers to an invisible and unbreakable barrier that prevents the advancement of women and members of ethnic and racial minority groups beyond middle management into top executive management positions, despite their qualifications. Contemporary scholars note that the glass ceiling reflects inequalities in various job-related outcomes after all other employee characteristics (e.g., education, experience, ability, and so on) are controlled, that it manifests primarily in chances for advancement, particularly within the top tier of management, and that these inequalities tend to increase over the course of a person’s career; ironically, as experience increases. The term is often compared to the glass escalator, which reflects the rapid advancement of white men into leadership roles within traditionally female-dominated occupations. Scholars also point to the presence of a second glass ceiling to explain the barriers that women face even when they have broken through the glass ceiling and are working in top executive positions. Finally, some scholars draw attention to the glass cliff, which reflects women’s promotion to extremely risky top management positions where failure is high. Although there is some debate about whether a glass ceiling exists, an abundance of evidence supports its presence in North America, and more mixed evidence exists in other economically advanced countries. In 1991, under the Bush administration, the United States government appointed a bipartisan Federal Glass Ceiling Commission with the mandate of identifying the glass ceiling barriers that have blocked the advancement of women and ethnic and racial groups into upper management. In its 1995 report, the commission concluded that men dominated top executive positions, represent-



ing 95 to 97 percent of senior managers, and a significant majority of these men were white. Of the 3 to 5 percent female executives, a significant majority were white, as well, leading some scholars to argue that racial and ethnic minority women especially face a “concrete” ceiling beyond which advancement is negligible. Barriers identified included societal barriers (e.g., conscious and unconscious gender, racial, and ethnic stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination), internal structural barriers (e.g., lack of mentoring, little or no access to tailored training and informal networks, biased rating systems), and governmental barriers (e.g., lack of consistent monitoring and enforcement). Although the commission was dismantled in 1996, concern regarding diversity of the corporate business world has remained, and data suggest little improvement. Research on Women’s Barriers For example, information collected by Catalyst, an independent international research organization, demonstrates that in 2009 men represented 94 percent of the executive officers and top earners, whereas women represented approximately 6 percent. Moreover, approximately 30 percent of companies surveyed had no women executive officers, and 32 percent had one. With respect to overall business occupations, data show that whereas women make up more than half of management and professional occupations and hold more than half of business degrees, they only comprise 13 percent of Fortune 500 executive officers, 6 percent of top earners, and 3 percent of Fortune 500 chief executive officers (an increase from .2 percent in 1995. With respect to data on Fortune 500 board directors, approximately 15 percent of board seats were filled by women, and women of ethnic and racial minority groups held approximately 3 percent of all board seats. Thus, whereas entry into business seems less of an issue, advancement in business remains, especially for women of ethnic and racial minority status, very difficult. In European countries, recent research demonstrates a gender pay gap in the top levels of organizations, within both the public and private sectors. Considering the public sector, one study found that of 11 countries investigated (Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Ireland, and Spain), Ireland and Spain were the

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only two that did not evidence glass ceiling effects. However, within the private sector, glass ceiling effects were evident in all 11 countries. Other research on female expatriate managers in Europe reports significant disadvantages in terms of organizational support, with all managers interviewed reporting confronting the glass ceiling in their organizations. Scholars note that a host of job-related factors contribute to the glass ceiling effect. Female managers report job assignments that have little visibility and offer little opportunity to form social relationships necessary for networking and advancement, compared to their male counterparts. Moreover, white women and men and women of racial and ethnic minority groups find it difficult to secure mentors, which is essential for promotion into top executive positions. Contributing these inequities to gender and racial stereotypes, scholars note that members of these groups are perceived stereotypically less suitable for executive positions and thus less likely invested in. For example, research finds that compared to their white male counterparts, black male managers tend to be perceived less loyal and ambitious, traits essential for promotion to executive positions. Inequalities for Females in Management Unfortunately, it appears that these inequalities remain even for the few women who are able to break through the glass ceiling into top executive management positions. Although some evidence suggests salary and compensation levels at relative par for men and women, research finds that women’s positions are associated with significantly less authority than men’s, have significantly fewer stock options and international assignments, yet significantly more obstacles, even when controlling for a host of job-related factors and skills. Moreover, personal reports of the executive culture suggest that women report less personal support, less fit, and greater cynicism with respect to future career opportunities. Worldwide comparisons further support these attitudes. Global research finds that female executives report feeling less secure, less happy with their salaries, and less supported through mentoring than male executives do. With increasing awareness of the glass ceiling phenomenon, governments and individual companies have adopted diversity and inclusion initiatives to reduce its presence. These initiatives include creating

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senior-level positions responsible for overall diversity and inclusion practices, implementing strategies to reduce stereotyping in the workplace, expanding ideas of workplace culture that promotes varying perspectives and styles, creating mentoring and social networking opportunities and relationships, and developing monitoring strategies to ensure compliance with diversity initiatives. See Also: Business, Women in; Chief Executive Officers, Female; Equal Pay; Management, Women in; National Organization of Women. Further Readings Arulampalam, Wiji, et al. “Is There a Glass Ceiling Over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap Across the Wage Distribution.” Industrial and Labour Relations Review, v.60/2 (2007). Cotter, David, et al. “The Glass Ceiling Effect.” Social Forces, v.80/2 (2001). Lyness, Karen and Donna Thompson. “Above the Glass Ceiling? A Comparison of Matched Samples of Female and Male Executives.” Journal of Applied Psychology, v.82/3 (1997). U.S. Department of Labor. “Federal Glass Ceiling Commission Executive Summary Report.” (1995). www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/reich/reports /ceiling1.pdf (accessed December 2009). Cherie D. Werhun University of Winnipeg

Global Campaign for Education The Global Campaign for Education is an international, nongovernmental coalition of organizations that advocates for the education of children and adults in developing countries, motivated by its core principle that education is a basic human right. The Global Campaign grew out of the World Conference on Education in Jontien in 1990, an event organized by the United Nations Children’s Fund; the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; the World Bank; and the United Nations Development Programme to get countries

from the global North (or the developed, Western countries) to collaborate with the countries from the global South in creating a program of action to solve the crisis of education within the developing world. The international nongovernmental organization (NGO) response to this World Conference of Education was to found the Global Campaign for Education. Formed in 1999 by of the joining of the international education advocacy campaigns of three NGOs— Oxfam, ActionAid, and Education International—the Global Campaign for Education has since launched many initiatives to advocate its cause for universal education in the developing world. It has also since enlisted other NGOs, teachers unions, and children’s rights activists in its cause. These include World Vision International, the Girl Scouts, and coalition NGOs for educations in many different countries. The core principles of the Global Campaign for Education are that education is a basic human right, the key to poverty alleviation and sustainable human development, a central responsibility of the state, and achievable if governments mobilize the political will and available resources. In line with these values, the central goal of the Global Campaign for Education is to put public pressure on national and local governments to provide good educations for their citizens; in other words, to make governments responsible and accountable for their peoples’ educations. The two major ways in which the Global Campaign for Education contributes to its calls for the provision of global education is first through research, and second through advocacy. The research conducted by the campaign is primarily policy research on comparative education. This policy research includes school reports in different countries that rank the efforts of various governments toward providing a free and universal education to its people. Within the arena of advocacy, the Global Campaign for Education organizes a wide variety of campaigns and other activities. These include its involvements in many national campaigns to lobby the annual Group of Eight, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund meetings, and its organizing a yearly Action Week that takes place on the last week of April—an event that coordinates around a central theme concerning education. This has ranged from girls’ education in 2003 to a global “back-to-school” campaign in 2008, in which 9 million people took part.

Global Feminism



The landmark event that characterizes the history of the Global Campaign for Education is the World Education Forum in Dakar, which took place in 2000. The Global Campaign for Education was set up specifically to contribute to the forum. Since the forum took place, 40 million more children have managed to go to school, and a financial mechanism—the Education Fast Track Initiative—has been established to help meet the goals of this campaign. See Also: Educational Opportunities/Access; “GirlFriendly” Schools; Girl Scouts; No Child Left Behind; Nongovermental Organizations Worldwide. Further Readings Gaventa, John and Marjorie Mayo. “Spanning Citizenship Spaces Through Transnational Coalitions: The Case of the Global Campaign for Education.” IDS Working Papers, v.327 (2009). Mundy, K. and L. Murphy. “Transnational Advocacy, Global Civil Society? Emerging Evidence From the Field of Education.” Comparative Education Review, v.45/1 (2001). Adeline Koh Richard Stockton College

Global Feminism Global feminism is the global application of feminist thought, displaying both unique and overlapping characteristics in its focus as it advocates for a positive and culturally relevant change in women’s outcomes. The concept of intersectionality that emerged from Black Feminist thought and its emphasis on race, postcolonial feminism, and emerging postmodern and poststructuralist thought have been instrumental in forming the framework of global feminism. It is also thought of as part of the third wave of feminism. Third wave feminism is composed of cultural, postcolonial, and postmodern feminism. The three major characteristics of third wave feminism apply to global feminism as well. These include the acceptance of multiple narratives in diverse locationalities versus the metanarrative of second wave feminism; the acceptance of social activism in sociopolitical space

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for assorted causes instead of theoretical stabilizing and unifying intellectualism; and finally, an attempt to create coalitions rather than a single entity of an organization to address gender concerns. This movement has brought together cultures and issues affecting women under a broad and unifying framework of feminist thought that has emerged from countries outside the Western hemisphere. Agenda The agenda of global feminism is to be able to respond to local-level concerns of women while integrating the goals of earlier feminist movements and their philosophies into their mission and actions. Global feminism has given voice to varying feminist thoughts and agendas. These issues include human rights, social justice, the concept of “othering,” acceptance of a universal sisterhood, and the issue of inequality. The conflict between the overarching goals of liberal universalism and local cultural realities are central to this debate. One illustration of this debate is the goal of mainstream/liberal feminism to be recognized as equal by their communities, and identifying the traditional cultural practices that act as a barrier in accomplishing this goal. There are two major contentions proposed by those practicing or identifying with global feminism. These include those living outside the United States, and the ethnic and cultural minorities residing within the United States and in other Western countries. The first questions gender as a social construct having unilateral primacy, and argues for the recognition of multiple and simultaneous oppressions from various social constructs, such as categorizations of class, caste, and urban/rural living. The second issue is a reflection on women being perceived as oppressive—as a part of developed societies or higher up in institutional—communities. As an illustration, nationalistic sentiments and their associated movements are central to postcolonial feminist thinking. However, the same nationalism that is valued in postcolonial feminist thinking is perceived as patriarchal in second wave feminism. Also, while global feminism concurs with mainstream feminism that universal rights for women are desirable, global feminists also fear and dispute typologies that use cultural practices as a way of creating a hierarchy of values, and consequently the societies and

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people within them. Thus, global feminism argues for cultural relativism as an appropriate strategy to approach universalism. The genesis of global feminism occurred because academics from countries like Iran and India dispute the essentialist victimized status ascribed to their national and social identity; similar responses come from women who have formed multicultural identities after migrating to developed countries, and continue to shape global feminism. Key Issues, Methods, and Tenets The key issues being addressed within global feminism include environmental activism, domestic violence laws, work and globalization, and the role of religion. In most of these instances, the causal mechanism around issues like environmental degradation, the exploitation of cheap and unskilled labor, and religious identity (particularly Muslim identity) can be traced to the developed world; therefore, it can be surmised that women from the non-Western world may feel constrained in identifying with a global sisterhood. Trafficking of women from developing to developed countries has raised a number of parallels to global feminist thought. The female subject is seen as the “other,” a sexualized object created by males and the colonial power. Thus, by inference, liberal feminism is working to support the very system of oppression and exploitation that exploits the most vulnerable in the ex-colonies. Global feminism methodologies are feminist, propose the situatedness of knowledge, theorize on differences, and expand the scope and scale of inequality discussions by also studying the difference between subjects of study and the objective researcher or writer who represents their reality. The discussion within global feminism includes gender—women’s sisterhood as essentializing and outlining the scope of masculinities and femininities, particularly in light of globalization. Shirley Lim proposes that the issue right now is that of the U.S. system and not a simple open market (and liberalization), but the export of the U.S. system through media, technology, power, and politics, and the taking over of physical and abstract spaces comprising norms and culture Also, the onset of globalization and its material culture extends the concept of intersectionalities and the identification of race, class, gender, nationalities, language, and multiplicity of constructing feminism to reflective global feminism.

United Nations–based agencies like the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) have encouraged the establishment of grassroots feminist movements. These agencies have paved the way for antiliberalization movements. The grassroots-level movements that are part of the global feminism paradigm have difficultly working exclusively with women or addressing exclusively women’s concerns. This is both because society is collectivist, and because women themselves identify with group concerns of family and community and not solely with womanhood or sisterhood. Additionally, many women in less developed countries must contend with the transfer of resources and meeting basic necessities, thus making it difficult for them to consider gender-based inequalities their primary concern. For instance, women in rural areas of north India are fighting against liberalization that is leaving them with less than before, out-migration from entire villages, local markets being taken over by wholesale producers, and living in urban slums without basic necessities—the concerns of a community struggling against class and caste. In Bangladesh, women are struggling to establish their right to practice a secular Islam instead of Islamic fundamentalism. There are women supporting both ends of this spectrum. The contradiction of global feminism with socialist, liberal, and radical feminism comes from multiple sources. First, women in the developed world are able to operate in resource-rich societies with institutions that largely function according to established and legal expectations, and thus continue to have a level of accountability. On the other hand, in developing countries, resource-strapped societies are also bogged down by institutions and government that have poorer performance and less accountability. Also, in developed countries, class remains an issue, but it is largely framed within the context of state-supported capitalism: even though there is a stark divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” the perception of an equitable opportunity structure makes class appear to be based more on individual attributes than social attributes. In developing countries, conversely, socialism or communism is an accepted way of life, and class has always been thought to originate in structural inequity, and as such, class affinity is strong



and takes precedence in sociopolitical discussions, even after the advent of liberalization and open markets. Additionally, in developed countries, women have access to basic necessities, such as a high school education, minimum wage jobs, and basic housing. Their struggle is therefore to strive for the next level of needs, such as fighting discrimination in the workplace, gaining equality in promotion, and finding a place in public life in a simplistic translation of the feminist agenda. The agenda in developing countries is still focused on more immediate rights to life, such as access to schools, preventing female infanticide, anti-dowry legislation, and putting an end to child marriages. These are concerns that are relevant in specific cultural and class contexts. For example, the fact that women have been in the highest position of power and authority in a few developing countries, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, could be perceived as inequity being a function of class rather than gender. However, instantaneous communication and easy access to information, ideas, and thoughts have made it easier to identify commonalities and differences among individuals and groups across the boundaries of nation-states. The current era prefers nondualistic constructions, much in keeping with the poststructuralist thought. Despite these differences, gender-related concerns that would have otherwise been submerged in the local class, caste, and community preferences were given a name and voice under the aegis of Western feminist thought. The most successful example is the global campaign to prevent violence against women, particularly against traditional and culturally sanctioned practices like female genital mutilation and spousal rape. Global feminism has recently been termed cosmopolitan feminism by Martha Nussbaum. Discussions of cosmopolitan feminism address the problems of patriarchy and capitalism in the same realm. Cosmopolitan feminism also tries to find a position that moves away from universalizing gender to framing women’s concerns in the human rights paradigm. Niamh Reilly proposes that a cross-boundary dialogue, networking, and social criticism will make feminism relevant in the global context. The underlying tenet in global feminism needs to be that women with education and comfortable lifestyles, referred to as “elites” in both

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Western and non-Western contexts, might not have the experiences to justify their right to speak on the behalf of women who are living in a relative or absolute absence of resources. However, it is the duty of all women to raise the question of gender inequality and work toward greater equity. See Also: Arab Feminism; Chicana Feminism; Ecofeminism; Iranian Feminism; Islamic Feminism. Further Readings Ferree, Myra Marx and Tripp Aili Mari, eds. Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Narayan, Uma and Harding Sandra. Decentering the Center. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Nussbaum, Martha C. Women and Human Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Singh, Shweta. “Deconstructing Gender and Development Paradigm for Identities of Women.” International Journal of Social Welfare, v.16/2 (2007). Walby, Sylvia. “Feminism in a Global Era.” Economy and Society, v.31/4 (2002). Wilson, Shamillah, Sengupta Anasuya, and Evans Kristy, eds. Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation. London: Zed Books, 2005. Shweta Singh Loyola University Chicago

Global “Gag Rule” The Global “Gag Rule” is an intermittent U.S. federal government policy that prohibits the use of family planning funds by overseas organizations that perform abortions or do not explicitly oppose sex work. It has been widely criticized by women’s groups and workers in the field of sexual and reproductive health. Formally known as the “Mexico City Policy” due to its place of origination, it was given the name Global Gag Rule by opponents who sought to emphasize the ways in which it limited freedom of speech. Although its anti-abortion basis was widely known, a lesser-known stipulation of the act required all organizations receiving funding to sign a form explicitly

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opposing prostitution. Those that took no position became ineligible for funds, as did those who referred to prostitution as sex work or supported legalization or decriminalization. For those that rejected the gag and lost their funding, it hampered or stopped altogether the delivery of services other than abortion that were essential for women’s health. In order to be eligible for the funds, besides actually performing abortions, clinics were also banned from offering information about terminations through advice, counseling, or advocacy. Organizations were not only barred from using U.S. funds for these services but also from using their separate funds received from other agencies and institutions. Lobbying local governments for the decriminalization of abortion was similarly prohibited. In addition, the rule required organizations to inform their clients of condom failure rates and encouraged the promotion of abstinence. Contraceptives, including condoms, were no longer shipped to 16 countries in the developing world while the rule was in place. Quantities shipped to 13 other places were sharply reduced. This included a number of countries with extremely high rates of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Women’s rights groups argued that the rule had serious negative impacts on the reproductive wellbeing of millions of women. Given that around 600,000 women die from unsafe abortions and pregnancy-related causes each year, it was argued this had profound health consequences, particularly in countries with limited resources. They said that it endangered lives by exposing women to the dangers of unsafe abortion because no information on safe abortion could made available. Unions and self-organized sex workers’ organizations argued that it was a form of political silencing against those who did not see sex work as a form of violence against women. The policy was implemented through conditions in United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant awards. It was in effect from 1985 until 1993, when it was rescinded by President Bill Clinton. President George W. Bush reinstated the policy in 2001. The ban was in place for eight years until January 23, 2009; President Barack Obama rescinded the policy.

See Also: Abortion, Access to; Contraception, Religious Approaches to; HIV/AIDS: Africa; HIV/AIDS: Asia; HIV/ AIDS: Oceania; HIV/AIDS: South America. Further Readings Bogecho, Dina and Melissa Upreti. “Global Gag Rule: An Antithesis to the Rights-Based Approach to Health.” Health and Human Rights, v.9/1 (2006). Centre for Health and Gender Equity. http://www .genderhealth.org/GlobalGagRule.php (accessed November 2009). Kate Hardy Queen Mary, University of London

Golf It is widely believed that the game of golf originated in Scotland during the mid-1400s. The Scottish later established written rules for the game during the 1700s, which helped codify the sport. In the United States, the popularity of golf increased dramatically during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the American culture became more modernized, upperclass businessmen used the sport as a diversion from employment stressors. The growth of private clubs, resort hotels, and technological advancements stimulated the popularity of the game. Unlike many contact sports that were considered too dangerous, golf was an acceptable form of recreation for women during the era, which was also a significant variable for its expansion in the United States. Women emerged as golf professionals during the early 20th century. During this period, entrepreneurs actively sought avenues for capitalizing on the profitability of sport. Women’s golf was one of many sports used as a vehicle for selling tickets and promoting products for the purpose of profit. In 1943, the first professional golf tournament for women was established. The Women’s Professional Golf Association (WPGA) was created a year later, becoming the first governing body of women’s professional golf in America. After five years of operation, the WPGA dissolved in 1949. Fred Corcoran, a successful sports promoter and manager of superstar Babe Didrikson-Zaharias,



collaborated with the manufacturers of golf equipment to launch the Ladies Professional Golf Players Association (LPGPA) in 1949. In 1950, the organization changed its name and became the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Due in part to the fame Didrikson-Zaharias brought to the LPGA, the United States Golf Association (USGA) sponsored the first official Women’s U.S. Open in 1953. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the LPGA experienced a series of triumphs and setbacks. In 1963, the U.S. Women’s Open became the first televised LPGA event. The increased national attention enabled the LPGA to expand its schedule and prize money. Despite the gains made in the early 1960s, the tour struggled to adapt to the demands of the television market, which decreased the tour’s financial stability. During the 1970s, however, the LPGA recovered when Colgate-Palmolive became the tour’s title sponsor in 1972. A watershed event for women’s golf and the LPGA occurred in 1972 when Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act passed into law. Mandating that all federally funded institutions provide equal funding to men and women, Title IX increased athletic opportunities for women dramatically. Additionally, Nancy Lopez burst onto the scene in 1977, providing a much-needed shot of star power to the tour. Building a Brand Tour leadership has changed numerous times during the last four decades. The lack of continuity in the commissioner’s office hindered the stability of the LPGA. When Ty Votaw became commissioner, however, the organization experienced unprecedented successes. Under Votaw’s leadership, tour events increased from 12 to 30, and tournament purses grew approximately 64 percent. Votaw developed a successful branding strategy for the LPGA that helped move the organization closer to the benchmark of the Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour. The slogan “These Girls Rock” accompanied an aggressive media campaign. Further, Votaw established a playoff system designed to increase the level of excitement associated with the tour. After leading the LPGA into a new era, Votaw resigned in 2005. His replacement was Carolyn Vesper Bivens, the first female commissioner of the LGPA. Bivens inherited an organization experiencing unprecedented growth. Fueled by stars such

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as Annika Sorenstam, Paula Creamer, and Lorena Ochoa, the LPGA appeared to be on stable ground. Two years into her tenure as commissioner, she made the decision to expand the LPGA brand to include a lower-tiered tour for aspiring golf professionals. The Duramed Futures Tour became the official developmental tour of the LPGA in 2007. Another component of the brand is the Legends Tour, the official senior tour of the LPGA. While Bivens was successful in some facets of her duties as commissioner, controversial decision making contributed to her demise. In an attempt to increase the brand quality of the LPGA, Bivens enacted a policy requiring all tour players to speak English when addressing the media, sponsors, or at press conferences. Players failing to comply with the mandate were at risk for suspension. Because the tour is composed of a large percentage of Asian players, the rule quickly became a contentious issue. Bivens later removed the stipulation of suspension from the policy, but the damage caused could not be undone. Her troubles deepened after the tumultuous economy coupled with unhappy sponsors led to a significant reduction in the number of LPGA tournaments.

Women playing golf at the Jackson Sanitorium in 1890. Golf was considered an acceptable form of recreation for women.

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Michael Whan became the eighth commissioner of the LPGA in January 2010 after Bivens received a vote of no confidence from tour members. With a background in brand management and a passion for golf, Whan aims to rebuild the LPGA into a formidable professional sports league. With bright stars such as Morgan Pressel and Michelle Wie capturing the attention of the media, the LPGA is poised for a return to grandeur. See Also: Sörenstam, Annika; Celebrity Women; Sports, Women in; Title IX; United Kingdom. Further Readings Business Wire. “LPGA’s Votaw Unveils Next Major Initiatives of LPGA’s Fans First Strategy: First Playoff Model for Professional Golf and New Brand Platform Introduced.” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m 0EIN/is_2005_June_7/pg_6?opg=n13800832&pnum=5 (accessed March 2010). Crosset, T. W. Outsiders in the Clubhouse: The World of Women’s Professional Golf. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Duramed Futures Tour. “Fast Facts 2010.” http://www .duramedfuturestour.com/AboutUs.asp?page=Fast Facts.ssi (accessed April 2010). Kahn, L. The LPGA: The Unauthorized Version. The History of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. Menlo Park, CA: Group Fore Productions, 1996. Kirsch, G. B. Golf in America. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Ladies Professional Golf Association. “The LPGA: A Timeline.” http://www.lpga.com/content/Timeline-08 .pdf (accessed November 2009). Leonard, T. In the Women’s Clubhouse. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2000. Sirak, R. “Nowhere to Hide?” http://www.golfdigest.com /golf-tours-news/2009-07/golf_uswomensopen _bivens_sirak_0707 (accessed April 2010). Yoon, Peter. “New Chief Michel Whan Tries to Point LPGA in Right Direction.” LA Times (March 31, 2010). http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/31/sports/la -sp-lpga-20100401 (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth A. Gregg Jacksonville University Jason W. Lee University of North Florida

Gomperts, Rebecca Rebecca Gomperts is an abortion rights activist who has earned international attention with her projects Women on Waves and Women on Web. Her motivations, goals, strategies, and successes are outlined in this article. Gomperts was born Suriname in 1966 and was raised in Vlissengen, the Netherlands, after her family moved there when she was 3 years old. She studied medicine and visual arts in Amsterdam and interned in surgery and radiology. While serving as the ship doctor aboard the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior II, Gomperts met many women in South America who suffered tremendously because of the lack of access to reproductive health services and safe, legal abortion. Their stories, along with those of health professionals, were her inspiration for founding Women on Waves (WoW) in 1999. WoW, a nonprofit organization, purchased and outfitted a boat, registered with the Dutch government, with a mobile abortion clinic designed by Dutch sculptor Joep van Lieshout. The mobile clinic was intended for display purposes only. The abortions performed at sea were medical, as opposed to surgical, using abortion pills. The idea was to sail to countries where abortion was illegal, take pregnant women seeking abortions out to international waters—where the ship would be under Dutch law and the abortions therefore legal—and then “perform” the abortions before returning the women to shore. While in harbor, the workers aboard the ship would also distribute contraceptives and offer counseling, education, and workshops for health professionals. Between 2001 and 2008, WoW sailed to Ireland, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, invited by local women’s organizations in those countries. The ship was grounded in 2009 because changes to Dutch law affected WoW’s ability to provide medical abortions. Previously, any Dutchlicensed physician could prescribe abortion pills anywhere, but the legal changes meant that only doctors in approved clinics could do so. As a consequence, WoW was forced to cancel trips to Nicaragua, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. In the years that the ship operated, WoW experienced mixed success. On the first voyage to Ireland, WoW’s was under intense international media scrutiny. While the ship was en route, conservative mem-

Goody, Jade



bers of the Dutch government announced that Gomperts was not licensed to distribute the abortion pill and that she would face legal repercussions should she do so. Although Gomperts and her crew distributed contraceptives and the “morning after” pill, they could not help the more than 200 women who contacted them looking for the abortion pill. Organizers felt betrayed and bitterly disappointed, and WoW left feeling frustrated. The 2003 trip to Poland was more successful. Before WoW’s trip to the country, public opinion polls there showed that 44 percent supported the liberalization of abortion laws; that number rose to 56 percent after WoW’s visit. Even greater results were seen following the ship’s 2004 trip to Portugal. There, Gomperts’s boat was blocked by two warships—a move that was viewed by citizens as an overreaction. The publicity raised by the government’s response helped make abortion an issue in the 2005 federal election, which saw the defeat of the ruling party. In 2007, the country held a referendum on abortion that resulted in the president ratifying a law that allows women to obtain abortions up to the 10th week of pregnancy. In spite of the mixed successes with their voyages, what WoW consistently succeeded at was bringing the issue into both the national and international media. Women on Web continues Gomperts’ efforts to bring safe abortions to women in countries where abortion services are unavailable and illegal. The Website is registered in Canada and, using an online interview with a physician, prescribes abortion pills to women in need. The pills are mailed from around the world to women in unmarked envelopes. In addition to prescribing abortion pills, Women on Web also continues Gomperts’s efforts to increase the public’s awareness and acceptance of abortion. Under a section of the Website titled “I had an abortion,” women are encouraged to “show your face. Break the silence surrounding abortion!” Viewers can read women’s stories of abortion, which include the types of abortions women had, their reasons for having them, and their feelings about their abortions. Many of the stories include pictures of the women, and some also include the woman’s name. Gomperts has received several awards for her ongoing efforts around reproductive rights, including the Ms. Women of the Year award in 2001, the Women Making History Award from Planned Parenthood of

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New York City, the Margaret Sanger Woman of Valor Award 2004 from Planned Parenthood of New York City, and Global Women’s Rights Awards, Feminist Majority Foundation, in 2007. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Methods; Contraception Methods; Netherlands. Further Readings Corbett, Sara. “The Pro-Choice Extremist.” New York Times (August 26, 2001). http://www.nytimes .com/2001/08/26/magazine/the-pro-choice-extremist .html?pagewanted=1 (accessed April 2010). Ferry, Julie. “The Abortion Ship’s Doctor.” The Guardian (November 14, 2007). http://www.guardian.co.uk /world/2007/nov/14/gender.uk (accessed April 2010). Haenen, Marcel. “No More Pro-Choice Protesters on the High Seas.” Spiegel Online (July 28, 2009) http://www .spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,638835,00.html (accessed April 2010). Women on Waves. http://www.womenonwaves.org (accessed June 2010). Women on Web. http://www.womenonweb.org (accessed June 2010). Shannon Stettner York University

Goody, Jade Jade Goody (1981–2009) was born in Bermondsey, southeast London. Rising to fame through her appearance in Big Brother, she became the United Kingdom’s most successful and most controversial reality television star. Goody first appeared on television in the third season of U.K. reality television show Big Brother. She attracted a strong negative reaction in the media, being commonly compared to a pig. She was criticized for stripping and for providing the show’s first sexual activity, performing oral sex on fellow contestant P. J., concealed under a duvet. Goody was also widely viewed as ignorant, following comments that she thought Cambridge was in London and that East Anglia, which she pronounced as “East Angular,” was “abroad.” Despite this, she finished fourth and went

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on to become the most financially successful of all the show’s 172 contestants (over 10 seasons). Following Big Brother, Goody stopped working as a dental nurse and became a professional celebrity. She featured regularly in gossip magazines, published an autobiography, launched a perfume, and appeared frequently on television, including starring in three reality television series: Jade’s Salon, Just Jade, and Jade’s PA. Her media career focused on behind-the-scenes looks at her career and family, blurring conventional distinctions between public and private life. For example, she and partner, Jeff Brazier, appeared on Celebrity Wife Swap. Goody and Brazier had two children together (in 2003 and 2004) and later separated. In 2007, Goody appeared on the fifth U.K. season of Celebrity Big Brother with her mother, Jackiey Budden, and boyfriend, Jack Tweed. She attracted media attention globally for her (and fellow contestants Tweed, Danielle Lloyd, and Jo O’Meera’s) arguments and name-calling directed toward Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. Controversy, particularly in the United Kingdom and India, sparked over whether Goody’s actions constituted racism and/or bullying. Later commentary also discussed the role of class prejudice within the public reaction. After being evicted from the show in a public vote, Goody continued to attract negative media coverage, and her perfume was temporarily withdrawn from sale. She apologized publicly and repeatedly for her behavior and visited India. She gradually returned to celebrity work and, in 2008, appeared in the Indian Celebrity Big Brother, Bigg Boss, hosted by Shetty. On her third day of appearing on Bigg Boss, Goody received the news that she had cervical cancer and returned to the United Kingdom for treatment. Although her cancer was in an advanced state and was terminal, she continued working. She starred in a number of reality television programs charting her illness, sold the rights to her wedding with Jack Tweed, and published further autobiographical books. This and other work both secured her sons’ financial security and changed the United Kingdom’s attitudes to cervical cancer. Following the news that Goody’s cancer was terminal, there was a surge in requests from women in the United Kingdom, particularly younger women, for cervical cancer screening—reversing a long decline. Government health ministers reviewed

their policy of not offering screening for cervical cancer until the age of 25 years in England. Overall, the publicity around her illness, particularly the photographs of her after losing her hair as a result of chemotherapy, altered the way that cancer is seen. See Also: Celebrity Women; Reality Television; United Kingdom. Further Readings Arthurs, J., et al. “Comment and Criticism.” Feminist Media Studies, v.7/4 (2007). Goody, Jade. How It All Began: My First Book. London: John Blake, 2006. H. Mendick Goldsmiths, University of London

Government, Women in Government refers to the set of political, administrative, and judiciary institutions that rule over a determined territory and a determined body of citizens. This basic definition contains a static and a dynamic meaning for the term. On the one hand, it denotes the institutional machinery structured at different levels of the state (local, federal, and state levels), the bureaucracy with all its bodies with administrative functions. On the other hand, it refers to the active process of managing the affairs of the state, with political, economic, and social implications for its citizens. The process of government is put into motion by the aggregated interests of citizens, transforming these interests into binding policy decisions. The discussion about the relation women and government touches upon such crucial interrelated aspects as women’s agenda, gender representation in governing institutions, and government as a process and government’s impact on its female citizens. Women’s Agenda What do women want from governments? Do they have different policy preferences? What are the issues that they see differently, when compared to men? The women’s agenda is a virtual “to do” list of the needs and wishes of women. The nature of this



agenda comes from the differences in reproductive roles between men and women and the related social norms that are ingrained in them as a result of these differences. Historically, only the male population had full citizenship rights, and only their experiences, reflected in terms of their needs and interests, were institutionally accepted. The emergency of a public women’s agenda is a relatively new phenomenon: it is a consequence of women’s enfranchisement, of the growing pressure of feminist movements, and of the transnational coalitions that followed these movements. There are a myriad of crucial issues on this agenda, including economic independence, reconciliation of private and professional life, equal representation in decision making, eradication of all forms of gender-based violence, elimination of gender stereotypes, and promotion of gender equality in external and development policies, to name just a few. The very response of the government to this feminist agenda constitutes the moving core of the gender-government relationship. The challenges for governments are accepting the political nature of the problems advanced by the feminist agenda, allowing a different framing of policy ideas, and offering alternative solutions to the existing ones. Government by Women The political and economic inclusion of women in the governing institutions is still a major target of the new century. This would lead to assuring an equal “government by women.” Descriptive and substantive representations are two core dimensions of this issue. The descriptive representation refers to the numerical presence of women in governing institutions, while the substantive representation focuses on the performance of these women once inserted into government. The descriptive representation aims to create a mirror image of society through its governing institutions. Normative and symbolic arguments state that every social group should have the possibility to be represented by their own delegates. It is assumed that the members of the same group possess similar characteristics and interests. Consequently, they will behave accordingly and will produce outcomes that are beneficial for the represented group. The descriptive representation of women in government is measured by the number of employed women on different levels of governing institutions.

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Presently, women in most parts of the world have gained both the right to vote and the right to stand for elections. The governments of New Zealand and the United States were the first to release electoral rights to women. Women of other European and Asian countries have seen this legal right fulfilled in the middle of the last century. The goal of gaining formal rights has not yet been accomplished all over the world. Presently, women in countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are still excluded from the electoral process. The configuration of governing institutions is crucial to the promotion of a large representation of women. International agreements and transnational organizations and movements make demands and exert pressure on countries to promote an increase in the number of women in government. Gender friendly policies and positive actions like gender quotas are the fast track solution for governments to increase gender representation. These positive actions and quotas form the bulk of the struggle for increasing representation by women activists. However, the adaptation and implementation of quotas is not always welcomed by the actual establishment, as this is a clear menace to the status quo. Opponents to the adoption of gender quotas assert that these measures kill competition and punish competency in favor of ascribed characteristics. The example of eastern European countries is brought as an argument for the inefficiency of quotas as a measure to promote women in government. During the Communist regime, party quotas were vertically imposed in order to ensure equal representation of gender and other minority groups. These measures imposed by the Communist Party were regarded by both men and women as an interference to a well-functioning government. After the Communist regime collapsed, quotas were regarded as part of the negative past and an indicator of a semblant democracy instead of real, healthy political competition. After the totalitarian regime, these quotas had no medium- or long-term effects. Effective Presence of Women in Government. Government may be conceived as a pyramidal structure of power. According to Robert Putnam (1976), this pyramid is ruled by the law of “increasing disproportion”: the higher we climb the political ladder, the less possibility that we find women there. Conversely, the less

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important a governmental position, the more likely it employs women, for example, in positions of street bureaucracy and secretarial positions. The descriptive representation varies by level of democratic development. Western countries have more women in power, in contrast with Asian and Latin American countries, which are in a democratization phase. The case of the sub-Saharan countries is an exception to this theory, as the institutionalization of quotas has considerably increased the representation of women in their local parliaments.. The number of women executives is increasing all over the world. However, women tend to be assigned portfolios that are deemed “feminine” and those that closely relate to practices of equal opportunities, health and childcare, or education rather than matters of defense, interior, or foreign affairs. Presidents and prime ministers are undeniably at the top of the power pyramid, where women are present mostly in roles of wives rather than protagonists. Only a few European countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Germany have women in these top positions. It was only at the beginning of this century that the United States saw a woman candidate for the presidential position. Substantive Representation: Women Working for Women? The increasing presence of women in government is expected to trigger a higher representation of the women’s agenda. It is assumed that similar needs and experiences of members of the same group would produce similar interests, and that women in government would therefore have a higher propensity to work for the interests of women and to apply at least part of their agenda. There are various ways in which women in government may work for women. They may do so by official declarations and public discourses in support of women’s issues and gender equality. Their mere presence may challenge the informal institutional practices and the traditional views about the role of women in society. In more substantive terms, women in government may put issues of women’s concern on the forefront of the political agenda. Such issues regard matters of welfare such as working conditions and work–life balance that directly affect the quality of women’s lives. Skeptics of the idea of “women working for women” contend that group differences might be more prominent than the mere gender factor. Different social and educational backgrounds together with a different level of access

to resources may produce great distinctions of interests, attitudes, and behavior among different groups. A white, rich, highly educated woman may not be cognizant of the experiences of an ethnic woman with a lower level of education. What’s more, there might be a deep bias in the very recruitment process of women in power. The gatekeepers would allow only women who conform to the established formal and informal rules, and these women may be less sensitive toward the feminist agenda. Notorious examples of “masculinized” women are Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir, who were perceived as “iron ladies.” Examples of Women Working for Women. The phenomenon of “women working for women” and evidence of women employees advancing a feminist agenda is becoming more and more widespread. During the time she held the presidential post in Ireland, Mary Robinson had an active campaign in support of the empowerment of women. Case studies on the activity of women in politics, bureaucracy, or courts bring some empirical evidence in support of this expectation. For instance, increased descriptive representation of women in local councils in Norway had an evident positive influence over outcomes of local child care policy and the effects have gotten stronger over time. Furthermore, studies on the voting behavior of the U.S. Congress show that women have a more liberal voting pattern, while the existence of a critical mass of women in Congress determines the increase of women-related legislation. As the numbers of women in politics increase, so do the evidence and the studies of this substantive relationship. The mainstream of current feminist studies is moving in this direction and seeks further empirical data to confirm this substantive representation. Government for Women In summary, “Women in Government” looks at the phenomenon that we might call “the acquisition and management of power.” This phenomenon is embedded in formal institutions and, at the same time, it is the subject of deep informal societal beliefs and practices. The opposite side of the relationship regards the activities of the governing institutions toward its female citizens and it touches upon all the aspects of their private and public lives. In contrast with the active role that individual women have in the process of direct representation, women are receptive



subjects of state regulations and constitute the final addressees of government decision making. Now we turn to the concept of “government for women.” Here we refer to the structure and the outcomes produced “by” governments “for” women. Pressures of local and transnational movements (like the Beijing Conference ) of the second wave of feminism have challenged the state to incorporate key women’s issues like antidiscrimination, antiviolence, reproductive rights, childcare, and political equality. These pressures have translated gradually and to different extents into institutional mechanisms dealing with these policy issues. “Women’s agencies” undertake the responsibility of the promotion of women’s political, economic, and social status; such rights were created as a response to these pressures. Some of these agencies are either ruled by former members of these movements or have accepted the challenges of the feminist policy agenda. This is the case for most Western countries, but the majority of the developing countries are still at the onset of this daunting problem. Policy Outputs. The task for governments is to aggregate the feminist demand and transform it in gender-friendly policy. Compared to the “women working for women” approach, which is quite individualistic, feminist machinery is an integral part of the institutional setting of government (which is not necessarily composed of women). It has the same aim to “work for women” by applying the feminist agenda. In adopting the agenda, there are three instruments at the disposal of governments: the adoption of formal rights, positive actions, and mainstreaming. All of these approaches are complementary and all aim to reduce gender disparities. The “equal treatment” approach aims to grant equal rights to men and women and may be enforced case by case by court rulings. The most common problem with the legalistic approach is that legal provisions may be discriminative per se or they may fail to regulate gender-based problems. Another limit of the legalistic approach is that is it is marked by high costs that individuals have to face in order to defend their rights in court. Low budgets or the lack of sanctions often lead to a lack of implementation of legal rules. “Positive actions” is another mechanism that governments have on hand to improve their ties with female citizens. The basic contribution of this

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approach is that it brings groups closer that have different points of departure, offering specially tailored contributions to various groups that have an unfavorable social and economic base. Examples of positive actions are electoral gender quotas that target a higher descriptive representation. Gender “mainstreaming” is the often-cited method that foresees the integration of the gendered approach in every policy field. According to this view, every governmental decision has to take into account the gender impact. A high degree of subjective interpretation may put the proper implementation of this method at risk. See Also: Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity; Gender Quotas in Government; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Representation of Women in Government, International; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Annesley, Clair. “Women’s Political Agency and Welfare Reform: Engendering the Adult Worker Model.” Parliamentary Affairs, v.60/3 (2007). Bacchi, Carol Lee. Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage, 1999. Celis, Karen, et al. “Rethinking Women’s Substantive Representation.” Representation, v.44/2 (2008). Jacquot, Sophie. “The Paradox of Gender Mainstreaming: Unanticipated Effects of New Modes of Governance in the Gender Equality Domain.” West European Politics, v.33/1 (2010). Lovenduski, J. State Feminism and Political Representation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Mazur, Amy G. Theorising Feminist Policy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002. Angela Movileanu University of Siena

Grameen Bank of Bangladesh The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh (GB) provides banking services to the rural poor in Bangladesh, particularly poor women. Founded in 1976 by Mohammad Yunus, Professor of Economics at Chittagong

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University, the bank is best known for providing small, collateral-free loans (referred to as microcredit, microlending, or microfinance). Such loans— which are often less than $100—are intended to foster entrepreneurial activities and to help ease families out of poverty. Headquartered in the city of Minpur, the GB is currently a multimillion-dollar enterprise with more than 2,500 branches. Although some have raised concerns about the GB, others have lauded it as a model for successful economic stability and for the empowerment of women. The GB program is based on “Sixteen Decisions,” a list of maxims that loan recipients must ascribe to in their work. No assets are required to obtain a loan. Instead, a model of social collateral is implemented to encourage timely repayment. To begin, individuals collaborate with others in their village to form small loans groups (typically four to six members). Several loan groups combine to create a community loan center. Loans are initially extended to two members of each loan group. If regular repayments are sustained, loans are extended to two additional group members. If a member has difficulty making a payment, other members are expected to help her do so. In this respect, individuals are held accountable for the economic decisions and well-being of all group members. Critics have pointed to the limited and even negative outcomes of the GB. For example, poverty rates in Bangladesh remain very high. In addition, research suggests that women may be coerced—often through violence—into taking out loans and their husbands frequently control the use of loan money. It is common for loan money to be used for the purchase of food, household goods, or even travel rather than for entrepreneurial purposes. Furthermore, the GB charges a high interest rate (20 percent) and payments often consume a sizable portion of household income. It is not uncommon for participants to take out additional loans in order to maintain repayment schedules, a strategy that can lead to long-term, insurmountable debt. Finally, there is evidence that loan group members and GB loan officers may humiliate and even verbally abuse participants who are delinquent with their payments. Yet there are numerous indicators of success. The GB has a 98 percent repayment rate and has assisted nearly 7 million families in Bangladesh. Women comprise 95 percent of participants in GB lending pro-

grams. Thus, with access to the capital needed to start a small business, women may increase household income as well as their own status in their family and community. At present, the GB is financially self-sufficient, pays dividends to its borrowers, boasts assets of nearly $24 million, and serves as a model for similar credit programs throughout the world. Its sister organization, the Grameen Foundation (GF), was launched in 1997. It offers banking services, business training, and education programs relating to nutrition, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), sustainable farming, adult literacy, and maternal health in the Middle East and north Africa, the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and east Asia. See Also: Bangladesh; Entrepreneurs; Financial Independence of Women; Microcredit; Poverty; Poverty, “Feminization” of. Further Readings Grameen Bank. “Banking for the Poor.” www.grameen -info.org (accessed June 2010). Grameen Foundation. “Empowering People. Changing Lives. Innovating for the World’s Poor.” www.grameen foundation.org (accessed June 2010). Holcombe, Susan. Managing to Empower: The Grameen Bank’s Experience of Poverty Alleviation. London: Zed, 1995. Rahman, Aminur. “Micro-Credit Initiatives for Equitable and Sustainable Development: Who Pays?” World Development, v.27/1 (1999). Selinger, Evan. “Does Microcredit ‘Empower’? Reflections on the Grameen Bank Debate.” Hum Stud, v.31 (2008). Yunus, Mohammad. Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. New York: Public Affairs, 2003. Jillian M. Duquaine-Watson University of Texas at Dallas

Grandin, Temple Temple Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a world-renowned designer of livestock-handling facilities. Although she



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with her daughter to keep her from retreating into her own world. As she became older, Eustacia Cutler sought placements for her daughter in private schools that were willing to accomodate her particular needs. In her writings, Grandin frequently attributes her professional success in her adult life to these early interventions by her mother to keep her fully engaged at all times.

With the help of her mother, Temple Grandin has used her unique way of thinking to help her achieve scientific renown.

was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder as a young child, Grandin’s numerous works on animal welfare and her writings on neurology and philosophy are frequently cited and referred to by many in both the animal welfare and autism advocacy movements. Temple Grandin was born August 29, 1947, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Eustacia Purves Cutler, a writer and entertainer, and Richard Grandin, a real estate agent. From a very early age, she displayed the classic symptoms of autism: she had poor eye contact, didn’t speak until she was 4, did not like to be touched or held, and had a tendency to throw temper tantrums. After her parents took her to a neurologist and a hearing test revealed she was not deaf, the doctors labeled her “brain damaged,” and recommended she be institutionalized, which was the standard treatment for autistic children in the 1950s. Ignoring the physicians’ advice, her mother enrolled her in a program of speech therapy, placed her in a small private kindergarten, and read to her constantly. Because the family was financially welloff, Temple’s mother also hired a caregiver to play

Grandin’s Academic Achievements After high school, Grandin attended Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, where she received a bachelor’s degree with honors in 1970. During her tenure at Franklin Pierce, medical professionals and school officials tried to discourage her from using a homemade squeeze chute device she had constructed to calm herself down. She was inspired by a cattle squeeze chute she had used at her aunt’s ranch in Arizona as a teen, after seeing how much it calmed the livestock. After school officials confiscated the first device she made, Grandin responded to a professor’s suggestion that she try to learn why the chute calmed her nerves by doing scientific research. An improved version of the original machine she designed has been used in many schools and treatment centers to help individuals with autism spectrum disorders reduce anxiety and improve concentration. In the five years after her graduation from college, Grandin moved to Arizona, where she entered graduate school at Arizona State University, began working in the cattle industry, and later served as the livestock editor of the Arizona Farmer Ranchman. After seeing firsthand how cattle were slaughtered in the major meat-processing plants, she noticed that cattle, as with many autistic people, displayed extreme signs of stress and anxiety when they encountered particular visual and audio cues. As a result of this discovery, Grandin developed a new design for the chutes that put no stress on the animals as they were led to the slaughtering area. This discovery eased the process for workers in the plants, and is now used by almost half of the North American cattle processing industry. In the two decades that followed the receipt of her master’s degree from Arizona State, Grandin acquired a wealth of expertise in animal handling in slaughterhouses, and became one of the most respected leaders in her field. Granted her doctorate in animal science from the University of Illinois

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in 1989, Grandin has subsequently published the results of her research in numerous academic journals and industry trade publications. The lead subject of celebrated neurologist Oliver Sack’s book An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales, Grandin began to worry that her thoughts and her legacy would die with her if she did not begin sharing her experiences through writing. Thus, in 1986, she published Emergence: Labeled Autistic, an autobiographical account of her childhood and adolescence. A groundbreaking book, it challenged the dominant notion held by most professionals and parents of the time that an autism diagnosis always condemned a child to a tragic future of unfulfilled promise. Since then, Grandin has published several other insightful and influential books that offer advice to both parents and professionals who work and live with individuals on the spectrum. Clare Danes played the role of Grandin in a 2010 Home Box Office (HBO) film Temple Grandin based on her life and achievements as a scientist, author, lecturer, and inspirational advocate for autism and autism spectrum disorder. See Also: Education, Women in; Health, Mental and Physical; Medical Research, Gender Issues; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Mental Health Treatment, Bias in. Further Readings Cutler, Eustacia. Thorn in My Pocket: Temple Grandin’s Mother Tells the Family Story. Arlington, TX: Future Horizons, 2004. Grandin, Temple. Emergence: Labeled Autistic. New York: Warner Books, 1996. Grandin, Temple. Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports From My Life With Autism. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. Grandin, Temple. The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s. Arlington, TX: Future Horizons, 2008. Grandin, Temple and Kate Duffy. Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals With Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism. Shawnee Mission, KS: Autism Asperger, 2008. Grandin, Temple and Catherine Johnson. Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006.

Grandin, Temple and Catherine Johnson. Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Temple Grandin. HBO Home Video, 2010. Danielle Roth-Johnson University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Grandmothers Grandmothers are an extremely diverse group. Although more than 75 percent of Americans over age 65 are grandparents, some people become grandparents at age 30. About half of women experience this event by age 47, and some spend half of their lives as grandmothers. Grandmothers report greater overall satisfaction with grandparenting than grandfathers do, and this is particularly true for maternal grandmothers. Worldwide, grandmothers provide care and support for their grandchildren and, increasingly, are serving as their surrogate parents. Factors Influencing Grandmother– Grandchild Involvement Grandmothers’ involvement with their grandchildren depends on a number of factors. One of these is geographical distance. Increased geographic mobility often means that grandparents live some distance from their grandchildren, making visits less frequent and relationships less intimate. Moreover, today’s grandparents are more likely to live independent lives apart from their children and to be involved in several other roles. Many middle-age grandmothers are in the labor force and may also have responsibilities for caring for their elderly parents. Thus, they may have less time to devote to grandparenting activities than did grandmothers a generation ago. In addition, the rising divorce rate may limit the access of grandparents to grandchildren who are living with a former son-in-law or daughter-in-law. An estranged parent may deny children access to their grandparents as a means of punishing the spouse. All 50 states once had laws allowing grandparents to petition courts to continue seeing their grandchildren if their child’s marriage ended through divorce or death. Now, many states have made grandparent visitation



laws invalid, deciding that they go against the rights of the parent. The Grandmother–Grandchild Relationship The ties between family generations are maintained largely by women. One example is that grandmothers tend to have warmer relationships with their grandchildren than do grandfathers. The maternal grandmother usually has the most contact and the closest relationship with the grandchildren, and the grandmother’s relationship with her daughter’s daughter often is especially close. Grandchildren often become closer to their grandmothers, particularly their maternal grandmother, following divorce, a trend that may be related to the fact that custody often is awarded to the mother. Grandchildren from divorced families often benefit from this increased involvement with their grandmother, who provides additional emotional and even financial support as the family adjusts to new configurations and economic hardships. Close, supportive relationships with grandparents, especially the maternal grandmother, are linked with better mental health in adolescents and young adults raised in single-parent families. In some parts of the world, the presence of a grandmother may spell the difference between life and death for her grandchildren. According to anthropologist Kristen Hawkes and her colleagues, postmenopausal women have helped ensure the survival and fitness of their grandchildren since prehistoric times. These women, no longer reproductively active themselves, are able to invest their energies in providing for the physical and psychological health of grandchildren and other young relatives. Hawkes and her colleagues studied the present-day Hadza huntergatherers of northern Tanzania and found that older women gather more edible plant foods than any other members of the group. Nursing Hadza women, unable to provide for their older children while tending their infants, rely not on their mates, but on these postmenopausal women relatives—their mothers, aunts, or elderly cousins—to make sure that the older children are well fed. Similarly, anthropologists Ruth Mace and Rebecca Sear found that in rural Gambia, the presence of a maternal grandmother doubled the survival rate of her toddler grandchildren. The presence of a paternal grand-

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mother made no difference in the children’s survival. Even more surprisingly, the presence of the father didn’t either. Similar results have been found in parts of rural India and Japan as well. Providing Care and Support for Grandchildren During their grandchilden’s infancy and preschool years, nearly half of the grandmothers in the United States provide the children’s parents with considerable emotional support, information, help with childcare and household chores, and to a lesser degree, financial support. Almost one-third of all preschoolers in the United States whose mothers are employed or in school are looked after by their grandparents, usually a grandmother. Some baby boomer grandmothers are retiring or taking time off from their careers to become nannies for their grandchildren. Similarly, in European countries ranging from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, nearly 60 percent of grandmothers provide some kind of childcare for grandchildren. The grandmother’s role in lending economic, social, and emotional support to her children and grandchildren varies among ethnic groups. For example, Asian American grandparents are more likely than other groups to care for their grandchildren whose mothers are employed. In one study of low-income multiracial Hawaiian children who had an absent or incapacitated parent, the nurturance and guidance of grandparents was a key factor in the children’s well-being as they grew to adulthood. Latina women are an important source of social support for their young adult daughters with children and their advice is often sought in major family decisions. Both Native American and African American grandmothers are significant figures in the stability and continuity of the family. African American grandparents view their relationships with their grandchildren as more central to the family than do European American grandparents. They have higher status within the family and carry more authority than do European American grandparents. This is especially true for grandmothers. For some children, grandparents are part of the family household. The number of grandparents living in homes with grandchildren has more than doubled since 1970 to 6.2 million in 2005, including 8 percent of African American, Native American, and Latina adults, 6.4 percent of Asian American adults, and 2.5 percent of European American adults. Some

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of the increase results from an uncertain economy and the growing number of single mothers, which has sent young adults and their children back to the parental nest. In other cases, elderly adults are moving in with their adult children’s families when they can no longer live on their own. New immigrants with a tradition of multigenerational households have also swelled the number of such living arrangements. The arrangement benefits all parties. Grandparents and grandchildren can interact on a daily basis. The grandparents often assume some parenting responsibilities, making it easier for mothers to work or for young single mothers to stay in school. Raising Grandchildren Increasing numbers of grandparents now find themselves raising their grandchildren on their own. Of the 6.2 million grandparents living in a household with a grandchild, over 40 percent are raising their grandchildren without a parent present. The majority of these so-called skip-generation parents are grandmothers. Grandparents become full-time caregivers for their grandchildren when the child’s parents are unable or unwilling to because of illness, divorce, teen pregnancy, child abuse, substance abuse, incarceration, psychological or financial problems, and/or military deployment. In some developing countries, parents migrate to urban areas to work, while grandparents remain behind and raise the grandchildren. The acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic has also increased the number of grandparents who are raising grandchildren in many nations, including the United States. Children reared by their grandparents fare well relative to children in families with one biological parent. They also show little difference in health and academic performance relative to children raised in traditional families. The belief that caregiving grandmothers are primarily poor ethnic women of color is a myth. Parenting grandmothers can be found across racial and socioeconomic lines. About half the grandparents raising grandchildren are European American, 29 percent are African American, 17 percent are Latina, 3 percent are Asian American, and 2 percent are Native American. African American women who are raising their grandchildren, compared with European American women, report feeling less burdened and more

satisfied in their caregiving role, even though they are generally in poorer health, dealing with more difficult situations, and dealing with them more often alone. Rearing a grandchild is full of both rewards and challenges. On the one hand, parenting a grandchild is an emotionally fulfilling experience. On the other hand, raising grandchildren has psychological, physical, and economic costs. A grandmother raising the young child of her drug-addicted adult daughter may concurrently feel ashamed of her daughter; anxious about her own future, health, and finances; angry at the loss of retirement leisure; and guilt about her own parenting skills. Moreover, grandparents primarily responsible for rearing grandchildren are more likely than other grandparents to suffer from a variety of health problems, including depression, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and a decline in self-rated physical and emotional health. Furthermore, they tend to delay seeking help for their own medical problems. The stress felt by grandparents is exacerbated if the grandchild exhibits behavioral problems often associated with a dysfunctional family. Caring for grandchildren also takes a toll on those grandmothers who are employed. In one study, 40 percent of employed custodial grandmothers reported that they arrived late to work, missed work, left work suddenly, or left because of a grandchild’s medical appointment. Grandparents raising grandchildren are often stymied by existing laws that give them no legal status unless they gain custody of the grandchild or become the child’s foster parents. Each of these procedures involves considerable time, effort, and expense. Yet without custody or foster parent rights, grandparents may encounter difficulties in obtaining the child’s medical records, enrolling the child in school, or becoming eligible for certain forms of financial assistance. For example, the welfare grant that a low-income grandmother collects on her grandchild’s behalf is only a fraction of what she would receive if she were to become the child’s foster parent. In most instances, grandchildren are ineligible for coverage under grandparents’ medical insurance, even if they have custody. In some cases, states ignore the significant expenditures made by caretaker grandparents when calculating the grandparents’ eligibility for Medicaid. Consequently, many grandparent caregivers face significant financial challenges.

See Also: Childcare; Family Research Council; Focus on the Family; Poverty. Further Readings Etaugh, Claire. “Women in the Middle and Later Years.” In Florence L. Denmark and Michele A. Paludi, eds., Psychology of Women: A Handbook of Issues and Theories. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Gibbons, C. and T. C. Jones. “Kinship Care: Health Profile of Grandparents Raising Their Grandchildren.” Journal of Family Social Work, v.7/1 (2003). Goyer, Amy. Intergenerational Relationships: Grandparents Raising Grandchildren. Washington, DC: American Association of Retired Persons, 2005. Pittman, Laura D. “Grandmothers’ Involvement Among Young Adolescents Growing Up in Poverty.” Journal of Research on Adolescence, v.17 (2007). Pruchno, Rachel A. “Raising Grandchildren: The Experiences of Black and White Grandmothers.” The Gerontologist, v.39/2 (1999). Ruiz, Sarah A. and Merril Silverstein. “Relationships With Grandparents and the Emotional Well-Being of Late

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Adolescent and Young Adult Grandchildren.” Journal of Social Issues, v.63 (2007). Wang, Ying and Dave E. Marcotte. “Golden Years? The Labor Market Effects of Caring for Grandchildren.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, v.69 (2007). Claire Etaugh Bradley University

Granny Peace Brigade The grandmothers in the Granny Peace Brigade are not irrelevant, doddering, and nodding rocking chair elders nostalgic for the good old days. They are on the front lines, picketing, bearing witness, lobbying, singing, and getting arrested to protest the costly war in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and the vast domestic war machine. These respectable older women—they prefer to be called “seasoned”—can be found in 33 states and can hardly be dismissed as radical kooks or

The Granny Peace Brigade’s Philadelphia branch marches at the Mummers Parade. In 2006, 11 members showed up at the Military Recruitment Center in Philadelphia to “enlist” in the military, “so that our grandchildren would not kill or be killed in Iraq.”

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naive youths. Protest keeps them vital and provides them with a friendship network. Their inspiration came from the colorful Raging Granny groups that sprouted up all over Canada in the 1980s. The Granny Peace Brigade evolved slowly in New York City in 2003 and began holding small weekly antiwar vigils at Rockefeller Center on Fifth Avenue. In 2004, between five and 50 women stood in protest for anywhere from one to three hours, sometimes joined by groups of veterans, curious tourists, or their grandchildren. By the next year, the New York Times, New York Newsday, and members of the foreign press wrote about them, and they became a tourist attraction— filmed, interviewed, and sometimes heckled. Inspired by a Raging Granny group in Tucson, who the media covered extensively when they were arrested for attempting to enlist in the military, the New York group duplicated their action at the Times Square Recruiting booth in October 2005. Eighteen unthreatening grannies ranging in age from 59 to 90 years, some with walkers or canes, others blind and deaf, were jailed for blocking the entrance to the recruiting station. They did not want the youth, who were too busy paying for their education and working, sent to war, and felt they should go instead. After the arrest, the activities of the Granny Peace Brigade expanded and increased. They formed the Granny Chicks chorus, staged teach-ins at colleges on issues like the closing of all U.S. military bases in the Pacific, held phone-a-thons at which passers by are asked to call their representatives about pending antiwar legislation, organized counterrecruitment actions at high schools to encourage parents to be proactive in monitoring military recruiters’ access to their youth, and protested in front of stores such as Toys R Us during the holiday season, asking shoppers to buy smart toys, not those that foster violence and war. Their demonstrations are often colorful because they have know-how, time, and artistic and organizing skills. For Grandparents Day in September 2006, they paraded in black T-shirts—some in wheelchairs pushed by volunteers—across the Brooklyn Bridge, beating drums and carrying 25 enormous black balloons emblazoned with the words Troops Home Now. After they crossed to Manhattan, they held a press conference with politicians and actresses. The march ended at Ground Zero, where one Granny was arrested for talking back to a policeman who claimed

they had no permit to demonstrate. As their song says, “Watch Out. We’ve Just Begun to Fight.” See Also: Grandmothers; Peace Movement; Social Justice Activism; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Further Readings Granny Peace Brigade. http://www.grannypeacebrigade .org (accessed June 2010). Wile, Joan, Grandmothers Against the War, Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up for Peace. New York: Kensington, 2008. Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall State University of New York, Old Westbury

Greece Greece is located in southeastern Europe, and has a homogenous population that is 98 percent ethnically Greek and Orthodox Christian. There is a traditional cultural emphasis on family and women’s roles as wife and mother. Women have political and legal equality, but they are not always achieved in reality. Reporting and prosecuting domestic violence and crimes against women remain problematic. Declining birthrates and the legalization of abortion are key issues involving women. Greece ranked 86th of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report—last among European Union members. Women in Private Life Greek culture emphasizes the family as a key source of an individual’s identity and support system. Consequently, Greece has high marriage rates and low divorce rates. Both church and civil marriages are common and legally recognized. The average woman marries in her mid-20s. The fertility rate is 1.3 births per woman. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 4 per 1,000 live births, and the maternal mortality rate was 3 per 100,000 live births. The state Social Insurance Fund and employers provide women with 119 days of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of their wages. Seventy-six percent of married women use contracep-



tion. The legalization of abortion and steep declines in the birth rate in modern Greece have both been recent controversial social issues. Cultural tradition emphasizes the woman’s role as wife, mother, and daughter. Women maintain strong economic roles within the family, and own property. Most Greek families are nuclear, but extended families and strong ties with godparents and wedding sponsors are also common. Related family households tend to live nearby. Parents, grandparents, and other relatives share childrearing responsibilities. The Family Law of 1983 legalized gender equality in family decision making. Family privacy is emphasized but hospitality plays an important role in Greek culture. Women are also heavily involved in religious and artistic activities. Domestic violence and other crimes against women often go unreported, and those that are prosecuted have low conviction rates. There is a cultural emphasis on parental self-sacrifice to ensure that children achieve greater success. Education for both sexes is highly valued, and public schools are both compulsory and free. Female school attendance rates stand at 100 percent at the primary level, 91 percent at the secondary level, and 95 percent at the tertiary level. There are several institutions of higher learning, but many receive higher education abroad. Women comprise half of all university students. Female and male literacy rates are almost identical, at 96 percent and 98 percent, respectively. The culture’s egalitarian emphasis has resulted in high rates of social mobility. Greece has been predominantly urban since World War II, with Athens containing approximately one-third of the population. Most Greeks own their own homes or apartments, even in urban areas. Families are expected to care for the elderly, infirm, and orphans. Informal social control limits violent crimes. There is a National Health Service of hospitals, clinics, and insurance as well as state systems of disability and pension plans and disaster compensation. Although most healthcare facilities are located in urban areas even rural populations have adequate access. There is also a private healthcare system for those with the funds. Life expectancy is high: age 73 for women, and 69 for men. Urban Greek women are commonly employed outside the home and represent almost half of the country’s workforce, although they hold a disproportionate number of low-paying jobs. Fifty-six percent of

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women participate in the labor force, comprising 42 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce, and 45 percent of professional and technical workers. Many work in tourism, trade, services, or the small familyowned businesses that are common in Greek cities. Women comprise more than half of teachers at the primary and secondary levels and 35 percent at the tertiary level. Women are beginning to enter traditionally male professions, such as medicine and the law. Children can work in certain occupations and in family businesses at age 12. Although there are improved childcare arrangements, many Greek mothers leave the workforce. A gender gap still exists in terms of average estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which stands at $21,181 for women and $40,000 for men, and unemployment rates, which stand at 12.62 percent for women and 4.95 percent for men. Both sexes share traditional rural agricultural labor. Legislation offers women recourse from sexual harassment. Greece has universal suffrage with a voting age of 18 and there is an increasing number of women who hold public political offices. Women hold 15 percent of parliamentary seats and 12 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. See Also: Christianity; Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Infant Mortality; Marriage. Further Readings Halkias, Alexandra. The Empty Cradle of Democracy: Sex, Abortion, and Nationalism in Modern Greece. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Loizos, Peter and E. Papataxiarches. Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Green Belt Movement Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement as early as 1977 to organize poor rural Kenyan women, to combat environmental degradation (deforestation, soil erosion, etc.), and to better female access to

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resources and generate income for women. That same year, the United Nations International Conference on Desertification was held in Nairobi. The Green Belt has played an extraordinary role in empowering women by means of advocacy, networking, education, tree planting, capacity building, and vocational training within the several core programs that combine development, economics, and culture in a very dynamic and creative way. Since 1977, over 30 million trees have been planted in Kenya by those inspired by Maathai’s determination and initiatives, such as the Save the Land Harambee Tree-Planting initiative, as well as tree nurseries and seedlings. The training of over 30,000 women has taken place in fields such as forestry, beekeeping, food processing, and so on, which has allowed them not only to make a better living but also to preserve their resources and lands. Women and men of all Kenyan communities have been consistently organized against further environmental destruction while acquiring a conscience as the best environmentalists. Inspiring Other Campaigns The Green Belt Movement has inspired similar movements in at least a dozen other countries. The idea of creating “belts” is common to several African countries, particularly following the economic crisis of the 1970s. Thus, in the mid-1980s the Pan-Africa Green Belt Network developed once the movement came into being in Lesotho, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi became a powerful ally or the movement in 1989. These belts provide shade and habitats for distinctive small animals and birds, facilitate soil conservation, and help community members, usually in large numbers, understand what protects the environment and communal values. This process has not come easy, and many leaders have been imprisoned or battered by police when defending the movement, Wangari Maathai being one of them. The Green Belt Movement of Kenya is linked to the International Green Belt Movement, as seen by the endorsement of the Forest Now Declaration, calling for new market-based mechanisms to protect tropical forests (2007). The ongoing “Plant for the Planet; Billion Tree Campaign”—a major worldwide treeplanting campaign established by the United Nations Environment Program, and one of the first environ-

Wangari Maathai in Kenya in 2004, the year she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Green Belt Movement.

mental programs in Africa to be established in Nairobi (1972)—strongly encourages the planting of indigenous trees and trees appropriate to local environments. It has continued gaining the support of people, communities, businesses, civil society organizations, and governments worldwide. The United Nations Environment Program has been working toward a goal of planting 7 billion trees by the end of 2009. The Green Belt Movement remains vibrant and successful in the early 21st century, in empowering both women and environmentalism worldwide. It also shows relevant connections to other ecological and women’s movements (the Chipko Movement or Love Canal). Prominent ecological feminist thinkers such as Carol J. Adams, Irene Diamond, Ynestra King, Carolyn Merchant, Maria Mies, Gloria Orenstein, and Vandana Shiva emphasize that women are often central to efforts to stop environmental degradation (at least compared with other movements), as ecological change affects women more than men throughout the world.

Guam

See Also: Ecofeminism; Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Justice; Kenya; Maathai, Wangari; Shiva, Vandana; Women’s Environment and Development Organization. Further Readings The Green Belt Movement. http://www.greenbeltmove ment.org/ (accessed June 2010). Maathai, Wangari. The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. New York: Lantern Books, 2006. Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. New York: Anchor, 2007. Soledad Vieitez-Cerdeño University of Granada

Grenada Grenada is a small (344-square-kilometer) island nation in the Caribbean Sea that became independent from Great Britain in 1974. Most of the population (90,739 as of June 2009) is black (82 percent) with large minorities of mixed race (13 percent) and European and east Indian (5 percent) people. Roman Catholicism is the most common religion (53 percent) with 13.8 percent Anglican and 33.2 percent other Protestant. Life expectancy for men is 66 years and 69 years for women. The Grenadian economy is based primarily on agriculture and tourism and per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $12,700 in 2009. Women constitute 42.6 percent of the nonagricultural labor force but still suffer from discrimination and generally earn less than men. Traditional role expectations dictate that women are primarily responsible for children and the household and men are to be the head of the family: both constitute barriers to complete equality for women. Domestic violence remains a problem and is often considered a private rather than a police matter. By 2005, the total fertility rate was 2.4 children per woman, a sharp decrease from 1990 when it was 4.1 children per woman. Government concern about population growth led to widespread provision of family planning services throughout the country in

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health clinics, which are part of the national health service. About 50 percent of Grenadian women report using contraceptives. However, access to abortion is restricted as it is legal in Grenada only to save the mother’s live or to preserve her medical and physical health. Maternal and child healthcare is a high priority in Grenada. Almost all pregnant women receive four or more prenatal care visits and all births are attended by skilled health personnel. Childhood immunization is almost 100 percent for major diseases and the under age 5 mortality of 23 per 1,000 live births has been steadily decreasing since 1990. As of 2009, women hold 13 percent of the seats in the national parliament and in years past have held over 25 percent of the seats in some years. Several government ministries are also headed by women. This reflects a substantial change from previous cultural and practical barriers to women’s participation in government. For instance, until the 1980s women were not allowed to sit on juries in Grenada until they were 35 years old, while men were allowed to serve once they reached the age of 21. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Heads of State, Female; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Brizan, George I. Grenada: Island of Conflict. Oxford, UK: Macmillan Caribbean, 1998. Government of Grenada. http://www.gov.gd (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Guam Guam, an island in the North Pacific Ocean and that is part of the Mariana Islands archipelago, is an unincorporated territory of the United States with an area of 544 square kilometers and an estimated population of 178,430, in July 2009. The United States gained control of Guam from Spain in 1898, and today the island is home to several U.S. military bases. Residents of Guam are U.S. citizens and have a nonvoting representative in the U.S. Congress but

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are not represented in the Electoral College, which elects the U.S. president. Guam’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism and U.S. military spending and imports are far greater than exports. Gross Domestic Product per capita in 2005 was $15,000, with unemployment at 11.4 percent and 23 percent of the population living below the poverty line. The major ethnic groups in Guam are Chamorro (indigenous people of the Mariana Islands [37.1 percent]) and Filipino (26.3 percent) with smaller minorities including other Pacific Islanders (11.3 percent), whites (6.9 percent), and other Asian (6.3 percent). Official languages are English and Chamorro. Eightfive percent of residents are Roman Catholic. Literacy is almost universal at 99 percent for both men and women. Guam’s population growth rate is 1.365 percent, with 18.22 births per 1,000 population and a total fertility rate of 2.54 children per woman. Infant mortality is comparable to the United States at 6.05 births per 1,000 population, and life expectancy is high for both men (75 years) and women (81.2 years). Illegitimate birth is common (over 50 percent of all births in 2003), and the teen birth rate is high: almost 11 percent of all births are to teenagers, and the birth rate per 1,000 teen women is 25.1. The crude marriage rate is 8.2 per 1,000 and the divorce rate is 3 per 1,000. Rates for preventive health measures for women in Guam are somewhat lower than for the United States. For example, 69.9 percent of women age 50 and over report having a mammogram in the last two years versus 79.4 percent of U.S. women. The rates for pap smears (in the last three years) for women over age 18 are 66.6 percent in Guam and 82.8 percent in the United States. Traditional Chamorro society is matrilineal, with heritage traced through the mother’s side, women controlling their clan’s property, and women being included in village councils. This was changed with the Spanish conquest (which eliminated much of the male Chamorro population) and imposition of Roman Catholicism in the 17th century. However, Chamorro women are credited with keeping their culture alive during the Spanish occupation and remained heads of household in actuality if not in name because the men frequently were absent for days at a time due to work. The American occupiers were even less tolerant of local customs and imposed laws requiring a wife to take her husband’s surname and the children to bear

their father’s surname. However, motherhood is still revered in Guam and ninana, or mothering in the sense of caring for others, is considered a basic value of Chamorro culture. However, many women also work outside the home and today women in Guam constitute 44.4 percent of the nonagricultural labor force. Guam has never had a female governor but its current representative in Congress is a woman: Madeleine Z. Bordallo, an American who married Ricardo Bordallo, who himself served two terms as governor of Guam (1975–79 and 1983–87). Women also serve on the Superior Court of Guam (including currently Katherine A. Maraman, Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson, and Anita A. Sukola) and in the unicameral legislature (including current Speaker Judith T. Won Pat, Assistant Majority Leader Judith P. Gutherze, and Legislative Secretary Tina R. Muna-Barnes). See Also: Government, Women in; Representation of Women in Government, International; Marriage; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Guampedia: The Encyclopedia of Guam. http://guam pedia.com/ (accessed April 2010). Official Portal for the Island of Guam. www.guam.gov (Accessed April 2010). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed April 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Guatemala Guatemala is rich in heritage and culture, as home to a variety of indigenous peoples including the Maya. The Central American country’s population growth rate is around 3 percent, and a high proportion of the population are indigenous peoples, the rest being ladinos (mestizos or “mixed race” and assimilated indigenous people). The most recent census (2007) gives the population as over 14 million. The infant mortality rate is 30 in every 1,000, and life expectancy was reported in 2005 as being 69 years of age.



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Women in Guatelama show their inked fingers after voting. Although at least 20 percent of the Guatemalan population is comprised of indigenous women, only two of 158 members of Congress and one of 333 mayors are indigenous women.

Guatemala enforces six free compulsory years of education, but attendance rates are only 41 percent. Literacy, however, is rated at 70.6 percent. The biggest industries in Guatemala are manufacturing and agriculture, and it is significant that almost 50 percent of the population engage in farming, usually at a subsistence level. Women make up about 27 percent of the Guatemalan workforce; they are usually employed in sales, clerical work, and the service industries. Women also make up 40 percent of professional workers. Guatemala’s official language is Spanish, but a large variety of native languages are spoken, including Maya and Quiché. The pre-Columbian Maya had an extremely complex hieroglyphic language, a sophisticated calendar, and an intricate religious belief-system. After the Spanish Conquest, however, Guatemala is more likely to be associated with colonial oppression and a postcolonial history of violence and human rights abuses. Pre- and postconquest, col-

lectives of Guatemalan women have had a significant role in nurturing indigenous traditions and fighting for human rights. Mayan women sometimes present a submissive stance to their husbands, but traditionally they have had strong roles as priests, healers, and midwives. Modern Mayan women continue to maintain responsibilities in deciding how wages should be spent in the household and, more recently, in maintaining their own jobs. Traditionally, they also have an important role as weavers. Today, this position includes elaborate selling rituals that build rapport with tourists; this performance does not so much emphasize the economic necessity of the exchange, but presents these women as bearers of traditional Mayan culture. Women’s rights were seriously eroded by a series of corrupt military-oriented leaders from the 1950s onward. Guatemala suffers from the politics of machismo, and the economic dependence of women

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on their husbands has included subjection to domestic abuse, infidelity, and poverty. Women have traditionally taken on unskilled jobs such as domestic service or badly paid factory labor, though this has improved recently. Until 1998, however, the Guatemalan Civil Code gave the husband the right to prevent his wife from engaging in activities beyond the home. In addition to harassment in the home and workplace, indigenous women endured shocking brutality during the counterinsurgency conflict in the 1980s and 1990s. On the pretext of exterminating guerrilla groups and quashing militant feeling, indigenous women were humiliated by rape, strip searches, or verbal harassment. Entire villages in the highlands of Guatemala were massacred, creating more than 50,000 widows. To escape the violence, large numbers of Guatemalan women became refugees, widening the Mayan diaspora in Central America and the United States. To combat the human rights abuses and government oppression of the late 20th century, women’s cooperatives developed. Possible models for these collectives were Evangelical Christian women’s networks and Roman Catholic groups that improved women’s literacy and provided nutritional information. Women-centered groups in Guatemala include the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) and the Mutual Select Group (GAM), as well as the National Coordinating Committee of Guatemalan Widows (CONVIGUA). These networks create political change by witnessing human rights abuses or crimes against women, performing peaceful protest, and supporting survivors of abuse. Rigoberta Menchú Tum of the CUC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work as an advocate for indigenous rights. Although the government signed a peace treaty with Guatemalan guerrilla groups in 1996, military violence has left its legacy, as organized crime, the drug trade, and sex trafficking creates a new kind of brutality alongside the repressive government. The rate of crimes against women is rising: Oxfam and GAM reported that in the first half of 2005, 239 women, including 33 girls under the age of 15, were kidnapped before being tortured, raped, and murdered. See Also: Crime Victims, Female; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Rape in Conflict Zones; Trafficking, Women and Children; Widows.

Further Readings Foxen, Patricia. In Search of Providence: Transnational Mayan Identities. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007. Green, L. Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Human Rights Watch. From the Household to the Factory: Sex Discrimination in the Guatemalan Labor Force. New York and London: Human Rights Watch, 2002. Tooley, Michelle. Voices of the Voiceless: Women, Justice and Human Rights in Guatemala. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1997. Zoë Brigley Thompson University of Northampton

Guerrilla Fighters, Female Women’s participation in guerrilla warfare is long lived and well documented. Guerrilla warfare is defined as a type of unconventional warfare in which smaller groups of irregular forces, often civilians, use mobile tactics such as ambushes and raids to combat larger, better-trained, and regular forces. Guerrilla fighters are those individuals who make up the smaller groups of irregular forces and take part in the planning or execution of the attacks on the regular forces. While terrorist or national separatist groups are sometimes included as guerrilla groups, the distinction herein lies in the fact that guerrilla groups target regular military forces and national separatist and terrorist groups are target civilians or government officials; however, the lines between these types of groups are often blurred. Guerrilla warfare is widespread, existing in most parts of the world and at most times. Women have participated as fighters in guerrilla conflict in different roles, either directly in combat or in support positions, and are seen as beneficial to the guerrilla group. Often women have undertaken key leadership roles in these guerrilla struggles. Motivations for participation by women as guerrilla fighters varies based upon the conflict. Women have been motivated by security concerns, through coercion, because of feelings of emancipation, and because of deep attachment to the ideological or cultural goals of the guerrilla group. Participation



of women as guerrilla fighters has sometimes led to greater rights for women throughout society. Even though emancipation for women has often accompanied the involvement of women as guerrillas, women involved in guerrilla warfare have often fought on two fronts, combating the regular military forces pursued by the guerrilla group, while also combating sexism within the ranks of the guerrilla group. After the guerrilla struggle is over, women have also faced difficulty reintegrating into society as they are confronted in their societies with entrenched patriarchy, a social system in which men hold power over women and children. Geographic and Temporal Distribution Women’s participation in guerrilla warfare has been widespread across time and geographical location. During the U.S. Civil War in the 1860s, Southern women dressed as men and participated as guerrilla fighters, engaging in hit-and-run tactics against a better-armed and trained Northern army. Women were also important in the Greek Civil War in the 1940s. Touching every continent, women’s participation as guerrilla fighters has also been documented in Turkey, Russia, and the North Caucusus as well as in the Middle East. Perhaps the most active and best known female guerrilla fighters have participated in guerrilla struggles in Africa and Latin America. African women have participated as guerrilla fighters in struggles in Algeria, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Libya, Namibia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Estimates suggest that women make up about 30 percent of the guerrilla forces on the African continent. Women participated in most of the guerrilla struggles in Latin America as well. Most notably, they participated in large numbers in the guerrilla struggles in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Women have also participated in guerrilla struggles in Chile, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. In Cuba and Uruguay, female guerrillas were estimated to be 25 percent of the fighting force. In Nicaragua, female participation is estimated to have been 30 percent, and in El Salvador, it was at least 40 percent. Women fighters face several motivations when joining guerrilla groups. In Africa, however, there is

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a noticeable difference in the motivations of women fighters participating in guerrilla groups fighting for independence from colonial powers and postcolonial guerrilla struggles. Motivation of Women in Guerrilla Struggles Motivations of earlier female guerrillas included emancipation from male-dominated societies as well as ideological or religious/ethnic motivations, while women participating in postcolonial struggles are more motivated by personal gain and protection. Women in both pre- and postcolonial struggles are often motivated to act as guerrilla fighters as a survival strategy. The guerrilla groups they join provide them with basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing and allow them to escape poverty in their home communities. The guerrilla groups also satisfy psychological needs for female guerrillas, providing them with companionship and security. Some women join guerrilla groups in order to escape domestic violence and abuse. Additionally, women, like men, are motivated to join guerrilla groups due to religious, ethnic, or ideological affiliations. Participation as a guerrilla fighter can also be empowering for women. This was particularly true in struggles to overthrow colonial powers in Africa. According to Harry West, women and girls who served as fighters in the guerrilla group Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) during the Mozambican struggle for independence from Portugal (1964–74) were empowered because of their ability to construct new roles and identities through their participation in the struggle. In the guerrilla group, women were trained as men and given the same duties and responsibilities of combat. The promise of emancipation has been a motivating factor in women’s participation as guerrilla fighters in struggles in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe as well. In Latin America, this was less of a motivating factor due to the entrenched patriarchy in the societies; however, emancipation appears a common motivator among El Salvadoran female fighters. Structural changes such as land concentration, the movement of people from rural to urban areas, and an increase in female-headed households increased participation by women in guerrilla struggles, particularly in Latin America. Women’s participation as guerrilla fighters is beneficial for guerrilla groups as it increases international sympathy and donations.

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In addition, women are less likely to gain the notice of authorities when plotting attacks. In some groups, however, women fighters do not join voluntarily. This has been more prevalent in Africa in postcolonial struggles. For example, women have participated in large numbers in the guerrilla conflict in northern Uganda that started in 1986. Most of the female fighters in this conflict, however, have been abducted and forcefully conscripted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the guerrilla group engaged in the conflict. Similar situations exist in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Roles of Women as Guerrilla Fighters As guerrilla fighters, women have participated in armed struggle against regular armies. For example, FRELIMO female guerrillas were responsible for ambushes and attacks against Portuguese soldiers, resulting in the death of many regular combatants. Women “fighters” have also had other roles. In the LRA, women not only participate as armed combatants, but they have been forced into becoming sex slaves and “wives” for LRA commanders. In the patriarchal societies of Latin American, women guerrilla fighters were often tasked with food preparation. Other women played support roles such as moving or storing weapons or operating safe houses. Women fighters are often preferred for hoarding and caching weapons because they are less likely to be suspected of guerrilla involvement than men. Often women alternate between supportive and combat roles in the guerrilla struggle. In some instances, women have acted in leadership roles in guerrilla groups, holding positions of command and authority. For example, women hold or have held leadership roles in Liberian guerrilla groups as well as in the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua. Emancipation and Postconflict Experiences of Female Guerrilla Fighters For some struggles, women’s emancipation and pursuit for equality with men at the national level dovetailed with female participation as guerrilla fighters. The emancipation of women has been seen by some guerrilla groups as necessary for the guerrilla struggle or revolution to succeed, and women report having gained status, power, and control through their participation as guerrilla fighters. Both struggles against a perceived oppressor and the struggle to overcome

traditional societies based on patriarchy have been seen in the discourses of guerrilla groups in which women actively participate as fighters. Nevertheless, even when women have participated actively in guerrilla combat, they are heavily pressured after the struggle to return to domestic roles. Female fighters can become marginalized when a conflict ends. While they may first be seen as heroines within society, they tend to be pushed into more traditional roles as time passes. Thus, conduct by female fighters encouraged during the conflict becomes discouraged after the conflict, resulting in difficulties with reintegration into society for female fighters that are less stark for male combatants. See Also: Conflict Zones; Terrorists, Female; Wars of National Liberation, Women in. Further Readings Afshar, H. “Women and Wars: Some Trajectories Towards a Feminist Peace.” Development in Practice, v.13/2 (2003). Barth, E. F. Peace as Disappointment: The Reintegration of Female Soldiers in Post-Conflict Societies: A Comparative Study From Africa. Oslo, Norway: International Peace Research Institute, 2002. Kampwirth, K. Women and Guerrilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Reif, L. “Women in Latin American Guerrilla Movements: A Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Politics, v.18/2 (1986). West, H. “Girls With Guns: Narrating the Experience of War of Frelimo’s ‘Female Detachment.’” Anthropological, v.73/4 (2000). Lori M. Poloni-Staudinger Northern Arizona University

Guerrilla Girls The Guerrilla Girls is a grassroots, activist group that was founded in April 1985 in New York City in order to advocate on behalf of women in the arts. Perhaps best known for the gorilla masks and suits they wear in public, the group consists of working artists and



professionals in the art industry. Through a unique combination of femininity, agit-prop street theater, feminist analysis, and humor, they aim to draw attention to institutionalized sexism and racism. Although they initially focused on the marginalization of women in the art world, over the years their agenda has expanded dramatically. Their actions and effective use of humor have helped the Guerrilla Girls raise awareness of social power hierarchies and challenge dominant stereotypes of feminism in American culture. Founding Spark and Modus Operandi The group was formed in response to the 1985 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibit, “International Survey of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture.” The approximately 25 original members of the group were critical of the fact that women comprised less than one-tenth of the 169 artists whose work appeared in that exhibit. The Guerrilla Girls responded to the MoMA exhibit by creating their first series of “public service announcements”—simple black-and-white posters. Working under cover of night, the Guerrilla Girls hung the posters throughout New York. Targeting art galleries, art critics, white male artists, and art collectors, their message relied on simple statistics to reveal the marginalization of women in the art world. Reflecting an organizational style common to many feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s, the Guerrilla Girls rely on a collective decision-making process that emphasizes shared power and consensus among group members. In order to keep their identities anonymous during public appearances, group members wear gorilla masks. In addition, and again to foster anonymity, each member is known only by the name of a dead female artist or writer (for example, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keefe, Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde). In both their appearance and modes of communication, the Guerrilla Girls play on notions of femininity. They frequently use the color pink for posters and on their Website. In addition, members often wear high heels and miniskirts when they stage protests or speak in public, something that stands in stark contrast to their gorilla masks. This outrageous appearance is both evidence of their humor and a tactic that helps them attract attention.

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Operating on Other Fronts Although their initial concern was sexism in the art world, the Guerrilla Girls quickly expanded their agenda to include issues of racism, classism, and other systems of inequality. In addition, they have gone on to critique women’s marginalization in both theatre and film. They have also taken a public stance on a broad range of social justice issues including rape, gay and lesbian rights, poverty, war, reproductive rights, and political policies. The scope of their agenda is perhaps best exemplified by examples from their numerous posters. For example, one poster admonished collectors for not purchasing more work by women artists. Another critiqued military recruiting efforts for targeting poor populations. Still another revealed startling statistics about sexism in the Hollywood film industry. Several have targeted the actions and policies of conservative political figures. Despite intragroup tensions that resulted in a much-publicized split and a federal lawsuit in 2000, the Guerrilla Girls remain active. Group members regularly speak at colleges and universities, conferences, and art museums across the country, and their work is regularly included in art history curriculums. They have published several books, including The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art, a revisionist “herstory” of art; as well as Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes. Their work is included in more than 20 museum collections and has been translated into more than 80 languages. The Guerrilla Girls have received numerous awards, including the Susan B. Anthony award from the National Organization for Women, and the Brooklyn Museum’s Women in the Arts Award. They have brought their activism to cities across the United States and countries throughout the world, including China, Greece, Spain, Mexico, Italy, and the Netherlands. Perhaps most significantly, their efforts have helped bring about an increased awareness of and appreciation for the artistic contributions of women and persons of color. See Also: Art Criticism: Gender Issues; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); CODEPINK; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Feminism, American; Photography, Women in; Social Justice Activism.

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Further Readings Demo, Anne Teresa. “The Guerrilla Girls’ Comic Politics of Subversion.” Women’s Studies in Communication, v.23/2 (2000). Guerrilla Girls. Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes. New York: Penguin, 2003. Guerrilla Girls. “Guerrilla Girls: Re-Inventing the ‘F’ Word-Feminism.” http://www.guerrillagirls.com (accessed July 2009). Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998. Hoban, Phoebe. “Masks Still in Place, but Firmly in the Mainstream.” New York Times (January 4, 2004). http:// www.nytimes.com (accessed July 2009). Withers, Josephine. “The Guerrilla Girls.” Feminist Studies, v.14/2 (1988). Jillian M. Duquaine-Watson University of Texas, Dallas

Guinea Following the granting of its independence from France in 1958, the western African nation of Guinea has experienced decades of authoritarian rule. Despite extensive resources of minerals, hydropower, and agricultural products, Guinea is one of the most undeveloped nations in the world. More than three-fourths of the workforce is engaged in agriculture, much of which is subsistence. With a per capita income of only $1,100, 47 percent of the population live in poverty. Recent political instability has led international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to withdraw support. The Peuhl (40 percent), the Malinke (30 percent), and the Soussou (20 percent) are ethnically dominant. The majority of the population is Muslim (85 percent). Although French is the official language, each tribe has its own dialect. Gender discrimination, violence against women, and female genital mutilation are all issues of major concern. Women’s rights groups face major obstacles, in part because the government refuses to recognize them. Nevertheless, there has been some progress, including proposed civil code amendments designed to address gender inequities.

In 2008, five of 100 parliamentary seats were filled by women, but only one of 27 ministers was female. The international community has been active in promoting media campaigns to educate the public about women’s rights and violence against women. Although women have constitutional equality, custom ensures male dominance. The government has made some effort to address these inequities by establishing the Ministry of Social Affairs and Women’s Promotion. Women’s rights groups are involved in the effort to decrease incidences of early marriage. In the forest region, girls as young as 11 years are illegally involved in contracts brokered by their parents. This is one reason that only 35 percent of girls are enrolled in primary school. Guinea has the 31st highest infant mortality rate (65.22 deaths per 1,000 live births) in the world, but female infants (61.63 deaths per 1,000 live births) do have an edge over males (68.7 deaths per 1,000 live births). That edge also exists in adulthood, as women have a life expectancy of 58.6 years as compared with 55.63 for men. The median ages for both men (18.2 years) and women (18.7 years) are predictably low. Ranking 20th in the world in fertility, Guinea has a fertility rate of 5.2 children per woman. Guinea ranks 38th in the world in human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) adult prevalence (1.6 percent), and the population has a very high risk of contracting bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, yellow fever, schistosomiasis, rabies, and Lassa fever. Guinea spends only 1.6 of its Gross National Product on education, and that lack of commitment is reflected in literacy and education levels. Women (18.1 percent) lag far behind men (42.6 percent) in literacy, and girls average only 7 years of education compared with 10 years for boys. Female genital mutilation, which is considered a female rite of passage, is widely practiced in Guinea (90 percent), and many men view the procedure as essential to keeping women and girls subservient to them. Infibulation, the most dangerous form of female genital mutilation, is performed in the forest region. Even though violence against women, including that which happens within households, is illegal, it is generally considered a family matter. Incidence of rape, similar to that of domestic violence, is rarely reported because of lack of support for victims and

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the social stigma experienced by victims’ families. Although sexual harassment is discouraged, it is not illegal. Despite the prevalence of child prostitution, the government rarely interferes in the matter. See Also: Domestic Violence; Educational Opportunities/Access; HIV/AIDS: Africa. Further Readings Afrol News. “Guinea.” http://www.afrol.com/Categories/ Women/profiles/guinea_women.htm= (accessed February 2010). Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Fallon, Kathleen M. Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tripp, Aili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Equatorial Guinea.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls /hrrpt/2008/af/118999.htm (accessed March 2010). Yoder, P. Stanley, et al. “Female Genital Cutting and Coming of Age in Guinea.” WIN News, v.26/4 (2000). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Guinea-Bissau The west African nation of Guinea-Bissau is one of the most poorly developed nations in the world. This is partly the result of the country’s extensive political instability, ranging from military coups to presidential assassinations, in the years following the granting of the nation’s independence from Portugal in 1974. Less than a third of the population is urbanized. Because of its dependence on subsistence farming and fishing, Guinea-Bissau is one of the five poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of only $600. Agriculture accounts for 62 percent of the workforce, and most of that work is done by women.

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However, women’s economic contributions are not considered valuable. Guinea-Bissau’s extreme poverty (66.7 percent) is made worse by the fact that its income distribution is the most extreme in the world. Almost all Guineans are Africans (99 percent) from the Balanta (30 percent), Fula (20 percent), Manjaca (14 percent), Mandinga (13 percent), and Papel (7 percent) tribes. Half the population is Muslim, and 40 percent have adopted indigenous religions. Portuguese is still the official language. Although women have constitutional and legal rights to equality, in practice they are discriminated against in all elements of Guinean society. Among some tribes, women are banned from owning or inheriting property; otherwise, property is inherited only by heads of household, who are usually men. Major social problems include systemic discrimination of women, violence against women, and female genital mutilation. Chiefly as a result of the efforts of women’s rights groups and international pressure, there have been some efforts to equalize Guinean society, and by 2008, 10 women sat in the National Assembly, and the president of the Supreme Court and three of 19 ministers were women. Guinea-Bissau ranks ninth in the world in infant mortality (99.82 deaths per 1,000 live births). Female infants (89.45 deaths per 1,000 live births) have a definite advantage over male infants (109.89 deaths per 1,000 live births). Life expectancy for both men (46.07 years) and women (49.79) is low, and the median age is only 19.8 years for women and 18.7 years for men. Guinea-Bissau has a fertility rate of 4.65 children per woman. Other social statistics also mirror poverty and lack of government commitment. Guineans have an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 1.8 percent and a very high risk of contracting bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, yellow fever, and schistosomiasis. More than half (58.1 percent) of Guinean men are literate, and less than a third of women (27.4 percent) have obtained the ability to read and write. Most boys attend school for seven years, but girls only do so for four years. The Fula regularly perform infibulation, the most dangerous form of female genital mutilation, on young girls, and around half of all Guinean girls undergo female gender mutilation. Many girls are married at the age of 13 or 14 years, and polygamy is practiced in approximately a third of all households.

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Domestic violence is extensive, but it is generally perceived of as an acceptable way of handling domestic disputes. Few cases are reported to officials. Rape laws exist, but they are rarely enforced. Prostitution is illegal, but the police do little to interfere with the practice. As of 2010, nothing had been done to deal with the problem of extensive sexual harassment. See Also: Domestic Violence; Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Infant Mortality; Property Rights. Further Readings Afrol News. “Guinea-Bissau.” http://www.afrol.com /Categories/Women/profiles/guineabissau_women .htm (accessed February 2010). Fallon, Kathleen M. Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Social Institutions and Gender Index. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions: Guinea-Bissau.” http://genderindex .org/country/guinea-bissau (accessed February 2010). U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Guinea-Bissau.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls /hrrpt/2008/af/119006.htm (accessed March 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Gun Control Gun control refers to the efforts to regulate the sale, ownership, and use of guns through licensure, registration, or other identification requirements. In a complex array of federal and state laws, gun control policies address measures such as minimum age requirements, required background checks, and restrictions on specific types of guns such as handguns and assault weapons. Gun safety laws focus on efforts to make guns safer and restrict the access of children to guns. Gun control policies can also focus on preventing those with criminal histories from having access to guns, and promoting harsher sanctions for those using guns while committing a crime. Historically, women have been far more likely to support gun control than men. Like men, women’s

views toward gun control are rooted in culture, political attitudes, and personal experience with guns. Gun control issues have been on the national agenda since the 1960s and remain an important focus for crime control policies today. Those who support individual rights and gun ownership emphasize the need for selfprotection from criminals. Those who support gun controls often frame the issue around public safety. An April 2007 ABC News poll found 50 percent of men and 72 percent of women favored stricter gun control laws. The Pew Research Center in May 2009 found that overall attitudes toward gun control have become more conservative and favor individual rights. White women became less supportive of gun control between 2008 and 2010. In 2008, the Pew Research Center found 61 percent of white women thought gun control was more important, while 33 percent thought the protection of the right to own guns was more important. In 2010, white women are equally divided, with 45 percent of women supporting gun control and 45 percent supporting the right to individual gun ownership. No name is more closely associated with gun control than that of Sarah Brady. Her husband Jim Brady, White House press secretary, was paralyzed when shot during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. The tireless efforts of Sarah and Jim Brady resulted in the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act. The act requires background checks on those purchasing guns through a licensed dealer. This law is credited with significantly reducing the number of guns purchased by high-risk individuals. Attitudes Toward Guns Overall attitudes toward gun control are associated with childhood experiences with guns and whether guns were kept in the family home. Those who grew up with guns are more supportive of individual gun owner’s rights than of gun control. Most of the 10 percent of gun owners who are women grew up in homes where guns were present. In terms of individual experiences with guns, women show more concern about owning a gun than men, feel less safe around guns than men, and also express greater concern over their own ability to shoot another person. This seems to be especially the case if there are children in the home. Women who own guns typically do so to hunt, for

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recreational purposes such as target shooting, or to protect themselves and their children. Kristin Goss pointed out that while women have historically been much more favorable toward gun control than men, generally women have done little to achieve tougher gun control policies. When women frame gun control as a child-safety issue, they are more likely to participate in activities that support gun control. Among the best-known women’s organizations that support gun control are the League of Women Voters, the National Organization for Women, the American Medical Women’s Association, and the American Nurses Association. For women who do own guns, the majority do so for self-protection. Rachel Jurado argued that women, along with minority groups, have suffered historically because they were unable to protect themselves with guns. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has fostered the belief in the importance of protecting oneself from crime. The NRA is a very powerful lobbying force and sought to increase female membership through the “Refuse to Be a Victim” campaign in the 1990s. With the development of more physically appealing “feminine” revolvers, Smith and Wesson doubled its sales of these guns to women from 1991 to 1993. Groups that support gun ownership among women are the Second Amendment Sisters, the Liberty Belles, Armed Females of America, and Women Against Gun Control. These groups see guns as an equalizer between the sexes and hold the view that it empowers women to own guns and know how to use them. M. Z. Stange and C. K. Oyster posit that gun-owning women and feminism are not mutually exclusive, supporting the fact that positions on gun control can be far more nuanced than either for or against guns. They point out that it is “…possible to be politically progressive and vigorously pro-gun.” The personal choice of women to use guns legally is overlooked in the gun control literature. Stange and Oyster call for more research to learn about the attitudes and experiences of women who own and use guns. The debate over gun control will continue. No major shifts in attitudes are expected in the near future. While female gun owners may continue to see gun ownership as a source of personal empowerment, others will continue to view guns as a threat to public safety that requires legal regulation.

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See Also: Crime Victims, Female; Self-Defense, Armed; Social Justice Activism; Further Readings Browder, L. Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Goss, K. A. “Rethinking the Political Participation Paradigm: The Case of Women and Gun Control.” Women & Politics, v.25/4 (2003). Jurado, R. “Gun Control Victims: Women Receive Little Encouragement for Self-Defense From Mainstream Feminists.” The American Enterprise, v.15/1 (2004). Kleck, G., et al. “Why do People Support Gun Control?: Alternative Explanations of Support for Handgun Bans.” Journal of Criminal Justice, v.37 (2009). Stange, Mary Zeiss and Carol K. Oyster. Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Stucky, T. D., et al. “Gender, Guns, and Legislating.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, v.29/4 (2008). Sylvia I. Mignon University of Massachusetts, Boston

Guyana The republic of Guyana, which is located in northern South America between Suriname and Venezuela, began its existence as a Dutch colony before becoming a British possession in 1815. The abolition of slavery in 1834 led to the importation of scores of Indian indentured servants to provide labor for large sugar plantations, and the ethnic makeup of the country has continued to produce a turbulent political environment. By the 21st century, the 43 percent east Indian population outnumbered the 30.2 percent black population. Religious divisions are also present, with around 28 percent of Guyanese identifying themselves as Hindu. Other religions varying from Protestantism to Islam are represented in varying degrees. Socialistic governments have been dominant since independence was declared in 1966. While women are considered equal in Guyana according to law, political and religious customs have often caused women to be considered second-class citizens. Women’s roles remain focused on caring for families and communities. According

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to some feminist scholars, male resentment has been growing in Guyana in response to increased activism among women, often manifesting itself in violence against women. Quality-of-Life Issues for Women Guyana is considered a country of very high human development, but its position (114th) on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) scale has declined in response to globalization. Females were granted suffrage in 1953, and women are guaranteed equality under the Guyanese Constitution. Guyana is one of only two Caribbean countries that grant women full reproductive rights. The other is Cuba. In 1990, feminists were successful in facilitating the passage of the Equal Rights Act. Many cities, including Sao Paulo, have also passed laws outlawing sexual discrimination. Despite these gains, many women continue to be among the 1,000 or so Guyanese who leave the country each month. In 1998, Guyana elected American-born Janet Rosenberg as its first female president. Representation in Parliament has steadily risen, reaching 29 percent in 2005. Female life expectancy is 70.38 years, and the median age of women is 29.2 years. The fertility rate of Guyanese women is 2.48, and infant mortality is reported at 39.11 per 1,000 live births. Women in Guyana are highly vulnerable to food- and waterborne diseases as well as to vectorborne and water-contact diseases, and Guyana ranks 26th in the world in human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevalence. Recent records indicate that 7 percent of pregnant women in urban areas test positive for HIV/AIDS, and many of these women pass the disease on to their children. Economic Disadvantages Guyana ranks 13th in the world in educational expenditures. At 98.5 percent, female literacy is only slightly lower than that of males (98.8 percent), and most females attend school for at least 14 years. Because access to higher education is often dependent on the ability to afford after-school tutoring for the Secondary School Entrance Exam, many females are unable to seek college degrees. With a per capita income of $3,900, Guyana ranks 157th in world income. Approximately two-thirds of the population continue to live in rural areas. More than 50 percent of the workforce

are engaged in service occupations, but women continue to make up roughly half of all agricultural workers. Between 1994 and 2005, only 3 percent of professional and technical workers in Guyana were female. Guyanese women have become disproportionately vulnerable to economic changes that have resulted from globalization. Some have lost their jobs, and their living standards have fallen in consequence. Many have become hucksters, who sell food and other items for minimal profit in order to survive. Others sell homemade items to tourists or exchange domestic labor for food and other essentials. Female earnings continue to lag behind those of males. In 2005, for example, women earned $2,655 in estimated earned income as compared with $6,467 for males. See Also: Abortion Laws, International; Domestic Violence; Economics, Women in; Education, Women in; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; HIV/AIDS: South America. Further Readings Douglas, Carol Anne. “Guyana: Woman Elected President.” Off Our Backs, v.28/2 (February 1998). Khalideen, Rosetta and Nadira Khalideen. “Caribbean Women in Globalization and Economic Restructuring.” Canadian Women’s Studies (Spring/Summer 2002). NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women. “Guyana.” http://www.niew.gov.my/niew/index.php ?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=115 &Itemid=60&lang=en (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Gymnastics The sport of gymnastics is over 2,000 years old. In the present day, females participate in four different disciplines of gymnastics—artistic, rhythmic, trampoline and tumbling, and acrobatic. In the United States, the national governing body for the sport is USA Gymnastics, which is based in Indianapolis, Indiana. The organization has more than 90,000 registered athletes, with females making up nearly 75 percent of that number. Approximately 85 percent of female gymnastics athletes are under the age of 14.



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her all-around score. In recent years, several changes have taken place in artistic gymnastics competition, including a change in the scoring system. Previously, athletes were judged on a scale of 10.0, which was considered a perfect routine. In 2006, however, the FIG instituted a new scoring system that awards gymnasts two scores, one for difficulty and one for execution. The two scores are added for the gymnast’s final score on each apparatus. This change in scoring was the cause for uproar in the gymnastics community, long used to the “perfect 10” scoring system. Under the new system there is no maximum value for scores. Another significant change in recent years is the age requirement for female gymnasts competing in the Olympics. In 1997, the FIG instituted a rule that all female gymnasts must be 16 to compete in the Olympic Games, which was thought to protect the gymnast both mentally and physically. In the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, several Chinese gymnasts were publicly scrutinized for possibly being too young to compete, and the FIG launched an investigation into the gymnasts’ ages. The Chinese delegation presented passports showing that the gymnasts were 16 years old, though some critics are still doubtful.

Artistic gymnastics involves gymnasts competing on the vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and performing floor exercises.

From an international perspective, gymnastics is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, also known as the FIG. The FIG was formed in 1881 and currently has 129 member federations, meaning that organized gymnastics is present in 129 countries around the globe. The FIG serves as the governing body for gymnastics events in the Olympic Games, World Games, World Gymnaestrada, World Championships, and any multicontinent competition event. Artistic Gymnastics Artistic gymnastics is the most popular of the four gymnastics disciplines in terms of participation, media coverage, and fans, artistic gymnastics involves gymnasts competing on four apparatus: vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise. A gymnast’s combined total score on all four events is considered

Rhythmic Gymnastics, Trampoline, Tumbling, and Acrobatics Rhythmic gymnastics has been recognized as a sport by the FIG since 1962, and has been an Olympic sport since the Los Angeles Games in 1984. This discipline involves five events, including rope, hoop, ball, clubs, and ribbon. Rhythmic gymnasts are required to possess skills of strength, power, flexibility, agility, dexterity, and endurance. It differs from artistic gymnastics in that all five events take place on the floor exercise mat. Gymnasts also perform complex skills with the different apparatuses, and there is a much greater focus on dance and flexibility rather than complex acrobatic skills such as flips and twists. Within this discipline, gymnasts may perform as an individual on the trampoline, in the synchronized trampoline competition, power tumbling, or double mini-trampoline. Of these four subdisciplines, trampoline is the only one that appears in the Olympic Games. Trampoline made its Olympic debut in the Sydney Games in 2000. The United States holds national championship competitions in all four of these subdisciplines, which are quickly growing in

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popularity in the United States. Trampoline and tumbling competitions are judged on aesthetics and difficulty. Acrobatic gymnastics involves the combination of dance and gymnastics, and is done in groups of two or three for women. It requires athletes of all shapes and sizes, and consists of acrobatic balances in which one or two partners are lifted in various balances by the other partner(s). It requires grace, strength, and flexibility. Acrobatics was added to the list of disciplines governed by USA Gymnastics in 2002. On an international level, gymnasts in this discipline compete in World Championships, but not in the Olympic Games. Gymnasts’ Health Researchers have found that gymnastics has one of the highest injury rates of all sports for girls and women, with over 26,000 gymnastics-related injuries treated in hospitals or emergency rooms each year. The majority of these were upper or lower extremity injuries, such as sprains and strains. Researchers have also found that injuries were more common in gymnasts experiencing a growth spurt or training and competing at higher levels. Along with injuries, gymnastics has long been criticized as a sport in which many athletes suffer from eating disorders and unhealthy body images. There are several reasons why female gymnasts might be self-conscious about their bodies, including their attire—skin-tight leotards showing off every curve of their physique—as well as the thought that a lighter body weight will result in greater ease when performing gymnastics skills. One study focusing on collegiate gymnasts found that just 22 percent of those surveyed exhibited normal or nondisordered eating habits. USA Gymnastics has gone to great lengths to

ensure that its coaches and athletes are well educated on the topics of nutrition and healthy eating habits to minimize these risks. Additionally, the aforementioned age requirement of 16 to compete in the Olympic Games was enacted in order to ensure that the gymnasts’ bodies are both physically and mentally prepared for such a competition. See Also: Body Image; Coaches, Female; Olympics, Summer; Sports, Women in. Further Readings Associated Press. “Age Questions Raised Over Two Female Chinese Gymnasts.” ESPN Website. http:// sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/gymnastics/news/ story?id=3507084 (accessed December 2009). Caine, Dennis, et al. “An Epidemiologic Investigation of Injuries Affecting Young Competitive Female Gymnasts.” The American Journal of Sports Medicine, v.17/6 (1989). Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique. http://www .fig-gymnastics.com (accessed December 2009). Petrie, Trent A. “Disordered Eating in Female Collegiate Gymnasts: Prevalence and Personality/Attitudinal Correlates.” Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, v.15/4 (1993). Singh, Shubha, et al. “Gymnastics-Related Injuries to Children Treated in Emergency Departments in the United States, 1990–2005.” Pediatrics, v.121/4 (2008). USA Gymnastics. http://www.usa-gymnastics.org (accessed December 2009). USA Gymnastics. 2007–2008 Media Resource Guide. Indianapolis, IN: USA Gymnastics, 2007. Andrea N. Eagleman Indiana University

H Haiti Women in Haiti in the early 21st century face lives of challenge marked by grinding poverty, the impact of political violence and instability, and pervasive male dominance as a social norm. This is reflected in low incomes, high birth rates, high maternal mortality rates, and little or no access to healthcare and education for many women. The poorest country and one of most economically vulnerable in the Western Hemisphere, 80 percent of Haiti’s population live below the World Bank’s poverty line, and more than half make less than $100 per year. Women’s wages remain among the lowest in the world and 72 percent of households are headed by women. This vulnerability was brought to the world’s attention on January 12, 2010, when an earthquake of 7.0 Mw magnitude struck near the community of Léogâne. The quake caused extensive damage in a 30 km. radius that included the capital city of Port-auPrince and the cultural center of Jacmel. As many as 200,000 people lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands more were injured and lost their homes. Poverty and Political Instability Poverty has fostered increasing crime with devastating effects on the basic human rights of women and girls in Haiti. The feminization of both poverty and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)—1.6 women to

every man infected—is coupled with an ever increasing vulnerability to sexual, physical, psychological, and economic violence. Political instability and lawlessness have increased in Haiti since the coup that ousted President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. In spite of efforts by the Haitian government and the United Nations (UN) Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to combat sexual violence against women, rape as a form of political terror and reprisal used by armed gangs has increased since 2006. Destabilizing events, such as a dramatic rise in food prices in 2008 and the earthquake in 2010, leave women at an even greater risk of violence. Fragile networks of community solidarity that have offered women protection have been lost, as 200,000 people have been forced into the many temporary shelter sites that have sprung up in the wake of the destruction. As a result, the many thousands of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and relief organizations working with women in Haiti have redoubled their efforts to provide education on how to combat domestic and politically based sexual violence and where to receive medical treatment and support. Many organizations have also recognized the importance of such strategies as developing child safe spaces, and distributing information cards in Creole to promote gender equity, reduce domestic violence, and empower women. Women comprise 52 percent of the population of 9.5 million people in Haiti, but as of 2009, they held 661

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only 5 percent of the seats in the national parliament. Women’s social well-being is often tied to relationships with men, secured by the ability to give birth to children for whom the men become responsible. Women in Haiti give birth to an average of five children each, often with several different men who may, in turn, be supporting a number of women and their children in a common-law family network known as plasaj. The low success rate of internationally sponsored Family Planning initiatives in Haiti reflects this highly gendered cycle of women’s dependence and men’s responsibility. The traditional preference for sending boys to school rather than girls, particularly in rural areas, diminishes opportunities, and literacy rates are low among women in many communities. Girls are frequently used as domestic workers, also limiting their chances for education, and the trafficking of women and children across the Dominican Republic border is common. A Desperate Workforce The feminization of poverty is also directly related to other employment issues. Global markets and farm subsidization programs in wealthy nations have had a devastating impact on Haiti’s agricultural economy. Commodities such as rice and sugar are now imported and sold at a lower cost than Haitian products in the local markets. The loss of agricultural productivity combined with a growing influx of global capital in the industrial sector has prompted a migration from rural to urban centers. Industries such as garment factories, attracted by low wages in the 1990s, have often exploited a desperate work force comprised mainly of women who are forced to compete for jobs that offer no security and few if any benefits. Women employed in the industrial sector often live in hastily built and densely populated slum neighborhoods with inadequate sanitation and water supplies. Such conditions have contributed to the poor health of women and children. These neighborhoods were also hard hit by the 2010 earthquake, as construction standards were low, increasing the likelihood of collapse. Women are, however, the backbone of Haiti’s informal domestic economic activities, which constitute 75 percent of the economy. They operate within a carefully organized and complex market exchange

system that circulates produce from small subsistence farms to urban centers, and returns limited market goods back to rural communities. In spite of many obstacles to social equality, women in Haiti are often referred to as poto mitan, or pillars, and are respected as the source of social strength and security within families. Women are widely recognized in the revolutionary history of Haiti that saw a colony populated by slaves forged as an independent republic. See Also: Dominican Republic; HIV/AIDS: North America; Poverty, “Feminization” of. Further Readings Almog, Nava and Nadine Puechguirbal. A City in the Sand. United Nations Democracy Fund. http://www .un.org/democracyfund/Docs/Haiti_gender_book _ENG.pdf (accessed June 2010). Bakody, Jennifer. “Amidst the Rubble, Haiti Celebrates International Women’s Day.” United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry /haiti_52939.html (accessed June 2010). Becker, Mary, executive producer. Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy. Tèt Ansanm Productions, Renegade Pictures, UCSB Black Studies Research Center, 2009. Farmer, Paul. Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Maternowska, Catherine. Reproducing Inequalities: Poverty and the Politics of Population in Haiti. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006. Partners in Health. http://www.pih.org/where/Haiti /Haiti-background.html (accessed June 2010). Jill Allison Memorial University of Newfoundland

Hate Crimes Hate crimes, also known as bias crimes or bias-motivated crimes, have been defined in many ways within diverse disciplines and in both contemporary social and political discourse. In general, a hate crime can be thought of as a crime against a person that is motivated by hatred. A legal definition of hate crime can be found in many national legislations, which tend to



define a hate crime as an offense motivated by prejudice rather than by hate. Hate crimes arise from specific social, political, and economic conditions that encourage expressions of intolerance. Using examples such as the anti-Semitic assaults that led to Holocaust, the Ku Klux Klan’s violence against African Americans, and more recently, the post–September 11, 2001 anti-Muslim violence, it is clear that the term hate crime refers to the phenomenon of bias motivated violence, which has roots that can be traced back to ancient societies. Despite its long-standing history, it is only in the last decades of the early 21st century that hate crimes have gained the attention and efforts of lawmakers and researchers, and have sparked adequate responses to the ongoing spread of bigoted violence. Data reveal that the percentage of hate crimes is much lower than other categories within the entire scheme of criminology. However, hate crimes have been the subject of a massive legislative response in the last two decades. This is due, in part, to the escalation of such crimes, and, simultaneously, to the growth of the civil rights movements in western states. Hate crimes are also important to women studies, not only because women are often victims of crimes motivated by gender and sex, but also due to the frequent lack of disaggregated data in crime statistics. Furthermore, the number of hate crimes committed against women, as well as the rate of increase or decrease, is still unknown. Consequently, there is a need for raising awareness in this field of research. Definition, Meaning, and Public Opinion While the precise definition of a hate crime may vary among countries, a comparative analysis elicits that hate crimes refer to discriminatory criminal acts committed by a perpetrator who intentionally selects the victims because of their actual or perceived belonging to a status group, characterized by a certain ground, such as race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, political belief, physical appearance (height, weight, skin color, etc.), homelessness, disability, class, or other discriminatory ground. In other words, hate crimes are the result of an offender’s prejudice. Although the reason motivating a particular individual’s action may not often be clear, relevant research have studied both the psy-

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chological and sociological variables involved in hate crime developments, outlining trends concerning typical victims and offenders of hate crimes. The results show that, since the beginning of the 21st century, the most frequently victimized groups are those based on race, sexual orientation, and, since the September 11 attacks, Arabs and Muslims. In Europe, another target group of hate crimes is the “Roma minority,” an umbrella term that has replaced the word gypsy in the European public and scientific discourse due to its perception as an offensive exonym by this minority group. As far as offenders are concerned, it is very difficult to construct a “typology” to provide insight as to which type of offenders perpetrate hate crimes. The difficulty lies in the fact that hate crimes are almost solely defined by their offenders’ motivation. Hate crimes against a person that involve intimidation, defamation, and violence are more common than crimes that involve vandalism and property damage. Some nations include the subcategory hate speech within the hate crime category, defined as speech offending a person or a group of people that may be considered at a disadvantage in a given context. Legislation prosecuting hate crimes varies extensively, depending on a particular nation’s legal culture, history, and social development. However, a dichotomy can be roughly traced between substantive criminal legislation and sentence enhancement legislation. Substantive criminal law punishes newly introduced hate crimes or recriminalizes existing offenses into more harshly punished ones, depending on their bias. Sentence enhancement legislation upgrades the degree of an existing offense, or increases the maximum penalty allowed if the crime is motivated by bias. In U.S. public opinion, an extensive debate has developed regarding hate crimes since the passing of the first federal law in 1969, and subsequent state and federal laws on the subject. On the one hand, society supports the punishment of hate crimes, maintaining that the crimes harm both individuals and society, while simultaneously disempowering the individuals and groups at risk of being offended. Others argue, in primis, that hate crime legislations exacerbate conflicts between groups. In secundis, it is argued that such laws are unconstitutional because they freely and arbitrarily select the protected groups and, in so

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doing, treat different defendants unequally for the same crime, depending on who the victim is. Hate Crime Legislation in the United States The historical and political framework that generated the concept of hate crime in the United States dates back to the civil rights movements in the mid-1960s and to antidiscrimination politics. The hate crime concept extends the protection of human beings beyond the labor and equality law regimes. Crimes motivated by bias based on the victim’s race, color, religion, or national origin have been punished at the federal level since the 1969 Federal Civil Rights Law, although the term hate crime only dates back to the Hate Crime Statistics Act, which was presented in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1985. In 1990, the Hate Crime Statistics Act entered into force, and requires the U.S. Department of Justice to collect statistics on crimes motivated by prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, and to publish an annual summary of the findings. The bill was the first federal statute to name gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as protected groups. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 expanded the definition to protect the disabled. Since 1992, the Hate Crime Statistics report has been published annually by a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law enforcement agencies. The report plays a key role in both raising awareness about hate crimes in the United States, and in serving as a statistical tool for those advocating or studying this field. According to a 2008 report, racial victimization remains the most frequent type of hate crime committed. In the 1990s, hate crimes became a commonplace category among legal and scholarly discourses, as well as in the mass media. On October 28, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (also known as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Act, named after two victims of highly publicized hate crimes). This widened the scope of the existing hate crime laws and banned hate crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Additionally, this act was the first federal law to introduce legal protection to transgender people. The bill was highly criticized by conservative movements: they claimed that the act directly violated the Equal

Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibit the government from favoring any particular group, and that media freedom would come under threat by prosecuting thought and limiting free speech. However the increasing “epidemic of hate,” particularly based on sexual orientation, became the government justification for the bill, designed to promote equal protection. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the largest regional security organization, has a long tradition in dealing with crimes motivated by discrimination and hate in its 56 member states, but the term hate crime only appeared in documents after 2003, when member states decided to take efforts toward decreasing the high percentage of stereotypes against Jews, Muslims, Roma, or those based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of OSCE established a working definition of a hate crime, taking into account national differences. According to this definition, a hate crime is a criminal offense against persons or property where the victim, premises, or target of the offense is selected based on a real or perceived connection, attachment, affiliation, support, or membership with a group, based upon a characteristic common to its members, such as race, national or ethnic origin, language, color, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or other similar factors. An issue of serious concern is the perpetration of hate crimes against human rights defenders, who are often victims of intimidation, insults, smear campaigns, hate speech, death threats, and destruction of property. Incidentally, there is no official data regarding hate crimes against human rights defenders, because a defender is generally not recognized as a protected category in data collections. The Council of Europe (CoE) is also stepping up efforts to tackle hate crimes within its 47 member states. In particular, the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) is a body engaged in the periodic review of state activities in the area of human rights, including the fight against hate crimes. The European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, has ruled on cases of hate crimes, including

Hate Speech and Bias on College Campuses



hate speech, when they have constituted a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Within the European Union (EU), the Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), based in Vienna, highlights that data collection on hate crimes is still poor in most member states, making it difficult to measure the full extent and nature of these crimes. Therefore, the FRA recently called on 27 EU member states to fully implement EU Equality Directives and to foster data collection as a precondition for developing effective policies to combat hate crimes. On November 28, 2008, the European Union Framework Decision on Racist and Xenophobic Crime was adopted, with the goal of establishing a common criminal law approach to hate crimes in the member states. See Also: Crime Victims, Female; Homophobia; LGBTQ; Violence Against Women Act. Further Readings Fischer, Christopher and Salfati C. Gabrielle. “Behavior or Motivation: Typologies of Hate-Motivated Offenders.” In Barbara Perry, ed., Understanding and Defining Hate Crime, v.1. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009. Jacobs, J. B., et al. Hate Crimes: Criminal and Identity Politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998. Levin, Brian. “The Long Arch of Justice: Race, Violence and the Emergence of Hate Crime Law.” In Barbara Perry, ed., Understanding and Defining Hate Crime. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. “Hate Crimes in the OSCE Region—Incidents and Responses. Annual Report for 2007.” http://www.osce .org/item/33850.html (accessed June 2010). Pearlman, Terrylynn. Sanctioning Bias Crime. A Public Perspective. El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly, 2008. Barbara Giovanna Bello University of Milano

Hate Speech and Bias on College Campuses Often considered to be racist or anti-Semitic speech, hate speech generally refers to that language that demeans or degrades a group, based on a number

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of characteristics that includes, but is not limited to race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religious preference. College campuses, which historically have been settings that encourage a marketplace of ideas, have in recent years become the sites of hate and biased speech with attacks on various groups, including women. In turn, many college campuses have responded to the acts of intolerance by establishing speech codes. Opponents of these codes argue that the regulations amount to institutionalized censorship while proponents maintain that hate speech hinders—and not helps—education. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) remains one of the most vocal opponents. As women continue to outpace men as students at colleges and universities in the United States, hate speech and bias against women have become of greater concern. Universities want to maintain a safe space for all students, but struggle with how to create that atmosphere. College women (and the men who support them) are taking steps themselves to reclaim college campuses and other spaces through programs like Take Back the Night, a rally against sexual assault and abuse. Still, hate speech and how to handle it remains elusive, particularly because of the trickle-down effect it could have on other forms of speech. Examples of Hate/Bias Speech At California’s Harvey Mudd College, someone wrote on a student’s whiteboard following the 2008 Democratic primary, “Hillary is a foxy lesbian.” The incident provoked a response from the college, and was treated as a bias incident. One year earlier, Rutgers University officials in New Jersey dealt with the misogynistic off-campus words of radio icon Don Imus when he referred to the school’s women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” The comment served as fodder for discussion for months, raising a myriad of issues in the process. The result in both cases: while neither comment was particularly positive, nor did either foster an environment of openness, the comments were also not illegal. In the latter situation, Imus apologized for his comments but was ultimately fired because of the incident. In fall 2009, students at Johns Hopkins University protested the university-sanctioned appearance of Tucker Max, comedian and author of I Hope They

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Serve Beer in Hell. Max is known for his low-brow humor and depictions of women, rating them from “super hottie” to “common-stock pig.” The female students, while protesting, were called a variety of insults, including fat bitches and whores, from male students. They, in turn, blamed the male students’ tirade of hate speech on the degrading messages regularly conveyed by Max. Similar protests occurred at Ohio State University and North Carolina State University, where Women and Allies Rising in Resistance and the Women’s Center, respectively, demonstrated against Max and/ or his film. Herein lies another stumbling block of speech codes: whether or not a speech code should apply to visitors or the speech evoked because of said visitors. To combat hate speech, college campuses throughout the United States have created speech codes that focus on eliminating bigoted, narrow-minded, hurtful, and/or offensive speech from campuses. The codes themselves create several other problems, according to opponents. First, someone must decide what speech is considered offensive, hurtful, bigoted, etc. Second, if codes are followed to the letter of the law and certain words are to be eliminated from the campus, certain pieces of literature and media also run the risk of being banned. To avoid that situation, campuses have relied on the 1942 Supreme Court decision Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire and its fighting words doctrine to get around the outright censoring of certain terms. The fighting words doctrine argues that any word(s) that can incite violence simply by their mere utterance can be punishable. However, the Supreme Court has not applied the doctrine to hate speech cases within the past half century. Despite potential problems, proponents of speech codes argue that the benefits are worth the hassle. Marginalized groups cannot prosper if they live in fear. Women have made numerous strides in a post-millennium world, but feminist scholars would argue that sexual oppression is still apparent. One look at popular culture—music videos, magazines and video games— reveals a hypersexualized woman who is valued not for her intelligence, but for her sex appeal. Terms like bitch and whore have become part of the everyday vernacular, instilling a certain ideology and expectation of women that is accepted even by that sex.

Hate Speech From a Legal Standpoint R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul does not involve gender bias or gender-based hate speech, but the 1992 Supreme Court decision is important to the overall debate. The case involved a Minnesota teenager who burned a cross on the lawn of an African American family. Robert Victoria was charged with violating a St. Paul statute that made it illegal to place specific symbols that were likely to spur, among other things, anger. The Supreme Court found that the St. Paul law was content-based and unconstitutional on its face. However, the decision did not prohibit Victoria from being arrested on trespassing or other charges. The decision is important because it recognizes that even unpopular symbolic (or unspoken) speech, is protected by the First Amendment. The ACLU does not advocate hate speech. However, it does support the belief that speech, whether popular or not, should be protected. If it is not, colleges and universities run the risk of traveling a slippery slope on what words should be banned in which situations and creating a chilling effect on speech in general. College campuses have a history of being sites of debates. The ACLU position is not that hate speech should be banned, but rather it should be discussed openly and challenged. The speech in and of itself is often not what is problematic; the ideologies and belief systems behind the speech are what is dangerous. Speech code opponents argue that if the United States government as a democracy is to flourish, all types of speech must be allowed, whether agreed with or not. Punishable by Legal Means There is a legal line between speech and conduct, however. Hate speech also can be part of a bigger, more punishable problem when it targets someone specifically. A woman who is followed across campus while being referred to as a slut or a whore has a right to feel protected and not be defamed. A woman who is threatened because of her sexual orientation has a right to privacy and to feel safe in her dormitory. The fact that speech is involved does not automatically preclude something from being punishable. Proponents of speech codes maintain that hate speech does not belong on college campuses. Opponents, on the other hand, see the benefits of having a teachable moment, focus on the differences between speech and

Heads of State, Female



conduct, and stress that conduct can—and should be—punished. Criticism of so-called hate speech and bias also comes from the conservative political right. Groups such as David Horowitz’s Freedom Center have, under the guise of academic freedom, accused liberal campus-based organizations and ostensibly leftleaning faculty of practicing their own form of bias. Particularly since September 11, 2001, conservative critics have singled out individuals and groups traditionally among those targeted by hate speech (most especially Muslims and African Americans), as practitioners of reverse discrimination. See Also: Censorship; Hate Crimes; Sexual Harassment; Sports, Women in; Violence Against Women Act. Further Readings Cortese, Anthony and Richard Delgado. Opposing Hate Speech. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Gould, Jon B. Speak No Evil: The Triumph of Hate Speech Regulation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. O’Connor, Rory. Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio: America’s Ten Worst Hate Talkers and the Progressive Alternatives. San Francisco: AlterNet Books, 2008. Weinstein, James. Hate Speech, Pornography, and the Radical Attack on Free Speech Doctrine. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. Kalen M. A. Churcher Niagara University

Heads of State, Female Since 1950, there have been approximately 70 women heads of state, not including monarchs or those appointed by monarchs to serve as ceremonial heads of government. A complete list is included at the end of this article. As the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report documents, women still remain vastly underrepresented in political leadership. While there has been progress in terms of women’s political participation and representation globally, the numbers of women heads of state has remained relatively low, hovering around 10–12 women heads of state at any one time. It is important to note that

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women have been elected head of state in almost every region of the world and that they span the ideological spectrum. Heads of State Versus Ceremonial Leaders It is critical to differentiate between heads of state in largely ceremonial posts and those with real political power. Title alone is not dispositive. Because countries have different governments and political systems, the president in one country can have significant power (e.g., the United States), while in another, the president does not (e.g., India). In a parliamentary system, the leader with the most political power is usually the prime minister; however, even in a parliamentary system, the amount of power a prime minister holds varies. For example, Norway is a parliamentary democracy in which the prime minister is both the executive and legislative head of government. Former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Bruntland was the first, and to date only, woman to hold this position, holding it three times: in 1981, 1986–89, and 1990– 96. Bruntland was a practicing physician before entering politics and served as minister for Environmental Affairs during 1974–79. She was asked to serve as head of the Labor Party, hence prime minister, when the Labor prime minister resigned. Her second and third cabinets were internationally recognized because virtually 50 percent of the ministers in each were women. Along with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, she was recognized by the Financial Times in 2004 as one of the most influential Europeans in the preceding 25 years. In comparison, French prime minister Edith Cresson, that country’s first woman prime minister, held less power. France’s president chooses the prime minister from the party dominant in Parliament. When that party differs from the president’s party, the prime minister has significant power. However, as was the case with Cresson, Parliament was controlled by President François Mitterrand’s party and therefore Cresson had more limited power. Even though ceremonial leaders do not have significant political power, they can play important roles. For example, both President Mary Robinson of Ireland (1990–97) and President Vigdis Finnbogadottir of Iceland (1980–96) used their ceremonial posts strategically.

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Robinson was elected to the Irish presidency in 1990, having served in the Irish Parliament for 20 years, focusing on issues of women’s equality. Robinson was adept at harnessing the power of symbolism. According to Robinson, she used the presidency to focus on international human rights issues by serving as the rapporteur of an international human rights meeting in Salzburg. As a symbol of inclusion, she placed a light in the window of her presidential residence, where that light could be seen from the public road, to make the point to members of the Irish diaspora that they are part of Ireland. The president of Iceland is seen as a cultural ambassador, who does not introduce legislation, and is mandated to sign into law all bills passed by the Icelandic Parliament. In 1980, Vigdis Finnbogadottir was the first woman globally to be elected the head of state in a democratic election, even as a divorced woman who later adopted as a single mother. Finnbogadottir was narrowly elected over three male opponents with 33.6 percent of the vote. She was subsequently reelected three times, twice unopposed. Finnbogadottir was aware of the importance of her role as a woman head of state and received letters from women around the globe because of the historical nature of her election. Similarly, the president of India, the world’s largest democracy, has largely ceremonial powers. Most of the authority vested in the president by the constitution is in practice exercised by the prime minister. India previously has had a woman prime minister, Indira Gandhi, but current president Pratibha Patil is its first woman president. Like President Robinson, Patil held numerous positions in the executive and legislative branches of the state of Maharashtra, including heading several key ministries during 1972–85. She also served as a Member of Parliament (1991–96) and as governor of Rajasthan (2004–07). These women have taken one of two basic paths to power: (1) serving as a representative of a deceased (often assassinated) male family member and (2) climbing the ladder of the country’s political and party systems. In many cases, the women in the latter category also come from families with political involvement. According to Laura Liswood, secretary-general of the Council of Women World Leaders and an expert in this arena, “often someone in the woman’s family was involved in politics so that the woman had a level of

familiarity with politics. It’s not quite a ‘legacy’ but … women see that being involved in politics is possible.” For example, Norwegian prime minister Bruntland’s father was the Norwegian minister of defense; Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla’s father was comptroller of Costa Rica; Prime Minister Jenny Shipley’s father was active in New Zealand politics. Power From Continuing a Family Legacy About a third of women heads of state have come to power following (although not immediately) a husband or father who was assassinated while in office or while running for office. These women are seen as representatives of their family’s political legacy and campaign as such. Virtually every woman head of state in Asia and a significant number in Latin America have followed an assassinated husband or father into office. Many are from prestigious families with great name recognition. Examples include: • Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka, the world’s first woman prime minister (1960–65, 1970–77, 1994–2000), who followed her assassinated husband, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike. • Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India, who followed her father Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of newly independent India, into power and served as prime minister twice: 1966–77 and 1980–84. • President Corazon Aquino, the Philippines, who was elected president after her husband Benigno was assassinated at the Manila airport returning from exile in the United States. She served one term from 1986–92. • Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan, who took over the political mantle from her father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto. Her father was killed by the military while in office. She was elected prime minister twice (1988–90, 1993– 96) and was the first woman to lead a modern Muslim state. • President Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua, who campaigned as a proxy for her husband, Pedro Chamorro, who was gunned down while driving to work in 1978. She followed him as publisher of the newspaper La Prensa and then later ran for office under the mantle



Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won the presidency of Argentina by the widest margin since civil rule was reinstated in 1983.

of her family legacy as the best candidate to unify opposition to the Sandinista regime. She served from 1990 to 1996. • Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh, who served as prime minister twice, 1991–96 and 2001–06, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Bangladesh, the current prime minister of Bangladesh, serving her second term, 1996– 2001, 2009–present. These two political rivals have essentially alternated as prime minister of Bangladesh since 1991. Zia led protests after her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in 1981. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibar Rahman, the prime minister of Bangladesh and most of Hasina’s family was assassinated in a coup in 1975. • President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina, who is the first women elected president of Argentina, and followed her husband Nestor into office, beginning in 2007.

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As candidates, these women and their campaign organizations reflect the continuation of their family legacy, and people know of their lineage. Bhutto often referred to her father during her campaign. Chamorro invoked her husband, who had been assassinated and was seen as a martyr: “I am doing this for Pedro [Chamorro] and my country.” Aquino returned to the Philippines after her husband was killed to lead the mourning for her husband’s death and became a leader who could unify citizens and effectively defeat Ferdinand Marcos for the Philippine presidency. With some exceptions, the widows have little political experience before running, while the daughters, such as Indira Gandhi or Benazir Bhutto, have significant political experience. Gandhi was a longtime party activist and head of the Congress Party. Bhutto’s father asked her to carry on his work, and he groomed her for the role. Throughout her campaigns, she used photos and images of her father and his work. Since 1981, Sheikh Hasina has been the president of her party, the Awami League. There are exceptions, however, including President Cristina Kirshner, who served in both the state and federal legislatures in Argentina and was an influential party strategist before succeeding her husband as president. Power From Climbing the Political Ladder Many well-known women heads of state have climbed the ladder of political involvement, including Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Kim Campbell of Canada, President Ellen JohnsonSirleaf of Liberia, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Prime Minister Bruntland of Norway, Prime Minister Cresson of France, Prime Ministers Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley of New Zealand, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia. Several stories illustrate this path to power across the regions of the globe. Golda Meir Golda Meir had been involved in Israeli politics for over 40 years before becoming prime minister in 1969. Meir and her husband moved to a kibbutz in Palestine in 1921. She gradually became more involved with the Zionist movement and at the end of World War II, took part in the negotiations to create the state of Israel and was one of two women signatories (out of 24) to Israel’s

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declaration of independence. In 1948, she became Israel’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union and returned to Israel in 1949, when she was elected to the legislature and became minister of labor. She then became foreign minister and served in this capacity from 1959 until her retirement in 1965. In 1969, when Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died of a heart attack, many members of the Knesset asked Meir to return to politics and she did. While prime minister, she focused on developing support for Israel in the West. Margaret Thatcher Margaret Thatcher actively sought a political career and worked her way up the ranks of the British Conservative (Tory) Party. She served as leader of the Tories from 1975 to 1990, and as prime minister from 1979 to 1990. To date, she is the only woman to have held either post. Thatcher was raised by her parents to be interested in current events and grew up during the Depression and World War II. She became active in politics at university and was president of the Oxford Union Conservative Association. After losing her first two races for Parliament, she won a parliamentary seat in 1959. When Conservatives came to power in 1970, Thatcher was appointed secretary of state for education and science. After her party lost the 1974 election, Thatcher ran for and was elected Conservative Party leader in 1975. In 1979, she was elected Britain’s prime minister and served for three consecutive terms. She is known internationally as the “Iron Lady” for her strong will, her government’s austerity measures, and for prosecuting the Falklands War. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf riveted the world’s attention by being sworn in as the first woman president of an African country in 2006. After being educated in the United States, she returned to Liberia to work in government. She served as minister of finance in 1979–80; after the 1980 coup d’état, Johnson-Sirleaf left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She ran for president in 1997, placing a distant second with 10 percent of the vote. In 2003, Liberian president Charles Taylor left office, after civil war and regional strife, and the interim government and rebel groups signed a historic peace accord. While Johnson-Sirleaf was proposed as a possible candidate for president, she was

not selected and instead served as head of the Governance Reform Commission in 2004–05. She then ran for president in the 2005 elections and won. Women, particularly market women, and the group Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, were instrumental in her election. Angela Merkel German chancellor Angela Merkel is the first woman to hold this position, and the first chancellor who grew up in East Germany. Like most East German youth, Merkel was a member of an official youth group. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Merkel became involved in the growing democracy movement. Following the first (and only) democratic election in East Germany, she became the deputy spokesperson of the new caretaker government. In the first postunification government, Merkel was elected to the German Parliament (Bundestag) and after her party merged with the West German Christian Democrats, she became minister for women and youth and later minister for the environment and nuclear safety. In 2000, she became the first female chair of her party and later, leader of the conservative opposition in the Bundestag. In 2007, Merkel was also chaired the G-8, the second woman to do so after Margaret Thatcher. Michelle Bachelet Chilean president Michelle Bachelet is a moderate socialist who was the first woman president of Chile. She is a pediatrician and epidemiologist by training and also studied military strategy; she is a separated mother of three and describes herself as an agnostic. Her father, a Chilean general, was part of President Salvador Allende’s government. After the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, Bachelet’s father refused exile, was tortured extensively, and died in prison. Bachelet and her mother worked as couriers for the underground Socialist Party group trying to organize resistance to Pinochet. They were captured and tortured and later exiled. In 1979, she was given permission to return to Chile, and she became politically active in the fight to reestablish democracy. After democracy was reestablished in 1990, Bachelet ran unsuccessfully for mayor of a wealthy Santiago suburb. In the 1999 presidential primary of Chile’s governing coalition, she worked for Ricardo Lagos’s successful nomination and then



served as his health minister and defense minister. She was, in fact, the first woman minister of defense in the Americas. In the 2005 presidential election, Bachelet faced three male candidates in the primary, and was elected in a runoff with 53.5 percent of the vote. She won praise for her handling of Chile’s financial crisis and has worked on post-earthquake reconstruction, both in Chile and Haiti. Public Perceptions In general, public perceptions of women as potential heads of state appear to be changing. This is in part evidenced by the small increase in the number of women heads of state and in the increase of women elected to office in general. There are more images of women heads of state, perhaps because the election of a woman president still generates a lot of press attention. Further, there has been some progress as women address tough issues, such as war, the fight against terrorism, and the world fiscal crisis. While Aquino found that her military commanders initially found it hard to accept orders from a woman, there have also been women heads of state who have aggressively prosecuted wars, most notably Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In addition, the contemporary high visibility of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has changed the perception of how women can deal with tough security matters, and this will shift even more as there are more women secretaries of defense. Bachelet won praise for her handling of Chile’s financial crisis. See Also: Bachelet, Michelle; Government, Women in; Representation of Women in Government, International; Merkel, Angela; Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson; Thatcher, Margaret. Further Readings Council of Women World Leaders. http://www.cwwl.org (accessed June 2010). Hausmann, Ricardo, Laura D. Tyson, and Saadia Zahidi. The Global Gender Gap Report 2009. World Economic Forum (2009). http://www.weforum.org (accessed June 2010). Hoogensen, Gunhild and Bruce O. Solheim. Women in Power: World Leaders Since 1960. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. Lewis, Jone Johnson. “Women’s History: Women Prime Ministers and Presidents: 20th Century.” About.com.

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http://womenshistory.about.com/od/rulers20th /a/women_heads.htm (accessed August 2010). Paxton, Pamela and Melanie Hughes. Women, Politics and Power. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2007. Stephenie Foster Independent Scholar

Health, Mental and Physical On average, women live longer than men. Life expectancy for women is now over 70 years, compared to around 65 for men. Longevity statistics alone, however, do not capture the full picture of women’s wellbeing. Women’s quality of life is frequently tied to physical and mental health concerns that uniquely or disproportionately affect women and girls. Some women’s health concerns are related to biological sex. The role of prenatal care in preventing maternal mortality is an example of an issue pertaining specifically to females. Other health concerns are tied to gendered social conditions. For instance, in societies where women are paid less than men, the cost of healthcare is a concern for women’s health. Understanding the mental and physical health issues that affect women around the world as well as their experience in healthcare systems is important to understanding the quality of women’s lives. Health has been conceptualized in many different ways throughout history and across cultures. Definitions range from broad subjective assessment of how well a person or group is thriving, to specific and narrow biomedical measurements of standardized physiological processes. Patriarchal cultures have frequently excluded women’s voices and concerns from dominant conversations about health and medicine, and this has influenced how health is defined. Failing to include female participants in medical research, for instance, has led to the development of medical models based on male bodies. This has contributed to diagnostic standards based on typically male symptoms and the pathologizing of female body processes. Health education about myocardial infarctions (heart attacks), for instance, has historically overlooked the symptoms faced by women, while processes such as menstruation and pregnancy have at times been

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treated as if they were illnesses rather than normal bodily experiences. In 1970, a group of women in Boston, Massachusetts, came together to write a booklet titled Women and Their Bodies, researched and written by and for women. The booklet, which was later expanded to become the book, Our Bodies, Ourselves, was an important part of the women’s health movement in the United States. Feminists called into question the male-dominated field of medicine and its power to define women’s health. Those in the women’s health movement sought to understand and educate others about women’s bodies. They also worked to expand conceptualizations of “women’s health” to include concerns about relationships, parenting, violence, body image, aging, and other topics frequently overlooked in medical discourse. Today, women’s health needs continue to be overlooked or dismissed in public policy and medical decision making. Women’s health advocates point out, for instance, that contraceptive pills are frequently not covered by health insurance prescription plans in the United States, even when men’s sexual health prescriptions (such as Viagra) are covered. The disagreements over what constitutes legitimate health concern for women are made most public when the issues of healthcare funding and abortion are discussed. In the 2008 United States presidential election, Republican candidate John McCain conveyed his belief that women’s health was defined too broadly in considering when abortion should be permitted by using a finger-quotes gesture while referring to “health” and going on to say that the definition has been stretched to mean almost anything to justify abortion. Despite efforts to expand “women’s health” to include a broader range of issues affecting well-being, women’s health rhetoric has frequently centered around issues of reproductive capacity. A healthy woman, by common understanding, is one who is young and fertile. Inclusion of female bodies in medical textbooks is often limited to chapters on puberty, pregnancy, and childbirth. The Körperwelten (Body Worlds) traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies intended to promote health awareness has been criticized for its presentation of male bodies as the norm and its portrayal of female bodies in mostly sexual and reproductive contexts. Even beyond pregnancy and childbirth, a woman’s reproductive social

role is emphasized in health policy. In some places, for instance, healthcare programs and services for low-income women are made available to mothers while those without children are not covered. In addition to reproductive capacity, beauty standards are often influential in discussions of women’s health. Dermatology, weight management, and cosmetic surgery are all examples of medical fields that frequently target women and reinforce gendered beauty norms. Tall and short stature, large body size, birthmarks, atypical genitalia, and other “aesthetically undesirable” traits have been treated as medical conditions. Pharmaceutical companies have emphasized beauty-enhancing effects of their drugs in marketing directed toward women. For instance, oral contraceptives have been marketed as an effective means of improving one’s complexion. In 2009, pharmaceutical company Allergan began marketing a prescription glaucoma drug as an eyelash lengthener, calling thin eyelashes “hypotrichosis” and encouraging those who want fuller, thicker eyelashes to “ask their doctor about Latisse.” This conflation of the health and beauty industries, along with the multibillion dollar weight loss industry and high rates of eating disorders, has led women’s health advocates to pay special attention to issues of body image when considering health priorities. Most books and conferences about women’s health devote time to women’s body image and related concerns. Physical Health Conditions Affecting Women and Girls When discussing health conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women, it should be noted that not every woman has typical female anatomy and physiology or faces risks associated with heterosexual relationships and childbearing. Postmenopausal women, prepubescent girls, nonheterosexual women, and women who have had hysterectomies or mastectomies all face unique sets of gender-related risk and protective factors, and their experiences are sometimes overlooked in dominant rhetoric about women’s health. Additionally, women with intersex conditions and transgender women (those born with male physiological characteristics who identify and live as women) may be affected by gender-related health conditions in ways that differ from non-intersex and non-transgender women. Personal histories and indi-



vidual biological profiles must always be taken into account when applying information about the associations between sex, gender, and health. Health concerns typically linked to female biology include certain cancers and diseases of sex-specific organs as well as pregnancy-related conditions. Cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancer are all women’s health issues, although breast and lung cancers are the most frequent cause of cancer-related death in women. Skin cancers and breast cancers are the most prevalent forms of cancer in women. In most areas, maternal mortality rates have declined in the past century, due to improved sanitation, family planning practices, and prenatal care. The vast majority of cases of pregnancy-related disability and death are found in impoverished communities and nations. These occurrences are often related to malnourishment, young maternal age, unsafe abortion, infection, and hemorrhage. The leading cause of mortality among both women and men is heart disease. This statistic can be misleading, as morbidity (rate of disease occurrence) and mortality (rate of death) vary greatly by age, region, and social status. Of women 15 to 45 years old worldwide, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, and pregnancy complications are leading causes of death and disability. The risk of premature death for women in some developing countries is over 40 percent, while in affluent countries, the risk for women in this age range is very low. In affluent countries where women frequently live longer than 60 years, conditions such as cardiovascular disease, dementia, cancer, and respiratory diseases are leading causes of death. Other common women’s health concerns include diabetes, chronic pain, osteoporosis, and sexually transmitted infections. Lifestyle health promotion efforts targeting women in such societies often focus on nutrition, fitness, tobacco use avoidance/cessation, and safer sex practices. This emphasis on individual behavior and personal responsibility for health sometimes results in victim blaming and healthism, or prejudice based on health status. Women’s health advocates point out that many conditions affecting women could be addressed through social and environmental changes such as increased availability of fresh produce, safe opportunities for physical activity, reduced exposure to environmental

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pollutants, and increased social agency to negotiate sexual experiences. Mental Health Conditions Affecting Women and Girls Physical health is often linked to mental health. Physical conditions may contribute to mental health conditions. For example, the stress of coping with a chronic illness may lead to depression for some women. Mental health conditions can also affect physical health. A woman living with schizophrenia, for instance, may be unable to provide for her own basic physical needs. Worldwide, suicide is a leading cause of premature death among women. Mental health conditions that disproportionately affect women and girls include phobias and anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, and somatic complaints (physical symptoms with no apparent physiological cause). They are less likely than men to experience violent and antisocial mental disorders or substance abuse and equally likely to experience schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, though when these mental illnesses do occur, they manifest differently in terms of symptoms and treatment outcomes. For example, the onset of recognized symptoms of schizophrenia tends to be later in women than in men. Women are also more likely to experience more than one mental disorder, and this comorbidity contributes to higher rates of disability due to mental illness. Physiological differences may contribute to gender differences in mental health diagnosis. Differences can frequently be explained by different social conditions. For instance, some studies have found more similarities between men and women when controlling for education and workplace experience. Others have demonstrated the importance of perceived control over one’s life in preventing mental illness, and perceived control is an experience that often differs between men and women. Gendered cultural norms regarding emotional expression and help seeking may also contribute to differential diagnosis for some mental disorders. Violence and Women’s Health Violence is increasingly recognized as a women’s health issue. War, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence affect women and girls around the world.

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In times of war, women face many threats to their physical well-being. Intentional spread of disease, torture and killing, rape, slavery, forced impregnation, and forced abortion are all tactics used in warfare that affect the health of women. Additionally, women are often expected to stay and care for the ill, the elderly, and the very young while others flee in times of war. They are then faced with living and working in areas that lack basic necessities including food, clean water, sanitation, and medical services. In times of national peace as well as times of war, sexual violence affects women and girls. It is a persistent threat to women’s health and well-being in all areas of the world, regardless of affluence. Women in prison, migrant women, women with disabilities, and women in war zones face particular high risk of sexual abuse and rape. In the United States, it is estimated that as many as one in four women will be sexually abused in her lifetime. Sexual violence can lead to the spread of sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancy, and permanent injury to reproductive organs and other body systems. Survivors may also experience depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders, and heightened risk of suicide. Perpetrators of sexual violence are usually known to the victim. Sexual coercion and rape may be part of an ongoing pattern of domestic violence (though awareness and prosecution of marital rape remains low). Intimate partner violence, also known as domestic violence, was once considered mostly a private family matter, but is now more recognized as a threat to women’s well-being that must be addressed at multiple levels. Physical acts of violence can include slapping, punching, shoving, kicking, dragging, choking, and use of a weapon. These forms of physical violence are frequently accompanied by other types of abuse, including verbal abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. Those who have experienced domestic violence have higher rates of ill health, even long after the direct violence has ended. Chronic pain, memory loss, emotional distress, and suicidality have all been linked to experiences of domestic violence. Reproductive health issues including miscarriage are also more common among women who have experienced such violence. Many women do not seek help when experiencing violence or its effects. Some believe the experience is

normal and acceptable. Others want to avoid potential consequences such as retaliation and individual or family stigma and shame. Many fear they will not be believed or supported. Women and Healthcare Women are the primary providers of health-related care throughout the world, in the family, community, and health professions. Much of this work is unpaid caregiving that may not be recognized as part of the healthcare system. Despite cultural and historical connections between women and caregiving, women have been underrepresented in many areas of medicine and in the leadership of professional health organizations. As patients or consumers in formal healthcare systems, women experience several barriers to accessing regular professional healthcare. Despite increased emphasis on the importance of preventive healthcare and screenings, many women do not receive regular checkups that could prevent or more effectively address conditions such as cervical and breast cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Even in affluent countries, many women lack access to basic healthcare services. Some do not have health insurance that will cover preventive services and regular screenings. Others live in rural areas without nearby healthcare facilities. Inequalities in education and pay create difficulties in understanding, physically accessing, and affording medical care. When receiving professional healthcare, women may face gender discrimination, having their concerns and complaints dismissed, or not being provided with detailed information about their physical health. In some places, women’s healthcare is affected by cultural norms regarding interactions between male physicians and female patients. For individual and cultural reasons, women may prefer female health practitioners. This is especially common when women are seeking obstetric and gynecological care. Many women make use of alternative health practices outside the tradition of allopathic medicine (also known as Western, scientific, or standard medicine), including massage and touch-based therapies, aromatherapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, nutritional approaches, and spiritual practices. They may be motivated by cultural tradition, religious belief, dissatisfaction with standard medical techniques, lack of access to other medical care, or a desire to have



greater personal control over their health options. Such practices are frequently criticized or dismissed as ineffective, dangerous, or wishful/magical thinking by medical practitioners, though there is growing recognition of the potential value of honoring and integrating complementary health traditions within the practice of standard medicine.  Improving Women’s Health In addition to greater awareness of gender-related concerns in healthcare settings, the World Health Organization has called for action beyond the healthcare sector. Improving the health of women and girls requires a broad approach that recognizes the individual, social, cultural, political, and economic influences on their lives. Without attending to issues of violence and inequality in a society, women will likely continue to face physical and mental health conditions that affect their quality of life, despite improvements in health knowledge and medical technology. National and international organizations have formed to address the health needs of women. In the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services has a dedicated Office on Women’s Health that provides information to laypeople as well as professionals about trends and issues in women’s physical and mental health. In 2007, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution on gendermainstreaming intended to integrate gender analysis and action into all activities of the World Health Organization. Additionally, there continue to be local networks of feminists and women’s advocates around the world addressing the health and wellness needs of individuals and communities and working for cultural and political change. These include groups dedicated to reproductive justice, antipoverty, and peace causes as well as those with a stated purpose of working for women’s health. See Also: Cancer, Women and; Heath Insurance Issues; Life Expectancy, International Comparisons of; Our Bodies, Ourselves; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of; Women’s Health Clinics. Further Readings Boston Women’s Health Collective. Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era. New York: Touchstone, 2005.

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Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health. The Healthy Woman: A Complete Guide for All Ages. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008. Doyal, Lesley. “Sex, Gender, and Health: The Need For a New Approach.” British Medical Journal, v.323 (2001). Goldman, Marlene and Maureen Hatch, eds. Women and Health. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2010. Lorber, Judith and Lisa Jean Moore. Gender and the Social Construction of Illness. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2001. Turshen, Meredith. Women’s Health Movements: A Global Force for Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Unger, Rhoda K., ed. Handbook of the Psychology of Women. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004. World Health Organization (WHO). Women and Health: Today’s Evidence Tomorrow’s Agenda. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO Press, 2009. Virginia Dicken Southern Illinois University

Health Insurance Issues Health insurance, like other branches of insurance, is a form of mutual assistance by which people collectively pool their risk—in this case, the risk of incurring medical expenses. It may be provided through a government-sponsored social insurance program, or from private insurance companies. The covered groups or individuals pay premiums or taxes to help protect themselves from unexpected healthcare expenses. Similar benefits paying for medical expenses may also be provided through social welfare programs funded by the government. Although many international and European instruments provide the right to health insurance, the AlmaAta International Conference on Primary Health Care (1978) held by the World Health Organization (WHO) was the first event to put health equity on the international political agenda. The International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), and the European Union (EU) Roadmap for equality between

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women and men (2006–10) all emphasized equal right to social security, including health insurance. Maternity insurance is provided as a separate branch of insurance by the international and European instruments. Global recession has caused many health systems to lose focus on fair access to care. In transitional and underdeveloped countries, cut backs in public health spending contribute to the structural decline of public health systems. In addition, privatization of healthcare systems, without appropriate guarantees of universal access to affordable healthcare, further reduces healthcare availability. A 2008 WHO report documented vast differences in healthcare between rich and poor countries, within countries, and sometimes within individual cities. Only 20 percent of the world’s population has adequate social security coverage, and more than half lack any coverage at all. Less than 10 percent of workers in the least-developed countries are covered by social security. In middle-income countries, coverage ranges from 20 to 60 percent, while in most industrial nations, it is close to 100 percent. However statistical data on health are often not systematically collected, disaggregated, and analyzed by age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Relatively little is known about how social and economic factors affect the health of women (in particular, women with disabilities, lesbian, bisexual or transgender women, and women from ethnic minorities, all of whom face multiple discriminations). Medical research and epidemiological studies in many countries are often based solely on males, or are not gender specific. Health Insurance and Women Women use healthcare servivces, especially primary care services more often than men. This is mainly related to women’s reproductive health and childbearing functions, but also to their persistent social roles as the primary caretakers of dependents, whether children or other family members. In spite of this higher level of use by women, healthcare systems and services are not particularly women-friendly or considerate toward women’s health needs. Inequality is the main driver of poor health among women. Women are affected by many of the same health conditions as men, but may experience them differently. The prevalence among women of pov-

erty and economic dependence, their experience of violence, discrimination due to gender and/or race, and sociopolitical discrimination all contribute to ill health. The limited power many women have over their sexual and reproductive lives and their lack of influence in decision making are also social realities in many countries worldwide. Discrimination against girls (often resulting from preferential treatment toward sons), and access to nutrition and healthcare services endanger their current and future health and well-being. Conditions that force girls into early marriage, pregnancy, and childbearing and which subject them to harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation, pose grave health risks. Counseling services and access to sexual and reproductive health information for adolescents are still inadequate or absent. A young woman’s right to privacy, confidentiality, respect, and informed consent is often not considered. The trend toward early sexual experience, combined with a lack of information and services, increases the risk of unwanted and early pregnancy, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as unsafe abortions. Mental disorders related to marginalization, powerlessness, and poverty, along with overwork, stress, the growing incidence of domestic violence, as well as substance abuse, are some of the many other health issues of growing concern to women. Women throughout the world, especially young women, are increasing their use of tobacco with serious effects on their health and that of their children. Occupational health issues are also growing in importance. Cancers of the breast and cervix, and other cancers of the reproductive system, as well as infertility, affect growing numbers of women, and may be preventable, or curable, if detected early. The long-term health prospects of women are influenced by changes during menopause, which, in combination with lifelong conditions and other factors, such as poor nutrition and lack of physical activity, may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. Other diseases of aging and the interrelationships of aging and disability among women also need particular attention. Women (as well as men), particularly in rural areas and poor urban areas, are increasingly exposed to environmental health hazards due to environmental

Heart Disease



catastrophes and degradation. Women have a different susceptibility to various environmental hazards, contaminants, and substances, and they suffer different consequences from exposure to them. Health policies and programs often perpetuate gender stereotypes and fail to consider socioeconomic disparities and other differences among women, and may not take full account of the lack of autonomy of women regarding their health. The WHO report found striking inequalities in health outcomes, in access to care, and in what people pay for care. For 5.6 billion people in low- and middle-income countries, more than half of all healthcare expenditure is through out-of-pocket payments. With the costs of healthcare rising and systems for financial protection in disarray, personal expenditures on healthcare now push more than 100 million people into poverty each year. Since women are at higher risk of living in poverty, this impacts their access to healthcare, whatever the quality of that care. Health insurance is often strongly connected to employment status. Health insurance benefits are not available to people outside a formal work environment or those not steadily employed, such as the rural, agricultural, self-employed, or urban poor. These groups represent a significant part of the population in lowincome and middle-income countries. Because of their inability to pay for contributory insurance, they are ineligible for full medical care. Since women are more likely not to work than men, or to work in unregistered sectors, women are at increased risk of being uninsured. Many so-called housewives are dependant on their husbands or fathers for health insurance. See Also: Breast Cancer; Health, Mental and Physical; Homemakers and Social Security; Medical Research, Gender Issues; Prenatal Care; Reproductive Cancers; World Health Organization. Further Readings International Labour Organization. “ILO Social Security Department. Extending Social Security to All: A Guide Through Challenges and Options.” Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2010. Kickbusch, I. and G. Lister, eds. “European Perspectives on Global Health: A Policy Glossary.” Brussels: European Foundation Centre AISBL, 2006. http://www .efc.be/Networking/InterestGroupsAndFora/Global

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Health/Documents/EFC_EPGH_GlobalHealth Glossary-1.pdf (cited July 2010). Ron, A., B. Abel-Smith, and G. Tamburi. “Health Insurance in Developing Countries—The Social Security Approach.” Geneva: International Labour Organization, 1990. United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women. “UN Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995).” http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing /platform (cited July 2010). World Health Organization. “The World Health Report 2008: Primary Health Care (Now More Than Ever).” http://www.who.int/whr/2008/en/index.html (cited July 2010). K. Bakirci Istanbul Technical University

Heart Disease Heart disease (cardiovascular disease) means a broad spectrum of heart and circulatory system problems. The American Heart Association estimates that it affects 80 million adults in the United States, accounting for more than one-third of all deaths. There is a global epidemic of heart disease, and more than 60 percent of the global burden occurs in developing countries. Heart disease is very prevalent among women, killing nearly twice as many than all types of cancer including breast cancer, but women tend to underestimate the health threat because of a public misconception that it is generally a man’s disease. Therefore, public health campaigns have been launched to raise awareness of heart disease among women and to promote healthy living. This article provides an overview of heart disease, including its types, causes, diagnosis and treatment. Heart disease in women and men is similar in many ways but important differences exist, including some experiences unique to women, which are discussed in this entry. Types and Causes There are many types of heart disease. Fifteen million people in the United States have coronary heart disease, the most common and widespread form, which is caused by fatty deposits on artery walls. It often

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leads to angina (chest pain) and heart attack (myocardial infarction). Other common types of heart disease include cardiomyopathy (deterioration of heart muscle function), ischemic heart disease (reduced blood supply to the heart and organs), hypertensive heart disease (caused by high blood pressure), congestive heart failure (insufficient blood supply to body), and congenital heart disease (heart abnormality since birth). Conditions and habits for developing heart disease are wide ranging and include age, culture, lifestyle, menopause, obesity, smoking, and socioeconomic status. The risks of these factors are similar in men and women but gender differences have been recognized, including women-only experiences such as menopause. Heart disease is most common among older people. Women are generally older than men at the disease’s onset. Risk increases gradually following menopause, at around age 50, which is attributed in part to declining levels of the estrogen hormone. Prior to menopause, estrogen benefits cardiovascular health by, for example, maintaining blood vessel function, normal blood pressure, and blood levels of certain lipids and high-density lipoproteins (HDL). However, the level of protection diminishes following menopause. It is still uncertain, based on current medical research, whether replacement estrogen (HRT) reduces the risk of heart disease. The use of oral contraceptives, which contain estrogen, has been linked to heart attack risk, but modern forms are considered to be safer. Lifestyle contributes to developing heart disease. Risk factors include obesity, sedentary lifestyles, smoking, stress and anxiety, and unhealthy diets. Smoking is a problem because it reduces estrogen and HDL, and can cause early-onset menopause; but the good news is that smoking cessation considerably reduces risk. Obesity increases the likelihood of developing heart disease, largely as a result of associated problems such as hypertension. Diabetes has been linked to cardiovascular problems. High blood sugar levels play a role in the hardening of arteries. Research suggests that diabetes might pose a greater risk of heart disease among women than men; also, a higher percentage of women have diabetes. The risk is much higher when diabetes is combined with other lifestyle risk factors. Pregnancy can sometimes trigger a number of heart-related conditions such as hypertension, preeclampsia, bacterial endocarditis. Pregnancy is more

dangerous for some women who already have heart problems. Heart disease is more prevalent among black and Hispanic women, as are the risk factors for developing the disease (e.g., high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, etc.), underpinned partly by variables such as culture, social exclusion, and socioeconomic background. There are also variations between countries. According to the World Health Organization, the burden of the disease is generally greater in highincome countries than in low- and middle-income countries, which reflects differences in major risk factor such as diet, smoking, and physical activity. Migrating to another country can change the risk of developing the disease. For example, people who have migrated from east Asian countries such as Japan, which have a low rate of coronary heart disease, have been found to have a gradually increased risk when moving to the West, such as the United States. Symptoms and Diagnosis The classic signs of heart disease, experienced by both men and women, include chest pain and tightness, upper body discomfort, shortness of breath, and light-headedness, which can lead to heart attack. These classic symptoms were first described in early research studies involving older men, who reported experiencing chest pain prior to a heart attack; but women’s symptoms have not received the same level of concern in medical research. Women with some types of heart disease may experience subtle and atypical symptoms, sometimes within weeks prior to a heart attack, including indigestion, shoulder, neck and abdominal pain, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, and mental distress. These varied, multiple symptoms are prone to misinterpretation and, therefore, are underdiagnosed and undertreated. Also, as women generally develop heart disease at an older age than men, additional health ailments are common, such as diabetes and hypertension, which can complicate diagnosis and recovery. Diagnosis of heart disease usually begins with a cardiovascular risk assessment, which is a medical evaluation of health status and risk. Diagnostic tests include chest X-rays; echocardiogram or ECG/EKG (ultrasound of the heart); electrocardiogram (measures the heart’s electrical activity); Exercise Stress Testing or EST (measures the heart’s performance during exercise); Holter Monitoring (records the



heart’s rhythms); magnetic resonance imaging (MRI body scan); and more invasive procedures such as angiogram to look inside arteries. The accuracy of some diagnostic tests is not as effective for women, such as ECG and EST, which, for certain disease types, report higher false-positive results (i.e., false indication of cardiovascular problems). Treatment and Prevention Treatments for heart disease depend on its cause and type, and include medication, angioplasty (relieving blocked arteries), ablation or cardioversion (correction of abnormal heart rhythm), pacemaker (to aid heart beat), and surgery. Treatment is often accompanied by cardiac rehabilitation, which is a support program of exercise, education and counseling. Comparatively few studies have investigated the care and treatment most appropriate for women. Some research claims that access and quality treatment, as well as overall prognosis, differ between the sexes. Studies have reported that women are less likely to receive treatment; experience longer hospital delays; and have higher rates of disability and death following surgery, but further research is needed. On a more positive note, heart disease can often be prevented. The first step involves assessing and lowering the risk, such as lifestyle modifications like smoking cessation, physical activity, healthy eating, and weight management. Interventions for women with high and intermediate risk include maintaining healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and keeping diabetes under check. Women considered to be at highest risk might benefit from preventive therapy such as medication. In developed countries, such as the United States and many western European countries, there has been a steady decline in disease-related deaths in recent years. Reasons include improved prevention, diagnosis, and treatment; and healthier lifestyles. Public health promotion strategies have also played an important role in combating heart disease. However, society and media campaigns about women’s health tend to emphasize wider-known but less prevalent conditions, such as breast cancer. In 2004, the American Heart Association launched their award-winning “Go Red for Women” campaign to raise awareness of women’s heart disease and promote healthy living. The situation is different in developing countries, where

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heart disease is increasing as a result of increasing longevity and changing lifestyles, and where healthcare services and medical facilities are less adequate. It is difficult to draw conclusions about heart disease in women. It is complex, and has many forms, each with a different prognosis. Women tend to underestimate the health threat, and continue to be underrepresented in medical research. Facts about the disease might be more relevant to men. Urgent action is needed to tackle the disease, such as better awareness and education, control of risk factors, improved diagnosis and treatment, and health promotion campaigns. See Also: Health, Mental and Physical; Menopause, Medical Aspects; Nutrition. Further Readings American Heart Association. American Heart Association Complete Guide to Women’s Heart Health: The Go Red for Women Way to Well-Being & Vitality. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2009. Mackay, Judith and George Mensah. The Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2004. Phibbs, Brendan. The Human Heart: A Basic Guide to Heart Disease. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007. Gareth Davey Hong Kong Shue Yan University

Hefner, Christie Christie Ann Hefner was born November 8, 1952, in Willmette, Illinois, to Mildred Williams and Hugh Hefner, an Army veteran and then copywriter for Esquire magazine. Only one year after his daughter’s birth, Hugh Hefner quit his job over a pay dispute, borrowed $8,000 from more than 45 investors, and began a men’s adult magazine named, simply, Playboy. More than 30 years later, Christie Hefner would take over Playboy Enterprises as her father’s heir apparent. In December 2008, Christie Hefner announced that, as of January 31, 2009, she would be stepping down from her position as Playboy’s chief executive officer,

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citing her need to make changes to her life, including increasing her own charitable work. In her 20 years at the Playboy helm, Christie Hefner was responsible for a number of savvy business decisions, including increasing the media focus on the Hefner family, acquiring numerous adult-oriented businesses, and continuing the international diversification of the ubiquitous Playboy brand. Corporate Success Hefner’s parents separated before she turned 5 years old, and she spent her early years out of the Playboycentered spotlight in Willmette, Illinois, where she graduated from New Trier High School before attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts. In 1974, Hefner graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a degree in English and American Literature. After just one year working in journalism, Hefner went to work for her father at Playboy Enterprises; by 1982, she was named vice president of the corporation. In 1988, Hefner took over as the corporation’s chief executive officer, and in 1994, she made the risky decision to create an online presence for the company—making it the first national magazine on the Web. After the success of this online venture, Hefner exported the Playboy brand overseas and continued to grow its U.S. presence with the creation of videogames, Playboy stores, and new entertainment venues in Las Vegas and overseas. Under her care, Playboy’s global retail sales have grown to more than $500 million. In 2005, Hefner was named number 90 on the Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women. During her time at Playboy Enterprises, Christie Hefner started the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards, named for her father, and awarded to people who are thought to have made important contributions to the protection of the First Amendment Rights. Recipients include Michael Moore, Bill Maher, and Molly Ivins. Hefner has also been credited with raising more than $30 million toward the CORE Center in Chicago, Illinois—the first AIDS outpatient treatment facility located in the midwest. See Also: Business, Women in; Feminist Publishing; Journalists, Broadcast Media; Journalists, Print Media; Management, Women in; Management Styles, Gender Theories; Media Chief Executive Officers, Female; Pornography Produced by Women.

Christie Hefner, daughter of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, was publisher of Playboy until 2009.

Further Readings Jancovich, M. “Naked Ambitions: Pornography, Taste and the Problem of the Middlebrow.” Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk /film/journal/index.htm (accessed June 2010). Miller, R. Bunny: The Real Story of Playboy. London: Corgi, 1985. St. James, I. Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2006. Watts, S. Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008. Donna McKinney Souder Colorado State University



“Helicopter Parents” The term helicopter parents became popular in both media and institutions of higher education in the early 2000s, even though it was coined in 1990 by Foster W. Cline and Jim Fay in their book, Parenting With Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility. Indeed, Cline and Fay were the first to suggest that “some parents think that love means rotating their lives around their children. They are helicopter parents. They hover over and rescue their children whenever trouble arises.” As a result, the term helicopter parents is a metaphor for parents who “hover” over their children, constantly micromanaging their children’s lives, making decisions for their children, and/or trying to prevent any failures or mistakes by their children. Although the term is applied to parents of all children, it is used most often in the context of parents of college-age children who plan their children’s class schedules, manage their children’s dorm lives, and/or even help write their children’s papers. Many people see technology as a key factor in the development of helicopter parenting because parents can stay in constant contact with their children via cell phones, e-mail, and instant messaging. In response to helicopter parents’ demand for “two-way” communication between themselves and the schools they send their children to, many colleges and universities have expanded their parent programs, increased the number of parent liaisons, and now have “parent-only” talks or orientation sessions designed to encourage parents to separate from and allow their children to make their own decisions. While many experts and educators perceive helicopter parenting as problematic because children are too dependent on their parents, some believe that helicopter parenting may benefit children because children report that they feel closer and more connected to their parents than previous generations. Baby Boom Parents Helicopter parents are of the baby boom generation, while their children are considered millennials because they were born between the early 1980s and 2000. The millennial generation is unlike any other because they have been raised within an intensive parenting approach and are considered the most pro-

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tected children in history: from bike helmets to mandatory child-safety laws and regulations, scheduled play dates by parents, and, finally, constant supervision by parents, teachers, or other caregivers. Consequently, millennials have been intensely protected and under the constant scrutiny of their parents. Moreover, because millennials have grown up with technology, it allows them to be in constant contact with their parents in ways that are unlike previous generations. As a result, while previous generations celebrated their independence from their parents and left home for college as a way to “get away from the parents,” millennials tend to feel close to their parents, often referring to parents as their “best friends,” and are used to and expect to have the constant connection that technology affords them with their parents, even when they leave for college. While helicopter parenting is the opposite of neglectful parenting, many view helicopter parenting as negative and problematic for both parents and children. For parents, helicopter parenting is thought of as indicative of parents’ inability to foster independence in their children or the inability to “let go” when their children leave home for the first time to attend college. For children, while the intentions of helicopter parents are to help their children, the message communicated to children when their parents are constantly hovering is that they are incapable of managing their own lives. Because helicopter parents also try to protect their children from negative feelings and/or experiences, children also come to believe that both are problematic and should be avoided. Thus, rather than learn that mistakes and failures, while difficult, are some of the most important learning experiences and opportunities to take responsibility for their own choices and behavior, children of hovering parents come to fear or even avoid any negative feelings and/or experiences and fail to learn how to take responsibility for their own lives and behavior. See Also: Childcare; Educational Administrators, College and University; Internet. Further Readings Cline, F. W. and J. Fay. Parenting With Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility. Colorado Springs, CO: Pinon Press, 1990.

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Colavecchio-Van Sickler, S. “Mommy, Tell My Professor He’s Not Nice!: (Over)involved Baby Boomer Parents— and Cell Phones—Redefine Adulthood.” http://www .sptimes.com/2006/06/19/State/Mommy__tell_my _profes.shtml (accessed January 2010) Fortin, J. “Hovering Parents Need to Step Back.” http:// www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/02/04/hm.heli copter.parents/index.html (accessed January 2010). Gibbs, N. Time. “The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting.” http://www.time.com/time/nation /article/0,8599,1940395-4,00.html (accessed January 2010). Howe, N. and W. Strauss. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein Boston University

Hello Kitty Hello Kitty, a cartoon character, has been applied to children’s pens, stationery, coin purses, and other “fancy goods” by the Japanese-owned Sanrio Corporation since 1974. The popularity of this pure-white cartoon cat has risen along with the growth of kawaii (feelings of protectiveness toward the cute) culture among girls and women worldwide and has generated enormous profits for the company. Kawaii involves females resisting traditional adult roles by engaging in childlike handwriting, reading manga, and watching entertainment aimed at small children. This cultural strain is variously interpreted as antifeminist or symptomatic of a postponement of adulthood by “kidults,” both male and female. More recent interest in the figure is often ironic. Mainstream film and television producers lacked interest in Hello Kitty and other female characters for cross-promotional tie-ins. Instead, Sanrio has focused on selling high-quality licensed goods, closely supervising their production. Hello Kitty’s frequently mentioned lack of mouth and her overall innocuous demeanor, with her small, overall-clad, sexless body often rendered in flat colors with thick outlines, allows audiences to project their own emotional states onto the figure. This simple, unadorned graphic style, consistent with premium brands, has

competed well with characters like Barbie, Smurfette, and Strawberry Shortcake. Hello Kitty sells especially well in Japan where the white cat is seen as international rather than expressly Japanese. Throughout the 1990s, Hello Kitty continued to grow in popularity with young girls, women who had grown up with her, and celebrities, who gave her mainstream visibility. Hello Kitty has been accused of being a “consumer whore,” by lending her image to products from pencils to toasters to maternity hospitals without concern for promoting stereotypes of female—especially Asian female–passivity and helplessness, but of course it is the Sanrio Company that exploits her astonishing profitability. Artists responses included Denise Uyehara’s 2002 play, Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels, and performance artist Kristina Wong’s asking what Hello Kitty was thinking all these years under the mouthless/speechless facade of cuteness. Artist Jaime Scholnick’s 2004 art exhibition “Hello Kitty Gets a Mouth” included a film in which the cat yearns for reconstructive surgery. The graphic simplicity that makes Hello Kitty a modern classic also allows ironic recontextualization and outright alteration by Goths, punks, and grrrl-power “third wave” feminists. Hello Kitty has been stenciled onto walls and leather jackets, tattooed onto bodies, and cut into skin. Sometimes she is shown wielding a rifle, dressed as Darth Vader, or otherwise simultaneously cute and menacing. Recently Sanrio itself has marketed its own punk, Goth, and pirate variations, and worked with Tokidoki and with Mac Cosmetics, who brought out a black pleather Hello Kitty doll wearing high-heeled boots for a recent line. Sanrio may be willing to defile the innocent image that originally made Hello Kitty popular in order to cash in before the enterprise collapses from brand fatigue. See Also: Adolescence; Japan; Manga; Third Wave; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings Belson, K. and B. Bremner. Hello Kitty: The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion Dollar Feline Phenomenon. Singapore: Wiley Asia, 2004. Gomez, E. “ASIAN POP: How Hello Kitty Came to Rule the World.” SFGate.com. http://articles.sfgate

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Liz C. Throop Georgia State University

such as the right to marry legally, and the ability to enlist in the military without concealing one’s sexual identity. Heterosexism continues to permeate institutions such as language, healthcare, and popular culture. Nonetheless, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and queer women and their allies continuously resist and subvert heterosexism in a variety of ways.

Heterosexism is an ideological system that privileges heterosexuality while simultaneously stigmatizing, erasing, or otherwise denigrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) sexuality, relationships, and identities. Whereas homophobia is frequently understood as an individual’s expression of sexual prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and/or queer people, heterosexism operates at the institutional level. Although heterosexism can be realized in social interaction among small groups of individuals, it is the structurally supported belief in the naturalness and superiority of heterosexuality that fuels heterosexist interactions. Without intending to be homophobic, persons, organizations, and institutions may foster heterosexism simply by reinforcing the primacy of heterosexuality. Heterosexism resembles institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, sizeism, and other systematic forms of oppression. The related postmodern term heteronormativity, sometimes used interchangeably with the term heterosexism, refers to the institutional mechanisms by which heterosexuality is constructed and functions as normative and ideal in contrast to homosexuality, bisexuality, and/or queer practices. Unfortunately, despite 20th-century social movements for gay and lesbian rights, heterosexism remains so pervasive as to be virtually ubiquitous in today’s world. In the 21st century, heterosexism continues to strongly and negatively impact the lives of women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or queer, as well as other women who have sexual and/or romantic relationships with women. Heterosexism manifests in numerous ways, including via laws and public policies that restrict LGBTQ individuals’ access to rights and privileges which heterosexuals take for granted,

Heterosexist Language Just as feminists have developed a critique of spoken and written language that excludes or denigrates individuals on the basis of gender, proponents of LGBTQ rights also assert the need for inclusive language. Heterosexist language is characterized by bias in that it naturalizes heterosexuality, erasing the legitimacy or even the possibility of nonheterosexual practice and identity. For example, asking one’s teenage niece whether she has a boyfriend may sound like an innocent question. However, the gendered nature of the question excludes the possibility that she may in fact have (or desire to have) a romantic attachment to another girl. Many lesbian and bisexual women report that such automatic presumptions of heterosexuality make it more difficult for them to disclose their true sexual identity to friends, family members, and other people. Those who wish to adopt more inclusive language, devoid of heterosexism, should consider using gender-neutral language rather than simply assuming heterosexuality as a default. For example, a person might ask her niece whether she has a partner (or partners), or whether she is seeing someone special, because such gender-neutral language does not simply assume the heterosexuality of the other party, and thus leaves open other possibilities concerning sexual identity and practice. Heterosexist language can be particularly problematic in contexts where women’s health and/or safety are at risk. For example, conceptualizing partner abuse as “wife battering,” a term typically associated with male-perpetrated violence within heterosexual marriages, obscures the reality that domestic violence occurs at approximately the same rate in same-sex relationships as it does in opposite sex unions. Some lesbian and bisexual women report that the rhetoric of mainstream organizations addressing forms of physical and sexual violence against women is so infused with heterosexism that they feel that such organizations are ill-equipped to meet their needs.

.com/2004-07-14/entertainment/17432959_1_sanrio -kitty-president-shintaro-tsujiå (accessed June 2010). Phoenix, W. Plastic Culture: How Japanese Toys Conquered the World. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2006.

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Medical and social service professionals, as well as policy makers and others, can better serve all women by using inclusive, gender neutral language which doesn’t privilege heterosexuality over other forms of experience and identity. While heterosexist practices and beliefs affect members of various sexual cultures throughout the world, “heterosexism” may not always be the term that best describes how sexual inequalities are understood and realized in non-Euro-American contexts. For example, in Brazil, travestis, transgendered prostitutes who identify as effeminate homosexuals, endure a variety of forms of interpersonal and institutional inequalities. According to anthropologist Don Kulick, travestis have difficulty securing employment and housing, are maligned in the press, and are routinely targeted for harassment and abuse by local law enforcement. Passersby often insult travestis using slurs that invoke travestis’ homosexuality, but they are vulnerable to such abuse precisely because their femininity makes them particularly visible to strangers. Because for travesties, gender and sexuality are closely interrelated, the systematic discrimination they endure may not be captured solely by the term heterosexism without simultaneous consideration of the impact of transphobia and sexism. Therefore, a more precise word to describe systematic sexual inequality would have to account for sexual and gender performances that do not necessarily follow the binaries, man/woman, heterosexual/homosexual. Heterosexism and Healthcare Heterosexist healthcare continues to impact the LGBTQ community in the United States in detrimental ways. For instance, lesbian medical patients who disclose that they are sexually active frequently report enduring pressure to acquire birth control pills or other prophylactic devices from medical staff that automatically equate women’s sexual activity with vulnerability to conception. Another problem that lesbian, bisexual, and queer women often face when discussing their sexuality concerns a lack of knowledge about same-sex sexual practices on the part of doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners from whom queer women receive treatment. Rather than receiving information from medical professionals, lesbian, bisexual, and queer patients may find them-

selves in the unenviable position of having to educate medical professionals about their sexuality and relationships. Furthermore, heterosexist practices in mainstream healthcare have also led to an underutilization of health services by those in the LGBTQ community, leading to untreated illness and other negative health effects. This underutilization of healthcare is also detrimental in that it reduces the likelihood that LGBTQ people will have access to preventative measures such as screening programs for a number of health concerns. LGBTQ patients aren’t the only ones who suffer the ill effects of mainstream medical heterosexism. Lesbian, bisexual, queer, and transgendered medical professionals have also faced resistance to their efforts to reform mainstream healthcare provision, especially when they have advocated for changes in the healthcare system in order to increase support and assistance for LGBTQ patients. Fortunately, U.S. organizations have emerged to address some of these issues, including San Francisco’s Dimensions, which provides a place for queer, transgender, and questioning youths to receive information about medical and mental health from LGBTQ-affirmative health professionals; Sydney’s APSI (Access Plus Spanning Identities), which serves the needs of LGBTQ Australians with disabilities; OASIS, which provides acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) education and advocacy in Guatemala; and PACE in London, England, which offers health and well-being services to the LGBTQ community. Resisting Heterosexism in Popular Culture Heterosexism is nearly ubiquitous in Western popular culture, permeating cultural forms as diverse as mainstream women’s and men’s magazines, blockbuster movies, popular television shows, top-selling novels, fine art in galleries and museums, and the mainstream music industry. For example, most popular mainstream magazines owe their circulation to a combination of articles and advertisements that alternately celebrate the joys of heterosexual love and desire and warn against the pitfalls of heterosexual relationships, all without serious acknowledgment of any nonheterosexual alternatives. Similarly, the storylines of Hollywood films often hinge upon the heterosexual entanglements of the main characters.



Even action films frequently rely on a romantic subplot between a male protagonist and his leading lady. Further, queer-identified film stars, as well as singers, athletes, and other queer celebrities, are frequently encouraged to conceal their sexual identities from the public in order to maintain their broad appeal under the guise of feigned heterosexuality. In the case of hip hop in the mainstream music industry, heterosexism reigns. The recent use of the term no homo in mainstream hip hop, for example, exemplifies the pervasiveness of heterosexism. Male hip hop artists use this term to reinforce their heterosexuality and masculinity if a previous lyric has somehow undermined those sexual and gender identities. For example, in a recent song titled “Run This Town,” Kanye West sings, “everybody on your dick/no homo.” Mainstream media, which are so thoroughly dominated by images of heterosexuality, fail to reflect the lives of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women; however, performers, writers, filmmakers, and other artists harness various media to provide a much-needed alternative, as well as a direct critique of heterosexism in popular culture. For example, in the 2006 documentary Pick Up the Mic, directed by Alex Hinton, queer hip hop performers discuss how their own music challenges the largely homophobic and queerphobic mainstream hip hop music industry. Additionally, over the course of the last decade there has been an increase in the production of narrative films challenging heterosexism, including director Ang Lee’s critically acclaimed Brokeback Mountain (2005). However, award-winning films such as Lucía Puenzo’s XXY (Argentina, 2007) or Ekachai Uekrongtham’s Beautiful Boxer (Thailand, 2003) are nonetheless outliers in what remains a largely heterosexist global cinematic marketplace. Print media have also challenged mainstream culture’s heterosexism, thus offering transgendered women and transgendered men a space in which to discuss and represent themselves, on their own terms. For example, in fall 2009, the magazine Original Plumbing came out with their first issue for transmen, while a new magazine named Candy offers the first transversal style magazine, featuring style and fashion that celebrates a robust range of transvestism, transexuality, cross-dressing, and androgyny. Queer authors have also resisted mainstream heterosexism by providing affirmative portraits of queer existence in their

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novels, memoirs, poetry, and other forms of creative expression. For example, founded by San Franciscobased writer Michelle Tea in 1997, the collective Sister Spit features a full range of women artists, writers, and performers who have toured both the United States and Europe. These artists include writers such as Cristy C. Road, whose graphic novels include Indestructible and Bad Habits: A Love Story, Ali Liebegott, author of The IHOP Papers and The Beautifully Worthless, and Rhiannon Argo, who wrote The Creamsickle. See also: Homophobia; Lesbians in the Military; LGBTQ; Same-Sex Marriage; Sexual Orientation. Further Readings Argo, Rhiannon. The Creamsickle. Midway, FL: Spinsters Ink, 2009. Cramer, Elizabeth P., ed. Addressing Homophobia and Heterosexism on College Campuses. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002. Kulick, Don. Travesti: Sex, Gender and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Liebegott, Ali. The Beautifully Worthless. San Francisco: Suspect Thoughts Press, 2005. Liebegott, Ali. The IHOP Papers. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006. Road, Cristy C. Bad Habits: A Love Story. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2008. Road, Cristy C. Indestructible. Bloomington, IN: Microcosm, 2006. Sears, James T. and Walter L. Williams, eds. Overcoming Heterosexism and Homophobia: Strategies That Work. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo Tracy Royce University of California

Heterosexuality Heterosexuality typically refers to sexual attraction, desire, and erotic interest in the opposite sex. Debates exist about whether sexual identity should be categorized as a set of practices, a set of attitudes and desires, or as a self-identified concept. One might

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engage in heterosexual behaviors but not self-identify as heterosexual; similarly, one might not engage in heterosexual behaviors yet recognize attraction to the same sex. Still others might self-identify as heterosexual even while participating in same-sex behavior (e.g., heterosexual-identified women kissing other women at bars in front of their boyfriends). Further, heterosexuality is often considered invisible because of its privileged status. That is, heterosexuality primarily appears in relationship to homosexuality and bisexuality, particularly when recognizing the “heterosexual-homosexual continuum.” Because heterosexuality is often unrecognized as an identity, it confers a variety of privileges in Western culture. People are often assumed to be heterosexuality unless they identify themselves concretely as nonheterosexual (“coming out”). This constructs heterosexuality as the “normal” and “default” identity, putting those who do not identify as heterosexual at a distinct disadvantage. Some refer to the privileging of heterosexual identity over other identities as “heterosexism,” a theoretically different concept than “homophobia” because it references privilege rather than hatred, fear, or aversion. Feminist theorist, Adrienne Rich, famously identified heterosexuality as “compulsory,” meaning that homosexuality and heterosexuality are not constructed as equally acceptable and viable options for sexual identity. Rather, people are taught from an early age that heterosexuality is often considered the “normal” and “righteous” identity while heterosexuality or bisexuality are often considered “abnormal” and “deviant.” As such, all institutions privilege and favor heterosexuals, often at the expense of homosexuals. For example, the media rarely recognizes same sex couples but almost always portrays heterosexual couples. Girls and boys are taught in schools that they should find a partner of the opposite sex. The military does not recognize homosexuals but instead assumes that all service people are heterosexual. Legal and social situations also value heterosexuality above homosexuality. In many countries throughout the world, homosexuality is a punishable offense, where those caught engaging in samesex behaviors can be put in jail or even sentenced to death. Eighty countries continue to consider homosexuality illegal. For example, throughout the Middle

East, heterosexuality is the only recognized form of sexuality, as homosexual activity is punished with the death penalty in Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen. Since 1979, the Iranian government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual activity. Globally, accusations of homosexuality have led to arrests, murders, and mass “roundups” in a number of countries, including Zimbabwe, North Korea, China, Russia, Afghanistan, and Ghana. Recent debates in the United States about marriage have identified the unjust favoritism present in the fact that only heterosexual people can marry, while homosexual people cannot marry. Conservatives often argue against gay marriage based on the idea that heterosexuals can reproduce, though liberals often point out that artificial means of conception are possible and that conservatives simply do not want to recognize homosexual couples. Even wedding ceremonies favor heterosexuality, as women are expected to be “given away” by their fathers to their husbands, and men traditionally ask the father’s permission to marry his daughter. Homosexual couples have fought numerous legal battles over the right to marry, often confronting intense opposition within the conservative heterosexual community. Historical Context Historically, heterosexuality has not always existed, but rather, was invented in the late 1800s. Heterosexuality first referred to those people who had sex for reproduction, while homosexual behavior referred to those who had sex for pleasure. Thus, those who engaged in opposite sex eroticism for pleasure were labeled homosexuals. This changed in 1892 when Krafft-Ebbing published Psychopathia Sexualis, a text that classified sexual behavior into deviant and nondeviant categories. During this time, heterosexuality (which referenced the Greek word heteros—meaning “different” or “other”) evolved into its current definition: those who have sexual attraction and desire for the opposite sex. The word heterosexuality did not come into regular use until the early 1920s and was not recognized widely until the 1960s. Today’s use of the word straight is largely not considered progressive, in part because it references homosexuality as “bent,” “odd,” or “deviant.” Some argue that “same sex” and “opposite sex” should be used instead of “homosexu-



ality” and “heterosexuality,” as the former terms do not make assumptions about self-selected identity. Much research has examined heterosexuality as a set of practices, feelings, behaviors, and identities, with many prominent researchers finding that most people harbor both opposite sex and same sex attractions and practices. Alfred Kinsey’s work in the 1940s, followed by Fritz Klein’s work in the 1980s, found that most people have both heterosexual and homosexual experiences and sensations, and that most people are actually bisexual. He argued that sexual identity should be conceptualized along a six-point continuum from “totally heterosexual” to “totally homosexual” in order to reflect the reality that most people identity as “mostly” or “somewhat” homosexual. Kinsey argued that sexual identity is fluid and often shifts depending on age, social norms, changing sense of attraction to others, environmental influences, and peer group socialization. While some have criticized Kinsey’s work by pointing out that he oversampled homosexuals and sex offending prisoners, most recognize the homosexual-heterosexual continuum as a foundational concept in the study of both heterosexuality and homosexuality. Researchers have also asked whether sexual identity is innate or socially driven. Notably, most of this research has been directed toward homosexuals by heterosexuals, often to label homosexuals and homosexuality as deviant. In response to these research trends, Martin Rochlin invented the “heterosexual questionnaire” in order to sarcastically attack the absurd assumptions within this nature/nurture debate. The questionnaire asks heterosexuals: “What do you think caused your heterosexuality?,” “Is it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?,” “If you’ve never slept with a person of the same sex, how can you be sure you wouldn’t prefer that?,” “Why do heterosexuals feel compelled to seduce others into their lifestyle?,” and, “A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual men. Do you consider it safe to expose children to heterosexual male teachers, pediatricians, priests, or scoutmasters?” Such questions are intended to provoke discussion about the unquestioned interrogation of homosexuality identity and practices, and the largely unquestioned concept of heterosexuality. Other researchers have pointed out that heterosexuality depends largely on one’s context. For

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example, in locations where heterosexuality is more enforced, and gender roles are more fixed (e.g., rural America), those deviating from heterosexuality more often remain “in the closet.” Conversely, in urban spaces, where differences in sexual identity are more embraced, heterosexuality and homosexuality can exist more out in the open. Heavy pressures to present as heterosexual have led to a variety of resistances among nonheterosexual communities, including the establishment of “gay bars,” gay pride marches, and LGBT community centers. Conservatives often critique these resistances as being “showy” and “unnecessary,” citing that heterosexuals do not distinguish separate bars and parades. Liberals often rebut that heterosexism often leads to discrimination, violence, harassment, and punishment of those who do not identify as heterosexual, so these alternative spaces are necessary in order to provide safe space for nonheterosexuals. Globally, activists have rallied to end punishments for homosexual activity, particularly in countries that still jail and murder gay citizens. Heterosexuality has spawned much debate, particularly as it becomes marked publicly and within the research literatures. Many point out that, as long as heterosexuality persists as the unquestioned, assumed sexual identity that confers privilege, everyone is disadvantaged because they cannot properly choose their sexual identity without referencing “normality” and “abnormality.” Much like whiteness, masculinity, and wealth, heterosexuality often goes unnoticed as an identity, choice, or pattern of behavior, thereby distinctly disadvantaging those who do not ascribe to its tenants. See Also: Coming Out; Hate Crimes; Heterosexism; Homophobia; Homosexuality; LGBTQ; Marriage; SameSex Marriage. Further Readings Gray, Mary L. Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Katz, Jonathan Ned. The Invention of Heterosexuality. New York: Dutton Books, 1995. Krafft-Ebbing, Richard Von. Psychopathia Sexualis. New York: Arcade Books, 1998. Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence.” Signs, v.5/4 (1980).

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Rochlin, Marin. “The Heterosexual Questionnaire.” http:// monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/quest.html (accessed November 2009). Breanne Fahs Arizona State University

High School Teachers High school teachers in the United States public school system must be licensed by their state’s Department of Education to teach grades 7–12. The licensure process requires a bachelor’s degree in one’s content area, for example, English, math, sciences, history, foreign language, art, and/or music; admittance into an accredited teacher preparation program, which includes a minor in Education and a semester of directed student teaching; and a passing score on the PRAXIS examination, which is the national-level examination in one’s content area, classroom management, and pedagogical practices. Once these requirements have been fulfilled, the pre-service teacher may apply to the state board of education for a teaching license. Alternative licensure processes are also available for those who would like to pursue teaching careers after having had a number of years experience in the field, who have valid licenses in other content areas, or who have a major in a specific content area but have not taken the required Education course work. While most private schools do not require state licensure, they do, however, require the bachelor’s degree in the content area. While women have been exceptional teachers since Antiquity, research demonstrates that female teachers, when compared to their male counterparts, have historically had to do more with less—less educational opportunities, less salary, fewer resources, and fewer opportunities for professional advancement. History It is not an unknown fact that in ancient Greece, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato all studied under female teachers—Aristoclea, Diotima, and Aspasia, respectively. While the lower ranks of society during the medieval period would not receive scholarly educations, learned women thrived as scholars and

teachers in convents, which provided women the safe haven of a spiritual and intellectual community. Aristocratic girls would be educated in mathematics, history, and the classics right alongside their brothers. By the Renaissance, shifting ideas about women’s proper roles in society and the purpose of education limited women’s access to education. Ironically, it may have been in part because of women’s limited access to education and, thus, the religious and domestic nature of their resulting educations, that women were viewed as the moral guardians of children and most appropriate choices for guiding their early educations. Even so, women continued to serve as teachers in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a few pioneering teachers paved the way for others to obtain access to education, positions in the field, and professionalize the profession. Catharine Esther Beecher’s (1800–78) groundbreaking work in the early 19th century to construct a school for girls and send out her graduates to teaching positions across the country cut the path for hundreds of teachers to follow in their footsteps. Others early leaders include Rosa Philippine Duchesne (1769–1852), who opened three boarding schools for girls in early 19th-century Louisiana; Emma Willard (1787–1870), who opened Troy Female Seminary, which boasted a program of study as rigorous as neighboring boys’ schools; and Mary Lyon (1797– 1849), who founded Mount Holyoke college for girls, revised their curriculum, and raised the standard on female education. These women and others cut the path for greater access to education, and also worked across lines of race and class to ensure that underrepresented groups of girls would also have access to educational opportunities. Demographics The face of the high school teacher has changed remarkably. By the end of the 19th century, only 40 percent of public school teachers were male. By the turn of the 20th century, this number decreased to 30 percent. Of the 70 percent that were female, 90 percent were single. By 1969, the hiring policies that prevented married women from working in public schools were rewritten, which created greater access for employment for married women and, as a result, the number of single women teaching decreased to 29 percent. Today, teaching is one of the largest pro-



Female teachers, when compared to their male counterparts, have historically had to do more with less.

fessional occupations open for women. According to the most recent data reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 2001, 79 percent of public school teachers are female. The median age is 45 years old, and over 84 percent are married or widowed, divorced, or separated. Fifty-six percent of high school teachers hold a master’s or specialist degree; 43 percent hold a bachelor’s degree. High school teachers spend an average of 52 hours a week on teaching duties, and earn an average annual salary of $43,262; however, this figure varies by state. For instance, while the average annual income of a teacher in California, Connecticut, Illinois, and New York is over $55,000, the average annual income for a teacher in Alabama, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia is $43,000 and under. The data demonstrates that there are proportionally more women than men in classrooms and that the women who teach high school, today, are generally older than their female forebears, work longer hours, and hold higher professional degrees. This trend may be due to enrollment increases, changing expectations of women, and the professionalization of the profession. In The Condition of Education 2007, statistics for 2003–04 indicate that of the 3,313,000 elementary

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and secondary teachers in the United States, 25.2 percent are male and 74. 8 percent are female. The gap narrows for high school teachers when the elementary teachers are separated out. The report shows that 84.1 percent of elementary teachers are female while at the secondary level only 56.7 percent are female. These data suggest that as the educational level rises, the proportion of female to male teachers falls. In terms of race/ethnicity, in public schools 84.2 percent are white, 7.5 percent of teachers are black, 5.5 percent are Hispanic, 1.3 percent are Asian, .2 percent are Pacific Islander, and .6 percent are American Indian/Alaska Native. When student enrollment data for high schools is compared to these demographics on teaching staff, the comparison demonstrates that teachers in the United States are increasingly white, middle-aged, and female while our students are from increasingly diverse backgrounds—racially, ethnically, and economically. For instance, while U.S. high school teachers are 84.2 percent white, U.S. high school students are only 63.4 percent white. The Gendering of Education Studies show that the gender of the teacher plays a minor role in classroom management issues, that is, instructional supervision, student supervision, and behavioral supervision. What does account for influence is the school’s setting, particularly whether it is a rural or urban location. While the gender of the teacher is not critical in determining teacher response to students, the gender of the student has been found to be a determining factor. Research indicates that at the high school level, male students receive more praise, criticism, and remediation from male and female teachers than do female students. Additionally, recent research reveals that when asked to evaluate inequities in the school environment, female teachers’ perceptions were significantly more favorable than the perceptions of their male counterparts. Recent scholarship documents gender inequities in the field of Education for women high school teachers. Salary parity for male and female high school teachers has not been achieved. According to NCES data for 2003–04, female teachers earned $46,600 to men’s $51,000. Wages for women in the teaching ranks remain disproportionate to wages for men. This is alarming since in public schools women outnumber men in the classroom. Research also documents

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the gender imbalance in the number of women in teaching positions versus the number of women in administrative positions. U.S. educational statistics document that 84.5 percent percent of public school teachers are women. Even though women dominate teaching positions, their male counterparts dominate the top executive positions. One study reveals that in 1994 women held only 20 percent of the executive positions in education. While women provide the majority of the service in our schools, men provide the majority of the leadership and have the lion’s share of the power and authority. While the power gap has been narrowing in the past 20 years, research demonstrates that gender discrimination still figures significantly in the educational arena. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, Elementary and High School; Gender, Defined; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Duffy, Jim, et al. “Classroom Interactions: Gender of Teacher, Gender of Student, and Classroom Subject.” Sex Roles, v.45 (2001). Eisenmann, Linda, ed. Historical Dictionary of Women’s Education in the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Hoffman, Nancy. Woman’s True Profession: Voices From the History of Teaching. New York: Feminist Press, 1981. Huang, Shwu-yong L. “Investigating High School Teachers’ Perceptions of School Environment.” Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, 2000. Lee, Valerie. “Gender Equity in Teachers’ Salaries: A Multilevel Approach.” Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis, v.12 (1990). McCreight, Carolyn. Female Superintendents, Barriers, and the Struggle for Equity. Report ED432041. U.S. Department of Education, 1999. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2007). The Condition of Education 2007 (NCES 2007-064). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. http://nces.ed.gov (accessed April 2010). Phyllis Thompson East Tennessee State University

Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints Gurus in Hindu religion, women or men have a distinct and revered role as philosopher and guide to help their disciples attain the goal of a Hindu life— moksha or salvation—through maintaining contact with the nonrelational, nondual, supreme consciousness that is both self and God. Globalization has made access to gurus simpler than it was in olden times, and the circle of their influence has become much more extensive. The tradition of Hindu women in the role of guru is not new and can be traced to the presence of women as sages in ancient India, such as Devi Leilama, the first to establish guilds in India in the 5th century; Dhanwantari, a woman who was knowledgeable about the Ayurvedic system of medicine; Karraikal Ammeiyar in the 6th century; and Aandaal in the 8th century, who was the only woman Alvar of Vaishnavism. Also, it was a woman guru, Leelavati, who in 6000 b.c.e. established mathematical lore in India, leading eventually to formulation of the decimal system in later centuries. Female Sages During the Vedic times also, there emerged women sages like Maitreyi, Gargi, Ghosha, Lopamudra, and many more. A perceptible drop in women’s status can be traced most conclusively to post-Vedic times during the origin of Manusmriti and puranas, resulting in the corruption of religion, rise in ritualistic practices, and establishment of rigid caste and gender hierarchies. During the Brahmin-dominated times, women saints emerged as part of the Bhakti movement during the 15th century. After the downfall in women’s status during the Muslim invasions in India, followed by British colonization, there emerged the social reformist movement. As part of this movement, the ancient practices of Hindu life were revived through the establishment of ashramas and the Hindu concept of four stages of life. Men like Shree Aurobindo Ghosh, Ram Krishna Paramhans became religious leaders, and their wives and women followers established their own identities as spiritual leaders with a sociopolitico-religious influence upon their devotees and beyond. Ma Sarda,



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hailed as the divine mother, was the wife of Sri Ram Krishna Paramhans, who was a highly revered mystic saint. Mira, a devotee of Aurobindo, became “The Mother” and she presided over the Aurobindo Ashram. History is full of such female gurus. The followers have implicit belief in these women gurus and their power to orient the followers to the “real truth.” Considered a symbol of goddesses themselves, these women saints or gurus are as much a part of established ashramas and institutionalized practices of spiritual devotion as their male counterparts. Karen Pechilis refers to the gurus profiled in her text, The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States, as the “third-wave gurus.” They are based out of India and abroad, some of them are married while some others are unmarried. She identifies self-initiated female gurus like Anandmayi Ma, or gurus who have been initiated by other female gurus, like Anasuya Devi. Gurus like Gurumaayi Chidvilasananda were born into middleclass families that were devotees of a guru, (in this instance, Swami Muktananda) and were initiated into the order by a male guru. These women draw substantively from the spirit of the Bhakti cult, of secular teachings, and social acceptance of nonrelational lives, where their devotion to God allows their behavior to be outside the purview of traditional gender norms. In fact, gender does not play a role in the spiritual arena. Also, the female gurus continue to be manifestations of the Shakti, symbolic of the Female as Power in the post-Vedic era and the tantric traditions of Hinduism, where the mother has a higher position and is worthy of worship. The women like Anandmayi Ma and Ammachi, who became gurus and initiated themselves, were subjected to ridicule and early rejection. However, their trances like meditation and related revelations led to the recognition of their superior powers, which eventually led to the acceptance of their exalted existences by their families/communities. Their interaction with their devotees and followers includes darshan or showing their presence, listening to problems and performing miracles to resolve them, and giving of Prasad or blessing food.

problems, rights of girl children, and other relevant issues. Some of these saints are associated with international organizations such as the United Nations and its initiatives. Mata Amritanandamayi is affiliated with the global movement for peace and nonviolence and has also received awards. Anandmurti Gurumaa started Shakti with the mission of empowering female children in India and to stop female foeticide. CEAP (Computer Education Awareness Program) is another program started under the Shakti umbrella. There is a range of unique and common characteristics that the women gurus and saints display. Some interact extensively with people, and influence the public sphere through being spiritual gurus to the powerful and political entities; some give lectures and participate in public forums; still others run ashramas with local devotees; a few maintain complete silence and have no overt affiliations with any established religious bodies. Anandmayi Mata was the religious guru of a number of politicians ranging from Jawahar Lal to Govind Ballabh Pant to Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Ma Meera, who hails from the south of India, now lives in Germany with her husband and a close female companion, does not have an ashram or teaching. Jayashri ma has a Tantric and a Bhakti lineage; she maintains a very low profile, is an unmarried woman who works as a primary school teacher and practices as a sadhvi with a strong following in Bengal. These gurus also have groups of followers. Some, like Ma Meera, have degrees of association with different groups, while a rare few maintain the same degree of closeness with and distance from all their devotees, like Shree Ma. Some of them who are known and function in the public realm seem to have a widespread organizational set up to support them, and a few work alone and stay away from public life. A role that these female gurus, right from Gauri ma who was initiated into religion by Ramkrishna, to Ammachi, have been performing is reinforcing positive values of womanhood, education, and knowledge while at the same time generating religious arguments for the empowerment of women. The creation of women icons in a traditional context is meaningful and helps counter the rigid interpretations of women, their generic nature, and socially sanctioned roles and responsibilities as listed in texts such as the Manusmriti and Streedharma that question women’s

Female Gurus and Saints Gurus, at the turn of the century, are active in raising awareness of women’s cause, pertinent social

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right to a religious public life that prevents women from performing what was traditionally considered their primary social duty, that is, service to man. Additionally, these women saints are doing for secularism what most intellectual dialogues cannot. They are facilitating a flexible spiritualism that allows for members of different religious groups to participate. Through the religious organizations, such as the one established by Ammachi in Los Angeles, the essence of Hinduism, which is a belief in pluralistic existence, has found popular support. See Also: Hinduism; India; Kumari, Living Goddess in Nepal; Math, Mata Amritanandamayi (“Amma”); Nepal; Religion, Women in.

Further Readings Hallstrom, Lisa. Mother of Bliss: Anandamayi Ma (1896– 1982). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pechilis, Karen, ed. The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. Selva Raj, J. “Passage to America: Ammachi on American Soil.” In Thomas Forsthoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes, eds., Gurus in America. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Shweta Singh Loyola University Chicago

Hinduism Hinduism is considered to be the oldest living religion in the world. It was not founded on the teachings of one man, nor was it based on the doctrines of one single book. The Vedas, the oldest of the Hindu scriptures existed for many centuries before the sacred writings of any other religion. In the Vedas, there is no mention of the words Hindu or Hinduism. Rather, the religion is described as “Sanathana Dharma,” or guidelines for a fulfilled life leading to Eternal Bliss. The terms Hindu and Hinduism seem to have originated from the time of Indus Valley Civilization, around 2500 b.c.e. In the Vedas, God is described as the Absolute or Brahman from which humans or Atmans have

emanated. Uniting the Atman back with Brahman is the state of Eternal Bliss and the ultimate goal of human life. The Vedas enumerate the guidelines, conducts, and duties for humans to reach this goal. The concepts of Karma and Rebirth are fundamental to Hinduism. Karma, or the fruits of the Atman’s actions, is the primary determinant of the length of time it takes before its final reunion with Brahman. The Atman is believed to take several births, one after the other, based on the good and bad actions in its previous life, before reuniting with Brahman. The elements of nature are the divine gifts given by the Brahman to assist humans in their pursuit of good Karma, leading to ultimate Bliss. Thus, all forms of nature represent divinity and are treated equivalent to the Brahman by the Hindus. Place of Women in Hindu Scriptures The Vedas visualize the Absolute Supreme as the repository of two forms of energy that govern the universe: profound potential energy represented by the male form, and the manifested kinetic energy represented by the female form. The two forms of God are inseparable and complementary to each other. The three aspects of the universe, namely, creation, preservation, and absolution are assigned to the three male forms, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (the Divine Trinity of Hinduism). Their female consorts, Saraswati (Goddess of Knowledge), Lakshmi (Goddess of Wealth), and Parvati (Goddess of Strength) represent the kinetic energy. The worship of the female aspect of God as Shakti or Devi is deeply rooted in Hinduism. It is perhaps the only religion that has scriptures, prayers, and temples exclusively devoted to Goddesses. The Vedas hold woman in high esteem and address her as Dharma Patni (one who promotes and preserves the rightful conducts of life). She is expected to play an integral role in all religious activities of the family. Hindu Women Through the Ages In spite of the exalted position assigned to women in the Vedas, the status of women has gone through quite a few ups and downs in the Hindu society. The post–Vedic period saw the establishment of Manu Smriti (Codes of Manu—approximately dated 200 b.c.e.) by the divine sage, Manu, who systemized the



social and religious laws of Hinduism. These laws still influence the life of Hindus. The classification of society into four castes (Varnas) and the division of human life into four stages (Ashramas) appeared first in Hindu society through Manusmriti, that enumerated laws called Varna-Ashrama-Dharma. These spell out the Dharmas, or appropriate conducts for persons in each stage of life and each walk of life. Manusmriti states that women are to be revered, cherished, and cared for by other family members in all castes and at all stages, as a daughter by parents, as a wife by the husband, and as a mother by the sons. “Where women are honored, in that family, great men are born. Where women pass their days in misery and sorrow, the family soon perishes entirely. Where the women are happy, the family continually prospers” (Manusmriti 3:55–57). These statements were exemplified in the two famous Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, where the mistreatment of one woman (Sita in Ramayana and Draupati in Mahabharata) brought on the destruction of an entire kingdom. Medieval India saw several changes in Hindu religious practices. Self-proclaimed religious leaders interpreted Manusmriti to their advantage, especially with respect to women. Manu’s guidelines on women were misread to reflect women as dependent entities with no freedom of choice. Thus their status was reduced to a subservient role in the family and their rights and freedom were suppressed by the male dominated society. Women were mostly homebound, illiterate, and were prohibited from even studying the scriptures. The slow deterioration of the Hindu social structure during the medieval centuries gave rise to reformers who strived to rejuvenate and reform Hinduism. But attempts to elevate the status of Hindu women were only sporadic. However, a few significant Hindu women during this period defied the norms of a homebound life, educated themselves, studied the scriptures, and preached unconditional love and devotion to God. For example, in the 12th century, Akka Mahadevi was a female saint with an unusually modern outlook. She not only preached devotion to Shiva, but she was also venerated as a symbol of women’s equality and an early champion of women’s emancipation. In the 16th century, Mira Bai, a Rajput princess who was widowed in her early

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married life, ignored the normal Hindu codes of conduct set for the widows at that time, and became an ardent musician and devotee of Lord Krishna. She lived in ecstasy of being in love with God and composed several hymns in His praise that are used in Hindu prayers even to this day. During the 19th and early 20th centuries two important factors were instrumental in elevating the status of Hindu women. One was the revival of the Shakti movement, the primary worship of God in the female form. One of its famous proponents was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who was an intense worshipper of Shakti (or Kali, as she was known in western India). It was believed that during his intense and lengthy meditations on Kali, he was actually able to converse with Kali and receive answers to many philosophical questions. His writings based on these conversations became the guiding light for such Hindu leaders as Swami Vivekananda. The second factor was the British colonization of India and the independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. This had a lasting influence on the changing role of women in Hindu society. Women were encouraged to come out of their shells and pursue higher education, becoming lawyers, physicians, scientists, political leaders, and social reformers. Some women ventured out to travel abroad in pursuit of higher education. Among the significant women leaders of this time, Sarojini Naidu and Vijayalakshmi Pandit stand at the forefront. Sarojini Naidu, an accomplished English poet and an eloquent orator, worked alongside Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian National Congress, and was elected the first female president of the Indian Congress. She also held the distinction of being the first female governor of a state after India’s independence. Vijayalakshmi Pandit, who was a talented writer and orator, held the distinction of being the first female cabinet minister in 1936, even before independence. She was also the first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly. Indira Gandhi, who was the niece of Vijayalakshmi Pandit, followed in her footsteps and became the first female prime minister of India. Hindu Women in Today’s World The Hindu woman’s traditional role in the family has changed a great deal since the mid-20th century.

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Globalization and Western cultures have played a significant part in the evolution of modern Hindu women. Many have entered the traditionally male professions of medicine, engineering, finance, science, and, technology. These women still continue to fulfill their family duties, as defined by the Hindu guidelines, while achieving success in their professions. Many women have stepped forward to fight for women’s rights and to elevate the status of women in the Hindu society. Through their efforts, legislations to stop exploitation of women have been successfully enacted. The Sarda Act of 1929, the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, and the further amendments of these Acts in the 1980s exemplify this effort. Divorce and remarriage for women, practices that were once considered “un-Hindu,” have become socially and morally acceptable in current Hindu society. Some traditionalists view these changes as a deterioration of Hindu values, while modernists view these as tools of empowerment of Hindu women. On another front, the emergence of female Hindu gurus and religious exponents has grown to a significant extent in today’s world. Some have denounced the traditional role of wife and mother to propagate the values of Hindu principles and philosophy, while others maintain their roles as wives and mothers, and also function as teachers and orators who strive to revive and rejuvenate Hinduism. They are educated in the scriptures and propagate the Hindu way of life. For example, Ma Amritananda Mayi (familiarly know as Ammachi) gives comfort and solace to her many followers with her divine hug, religious lectures, and prayerful music, and has attracted many Western followers to Hinduism. In the Hindu religious order of Brahmakumaris (Daughters of God) established in 1961 in northern India, most of the leaders are women from many walks of life. This organization has branches all over the world, and is focused on fostering individual and social peace and harmony through Hindu values and practices. In yet another category of female Hindu religious proponents are the eminent careers of women like Premaji Pandurang and Visaka Hari. Pandurang and Hari are eloquent orators and are skilled in the theatrical art form of musical religious discourses. They travel within India and around the world to propagate Hindu values, especially among Hindu children growing up in multicultural societies.

In the 21st century, there are many examples of Hindu women fulfilling multiple roles as career professionals, exponents of Hindu Dharma, and able leaders of their families and communities. In a changing world, Hindu society is continuously redefining the role of women in the institutions of family and society. The modern Hindu woman is ready to meet the challenges of her new role while striving to preserve the values of her religion. See Also: Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints; Math, Mata Amritanandamayi (“Amma”); Navdanya; Religion, Women in; Representation of Women; Representation of Women in Government, International; Suttee. Further Readings Godbole, Rohini and Ram Ramaswamy. Lilavathi’s Daughters: The Women Scientists of India. Bangalore, India: Indian Academy of Sciences, 2008. Leslie, Julia. Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1992. Londhe, S. A Tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time About India and Her Culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publications, 2008. Manusmriti Sanskrit text. http://www.scribd.com /doc/7189037/manu-smriti (accessed July 2010). Pechillis, Karen. The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. Vasantha Narasimhan Skidmore College

Hip Hop The genre of hip hop has long stirred controversy because of its often negative depiction of women. Scores of hip hop videos include scantily-clad women who gyrate violently, pole dance, or make other sexually suggestive actions. Though this depiction continues, the male-dominated hip hop industry has witnessed a rising number of successful female artists. Some of these artists, like their male counterparts, continue to objectify themselves and other women; conversely, a growing number of female hip hop artists work to change the perception of women in the



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genre, and send positive, uplifting messages to their listeners—females in particular. The portrayal of women in hip hop videos serves as a major point of contention. Almost all videos in the genre by male artists show a male in a position of power (equivalent, often, to the role of a pimp) and women in subservient roles (synonymous with prostitutes). Women are further exploited by the typical fashion formula for most hip hop videos. Women wear very little clothing, and videomakers create shots where women’s breasts and backsides are often emphasized. While women voluntarily participate in these videos and thus choose to function in a role that objectifies and demeans women, the male artists and video designers continue to rely on the motif of women as sex objects and secondary citizens in order to heighten the video’s appeal and success. Similarly, in two episodes of the True Hollywood Story series (titled “Hip Hop Wives”), women glorified the hip hop lifestyle, in which male artists showered them with expensive cars, homes, clothing, and jewelry. While the episode glamorized the status of wives of hip hop artists, the show also devoted time to exploring problems faced by many of hip hop artists’ wives, including husbands who are unfaithful and abusive.

Conversely, many female artists pride themselves on creating more positive portrayals of women in their lyrics. Artists in this category include the Angolanborn Namibian singer Lady May, who tries to inspire confidence in her listeners. Sister Fa from Senegal not only imparts positive messages with her lyrics, but also held a tour called “Education sans Mutilation” in 2008, during which she rallied against and created awareness about female genital mutilation. Perhaps the most powerful international event involving female hip hop artists remains the B-girl Be festival, which is sponsored by Intermedia Arts, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The festival brings together dozens of international female hip hop superstars, and works to change the perception of women in the hip hop industry. The landscape of hip hop has changed drastically since its inception in 1970s New York. Women, often used as sexual props in hip hop videos, now also make vital contributions to the creative, artistic aspect of the genre. In contrast to their male colleagues, more female artists concern themselves with changing the perception of women in the genre, rather than record sales.

Female Success in an Otherwise Male-Dominated Field The hip hop genre, long dominated by males, has recently seen explosive success by numerous female artists. The most successful female artists are American, though African female artists have also grown in number and popularity. Some of the most well-known female American hip hop artists include Lil’ Kim, Rihanna, Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, and Beyoncé. Artists like Lil’ Kim and Rihanna, however, perpetuate objectifying women. In her song “How Many Licks,” Lil’ Kim chronicles her experiences with scores of men, judging each of them on how well they performed oral sex. Rihanna highly sexualizes violence in her video “Russian Roulette,” during which Rihanna and a man engage in a game of roulette. Rihanna refuses to back down from the game, and at one point is shown in a deep pool of water where bullets strike her. Rihanna survives the game, but nonetheless her skimpy costumes, coupled with her depiction of violence against women, cause concern in many viewers about the status of women in hip hop.

Further Readings Cheney, Charise. Brothers Gonna Work It Out: Sexual Politics in the Golden Age of Rap Nationalism. New York: New York University Press, 2005. Watkins, S. Craig. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.

See Also: Queen Latifah; Representation of Women; Rock Music, Women in.

Karley Adney University of Wisconsin

HIV/AIDS: Africa Since 1985, the proportion of women infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) globally has risen from 35 percent to 50 percent, with the numbers of women being infected with HIV increasing substantially in every global region. In 2008, women made up half of all people living with HIV. Of the 15.7 million women living with HIV globally, 76 percent

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live in sub-Saharan Africa. The high levels of HIV infection among women in sub-Saharan Africa has serious implications for the welfare of families, as women are the main caregivers and grow most of the subsistence crops that contribute to the food security of households and communities. The high levels of female HIV infection expose the vulnerability of women to this deadly disease and indicate high levels of discrimination against women in the region. Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a new disease that was first identified by the medical community in 1982. Although the disease has been recognized for almost 30 years, there is still no cure or vaccine, and in that period the disease has spread to every global region. It is estimated that since the epidemic began, over 60 million people worldwide have been infected. HIV/AIDS is acknowledged to be one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. The seriousness of the epidemic was acknowledged by the international community when in 1996, the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, was set up to lead the fight to control and eliminate the disease. In 2000, the detrimental effect of the pandemic on the development of some of the poorest regions of the world—especially Africa— was recognized when the halting and reversal of the spread of HIV infection by 2015 was accepted as a United Nations Millennium Development Target. This article explores the main features of the HIV/ AIDS epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa and investigates the feminization of the epidemic in the region, highlighting the principal factors responsible for high levels of female infection. The HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa Since the beginning of the epidemic, sub-Saharan Africa has been the global region most severely affected by HIV/AIDS. By the mid-1990s, AIDS had become the leading cause of death in the region. In 2008, it was home to 22.4 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS—accounting for 67 percent of the global total. Sub-Saharan Africa bears the brunt of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, with adult (those aged 15–49 years) prevalence in the region recorded at approximately 5 percent. Over the last decade, the data suggest that prevalence rates are beginning to decline in the region as the rate of new HIV infec-

tions has slowly declined. The number of new infections in the region in 2008 was approximately 25 percent lower than at the epidemic’s peak in the region in 1995. However, in 2008 the region accounted for 68 percent of new global HIV infections of adults and 91 percent of new infections among children. The disease continues to have a devastating effect on families, communities, and national economies in the region. There is not a single sub-Saharan African HIV/ AIDS epidemic. The epidemics affecting this region are highly varied, with differences between and within regions. Southern Africa is the region most heavily affected by the disease, followed by East Africa, with some countries in West and Central Africa displaying some worrying increases in prevalence rates. The nine countries making up the region of southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) account for approximately 32 percent of global cases of HIV/AIDS and 34 percent of AIDS deaths yet is home to only 2 percent of the world’s population. The Republic of South Africa has the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases of any country in the world, estimated at 5.7 million—a figure that continues to rise. Swaziland has the most severe levels of infection in the world, with an adult prevalence rate of 26 percent. Botswana, Lesotho, and Namibia all have rates between 20 and 24 percent. In East Africa, the evidence suggests that HIV prevalence rates are stabilizing and in some regions may be declining. HIV prevalence in West and central Africa is much lower than southern Africa; however, there are a number of serious national epidemics, including in Côte d’Ivoire, with an adult prevalence rate of 3.9 percent, and Ghana, with a prevalence rate of 1.9 percent. HIV is spread by contact with infected bodily fluids, such as blood, sexual secretions, and breast milk. In sub-Saharan Africa, the epidemic is primarily spread by unsafe heterosexual activity, which accounts for 94 percent of infections, and it is young, sexually active adults who are most at risk. The peak age of AIDS cases in the region is 35–45 years for men and 30–34 years for women. There are also high levels of motherto-child transmission, which can occur in the womb, during childbirth, and through breast feeding, which in 2008 accounted for an estimated 390,000 infant and child infections in the region—90 percent of the



global total. Infant and child cases of HIV are largely responsible for the increase in under-5 mortality rates over the last decade in sub-Saharan Africa. Feminization of HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa Women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, with 59 percent of cases of HIV in the region occurring among women. For every 10 adult men infected with HIV, there are 14 infected women in the region. Of particular concern is the recent dramatic increase in HIV infection among young women in sub-Saharan Africa. Young women aged 15–24 years now make up 60 percent of new HIV infection in the region, and evidence from Kenya indicates that young women aged 15–19 years are three times more likely to be infected than young men of the same age, and 20–24-year-old women are 5.5 times more likely to be living with HIV than men in the same age cohort. In Tanzania, young women aged 15–24 years are four times more likely than men to be living with HIV. In all nine southern African countries, in young women aged 15–24 years, HIV prevalence is three times higher than among men of the same age. What is especially concerning is the evidence that married faithful women are among the groups at greatest risk of infection. Studies in Kenya and Zambia reveal higher rates of HIV infection among young married women (aged 15–19 years) than among their sexually active unmarried female peers. The reasons are many and complex, but the fact that husbands are usually older than boyfriends, and thus more likely to be HIV-positive when they marry, and that married women are more frequently exposed to unprotected sex, probably account for this difference in infection rates. Research in 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa indicates that husbands of 15–19-year-old women are on average 10 years older than their wives. Increasingly, as well, men have been initiating sex with younger and younger female partners, placing young women at increasing risk of HIV infection. Women’s Vulnerability to HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa Physiologically, women are more vulnerable to HIV infection than men, but their physiological vulnerability is compounded in sub-Saharan Africa by

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severe economic, social, cultural, and legal disadvantages. HIV/AIDS highlights gender inequality in subSaharan Africa; in particular, the disease exposes the discrimination faced by women in the region, which affects their own health, the health of their children, and the welfare of their families. Physiological Factors Biologically, women are more at risk of contracting HIV than men. It is much easier for a woman to contract the disease in unprotected sex from an infected man than the other way round. This is thought to be because women have a larger surface area of mucous membrane exposed during sexual intercourse, and they are exposed to a larger quantity of infectious fluids (semen) than men. Women are also more susceptible because of hormonal changes, vaginal microbial ecology, and higher prevalence of untreated sexually transmitted infections. Social and Cultural Vulnerability The United Nations Secretary-General’s Task Force on Women, Girls, and HIV/AIDS in southern Africa has identified three key factors that contribute to the greater vulnerability of women and girls to HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. These are the culture of silence surrounding sexuality, exploitative transactional and intergenerational sex, and violence against women. All are issues that mean women are less able to exercise control over their bodies and lives, than men. Culture of Silence. In most societies in sub-Saharan Africa, cultural expectations expect men to have multiple partners, whereas women are expected to abstain or be faithful. This contributes to a culture of silence around sexual and reproductive health, as couples do not discuss their sexual relationships or behavior. By fulfilling expected gender roles, both men and women are increasing their risk of HIV infection. Exploitative Sexual Relationships. Lack of education and limited income-earning opportunities often mean women are very dependent on men for their livelihoods. This social and economic dependence on men often means that women are unable to refuse sex or negotiate the use of condoms. Many women with no means of support turn to transactional sex. These women, who are often marginalized by society, are at greater risk of becoming infected with HIV. Many of

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these women desperately need money to feed their children and may themselves be widowed by AIDS. They are in no position to insist that their customers use condoms. This means that if they are not already HIV-positive, they are at risk of acquiring the infection, and if they are HIV-positive, they can pass it on to their clients. These clients then take the infection home to their wives. Violence Against Women. Violence in the form of coerced sex or rape may result in HIV infection, especially as coerced sex may result in the tearing of sensitive tissue. Studies have found that many young women report that their first sexual encounter was forced. South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence and, by no coincidence, has a high HIV prevalence rate. In some parts of Africa there is a belief that having sex with a virgin can cure HIV infection. This totally mistaken belief has lead to the rape of many young women and children, including babies, by HIV-positive men. Conflict situations aggravate a number of risk factors for women, with women more at risk of rape and sexual assault then men in conflict situations. In 2007, major agencies such as UNAIDS and the World Health Organization agreed about the critical links between violence against women and HIV, but action by governments and international organizations has been weak. Antiretroviral Treatment for Women in Sub-Saharan Africa Significant progress has been made since the signing of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in providing HIV testing, counseling, and antiretroviral treatment for people, and in particular women, in sub-Saharan Africa. In the high-prevalence regions of East and southern Africa, 58 percent of HIV-positive pregnant women were receiving antiretroviral therapies in 2008, up from only 12 percent in 2004. In Botswana, Namibia, and Swaziland, 80 percent of HIV-positive pregnant women are provided with antiretroviral therapies. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that since the turn of the millennium, the provision of antiretroviral therapies to HIV-positive pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa has averted 134,000 cumulative new HIV infections among infants and children. Preventing mothers from dying of AIDS and preventing babies

from becoming infected with HIV is a priority focus for UNAIDS. Although antiretroviral therapy can allow people infected with HIV to live longer, betterquality lives with the disease and can prevent motherto-child infection, it is only by reducing the inequality between women and men and addressing human rights violations against women that HIV infection rates among women in sub-Saharan Africa will begin to be halted and even reversed. See Also: Rape and HIV; Sex Workers; Sexually Transmitted Infections. Further Readings Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). “AIDS Epidemic Update December 2008.” Geneva: UNAIDS, 2009. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). “Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. Progress Report.” Geneva: UNAIDS, 2006. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), et al. “Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis.” Geneva: UNAIDS, 2004. Quinn, T.C. and J. Overbaugh. “HIV/AIDS in Women: An Expanding Epidemic.” Science, v.308 (2005). Sen, G. and P. Ostlin. “Unequal, Unfair, Ineffective and Inefficient Gender Inequality in Health: Why It Exists and How We Can Change It.” Final Report to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network, 2007. World Health Organization. Gender and HIV/AIDS. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2003. Hazel Rose Barrett Coventry University

HIV/AIDS: Asia Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which attacks the body’s cellular defense mechanisms that help fight off infections. HIV is transmitted by the exchange of bodily fluids through sexual activity, blood and plasma transfusions, injection drug use (IDU) and unsterile syringes, and mother-to-child transmission (MTCT). HIV/AIDS is not curable, but



antiretroviral therapies (ARTs) can significantly delay the onset of fatal complications related to AIDS, help prevent MTCT as well as the opportunistic infections that occur as a result of lowered immunity. However, many Asian countries lack the financial and logistical resources required to provide adequate ART coverage; over two-thirds of Asia’s HIV-positive population has no access to ARTs. Heterosexual contact has become the main driver of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Asia, contributing to its feminization in many of its countries. The sheer size of the female demographic at risk of infection in densely populated Asia also makes addressing HIV/AIDS an imperative. Moreover, women’s higher biological susceptibility as compared to men is compounded by their socioeconomic and religious–cultural contexts, making it a major concern not just epidemiologically but also in human rights terms. Additionally, the potential socioeconomic cost due to disruption of women’s pivotal roles as producers and reproducers is immense. Incidence and patterns of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Asia, the above referenced bio-, geo-, and socioeconomic vulnerabilities of its women and consequent policy concerns are considered here. Incidence, Prevalence, Trends, and Patterns In the 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was already sweeping through much of the world, but Asia’s first cases were identified only by the mid-decade. However, by the 1990s, HIV/AIDS became a “pandemic” or global epidemic as it spread rapidly through southeast and then south Asia. By 2008, Asia accounted for almost six million of the estimated 33 million people living worldwide with HIV/AIDS, second only to sub-Saharan Africa, with India the largest single contributor with 2.5 million persons living with HIV/ AIDS (PLWHAs). Asia is defined here as spanning from the Indonesia in the east to Turkey in the west, and from Russia in the north to the Maldives in the south. Regional divisions are: south and southeast Asia, east Asia, central Asia, and west Asia (Middle East). Women aged 15 and above now comprise over a third of all PLWHAs in Asia, and their proportion is slowly rising. Overall adult prevalence rates of HIV are low at less than 1 percent in all Asian countries except Thailand. This is one of the reasons the magnitude of the epidemic and its risk is frequently not fully grasped.

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Women in particular often lack awareness about HIV/AIDS and its dynamics, enhanced by low-risk perception due to their own relatively lower levels of voluntary participation in “risky behavior” (IDU, unprotected sex, and/or multiple sexual partners) as compared to men, contributing to their greater vulnerability. Lack of awareness and low-risk perception is partly responsible for the current feminization of the epidemic because women often do not, or traditionally cannot take protective measures, particularly within marriage. The trajectory of the HIV/AIDS epidemic largely began in the “Golden Triangle” of the continent’s drug industry, primarily affecting injection drug users in Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar, and continuing along a corridor through India to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal. Spreading primarily through heterosexual contact, the epidemic soon widened to include the overlapping and thriving sex industry, affecting not only female commercial sex workers (CSWs), but also extending from the clients to their non-CSW partners. Injection drug users and CSWs continue to be the most affected groups in Asia, still directly and indirectly impacting the feminization of the epidemic. A third group, men having sex with men (MSMs) are also significant in this process in that many are married or have regular heterosexual female partners. This triad of “high-risk” groups, along with mobile populations such as migrants and truck drivers play a crucial role in conveying the infection to the general and “low risk” female populations by acting as a “bridge population.” Asia is a diverse continent with several distinct regions, each of which displays extremely disparate patterns of HIV/AIDS occurrence, both inter- and intraregionally. Incidence and rates have typically ranged from very high (e.g., India and Thailand, respectively) to very low (Maldives, Japan, west Asia). Over the past decade, previously high-prevalence countries like Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia have registered declining prevalence due to adoption of extensive prevention programs particularly targeting CSWs and injection drug users. However, HIV/ AIDS is on the rise in countries such as China, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Russia. Causation for these disparate trends also varies: for instance, injection drug users and sexual contact are universally important driving forces of the epidemic across all of Asia, but particularly so in countries named above that lie along

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Neighbors in India shunned this woman and her child after learning that the baby was HIV-positive.

human and/or drug trafficking routes. Also, countries in west Asia have consistently shown low incidence: the protective influence of Islam’s conservative social mores has been named as a cause, as has been underreporting due to very the same reason. Guest workers to this region are also important as a bridge population between areas of origin and destination. Among women in Asia, the primary emergent trend of HIV/AIDS occurrence is the increasing incidence of new infections, both in certain “high risk” groups, and in the general population. A rise in HIV infections among injection drug users has been observed in parts of China and Central Asia with the proliferation of the drug trade in these areas. The epidemic is also increasingly extending into previously “low risk” populations such as monogamous married

Socioeconomic Contexts of Vulnerability Despite regional variations, Asia’s common social characteristics of deep-seated patriarchal and agehierarchical systems, along with strong cultural/religious normativity are extremely influential in determining the HIV/AIDS situation among women. The low social status of women across Asia manifests itself in low levels of investment in women’s education and earning potential, health and overall development, and practices such as early marriage and condoning of abuse. Early marriage, common in south and west Asia, not only begins women’s risk earlier, but also places them at the lower tiers of the gender and age hierarchies, adversely affecting levels of autonomy, including regarding sexual encounters. Domestic and structural (social) abuse is also common in Asia, and its relationship with HIV/AIDS is bidirectional. Abusive relationships often entail coercive sex, which increases the chances of HIV infection in areas where epidemic prevalence is high, particularly given women’s biological vulnerability. Conversely, attempts to negotiate safe sex or refuse it, or seek testing and other services are all seen as reasons to perpetrate violence and force sex on women, again raising risk. The role of religion may be protective or facilitative; for reasons noted before, HIV incidence is typically low in predominantly Muslim countries. However, such countries often have strongly patriarchal mores and practices (e.g., early marriage in Bangladesh, restrictions on education/awareness and healthcare in Saudi Arabia), creating disempowerment and greater vulnerability for women. Myths and cultural beliefs rooted in sexual politics of power also contribute to women’s risk of HIV, such as the widely held erroneous belief that intercourse with virgin girls/women has a curative effect. Lack of awareness about HIV/AIDS, including transmission, prevention, and treatment is a significant vulnerability, yet not simply a matter of literacy. HIV/AIDS is perceived as a sexual issue in most cultures of Asia, where discussion of such topics is taboo, and women are particularly discouraged from seeking or even receiving any information about it.



Adverse and hostile attitudes toward PLWHAs, even by health personnel add to hesitation toward counseling, testing or treatment services. Stigmatization and criminalization of CSWs, MSMs, homosexual, and transgender people also play a part in exacerbating the spread of HIV/AIDS by marginalizing these populations out of reach of appropriate services. Stigma forces the latter three groups to often live double lives in traditional Asian societies, where their public life may include heterosexual partners/wives, who in turn are exposed to HIV risk. Transgendered persons who identify sexually as women are also particularly vulnerable in south and southeast Asia, where they are openly stigmatized, but their services widely used as part of a traditional set of sexual customs. Poverty is also closely linked to HIV/AIDS in a vicious cycle: poverty and lack of skills often force women into sex work and risk behavior, but contrarily, the burden of HIV/AIDS itself can push women into poverty, whether or not they are the ones infected in their household. All these factors of lack of autonomy and of access to socioeconomic resources, stigma and taboo render women particularly vulnerable to HIV/ AIDS since they have neither the requisite information nor empowerment to procure necessary prevention, or negotiate terms of sexual intercourse, safe or not. In fact, for many monogamous women in Asia today, marriage is ironically the greatest risk factor for exposure to HIV/AIDS. Related Concerns and Policy Implications Women, particularly in south and southeast Asia, suffer from endemic levels of malnutrition and undernutrition. Poverty as well as patriarchal traditions are responsible factors, where the allocation of all resources within households is prioritized to male members. Considering that many parts of Asia also face the dire tuberculosis (TB)/AIDS “dual epidemic,” the lack of access to proper nutrition wipes out women’s first line of defense against the ravages of HIV/ AIDS. Moreover, within the pandemic, caregiving at household and community levels has fallen disproportionately on women, but in most traditional societies of Asia, HIV-positive women themselves are not entitled to similar care or social support. Most governments in Asia are cognizant of the need for prevention and care programs, but not all have implemented sustained programs and many

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have not mainstreamed gender and special groups into their responses. For example, despite the largely successful “100-percent condom use” campaign primarily aimed at CSWs by the Thai government in the 1990s, brothel-based female CSWs, often brought to this part of the world by the illicit human trafficking trade frequently remained beyond reach, fearful of their doubly-criminalized status. More nuanced policy and programs will be required to address context-specific complexities of the epidemic. Additionally, the international “3 by 5” and “all by 10” ART coverage drives (referring, respectively, to millions covered by 2005 and 2010) have not and will not meet targets. While these have spurred several countries including India, China, Cambodia, and Thailand among others to institute low-cost/free ART programs for all requiring them, only a fraction are receiving them. Moreover, motherhood is an integral part of women’s identity in much of Asia, but appropriate ARTs such as nevirapine (a single dose reduces risk of MTCT by half ) are available to less than a fifth of those identified as being in need. Universal ART coverage is a crucial element in determining the current health of women and that of future generations. Since a cure is not yet available and control still out of reach for many, vigilance and prevention are particularly important. This will require widespread education and awareness programs, basic health and social support systems, development and distribution of effective microbicides and female condoms (placing options with women), and a serious effort to destigmatize the disease. Fighting HIV/AIDS with ARTs and medical knowhow is a necessary strategy, but is incomplete without addressing systemic issues embedded in women’s life-contexts. Tackling issues of poverty, food shortages, violence, stigma, disempowerment, substance abuse, and lack of basic healthcare and survival resources is vital. Strategies also need to include men and communities in promoting women’s empowerment, and greater sensitivity from healthcare personnel regarding the needs of HIV-positive women. See Also: Drug Trade; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Rape and HIV; Sex Workers; Sexually Transmitted Infections. Further Readings Ghosh, J., et al. “Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS Among Women of Reproductive Age in the Slums of Delhi

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and Hyderabad, India.” Social Science and Medicine, v.68 (2009). Huda, S. “Sex Trafficking in South Asia.” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, v.94 (2006). Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) /World Health Organization. “2009 AIDS Epidemic Update.” http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre /HIVData/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2009/default.asp (accessed January 2010) Kallings, L. “The First Postmodern Pandemic: 25 Years of HIV/AIDS.” Journal of Internal Medicine, v.263 (2008). Rajabali, A. yah, et al. “HIV and Homosexuality in Pakistan.” Lancet Infect Diseases, v.8 (2008). Ruxrungtham, K., et al. “HIV/AIDS in Asia.” Lancet, v.364 (2004). Silverman, J. G., et al. “Intimate Partner Violence and HIV Infection Among Married Indian Women.” Journal of the American Medical Association, v.300/6 (2008). Vandana Wadhwa Boston University

HIV/AIDS: Europe Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the precursor to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is inevitable that a person who has HIV will eventually succumb to AIDS—an incurable but manageable disease. The body’s immune system is targeted by HIV, which destroys cells, with the result that the cells become prone to infection and are unable to protect the body as effectively. Certain factors like good nutrition, proper medication such as antiretroviral therapy, and a healthy lifestyle can prolong the onset of AIDS; however, HIV does eventually cause AIDS and lead to death. At the end of 2008, it was estimated that 33.4 million people were living with HIV globally, 15.7 million of which were women. In 2008, approximately 2 million people had died of AIDS-related deaths. People acquire HIV through various means, such as through unprotected or unsafe sex—whether hetero- or homosexual in nature, through the use of unclean needles while involved in injection drug use, and through mother-to-child transmission. Certain drivers may be extremely prevalent in some coun-

tries, assisting in the spread of HIV there, but not as prevalent in other countries. In Europe (western and central), the main drivers that cause HIV are heterosexual sexual encounters, with approximately just over half of new HIV cases resulting from this cause of infection. However, men who have sex with men follow closely, with around 40 percent of western Europeans and 30 percent of central Europeans becoming infected in this manner. Women are significantly affected by the various drivers of HIV infection because of their often vulnerable positions in society. Geographical Regions and Incidence Levels Europe is divided into three geographic regions: Western, eastern, and central Europe. HIV/AIDS statistics for these three areas are often grouped together with other geographic locations; for example, data on HIV/ AIDS in western and central Europe are frequently compiled with statistics from North America. The reason for this is that all three of these regions share the same drivers for HIV infection: men who have sex with men, intravenous drug use, and immigrant populations. Statistics from 2009 state that there are a combined 2.3 million people living with HIV in these regions. Eastern Europe and central Asia are grouped together by the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, because of their geographical closeness and because both regions have common etiological characteristics. There are a combined 1.5 million people living with HIV in these two regions. UNAIDS has determined that intravenous drug use to be the main driver behind the rise of HIV infection rates in both eastern Europe and central Asia. Infection rates in Europe have doubled between 2000 and 2007, with the rate of infection in Europe recorded as 89 seropositive (HIV-positive) cases recorded per million members of the population. Countries with the highest HIV rates include the United Kingdom, Estonia, and Portugal. Diagnosed AIDS cases are decreasing in western and central Europe, but not in eastern Europe. Of new cases recorded in Europe, women make up 35 percent, which places them as a demographic in a high-risk category. Eastern Europe is the most affected of the three regions, with three countries within this region contending with approximately 1 percent of the population being infected with HIV.



Drivers of HIV Infection Although men who have sex with men are the main drivers of HIV infection rates in western and central Europe, and injection drug use are drivers of HIV infection in eastern Europe, heterosexual sexual encounters follow closely for each region. These drivers may directly or indirectly affect women and help to spread HIV infection among the European population. All of these drivers can overlap, which spurs on infection rates among women in Europe. In the Ukraine, for example, 45 percent of all adults infected with HIV are women. Although HIV infection through injection drug use in western and central Europe has declined to a degree, it is still prolific in eastern Europe—57 percent of new HIV cases in the region come from this demographic. Dirty needles and unhygienic practices assist in spreading the disease among both men and women, and those who engage in injection drug use are also likely to spread the disease to their sexual partners, who may or may not participate in drug taking. Heterosexual encounters contribute to 42 percent of HIV infections in eastern Europe. Therefore, heterosexual sexual encounters coupled with injection drug use gives rise to increased HIV infection rates. Men who have sex with men are often a stigmatized demographic of the population, particularly in eastern Europe. The result of this stigmatization is that these men may also have female sex partners, who in turn contract HIV through sexual encounters with their partners. Men in western and central Europe are twice as likely to be HIV-positive as women; however, this is not the case in eastern Europe. Trafficking of women and girls for sex and other services is prolific throughout Europe, with approximately 700,000 women being trafficked into western Europe every year, according to the Website humantrafficking .org, a project of the Academy for Educational Development. Women are at risk of HIV infection through coercion into sex work, and the violence that often characterizes these encounters cannot be ignored in the context of HIV/AIDS infection in Europe. The World Health Organization stated in their 2006 report that in 2003, new HIV infection rates among women in all three European regions were between 31 and 38 percent. Women who are sexually violated have an increased chance of contracting HIV as a result of their biological make-up. Trauma, such as tearing and

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abrasions, to the vagina increases the likelihood of a woman contracting HIV if the person assaulting her is HIV-positive himself. Those women most likely to become infected are those who are most vulnerable to sexual abuse, such as prostitutes, injection drug users, and those who have been coerced into sex work through trafficking. In general, women in these groups are unable to negotiate condom use because of their dependency on the men who control them and their economic and social reliance on these men. The negotiation of condom usage, which is also experienced by many women in sub-Saharan Africa, is often met with violence, as men might feel emasculated or that the woman is implying that he or she is been unfaithful when suggesting that a condom be used. Prevention Strategies and Government Intervention Prevention measures, as prescribed by the WHO, are as follows: western and central Europe should focus their attention on the main demographic that drives HIV infection rates: men who have sex with men. It has been suggested that central Europe tailor prevention strategies for every country within this geographic location so as to keep infection rates relatively low. The prioritization of prevention programs that focus on men who have sex with men is necessary because of the increased infection rates of this demographic. Western Europe’s focus, although also on men who have sex with men, should be on immigrant populations, as immigrants may have acquired HIV in their home countries before migrating to Europe. According to UNAIDS, in 2007, 77 percent of heterosexually transmitted HIV infections occurred outside of the United Kingdom. In 2004, state and government representatives from Europe and central Asia congregated in Dublin, Ireland, to discuss ways in which they could partner in combating HIV/AIDS. The resulting declaration included the recognition of vulnerable groups, ways in which to protect and prevent these groups from further infection, and the identification of leadership and partnership between states and government. One of the key points of the declaration was recognizing that equality between men and women is crucial in this battle against HIV/AIDS, as well as respecting rights pertaining to reproductive health. The declaration recognizes that those most

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vulnerable to HIV/AIDS include intravenous drug users, men who have sex with men, women who are involved in illegal trafficking, and migrant populations, all of whom make up the group most prone to infection in Eastern, Western, and Central Europe. The effect of HIV/AIDS on women is specifically mentioned in the declaration, as they are extremely vulnerable to infection and likely to experience gender inequality, especially in relationships of a sexual nature. Men are encouraged to be more responsible for their own sexual behavior as well as to be more respectful of the women in their lives. Key prevention strategies of the Dublin Declaration include assisting injection drug users in accessing “prevention, drug dependence treatment and harm reduction services” by strengthening programs that address these issues. The prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV through the implementation of maternal and reproductive healthcare services is also necessary to prevent an increase in HIV incidence in Europe. See Also: HIV/AIDS, Africa; HIV/AIDS, Oceania; HIV/ AIDS, South America; Sexually Transmitted Infections. Further Readings European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control/ World Health Organization. “Surveillance Report: HIV/AIDS Surveillance in Europe, 2008.” http://www .ecdc.europa.eu (accessed July 2010). Humantrafficking.org. “2008 Europe Reconsiders Prostitution as Sex Trafficking Booms.” http://www .humantrafficking.org/updates/773 (accessed July 2010). Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS/World Health Organization. “2009 AIDS Epidemic Update.” http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIV Data/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2009/default.asp (accessed July 2010). United Nations Children’s Fund. “Dublin Declaration on Partnership to Fight HIV/AIDS in Europe and Central Asia.” http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/The_Dublin _Declaration.pdf (accessed July 2010). World Health Organization. “HIV/AIDS in Europe: Moving From Death Sentence to Chronic Disease Management.” http://www.euro.who.int/document /e87777.pdf (accessed July 2010). Ashling McCarthy University of KwaZulu

HIV/AIDS: North America While human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) were initially identified as diseases that primarily affected men, women have continued to contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, at disproportionately greater rates. The effects on women and families have become catastrophic in some regions, with women and children diagnosed more frequently than men. As of the end of 2007, there were approximately 3 million cases of women with HIV in North America. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that at least 25 percent of individuals with HIV are unaware of their positive status. This article will summarize the impact of HIV/AIDs, present prevalence and transmission issues unique to each region, and discuss research and prevention. HIV in Canada The estimated female prevalence rate in Canada is between 0.2 and 0.5 percent, affecting between 7,700 and 12,000 women. The province of Ontario has the highest prevalence rate in Canada. Between 1995 and 2000, the female proportion of new HIV cases in Canada nearly tripled. A similar rate increase was seen in U.S. Census data. This increase has been attributed to several factors. Canada has a large number of African and Caribbean immigrants each year. However, 20 to 60 percent of HIV cases in African and Caribbean immigrants are contracted post immigration. Nearly half of the new female cases have been attributed to intravenous drug use (IDU), but these women have multiple concurrent high-risk behaviors, including sex work, so determining causality is often difficult. Black women account for nearly 50 percent of new HIV cases, while only making up 16 percent of the female population. Socioeconomically, black women are often marginalized in Canada, and they have less access to healthcare, preventative care, and generally less power to negotiate safe sex in relationships when compared with other women. HIV in the United States Prevalence rates in the United States fall between 0.4 and 1 percent, affecting between 150,000 and 300,000 women. African American women of low socioeconomic status are disproportionally affected.



For nearly a decade epidemiologists compiled evidence showing that HIV and AIDS present symptomatically differently in women than it does in men. Women are nearly 20 times more likely to be infected with HIV through heterosexual contact than men. From 1985 to 1988, women’s deaths due to HIV quadrupled. Until 1992, the definition of AIDS focused on how the syndrome presented in men and did not include symptoms unique to women. This resulted in many women dying of AIDS who had not been previously diagnosed. The CDC’s revised (1992) definition of AIDS facilitated women’s earlier diagnosis that can postpone AIDS and resulted in a recalculation of the number of women impacted by HIV/AIDS. Women were also, until recently, underrepresented in clinical trials of antiviral drugs, which prevented greater understanding of the gender differences found in successful treatment. Women with co-occurring disorders, mental illness and substance abuse/dependence, are at the highest risk for HIV. These women often have broad and repetitive trauma histories beginning in childhood and adolescence. This complex web of cofactors needs to be targeted in HIV prevention efforts in the United States. HIV in Mexico National estimated prevalence rate in Mexico is less than 1 percent (between 0.2 and 0.7 percent), affecting between 17,000 and 91,000 women. The Mexican state of Baja California and Mexico City have the highest prevalence rates in Mexico. Predominant means of transmission varies greatly by region. Trends have shown that for women in northern Mexico, the predominant route of transmission is IDU, while central Mexico is disproportionately impacted by male partners who have sex with men. Economic conditions and cultural beliefs play a role in the increasing heterosexual HIV transmission in Mexico. Many married migrant workers work in the United States, and are away from their wives most of the year. The majority of migrant workers do not have health insurance, live in poor housing developments, and males often participate in extramarital affairs. While the wives of migrant workers are aware of the prevalence of sex outside the marriage, qualitative studies show they rarely insist on condom use. Women who support traditional gender roles view

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sex as a way to strengthen a marriage that is strained by distance, and using condoms brings mistrust into the situation and is therefore avoided. These cultural dynamics have perpetuated heterosexual transmission in Mexico. HIV in Central America In Latin America, the Central American countries consistently have the highest rates of HIV prevalence. Estimated prevalence rates vary from Nicaragua, with a rate below .6 percent to Honduras and Belize with rates between 0.8 and 2.4 percent, and 1.4 and 4.0 percent, respectively. However, many Central American women lack access to HIV-related healthcare. With the exception of Costa Rica, there is little access to antiretroviral combination therapy or Zidovudine, which prevents perinatal transmission. As a result, HIV has continued to spread, and AIDS is the leading cause of the death for women in Honduras. HIV in the Caribbean The overall Caribbean adult prevalence rate is 2.1 percent. This is second highest prevalence rate in the world, behind sub-Saharan African. Haiti has the highest prevalence rate in North America at 3.8 percent. Rates are also remarkably high for young women in this region. In 2005, HIV/AIDS was the leading cause of death for adults in the Caribbean between the ages of 15 and 44. In Trinidad and Tobago women between the ages of 15 and19 have a prevalence rate that is six times higher than the men in this age group. Studies suggest these prevalence rates are the result of sex work, primarily of underprivileged indigenous people, and the often hidden bisexual behaviors of men. Future of HIV Prevention The most promising interventions for women are gender specific and targeted for the particular population. These interventions include the multiple factors that define women’s realities. Culturally relevant interventions that include an understanding of socioeconomic factors, power inequities in relationships and an emphasis on skill building and selfempowerment show great promise. The presence of sexual victimization of girls and women throughout the continent need to be taken into account when developing interventions.

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See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Health, Mental and Physical; Medical Research, Gender Issues in. Further Readings Garcia-Calleja, J., C. Rio, and Y. Souteyrand. “HIV Infection in the Americas: Improving Strategic Information to Improve Response.” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, v.51 (2009). Lohse, N., et al. “Low Effectiveness of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy and High Mortality in the Greenland HIV-Infected Population.” Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Disease, v.36 (2004). National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “HIV Vaccine Regimen Demonstrates Modest Preventative Effect in Thailand Clinical Study.” http:// www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2009 /ThaiVaxStudy.htm (accessed October 2009). Shors, A. R. “The Global Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS.” Dermatologic Clinics, v.24/4 (2006). Spittal, P., et al. “Surviving the Sex Trade: A Comparison of HIV Risk Behaviors Among Street-Involved Women in Two Candadian Cities Who Inject Drugs.” AIDS Care, v.15/2 (2003). Wheeler, D., et al. “Availability of HIV Care in Central America.” JAMA, v.286/7 (2001). D. Salina B. Parenti Northwestern University

HIV/AIDS: Oceania Oceania is a geographical region in the South Pacific consisting of 15 countries and 20 dependent territories that are grouped into the subregions of Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Oceania exhibits extreme cultural, linguistic, and environmental diversity, and most countries have very small populations that are highly mobile and dispersed over wide areas. Although data are sparse, every country and dependency in Oceania aside from Niue, Tokelau, and Pitcairn Islands has reported cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), though the region’s only generalized epidemic occurs in Papua New Guinea (PNG). With the exception of Australasia, Oceania is experiencing rapid social change

and many factors including migration, low levels of development, high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), widespread unsafe sexual practices, and political instability predispose the region to the more rapid spread of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in the future. Australasia Australasia consists of the countries of Australia and New Zealand, as well as the dependencies of Christmas Island, Coco Islands, and Norfolk Island. HIV/ AIDS has been successfully managed in Australasia, as prevalence estimates are 0.2 percent for Australia and 0.05 percent for New Zealand, which are well below the rates of other Western countries. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS among non-Indigenous populations has been declining for a number of years, though increasing among Indigenous populations (Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders, and the Maori). There is also a significant difference in the modes of transmission between these groups. Among nonIndigenous peoples, sexual contact between men account for the majority of infections. Among Indigenous groups, sexual contact between men is still the main mode of transmission, though the rate of infection from intravenous drug use is significantly higher. Finally, women account for a greater proportion of HIV/AIDS cases among Indigenous groups than in the non-Indigenous population, which points to their marginalization within their communities. All of this is consistent with the low health status and marginalization of Indigenous populations within Australasia. Melanesia Melanesia consists of the countries of Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and the dependency of New Caledonia. Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu report few cases (less than 0.2 percent prevalence) of HIV/AIDS, though rates are on the rise, leading to fears of generalized epidemics in these countries. All of the Melanesian countries have experienced political instability in the recent past and rank poorly in development indicators, suggesting that their governments may be unable to launch effective responses to any epidemics. New Caledonia also reports few cases, but because of its status as a dependency of



France, it is both more developed and better situated to avoid an epidemic. PNG is in the midst of a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic, and prevalence is estimated at 1.5 percent (approximately 55,000 cases). Excluding Australasia, PNG accounts for more than 99 percent of all HIV/ AIDS cases in Oceania. PNG’s epidemic can be attributed to a slow and weak response from the national government, the low status of women, widespread sexual violence, high levels of STIs, high risk sexual practices (including multiple-partners, unprotected intercourse, and commercial sex), a highly mobile population, sociocultural changes brought on by rapid modernization, low levels of access to social services, and poor knowledge of HIV/AIDS. Papua New Guinean females have borne the brunt of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which is attributed to a decline in their status. For example, bride prices have inflated and women are now commonly seen as pieces of property that are purchased through the transfer of cash, while sexual and domestic violence are all prevalent problems that women and girls in PNG confront. The epidemic in PNG is expected to worsen in the coming years because of the continued existence of the factors that led to the outbreak. The Papua New Guinean government has been unable to launch an effective response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and remains dependent upon resources from donor countries, primarily Australia. Micronesia Micronesia consists of the countries of Kiribati, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, and the dependencies of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. HIV/AIDS has yet to pose a significant problem in this region, as only a handful of cases (less than 500) have been reported, and many cases are diagnosed in returning migrants. However, several factors make the countries of Kiribati, Palau, and Nauru susceptible to an outbreak of HIV/AIDS, including a highly mobile population, underdevelopment, poor knowledge about HIV/ AIDS, high levels of STIs, and low levels of condom use. The Federated States of Micronesia is in a free association with the United States, while Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are American dependencies, and so may be better able to prevent or manage outbreaks.

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Polynesia Polynesia consists of the countries of Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and the dependencies of American Samoa, Cook Islands, Easter Island, French Polynesia, Hawaii, Niue, Pitcairn Islands, Tokelau, and Wallis and Fortuna. All the Polynesian countries and dependencies with the exceptions of Niue, Tokelau, and Pitcairn Islands have reported cases of HIV/ AIDS. Though high quality-data do not exist, HIV/ AIDS prevalence rates across Polynesia are thought to be low. However, like Melanesian and Micronesian countries, Polynesian countries are thought to be susceptible to the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS because of population mobility, high levels of STIs, and highrisk sexual practices. However, unlike Melanesian, Micronesian, and Tuvaluan populations, Tongans and Samoans receive significant remittances from emigrants, which has kept population growth in check and propelled development and stability. Polynesian dependencies have similarly benefitted from their relationships with the United States (American Samoa, Hawaii), New Zealand (Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Wallis, and Fortuna), France (French Polynesia), Great Britain (Pitcairn Islands), and Chile (Easter Island). Thus, with the exception of Tuvalu, Polynesia may be somewhat better situated to avoid an epidemic of HIV/AIDS than other subregions in Oceania. Conclusion With the exception of PNG, the Oceanic region has not experienced an epidemic of HIV/AIDS, and prevalence estimates are low. This, however, is predicted to change as cases mount and as numerous factors make the region susceptible to the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the future. Because of the high levels of mobility, small populations, high levels of STIs, unsafe sexual practices, and underdevelopment, Oceanic countries are especially susceptible to even minor increases in levels of HIV/AIDS in their populations. Oceanic dependencies, territories, countries in association with other more developed nations, and Tonga and Samoa, are thought to stand a better chance of avoiding an outbreak because of higher levels of development and political stability. Finally, it is important to note that although social and demographic data from Australasia are of high quality, data from elsewhere in Oceania are often lacking and unreliable. In particular, HIV/AIDS prevalence

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and distribution estimates have been hampered by poor surveillance and data collection, as well as insufficient analysis. Some authorities believe that current prevalence estimates may in fact be too low. See Also: Australia; Fiji; Kiribati; Marshall Islands; Micronesia; New Zealand; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Rape and HIV; Samoa; Solomon Islands; Sexually Transmitted Infections; Tonga; Tuvalu; Vanuatu. Further Readings Lewis, Milton, Scott Bamber, and Michael Waugh, eds. Sex, Disease, and Society: A Comparative History of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. Lewis, Milton and Kerrie L. MacPherson, eds. Public Health in Asia and the Pacific. London: Routledge, 2008. World Bank 2007. Strategic Directions for Human Development in Papua New Guinea. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2007. Christopher A. J. L. Little University of Toronto

HIV/AIDS: South America Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects the cells within an individual’s immune system. The CD4 cells, or T-helper cells, are white blood cells that aid your body in fighting off infection. HIV damages and impairs the normal functioning of the immune system, and thus the individual becomes more susceptible to infection. HIV leads to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). HIV has several modes of transmission, including the exchange of fluids through unprotected sexual activity, injecting drug use (contaminated needles), blood transfusions, and mother-to-child transmission (pregnancy, childbirth, and/or breastfeeding). There is no cure for HIV/ AIDS, but the disease can be manageable with the use of antiretroviral treatment. Recent epidemiological reports show that the within South America, HIV/AIDS is concentrated among high-risk populations, and in particular among men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers, injection drug users, those affected by mother-to-

child transmission, migrants, and prison populations. Heterosexual transmission of HIV is also a factor in the epidemic throughout South America, but to a lesser extent. Although there is a large population of men infected with HIV in the region, recent statistics reveal that there are increasing cases of HIV infection among pregnant women and among women in their 20s. As of 2004, over half a million women in Latin America between the ages of 15 and 49 years were living with HIV/AIDS. The increase in the feminization, as it relates to the spread of the HIV virus among women who are not commercial sex workers, of HIV/AIDS in South America is evident throughout the region. An increase in female infection rates in Brazil by 44 percent between 1996 and 2005 suggests there is an increasing need to understand the various trends, socioeconomic factors, and prevention efforts that affect the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the region. Incidence, Trends, and Patterns The HIV prevalence rate, or the percentage of the population living with HIV/AIDS, throughout Latin America has remained relatively low (approximately .06 percent in 2008) in comparison with areas throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where the prevalence rate exceeds 5 percent. The epidemic, however, affects a considerable amount of people—as of 2008, there were approximately 2 million adults and children living with HIV/ AIDS throughout Latin America, with around 170,000 new infections and 77,000 AIDS-related deaths. Throughout South America, the prevalence rates vary between countries and between regions within each country. The countries of Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay have less than 0.6 percent HIV prevalence rate; in Brazil, this translates to over 730,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, which is the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Latin America. The smaller countries of Guyana and Suriname face a more severe epidemic in relation to their populations, with prevalence rates of 2.5 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively. The HIV/AIDS epidemic throughout South America is considered a concentrated epidemic (primarily high-risk populations). Throughout Latin America, between 0.2 and 1.5 percent of the female population are engaged in sex work. There is also a large population of male sex workers throughout the region.



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Since 1992, USAID has been assisting Bolivia’s national HIV/AIDS program with an automated reporting system in the La Paz regional HIV/AIDS center. The project built an automated system that provides clinic-based data on HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

Numbers of injection drug users in South America are high among the populations in the southern countries—particularly Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay—and the sharing of needles further fuels the spread of the disease. Research also shows that populations involved in drug use may coincide with populations of sex workers in the region. Throughout South America, the risk exists that the epidemic may become more generalized (affecting more than 1 percent of the population), similar to the more generalized epidemic seen in areas throughout Central America, where the primary mode of transmission is heterosexual transmission. The nature of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is constantly changing, and research has shown that heterosexual HIV transmission increases as epidemics mature, thus placing the region at an increased risk for the rise of feminization of HIV/AIDS. Research has shown that generalized epidemics that are primarily spread by heterosexual transmission lead to higher rates of HIV infection among women.

Contributing Factors Individuals living with HIV/AIDS in many parts of the world, including South America, face a multitude of challenges, such as issues with disclosure, stigma, discrimination, cultural issues associated with being HIV-positive, gender inequality, access to medical services, and physical, mental, and emotional adverse effects of living with the disease. Factors that people living with HIV/AIDS in Latin American countries face include poverty, low education levels, and gender inequalities such as differences in economic burdens, sexual relations, and violence against women. Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS is prevalent throughout the world, and in particular when high-risk populations are the primary drivers of the disease, such as in South America. In addition to socioeconomic factors, the high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and tuberculosis intensify the spread of HIV. In Latin America, approximately 13 percent of people aged 15 to 49 have a STI. The existence of a STI suggests that

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unsafe sex practices led to the infection, thus allowing the possibility for HIV infection. STIs also can physiologically alter the urogential tract, providing an easier entry for HIV into the body’s cells. Between 30 and 50 percent of adults living in Latin America are suspected to have latent tuberculosis, and approximately 20 percent of these adults may be infected with HIV. The coexistences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and widespread cases of tuberculosis strengthen the spread of HIV and complicate the prevention and treatment efforts of the diseases. In some instances, the situation of the country and/or regions within South America affects the epidemic. For example, as a result of the violent conflicts in Colombia for the past several decades, various participants in the conflict have helped fuel stigma and discrimination of HIV/ AIDS and led to higher levels of migration (creating a high-risk population group for HIV/AIDS). Treatment, Prevention, and Policy The availability of antiretroviral treatment to individuals throughout Latin America at the end of 2008 was 55 percent compared with the 42 percent average for low- and middle-income countries throughout the world. Brazil provides a successful example of antiretroviral treatment rollout at an affordable price, along with HIV/AIDS policy that makes treatment a priority. Other areas of South America also have high treatment coverage including Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela, although individuals in some regions, particularly more rural areas, do not have access to antiretroviral treatment. People living with HIV/AIDS in Latin America are also accessing treatment at earlier stages in the course of the disease. In addition, as of 2008, 54 percent of HIV-infected pregnant women in Latin America were receiving antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission in comparison with the 45 percent global average. There are positive examples of successful prevention efforts and national intervention programs initiated by governments in South American countries, such as in Brazil, where media campaigns and large condom distribution have aided prevention. Sex education is available in some Latin American schools, but many schools do not offer this class. A definite need exists to strengthen surveillance systems and prevention programs, improve access to social and health services, and address factors related to the

epidemics, such as the prevalence of stigma and discrimination; a prevention focus on information and awareness of HIV may help lessen these factors. When the spread of HIV/AIDS is concentrated among key high-risk populations, as in South America, prevention programs need to be specifically directed at these various populations. Programs targeting injection drug users, commercial sex workers, men who have sex with men, and the generalized population are still needed. The prevention efforts by Latin American countries tend to be on a smaller scale, and because of a shortage of resources in various regions, the efforts are often dependent on international and nongovernmental organizations. The economic effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on South America affects both the governments and people living with HIV/ AIDS. HIV-infected individuals throughout Latin America need more access to comprehensive and adequate health services. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in South America is currently stable, but the combination of high-risk population groups and a possible increase in a generalized epidemic and feminization of HIV/AIDS makes the need for improvement to HIV/AIDS policy in South American governments, HIV/AIDS prevention, and treatment paramount concerns. See Also: AIDS: Africa; HIV/AIDS: Asia; HIV/AIDS: Europe; HIV/Sexually Transmitted Infections. Further Reading AVERTing HIV and AIDS. “HIV/AIDS in Brazil.” http:// www.avert.org/aidsbrazil.htm (accessed April 2010). AVERTing HIV and AIDS. “HIV/AIDS in Latin America.” http://www.avert.org/aidslatinamerica.htm (accessed April 2010). Jain, Anrudh K. “Feminization of HIV/AIDS and Men’s Sexual Behaviour.” http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs /events/Jain_20090310.pdf (accessed April 2010). Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, et al. “Women & HIV/AIDS—Confronting the Crisis 2004.” http://www.unfpa.org/hiv/women/docs/women_aids .pdf (accessed April 2010). Population Reference Bureau. “World Population Data Sheet 2009.” http://www.prb.org/Publications/Data sheets/2009/2009wpds.aspx (accessed April 2010). United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS/World Health Organization. “AIDS Epidemic Update 2009.”

Holzer, Jenny

http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIV Data/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2009/default.asp (accessed April 2010). United Nations Population Fund. “State of World Population 2005.” http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/ english /ch4/chap4_page1.htm (accessed April 2010). Amy Hixon University of KwaZulu

Holzer, Jenny Jenny Holzer (1950– ), one of the most influential conceptual and multimedia artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, was the first woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale (1990). Born in Ohio, she now resides and works in Manhattan, as well as on her farm in Hoosick Falls, New York. Holzer received a bachelor of arts degree from Ohio University in 1972 and a master’s of fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1977, before moving to New York City in the late 1970s, where she pursued writing at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Soon she realized that her strength was in conceptual art rather than in writing: “The epiphany for me was that I wasn’t a writer, and I had to do something with these texts. I put them in the street as posters.” The written word therefore continues to factor prominently in Holzer’s artwork, in particular, her installations, most of which are large light-emitting diode (LED) projections displayed at night in cities around the world. According to one art critic, “The postmodernist ‘text’ suggested a very different kind of entity: in the influential definition of Barthes, ‘a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.’ This notion of ‘textuality’ seemed well suited to the strategy of appropriated images and/or anonymous writings, as used in the early . . . poster-statements of Jenny Holzer.” Blurring the Boundaries Holzer is best known for her use of short, deceptively simple yet provocative quotations projected in public settings—plaques, street posters, telephone booths,

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monuments, and buildings, among others—which, despite their brevity, encapsulate the struggles of the modern condition. Holzer’s work blurs boundaries between the private and public spheres while exploring the intersection of art, via technology, with ideas and concepts culled from current events (including AIDS, genocidal rape in the former Yugoslavia, and the war in Iraq) as well as issues of gender, dynamics of power, the pervasiveness of consumerism, and acts of violence. Holzer’s Truisms (1977–79) is a group of quotations and aphorisms (among others, “Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise”) that she compiled and displayed in many venues, most famously on an enormous LED billboard in Times Square in 1982. “Men Don’t Protect You Anymore,” from her 1983–85 Survival Series was printed on street signs, billboards, and condoms. Since 1996, her LED quotation projections have appeared globally, such as in a permanent installation in the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Holzer is the recipient of several honorary doctorates: from the University of Ohio (1993); the Rhode Island School of Design (2003); and New School University in New York (2005) celebrating her impact on modern art. She was awarded numerous honors, including the Leone d’Oro, at the XLIV Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 1990; The Crystal Award, World Economic Forum, Geneva, 1996; and she is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France, 2002, among others. See Also: Art Criticism: Gender Issues; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Chicago, Judy; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Studio Arts, Women in. Further Readings Anastas, Rhea, ed., with Michael Brenson. Witness to her Art: Art and Writings by Adrian Piper, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Daniela Rossell and Eau de Cologne. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Center for Curatorial Studies, 2006. Auping, Michael. Jenny Holzer. New York: Universe, 1992. Buchloh, Benjamin. “To Whom It May Concern.” Artinfo. http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/29158/to-whom-it -may-concern. (accessed January 2010). Foster, Hal, Rosalind Krauss, Yves-Alain Bois, and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. v.2: 1945 to the Present. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007.

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Holzer, Jenny. Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise. Halifax, Canada: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983. Joselit, David, Joan Simon, Jenny Holzer, and Renata Salecl. Jenny Holzer. London: Phaidon Press, 1998. Lewine, Edward. “Domains: Art House. At Home With Jenny Holzer.” New York Times Magazine. http://www .nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20fob-domains -t.html. (accessed January 2010). Waldman, Diane. Jenny Holzer. New York: Harry Abrams, 1989. Marcelline Block Princeton University

Homemakers and Social Security Homemakers are persons of either sex, who are engaged in household duties in their own home and who are not economically active within the terms of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) definition—that is, work carried out for income, wages, or salary. The term homemaker is not gender specific. A trend (especially in Western societies) during the late 20th century is that increasing numbers of men are adopting the role of a homemaker. A large majority of homemakers are still women, possibly because traditionally homemaking has been seen to be “women’s work.” Recently, many feminists have criticized the institution, claiming that by having the husband as the only financial supporter the wife is entrenched in economic subordination. Feminists confirm that homemaking should not be gender specific. According to United Nation (UN) figures, women do two-thirds of the world’s work for 5 percent of the world’s income. The work that homemakers do is not only central to the well-being of humanity, but it is the work that underpins economics and the work upon which capital bases its profits. By producing workers and caring for workers, women directly contribute to the profits of capital. But while the wage worker gets a fraction of the wealth they create, the housewife gets none. Social security is a woman’s issue (and increasingly an issue for the generic homemaker). Since its incep-

tion, social security has often been the only income source that prevents women from living out their days in abject poverty. Women are absent from the labor force for an average of 15 percent of their working careers, primarily to fulfill responsibilities as carers of their children, spouses, or elderly family members. International instruments adopted by the UN such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, affirm that every human being has the right to social security. The Declaration of Philadelphia the International Labor Conference recognized the ILO’s obligation in regard to “the extension of social security measures to provide a basic income to all in need of such protection and comprehensive medical care.” However, because societies have not recognized the economic value of the goods and services provided by the homemaker to her or his family and the community; the homemaker as a “nonworking” person is deprived of job-related benefits. No international or European instruments contain any specific provisions relating to the right of homemakers to social security. At the 1995 UN World Conference for Women in Beijing, governments agreed to recognize women’s unwaged work and to value that vital contribution to the economy. The conference agreed that this work included “caring for children and older persons, preparing food for the family, protecting the environment and providing voluntary assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and groups.” However in paragraph 175(g) the Platform for Action instructed member states to “adopt policies to extend or maintain the protection of labor laws and social security provision for those who do paid work in the home.” The consequence of this lack of provision is that women make up the primary group that is excluded from social security. So-called housewives are dependant on their husbands and fathers in terms of some of the social security schemes such as healthcare, maternity benefits, child benefits, and pensions. Many housewives are affiliated to the social security system as self-employed in order to supplement the household income with an eventual old-age benefit. However this system, where the premium payments required for voluntary insurance is high, makes it almost impossible for women to benefit from this option.

Homemaking



There is now increasing recognition of the contribution made by homemakers to society and that that work should be classified as “work,” for the purpose of inclusion in social security systems. This should be achieved through independent registration for social security entitlement in her/his own name. This entitlement would be portable into and out of marriage and into and out of paid work. Disability and retirement benefits should be part and parcel of this entitlement. Independent entitlement to social security enhances gender equality and safeguards a homemaker’s position in the event of separation or divorce. See Also: Domestic Workers; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Homemaking; Household Division of Labor; Unpaid Labor. Further Readings Bergmann, B. R. “The Housewife and Social Security Reform: A Feminist Perspective.” In H. R. Moody, Aging: Concepts and Controversies, 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002. International Labour Organization (ILO). “Resolution Concerning Statistics of the Economically Active Population, Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment.” Adopted by the Thirteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, October 1982. StateUniversity.com. “Homemaker Job Description, Career as a Homemaker, Salary, EmploymentDefinition and Nature of the Work, Education and Training Requirements, Getting the Job.” http://careers .stateuniversity.com/pages/308/Homemaker.html#ixzz 0c2V8nJRK (accessed January 2010). Kadriye Bakirci Istanbul Technical University

Homemaking Homemaking is the compilation of activities that an individual does to maintain the home. These activities can include cleaning, laundry, making meals, shopping for household needs, and paying bills, as well as outdoor work such as lawn care, and home maintenance. This kind of work is necessary because it

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enables other household members, usually males, to perform in the formal market economy. While homemaking can be distinguished from childcare, it is important to note that these two types of work often occur simultaneously. While not often thought of as an occupation in the traditional sense of doing work to earn an income, maintaining one’s living environment can be considered a full-time job. In fact, there have been numerous movements that have attempted to have household work formally compensated by wages. A woman who is not employed in the formal labor market but works to maintain the household is called a “homemaker.” It is now more common for individuals who work as homemakers to do so only when they have children, which means that the terms stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home dad may be more appropriate in describing these individuals. Homemaking is often stereotyped and thought of as women’s work. Traditionally, it was thought that a man’s role was one that was both independent and public, whereas women’s roles were relegated to the domestic sphere: taking care of the home and children. Even recently, women do nearly twice as much house-related work than men, though the net difference between men’s and women’s work has decreased since the middle of the 20th century. This has occurred because although men are doing more housework than before, women are doing substantially less, perhaps because of educational and occupational commitments. Further, even when women and men split the duties of homemaking, chores often are split along gendered lines: men will mow the lawn and fix the family car, while women do most of the day-to-day cleaning and meal preparation. Further, women are often still responsible for the planning and organizing of household tasks. Opportunities Outside the Home There are several forces that have decreased the number of women who work solely as homemakers. Women have many more opportunities outside of the home, due to expanding educational and career opportunities. Increasing educational opportunities have resulted in a growing number of women attaining college educations and careers in the formal labor market. Moreover, many women find having careers and participating in work outside of the home fulfilling. Furthermore, increased standards of

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living and economic necessity have resulted in many families needing both parents to earn wages in the formal labor market, thus decreasing the number of full time homemakers. In westernized, industrial countries, technological advancements and the outsourcing of household work to other individuals or companies have reduced the amount of time that is spent doing housework. Increasing consumerism and marketing to homemakers in these countries have resulted in an astounding number of household devices, such as vacuums (some of which are even robotic and work on their own), which dramatically decrease the amount of time that needs to be spent in order to accomplish household tasks. The affluence of the middle and upper classes has also provided individuals with the opportunity to pay hired individuals to complete some or all household tasks, thus changing the way that household labor is performed. This further distinguishes between upper-class and lower-class women, as the devalued labor of homemaking has been outsourced to working-class, poor women. For instance, workingclass immigrant and African American women make up a substantial amount of those hired to do house or childcare work as nannies and maids. There are, however, still a substantial number of women who choose to work solely as homemakers and take care of children. According to Lisa Belkin, since 2000, between a third and a quarter of women with college or graduate degrees have opted to be stay-at-home mothers. Moreover, some mothers choose to work part-time in order to contribute both as homemakers and in the paid labor market. While many women and men see formal careers as a very fulfilling role, those who choose to be homemakers find satisfaction in providing clean, warm, and nurturing environments for their families. See Also: Childcare; Household Division of Labor; Nannies; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Belkin, Lisa. “The Opt-Out Revolution.” In David Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi, eds., The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class and Gender. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007. Coltrane, Scott. “Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring the Social Embeddedness of Routine

Family Work.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, v.62 (2000). Oakley, Anne. The Sociology of Housework. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974. Steiner, Leslie Morgan. Mommy Wars. New York: Random House, 2007. Michelle Zagura University at Albany

Homeschooling Homeschooling is about parents’ right to choose the education their children will receive. In the United States, 1.5 million children—2.9 percent of the schoolage population—were homeschooled in 2007 according to an Institute of Education Sciences Issue Brief. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, the number of homeschooled children in 2010 is 2,000,000. Homeschooling was the dominant form of education in the United States until the later part of the 19th century, when compulsory attendance laws led to increased children’s attendance at public or private schools. Homeschooling gained momentum again during the 1960s. According to a 2007 Fraser Institute Policy Brief on Home Schooling, two groups of homeschooling advocates have emerged. One group is recognized for its ideological beliefs and known as the Christian Right. The second group is known for its pedagogical beliefs. John Holt, the author of How Children Fail and Teach Your Own, was the founder of the homeschooling magazine Growing Without Schooling and a prominent member of the pedagogical group of homeschool advocates. Homeschooling is legal in all the states. The passage of legislation favorable to homeschooling has been aided by the work of activists, including homeschool mothers, who had time to organize and act and who were assets to these lobbying efforts. Phone calls and e-mails to legislators are powerful lobbying tools. As a result of the efforts put forth by the activists and lobbyists, homeschools have minimal regulation. In addition, there are legal restrictions concerning the data that can be collected about homeschooling. For this reason, limited data concerning homeschool-



ing exist. The National Household Education Survey provides data on homeschooling, and state data also may be used to identify the number of homeschooled children in a state. However, state data may not be complete, and there is no consistent requirement for the reporting of homeschooling. Family Involvement Mothers are seen as the primary home teachers. Because data are not collected about homeschool teaching arrangements, it is difficult to provide a portrait of the time and extent of involvement of family members in homeschool activities. If a mother homeschools a child or children, she has less time to work outside the home, which can result in a lower household income. There are thus “tuition” costs involved in homeschooling, in terms of both time and money—including the loss of the income a mother could earn if she did not engage in homeschooling—which are important family factors in homeschooling decisions. The 1.5 to 2.0 million children in homeschools suggest that there is a savings to public schools when these children do not participate in the public school program. It is difficult to estimate the savings, however, as school funding formulas and revenue streams vary. The Choice to Homeschool Parents choose homeschooling for a variety of reasons. These include religious reasons (schools teach subjects that conflict with the parents’ religious beliefs), school curriculum (parents believe they can provide a better academic experience for their children through homeschooling), school culture (avoiding safety concerns, drug availability, and peer pressure), sex education and race issues, health or behavior issues (children may have special needs that parents will be able to meet in the homeschool situation), family issues (mothers may want to spend more time with the children and families may want to influence the beliefs, values, and behaviors of their children and seek to nurture these through homeschooling). The Internet is an asset to homeschool families as a source of instructional materials and opportunities. Homeschool teaching materials can be accessed through sites such as Amazon.com, which lists 1,338 homeschooling books, or Homeschool World: The Official Web Site of Practical Homeschooling Mag-

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azine. The Internet is also a vehicle for connecting homeschool families. Homeschool World includes a link to organizations and support groups. The site includes 20,385 articles on homeschooling issues and 4,471 regular users. Technology may make homeschooling a more accessible option for families. According to a 2009 Condition of Education Report on Homeschooled Students, in 2007, 84 percent of homeschooled students received all of their education at home. Of the homeschooled children, 77 percent were white. Students in two-parent families made up 89 percent of the homeschooled population. Homeschooled children have been successful in seeking admission to institutions of higher education. Students use results of the General Educational Development (GED) tests, letters of recommendation, portfolios, and other means to document their academic achievements to gain admission to colleges and universities. In 2000, Patrick Henry College in Virginia was established especially for homeschooled children. The number of homeschooled students may increase in the future. As resources for homeschooling become more accessible, the possibilities for homeschooling increase. Bookstores offer special events for homeschool families that feature resources and activities for homeschoolers, and the Internet provides access to instructional materials and books. Networks of homeschoolers provide resources and support to individuals who homeschool their children, and distance education increases options for homeschool families. See Also: Alternative Education; Christian Identity; Stayat-Home Mothers. Further Readings Apple, Michael. “Away With All Teachers: The Cultural Politics of Home Schooling.” http://epicpolicy.org/files /Apple.Away_.pdf.(accessed January 2010). Basham, Patrick, et al. “Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream.” In Studies in Education Policy. Fraser Institute Occasional Paper. Vancouver, Canada: Fraser Institute, 2007. Cooper, Bruce S., ed. Homeschooling in Full View: A Reader. Charlotte, NC: Information Age, 2005. Isenberg, Eric. “Home Schooling: School Choice and Women’s Time Use.” Occasional Paper 64. New York:

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Homophobia

Teachers College, Columbia University, National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, 2002. National Home Education Research Institute. http://www .nheri.org (accessed June 2010). Marilyn L. Grady University of Nebraska

Homophobia Although the term was first published by George Weinberg in an early 1970 article for the U.S. magazine Gay, the term was introduced formally in his 1972 book, Society and the Healthy Homosexual, to describe a fear heterosexual people experienced when in contact with homosexual people; namely, the fear of contagion, of corrupting traditional values, and of being labeled homosexual. The term gained legitimacy around the same time as the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973, declaring that possessing a same-sex sexual orientation was not inherently associated with psychopathology. Although the term is widely used today to reflect the widespread prejudice and discrimination gay, lesbian, and bisexual people experience, scholars have questioned its suitability. Specifically, many question the usage of “phobia” to describe reactions to homosexual and bisexual people. Stigmas and Stereotyping Perhaps the most influential work has been by social psychologist Gregory Herek, who has demonstrated that negative reactions to gays, lesbians, and bisexual people are less motivated by fear than disgust and anger, which manifests in ostracism, bullying, dehumanization, brutality, and even homicide. Moreover, he contends that by conceptualizing antigay and bisexual attitudes within the rubric of mental illness, locates them at the individual level as pathology and overlooks the larger cultural and systemic factors that promote discrimination against non-heterosexual groups. Thus, rather than an irrational fear of homosexual and bisexual people, antigay hostility is believed to be a function of widespread cultural knowledge

that homosexuality is a stigma and is expressed mainly in stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Homophobia is maintained by but distinct from heterosexism, which represents the system of beliefs that legitimizes inequality between heterosexual and homosexual people by positioning heterosexuality as the norm, rendering all nonheterosexual behavior as either invisible and/or abnormal. Although a number of countries have included sexual orientation as part of human rights legislation, homosexual and heterosexual rights are by no means at par. For example, same-sex marriage is not recognized in most countries. Denmark was the first country to recognize same-sex partnerships in 1989 and since then, only approximately 10 countries have followed, among them the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada. Although some U.S. states recognize these unions, same-sex marriage is not federally recognized in the United States. Moreover, the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit acts of discrimination based on sexual orientation, although a number of individual states have developed antidiscrimination laws (e.g., Wisconsin was the first U.S. state to pass a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation). Thus, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is apparent in educational settings, employment, housing, and in the military, as evidenced by the U.S. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Hostility and Harassment Antigay hostility is entrenched in popular media and rampant at state and individual levels. Stereotypes portray lesbians as men-haters and gay men as pedophiles. Homosexual relationships are assumed to be less serious and infidel, and gay men and lesbians are often stereotyped as immoral, sexual predators. According to the International, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association, approximately 80 countries deem consensual same-sex sexual acts criminal and in approximately five of these countries, the acts are punishable by death (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, and Yemen). Although the United States has no federal level antidiscrimination protection, the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Hate Crimes Prevention Act added sexual orientation and gender identity to hate crime legislation in 2007 and data collected on the



prevalence of homophobic acts of violence and crime documented 37,800 instances of hate crimes motivated by the victims’ sexual orientations over a three year period. Moreover, in a U.S. national probability sample, 21 percent of gay and lesbian respondents reported violence or property crimes at least once in their adult lives. More than half of respondents reported harassment and approximately 10 percent reported experiencing housing or employment discrimination. Moreover, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educators Network reports widespread homophobia and gaybaiting in schools, especially directed at young men and boys. One analysis of secondary media reports of random high school shootings in the United States from 1982 to 2001 found that of the boys who had committed the acts of violence, nearly all had experienced gay baiting and bullying. Because of widespread stereotyping and stigma of homosexuality, “internalized homophobia” reflects an individual person’s acceptance of society’s prejudice and stigma as part of his or her own self-concept and belief system. Internalized homophobia is expressed in the desire to deny, denounce, or change one’s homosexual orientation or desires. Traditional Gender Roles Social psychological research demonstrates that a number of variables are associated with hostility toward gays, lesbians, and bisexual people. For example, antigay attitudes are associated with religious fundamentalism and a strong adherence to traditional gender roles. Moreover, homophobic beliefs and attitudes are strongly correlated with high levels of authoritarianism, political conservatism, dogmatism, beliefs that homosexuality is freely chosen, and little contact with gay, lesbian, or bisexual people. Finally, research finds strong gender, age, and educational differences in attitudes suggesting that being male, older, and less educated is associated with more negative attitudes toward gays, lesbians, and bisexual people. Research also finds that gay men and lesbians differ in their experiences with homophobia, with an abundance of evidence suggesting that homosexuality is more negatively sanctioned in men. Indeed, homosexual men are more likely to experience gay bashing and extreme violence. Feminist scholars attribute this

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gender difference to traditional gender norms associated with being the higher status sex; deviation from traditional masculinity is less forgiving and acceptable, leading some to contend that homophobia represents men’s general fears of being declared insufficiently masculine and thus, serves to maintain rigid beliefs of masculinity. The negative psychological, cognitive, and interpersonal effects of homophobia are extensive. Because of blatant, indirect, and anticipated homophobia gay men and lesbians are more likely to develop mood disorders (e.g., anxiety and depression), are at a greater risk of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts and cognitive impairments from regulating concealment compared to heterosexual counterparts. Within work environments, disclosing sexual orientation has been noted as one of the most difficult career challenges for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and one study of over 400 respondents found that approximately 75 percent of gays and lesbians reported being attacked or physically threatened after disclosing their sexual orientations. Dating back to the Stonewall Riots in New York in June 1969, and the repeal of sodomy laws in most U.S. states in the early 1970s, the gay rights movement has inspired and created a number of initiatives and legal milestones around the world to combat homophobia. These include gay pride events, ally organizations, national “coming out” days, safe-space initiatives in work and educational environments to fight homophobia, and the affirmation of U.S. privacy laws in 2003. May 17 has been declared as International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia and, in 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Committee created a declaration denouncing discrimination and torture based on sexual orientation and gender identity. See Also: Hate Crimes; Heterosexism; Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward; LGBTQ; Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; Partner Rights. Further Readings Herek, Gregory M. “Beyond ‘Homophobia: Thinking About Sexual Prejudice and Stigma in the 21st Century.” Sexuality Research & Social Policy, v.1/2 (2004). International Gay Lesbian Human Rights Commission. http://www.iglhrc/cgi-bin/iowa/home/index.html (accessed June 2010).

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Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward

Kimmel, Michael. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” In P. Murphy, ed., Feminism and Masculinities. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. Cherie Werhun University of Winnipeg

Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward Attitudes in the United States toward marginalized groups have been marked by increased tolerance according to polls. Although attitudes toward lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender (LGBT) people have, in many important respects, become more tolerant, large segments of the population continue to hold negative attitudes toward LGBT individuals. Some general trends and patterns are obvious: in general, men and people of color tend to hold more negative attitudes toward LGBT individuals than do women and white people, and people tend to hold more negative attitudes toward gay men than lesbians. In terms of both demographic patterns and basic doctrine ideology, some segments of the religious community persistently hold and actively promote intolerant, hostile views of LGBT people. Although the vast majority of religions place great emphasis on compassion, peace, tolerance and love for others in general terms, many of the world’s prominent religions condemn homosexuality. Research demonstrates an important connection between religiosity and homophobic prejudice. A reliable positive correlation between religiosity and prejudice reveals the connection: the more religious one is, the less tolerant one is. Religious Orientations In order to understand the relationship between religion and prejudice social scientists differentiate three types of religious orientations: extrinsic, intrinsic, and quest. These orientation designations describe the kind of religiosity an individual experiences and describe the point of view, and the religious lens through which the individual understands the social world. The ways in which religiosity interacts with

homophobia depend, in part, on which of these orientations is engaged. Individuals with an extrinsic religious orientation use religion as a means to achieve nonreligious goals. Extrinsic orientation obtains social rewards secondarily derived from religion and participation in religious activities, including recognition from peers, developing and enhancing business contacts, or personal rewards in which religion provides personal comfort, relief, and protection. People with extrinsic orientation attend services infrequently. Intrinsically oriented people have internalized the values of their religion, live life according to those beliefs, and attend services regularly. The quest orientation views religion as a process of questioning, doubting, and reexamination in response to the contradictions and tragedies of life. These orientations typify individual approaches to participation in religious activities. At a larger, more abstract level, religions are described in terms of the degree to which religious doctrine and activity is relatively more conservative or reform. Religious fundamentalism and Christian orthodoxy play a role in prejudice toward LGBT people. Religious fundamentalism represents the belief that there is one set of religious teachings that contain the inerrant truth about God and humanity. Christian orthodoxy reflects the degree to which people agree with the core beliefs of Christianity. Intrinsic religious orientation, fundamentalism and Christian orthodoxy have all shown to be linked to negative attitudes toward LGBT people. The extrinsic orientation is unrelated to attitudes toward homosexuality. The quest orientation has the weakest link to prejudice, and in fact, the quest orientation is associated with positive attitudes toward homosexuality. One important limitation of the research on the relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward homosexuality is that most of the research has been conducted on Christian religions, and very few studies have included non-Christian organizations. Those studies that have included Jews have found more positive attitudes toward LGBT people among Jews than Christians. In terms of Christian denominations, liberal Protestants (e.g., Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Unitarians) tend to have the most positive attitudes toward homosexuality, followed by moderate Protestants (e.g., Methodists and Lutherans) and Catholics.

Honduras



Other Features of Religion and Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Students of prejudice have examined other aspects of religiosity. For instance, factors connected to active participation, such as the frequency with which one attends religious services is positively associated with prejudice toward LGBT people. Religiosity—the degree to which people are involved in their religion, or simply view themselves as religious—is also associated with negative attitudes toward LGBT people. How do we understand the apparent conflict between doctrines that espouse tolerance and benevolence on the one hand and practice intolerance and condemnation where LGBT individuals are concerned? First, there is a link between religiosity and the social ideology, right-wing authoritarianism—many religious fundamentalists are right-wing authoritarians and many right-wing authoritarians are religious fundamentalists. Right wing authoritarians tend to think in terms of black/white either/or dichotomies. They tend to see the world in terms of good or evil, they are rigid in their thinking, and hold traditional values. Particularly relevant to religiosity, right-wing authoritarians tend to unquestioningly follow authority figures. Therefore, if religious leaders condemn homosexuality, right-wing authoritarians will tend to obediently follow their lead. Second, LGBT people are portrayed as violating important American values and are perceived as threatening to those values. People who are religious might be especially sensitive to threats to their values, therefore the greater the extent to which they are likely to perceive LGBT people as threatening those values, the more likely they are to hold negative attitudes toward them. Finally, another factor related to the relationship between religiosity and negative attitudes toward homosexuality is the extent to which people believe that homosexuality is controllable, changeable, and a matter of choice. Negative attitudes and hostility toward homosexuality as an abstraction quickly extends to hostility toward LGBT people. If it is widely believed that a stigma is under the control of the stigmatized person, the more negative the attitudes one will hold toward the stigmatized person. For instance, those with more sympathetic attitudes toward homosexuality and supporters of LGBT rights are more likely to think that homosexuality is not a choice—that there is a

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biological or genetic component to sexual orientation. Conversely, those who hold negative attitudes toward homosexuality and do not support LGBT rights tend to believe that homosexuality is a choice and under the direct control of individuals. To the extent that religious leaders or religious doctrine espouses homosexuality as a choice, followers will tend to have more negative attitudes toward homosexuality. The issue of controllability may explain why most prominent religions do not (or no longer) condemn racial and ethnic minorities, yet continue to condemn homosexuality. In summary, most forms of religiosity, except for the extrinsic and quest orientations, are associated with negative attitudes toward homosexuality. Rightwing authoritarianism, perceived value violation, and controllability are likely moderators of the relationship between religiosity and negative attitudes toward lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people. See Also: Christianity; Coming Out; Homophobia; LGBTQ; Religion,Women in. Further Readings Finlay, Barbara and Carol S. Walther. “The Relation of Religious Affiliation, Service Attendance, and Other Factors to Homophobic Attitudes Among University Students.” Review of Religious Research, v.44/4 (2003). Whitley, Bernard E. Jr. “Religiosity and Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men: A Meta-Analysis.” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, v.19/1 (2009). Kristin J. Anderson University of Houston

Honduras The Republic of Honduras is located in Central America. Most of the population is mestizo. The predominant culture is Hispanic although there are also sizeable indigenous Afro-Honduran and Arab-Honduran groups. The predominant religion is Roman Catholic. The social concept of machismo, emphasizing male dominance and virility, and marianismo, emphasizing female purity, are common in Hispanic cultures. These attitudes limit political and economic

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Honduras located nearby. Both genders increasingly share in household decision making and many middle- and upper-class wives utilize domestic servants. Discipline of children tends to be stricter in rural areas. Female school attendance rates stand at 94 percent at the primary level but only 20 percent at the tertiary level, largely because of an inability to afford higher education. The 2009 literacy rates for females and males are almost identical, at 83 percent and 82 percent respectively. Problems include strained ethnic relations, high domestic violence rates, economic crimes, youth street gangs, and lack of affordable and accessible healthcare for poor and rural populations.

Protestors were divided after the 2009 military coup that ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in Honduras.

opportunities for women and encourage high rates of domestic violence. Women’s opportunities are also limited by high poverty levels. Honduras ranked 62nd of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Common-law, civil, and church marriages are all practiced. Newlyweds each take both surnames as their new family name. Most marriages are monogamous, although a small percentage of wealthy men maintain a separate household with another woman. There is social stigma placed upon divorce but women have equal legal rights during divorce. The 2009 fertility rate was 3.3 births per woman. Skilled healthcare practitioners attend 67 percent of births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 23 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate was 280 per 100,000 live births. The state social security system and employers provide women with 10 weeks of paid maternity leave. Many young urban couples live with their parents until they can afford a separate household, ideally

Women in the Workforce Because of financial necessity to supplement the family income, 38 percent of Honduran women work outside the home. Women constitute 33 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 52 percent of professional and technical workers. Women make up 75 percent of primary level teachers, 55 percent of secondary level teachers, and 38 percent of tertiary level teachers. Many urban industrial parks contain foreign-owned garment factories known as maquilas that produce clothing for export. These factories employ mostly women in sweatshop conditions at low wages. Other key employers are stores and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Some occupations such as construction, driving, and the military do not employ women. Men also perform most agricultural labor. A gender gap still exists in terms of average estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which stands at $2,254 for women and $4,863 for men, and unemployment rates, which stand at 6.2 percent for women and 3.17 percent for men. Women have the right to vote. While men continue to dominate political life, women have served as judges and lawyers, congressional and cabinet members, mayors, and heads of the national police force. Women hold 23 percent of parliamentary seats and 24 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. There are numerous NGOs in operation, most in rural areas. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Machismo/ Marianismo; Maquiladoras.

Honor Killings

Further Readings Dore, Elizabeth and Maxine Molyneux. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. World Health Organization. “World Health Report Statistical Annex, Annexes by Country (A-F).” http:// www.who.int/entity/whr/2005/annex/indicators _country_a-f.pdf (accessed February 2010). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Honor Killings Violence against women is common throughout the world. A cultural code of honor exists for women and men. Honor-related violence is most prevalent in Muslim countries. Internationally it involves immigrants, though the connections to religion may be spurious. It should be noted that men also are the targets of honor-related violence, but that women comprise the majority of victims. Honor killing, the most severe of these acts, is precipitated by the woman transgressing cultural norms, which brings perceived social dishonor to the family. A cultural convention, a primary norm for behavior for women, is the maintenance of her virginity (e.g., purity), it is expected that she be “preserved” until marriage. Consequently, a woman’s actions and behavior are very closely scrutinized not only by her family but also by her community. Any transgressions are taken very seriously and the penalties are usually severe. Illicit premarital or extramarital affairs are common reasons underlying the attacks. Other examples of motivating “offenses” for the attacks: attempting to avoid an arranged marriage, dating, dowry issues, wearing inappropriate clothing, attempting divorce or even flirting. The penalty can occur for a simple suspicion of a “crime” (e.g., illicit affairs). Even cases involving rape, though this is considered sex out of wedlock, the victim is murdered to restore family purity and honor.

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The United Nations estimates 5,000 women are the victims of honor killing annually. Due to the private nature of these crimes, most honor killings are unreported, usually uninvestigated and, ultimately, unprosecuted; therefore, it is quite difficult to quantify the true extent of the phenomenon. Furthermore, the greater community and extended family of the victim likely know about the crime but nothing is done as honor crimes are usually condoned and seen as justified. The accepting attitude can be seen in the way the perpetrators are treated by the systems of justice in front of which they appear. Either their cases are suspended or given brief sentences relative to the crime(s) they have committed. Moreover, these crimes may go unnoticed as honor killings may be concealed or construed as accidental death or suicide. This phenomenon is being recognized and investigated in many nations around the world. An immediate family member is most commonly the perpetrator of the homicide. It is usually the father who commits murder, but the murder may be handled by a brother, first cousin, son, or any combination of people organized to restore family honor and purity. Siblings are often responsible for the victimization as they are usually met with a lighter sentence since honor killings are considered a family affair. The entire family may conspire against the victim/ offender/woman to commit the crime. For example, there have been cases where the woman’s mother was found to have lured the girl home to meet her fate at the hands of other male family members. Women do escape from their family’s reach. There are many stories of complex ways in which the woman plans her escape. However, even if the woman succeeds in avoiding the penalty for her crime, she remains at risk. She will ultimately live in a permanent state of fear, afraid she will continue to be hunted. In some situations the woman is coerced into taking her own life, or an honor suicide. She is provided with a weapon, sometimes locked in a room and given a certain amount of time at which to respond. Usually, there is a threat that there will be a more painful or serious outcome if the woman does not carry out the suicide. Murder is not the only consequence for violating cultural norms and bringing shame upon the family. Women face many types of honor-related crimes and violence. In some cases a woman is beaten and placed

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in solitary confinement and locked in a room for an extended period of time, sometimes for months. There are several alternate consequences to honor killing that deserve mention. A substitute to death is the heinous crime of disfigurement, also known as vitriolage or acid throwing. This is when acid is thrown into the face of the woman to permanently blemish her face. Another related crime is corrective rape. If a woman is suspected of being gay or openly lesbian there is an attempt to “fix” the problem by raping her. Sometimes mutilation and or murder follow such incidents. In these cases, as with honor killings, the attacks are rarely if ever prosecuted. Impunity is a motivating force, as these crimes are social supported. There is no fear as well as no deterrent. Is Religion to Blame? Honor killings are usually perceived as a cultural practice. Unfortunately, the act is much more widespread than most people are aware. The popular media portray honor killing as a Muslim phenomenon. The term is usually coupled with Islam. It may be argued on many levels that it is not necessarily unique to the Muslim community. First, there is no component or statement in the Qur’an that endorses or justifies honor killing. It is argued by many that it is not Islam but an ancient cultural or tribal practice. Culturally, women are thought of as the property of the males in their lives. Though the practice is not condoned officially in any nation, even conservative Muslim nations, many honor killings do occur in those regions. Research has shown some connections between religion and honor killing but that may be explained away when taking a closer view of the culture and condoned ancient practices. The act of honor killing is perpetrated around the world, even in non-Muslim, Western nations. Young Muslim women are being victimized in countries such as Australia and Canada, in such European nations as Great Britain, Italy, France, and Germany as well as in the United States. Even nations noted at the pinnacle of egalitarian relations between men and women, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, acknowledge the presence of honor related violence. The practice of murdering women is nothing new in the world. Statistically, the usual perpetrators of sexual violence and homicide against women are males who are known to the victim. Violence against women cuts

across class, racial, ethnic, regional, and national boundaries. Honor killing is a human rights issue; women are being victimized. Regardless of the underlying motivation for the attack, thousands of women are being murdered annually. Consequently, the motivation for the attack does not necessarily have a religious basis. From any angle, it is simply another example of attempted male dominance and control of a woman’s freedom, control of her body and her sexuality. What is needed to effect the eradication of all honor related violence is not only international recognition, but a transnational and cross-cultural cooperation, a partnership to eliminate these crimes against women. See Also: Arab Feminism; Domestic Violence; Honor Suicides; Human Rights Campaign; Islam; Islam in America; Islamic Feminism. Further Readings CBS 48 Hours. “Honor Crimes.” CBS 48 Hours Mystery. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/18/48hours /main242349.shtml (accessed January 2010). Hossain, Sara and Lynn Welchman. Honour: Crimes, Paradigms, and Violence Against Women. London: Zed Books, 2005. Husseini, Rana. Murder in the Name of Honour. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2009. Tawfeeq, Mohammed and Brian Todd. “Four Arrested in Iraq ‘Honor Killing.’” CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2007 /WORLD/meast/05/18/iraq.honorkilling/index.html (accessed January 2010) United Nations Population Report. “Chapter 3: Ending Violence Against Women and Girls” http://www .unfpa.org/swp/2000/english/ch03.html (accessed January 2010) Paul E. Calarco, Jr. Hudson Valley Community College

Honor Suicides Honor crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members who are thought to have brought dishonor upon the family. In the cultures that these crimes take place, women are often placed in subordinate posi-



tions to males. As subordinates, the wrongdoings of the women reflect onto and shame the men. The only way to restore honor to their families is for the shamed woman to die. A woman can be targeted by her family for a variety of reasons, including refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or (allegedly) committing adultery. Regularly, speculation that a woman has behaved in a specific way causing “dishonor” to her family is accepted as truth. A more recent phenomenon is called an honor suicide. Like honor crimes, these deaths occur after a woman dishonors herself and her family. Honor suicides are frequently associated with Kurdish southeast Turkey, and are associated only with women. When a woman was going to be killed for dishonoring her family, it was usually the youngest man in the family that was told to commit this act. Because of his youth, the young man would usually receive a shorter prison sentence. Additionally, sentences were reduced under the defense that a relative had been provoked to commit the murder. In 2005, in an attempt to join the European Union (EU), Turkey instituted reforms of its penal code against honor crimes. Pressured by the EU to tighten punishment of honor killings, the reform eliminated lenient sentencing, and introduced mandatory life sentences for honor killers. With new attention being paid to honor killings, an unintended consequence has occurred. Following the reforms, the numbers of female suicides in Turkey quickly began to rise. Thus, instead of being murdered by one’s family for bringing shame or dishonor to the family, women are now being pressured to commit suicide. Following a woman’s transgression, a family council determines her fate. The council, made up of the extended family of the woman, discusses the alleged dishonor and comes to a decision on her punishment. If the outcome of the council is a decision that she be put to death, the family pressures the woman to take her own life, subsequently sparing the men of the family from serving time in jail. Girls are told that if they don’t kill themselves, their father or brother will have to go to jail, indicating that one way or another the girl will die. Family Secrecy Two types of secrecy are relevant to honor suicides. The first of these involves secrecy within the families

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of the dead women. In some instances, what appears to be an “honor suicide” is actually an orchestrated honor killing perpetrated by the family. As a consequence of the silence maintained within families, Turkish authorities investigating honor suicides are often unable to determine whether suicides are the result of family pressure or are actually homicides. To preserve the honor of the family, men and women alike rarely confess to authorities that a suicide is actually an honor killing. In an attempt to escape ridicule, shame, and blame, women frequently try to hide their transgressions. For example, when a woman engages in premarital sex, she may fear being caught, and consequently takes precautions to prevent dishonoring her family. Though illegal in many places, some women have medical procedures to reattach their hymens prior to marriage, keeping her indiscretion a secret. While this may seem like an extreme example, women are often forced to keep their attitudes, behaviors, and desires a secret in order to prevent being killed or being pressured to kill themselves. Women who ordered to take their own lives are usually locked in a room at the family home with various tools for killing herself: a noose, gun, or rat poison are common. In a final attempt to gain approval from her family, “honor suicides” occur when women don’t feel they can take the ridicule and pressure from their families and communities any longer: they see suicide as an opportunity of escape. Notably, suicide is not the only option for these women; however, most women are illiterate and unfamiliar with their legal rights. See Also: Honor Killings; Suicide Methods; Turkey. Further Readings Bilefsky, Dan, “How to Avoid Honor Killing in Turkey? Honor Suicide.” New York Times. http://www.nytimes .com/2006/07/16/world/europe/16turkey.html (accessed November 2009). Bilefsky, Dan, “Virgin Suicides Save Turks’ Honor.’” http:// www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/world/europe/12iht -virgins.2184928.html (accessed November 2009). CBS Worldwide Inc. “Suicide for Honor and Country.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/07/21/sunday /main217634.shtml (accessed November 2009). Navai, Ramita, “Women Told: You Have Dishonoured Your Family, Please Kill Yourself.’” http://www.independent

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Horse Racing, Women in

.co.uk/news/world/europe/women-told-you -have-dishonoured-your-family-please-kill-yourself -1655373.html (accessed November 2009). Devon G. Thacker University of Colorado

Horse Racing, Women in The ancient sport of horse racing includes thoroughbred racing, where horses are ridden by jockeys, and harness racing, where drivers operate two-wheel carts. Horse owners employ trainers who prepare horses for racing and stewards to enforce regulations. While participants in these sports have, historically, been primarily male, women have played important roles in the sport even prior to their legal entry. By the 1950s, Wartha Davis had become a leading American jockey, and in 1964 an American female jockey was successful in obtaining her license under the Civil Rights Act. It was not until 1974 that women were permitted jockey licenses in Australia, and England’s Victorian racecourses did not permit women to race in regular races against men until 1979. Women involved in horse racing have had to work to overcome gender-based discrimination that prevented their involvement or hindered their success in the field. Women lack visibility in this highly competitive field, and are subject to sexual harassment on and off the track. While there has been some success in increasing equitable participation of in the last 15 years, many obstacles remain. Visibility remains an issue, as those involved are typically self-employed and need to advertise their services to reluctant male owners and trainers who still believe the stereotype that women are not strong enough to handle horses in competition. Only 10 percent of mounts, or opportunities to race in competition, go to women. And as there are so few women on the racetrack, women are held to a higher standard on the track. If a man does poorly, the perception is that it could have been caused by a number of reasons, but if a woman does poorly, it is assumed that she performed poorly because she is a woman. In situations where a husband and wife team acts as horse trainer and owner, the wife is often assumed

to be secondary to the husband. This can also occur in harness racing, where one of the spouses may be the driver. Instead of a being understood as a team, the woman may only be seen as a support for the husband, changing the “husband and wife team” to one of a husband being the trainer/owner and the woman slipping into the role of the “trainer’s wife.” While workplace safety and freedom from harassment and prejudice is entrenched in law, in horse racing there is often insufficient protection for women. In 2005, the New York Times reported that one of the reasons female jockey Chantal Sutherland left Toronto’s racing circuit was because she encountered sexual harassment. It was noted that the male trainer would often assume that if he were giving the female jockey the ride, she would date him. Judged on her appearance rather than her professional performance, Sutherland would often receive comments that she was too attractive to be a jockey. Recent Female Success Although women face prejudice in the sport, some have achieved success. Since women were permitted in major competitions, only five have competed in the Kentucky Derby, one the most prestigious horse races in North America; women jockeys placing no higher than 11th. Rosemary Homeister rode in the derby in 2003. Julie Krone was the fourth woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby, doing so twice, in 1993 and 1995. In 2000, Krone became the first woman inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, and in 2002 the first woman to win a Grade 1 race in California. While in 2005, trainer Bettye Gabriel won the “Distinguished Women in Horseracing Award,” a female trainer has yet to win a Kentucky Derby. This, however, is not the case in major competitions elsewhere. Australia has seen major advances in female competition; in 2001, Sheila Laxon become the first trainer to win the Melbourne Cup—the most important thoroughbred race in Australia. In 2003, Clare Lindhop was the first woman to ride in the Melbourne Cup. In 2005, it was announced that the Racing Victoria Limited would be conducting an audit on and improving the women’s facilities at its 34 racecourses. In Australia, women have made a number of advances in many positions, currently holding positions at every level of participation, including in course management.

Household Decision-Making



In 2009, Britain’s Venetia Williams was the second female trainer to have a horse win the Grand National, a British thoroughbred hunt. Prior to that, Jenny Pitman had been the only female trainer to win, having won in 1983 and 1995. Another British trainer deserving mention is Henrietta Knight, who in the past few decades has had hundreds of horses she’s trained go on to win awards. While women have found their way into all roles in harness and thoroughbred racing, the sport has considerable room to improve. Time has not solved all problems facing females in horse racing, and issues of visibility, harassment, and gender-based discrimination still exist. While women in Australia and Britain have made many advances and have held the ground they have gained, in North America, women had a strong involvement in the sport in the 1990s, but by the 2000s few female “big names” remained in thoroughbred racing. See Also: Bullying in the Workplace; Business, Women in; Coaches, Female; Glass Ceiling; Sports Officials, Female; Stereotypes of Women; Team Owners, Female; Track and Field, Women in. Further Readings Finley, Bill. “Horse Racing; Homeister Prepares for Ride of a Lifetime.” New York Times (November 17, 2009). http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/03/sports/horse -racing-homeister-prepares-for-ride-of-a-lifetime.html (accessed November 2009). Larsen, Elizabeth A. “A Vicious Oval: Why Women Seldom Reach the Top in American Harness Racing.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, v35/2 (2006). D. Davidson York University C. Davidson Independent Scholar

Household Decision-Making Decisions in households concern different aspects of family life, work life, household chores, and the purchase of goods, and are made by partners of married or unmarried couples (with or without children)

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who live together in one household. There has been a lot of research, mainly in the social realm, on the underlying processes and roles of decision-making within families and couples. The individual members of a household have different roles and functions during that process and it is not rare that conflicts arise. Processes of decision-making vary across cultures, although there is a general trend toward the adoption of traditional role patterns. Household decision-making has been studied from psychological, sociological, and economic perspectives. Power structure in a relationship is analyzed as a factor in decision-making. In sociology, decision-making within a household is typically examined in the context of societal developments, such as changes in the proportion of women in the workforce. From an economic perspective, household decision-making is usually studied in terms of consumer behavior. Often two types of household decisions are distinguished. The first type concerns the purchase of goods and, along with that, the spending of money. The second type is about the division of labor (paid work and unpaid household chores) and responsibilities within the family. Decisions about money management constitute a specific domain, distinguished between the allocation of money and the responsibility for finance related tasks (e.g., paying bills). According to Robert O. Blood and Donald M. Wolfe, family decisions can be classified with respect to autonomy and influence and involve decisions of complete autonomy, in which a family member decides independently, decisions made by a male or husband, decisions where the female or wife dominantes, and decisions with a cooperative structure, in which each family member contributes their opinion. Underlying Social Roles Specific roles were distinguished by researchers Conway Lackman and John M. Lanasa, including the gatekeeper, who initiates the process of decisionmaking; the influencer, whose position has an impact on the decision; and finally the decision maker, the buyer and consumer. Decision-making is also influenced by the social roles of the household members. The member in charge of making decisions often depends on real or perceived power within the relationship, as well as on earnings, social and

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educational backgrounds, and the previous relationship experience of the partners. Today, cooperative money management is typical in many households. Similarly, decisions on the distribution of labor and duties are no longer solely made on the basis of traditional gender roles. The partners’ social roles and functions have become more flexible and intertwined. In Western societies, the percentage of women in the workforce has increased, and an increasing number of fathers accept responsibilities regarding childcare. It is still rare, however, that household chores are shared equally, and gender-typical allocations of decision-making can still be distinguished. Women typically make the decisions on aspects of everyday life and family concerns, such as purchasing food or taking care of children. Men often make technical and long-term decisions, for example, which new car to purchase or overseeing the finances. Conflicts, Power and the Decision-Making Process Conflicts involving decision-making often arise on issues of the distribution of paid and unpaid work within the couple. The perception of fairness is essential in these cases. Patterns that are unequal but regarded as fair (e.g., when they involve symbolic rewards) do not usually provoke conflict. Other issues that can cause conflict involve education and healthcare of children. The distribution of power within a couple can be equal or unequal, and the exercise of power is often a subtle and possibly subconscious process. Power has an effect on who makes the decision, but it is not necessarily the partner who has more power who decides whether or not to buy certain goods or how to deal with a resource. Instead, decision-making is sometimes delegated: power is relevant to the question of deciding who makes the decision. A child’s influence on decision-making depends on their age, their knowledge about a product, and the financial resources of a household. In Western societies, nontraditional roles, with both partners contributing equally to decision-making, have become more common. Above all, decisions concerning the entire family are more often made by both partners. This trend emerges even more so in urban areas. Current research focuses on the differ-

ences between Western and eastern societies, as well as between urban and rural areas. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Household Division of Labor; Social Justice Theory. Further Readings Antonides , Gerrit and Maaike Kroft. “Fairness Judgments in Household Decision Making.” Journal of Economic Psychology, v.26 (2005). Blood, Robert O. and Donald M. Wolfe. Husbands and Wives. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1960. Foote, Nelson N., ed., Household Decision-Making. New York: New York University Press, 1961. Lackman, Conway and John M. Lanasa. “Family DecisionMaking Theory: An Overview and Assessment.” Psychology and Marketing, v.10/2 (1993). Astrid Schütz Uta Kretzschmar Chemnitz University of Technology

Household Division of Labor The term household labor is used and defined in different ways. In general, it refers to unpaid work that is done in the house to maintain a home (domestic work). Often, it includes care of children or other family members. Studies on the division of household labor usually deal with cohabiting or married couples and with ways of sharing household chores. Mostly, they focus on heterosexual couples. However, there is a growing body of literature on samesex couples, too. Household division of labor is a core issue of gender and women’s studies, as well as family sociology and social psychology. It affects many aspects of social life, such as intimate relationships, individual wellbeing or opportunities on the labor market. It is especially important because it is one of the areas where inequalities seem to be particularly tenacious. Even in countries with a high degree of gender equality, and with couples in which both partners are employed fulltime, inequalities in home’s division of labor are common. This entry deals with ways of empirically researching household division of labor and pres-



ents selected findings of quantitative and qualitative research as well as important theoretical approaches. Data Collection In its quantitative dimensions, household division of labor can be derived from time use surveys. People in the sample are asked to fill in a time use diary during certain periods, that is, to write down all their activities and the amount of time they have used for them per day. Results provide information about mean values of time use and allow for comparisons between men and women or different countries. Additionally, people’s social practices or discourses about household division of labor are studied by means of methods of qualitative inquiry. Results provide insights into how couples negotiate the division of household responsibilities or how they perceive housework and its division. The United Nations estimates that women worldwide spend approximately twice as much time on unpaid work as men. Despite the fact that women’s participation in gainful work has been increasing globally, unequal division of unpaid work persists. In total, women work more hours than men and, as a result, have less time for leisure and participation in public life. To give some examples: In Canada, women spend four hours and six minutes per day with domestic work, compared to men’s two hours and 30 minutes, according to data compiled by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. In the United States, women use three hours 38 minutes per day for domestic work compared to two hours, two minutes for men. A similar pattern can be seen in comparative time use surveys carried out by the European Union. In any of the 10 included countries—Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, and United Kingdom—women perform more domestic work than men. In this study, domestic work was defined as housework, child and adult care, gardening and pet care, construction and repairs, shopping and services, and household management. In summary, women perform between 60 and 66 percent of all domestic work. In any of the 10 countries, as well as in Canada and the United States, men perform more gainful work and have more free time than women. Together (gainful work plus domestic work), women work more hours then men

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in every country, except Sweden and Norway. Moreover, men and women perform different kinds of domestic work: women are more involved in housework and caring, and men are more consumed with maintenance and repair work. Influences on Household Division of Labor Practices of household division of labor are sometimes described by differentiating between types of division, for example, traditional, egalitarian, and reversal of gender roles. The division of household labor correlates with factors such as income, educational background, professional status, and working times. A well-studied influence is the traditionalizing effect, which is linked to the transition into parenthood. Even couples who used to practice an egalitarian division of labor when they were childless tend to take up a more traditional division as soon as they have a child. Perception of Fairness and Satisfaction Studies have shown that women tend to compare their male partner’s effort not to their own contribution, but to other men’s housework responsibilities. As a consequence, women tend to be satisfied with the division of labor if their partners contribute more than other men in their relationships, even if they still work less then the women themselves. As part of her influential work on emotional labor, Arlie Russell Hochschild described the so-called economy of gratitude. She argues that gratitude, for example, for men’s contribution to housework, is distributed according to the nonegalitarian structures of society. For example, for the same amount of work, men receive more gratitude than women. Hochschild also found out that men explain inequalities by rational reasoning, often claiming that they have less need for household chores, for example, because they are less demanding with regard to food or standards of cleanliness. Unequal household division of labor is not just a result of societal gender inequalities. Housework is considered as a site where gender differences are being produced. A highly influential approach in gender studies first described by Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman understands gender as being produced in social interaction. Housework is a key area in which gender is being “done.”

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Drawing on this idea, Polly A. Fassinger additionally showed that household chores are perceived as “naturally” gendered. In other words, that women are perceived as “instinctively” being good at doing housework because of their biological sex. Explanations for unequal divisions of housework are provided by socialization approaches, too. There is evidence that parents tend to assign more or other housework chores to girls than to boys. As a result, gender-specific views and competences with regard to housework are internalized during socialization. See Also: Childcare; Domestic Workers; Elder Care; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Homemaking; Household Decision-Making; Unpaid Labor; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Ahrne, Göran and Christine Roman. Hemmet, Barnen Och Makten. Förhandlingar om Arbete och Pengar I Familjen.” (The Home, the Children and the Power. Negotiations About Work and Money in the Family.) Stockholm, Sweden: Fritzes, 1997. Fassinger, Polly A. “Meanings of Housework for Single Fathers and Mothers—Insights Into Gender Inequality.” In Jane C. Hood, ed., Men, Work, and Family. London: Sage, 1993. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Hochschild, Arlie Russell, with Anne Machung. The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. New York: Viking, 1989.  Shelton, B. A. and D. John. “The Division of Household Labor.” Annual Review of Sociology (January 1996). West, Candace and Don H. Zimmerman. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society, v.1/2 (1987). Karin Sardadvar University of Vienna

Huffington, Arianna Arianna Huffington is an author, philanthropist, political pundit, television personality, and owner of the independently liberal, online news magazine,

The Huffington Post. Though a naturalized U.S. citizen, Arianna Huffington’s interest in United States politics began with her marriage to Texas oil millionaire and former conservative member of the House of Representatives, Michael Huffington. Though the two divorced in 1997, Arianna Huffington remained politically passionate, and eventually returned to her liberal roots as the author of more than a dozen politically focused books, as a frequent commentator on national news shows, as the 2003 independent candidate for governor of California in the campaign to recall Governor Gray Davis, and, even today, as the host of two nationally syndicated public radio shows, Left, Right & Center and 7 Days in America. In 2006, Huffington was named to the “Time 100,” Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2009, she was ranked number 12 on Forbes’s list of the “Most Influential Women in Media.” Arianna Stassinopoulos was born in Athens, Greece, in 1950 to politically active parents. At the age of 16, Arianna left Greece and moved to England. She attended Cambridge University, and in 1971, she was named president of the prestigious Cambridge Union Society, a debate club and the oldest society at the university. The society is recognized worldwide as a symbol of free speech and balanced debate, and Arianna was only the third woman to hold the position of president. She graduated from Cambridge with a degree in Economics in 1972. Thanks to her prominent position as president of the Cambridge Union Society, after graduation, Arianna was invited to be a regular guest on the weekly BBC programs, Any Questions?, Call My Bluff, and Face the Music. A Move to the United States In 1980, Arianna moved to the United States after the end of a nine-year affair with famed British broadcaster, author, and journalist Bernard Levin. In 1985, Arianna met conservative Michael Huffington, a family friend of the Bushes, in San Francisco. The two married in 1986, and moved to Washington, D.C., where Michael served a term as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy. Some years later, they moved to California, established residency, and ran Michael’s successful 1992 Republican campaign for the House of Representatives. Though Arianna supported many of her husband’s moderate causes, she remained close to her liberal upbringing



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Kerry. Huffington has made numerous television and movie appearances in the years since, often as herself, and in 2008, Fox Broadcasting announced that Huffington would play a character on the animated comedy, The Cleveland Show. On the show, Huffington gives voice to the also named Arianna, wife of Cleveland’s next-door neighbor, Tim the Bear.

Arianna Huffington campaigns during her run for governor of California in the recall election against Gray Davis.

on most issues. Michael would go on to lose his 1994 campaign for the U.S. Senate, and, in 1997, the couple divorced. The terms of their settlement, though never public, are thought to have been generous to Arianna and the couple’s two daughters, Christina and Isabella. In 1998, Michael made the public announcement that he was bisexual. Politics and Television In the years just before and following her divorce, Huffington became a well-known pundit on the cable sensation, Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher, where the then moderately conservative Huffington often appeared in pajamas in a large bed, with liberal funnyman and current U.S. Senator for Minnesota, Al Franken, in order to provide comic commentary on the 1996 presidential election. Their work on the show earned Huffington and the Comedy Central team an Emmy nomination, but it also heralded the end of Arianna’s conservative-leaning years. In the late 1990s, Arianna would be a loud opponent to the United States’ involvement in the Yugoslav wars. By 2000, she was disillusioned with both parties, and during that year’s presidential election, she hosted “shadow conventions” at both the Republican and Democrat National Conventions. By the end of the election year, Arianna had, once again, firmly embraced her liberal roots, and in 2004, she publically endorsed Democrat front man, John

Media Influence Huffington’s early books included The Female Woman (1974), After Reason (1978), and The Woman Behind the Legend (1981). In 1988, she wrote two more books: The Gods of Greece and Picasso: Creator and Destroyer. In 1994, she wrote the spiritual exploration, The Fourth Instinct, and in 1998, she published the satirical novel, Greetings From the Lincoln Bedroom. How to Overthrow the Government, 2000, focused on political corruption and greed; and in 2003, Huffington introduced her fans to the New York Times bestselling book, Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America. In 2004, she followed with the less-popular, Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America. Her most recent book, On Becoming Fearless . . . in Love, Work, and Life, offers a personal look at finding strength and fearlessness in every aspect of life. Huffington is perhaps best known for her creation and management of the first “Internet Newspaper,” the online blog The Huffington Post. Though it was originally condemned as irrelevant and unnecessary during its launch in 2005, even its detractors quickly reconsidered once it became clear that Huffington had attracted a variety of famous commentators on subjects as varied as politics, business, entertainment, and living, and the public followed—thanks to her connections in Hollywood and Washington. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Business, Women in; Economics, Women in; Greece; Journalists, Broadcast Media; Journalists, Print Media; Novelists, Female; Political Ideologies; United Kingdom. Further Readings Dougray, Ginny. “Arianna Huffington: The Superblogger.” The Times Online. November 1, 2008. http://www .timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5029618 .ece (accessed June 2010).

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The Huffington Post. “Arianna Online: About Arianna, Biography.” http://ariannaonline.huffingtonpost.com /about/index.php (accessed June 2010). Donna McKinney Souder Colorado State University

Human Rights Campaign The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) political advocacy organization within the United States, with over 750,000 members and supporters in 2009. Its overarching mission is the realization of equality and fairness across gender identities and sexual orientations. It uses education, advocacy, organization of grassroots movements, political funding, lobbying, and working with other LGBT organizations at the state and federal levels to secure recognition, equal rights, and protection for LGBT individuals and families in the home, community, and workplace. The HRC currently advocates and lobbies for equal rights and opportunities on multiple fronts; it operates in conjunction with the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC Foundation), which raises and supplies funding for HRC endeavors, conducts research, and provides educational and outreach programs. On its Website, the HRC lists 13 key issues: aging concerns for same-sex couples; coming out; hate crimes; health issues, including lesbian health and healthcare discrimination; international rights and immigration; marriage and relationship recognition; military issues, including the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy; parenting concerns such as adoption, custody, and foster parenting; people of color; religion and faith; challenges of transgender individuals; nondiscriminatory workplace benefits and policies; and high school and college activism. Equal Rights and Protection During the last decade, the HRC has advocated for numerous pieces of legislation to secure equal rights and protection. For instance, since 1997 the HRC has been a key promoter of hate crime legislation; such legislation recently become law with President Barack Obama’s signature on the Matthew Shepard and James

Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) on October 28, 2009. The HCPA includes protection for violence against someone based on his or her race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The HRC also continues to work in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would protect individuals in the workplace against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The EDNA is currently being discussed in various Congressional hearings. In recent years, a primary focus has been on marriage equality. On the federal level, the HRC has worked to gain passage of the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA), which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and grant same-sex couples equal marriage rights on the federal level. On the state level, the HRC has worked with state leaders in the slow progression of state-recognized civil unions, domestic partnerships, and marriage rights for same-sex couples. In January 2009, the HRC held it’s first Women and Leadership conference; it brought together 24 women who supported LGBT rights, were active in the HRC, or were committed to being community leaders for discussions and trainings on leadership, the affect of gender bias on race, sexuality, and class, and the development of leadership skills. The Women and Leadership program promotes the engagement of women as leaders in their communities and in the HRC. See Also: Bisexuality; Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Hate Crimes; Heterosexism; Heterosexuality; Lesbian Adoption; Lesbians; Same-Sex Marriage; Sexual Orientation; Transgender. Further Readings Cornell University Library. “25 Years of Political Influence: The Records of the Human Rights Campaign.” http:// rmc.library.cornell.edu/HRC/index.html (accessed November 2009). Golman, Linda. Coming Out, Coming In: Nurturing the Well-Being and Inclusion of Gay Youth in Mainstream Society. New York: Routledge, 2007. Human Rights Campaign. http://www.hrc.org (accessed November 2009). Kathryn C. Oleson William Horsley Reed College



Hungary Following World War II, the central European nation of Hungary was forced into communism. In 1956, when officials announced that the country would leave the Warsaw Pact, Moscow responded by sending in troops. Nevertheless, Hungarian leaders began a program of economic reform, which became known as “Goulash Communism.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Hungary freely endorsed capitalism, joining both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1999) and the European Union (2004). By the early 21st century, Hungary had become the 63rd richest country in the world, with a per capita income of $18,600. However, Hungary continues to struggle with an unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, and 12 percent of the population still live in poverty. Some 68 percent of Hungarians live in urban areas, and almost 63 percent are employed in the service industry. Amid the Hungarian majority (92.3 percent),

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a Roma minority (1.9 percent) continues to struggle for equitable treatment. Hungary is more diverse in religion than in ethnicity, and approximately 52 percent classify themselves as Roman Catholic. While Hungarians are protected against legal discrimination, there are still wage disparities, with women making an average of 11 percent less than men. Workplace discrimination continues, particularly against older, minority, and pregnant women. Other major societal problems for women involve domestic violence, trafficking of women, and sexual harassment. Slow Progress in Political Circles As Hungary began liberalizing its monetary and social systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s, women’s organizations and groups were revived. Feminists such as Krisztina Morvai suggest that those groups continued to face serious obstacles because the concept of women’s rights was viewed as alien to the culture and because attempts to enforce more equitable

The Hungarian parliament building was built in Budapest in 1896. In 2008, just 43 women sat in the 386-member National Assembly, and only two women were members of the Council of Ministers..

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treatment of women was perceived of as abhorrent government interference. Despite fears that women would lose rights under a non-communist regime, newly established political groups and parties did help to form groups directly related to women’s issues. However, the new government produced only 28 (7.3 percent) women in the first, freely elected Parliament, and no real effort was made to address women’s issues. By 2008, just 43 women sat in the 386-member National Assembly, and only two women were members of the Council of Ministers. That they were there at all, was a result of increased political participation by women following the establishment of women’s studies programs and the founding of a women’s studies center at the University of Economics in Budapest in 2001. While women remain a minority in political decision making, they are making their presence known in male-dominated areas such as foreign affairs and the military. Yet, females in the National Legislature are more likely to be placed on committees dealing with topics such as the environment and human rights. Education and Business There is virtually no difference in literacy rates of males (99.5 percent) and females (99.3 percent) in Hungary, and females (54 percent of student populations) tend to be better educated than males. However, a study released by the Central Statistics Office at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor in 2006 revealed that female university teachers comprise only 8 percent of the total, and only 35 percent of business managers are women. Males comprise a considerable majority in the business world, and three-fourths of all businesses are male dominated. Nevertheless, many companies are making a real effort to hire more women; and 23.4 percent of male-dominated companies now employ more women than in the past. Hungarian companies have not always responded to the needs of women with families, and less than a third have instituted reforms to make companies more responsive to the needs of women with families by offering options such as telecommuting and flexible work hours. Women’s rights advocates have led the battle for family-leave laws that protect the rights of parents who need to care for newborn or adopted infants or for seriously ill family members. Even though sexual harassment is considered a crimi-

nal offense, few women are willing to report it. As a result, sexual harassment continues to flourish in the Hungarian workplace. Domestic Violence, Rape, and Prostitution The most serious problem affecting Hungarian women is violence. Legally, rape is considered to occur only when it involves the use of force. As a result, most cases go unreported. There are no legal provisions to make spousal rape a crime, but victims of domestic violence can bring charges of assault and battery. Despite estimates that a fifth of all Hungarian women have been victimized, cultural dictates prevent most women from reporting domestic violence. Perpetrators are rarely prosecuted even when charges are filed, leaving women unprotected and frustrated. Since 2004, courts have been allowed to issue restraining orders against abusive spouses, and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor offers abused women some support through a 24-hour hotline and a limited number of government-operated shelters. Prostitution is legal in Hungary, and many young girls are trafficked into Hungary for this purpose. See Also: Domestic Violence; Government, Women in; Prostitution, Legal; Rape, Legal Definitions of; Rape, Prosecution Rates of; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Hungary.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/hu.html(accessed July 2010). Eberhardt, Eva. “Situation of Women in Hungary.” Transitions, v.44 (2003). http://dev.ulb.ac.be/cevipol /dossiers_fichiers/eberhardt012.pdf (Accessed July 2010). Fábián, Katalin. “Making an Appearance: The Formation of Women’s Groups in Hungary.” Aspasia, v.1/1 (2007). Koncz, Katalin. “Hungary: Implementing Gender Equality.” WIN News, v.26/1 (2000). Morvai, Krisztina. “Women and the Rule of Law in Hungary.” Feminist Review, v.19/1 (2004). U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Hungary.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /eur/119083.htm (accessed July 2010). Claudine Boros Touro College



Hunting The term hunting comprehends a broad, complex, and always culture-specific range of human activities. For the purposes of this article, and to capture a sense of the complexity, we shall use the definition first employed by British historian John MacKenzie: “the pursuit, driving, ambushing, and trapping of wild animals of all species with the intention of killing them for meat, other animal products, or purely for sport.” Obviously, for most of the 20th century and in most Western and colonialist contexts, hunting in this sense was not considered to fall under the category of “women’s work.” Indeed, the dominant view of the origins and underpinnings of human society that developed in the latter half of the 20th century—the so-called hunting hypothesis of human origins—established the dyad Man the Hunter/Woman the Gatherer as the fundamental unit in human society. That “hypothesis” was itself a construct of the post–World War II period in which anthropologists and ethnographers sought to discern an ideal, and ostensibly universal, form of human social and economic organization. Grounded in an androcentric evolutionary theory, it looked strikingly similar to the gender-based patriarchal arrangements of the developed West. While natural and social scientists discarded the hunting hypothesis relatively quickly, it proved to have considerable staying power in the popular imagination. Contemporary Women as Hunters Nonetheless, it is clear that while hunting has in most times and places been a predominantly male activity, women have also been among the ranks of hunters, sometimes hunting cooperatively with men, sometimes hunting on their own. The most frequently cited examples of female hunters include those women in the ancient world “to whom” the Greek historian Xenophon commented “the goddess has given this blessing (i.e., a love of hunting)”; a long line of royal aristocratic European women stretching from Elizabeth I of England and Sweden’s Queen Christina to the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, a renowned 19thcentury fox hunter; pioneer women on the American frontier; female adventurers who hunted in Asia and Africa during the period of Empire; women of contemporary indigenous populations like the Tiwi

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Aborigines in Australia, central Africa’s Mbuti Pygmies, and the Philippine Agta peoples; and, most recently, the dramatically increased numbers of female hunters in North America in the last decades of the 20th century. Reckoning the precise number of American women afield today is an inexact science at best, since several states do not specify gender on hunting licenses, and even states that do often neglect to track that information. But according to figures released by the National Shooting Sports Foundation in 1995, between 1988 and 1993 the number of women hunting with firearms in the United States increased by 23 percent, with women accounting for roughly 10 percent of hunters in the United States, a percentage that appears to have remained fairly consistent since then. Currently, 15 percent of Canadian hunters are female. In the United States, rural women are three times more likely to hunt than their urban counterparts. The six U.S. states with the highest percentages of women hunters are, not surprisingly, also states with predominantly rural populations: Wyoming and Montana (states where one in five hunters is female), Wisconsin, Arkansas, Minnesota, and Texas. The pattern of higher rural hunting participation is similar in Canada. In Europe, by contrast, female hunting is less prevalent overall and is not so likely to be tied to living in a rural area. Finland, France, Sweden, and Norway are the countries with the highest percentage of women hunters, all around 6 percent. A mere 1 percent of Italian hunters are women. Determining female hunter numbers is Europe is, however, particularly difficult, since most European nations do no record gender on hunting licenses. European and North American female hunters have in common the fact that they are, as sociologist Thomas Heberlein puts it, “produced by male hunters”—that is, women tend to be initiated into hunting by significant men in their lives. Heberlein sees this as a potential problem, as with decreasing numbers of male hunters overall there will be “fewer males to socialize [women] into hunting.” However, other studies suggest that the socialization can just as readily be carried out by female-friendly hunting skills workshops, most notably the Becoming an OutdoorsWoman Program, founded in 1991 and currently operating in 41 states, five Canadian provinces, and New Zealand.

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Motives for Women Hunting Why do women take up hunting? Early research conducted in the 1980s on Wisconsin deer hunters by psychologist Robert Jackson suggested that women hunt for most of the same reasons men do, ranging from putting meat on the table to communing with nature. More recent research conducted by Mark Damien Duda finds, however, that women are twice as likely as men to say they hunt for meat, and less than half as likely as men to say they hunt for sport or recreation. They are also more likely to specify being with friends and family as a major motivation for hunting, while placing relatively less emphasis on getting close to nature. Virtually every study shows that competition and acquiring “trophies” figure far less as motivations for female than for male hunters. One other significant gender difference between male and female hunters is that while hunting seems to decline among men as their education level rises, among females college-educated women are just as likely to hunt as are women with less, or different, formal education. Among indigenous peoples worldwide, in the relatively few areas where hunter/foraging is still a viable way of living, women frequently play a significant role in individual and group hunting. In addition to the groups mentioned above, an exemplary case in point would be that of the Ju/’hoansi-!Kung people of the Nyae Nyae region of the Kalahari Desert. Ju/’hoan women are expert trackers, and work in concert with their husbands: hunting in this context is a matter of spousal cooperation, and the success of the hunt depends as much (if not more) upon the wife’s skill as the husband’s. Following in the tradition of the adventuresses of a century and more ago, North American and European women are also among the ranks of those who hunt on safari in sub-Saharan Africa, and in some parts of Asia and South America. Establishing a newer tradition in this regard, women are also joining the ranks of professional hunters. One such woman, Marina Lamprecht, who with her husband and son operates a hunting preserve near Windhoek, Namibia, has also served several terms on the executive committee of the Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA). Lamprecht counts among her accomplishments the development of oral training modules and testing mechanisms for the certification of nonliter-

ate, but nonetheless expert, African natives as professional hunters. See Also: Animal Rights; Ecofeminism; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Rural Women; Shooting Sports, Women in. Further Readings Biesele, Megan and Steve Barclay. “Ju/’Hoan Women’s Tracking Knowledge and Its Contribution to Their Husbands’ Hunting Success.” African Study Monographs, suppl. 26 (March 2001). Capstick, Fiona Claire. The Diana Files: The HuntressTraveler Through History. Johannesburg, South Africa: Rowland Ward Publications, 2004. Duda, Mark Damien and Martin Jones. “The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation: Affirming the Role, Strength and Relevance of Hunting in the 21st Century.” Harrisonburg, VA: Responsive Management. Paper presented to the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference. Phoenix, 2008. MacKenzie, John M. The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation, and British Imperialism. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1988. Stange, Mary Zeiss, ed. Heart Shots: Women Write About Hunting. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Stange, Mary Zeiss. Woman the Hunter. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. Mary Zeiss Stange Skidmore College

Hysterectomies A simple hysterectomy is the surgical removal of a woman’s uterus, a reproductive organ about the size and shape of an inverted pear, while a total or complete hysterectomy also includes the removal of her two fallopian tubes (bilateral salpingectomy) and two ovaries (bilateral oophorectomy). Once described as the “gold mine of gynecology,” hysterectomies rank among the most common surgical procedures performed on American and Canadian women of reproductive age, with chronic benign gynecological disease the reason most often cited for this surgery. Hysterectomy and hysteria are derived



from the same root word, hyster, meaning womb. The term hysterectomy was coined in the 1800s when removing the womb was the treatment of choice for female hysteria, a psychological condition said to be characterized by nervousness and emotional excess stemming from sexual dissatisfaction. This aggressive treatment illustrates how the medical establishment in the 19th century viewed women’s bodies as needing regulation because of their deviance from the normative male body. Global Statistics Hard to Derive Debate persists about the high incidence and medical necessity of hysterectomies and the related moral and ethical issues of such aggressive intervention. Women who have their uterus surgically removed are rendered infertile even if permanent contraception was not the primary or desired goal of the procedure. In most cultures, the ability to procreate is central to what it means to be a normal, functioning, feminine adult. Thus, the loss of the uterus by hysterectomy can be a pivotal moment when a woman reflects on her identity and her place within the family and wider community. Approximately 600,000 hysterectomies are performed in the United States each year. The Canadian age-standardized incidence rate for hysterectomies was reported at 346 per 100,000 in 2005, representing a steady decline since 1997. Similarly, a 23-year retrospective study in Western Australia reported that the age-standardized rates for hysterectomies have declined by 23 percent, to 4.8 per 1,000 women. However, there are significant differences in rates, type of procedure, and average length of hospital stay across geographic regions, socioeconomic, and ethnic groups, that are not explained by known risk factors. For example, in poorer Canadian provinces such as Newfoundland and Labrador, there continues to be a substantially higher than national average rate of 458 hysterectomies per 100,000 population. Similarly, American surveys report higher rates of hysterectomies in economically depressed regions than in more affluent regions, and higher rates among disadvantaged African American and Hispanic subgroups than among their white cohorts. In Western Australia, indigenous, women particularly those in rural areas, are more likely to have a hysterectomy than their nonindigenous urban counterparts. Health researchers call

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for international comparisons that would explore nonpathological factors such as ethnic, culture and access to care. Currently, international statistics are difficult to find or unreliable because they tend to be extrapolated from incidence and prevalence rates in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, rather than generated from country-specific data. Reasons for the Operation and Its Evolution Most hysterectomies in North America (70 to 90 percent) are performed for the treatment of chronic benign gynecological disease. A hysterectomy is deemed medically necessary when a women has uterine fibroids (more common among black women); uterine or vaginal wall prolapse (more common among those who have had multiple or unsupervised deliveries); painful and prolonged bleeding, especially among women in the years prior to menopause; or when a woman is living with persistent and debilitating symptoms of endometriosis that do not respond to less aggressive medical treatments. Under these conditions, a hysterectomy is regarded as elective or nonemergent, whereas a hysterectomy for the treatment life-threatening complications during or immediately after childbirth is considered an emergency. Another indication for an emergency hysterectomy is for the treatment of ovarian or cervical cancer; this involves removing a woman’s ovaries, the hormonal equivalent of removing a man’s testicles. A premenopausal woman who undergoes a complete hysterectomy is thrown into sudden surgical menopause and requires hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Although short-term HRT helps these women adjust more gradually, research indicates that longterm therapy puts women at greater risk for breast cancer, stroke, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other serious health problems. Decades ago, a hysterectomy was considered major surgery involving a large abdominal wound, an extended hospital stay of four to seven days, and a recovery time of six to eight weeks. During the 1980s, there was a steady increase in the number of vaginal hysterectomies—an approach that was less invasive and of shorter duration, averaging about 35 minutes. In 1989 came the first reported laparoscopic hysterectomy, which involved inserting into the abdomen a lighted instrument about as big around as a pen to directly visualize and remove the uterus. With time,

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many surgeons began using a laparoscopically assisted approach to the vaginal hysterectomy (LAVH). A surgeon may choose one approach over the other for several reasons: an abdominal approach is preferred for malignant uterine disease, while other approaches can be used for the treatment of most benign uterine diseases. The woman’s past medical history is another factor. Endometriosis, and the involvement of surrounding organs, or previous abdominal surgeries resulting in adhesions or scar tissue, make an LAVH or vaginal approach more challenging. Other factors are the woman’s body weight, the size and weight of her uterus, and any other procedures planned during the same operation. Studies suggest that a surgeon’s gender, seniority, clinical setting, and surgical experience also factor into the decision. Physical and Psychological Aftereffects Women having abdominal hysterectomies tend to experience higher rates of intraoperative and postoperative complications, typically urinary tract or wound infections (or much less commonly hemorrhage or injury to other organs), than women having a vaginal approach. Women tend to prefer a vaginal approach or LAVH over an abdominal approach for aesthetic reasons and because of the speedier recovery. A woman can recover at home after a one-day hospital stay, and is typically able to return to normal activities after two to three weeks. However, performing an LAVH requires additional surgical training, more time and equipment in the operating room, and thus is more costly to perform than a vaginal hysterectomy. During the late 20th century, the dramatic rise in the number of hysterectomies for benign disease was characterized as unnecessary at best, and an example of sexual terrorism at worst. In the past, the mostly male medical establishment has been accused of abusing their power, patronizing women, and denying them autonomy in their reproductive decision-making, as exemplified by the Schoendorff case. Today, many women regard elective hysterectomies as the solution to their chronic difficulties with abdominal pain, bleeding, and other unpleasant symptoms. Advances in laparoscopic technologies, safer anesthetics and speedier recovery times, as well as higher literacy rates, women’s movement into the paid work force, and the trend toward smaller families may

account for the increasing numbers of women who accept the consequences of permanent infertility to achieve a better quality of life after a hysterectomy. Women may experience both positive and negative effects on their psychological and sexual functioning after a hysterectomy. For example, those whose symptoms of pain were relieved following surgery report improved sexual functioning because of improvements in overall health status and quality of life. Some who have completed their family or don’t want to have children report that they feel freed of worrying about unintended pregnancies and are more able to enjoy sexual activity. Those for whom a hysterectomy ended their hopes of having children were more likely to report a negative impact on their emotional and sexual well-being. Similarly, some women who had a complete hysterectomy and experienced hormonal fluctuations and persistent vaginal dryness reported less satisfactory emotional and sexual functioning. See Also: Medical Research, Gender Issues in; Menopause, Medical Aspects of; Reproductive Cancers; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Elson, Jean. Am I Still a Woman? Hysterectomy and Gender Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Farquhar, Cynthia Margaret, Lynn Sadler, and Alistair W. Stewart. “A Prospective Study of Outcomes Five Years After Hysterectomy in Premenopausal Women.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, v.48/5 (2008). Lombardo, Paul A. “Phantom Tumors and Hysterical Women: Revising Our View of the Schoendorff Case.” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, v.33/4 (2005). O’Toole, Laura L., Jessica R. Schiffman, and Marge L. Kiter Edwards, eds. Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Spilsbury, K. J.B. Semmens, I. Hammond, and A. Bolck. “Persistent High Rates of Hysterectomy in Western Australia: A Population-Based Study of 83,000 Procedures Over 23 Years.” BJOGL: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, v.113/7 (2006). Diana L. Gustafson Memorial University, St. John’s

I Iceland Iceland is the westernmost European nation and one of the world’s least densely populated countries, with most of the population in the southwestern urban areas. The dominant ethnic group is Icelandic (Nordic-Celtic) and the dominant religion is Evangelical Lutheran, which is the state church. Icelandic women enjoy a high standard of living, a comprehensive state welfare system, high educational attainment, and more gender equality than most women in other countries. Most women work, although there is still a gender gap in wages. Women have attained the highest political offices. Iceland was first of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. The average age at marriage is 31, and women continue to use their maiden names after marriage. The 2009 fertility rate was two births per woman. Out-ofwedlock childbirths are common and carry no social or legal stigma. The 2009 infant mortality rate was very low at 2 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate was 4 per 100,000 live births. Women receive three months of paid maternity leave at 80 percent of their wages, paid by the state social security system. Parenting and childrearing classes are common and most parents attend. Many families use day care centers to care for their children while they’re at work as most parents work outside the home. Education is compulsory from ages 7 to 16 and almost all people complete the primary level. Stu-

dents in remote areas alternate weeks at boarding schools with weeks at home during the academic year. Preschool, general and technical secondary schools, vocational schools, and universities also are available. Female school enrollment rates stood at 97 percent for the primary level, 92 percent at the secondary level, and 96 percent at the tertiary level. Education at the third level for men was only 52 percent. On average, children attend school for 17.6 years. The 2009 literacy rate was among the highest in the world at 100 percent for both genders. Standard of Living Icelandic women enjoy a high standard of living, good health, minimal crime rates, an egalitarian society with little discrimination, and a comprehensive welfare state. Benefits include pensions, medical coverage, sickness and maternity benefits, and government subsidized housing. The state medical system is modern and well funded. Problems include high prices for imported staple goods such as food and gasoline, alcoholism, and domestic violence. Increasing awareness of violence against women has resulted in better enforcement and harsher criminal penalties for reported cases. Life expectancy in 2009 was high at age 74 for women and age 72 for men. Many women work outside the home, with 83 percent of women participating in the labor force in 2009. Women comprise half of the paid nonagricultural labor force and 56 percent of professional 737

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and technical workers. Women also are well represented in education and fish processing. Unemployment is low for both genders at just over 2 percent. Although women are legally required to receive equal pay, there is still a gap in the 2009 average estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which stood at $29,283 for women and $40,000 for men. There is a comprehensive subsidized day care program for working families. Women have the same legal rights as men and there is universal suffrage. In 2009, women held 43 percent of parliamentary seats and 36 percent of ministerial positions. Vigdis Finnbogadottir was Iceland’s first female president, serving from 1980 to 1996. The Women’s Party is one of Iceland’s main political parties and there is a special women’s issue’s committee in the Equal Rights Affairs Office of the Ministry of Social Affairs. Nongovernmental organizations such as the Union of Women’s Societies also support women’s issues.

explicitly socially and fiscally conservative, and their mission states that their primary concerns include respect for limited government, free markets, strong foreign policy and national defense, and equality under the law and property rights. Although the IWF is an organization that fosters the rights of women, its positions on several contemporary issues have been labeled antifeminist by their critics. The feminist philosophy of the IWF is described as “equity feminism”—a term coined by IWF board member Christina Hoff Sommers. Sommers, born in New York in 1950, is an American author best known for her 1994 book Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. Her notion of equity feminism focuses on the fight for equal civil rights and legal equality. Sommers also critiques most contemporary popular feminism that highlights differences in gender and claims victim status for women, and she is critical of most research showing women to be disadvantaged by patriarchy in any way.

See Also: Equal Pay; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Heads of State, Female.

Public Campaigns and Education The IWF has constructed numerous public campaigns that promote their philosophy. One current project designed and implemented by the IWF is called the Women for School Choice Program. The goal of the program is to educate the public on the benefits of school choice through school voucher programs or education tax credit programs. In support of this program, the IWF has circulated petitions in support of general school choice and publicized the work of other groups in promoting this issue. The IWF also has a campus program sustained through the IWF’s R. Gaull Silverman Center for Collegiate Studies. The mission statement of the Silberman Center is to dispel what they consider to be a “myth” circulated on college campuses that men are dangerous to women and that women are victims of men. In recent years, research published by the IWF has argued that the wage gap between men and women is a result of individual choices of men and women, rather than professional discrimination against women. Other research has argued that current Title IX enforcement designed to protect women’s athletics in schools has institutionalized discrimination against men in collegiate sport. These positions have been highly criticized by other feminist researchers.

Further Readings: Einarsdottir, Thorgerdur. “Women in Iceland: Strong Women-Myths and Contradictions.” In Janet Mancini Billson and Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, eds., Female Well-Being: Towards a Global Theory of Social Change. London: Zed Books, 2005. Hepburn, Stephanie, and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Lacy, Terry G. Ring of Seasons: Iceland—Its Culture and History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Independent Women’s Forum The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) is a nonpartisan 403(b)(3) organization for research and education that is dedicated to domestic and foreign issues that affect women. Formed in 1992, the group is

India



The current president and chief executive officer of the IWF is journalist Michelle Bernard. Current members of the board of directors for the IWF include notable conservatives such as Heather Higgins and Lynne V. Cheney. The IWF continues its work on domestic issues that affect women, and they have expanded their programs to include Iraq and Afghanistan. The IWF maintains an active Website that serves as a clearinghouse for news and events of interest to IWF members. Membership requires dues and can be obtained through the Website. See Also: Antifeminism; Feminism, American; Feminism on College Campuses. Further Readings Bernard, Michelle. Women’s Progress: How Women Are Wealthier, Healthier, and More Independent Than Ever Before. Dallas, TX: Spence, 2007. Independent Womens Forum. http://www.iwf.org (accessed June 2010). Sommers, Christina Hoff. Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Jennifer Adams DePauw University

India The status and condition of women in India reflects the cultural and economic diversity of the country. Gender-related indicators of development show that women fare better in southern than in northern India. To counter population growth, the need to increase women’s access to healthcare and education is now increasingly viewed as more effective than simple fertility control techniques. Discriminations linked to religion, caste, and tribal identity exacerbate the consequences of gender-based inequalities and this has led to a range of women’s organizations playing an active role in reshaping legal and societal norms. Demographic Characteristics A skewed sex ratio is one significant indicator of gender inequality in India. According to the 2001 cen-

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sus, the overall sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 men) is 933, reaching a high of 1,058 in the southern state of Kerala and a low of 861 in the northern state of Haryana. A strong son preference can be held responsible for this situation. The sex ratio for rural India is 946 compared to 900 in urban India, reflecting the migration of men to cities and the gender-specific consequences of rural underdevelopment. As the second most populous country in the world, India has been the target of a number of national and international population control programs. Policies focused exclusively on controlling the fertility of women have been widely criticized as negatively impacting women’s health and leading to further social disempowerment. Women’s access to healthcare is especially urgent as relatively high infant mortality rates (54.3 per 1,000 live births under 1 year) and maternal mortality ratios (450 deaths per 100,000 live births) continue to characterize India. There is also a need to invest in women’s education, given that the women’s literacy rate for India as a whole is 54 percent, ranging from 73 percent in urban areas to 46 percent in rural areas. In contrast, the literacy rate for men is 75 percent, ranging from 86 percent in urban areas to 71 percent in rural areas. Social and Cultural Issues India’s secular constitution guarantees equal rights irrespective of religious persuasion. Most of the population is Hindu (81 percent according to the 2001 census), but there is also a substantial Muslim population (13 percent), with a smaller number of Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians (Parsis), and Jews. A uniform civil code that would ensure that women’s marital and inheritance rights do not vary by religion has become a controversial issue, since it could infringe on minority rights. The caste system within Hinduism is a principal component of social inequalities. Tribal or indigenous communities across central India and in the northeastern states constitute yet another site of cultural difference and social inequality. Social discriminations are sought to be addressed through reservations in education and employment for officially designated Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Violence faced by women in their marital homes is of significant concern. The inability to provide sufficient dowry to the husband’s family is often the cause of such

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Women attending a wedding ceremony in India. From the lavish clothing to the mendhi body art to the religious chanting, everything in a Hindu wedding ceremony follows age-old traditions, and the celebrations can last for days.

violence, even since dowries were officially banned in 1961. Matriarchal communities in parts of northeast and southern India serve as arguments against viewing Indian women as uniformly powerless. The divergence of tribal norms from caste Hindu strictures has often served as a pretext for the sexual exploitation of tribal women, which magnifies the security risks faced by women belonging to minority cultural groups. Gendered cultural norms are often reflected in clothing styles. The most visible of these are practices of veiling, with such customs usually strictly followed in northern India, especially by married women, while largely nonexistent in southern India. Notions of modesty, however, are also becoming more attuned to Western fashions with the globalization of Indian society, especially through beauty contests. Women in Government and Social Movements India is a parliamentary democracy and equal rights for women were enshrined in India’s constitution from the outset. But the translation of legal norms into societal values has continued to be a matter of struggle, and a range of feminist and women’s organizations have proved equal to this challenge. Even as the women’s movements in India cannot be considered integrated at the national level, its diversity ensures the availabil-

ity of political forums for women’s varied interests. India has had a female prime minister (Indira Gandhi), but only 8 percent of India’s parliament consisted of women in 2007 and attempts to reserve seats in Parliament for women have so far been unsuccessful. The symbolic representation of the country as Bharat Mata (Mother India) during the independence struggle has not shielded women from bearing the brunt of political violence. The British-led partition of India and Pakistan at independence in 1947 was followed by religious violence and the specific targeting of women during this phase as well as in more recent episodes of communal violence is being documented. Religious tensions continue to be inflamed by the Hindu right-wing movement, led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteers Organization), which has consolidated power at the national level through its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People’s Party). The RSS also has a women’s wing, the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti (National Women Volunteers Committee). India has recently become the target of terrorist attacks, partly due to the disputed northern region of Kashmir and partly due to the rise of Islamic terrorist organizations in south Asia. The gendered consequences of terrorism, however, have yet to be documented.



Women in Rural and Urban Economies India is predominantly rural, with over 72 percent of the population residing in rural areas and 58 percent of its workers in the agricultural sector. Women’s work participation rate was 31 percent in rural areas and 11 percent in urban areas according to the 2001 census, again distinctly lagging behind rates of 52 percent and 51 percent for men in rural and urban areas, respectively. Actual rates of women’s participation, however, are likely to be higher, since women’s work is often ignored as domestic work, and women’s participation in the informal urban economy cannot be accurately estimated. The shift from quasi-socialist to neoliberal economic policies in the 1990s has put further pressure on women in low-income households as state-led social programs have declined. Women’s economic and social powerlessness is often reflected in lack of formal ownership rights, even as laws are being enacted to ensure that wives and daughters become eligible for a share in family property. According to the World Bank, only 17.3 percent of India’s women worked in the nonagricultural sector in 2007. In terms of agricultural development, while the green revolution has been criticized for the marginalization of women’s agricultural and environmental knowledge, women’s participation has been a key component of the success of the white revolution in dairy development. Women’s relative absence in the formal industrial and service sectors should, however, be juxtaposed with their participation in the urban informal economy. The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) has been prominently associated with organizing informal women workers. The recent rise of an information technology sector is likely to have provided more jobs for women, but is biased toward women from the urban, literate classes. Overall, women’s development in India is likely to be dependent on the state’s support for women’s rights and the efforts of activists to provide recognition for women’s economic roles. See Also: Bollywood; Hinduism; Kali for Women: Feminist Publishing in India; Marriages, Arranged. Further Readings Agarwal, B. A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

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Butalia, U. The Other Side of Silence: Voices From the Partition of India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Kapadia, K., Ed. The Violence of Development: The Politics of Identity, Gender and Social Inequalities in India. New Delhi, India: Kali for Women, 2002. Sarkar, T. Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Pratyusha Basu University of South Florida

Indigenous Religions, Global The category indigenous religions denotes religions practiced by peoples with ancestral or longstanding cultural ties to local places. Despite the persistence of the category world religion and its identification with or denotation of particularly widespread religions (Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism), indigenous religions need not be read either in contrast to “world religions” or in isolation from those traditions. In fact, indigenous religions are global traditions in at least two senses: first, indigenous peoples practicing traditional religions live on every inhabited continent, literally around the globe; and second, the diversity of indigenous peoples, whose cultures and religions reflect their engagement with myriad local environments, reflects the stunning heterogeneity of human societies. Contact, colonialism, and their consequences complicate the picture of indigenous religions today. Because of forced relocation, diasporic growth or immigration, an indigenous person’s ties to place, culture, and people may be less direct today than in the past. Nevertheless, indigenous peoples—and women, in particular—continue practicing and passing on their cultural traditions, whether at home or abroad. In fact, distance from local lands and ancestral peoples has created space for creative restorations, revivals, and reinventions of indigenous religions around the world. Indigenous Religions as Global Traditions Indigenous religions are practiced on every inhabited continent, even though indigenous peoples comprise

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a minority (approximately 4 percent) of the global population. In contrast to world religions that have expanded through missionary activity, colonial imposition, emigration and/or diasporic movement, indigenous religions tend to be rooted in specific communities and their surrounding landscapes. As such, their focuses tend to be more local and less universalizing. Further, to separate “religion” from “daily life” when speaking of indigenous communities creates a false dichotomy foreign to most indigenous peoples’ conceptions of their purpose in and movement through the world. Indigenous religions conceive of the world as a unified whole in which humanity’s place within the environment, as a members of its fauna responsible for its flora, lies suspended in a delicate balance maintained through respectful exchanges, ritual vigilance, and holistic interactions with the planet and its inhabitants. Although indigenous peoples have various names for “the world” in their native languages, scholars attuned to the differences between indigenous and Western worldviews refer to indigenous outlooks using terms like life-world, lifeway, and cosmovision. These terms acknowledge indigenous peoples’ conceptual and perceptual integration of human, animal, and plant life, with features of the natural and built environment. For example, “cosmovision,” a term that derives from the work of historians of religions and arises in the work of scholars studying indigenous Mexican religions, recognizes the mutual (in)formation of the human body with the landscape and multiple senses of time in the Mesoamerican conception of the universe. Images like the frontispiece of the Codex Fejérváry Mayer encapsulate the precontact Central Mexican cosmovision through their simultaneous presentation of the ritual body, sacred structures, and calendric time. Contemporary Latina writers, artists, and performers, like Gloria Anzaldua, Norma Alarcón and Cherríe Moraga, emphasize bodily, spatial, and temporal experiences as significant, if not sacred, in their contemporary (re)interpretations of inherited cosmovisions. Like the terms life-world and lifeway, the term cosmovision serves not as a simple alternative to or synonym for “worldview,” but as an intentional marker of the conceptual, existential, and ontological differences between Western worldviews shaped by the European Enlightenment and indigenous perspectives on the world and its societies.

The Postcontact Persistence of Indigenous Religions Despite the interruption and destruction of colonial powers’ presences in indigenous communities from the 15th century through today, indigenous religions continue to be practiced all over the world. Some indigenous communities succumbed to colonial forces, while others suffered traumatic relocation, assimilation, or acculturation. Many indigenous peoples resisted total assimilation by maintaining traditional beliefs and practices in secret or under the guise of colonial religion. These modes of indigeneity persist today; for example, in Cuba female and male practitioners of Santería (santeras and santeros) venerate orishas, who manifest African (Yoruban) deities as Catholic saints; a priest opens the Wahgi pig-killing festival, an indigenous ritual of generosity among Polynesian polities, with a Christian invocation; and Catholic pilgrims to Chalma, Mexico, gaze upon a “Black Christ” whose dark skin betrays the sacrality of blackness in indigenous Mexican belief systems. Each of these examples of contemporary indigenous religious practices reveals the process of transculturation, a term coined by Fernando Ortiz that describes the exchanges that take place in cultural contact zones. Through the process of transculturation, indigenous peoples (and other colonial subjects) exert agency as they adopt and reject aspects of the dominating culture and its practices. For example, native Amerindians living near Chalma in the colonial period were active agents in the cultural (and likely literal) construction of the Catholic Church and its Christ, whose black body signified the sacred, much like the blackened bodies that their precontact priests once had. Despite the eventual removal and replacement of the original “Black Christ” with a lighter-toned Christ, contemporary pilgrims to Chalma continue to recognize and refer to the Christ as “black,” demonstrating the persistence of indigenous concepts in Mexican Catholicism today. Transculturation facilitates the continuation of indigenous practices as indigenous peoples selectively (re) appropriate foreign religious concepts and activities to suit local needs and ancestral traditions. Additionally, syncretic processes like transculturation blur the boundaries between indigenous and nonindigenous traditions.



Beyond the reach of the outside world—that is to say, beyond identifiable syncretisms of the colonial period and those that continue to arise through global exchanges of technology and information—indigenous people keep secrets. Rigoberta Menchú stated this fact clearly in her 1983 testimony on the war against Guatemalan Indians, who despite comprising the country’s majority population, found themselves and their cultures in peril: “Indians have been very careful not to disclose any details of their communities, and the community does not allow them to talk about Indian things. I too must abide by this.” For Menchú and other indigenous women and men, secret-keeping relates directly to religion. Indigenous peoples keep secrets about their traditions to safeguard them, and secret-keeping functions as an active form of resistance, repair, and regeneration in indigenous communities. Further, it serves as a pointed reminder that indigenous communities protect precious knowledge and customs, and so some elements of indigenous life remain inaccessible to cultural or religious outsiders. Indigenous Women as Active Agents in Indigenous Religions Indigenous women play foundational roles in their religions. In fact, many indigenous religions attribute their mythohistorical foundations to women’s (pro) creative and generative activities. Creation myths told by the Nuer, a group indigenous to the Sudan, identify women’s sexual desire as the demise of immortality, and in one Maori account of cosmic origins, Papa’s intimate embrace of her partner Rangi occasioned their childrens’ rebellion and the subsequent separation of their bodies into the Earth and sky. In addition to inspiring sacred stories, women’s sexuality and fecundity also give rise to and occasion for rituals and rites that recognize transitions between phases in life. For example, Inés M. Talamantez describes the persistent presence of Isanaklesh, the Apache female deity and source of medicinal knowledge, in Mescalero girls’ initiation rites and women’s dreams. Despite the intrusion of Christianity into the Mescalero Apache community and its acceptance by some, Isanaklesh Gotal, an initiation ceremony that ritualizes girls’ first menses, continues to be practiced as an important rite of passage for many young women. During the ritual, the young woman performs a series of rites over the course of four days, through which she embodies Isanaklesh

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and so experiences the deity’s power and wisdom. The experiential quality of the ritual helps Apache women maintain and transmit Isanaklesh Gotal, meaning both the ritual and its concomitant experience of the deity, to their daughters and granddaughters. (A National Geographic video available online documents one young Apache woman’s initiation ritual.) The fact that Mescalero Apache women continue to practice Isanaklesh Gotal despite relocation, colonialism, and (in some cases) conversion, serves as one demonstration of the vitality and persistence of women’s roles in indigenous religious traditions. Indigenous Women in the Diaspora Contemporary indigenous people living in diasporic circumstances sustain their traditions through processes of restoration, reconstruction, and reimagining. Indigenous women, who transplant ancestral traditions to their new surroundings, comingle traditional practices with those they encounter in their new contexts or initiate new religious movements, facilitate creative transferrals and revivals of their native religions. In the 1990s, Karen McCarthy Brown’s work with Mama Lola, a Haitian Voodoo priestess living in Brooklyn, raised public awareness and understanding of both indigenous Caribbean religions and of their existence—even proliferation—outside their native boundaries. (Of course Mama Lola’s tradition, Haitian Vodou, reflects prior processes of reconstruction and reimagining stemming from cultural contact among Caribbean islanders, Africans and Europeans in Haiti.) Mama Lola’s stories and experiences, including ecstatic union with or mounting by Vodou spirits, reveal many (though not all) of the ways in which her religion adapts to the lives of its practitioners. McCarthy Brown recounts how Mama Lola (re)appropriates principles of correspondence embedded in Haitian Vodou to understand and interpret the experiences she and others have in Brooklyn. Mama Lola’s integrative practice—Haitian Voodoo that recognizes Hindu deities, African spirits and nontraditional entities without hesitation—exemplifies contemporary indigenous women’s abilities to live in multiple worlds: the worlds of their ancestral traditions and the worlds of their contemporaries. Indigenous women (and men) are not isolated from globalization; indigenous peoples living in the western hemisphere have not been since at least the 15th

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century, and those residing in many other regions since much earlier. Rather, indigenous women have found and continue to find themselves in mediating roles: mediating among individuals within their cultures, mediating between the ordinary and extraordinary worlds, and mediating between their communities and outsiders. Like Rigoberta Menchú, Mama Lola and other women practicing indigenous traditions, whether locally or diasporically, find themselves in positions of power within and on the borders of their communities. Contemporary indigenous women expand and may even explode traditional understandings of both “indigenous” and “world” as the terms relate to religions, because they embody globalism in constantly transforming and transformative (life)ways. See Also: Indigenous Women’s Issues; Native American Religion; Religion, Women in. Further Readings Carrasco, Davíd. Religions of Mesoamerica. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Falk, N. A. and R. M. Gross. Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001. McCarthy Brown, K. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. London: Verso, 1983. National Geographic. “Apache Girl’s Rite of Passage.” http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/index.html (accessed October 2010). Peterson, J. F. “Perceiving Blackness, Envisioning Power: Chalma and Black Christs in Early Colonial Mexico.” In D. Leibsohn, et al., eds., Seeing Across Cultures. New York: Ashgate, Forthcoming. Molly H. Bassett Georgia State University

Indigenous Women’s Issues It is estimated that there are nearly 400 million indigenous people comprising 5,000 distinct peoples spread across 70 countries worldwide. They retain social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which

they live. They are the descendants of those indigenous people who originally inhabited a country or a geographical region. Later migrants became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement, or other means. The international community has not yet adopted a definition of indigenous peoples and the prevailing view today is that no formal universal definition is necessary for the recognition and protection of their rights. Indigenous peoples around the world seek recognition of their specific collective rights, such as their identities, their ways of life, and their right to traditional lands, territories, and natural resources; yet throughout history, their rights have been violated. Indigenous peoples are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of people in the world today. Indigenous women are often the most marginalized. In many cases, indigenous women are doubly discriminated against due to their ethnicity and their gender. This results in indigenous women being worse off than indigenous men and nonindigenous women. They endure higher incidences of preventable diseases, gender-based violence, and socioeconomic discrimination. The rate of maternal mortality is alarmingly high among indigenous women. The issue of trafficking of indigenous women and girls is also notable. Discrimination in employment and occupation affects indigenous men and women differently. Many indigenous women have less access to training, are more affected by unemployment and underemployment, and are more often involved in non-remunerated or less remunerated work. They have less access to administrative and leadership positions. They experience worse working conditions such as longer work hours and poor health and safety standards. They often have to seek employment far away from their communities. They are subject to discriminatory cultural practices that, for example, inhibit the education of the girl-child or prevent women from inheriting land or participating in decision-making processes. International Instruments Related to Indigenous Women For the last 20 years, the international community has recognized that special measures are required to protect the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples. As a result, a number of international instruments address indigenous peoples’ rights or include provisions relevant to them.



A 2010 Brazilian National Health Foundation study found an alarming growth of diseases among indigenous women.

The main legally binding documents entirely focused on the rights of indigenous peoples are International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s) Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention (No. 107) of 1957 and an updated instrument, Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of 1989. The United Nations (UN) Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) provide provisions for the protection specifically of indigenous women. In a historic decision, the General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on September 13, 2007. The ILO has been concerned with indigenous and tribal peoples in their role as workers like any others. Protection is critical in cases where those peoples are expelled from their ancestral domains to become seasonal, migrant, bonded, or home-based laborers and are thereby exposed to the forms of labor exploitation

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covered by the ILO mandate. The ILO Convention No. 169 provides that indigenous women and men are equal in rights and adopts special measures to ensure the effective protection of these peoples with regard to recruitment and conditions of employment. With regard to indigenous women workers, there is a provision, which is unique in international law, that addresses sexual harassment and abuses of indigenous people. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action provides that the UN Country Teams (UNCTs) emphasize gender issues across all program activities dealing with indigenous peoples (paragraph 32); and Beijing Platform for Action provides that UNCTs emphasize explicit program components on indigenous women’s rights and empowerment of indigenous women at both formal (i.e., laws, policies) and informal (i.e., customs and cultural factors) levels (paragraph 34). The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples on a wide range of issues, provides that indigenous women and men are equal in rights, and calls upon Member States to ensure that indigenous women and children enjoy full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence and discrimination (articles 21 and 22). The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the General Assembly on December 18, 1979, does not specifically address indigenous women. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, however, has paid special attention to the situation of indigenous women as particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged groups such as in the General Recommendation No. 24 of 1999 (Women and Health). Indigenous women have been active in the global women’s movement since its inception and have played leadership roles in processes that yielded progress. Yet, indigenous women have often been marginalized within the broader movement for women’s human rights, which tends to stress the universality of women’s oppression at the expense of recognizing differences in the forms and subjective experiences of that oppression. Indigenous women also believe that many non-indigenous women, as colonizers, have hardly come to terms with oppression of indigenous peoples, especially indigenous women. In response,

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indigenous women have been working in the international arena to articulate their own perspective on women’s human rights. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminaion Against Women; Indigenous Religions, Global; Indigenous Women’s Rights, Bolivia. Further Readings Daes, Erica and Irene A. “Protection of the World’s Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights.” In J. Symonides, ed., Human Rights: Concept and Standards, Dartmouth, UK: Ashgate-UNESCO, 2000. International Labour Organization (ILO). “Eliminating Discrimination Against Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Employment and Occupation: A Guide to ILO Convention, No. 111.” Geneva: International Labor Standards Department, 2007. United Nations Commission on Human Rights. “Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Indigenous Peoples and Minorities. Working Paper on Discrimination Against Indigenous Peoples. E/CN.4/ Sub.2/2001/2, 18 August 2001.” http://www.unhchr .ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/E.CN.4.Sub.2.2 001.2.En?Opendocument (accessed June 2010). United Nations Development Group. “Guidelines on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues.” (2008). http://www2.ohchr .org/english/issues/indigenous/docs/guidelines.pdf (accessed June 2010). K. Bakirci Istanbul Technical University

Indigenous Women’s Rights, Bolivia Bolivia is among the poorest and least-developed Latin American countries. It has a large indigenous population composed of groups such as Quechua and Aymara. Bolivia shares the Latin American culture of machismo and historically based gender and ethnic prejudices. Indigenous women are most affected by the resultant poverty, low educational attainment, economic inequality, unemployment, low skills and wages, poor healthcare, violence against women, and ethnic and gender discrimination. Grassroots indigenous and

women’s organizations have risen since the late 1970s to challenge discriminatory laws. Key areas in the struggle for indigenous women’s rights include land redistribution and titles and political representation. Indigenous women’s rights activists seek to improve their quality of life. Most indigenous women in Bolivia live in poverty in rural areas or urban slums. They face limited access to basic education and healthcare, high birth rates, little prenatal care, high death rates during pregnancy and childbirth, and limited access to abortions and contraceptives. Many are illiterate or do not speak Spanish. Many begin working as children out of economic necessity; hold unskilled, low-paying jobs; and face sexual harassment and other forms of gender discrimination. Domestic violence is widespread. Those who cannot afford the travel or cost of a national identity card are excluded from much employment and political participation. Indigenous women were traditionally excluded from landownership, and many family plots were too small for sustainable agriculture. Grassroots Organizations Many indigenous women work for their rights within grassroots women’s organizations. Their goals include basic needs, indigenous sovereignty, land redistribution, and the reappropriation of natural resources. Women began collectively organizing in the 1980s, when the Federation of Peasant Women was formed within the larger peasant movement. The Bartolina Sisa National Federation of Bolivian Peasant Women is the country’s largest indigenous women’s organization, with over 100,000 members. Other notable nongovernmental organizations include the National Confederation of Indigenous Women of Bolivia, MADRE, the International Indigenous Women’s Forum, and local neighborhood councils. Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales of the Movement Toward Socialism, was elected in 2006 on a platform that emphasized land redistribution (particularly to women), indigenous rights, and gender parity in government. His land redistribution program granted 10,300 property titles to women between 2006 and 2008—numbers much higher than those achieved by previous administrations. It is more difficult to measure women’s benefits in the many indigenous communities where land was collectively titled. Indigenous women have also worked within the larger women’s rights movement to gain greater polit-

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ical representation, although they are still underrepresented. Morales also implemented constitutional reforms in 2009 that gave indigenous communities greater self-government and sought gender equality in government. Women have slowly increased their percentage of parliamentary seats and ministerial positions. Other advancements include the Law Against Domestic and Family Violence and the Victims of Crimes against Sexual Freedom protections. Protection of political rights is lower at the local level. See Also: Bolivia; Indigenous Women’s Issues; MADRE. Further Readings Kellogg, S. Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women From the Prehispanic Period to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Leon, Rosario. “Bartolina Sisa: The Peasant Women’s Organization in Bolivia.” In Elizabeth Jelin, et al., eds., Women and Social Change in Latin America. London: Zed, 1990. Mickelwait, Donald R. Women in Rural Development: A Survey of the Roles of Women in Ghana, Lesotho, Kenya, Nigerria, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru. Jackson, TN: Westview, 1976. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Indonesia The Republic of Indonesia is populated by several hundred different ethnic groups, the largest of which includes the Javanese and Sudanese. The predominant religion is Muslim although there are numerous others practiced. Women’s social and political positions are generally considered high for a mainly Muslim nation but they still face traditional cultural expectations of subservience. One sign of advancement is that Indonesia recently had a female head of state. Overall, though, the living and working conditions for women vary by region and ethnic group. The sex trade is a major problem hindering women’s advancement in this country, the world’s fourth most populous nation. Indonesia ranked 93rd of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report.

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Indonesians generally marry and there is great family and social pressure to do so. Children do not gain full adult status in the eyes of most citizens until they marry and become parents. Most Indonesians marry within their own ethnic groups. The decision of marriage partner can be based on a number of different factors, including descent, love, socioeconomic status, or potential for family advancement. Indonesians generally marry when they’re in their early 20s. Different ethnicities have different divorce and remarriage practices range from strict to liberal. The divorce customs of many traditional societies as well as the Muslim population favor the husband over the wife. The 2009 fertility rate was 2.2 births per woman. Skilled healthcare practitioners attend 66 percent of births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 26 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate was 420 per 100,000 live births. Employers provide women with three months of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of their wages. A child’s citizenship comes only through the father and not the mother. There is a national family planning program due to the problem of overpopulation, especially in Java and the larger urban areas. To combat the nation’s uneven populations, Indonesia has a program to resettle people from crowded to less crowded areas within the nation. Nearly 6 in 10 (58 percent) of married women use contraceptives. Nuclear Families Kinship and family obligations are culturally emphasized and provide important systems of social support. Most families are nuclear and reside in rural areas. Among the matrilineal Minangkabau society, households are segregated by gender and husbands are visitors in their wives’ homes. Men are traditionally family and community leaders and make most major decisions. Marriage laws view the husband as head of household. Women maintain the home and instill family values. Men, elders, and guests are shown deference. Although rules of etiquette vary among different ethnic groups, there are rarely public displays of affection between members of the opposite sex. There is domestic violation legislation, but it is still a key social problem. The public education system is poor and many university-level students study abroad. Female school attendance rates stand at 93 percent at the primary level, 68 percent at the secondary level, and 17 percent

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Javanese tea leaf pickers working at a tea plantation in Java, Indonesia. Both men and women in Indonesia are employed in rural village agriculture, a field in which most of the population is employed.

at the tertiary level. There is a gender gap in literacy rates, which are 87 percent for females compared to 95 percent for males. Functional literacy is limited in many rural areas. Urban residents face overcrowding, limited access to clean water and poor sanitation. Both the urban and rural poor populations lack adequate nutrition. Rural residents commonly endure annual periods of hunger as the harvest approaches. There is a lack of basic infrastructure in many areas and no social security or unemployment insurance. Life expectancy stands at 59 for women and 57 for men. Modern healthcare facilities and midwifery centers are limited and concentrated in urban areas while traditional medicine and spiritual healing predominate in rural communities. The minority Chinese population, which controls over half of the nation’s wealth, faces restrictive regulations, discrimination and periodic violence. Trafficking in women and children for the sex trade is a major issue. Both men and women participate in rural village agriculture, which represents most of the Indone-

sian workforce. Harvest groups are often segregated by gender. Women are left to tend to rural farms and gardens when men go on extended hunting or fishing expeditions or travel to the cities in search of employment. More than half, 55 percent, of women participate in the labor force, comprising 31 percent of paid nonagricultural workers and 42 percent of professional and technical workers. Urban women are employed in stores and markets, trade and small industries. Women comprise 58 percent of teachers at the primary level, 49 percent at the secondary level, and 41 percent at the tertiary level. A gender gap still exists in terms of average estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which stands at $2,179 for women and $4,729 for men. Unemployment rates, which are higher for women than men, stand at 10.76 percent for women and 8.1 percent for men. Women’s Rights Women have the right to vote. Although women hold a variety of political positions, men still dominate all

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levels of politics. Megawati Sukarnoputri served as the first female president from 2001 to 2004. Women hold 17 percent of parliamentary seats and 11 percent of ministerial positions. There is a governmental Ministry of Women’s Affairs. There has been a long presence of nongovernmental organizations in Indonesian urban areas but they face government restrictions and funding difficulties. Examples of women’s groups include the Indonesian Women’s Congress, the Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association, the Council of Muslim Women’s Organizations, the Association of Women of the Republic of Indonesia, and the Indonesian National Commission on the Status of Women. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Heads of State, Female; Overpopulation; Rural Women. Further Readings: Hepburn, S. and R. J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Martyn, Elizabeth. Women’s Movement in Postcolonial Indonesia: Gender and Nation in a New Democracy. New York: Routledge, 2004. Tantri, K. Revolt in Paradise: One Woman’s Fight for Freedom in Indonesia. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1989. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Infant Mortality Infant mortality refers to deaths during the first year of life. The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the standard way of measuring infant deaths. Significant declines in infant mortality began in wealthy countries with the industrial revolution and have occurred since World War II in the developing world. These declines have significant implications for women’s changing gender roles and status in the 21st century. Infant mortality is typically measured using the IMR. This is calculated by dividing the number of deaths to infants under age one by the number of live births in that population multiplied by 1,000. The IMR thus refers to the number of babies out of every 1,000 who die before reaching the age of 1.

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Humans are the most fragile in the earliest stages of life. Because infant deaths are highest in the first weeks of life, infant mortality is often divided into several more specific measures. Neonatal mortality is the number of deaths (per live births, per 1,000 population) in the first 28 days of life. This can be further subdivided into early neonatal mortality (during the first week of life) and late neonatal mortality (deaths from 8 through 28 days). Postneonatal mortality refers to all infant deaths from 29 days through 1 year. (Thus, the neonatal mortality rate added to the postneonatal mortality rate is equal to the infant mortality rate.) Within wealthier countries in particular, variation in neonatal mortality is a good measure of quality of hospital care for young infants. Because mortality is highest in the first year of life, infant mortality is the most sensitive measure of mortality. It is a good way of gauging differences in the quality of life between countries or between groups within a country. Historical Change in Infant Mortality Infant mortality rates dropped dramatically over the past several centuries. In the developed countries, significant declines in infant mortality began with the industrial revolution. In London, for example, some estimates indicate that in the early 1700s, nearly threequarters of children died before the age of 5. Only a century later, this had fallen to less than a third. These declines continued throughout the 20th century. As an illustration, out of every 1,000 babies born in the United States today, more will survive to be 65 years old than survived to be 1 year old in 1900. In developing countries, the declines in infant mortality were much more recent. Most of the change began with the exportation of Western sanitation, agricultural techniques, and medical technology after World War II. In 1950, the average infant mortality rate in less developed countries was 170.5. By 2000, it had dropped to 60.5, and it is predicted to decline to 17.2 by the middle of the 21st century. In some parts of the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the decline in infant mortality was slowed by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic. Differential Mortality Rates Just as infant mortality has changed and will continue to change over time, levels of infant mortality vary both

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between and within countries. When looking at international variation, poorer nations have much higher rates of infant mortality than do richer nations. Data in the first decade of the 21st century (2009) show a range of infant mortality rates from a low of 2.5 in Bermuda to a high of 180.2 in Angola. The way to interpret this number is that in Bermuda, only 2.5 out of every 1,000 babies born (1 in 400) die in the first year of life. In contrast, in Angola, over 180 out of every 1,000 babies (nearly one in five) die before they reach the age of 1. When comparing these two extremes of the spectrum, the infant mortality rate in Angola is approximately 72 times higher than in Bermuda, but about what it was in the United States and western Europe in 1900. Prediciting Future Mortality Rates The extreme variation of infant mortality means that it is the most important component in predicting variation in life expectation at birth, another measure often used to compare quality of life. When the IMR is very high (175 or above—the rate for sub-Saharan Africa in 1950, and the rate for the United States and most of Europe in the 19th century), life expectancy at birth is around 40. When infant mortality declines to about 100 deaths per 1,000 live births (sub-Saharan Africa today), life expectancy is closer to 50. The first half of the 21st century will see continued declines in infant mortality, particularly in developing countries. While the differentials between countries will diminish, they will not disappear. Using the same two examples of extreme cases, it is projected that by 2050, the infant mortality rate in Bermuda will remain at 2.5. In Angola, it is projected to drop from the current rate of 180.2 to 88.7, still some 35 times the rate in Bermuda. In countries with very high infant mortality, dehydration and diarrhea are common causes of infant death. Lack of drinkable water and inadequate diet, combined with inadequate access to medical care, are a dangerous combination leading to high infant mortality. One very promising solution has been oral rehydration therapy, in which inexpensive solutions of water, sugars, and salts can reduce deaths due to diarrhea. However, this does not solve the greater problems of extreme poverty and lack of basic sanitation, food, water, and medical care. While reducing the infant mortality rate, oral rehydration therapy shifts the leading cause of infant death to commu-

nicable diseases like pneumonia. In wealthier countries with much lower infant mortality, infant death is typically a result of premature birth and resulting low birth weight. These are correlated with lack of prenatal care, smoking, use of drugs or alcohol during pregnancy, and inadequate maternal diet. Within countries, IMRs follow predictable patterns. As with mortality at all age levels, females have lower rates of infant mortality than males. This has been true throughout history and is the case in virtually every country in the world. It is even true in countries where the status of women is very low. For example, in Afghanistan in 2009, the female IMR is 159.9, while it is 170 for male infants. One of the few exceptions to this pattern (using 2009 data) is India, where the male IMR is 49.3 and the female IMR is slightly higher at 52.4. The life expectancy at birth for women in India, however, is higher than for men (67.2 for females and 65.1 for males). The extreme consistency of the sex difference in mortality across time and space suggests a biological component. The difference in mortality occurs even before birth. At conception, the sex ratio (number of males per 100 females) is approximately 120. By birth, it tends to fall to 104–106 in countries around the world. A recent exception can be found in China, where the combination of a one-child policy, preference for a male child, and sex-selective abortion have resulted in a higher sex ratio at birth—reaching 118 by 2005. Infant mortality also varies by social status. As income, the status of occupations, and education increase, infant mortality decreases. This finding is far from recent. Indeed, John Graunt conducted the earliest statistical analysis of population data in 1662. He examined mortality information in London and demonstrated that infant mortality was higher in poor sections of the city than it was in better-off neighborhoods. Similarly, disadvantaged racial and ethnic populations tend to have higher infant mortality than other groups. Data from a wide range of countries show higher infant mortality rates among indigenous groups or racial/ethnic groups that experience social inequality. Mortality Decline and Women’s Status Declines in infant mortality (and mortality in general) have significant implications for the gender roles and the status of women. When infant mortality is high,

Infanticide



there is significant pressure for women to marry, often at an early age. Once married, there is cultural and social pressure to begin having children shortly after marriage, and ultimately, to have more children. High infant mortality requires higher fertility to ensure that enough children survive to adulthood to work in the family economy, continue the family line, and care for the parents in their old age. In cultures where there is a strong preference for a male child, this pressure is even greater. All projections about future change in the infant mortality rate suggest that it will continue to decline in countries throughout the world. Changes will be greatest in poorer countries. This suggests the possibility of significant transformations in the role and status of women in a variety of cultural settings. See Also: Fertility; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; HIV/ AIDS: Africa; Life Expectancy, International Comparisons of; Prenatal Care. Further Readings Guerrant, Richard L., Benedito A. Carneiro-Filho, and Rebecca A. Dillingham. “Cholera, Diarrhea, and Oral Rehydration Therapy: Triumph and Indictment.” Clinical Infectious Diseases, v.37/3 (2003). U.S. Census Bureau. “International Data Base.” http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb (accessed November 2009). Weeks, John R. Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, 10th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Edward L. Kain Southwestern University

Infanticide Infanticide is the killing of an infant or baby who is less than 1 year old. Related terms are neonaticide and filicide. Neonaticide is a specific form of infanticide that is the murder of a newborn baby who is less than 24 hours old. Filicide is the murder of a child that may also include infants. While the killing of a child who is over the age of 1 is not infanticide per se, scholars, medical professionals, and legal experts use

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the term infanticide to describe the killing of infants and children. Many societies have practiced infanticide for a variety of reasons that include population control, eugenics movements that seek to eradicate a group of people such as those with physical disabilities, cultural norms surrounding illegitimate children, inheritance customs, poverty, and patriarchal traditions that welcome male infants and reject female babies. Infanticide is practiced in many countries but is particularly widespread in China and India. Methods include exposure, drowning, suffocation, starvation, and crushing the baby’s skull. Parents have committed infanticide because of poverty or because the baby was disabled, ill, or female. Economic reasons account for the killing of many babies. Parents who are too impoverished to care for large families commit infanticide against both male and female children. However, cultural norms regarding gender account for why female infants rather than male infants are more likely to be killed. The high cost of dowries—a custom that involves the bride’s family paying money or goods to the groom’s family—in addition to the tradition of a bride joining her husband’s family continues to perpetuate the Chinese and Indian practice of female infanticide. Contemporary infanticide in China surged after the 1979 one-child policy that limited family size to one child. While this policy was intended as a means of population control, it increased the rate of female infanticide in a society that valued sons over daughters. The introduction of reproductive technologies, such as ultrasound machines, created new means of disposing of female infants through sex-selective abortions. Yet these new technologies did not eradicate female infanticide or the cultural tradition of son preference. Like China, there is an intense preference for sons in India, particularly in northern India. Poverty alone does not account for female infanticide in India. Evidence shows that wealthy families murder their infant daughters as well. The general condition of women’s low status accounts for the phenomenon of killing female infants in India as well many other cultures that practice infanticide. In 1998, reports estimated that 10,000 female fetuses are killed every year in India. The sex ratio imbalance in India reflects the disappearance of girls.

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Infanticide in the United States In contemporary industrialized societies, particularly the United States, medical and legal professionals are the primary agents who treat the victims and reprimand the perpetrators of infanticide. This is due in part to the medicalization and legalization of social life found in most advanced capitalist societies. Unlike other societies such as China and India that practice infanticide for reasons such as family poverty or son preference, in the United States infanticide is understood vis-à-vis an amalgamation of medical and legal discourses that depict the act of infanticide as a crime against the state (or society) rather than a cultural tradition. Consequently, U.S. society treats the perpetrator of infanticide as a criminal, as well as mentally ill. Unlike cross-cultural examples of infanticide that reflect gender inequality through the prevalence of killing female infants, infanticide in the United States is significantly less sex specific. Instead, the gendered dimension of infanticide lies more with the perpetrator rather than with the victim. Worldwide, women tend to commit infanticide more often than men. This is due in part to the sexual division of labor: women are more likely to care for children and take responsibility for their livelihood than men. Therefore, medical and legal institutions tend to recognize women, not men, as the perpetrators of infanticide. In the United States, mothers who commit infanticide tend to kill older children, not infants. Another key distinction in advanced capitalist societies is the influence of the media. Television, Internet, and print media cover and often sensationalize stories of infanticide committed by mothers. Because medical and legal experts depict mothers who kill their children as disturbed, infanticide in the United States is centered on the question of what kind of mother could kill her own children. Medical typologies include explanations such as mothers who are detached, abusive, neglectful, psychotic, depressed (including but not limited to postpartum depression), drug and alcohol addicted, and survivors of abuse (physical, emotional, mental, sexual). The underlying assumption in the medical model of infanticide is that no mother in her “right” mind would possibly commit such an abominable act. Infamous Examples The following examples of Melissa Drexler, Susan Smith, and Andrea Yates show how medical and

legal experts work together to depict mothers who kill their children as criminally insane and how legal retribution for killing one’s child or children varies. Melissa Drexler is what some scholars term a pregnancy denier. These women are often young and are in denial that they are pregnant. The denial extends to their families and friends who also claim that they had no idea their daughter, sister, friend, etc., was pregnant. In June 1997, Drexler gave birth in her high school bathroom during her senior prom (and was dubbed the “prom mom” by the media) and disposed of the baby in a trash can that was later discovered by a school janitor. According to her statement to police, Drexler claimed that she did not know that she was pregnant. She was released on parole after serving three years of a 15-year murder sentence. A second example is Susan Smith, whom psychiatrists classified as psychotic with impulsive tendencies. In October 1994, Susan Smith claimed that her car had been stolen and that inside the car were her two young sons. After the police spent days searching for the car, Smith eventually confessed that she had contemplated killing herself and her children but ultimately pushed the car into a lake, killing her sons. She is currently serving a 30-year murder sentence. A third example is Andrea Yates. In June 2001, Yates drowned her five children in her bathtub. Unlike Drexler and Smith, Yates was initially diagnosed with postpartum depression (although incorrectly, she was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder). Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was remanded to a state mental hospital. These examples show the range of reactions by the legal establishment for murdering one’s children. Being Held Responsible Some scholars and healthcare professionals understand the reasons that women commit infanticide through social factors in addition to the focus on mental health status. In interviews with women who are serving prison terms for infanticide, many women were found to be held responsible for their children’s death even when the death was accidental or the consequence of an abusive relationship. For example, one single mother was sentenced for murder because she had left her children unattended in order to work so that she could support her family. When she returned from work one night, she discovered that one of her

Infertility, Incidence of



children had unintentionally started a fire while trying to cook dinner. The fire took the life of one child and she was sentenced for murder and child neglect. Another woman was in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend who is not the father of her children. The boyfriend beat one of her children to death and threatened to kill her other children if she called the police. Together, she and her boyfriend hid her dead son’s body in a crawl space in the basement. When the police discovered the body, the mother and her boyfriend were arrested. However, even though the boyfriend—who killed the child—was charged with murder, he received a lesser sentence than the mother, who was charged with homicidal facilitation. This example shows how the legal establishment holds women more responsible for murdering their children than it does men. See Also: Abortion Methods; China; India; Postpartum Depression; Postpartum Psychosis; Yates, Andrea. Further Readings Bhatnagar, Rashmi Dube and Reena Dube. Female Infanticide in India: A Feminist Cultural History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Meyer, Cheryl L. and Michelle Oberman. Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms From Susan Smith to the “Prom Mom.” New York: New York University Press, 2001. Mungello, D. E. Drowning Girls in China: Female Infanticide Since 1650. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Oberman, Michelle and Cheryl L. Meyer. When Mothers Kill: Interviews From Prison. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Spinelli, Margaret G, ed. Infanticide: Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who Kill. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publications, 2003. Connie Oxford State University of New York, Plattsburgh

Infertility, Incidence of Infertility can be considered to be a social as well as an individual problem. In order to ascertain the incidence rates of infertility, one must first be diagnosed

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as infertile. After discussing competing medical definitions for infertility, this article presents infertility rates in the United States and globally, then discusses causes and effects of infertility. Definition and Diagnosis The medical industry generally diagnoses infertility for a heterosexual couple if neither spouse is surgically sterile, they had correctly timed sexual intercourse, had not used contraception, and had not become pregnant during the past 12 months or longer, although some physicians, especially specialists, will even treat couples after six months of trying to become pregnant. Some believe that the availability of for-profit fertility treatments has created an unrealistic time frame. The World Health Organization defines infertility if there is no conception after two years of unprotected sexual intercourse with the same partner. This definition is supported by a 2004 finding by the National Collaborating Centre for Women’s and Children’s Health that states that under normal conditions, about 84 percent of couples in the general population will conceive within one year if they do not use contraception. Of those who do not conceive in the first year, half will do so in the second year. Moreover, 94 percent of women over 35 and 77 percent of women over 38 will conceive after three years of trying. Whereas physicians often dismiss women’s selfdiagnoses from charting, how to diagnose infertility is not agreed upon by the medical community. One general indicator is age, where women over 35 years old are treated more aggressively even though women under 35 are the largest consumers of fertility treatments, which some call a “prognosis-oriented approach,” where women are recommended to proceed to treatments following an often incomplete diagnostic workup. Beyond age, symptoms of infertility are debated in the medical field, which leads to a lack of standardization in diagnostic tests. Despite a basic diagnostic workup outlined by the American Fertility Society and the World Health Organization, a lack of agreement exists among fertility specialists with regard to how to interpret diagnostic tests, which tests to perform, what their prognostic utility is, and what should be judged as “normal.” Findings suggest that variability exists in which tests are performed based on the type of practice and physician age and gender.

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Rates Fifty years ago, infertility was a “non-issue” as the topic was not discussed socially and little was known about it scientifically. Now, however, there are countless media reports, more infertile women in the population, and a larger proportion of infertile couples seeking treatment in a fertility industry that is estimated at $3 billion annually. In the United States, rates of involuntary childlessness are reported to be increasing; 2002 reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 7.4 percent of married women experienced infertility. By 2007, it was reported that 1 in 7 men and women experienced infertility. Infertility also affects on average 8–12 percent of couples worldwide. Rates vary from country to country; in the worst-affected areas, over 25 percent of couples may be unable to conceive. These numbers, however, may not represent the entire world because infertility problems are underreported in developing countries due to the focus on perceived overpopulation problems. Female factor infertility rates range from 30–50 percent, the male factor ranges from 20–30 percent, and 10 to 50 percent of the time the issue remains unknown. Higher infertility rates for women may be attributed in part due to the fact that women usually initiate contact with the medical community because motherhood is often an integral part of women’s status, women’s responsibilities accord more with the sick role, women are more accustomed to consulting doctors about reproduction, and most people assume that the fertility problem lies within the woman’s body, including many physicians. The medical focus is often on women’s bodies as women generally get tested first for infertility and sometimes can go through years of treatments before their male partners get tested. Last, women often take responsibility for infertility, regardless of which partner is actually infertile. Causes The medical category of “unexplained infertility” can be one of the more frequent diagnoses for women, which can be frustrating even though the exact cause of the infertility is not that significant for treatment purposes as these are relatively standard regardless of exact causes. There is some feminist critique about certain medical terminology of causes of female infertility such as “hostile mucus” and “incompetent cervix,” which convey a sense of inadequacy and that there

are no parallel terms for male infertility. Most current medical knowledge attributes causes of female and male infertility to the use of lubricants that kill sperm or not timing intercourse correctly; the heavy use of alcohol or other drugs; starvation diets; stress; scarring from sexually transmitted diseases or other surgical procedures; age; chemicals in our environment; immunologic disorders; ovarian, tubal, and cervical factors; and/or hormonal and genetic conditions. Effects On a personal level, infertility causes feelings of guilt and grief and many engage in self-imposed social isolation to avoid places and people with children. In poor communities around the world, infertility can be devastating for women, causing social stigma, social isolation, and even violence. On a practical level, many families in developing countries depend on children for economic survival. See Also: Infertility, Treatments for; Pregnancy; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Glatstein, Isaac Z., Bernard L. Harlow, and Mark D. Hornstein. “Practice Patterns Among Reproductive Endocrinologists: Further Aspects of the Infertility Evaluation.” Fertility & Sterility, v.70 (1998). Inhorn, Marcia and Frank van Balen, eds. Infertility Around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. World Health Organization. “Infertilty.” http://www.who .int/reproductivehealth (accessed November 2009). Ophra Leyser Haskell Indian Nations University

Infertility, Treatments for Although some infertile couples remain childless or adopt, others pursue their desires for biological children more fervently. Factors influencing the decision to pursue fertility treatments include family, cultural, and women’s reproductive histories; financial and material resources; marital status; political and legal



conditions; medical options; the physical and mental health of women and those close to them; religious beliefs; views on adoption; and internal and external pressures to become parents. Further, physicians often pair infertility diagnoses with optimistic treatment prognoses and generally the middle class embraces medical discourse, irrespective of race and education. This article outlines available treatment options, usage and success rates, and personal and societal implications of fertility treatments. Treatment Options Regardless of male or female factor infertility, almost all treatments focus on the woman. Most women start with hormonal treatments, yet one drug, Clomid, which stimulates the ovaries to release eggs, is sometimes administered to men with low sperm count. Another common procedure is the artificial insemination of sperm. Inseminations now mostly consist of “washing” the sperm in a solution in order to separate it from the seminal fluid that is toxic in a uterine environment because the sperm is directly injected into the uterus by guiding a small catheter through the cervix for an intrauterine insemination (IUI). Sperm can be fresh, removed from the testicle if ejaculation is impossible, or frozen from a donor. Almost all assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), or higher-impact procedures, are in vitro fertilization (IVF), wherein egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside the womb. The majority of these procedures include intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), which punctures the removed ova with a fine needle for a direct injection of sperm. Other technologies used with IVF are the use of frozen embryos, donor egg and/or donor sperm, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which takes a biopsy of an IVF fertilized embryo. Less common procedures include gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), the transfer of eggs and sperm into the fallopian tube, and zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT), where the zygote is transferred into the fallopian tube; these account for 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, of highimpact procedures. All ARTs can also be performed on a surrogate mother. These treatments only bypass the medical problem, yet complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), such as homeopathy and naturopathy, are more focused on treating the problem, and quite a few women use

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CAM for infertility, either by itself or in conjunction with Western medical treatment. Some physicians discourage CAM usage, yet others now recommend acupuncture to complement their treatments. Usage and Success Rates The cost of treatments ranges from hundreds to many thousands of dollars, which restricts access to many; yet incidentally, the highest rates of infertility are among the poor. Services are not easily accessible in developing countries due to cost but are starting to make an appearance. Fertility treatment services are available in developed countries and services cross borders. Usage rates for pharmaceuticals remain unreported because any physician can prescribe them. Success rates, however, are reported to approximate 30 percent. ART usage rates are reported because fertility clinics are required to submit data to the Centers for Disease Control. By 2004, 12 percent of women of childbearing age in the United States received an infertility service, which equates to hundreds of thousands of treatment cycles. Women under 35 years old are the largest group using ARTs; they represented 40 percent of all ART cycles carried out in 2005. European data also show that younger women seek medical help for infertility, which might result in overtreatment due to the false-positive diagnoses of infertility. Success rates for ARTs, measured by a pregnancy or a live birth, are approximately 30 percent. Success declines as the age of a woman increases and with the use of frozen embryos; however, the use of a donor egg increases the probability to 31 percent for a single birth and 52 percent for multiples. Implications On the positive side, fertility treatments provide opportunities for parenthood to diverse groups of people including single women, gays, and lesbians, which is opposed by several conservative groups. Many women who conceived through ARTs report that motherhood is important to their self-development and self-esteem, yet some feminists have long battled against the idea that a woman’s social value is linked to biological procreation. Also, treatments give people the ability to claim or disown ancestry by using their genetic material or that of others.

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International Action Network on Small Arms

On the less positive side, however, treatments require heavy emotional, physical, and financial costs, especially on women, because they are invasive as they control problems on individual and biological levels, rather than structural and social levels. The use of fertility treatments can also strain the entire healthcare system when costs get displaced to other medical departments. Children born through the use of fertility treatments have a higher chance of health problems, thus the increased cost for neonatal intensive care and pediatric units. Others contend that fertility treatments reinforce the idea of genetic determinism, which has racist and classist implications and affects areas of health and medicine and the criminal justice system. Other ethical concerns deal with the creation and destruction of embryos, and that the illness/disability that causes infertility may be nature’s way of controlling reproduction; yet ARTs bypass those problems and thus scientific intervention is changing evolution. Women and men with fertility problems can now transmit diseases, one of those being infertility, which creates the next generation of infertile patients. See Also: Infertility, Incidence of; Pregnancy; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Dooley, Dolores and Dalla-Vorgia Panagiota. The Ethics of New Reproductive Technologies: Cases and Questions. Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, 2003. Lebovic, Dan I., John David Gordon, and Robert N. Taylor. Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility: Handbook for Clinicians. Arlington, VA: Scrub Hill Press, 2005. Ophra Leyser Haskell Indian Nations University

International Action Network on Small Arms The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) began in August 1998 at a Toronto meeting of 33 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from 18 countries. It was formed as a network of campaigns against small arms and light weapons (SALW). By

2010, the network included 800 civil society organizations working in 120 countries. SALW are weapons that can be carried and used by one or two people. While the majority of both SALW users and victims are men, women suffer in their interference with provision of basic needs and in being forced to endure rape, sexual violence, and slavery. Women are more likely to die violently when there is a gun in the house. For these reasons, the IANSA Women’s Network was created in 2001, focusing on the links between gender, women’s rights, small arms, and armed violence. Putting a Human Face on Small Arms Modeled after the successful International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in the Ottawa Process that produced the 1997 Land Mines Convention, IANSA sought to put a human face on small arms. IANSA’s work countered that of the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups. IANSA has been active in monitoring and promoting the implementation of the 2001 UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. The Biting the Bullet Project and IANSA produced an important 2003 report that concluded that implementation had been limited. In fall 2003,with Amnesty International and Oxfam, IANSA launched the Control Arms campaign, calling for a global arms trade treaty. Among controversial issues are whether to limit international regulation only to illicit arms and whether to include brokering of arms transfers. IANSA has been funded by the United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, and foundations. The IANSA Women’s Network and other organizations concerned with violence against women have worked to make clear the gender implications of small arms. Women’s NGOs banded together to help the United Nations Security Council in October 2000 pass Resolution 1325, which addresses both the impact of armed conflict on women and their role in peace negotiations. The IANSA Women’s Network works to stop gun violence against women; to involve women in peacemaking, peace building, and disarmament; to reduce military spending; to break the link between violence and masculinity; and to prevent gun violence in general. In June 2009, it launched its Disarm Domestic Violence campaign. The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has supported



International Conference on Population and Development

IANSA Women’s Network planning sessions and an exhibit on the impact of SALW on women at the Biennial Meeting of States on the Programme of Action. See Also: Domestic Violence; Nongovernmental Organizations Worldwide; Rape in Conflict Zones; United Nations Development Fund for Women. Further Readings Clegg, Liz. “NGOS Take Aim.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Small Arms, Big Problem. v.55/1 (January– February 1999). International Action Network on Small Arms. http:// www.iansa.org (accessed March 2010). Small Arms Survey 2009. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. http://www.smallarmssurvey .org/files/sas/publications/yearb2009.html (accessed July 2010). United Nations. “Report of the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, New York, July 9–20, 2001.” A/CONF.192/15. Carolyn M. Stephenson Independent Scholar

International Conference on Population and Development The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994, was one of a series of United Nations world conferences of the decade that achieved significant decisions to promote gender equality and the advancement of the world’s women. This conference of 180 United Nations (UN) Member States produced an agreement, the Program of Action, which connected demographic issues of managing the expansion of global population and sustainable world development to the promotion of women’s welfare and rights to education, health, and reproductive services. In the 1980s and 1990s, neoliberal “globalization” of the world’s economy and structural adjustment programs (SAPs) promoted by Western governments, the

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World Bank, and other international lenders resulted in severe cutbacks to state-sponsored social welfare spending generally and to funds for family planning in particular in both the north and the south. This pushed the world’s poor—overwhelmingly women and children—into a state of crisis and, in turn, provoked “push back” from progressive social forces, including feminist activists who expressed themselves locally as well as internationally at UN world conferences. Following the pattern of transnational feminist activism set at the 1993 Human Rights Conference in Vienna, women’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were an especially active and effective lobbying force at the 1994 ICPD hosted by the UN in Cairo. The NGO Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) organized a Women’s Caucus of 300 women and men from 62 countries that formed alliances among population control groups, environmental groups, and women’s rights groups and that was active at every conference preparatory meeting. Making a Difference In a significant step forward, the Women’s Caucus built widespread government recognition, linking the goals of managed population growth, sustainable development, the global elimination of poverty, and protection of the environment to human rights to “development” and women’s rights to access to education, reproductive services, and other healthcare. The ICPD Program of Action included key chapters on “Gender Equality, Equity, and the Empowerment of Women” and “Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Health” and it endorsed the principle of reproductive rights and the right of couples and individuals to determine the number and spacing of their children—even though some Middle Eastern Islamist nations voiced reservations, and the Vatican and several Latin American Catholic governments opposed these provisions. The ICPD Program of Action also included carefully “word-smithed” language regarding the highly contentious issue of abortion that stated “In circumstances in which abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe. . . . Post-abortion counseling, education and family planning services should be offered promptly which will also help to avoid repeat abortions.”

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It bears noting that the approach taken by the ICPD Program of Action is not without some critics within feminist circles. These critics claim that it places undue responsibility for the overpopulation “problem’” on the backs of poor and indigenous women, without taking cultural and religious differences sufficiently into account. See Also: Abortion Laws, International; Global “Gag Rule”; Overpopulation; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Diamond, Irene. Fertile Ground: Women, Earth and the Limits of Control. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997. Higer, Amy J. “International Women’s Activism at the 1994 Cairo Population Conference.” In Mary K. Meyer and Elisabeth Prügl, eds., Gender Politics in Global Governance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Pettman, Jan Jindy. “Global Politics and Transnational Feminisms.” In Luciana Ricciutelli, Angela Miles, and Margaret H. McFadden, eds. Feminist Politics, Activism and Vision: Local and Global Challenges. London: Zed, 2004. United Nations. “Cairo Conference Links Population, Sustainable Development, and Women’s Rights.” http:// www.un.org/popin/icpd/infokit/infokit.eng/1overvw .html (accessed December 2009). United Nations. “International Conference on Population and Development Summary of the Program of Action.” www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/populatin/icpd.htm (accessed December 2009). Karen Garner State University of New York, Empire State College

International Monetary Fund The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were born out of the post–World War II Bretton Woods conference designed to correct “failures” in international capital markets that prevented global capital from flowing to the right destinations, particularly poor countries. The IMF was to ensure exchange rate stability and provide liquidity to the new pegged exchange rate system by making short-

term loans to countries to address their balance of payments problems. The IMF or the Fund was to be an agency that would ensure international financial stability while the World Bank was to provide lonterm loans for reconstruction and development. Every member country contributes a portion of its national income to the IMF, against which it is eligible to borrow. The Central Bank or Treasury of a country acts as the representative of that country to the IMF. Credit tranches are blocks of loans given by the IMF to members upon request. The first two tranches are lent out without hesitation but subsequent tranches are given only if the country promises to install economic policies that are designed to secure a country’s financial position. A large share of the IMF’s lending has been to developing countries. Such lending began in the 1950s and increased over time thereafter. During 1976 and 1982, the IMF approved 114 new stand-by arrangements (assurance to borrow a certain amount within a fixed time provided that the provisions are met) of which 108 were with developing countries. Because developing countries have used more of their credit tranches, they have been subject to conditionality by the IMF. The IMF is a leader in establishing theory and practice in macroeconomic policy in developing countries. As the most influential organization in development finance, it attracts renowned academics and practitioners. Because of the paucity of women in this field, most of the senior officials and the top theoreticians have been men. Fewer than 20 percent of the senior administration is female and fewer than 10 percent of the members of the organization’s boards of governors are women. While the IMF has the authority to alter the gender composition of its staff, it has little control over the board of governors, which are appointed by individual member countries. Yet the discussion below shows that IMF policies have greatly affected and altered the lives of millions of women across the world. Structural Adjustment in the Post–Oil Shock Era The beginning of the 1970s ushered in a new era of global currency exchange arrangements. The dollarbased exchange rate system was abandoned in the industrialized world but most developing countries continued to peg their currencies to a reserve currency such as the U.S. dollar or currency baskets. The role of



the IMF in maintaining exchange rate stability in the developing world became even more acutely needed. The oil shocks of 1973–74 and 1979–80 led to further Fund involvement in lending and designing policy packages for developing countries. A new phenomenon was large amounts of commercial bank credit now available for sovereign borrowing. Such private flows dwarfed lending by the international financial institutions and were mostly medium-term loans with no conditions attached. These were invested in low return projects such as infrastructure and construction projects throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. Although the 1970s saw significant borrowing by the developing world, the loans increased by eightfold in the 1980s. Unfortunately, by the end of that decade, the world economic situation had become adverse for most of these countries. They faced declining demand for their products in industrialized countries, deteriorating terms of trade, and higher real interest rates on existing and new debt. Many countries were hit by severe financial crises, and Mexico announced in 1982 that it would be unable to meet its debt service obligations. Many other countries found themselves in similar insolvent positions, the situation worsening for most of Africa by the 1990s. By the early 1980s global economic policy became synonymous with “getting the prices right.” This entailed removal of public subsidies from every sphere of the economy where they had been instituted in the name of economic development. Previously touted practices of public procurement of goods, subsidy on inputs, credit and other necessities of production, and government regulation became “bad policies.” Public expenditure became synonymous with profligacy, inefficiency and failure. With the Reagan and Thatcher eras transforming popular ideology in the West, the transition to this new idea of laissez-faire led development was inevitable and smooth. Thus was born, in an era of the debt crisis, structural adjustment lending by the World Bank, which went hand in hand with stabilization programs meted out by the IMF. This was formalized by a Bank-Funk accord in 1989. These programs were based on formulations made by economists at the IMF. They maintained that a balance of payments crisis could either be corrected by lowering spending on imports or by lowering overall spending. This meant the government could either

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lower the value of its currency, increasing exports and reducing imports, or reduce its own public spending. During the 1970s and 1980s, governments established export promotion policies and curtailed their spending, primarily in areas such as health, education, and other public services. The World Bank complemented the IMF’s work by instituting long run structural changes. Based on abstracted notions and models, these policies were constructed by social engineers who were mostly male economists with substantial scorn for “softer” subjects such as literature or anthropology that offered narratives of the everyday effects on the lives of people who had to bear the burden of these policies. In the models, people were faceless and genderless “agents” and no particular country context mattered. Policy Reform Any takers desperate for loans had these policies imposed on them. Trade policy reform, which entailed import liberalization and export promotion, was a prime ingredient in the market-led road to development. Altering the kinds of products made in the country was therefore crucial. New export industries that were competitive and productive were put in place—in garments, flowers, electronics, plastics, toys, and most other consumer goods, which are today manufactured in developing countries. Women entered the labor market in large numbers as rural areas faced higher poverty amidst environmental degradation and war in many poor countries. This kept wages down, increased women’s work in export industries, and altered the consumption habits and lives of societies around the world, making them more reliant on the market. It also subjected women to further time constraints and uncertainties created by the social changes. Hand in hand with the market oriented policies went the dismantling and privatization of the state owned enterprises. As a reward for these policies, countries were granted long term structural adjustment loans. Governments that were indebted sold what assets they could to pay off their foreign currency debt. Debt servicing meant increasing exports and reducing domestic expenditure or tightening belts. They were tightened particularly around the poor. Farmers could not buy agricultural inputs because of subsidy removal, making the price of energy and food higher. Stories of hardship were heard from most countries in the southern hemisphere. In the 1990s, most of Central Asia and

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eastern Europe joined these ranks with the fall of the iron curtain. The structural adjustment policies continued for the longest in Sub-Saharan Africa in new nation states that were considered “least developed.” Weaker nations that did not have the legal and security apparatus to make painless economic adjustments were infantilized and dictated to. Women and girls were significantly affected by government budget cutbacks because they needed to increase their unpaid work to make up for shortfalls in healthcare and other public services. Girls were the first to be pulled out of school so that they could supplement family income. Prostitution and trafficking increased, along with unskilled work in the export non-unionized low wage sectors. Households were pushed to poverty, with female-headed vulnerable households faring the worst. Chronic hunger forced desperate rural women and girls into sex work and early marriage, vastly increasing their exposure to human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). The lack of property and land ownership by women exacerbated their vulnerability. New taxes on goods and services, such as the Value Added Tax, resulted in the burden of those falling unevenly on poor women whose entire budgets went to basic consumption. Charging user fees for services that were previously free led to increased expenditures for poor families. Approaching the Millennium: The 1990s and Beyond With the fall of the Soviet regime, market-led development and globalization increased in their pace. Trade had been growing rapidly, foreign direct investment was growing faster, but financial flows were increasing fastest of all. With waves of mergers and acquisitions, large multinational companies asserted their presence and influence throughout the world. Both the World Bank and IMF took more of a back seat because of the strength of private capital flows and earnings of migrant workers, which became significant in size in addition to export revenues. Technology and cost changes led to a boom period in the industrialized countries and most of the world. Unfortunately, this growth was interrupted by financial crisis in several emerging economies. In east Asia, capital flows into well-functioning exemplary economies led to sudden currency devaluations and

massive contractions of these economies. The IMF still maintained its line: reduce or end any restrictions on the global inflow of capital; do not defend the currency; let it fall until the market stabilizes it; and raise interest rates as high as necessary to keep the capital in or attract even more fresh capital. The crisis or contagion continued to spread to Russia and to Brazil and Argentina. During this period, the IMF and World Bank also came under pressure from various groups—activists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and political movements—to take into account environmental impacts of projects and to include various disenfranchised groups such as women and indigenous peoples in the development process. Because of their accountability to the public, these organizations were forced to respond by doing more studies on the impact of development activity on women and nature as well as allocating more credit to projects that targeted women and minorities. Instead of looking at the failure of IMF theories and past policies, countries and their cultures were blamed. Good governance was synonymous with good development management, rather than greater democracy. The badge of good governance had been given to countries such as Thailand, Korea and Indonesia until the Asian crisis occurred; then those same governments were blamed as having “crony capitalism.” In south Asia and Africa, global poverty was still present and the number of abject poor living on less than a dollar a day grew. In earlier years of the IMF, it was asserted that economic growth and poverty were not interconnected. In the areas where poverty alleviation strategies could be attempted—basic primary education, rural water systems and sanitation, and other social projects—the traditional criteria of “bankability” could not be applied. Clear and positive rates of return were given instead by large-scale infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, dams, or power supply. It took a generation before the Bank turned its attention to projects such as girls’ education or microenterprise lending, which were small in scale. The success of NGOs in providing poor people loans with micro-credit began to be replicated by the World Bank. In fact, such programs were supported and began to replace welfare, public services and subsidies as a tool of poverty alleviation. This new form of small capitalism designed to cultivate micro-entre-



preneurs, particularly among women, have become the order of the day in most developing countries. The funds are distributed through NGOs and government agencies that now assume ownership of administration, accountability and risk. The highly indebted countries receive funding upon submission of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), in addition to monitoring poverty and being under a reform program of the IMF. The PRSPs are written by governments in conjunction with civil society groups. Many of these reports have substantial content and incorporate gendered perspectives representing the findings of women’s groups. But the role of the IMF and the Bank in supporting the policies in these reports is very small since the policies are now to be carried out by governments that have been trained in cutting expenditures. It remains to be seen whether the future entails increased roles for the IMF, and whether concerted policies to add gender balance and diversity to the organization lead to any changes in its economic policy recommendations. See Also: Financial Independence of Women; Grameen Bank of Bangladesh; World Health Organization.

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Further Readings Copelovitch, Mark S. The International Monetary Fund in the Global Economy: Banks, Bonds, and Bailouts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Danaher, Kevin and Muhammed Yunus. Fifty Years Is Enough: The Case Against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999. International Monetary Fund. http://www.imf.org /external/index.htm (accessed July 2010). Farida C. Khan University of Wisconsin

International Women’s Day Every year on March 8, women all over the world celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD). The day is marked to celebrate women’s solidarity, to raise awareness of the ongoing struggles that women face and to express a commitment to fighting for women’s social, political, and economic rights.

International Women’s Day celebration in 2009 in Bogotá, Colombia. The day is celebrated around the world annually on March 8 and is used to highlight women’s struggles, particularly around work and labor, and as a platform to demand women’s rights.

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Socialist women in the United States were the first to celebrate a women’s day on February 23, 1909, when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter work hours, better pay, and voting rights. Over the following three years national women’s days occurred annually on the last Sunday in February. During this time, at the Second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, a motion was tabled by socialist German politician Clara Zetkin to mark the day internationally. The motion eventually passed unanimously by more than 100 women from 17 countries. As a result, the first international women’s day took place on March 19, 1911. It was marked in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland, where more than 1 million women and men took part in rallies. A tragic fire a week later on March 25, 1911, in which 140 women died in a factory in New York, crystallized the importance of these demands and emphasized the importance of working conditions and labor legislation to previous demands, which had been largely civil in nature. The demands voiced at IWD have shifted through its history. At the first IWD, demands focused on women’s rights to work, vote, receive training, hold public office, and end discrimination. In 1913 and 1914, women mobilized to demand peace on the brink of World War I. In 1917, women used the day to begin a mass strike in Russia. They were protesting against the 2 million deaths during the war and the extreme hunger they faced, demanding “bread and peace.” Days later, the event sparked the onset of the Russian Revolution. Although the date for IWD shifted in the early years, in 1913 it was fixed on March 8, where it has remained ever since. The observance is officially recognized as a holiday in many ex-Soviet or socialist countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, and is celebrated in most countries across the world. The Trade Union Congress in the United Kingdom voted unanimously in 2005 for IWD to become a national public holiday. Despite its origins in contentious and oppositional politics, some elements of women’s day have been appropriated or neutralized and is often treated akin to Mother’s Day, Children’s Day, or Friends’ Days, as

women are offered gifts and kind words to commemorate it. However, a great many women’s groups continue the radical tradition; they use the day to highlight women’s struggles, particularly around work and labor, and as a platform to resist oppression and continue to demand women’s rights in all spheres of social and political life. See Also: Equal Pay; Feminism, American; Sweatshops; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Kaplan, Temma. “On the Socialist Origins of International Women’s Day.” Feminist Studies, v.11/1 (1985). Kollontai, Alexandra. International Women’s Day. International Socialist Publishing, 1975. International Women’s Day. http://www.intern ationalwomensday.com (accessed October 2010). Kate Hardy Queen Mary, University of London

Internet Women have primarily been engaged in community building on the Internet nationally and globally, primarily through content sharing and development. Although women have virtually no documented role in the creation of the Internet, they can easily be credited for its evolution since its public debut in the mid-1980s. Moreover, since 2000, women have become increasingly engaged in online activism on various fronts, such as empowering women to use the Internet and related Webbased technologies to communicate and train girls and women on critical regional and global issues. Near the end of the 20th century, a number of ideas and inventions led the way toward wireless communication, all of which have been credited to men. It is significant to review the emergence of wireless communication as an extension of masculinity, and contextualize the subsequent birth and maturity of the Internet within the field of cyberfeminism. British, American, and Indian scientists and inventors across Europe wrestled with concepts of electromagnetism that would lay a foundation for wireless



communication. For instance, the first telegraph message was sent by inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1902 as a wireless transmission. Marconi would become a leading member of the Fascist Party in the years that followed, embracing some of the tenets of Italian Futurism that lauded the masculinity of technology, emphasizing concepts of power and speed and contextualizing industrialization as progress. Women’s voices were often overshadowed by an escalating emphasis on technological change, rather than social change. But by 2000, women had found new ways to promote social change through the Internet, networking across the globe to other women instantaneously to places once disconnected from the world where women were alienated to confront dire circumstances with limited resources and communication. The Galactic Network In the 1960s, a group of MIT researchers proposed the creation of a Galactic Network, a global computer network. The Internet, in its earliest form, dawned in the early 1960s, and began at a time when major U.S. universities and military defense contractors sought ways to transfer data among their respective laboratories and research centers. Katie Hafner wrote one of a few extensive histories on the creation of the Internet, complete with its initial funding during the Eisenhower administration through the U.S. Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). An earlier model of the Internet, ARPANET, was established for information sharing among scientists and military personnel. Hafner documented the lack of women involved in these early projects, with the then female computer scientists often opting home over careers to raise children. The Interep Trade show, a leading technology event, featured women and men representatives by 1989, the year that the World Wide Web was officially launched. Hafner provided an instance where an Associated Press reporter, covering paternity claims to the invention of the Internet, met with a group of its contributing founders, and asked “How about women . . . are there any female pioneers?” After this statement, there was silence among those being interviewed by the reporter. The consequence of the absence of female computer scientists in the making of the Internet is speculative, at best, but likely contributed to a slow adoption among women in its

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early years. To date, a gender gap exists within technology, from missed educational opportunities to the continued propagation of stereotypes fueled by scientific advertising. The very exclusion of cultural considerations dealing with gender, race and ethnicity has shaped research, practice and ensuing dialogue associated with new technologies. At the turn of the century, Jennifer Brayton wrote of women’s love and hate relationship with the Internet, as they struggled to adapt to a medium created by men. Web Collectives Women would become online participants, and would help shape Web collectives and information sharing networks that have grown stronger in recent years. Neil Postman posits a medium is defined and evolves through its social applications. Educators, medical workers, artists, and laypeople formed online collectives beginning in the 1980s, and Howard Rheingold’s (1998) The Virtual Community tells the story of the formation of a cyber-public sphere, The Well, one of the first user nets that connected people of varying socioeconomics with each other on a continual basis. Its base of operations was in the San Francisco Bay area—also the start of virtual world Second Life, an online based virtual community, in 2003. Sherry Turkle (2005) in The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit pursues her understanding on the social construction of community, as well as identity, in virtual spaces that connect women online. These spaces facilitate discussions, and allow gender, race, and culture to be experienced and reexamined within a virtual reality. Various women’s organizations have attempted to examine how Internet usage has impacted social policy, and how the status of women over the past decade has transformed due to the Web. Also, Jo Sutton and Scarlet Pollock, founders of Womenspace and coordinating editors of Womenspace ,magazine, an online and print publication, have been at the forefront of the Women’s Internet Campaign directed at achieving equal access, participation, and control of new communication technologies. In their book Cyberfeminism: Connectivity, Critique and Creativity, Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein discuss the political power of the Internet and its role in facilitating democratic participation in a way that allows women to develop skills and experience in community building and collective sharing of information.

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These remain relevant concerns today to stimulating dialogue about and across the Internet. Michele White, in The Body and the Screen, examines the role of spectatorship and identity online, and the formation of gender roles through communicative expression via the Internet and online communities, and virtual worlds. Since 2000, the Internet has been host to virtual communities that have facilitated women’s exploration of opportunities in business, media, artistic endeavors, and social activism in what has been described as second spaces that have served as training and networking sites and empowering incubators for women to establish or extend careers. Resources The Internet has provided a plethora of resources for works about women and by women, from literary publications, such as 19th-century British literature by women’s writers, to research findings in scholarly journals. In Rye Senjen and Jane Guthrey’s The Internet for Women, a range of issues, from pornography, sexual harassment, privacy and security, are relevant to the future of women’s participation online. Since 1993, The Association for Progressive Communications’ Women Networking group was established to assist women in social change and empowerment through information and communication technologies (ICTs). Approximately 100 women representing more than 35 countries use ICTs to communicate with one another. Issues have ranged from communication rights, economic empowerment, governance policy advocacy, training and universal access, violence against women, and women’s representation in media, among others. In 2009, Take Back the Tech Campaign, which began in 2005, brought together those who sought to end violence against women across multiple platforms, with some of the events including a protest march online in Second Life. Digital storytelling, chat exchanges, blogging and other topics featured through creative online workshops were conducted to empower women, girls and young lesbians across the world against violence. Groups participating have included Women’s Net, Centre for Independent Journalism, and Women of Uganda Network. Technology might be viewed as a networking database base that provides mobility for communication and information flow. Ingeborg Reichle conceptualizes the Internet and cyberspace as

“tied to images of the body and gender situated within a historically specific social matrix.” In 2004, Reichle expressed concerned that the “natural” referents associated with gender identity are increasingly becoming diluted through online representations, disembodying communication from its source. Women’s role on the Internet continues to evolve to the point that the number of women participants in virtual online communities is nearly comparable to those of men. Many women have played a major role in the economic, political and social development of these communities, and that holds promise for women as equal partners in the invention and evolution of new technologies in the near future. See Also: Chatrooms; Computer Games; Computer Science, Women in; Journalists, Broadcast Media; Representation of Women. Further Readings Brayton, Jennifer. “Women’s Love/Hate Relationship With the Internet.” In Igor Markovic, ed., Cyberfeminism. Zagreb, Croatia: Centre for Cultural Studies, 1999. Hafner, Katie. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. Hawthorne, Susan and Renate Klein, eds. Cyberfeminism: Connectivity, Critique and Creativity. Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press, 1999. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Viking Press, 1985. Senjen, Rye and Jane Guthrey. The Internet for Women. Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press, 1996. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computer and the Human Spirit; Twentieth Anniversary Edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. White, M. The Body and the Screen: Theories of Internet Spectatorship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Phylis Johnson Southern Illinois University

Internet Dating Technological innovation is moving at a rapid pace and dramatically affecting the ways in which people form relationships with others in contemporary soci-



ety. Internet dating is one area that has grown in popularity over the last 15 years, providing a convenient and effective way of meeting others for friendship or romance. Internet dating sites can be used as an alternative to more traditional, face-to-face ways of meeting potential partners and has the benefit of enabling contact with others all over the world at the click of a mouse. Roughly equal numbers of men and women use Internet dating sites, but women in particular have hailed the use of Internet dating and indeed the use of online social networking sites more generally (Facebook and Twitter, for example) as empowering for women. First, the anonymity provided by chatting to others via text online provides a degree of safety for women and, as a result, gives them more confidence in their communication with men; second, cyberspace is often celebrated by feminists as an arena where gender inequalities can be overcome and women can communicate with men on a more equal footing. The online dating process involves registering with one or more of a variety of dating sites available on the Internet. The sites require you to respond to a series of questions and post a “profile” of yourself, which can include a photograph, details of personal characteristics, and aspirations for future relationships. Once registered, the user is free to browse the profiles of others using a search engine and similarly the user’s own profile is on view for others to read. Users can contact each other anonymously through the sites to initiate further contact. The common goal of Internet dating is to move beyond chatting online via text and eventually meet face-to-face for a date. Many users, however, simply enjoy chatting online, indeed some Internet lovers, perhaps separated by thousands of miles, are destined never to meet. While Internet dating has been described as empowering for women, it is important to note that women’s use of online dating sites depends on the acquisition of information technology (IT) skills and ownership of, or at least access to, a computer. Women and girls are less likely to have access to information technology regardless of whether they live in a rich or poor country. Similarly, older women will have less access to IT than their younger counterparts. Dating Sites as Source of Empowerment For those women on the right side of the digital divide, dating sites have been hailed as sites of

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empowerment. Women can contact and chat to men online from the safety of their own home. Added to this, communicating via text provides a degree of anonymity that further adds to women’s feelings of safety. Interacting online removes the fear of potential offline consequences, such as sexual violence, pregnancy, or sexually transmitted diseases for example. As a result, women can communicate more confidently online as they are more likely to contact men directly, rather than wait for them to make the first move; and they also tend to be more outspoken and overtly sexual in their exchanges with men. On the other hand, the consequences of using online dating sites can produce new forms of risk for women once their online encounters move offline. These sites enable women to contact men from all over the world and, as a result, they can find themselves traveling hundreds of miles to meet a man for that first offline date. Added to this, online communication provides more opportunity for misrepresentation and deception, which provides a potential risk for women when meeting a man in the flesh. Overcoming Gender Inequalities Cyberspace has been hailed as a place where gender inequalities can be overcome and women are subsequently empowered to interact with their male counterparts on an equal footing. As mentioned above, women’s more direct and overtly sexual approach to men on dating sites reveals how challenges to gendered sexual relations are being enabled in cyberspace. Women can also feel empowered on dating sites because their communications with men are “disembodied.” In other words, their bodies are “hidden” behind their computer and therefore they are less likely to be judged by their bodily appearance. Women, it has been an argued, are more likely than men to be judged by their bodies and pressure is upon all women in contemporary Western societies to aspire to the ideal of slim youthfulness. Disembodied interaction on dating sites is also empowering for women with a physical disability as it enables a choice to be made as to whether to disclose any bodily impairment. The use of online dating sites, however, does place limits on the degree of disembodiment that can be achieved. First, a photograph can optionally be posted on the user’s profile and, of course, many users will eventually meet in the flesh. Nevertheless, Internet dating can be

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seen as an effective, convenient, and empowering way for women to find suitable dates by providing an arena that continues to challenge more traditional gendered dating behavior. See Also: Body Image; Dating Violence; Feminism, American; Internet; Marriage. Further Readings Ben-Ze’ev. Love Online, Emotions on the Internet. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Cooper, A. and L. Sportolari. “Romance in Cyberspace: Understanding Online Attraction.” Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, v.2 (1997). Geoghegan, T. “Internet Dating Empowers Women.” BBC News Online. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk _news/248615 (accessed January 2010). Judy Richards Newcastle University

Intersex Dominant contemporary definitions of sexual classification are founded on the socially constructed, binary and mutually exclusive sex categories of male and female. However, the sex of humans, animals, and plants can better be understood on a spectrum of characteristics associated with the biological category of sex. Intersex, previously known as hermaphroditism, is an umbrella term used to describe biological variations that present in humans as statistically atypical combinations of male and female primary and secondary sex characteristics. Such variations begin as genetic and metabolic processes occurring during fetal sex differentiation. Levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment are also responsible changes to sex characteristics. Variations may be apparent at birth, or later childhood or adolescence, especially around the time of hormonal changes with puberty. Changing 20th-Century Concepts Thus, individuals described as intersex fall into a category of ambiguity, as they do not clearly fit the two sex female–male model. Recent estimates put intersex births at 1.7 per 100. However, not all intersex

variation presents itself at birth, and slighter variations of characteristics may never be noted. Furthermore, not all cultures recognize individuals showing sexual variation as being intersex. The term intersex was used in medical discourse by the 1920s to describe and diagnose individuals having atypical sex anatomy including, for example, a disparity between internal and external sex organs, enlarged labia, a notably small penis, a scrotum that looks like labia and, in the 1950s with the discovery of chromosomal composition, a mosaic of X and Y sex chromosomes. Secondary sex characteristics, meaning those that are not directly part of the reproductive system, such as breasts, may also be involved in a diagnosis of intersex. Since the 1950s, the medical management of individuals labeled intersex has involved surgery, often multiple surgeries, as well as lifetime hormonal intervention. With advances in sex endocrinology and the development of surgical techniques during and following World War II, intersex came to be understood as a medical problem to be remedied through surgical and hormonal intervention. Although it was in 1956 that sex chromosomes were discovered, XX being typically female and XY typically male, it was primarily the presence or absence of what was considered an adequate penis, and not chromosomal composition or reproductive potential, that determined if the child with ambiguous genitalia would be assigned male or female identification. An adequate penis was to be at least 2.5 cm at birth and a clitoris was not to be so large as to be considered “offensive.” Because assignment has been based on the ease of surgical modification and likely physiological development of the penis, more intersex infants and children have been assigned as female. John Money and Gender John Money, psychologist and sexologist, recognized as foremost in the field of intersex, was responsible for introducing the concepts of gender, gender role, and gender identity to distinguish anatomy from socialization, and with them case management protocols for assigning sex for intersex infants. In the name of benevolence, decisions have been grounded in what is considered psychological health based on coherence between sex and gender. Money’s thinking was that if you were not born a specific sex, you could become a sex by being socialized into a gender. This was based

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on the assumption that regardless of genetic sex, it would be preferable to be a female than a male with an inadequate penis. Money and his associates thought that parents would not sufficiently bond with a child having uncorrected ambiguous genitalia, and neither could they rear the child in such a way as to allow for a coherence between sex and gender identity that was perceived necessary for psychological health, which included heterosexual orientation. In the belief that gender identity is established by age 2, but changeable up to 18 months of age, medical intervention was considered urgent, despite the fact that only one intersex condition, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, represents a serious health threat to infants. Controversy and Contemporary Views In the 1990s, however, intersex advocates, scholars, and some clinicians began to pose important challenges to case management protocols. Coming into question was that medical judgment came from a team comprised of specialists, with insufficient involvement by parents and youth. Medical urgency for most cases was challenged, as were health consequences of lifetime hormonal intervention. Consequences for sexual sensation resulting from surgery had been ignored. And medical management assumed heterosexuality as normal sexual functioning, along with a generic implication that sexual satisfaction is achieved only through genital intercourse. These challenges have motivated some change. The term intersex itself has been disputed. Recently, the term disorders of sexual development has been used in its place. However, critics of that label argue that it continues to medicalize and stigmatize what are variations in nature, proposing instead that the term variations of sexual development is more appropriate. Intersex is a global phenomenon, as are the oppressive and discriminatory conditions to which intersex individuals are subjected, despite the fact that the Preamble and Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ratified in 1948 entitles all dignity and rights to all. It was not until 1999 that the Constitutional Court of Colombia was the first high court in the world to rule that intersex people are a minority group deserving of human rights protection, including the right to consent to “corrective” genital surgery. This is consistent with the United Nations Convention

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of the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by all but two member countries (United States and Somalia) as of late 2009. Intersex rights groups continue to work internationally to reduce oppression, marginalization, and discrimination of intersex people. The rhetoric of medical and psychosocial necessity, normative and natural, illness and cure, silence and shame, and mandatory heterosexuality have been contested. Approaches are shifting toward more cautious medical intervention, less biased information, and more account of the lived experiences and input from individuals who are labeled intersex. In the future, atypical genitals may no longer be pathologized and excised from those who do not fit neatly into the socially constructed categories of binary, heteronormative genital sex. See Also: Chase, Cheryl; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender, Defined; Gender Reassignment Surgery; Heterosexism; Transgender; Transsexuality. Further Readings Chase, Cheryl. “Surgical Progress Is Not the Answer to Intersexuality.” Journal of Clinical Ethics, v.9/4 (1998). Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Intersex Society of North America. http://www.isna.org (accessed November 2009). Karkazis, Katrina Alicia. Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Kessler, Suzanne. Lessons From the Intersexed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Deborah Davidson York University

Iran Iran is one of the oldest civilizations in history, dating back to 4000 b.c.e. At one point in history, the Persian Empire was a leading superpower. From the 15th century until the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran was a monarchy. The popular uprising against

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the shah culminated in the Islamic Republic and rule by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran is home to 72 million people, 66 percent of whom are under the age of 30. Women have a rich history of power and influence in Iran, but the institutionalization of conservative Islam has severely restricted women and much of their status and rights have been rescinded. However, Iranian women continue to draw on their history and culture to fight for equal rights. Throughout Iranian history women have had a great influence. The fictional character of Scheherazade celebrates women’s wit and intelligence. The female poet Tahirih inspired the Tahirih Justice Center, just as the beauty of Mumtaz Mahal led to the Taj Mahal. Fight for the Modern Woman The Persian Women’s Movement dates back to the early 20th century, when Iranian women began their fight for the “modern woman,” which included the vote, change in family laws, and access to education. In 1937, women gained the right to higher education, and became professors, doctors, lawyers, and government officials. In 1963, women won the right to vote and prior to the revolution women served as ambassadors and ministers. Through the 20th century, even with the moderate Shari`a laws instated by the shah, women continued to make advancements in political, social and economic rights. Women were very active in the populist uprising against the shah, but with the rise of the rule of conservative Islam, women lost almost all of the gains they had made through the last 100 years. In 1968, Farrokhroo Parsa had become the first female minister of education, but was executed during the revolution. The ayatollah dismantled much of the legislation for which women had fought. Women’s rights were repealed, and women had to be covered in public with a chador and headscarf. Iran repealed the family protection laws, barred women from serving as judges, reduced the marriage age to 13, and outlawed married women from attending school. Many public areas were officially sex segregated, and women faced prosecution and lashings if found in public with a man. Women can face up to 74 lashes if they appear in public without being properly covered. With each change made by the Islamic Republic, Iranian women fought back. In 1983, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution banned women from

A female dentist treats a male patient in Iran. Iranian women were granted the right to higher education in 1937.

studying certain fields, such as engineering, science, and agriculture. However, through women’s protests, these fields were opened up again in 1986. In 1997, with the election of President Mohammad Khatami, women were hopeful a more moderate regime would relax some of these rules, and women began protesting for more rights and challenging the dress code. However, with the election of conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, crackdowns have occurred. Under President Ahmadinejad, the regime has targeted women protesters and stringently enforced Shari`a. Starting in 2007, they began arresting and beating women who were not fully covered. In 2008, Ahmadinejad introduced a family support bill allowing men to marry a second wife without their first wives’ permission. He also reinstituted “temporary marriages,” which allow men to have sex with impunity. Female activists were harassed and arrested.

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Alieh Eghdamdoust, who was a political prisoner in the 1980s and then became a feminist activist, was jailed for three years. Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Prize winner for human rights, started a center, Defenders of Human Rights, but was threatened so much that she had to close the facility. In 2009, mobs attacked her home. Women who challenge the regime put their lives at risk, and suspected women are routinely arrested and detained. In 2006, women started a One Million Signatures campaign to demand an end to discrimination against women. Its organizers have been attacked, beaten, and arrested. Women have a long history of power, authority, and activism in Iran. Under the Islamic Republic, they have lost most of their public, social, economic, and familial rights. Even under the threat of violence and persecution, Iranian women continue to fight for equality. See Also: Arab Feminism; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Global Campaign for Education. Further Readings Esfandiari, Haleh. Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Friedl, Erika. The Women of Deh Koh: Lives in an Iranian Village. New York: Penguin, 1991. Howard, Jane Mary. Inside Iran: Women’s Lives. Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2002. Koush, M. Voices From Iran: The Changing Lives of Iranian Women (Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002. Moaveni, Azadeh. Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America And American in Iran. New York: Public Affairs Press, 2006. Osanloo, Arzoo. The Politics of Women’s Rights in Iran. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

Iranian Feminism Farsi, the Persian language spoken in Iran, has no word for feminism, perhaps explaining in part the varying ways in which women (and men) have

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responded to gender inequality in that country. Women in Iran have been working for more equal rights for over a century. As long ago as the latter part of the 19th century, despite the fact that most women lived in a society where male domination was routine, women were often secluded and veiled, and polygamy was practiced, some women resisted such restrictions. Women were barred from voting or holding public office and family laws remained under the Shari`a model. A man could have up to four permanent and as many temporary wives as he wished. Fathers, or other male relatives, always had custody of children. Women were required to have permission from husbands or male relatives to travel. Following the 1906 revolution, women pressed for changes and were successful in opening schools for girls in Tehran and forming associations (some secret) to support women and children. In 1931, women gained limited rights to ask for a divorce and the marriage age was raised to 15 for girls. A governmental office for women was established and in the 1930s, women entered Tehran University. However, over the next decades women’s rights fluctuated and laws pertaining to marriage, children, and abortion not only changed but were imposed with varying severity. Women obtained voting rights in 1963 and by 1978 one-third of all university students were female and 2 million women were in the Iranian workforce. With the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite the fact that women’s groups had supported the revolution, many of the gains that had been won were suddenly lost. Women working in government had to observe conservative dress rules, the marriage age for girls was reduced to 13, women were barred from judgeships and married women from most schools. Abortion was banned and adulterous women could be stoned to death. Regaining Lost Rights In the final decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st, women have regained some lost rights and made progress in other arenas, but the struggle continues. The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Shirin Ebadi in 2003 for her human rights activities gave encouragement, but the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency in 2005 and the disputed election in

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summer 2009 have brought new restrictions on activists, including women. A campaign to collect a million signatures in support of repealing discriminatory laws against women gained several international awards and prizes, but also resulted in the prosecution, jailing, and lashing of activists. Iranian feminists living in exile, such as Mahnaz Afkhami (founder of the Association of Iranian University Women) or Roya Toloui (former editor of Rasan, or “Rising Up”) contribute to the cause, while others such as Shahla Sherkat (founder of Zanan magazine on Iranian women) have been imprisoned. Iranian feminism strives for progress in a country where 64 percent of university entrants in 2009 were women, yet women constitute only about 15 percent of the labor force. Wives need their husband’s permission to work outside the home. Government social services are seldom provided to female-headed households. Feminists in Iran have divergent goals and strategies, in part dependent on their religious or secular affiliation. Iranian feminists live with contradictions. As of 2010, both the political situation and that of feminism in Iran is uncertain. See Also: Arab Feminism; Attorneys, Female; Ebadi, Shirin; Iran; Islamic Feminism. Further Readings Ahmadi, F. “Islamic Feminism in Iran: Feminism in a New Islamic Context.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, v.22/2 (2006). Moallem, M. Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Naghibi, N. Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Paidar, P. Gender of Democracy: The Encounter Between Feminism and Reformism in Contemporary Iran. New York: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2001. Povey, E. R. “Feminist Contestations of Institutional Domains in Iran.” Feminist Review, v.69 (Winter 2001). Briavel Holcomb Dordaneh Davari Rutgers University

Iraq Located in the northern Persian Gulf, Iraq has a long history, dating back to the 6th millennium b.c.e. The Middle Ages were considered the “Islamic Golden Age” as Baghdad was the center of art, culture, and learning. After Mongol, Ottoman, and British rule throughout the centuries, Iraq became an independent country in 1932. In 1970, the Constitution ensured equal rights for women. However, in the decades that followed, women actually lost status, power and public roles due to the rise of conservative Islam, instability caused by war and occupation, and a chauvinistic culture. In this male-dominated society, women now have no legal equality or rights to property. They are required to wear a veil or hijab, are forced into marriages, segregated, and denied access to education. Women comprise 65 percent of the 25 million residents, but are denied any voice. Saddam Hussein rose to power at a time when fundamentalist Islam was growing. In order to appease the religious right, Hussein sacrificed the constitutional guarantees that protected women. In 1990, he granted immunity to men who committed honor killings. A father, brother, or uncle could not be prosecuted for killing a female relative who shamed the family by having sex, appearing immodest or being in the company of a man. It is estimated that two to three women are murdered each week in Basrah for not wearing the hijab, or veil. Women live in fear of violence or rape.There are no laws protecting women against domestic violence. One in five married women have been victims of domestic violence. In this patrilineal society, a woman joins the family of her husband, and the new wife often faces abuse from her mother-in-law, for which she has no recourse. The patriarchal, conservative culture has segregated women, and not allowed them a public presence. Young girls are forced into arranged marriages, even when it is against their mother’s will. Women experience higher rates of poverty and lower educational standards. In recent years, 76 percent of girls said they were forbidden from attending school. The illiteracy rate for women is two times that of men. Nearly one-quarter, 24 percent, of all women over the age of 10 are illiterate. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq also has destabilized women’s lives. One in 10 households in Iraq are headed by

Ireland



women, 80 percent of whom are widows. With limited economic opportunities, these women face constant poverty. Women only comprise 18 percent of the labor force, and rates are much lower outside of the larger cities. War, instability, and conservative Islam have severely undermined the status of Iraqi women. However, the new coalition government has made efforts to address the status of women. The new Constitution requires that 25 percent of the parliamentary seats must go to female representatives. Women are allowed to vote and are even forming their own political parties. However, the patriarchal fundamentalist culture makes this a dangerous venture for women, who face threats and ridicule. The group Women for Women International has declared that the status of women has become a national crisis. Efforts are under way to ensure girls and women access to education. The United Nations and several nongovernmental organizations have started various projects to help Iraqi women, including education, employment, shelter, health and nutrition, and food assistance. See Also: Arab Feminism; Honor Killings; Islam; Poverty. Further Readings Al-Ali, Nadje. Iraqi Women: Untold Stories From 1948 to the Present. London: Zed, 2007. Al-Ali, Nadje and Nicola Pratt. What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Al-jawaheri, Yasmin Husein. Women in Iraq: The Gender Impact of International Sanctions. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

Ireland The modern state of Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland or Éire, shares a border with Northern Ireland, whose six counties were partitioned in 1921. With a history of colonization and economic domination by Great Britain, Ireland was slow to industrialize and remained primarily an agrarian economy until

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the mid-20th century. Although currently experiencing a severe setback in its economic stability, Ireland has in recent decades been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Neoliberal economic restructuring brought rapid industrialization and an influx of multinational corporations. The 1990s saw a period of unprecedented economic growth known as the “Celtic Tiger,” which has affected all aspects of Irish society and facilitated a vast improvement in people’s quality of life, including employment and education opportunities for women. It also brought an end to over a century of large-scale emigration that had left the population growth rate in decline since the Great Famine of the1840s. With a current population of almost 4.25 million, Ireland is now one of the fastest-growing populations in Europe. Religious Beliefs The majority of Irish people are Roman Catholic, although the rates of people practicing their faith have significantly declined in recent years, particularly in the wake of several sexual and child abuse scandals. The Catholic Church has direct control over the majority of schools and hospitals in Ireland and indirect control over social policy. The role the Catholic Church has played in social life has had a significant impact on the status of women. Traditional gender stereotyping is embedded in the Irish Constitution (Bunreacht na hÉireann), which makes specific mention of women’s role as mothers and the state’s responsibility to protect and enable mothers to engage in duties within the home. A 1983 amendment to the Constitution provides an equal right to life for both the unborn and the pregnant woman. Abortion was already a criminal offense under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. Currently, abortion may only be performed in Ireland where a continuation of pregnancy poses a “real and substantial” risk to the life, as opposed to the health, of the pregnant woman. The lack of legal clarity or medical guidelines means that many doctors will not perform an abortion in any case, and many women are forced to travel abroad. Women’s Movement The women’s movement in Ireland has played a significant role in transforming public opinion on women’s

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social roles and reforming discriminatory legislation, for example, in relation to illegitimacy, access to contraception, removal of a marriage bar in the public service, access to information about legal abortion in other countries and the right to travel to obtain an abortion, and the legalization of divorce. Membership in the European Union (EU) has also had an impact on legislative and policy reform, especially in relation to antidiscrimination, as membership requires compliance with EU Directives. Despite several policy initiatives promoting equality in recent years, including the Equal Status Act of 2000 and the National Women’s Strategy, women still experience discrimination on a variety of fronts in Irish society. On average, women outperform men in education but are at greater risk of poverty, particularly women in vulnerable groups such as single parents, rural women, older women, Traveller and immigrant women, and women with disabilities. Approximately 40 percent of women have experienced sexual abuse or violence. Lack of access to quality healthcare and an unequal distribution of caring responsibilities also negatively affect women’s opportunities. Women are more likely to be in low-paid or parttime employment and on average earn only 85 percent of what men earn. In addition, several disincentives exist for women in the labor market, including no paid parental leave and one of the lowest levels of publicly funded childcare in the EU, while the cost of private childcare as a proportion of earnings ranks among the highest. Although current president Mary McAleese and former president Mary Robinson are both women, as are the Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) and three members of the cabinet, women are underrepresented in decision making, both in the political spectrum and in the private sector. The impact of the recent global economic recession has been extreme, returning Ireland to debt, unemployment, and emigration rates the country has not experienced since the 1980s. Concerns are growing about the impact upcoming budget cuts, especially in the areas of social welfare and healthcare, will have, particularly on women and children. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, International; Equal Pay; Poverty; Representation of Women; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Robinson, Mary; Roman Catholic Church.

Further Readings Barry, Ursula, ed. Where Are We Now? New Feminist Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Ireland. Dublin: Tasc at New Ireland, 2008. Galligan, Yvonne. Women and Politics in Contemporary Ireland: From the Margins to the Mainstream. London: Pinter, 1998. Hill, Myrtle. Women in Ireland: A Century of Change. Belfast, UK: Blackstaff, 2003. O’Connor, Pat. Emerging Voices: Women in Contemporary Irish Society. Dublin, Ireland: Smurfit Print, 1998. Jennifer K. DeWan Independent Scholar

Islam International interest in Muslim women has increased as their dress, behavior, and social roles are seen as symbols of socioreligious trends against a backdrop of increasingly visible religiosity in Muslim communities in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Interpretations of Islamic scriptures regarding women vary significantly and have been enshrined in law to differing degrees. Islam plays a key—yet often polarizing—role, especially as the current sociopolitical climate is such that debates about women’s status are increasingly taking place in Islamic terms. Controversy over increasing religiosity, and its impact on Muslim women, stems from debate in many Muslim communities about whether social, economic, and political institutions should be based on western or Islamic models. Analyzing the spread of disillusionment with Western ideas and practices is crucial to understanding the increasing appeal of Islamic models. By the 1970s, non-Islamic political and economic models had failed to deliver prosperity and freedom to many Muslim communities in the Middle East and Asia, and created instead oppressive governments and widespread poverty. The social changes of the early 20th century—including the spread of nuclear families and companionate marriage, and the expansion of education and middle-class aspirations—were significant around the world, but many later Western changes—for instance, women’s sexual liberation—



were not widely accepted in many non-Western Muslim communities. Finally, foreign intervention in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia did not cease with the founding of independent governments, but continues in ways that frustrate many—from Western support for corrupt and oppressive regimes to perceived occupation in Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Increasing scrutiny of Muslims living in North America and Europe serves to further heighten tensions. As disillusionment with Western models increased, Islamic revivalist movements have spread and the popularity of social, political, and economic models that derive inspiration from Islam have increased. Proponents link them to Islamic heritage—even if many of their practices are actually recent developments—including a centuries-old tradition of Islamic “renewal” as the ideal solution to failure or weakness. Islamic political parties can link their policies to the

Chador-clad women entering the mosque in the holy city of Qum, Iran, where the public veiling of women is required by law.

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values of fairness, honesty, and lack of corruption, which are often seen to be lacking in the Westernstyle alternatives. Finally, these models often do not require further social change or upheaval, especially with respect to women’s status. Muslim Women as Polarizing Symbols Muslim women are currently seen by many as a barometer and tangible symbol of their community’s stance within these debates, with their dress and public behavior becoming a key issue for postcolonial governments, Western organizations, and a wide variety of local actors. Outside intervention— or any actions that could be portrayed as such by opponents—aimed at changing the education, dress, or behavior of Muslim women remains an extremely sensitive topic, as (often hypocritical) colonial administrators in parts of the Muslim world used the status of women as an excuse for condescending interference in local affairs. The dress of Muslim women is an area that has attracted significant interest from Western audiences. Veiling takes a variety of often region-specific forms, and can involve concealing some combination of hair, face, or entire body. Veiling is required by law in some Muslim countries—for instance, Iran and Saudi Arabia—yet more controversy surrounds women who choose to veil in countries—Muslim majority or otherwise—where it is not a legal requirement. Some argue that these women are forced to veil by society or their families, and that the veil is therefore a symbol of the oppression of women within Islam. While pressure from family or society to veil exists in many communities, many Muslim women choose to veil to make a social, religious, or political statement. To many, veiling is a symbol of religious belief and an important part of their religious practice. Others veil to make a political statement, perhaps as a rejection of pressure to blend into a non-Muslim country or of Western cultural influence in the Middle East or Asia. Veiling can be a way to cope with near-constant harassment from men on the streets of some increasingly crowded Muslim-majority cities. Wearing a veil can also protect a woman’s reputation as a moral and pious person within conservative communities where working outside of the home is not fully accepted for women. Similarly, veiling can be a distinguishing factor within highly competitive

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marriage markets. To understand veiling in any given community, it is crucial to consider the explanations of the veil-wearers in relevant social, political, economic, and religious contexts. Islamic Teachings Regarding Women What Islam actually says about women is as contested as the dress and behavior of Muslim women. Interpretations of Islamic scriptures on issues impacting women vary widely around the world and it is crucial to remember that Islamic interpretations are neither monolithic nor unchanging. At the same time, the increasingly global nature of Islamic revival and interpretation makes it easier to discern certain common threads. Some of these interpretations have been incorporated into law, while others impact women due to their social and political resonance. Conservative, revivalist interpretations of Islam do not generally grant women and men full equality, but instead assign each rights and responsibilities. Women are often under guardianship of a man related to them— their father, brother, husband, or son—which ranges in meaning from financial support and moral oversight to legal control over their ability to work, travel, study, or marry. The primary duty of wives—and one that must be satisfied before they embark on a professional career—is to their families, and they are often expected to begin having children immediately after marriage. Wives are often instructed to defer to their husband, and many interpreters allow husbands to strike disobedient wives. Men are allowed up to four wives, and it is much easier for them to obtain a divorce. Because men are supposed to be the sole breadwinner, they often receive a double share of an inheritance. Women protect their reputations and—given the controversy surrounding relationships before marriage, especially in societies where many assume that a man and woman left alone together have had illicit sex—they must carefully guard their interactions with men as well as their activities after dark. Proponents of conservative teachings often argue that Islam demands a very high standard of behavior from both men and women, and that men who abuse this system are doing so in contravention to Islam. Opponents point out that unequal access to both social, legal, and economic recourse leaves women with very few options when their male guardians do not live up to expectations.

The Islamic essence of these teachings is hotly contested, especially in western contexts where they contrast sharply with gender equality. Over the past 20 years, an increasingly vocal minority of North American Muslims have been arguing that these teachings are not valid and that Islamic scriptures need to be significantly reinterpreted. Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, and Khaled Abou El Fadl are among those supporting much more active and equal roles for women in Islamic interpretation, practice, and leadership. Their ideas and activities have gained worldwide attention, although their influence in conservative communities is limited because the decentralized nature of Islamic authority magnifies the importance of being seen as legitimate by audiences, and these audiences often expect continuity instead of change. Changing Women’s Status by Contesting Islam In Muslim communities around the world, an increasing number of groups who want to increase the rights provided to women are arguing for this in Islamic terms. This is because—in the current climate—concepts, arguments, and initiatives that are seen to be associated with western ideas and practices, including feminism and secular conceptions of human rights, can easily be branded as inauthentic and illegitimate by their opponents. Earlier in the 20th century, when Western social and political ideas were increasing in popularity, feminism was a viable channel through which to improve the position of women. In Egypt, a local feminist movement emerged as an offshoot of post–World War I nationalist activity, and post-independence states such as Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan were (officially at least) supporters of gender equality. However, the postcolonial legacies described above mean that feminism is often currently derided as a foreign and therefore inauthentic import. Pressure from revivalist groups— who claim that their ostensibly Islamic gender norms are more authentic—have even led groups supportive of gender equality to avoid the label feminist. Controversy and Activism As the stigma surrounding Western concepts has increased, the most interesting debates occur within the realm of Islamic interpretation itself. One example, Asma Nomani’s 2004–05 Muslim Women’s Freedom Tour, included Amina Wadud’s controversial



leading of Friday prayer for a mixed-gender audience, and is part of North American calls for women to be accepted equally in mosques as scholars, religious leaders, worshipers, and community representatives. Wadud was also involved in the founding of Sisters in Islam of Malaysia in the 1990s. This group teaches interpretations of Islam that support gender equality in order to halt the spread of conservative Islamic teachings and practices in Malaysia. Similarly, a wide variety of activists and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) working to combat specific problems—such as female genital mutilation—at the grassroots level have realized explaining and justifying their agendas through reference to Islamic concepts and arguments maximizes their chance of success. Surprisingly, the activities of some female mosque instructors can be seen in this light. Mosque instructors are traditionally seen as spreading conservative religious practice as most must endorse conservative gender norms to gain religious authority. Yet female religious leaders from countries like Indonesia and Trinidad use their religious authority to actively resist the spread of more restrictive practices. On a wider level, the teachings of some—certainly not all—female mosque instructors improve the daily lives of their followers by presenting religious and secular education and an active public life as a right. Mosque lessons also often give students the tools to resist male and familial practices—such as forced marriage or insisting that women remain at home—that are often justified as Islamic yet contravene the moralities or systems of rights and responsibilities taught by these instructors. Muslim women with a wide variety of perspectives, therefore, are currently using Islamic ideas and arguments to play an active role in the reconfiguration of Islamic interpretations and Muslim societies. See Also: African American Muslims; Arab Feminism; Islamic Feminism; Islam in America; Progressive Muslims (U.S.); Religion, Women in. Further Readings Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992. Joseph, Suad, ed. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Online, 2008.

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Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: the Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Hilary Kalmbach University of Oxford

Islam in America The large majority of Muslims arrived in the United States after 1965, when immigration quotas discriminating against non-Europeans were lifted. The new laws favored family reunification, allowing men to bring over brides and families. Over the last 40 years, the Muslim community has grown steadily, raising the first generation of American-born children. At the same time, many African American converts to the Nation of Islam turned toward orthodox Sunni Islam. Major communities are found in Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, New York, and New Jersey. Demographics There is no clear consensus regarding the number of American Muslims; the 2007 Pew Forum survey estimates 2.35 million (less than 1 percent of the population). Of these, 65 percent are foreign born. In the total Muslim population, 32 percent are from Arab countries (including Iran), 18 percent from south Asia and 20 percent are native-born African American. 46 percent of the Muslim population is female (compared to 52 percent of the U.S. population). The main gender imbalance lies in the African American Muslim population, which is only 36 percent female. This is likely due to patterns of conversion, many of which happen in prison. The relationship between African American and immigrant Muslims has been strained on occasion, with the two communities maintaining mainly separate spheres. One reason for this split is that post1965 immigrants have generally maintained a higher socioeconomic status than African Americans. As well, African Americans see U.S. racism as a Muslim issue (it was often the impetus for their conversions) but immigrants do not, preferring to focus on injustice abroad in places like Palestine or Iraq. This tension may lessen as the next generation, who have

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been born in the United States and have grown up with orthodox Sunni Islam, engage in dialogue. Theology and Practice Islam is a monotheistic religion that dates to the 7th century. It began in Saudi Arabia when Muhammad revealed himself as the last and greatest prophet of God (Allah). His teachings, believed to be Allah’s literal word, are gathered in a text called the Qur’an (Koran). To become Muslim requires a Declaration of the Faith (shahada): “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet.” The shahada is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, the five duties that every Muslim must perform. The others are salat (pray five time a day), zakat (give charity to the poor), sawm (fast during daylight in the month of Ramadan), and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Islam is diverse, comprised of different schools of jurisprudence and divided into a number of sects that do not always recognize one another. More than 85 percent the world’s Muslim population is Sunni. Muslim American women range from highly practicing to seeing Islam as important primarily for historical and ethnic reasons. A small but important number of Muslims practice Sufism, a mystical movement that cuts across sectarian divides and uses dance and music to connect emotionally with faith. For some women, this provides an outlet not otherwise available in more legalistic expressions of Islam. Hijab (The Veil) Hijab is controversial because, for many non-Muslim Westerners, it is symbolic of perceived Islamic repression of women. Most American Muslim women do not believe that Islamic dress is a religious requirement yet nearly all, whether they cover or not, have stressed repeatedly that hijab is not repression but a choice. Some Muslim women who wear hijab have complained of discrimination at school and work. A number of instances have come to public attention where employers, such as U.S. Airways and Domino’s Pizza, refused to allow employees to wear hijab with their uniforms. In a few instances this has led to court cases. Education Education for both genders is considered a key duty in Islam; Taliban-like restrictions are the exception. Most American Muslims strongly support women’s

education, however there are some, particularly from conservative areas such as South Asia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, who do not to encourage their daughters to pursue higher education for fear that it will disrupt domestic structures. Currently, there are 235 Islamic day schools in the United States but about 93 percent of Muslim children attend public schools. Sixty to 65 percent of private school attendees are girls, particularly in high school. Muslim Feminism Since the 1970s, Muslim feminists have looked to the idea of ijtihad, individual interpretation of Islamic law, to argue that all Muslims, women and men, have a role to play in theological interpretation. Generally, Muslim feminists focus on the idea of complementary relationships between women and men as opposed to superior/inferior. Dr. Riffat Hassan, a Pakistani American professor has fought for women in Islam to be recognized as equals and, in particular, for end to “honor killings” in Pakistan. American Muslim feminists courted international controversy when, in 2005, Indian American journalist Asra Nomani organized the first woman-led prayers for a mixed-gender audience in modern history. The prayers were held in New York and led by Dr. Amina Wadud, an African American convert and feminist scholar. Another feminist who has been the source of much debate (and has received death threats) is outspoken Canadian Irshad Manji, who has championed queer rights within Islam. Muslim Women in Popular Culture and Politics Muslim American women have used various media to assert their presence in the public sphere, particularly in the last decade as the younger generation goes online. A number of recent anthologies deal with Muslim women’s experiences, as do online columns like “Sex and the Umma” (www.muslimwakeup.com). Azizah Magazine began publication in 2001 and is geared toward young Muslim women and teens. In December 2004, Bridges TV, North America’s first Muslim broadcasting channel, was launched with Aasiya Zubair, a Pakistani American woman, serving as programming director. Other Muslim women in television journalism include Rudi Bakhtiar, a correspondent for Fox News, and Farah Ispahani, the executive producer on Voice of America’s Beyond the Headlines. Zarqa Nawaz, a young Canadian film-



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maker, created the hit TV comedy show Little Mosque on the Prairie, which has been airing weekly on Canadian television and various affiliates since 2007. In the early 1990s, a number of national organizations were founded by and for Muslim American women. In 1992, 150 women from 30 ethnicities founded the North American Council for Muslim Women, which is an advocacy and legislative organization. Karamah, founded in 1993 by lawyer Dr. Azizah al-Hibri, seeks to promote human rights, particularly issues of gender bias Islamic marriage, divorce and inheritance laws. The largest Muslim women’s organization is the Muslim Women’s League, which is dedicated to disseminating accurate information about Islam and Muslim women. There have been a number of recent “firsts” for Muslim women in public leadership roles. In 2006, Dr. Ingrid Mattson was elected to serve as the first female president of the Islamic Society of North America, the largest Muslim organization in North America. In 2004, Mona K. Majzoub was the first Muslim woman judge appointed in the United States and, in the same year, Yasmin Ratansi, was the first Muslim woman elected to the Canadian Parliament. As of yet, no Muslim women have been elected to the U.S. Congress.

Raouda, N. The Feminine Voice of Islam: Muslim Women in America. South Bend, IN: Victoria Press, 2008.

See Also: African American Muslims; Islamic Feminism; Secularity Law, France; Wadud, Amina.

Gender Inequality Inequality takes shape in many forms. Sex and sexuality spurs debate over Qur’anic interpretation directed at male homosexuality, but organizations are driving to broaden such readings. Muslim dress code varies worldwide, but in some cultures women are expected to wear full-body coverings (burka or abaya) and others simply a headscarf (hijab) in public spaces. Islamic feminists are also calling for a reformed text of Muslim Personal Law (or Muslim Family Law), discriminating legislation that dictates marriage, divorce, and inheritance or a complete rejection of such law. There are three primary groups of people propagating Islamic feminism identifying themselves as either: committed Muslims, secular feminists, and/ or former leftists. Muslim scholars are also engaged in addressing such issues as Islam and democracy, human rights, and philosophy. In addition to representing the project or identity of Islamic feminism on a global level, local responsibilities include prioritizing the particular needs of a region and engaging in local activism.

Further Readings Abdul-Ghafur, S. Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak. Boston: Beacon Press, 2005. Gehrke-White, Donna. The Face Behind the Veil: The Extraordinary Lives of Muslim Women in America. New York: Citadel Press, 2006. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, Jane I. Smith, and Kathleen M. Moore. Muslim Women in America: The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006. Joseph, Suad and Afsaneh Najmabadi, eds. Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, Law, and Politics. Boston: Brill, 2006. Karim, Jamillah. American Muslim Women: Negotiating Race, Class and Gender With the Ummah. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Pew Research Center. “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream.” http://pewresearch.org /pubs/483/muslim-americans (accessed May 2010).

Hillary Kaell Harvard University

Islamic Feminism Islamic feminism began as a movement in the 1990s, primarily in Asia and Africa, although it is not geographically confined, and centers its principles on full equality of all Muslims regardless of gender. Conceptually there is no division between the East and West; and as an ideal, Islamic feminism is spreading faster now than in the past due in large part to the expediency of information dissemination via the Internet. In contrast to secular feminism, Islamic feminism seeks equality in both public and private spaces. In public, this includes appointing women as heads of states, imams, judges, and sharing the same mosque space as men. In the private sphere, it includes challenging traditional roles of male authority over spouse and family.

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Islamic feminism is not immune to enemies, particularly resistance from men who fear a loss of power but also women who fear a loss of protection (whether materially, spiritually, and/or morally). Additionally, many individuals denigrate Islam as antiwoman, including certain invalid Western generalizations of tribal, patriarchal, and misogynistic features. Efforts to reinterpret Qur’anic passages in support of Islamic feminism counteract such opinion. Female heads of state have now been appointed in at least six Muslim majority countries and the annual International Islamic Feminist Conference, held in Barcelona, Spain, has been in existence since 2005. See Also: Arab Feminism; Feminist Majority Foundation; Feminist Theology; Global Feminism; Islam in America. Further Readings Badran, Margot. Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Press, 2008. Jameelah, Maryam. “The Feminist Movement and the Muslim Woman.” http://www.islam101.com/women /jameelah.htm. (accessed January 2010). Najmabadi, Afsaneh. “Feminism in an Islamic Republic: ‘Years of Hardship, Years of Growth’.” In Yvonne Y. Haddad and John Esposito, eds.,Women, Gender, and Social Change in the Muslim World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Jennifer Struve Towson University

Israel The status of women in the state of Israel has been predisposed primarily by liberal and socialist ideologies of the Zionist movement; respectively, Israel’s declaration of independence (May 14, 1948) conveys that the state of Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” Yet, in Israel, during the first decade of the 21st century, one can still identify many areas in which women cannot yet enjoy full impartiality and ultimate equality. The Israeli central Bureau of Statistics, 2007, indicates that women comprise 50.6 percent of Israel’s

population, meaning that for every 102.4 women there are 100 men, whereas in the world at large that ratio is inverted. Israeli women have the highest average number of children in the Western world. The Israeli average is 2.9 compared to two children in the United States. The Israeli central Bureau of Statistics, 2009, reports that the average life expectancy for women is 83 years compared to 79.1 years for men. A report on the status of women in Israel in 2004, presented by the Israel Women’s Network to the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women, points out that the average marrying age for Jewish women is 24.5, and for Muslim women 20.5. In Europe, on the other hand, the average marrying age for women is 27. Of mothers in Israel, some 97,000 are single parents, and 64 percent of them are Jewish. Single mothers head 10 percent of families in Israel compared to 17 percent in other Western countries. Violence Against Women In Israel, as in many other countries, it is difficult to estimate exactly the scope of violence against women, especially owing to the fact that many women are still reluctant to report violent incidents due to fear, shame, and sense of helplessness. Yet, according to police estimates, in 2008, 12,777 police files were opened due to women’s complaints about familial violence directed against them, an increase of 5 percent compared with data for 2007. In recent years, minimum punishment was legislated for sex offenders and perpetrators of domestic violence. In 1991, the Domestic Violence Prevention Law was enacted, empowering family courts to issue protective orders against violent spouses. In 1998, Israel adopted a comprehensive Sexual Harassment Prevention Law, which defines sexual harassment, makes it a criminal offense, and also cause for a civil suit against the perpetrator and his employer. Education and Military Service The report on the status of women in Israel in 2004 indicates that approximately 22 percent of Israel’s women have 13 to 15 years of formal education compared to 20 percent of men, but conversely, 4.5 percent of women have no schooling at all compared to 1.8 percent of men.Stemming from current data concerning high school students, 74 percent of the girls



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The Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel. It is estimated that women comprise 50.6 percent of Israel’s population, and Israeli women have the highest average number of children in the Western world.

and 65 percent of the boys are candidates for matriculation certificate. The female ratio of students is also high in institutions of higher learning, with an overall average of 56 percent. The female ratio among doctoral students also continues to grow, and in 2008, 52.7 percent of the third-degree students were women. According to the Advancement of the Status of Women report from 2001, Israel ranks seventh in the Western world with regard to the percentage of women who are studying in higher education facilities. Still, academic courses that are considered traditionally feminine enroll more women than men. The Defense Service Law of 1959 legalizes the obligation of service in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). According to the law, the majority of citizens and permanent residents of Israel are required to perform military service. All Jewish women at the age of 18 who are physically fit, unmarried, have no children, and have not declared their religious beliefs must fulfill their military obligation. Women currently per-

form compulsory military service in the IDF for a period of one year and nine months (compared with the three years compulsory service for the male draft). In 2000, Israel’s Parliament adopted an amendment to the Security Service Law, opening most military areas of expertise to women. Health Israel’s National Health Law (1995) ensures health insurance to all Israeli citizens based on progressive payments. Under the law, infertile women, whether married or single, are entitled to fertility treatment to produce their first two children paid for by their public health insurer. Moreover, the basket of health services offers a growing number of medications, including remedies for numerous gender-specific problems. According to the Israeli Women’s Network, heart disease is the leading cause of death in Israeli women. Despite this fact, it is likely that in Israel, as in the United States, people still think of heart disease as a

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man’s illness. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in women, and some researchers predict that it is likely to become the leading cause of death in industrialized countries in the 21st century. Employment Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the rate of unemployment among females has always been higher than that of males. In 2003, 11.3 percent of women who wanted to work were unemployed compared to 10.2 percent of men. In 2008, the unemployment among women dropped to 6.5 percent compared to 5.7 percent among men. The gross average monthly income of $2,268 for male employees in 2005 was 58 percent higher than the $1,433 earned by female employees. The gender gap in monthly income can be only partially related to the fact that men work more hours per month than women. However, according to the Research and Information Center of the Knesset, women work mostly in lower-paying jobs, in services, education, health, welfare, and clerical positions, and are significantly less represented in prestigious and lucrative occupations such as high-tech, management, and engineering. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Council Meeting in Paris on May 16, 2007, approved a decision to open accession discussions with Israel. The decision confirmed Israel’s achievements as a democratic and developing country as well as its ability to contribute both to the global economy and to the organization. Nevertheless, one of the possible prohibiting factors in putting this decision into action may be the vast gap between gender-oriented earnings. Politics The representation of women in Israeli politics seems to be rather poor. Of all the countries in which women are included in the legislature, Israel, despite having once been led by a woman prime minister (Golda Meir), ranks 67th. Women comprise only 17.5 percent of Israel’s 120-member Knesset, placing Israel somewhere in the middle. In comparison, the female ratio among Scandinavian legislators is 40 percent and rising. The ratio of women in the local councils of Israel is continuously increasing. Nevertheless, only 17 women have served as the head of any municipal authority since the establishment of Israel.

Following the historical adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on October 31, 2000, which specifically notes women’s contributions to conflict resolution and to peace negotiations, the fourth amendment of women’s equality rights (Israel, July 20, 2005) finally added the subsection suggesting that women should take part in decisions concerning Israel’s national policy. See Also: Educational Opportunities/Access; Equal Pay; Heads of State, Female; Judaism; Orthodox Judaism. Further Readings Ifrach, A. Women’s Health in Israel: A Data Book. Jerusalem: Women’s Network, Hadassah, abd WIZO, 2000. Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. Statistical Abstract of Israel (2009). Jewish Virtual Library. “Report on the Status of Women in Israel in 2004.” Report presented by the Israel Women’s Network to the Knesset. Jerusalem: Israeli Knesset, The Committee of the Advancement of the Status of Women, 2004. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org /jsource/Society_&_Culture/women2004.html (accessed July 2010). Lotten, O. Violence Against Women. Jerusalem: Israeli Knesset, the Committee of the Advancement of the Status of Women, 2007. Shachak, I. Violence Against Women—Updated Data. Jerusalem: Israeli Knesset, The Committee of the Advancement of the Status of Women, 2002. Weissblay, E. Violence Against Women. Jerusalem: Israeli Knesset, the Committee of the Advancement of the Status of Women, 2008. Yaffe, N. Women and Men in Israel 1985–2005, Statistics, No. 67. Jerusalem: The Authority of the Advancement of the Status of Women, Prime Minister’s Bureau, 2006. Sara Zamir Ben-Gurion University at Eilat

Italy An ancient country with a strong emphasis on family, Italy is located in southern Europe. After the defeat of Benito Mussolini and fascism during World War II,



the Italian monarchy was superseded by representative democracy and alliances with the former Allies. Despite membership in the European Union and the adoption of the euro in 1999, modern Italy is plagued by high unemployment (7.7 percent) and low incomes that affect the lives of many Italian women, particularly those in the largely agricultural south. By the early 21st century, 68 percent of Italians were living in urban areas, and 65.1 percent of the workforce were employed in the service industry. Italy is a homogeneous nation both ethnically and religiously. While there are subgroups of Germans, French, Slovenes, Albanians, and Greeks who continue to speak their native languages, most people ethnically identify themselves as Italian. Legal and Economic Challenges for Women Legally, women have the same rights as men, but discrimination against women continues as a result of the patriarchal culture and the influence of the Vatican. As might be expected in this Roman Catholic country, reproductive rights are limited. Abortions are banned in state hospitals, and doctors can refuse to perform abortions by declaring themselves “conscientious objectors. Despite all efforts to protect the rights of women, there have been incidences of honor killings, female genital mutilation, and forced or arranged marriages in immigrant areas. Other problems that affect large groups of Italian females include violence against women, sexual harassment, and human trafficking. Due to the relative prosperity of the heavily industrialized northern region of the country, Italy has a per capita income of $30,300, making it the 44th richest nation in the world. However, many Italians insist that the adoption of the euro monetary system has impoverished many Italian women in response to skyrocketing living costs and the erosion of Italy’s once-strong welfare state. As a result, women’s access to education and health services has been seriously curtailed. Among working women and men, there is a wage gap of approximately 7 percent, and women are underrepresented in upper levels of business and most professions. The Italian government has charged the Ministry for Equal Opportunity, the Equal Opportunity Commission of the Prime Minister’s office, and the Ministry of Labor and Welfare with protecting the rights of Italian women.

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In response to a negative population growth rate (minus 0.075 percent), there is grave concern over the future of the Italian family. On the average, Italian women produce only 1.32 children each, and there is an increase in the number of single persons, childless families, and single-parent households. Divorces and separations are on the rise, further affecting family growth patterns. The government actively encourages women to have more children, and public appeals have been made to encourage males to become more involved in domestic chores. The government also promotes greater flexibility in employment for women, improved access to day care and public transportation. With a female infant mortality rate of 4.82 deaths per 1,000 live births as compared to a male rate of 5.96 deaths per 1,000 live births, a female life expectancy of 83.46 years as compared to 77.39 years for men, and a female median age of 45.3 years as compared to 42.3 years for males, females are healthier than males at all stages of their lives. While males (98.8 percent) have a slightly higher literacy rate than females (98 percent), Italian women (17 years) tend to be better educated than Italian men (16 years). Domestic Violence a Continuing Problem Violence against women continues to be a major concern in Italy, particularly among immigrant women. Some reports suggest that almost a third of Italian women between the ages of 16 and 70 have been victims of violence at some point in their lives. Many of those abuses include rape or attempted rape, and almost a third of those incidences are perpetrated by partners. According to Italian law, rape, including spousal rape, is a crime, and the government effectively enforces those laws. Despite government efforts to support victims of violence, many women refuse to file charges out of fear, shame, or ignorance of the law. Since 2006, the Ministry of Equal Opportunity has operated a hot line for victims and provides temporary shelter upon request. To deal with the particular needs of Muslim women who face the threat of violence, domestic confinement, or being forced into polygamous marriages, the nongovernmental organization ACMID Donna has established a designated toll-free hotline. Italian law also identifies sexual harassment as an illegal activity, and gender-based emotional abuse is likewise considered a crime. Prostitution is legal in

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private residences in Italy, but commercial prostitution is prohibited. However, there are concerns over trafficking women into Italy for the purposes of prostitution, and those who travel to other countries for the purposes of sexual tourism can be tried in Italian domestic courts. Increased political representation has given Italian women a greater voice in decision making than in the past. In 2008, there were 58 women in the Senate, 134 women in the Chamber of Deputies, and four women on the Council of Ministers. Nongovernmental organizations continue to play an active role in protecting women’s rights. As the result of a backlash against what are seen as antifemale positions, including the passage of Law No. 1.514 which defined fetuses as persons with legal rights, women’s groups have been reenergized in 21st-century Italy. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, International; Domestic Violence; Government, Women in; Rape, Legal Definitions of; Roman Catholic Church; Sexual Harassment; Trafficking, Women and Children.

Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Italy.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/it.html (accessed February 2010). Columbus, Frank H. European Economic and Political Issues, vol. 7. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2003. Giampiero, Dalla Zuanna. “Few Children in Strong Families. Values and Low Fertility in Italy.” Genus, v.60/1 (2004). Henig, Ruth Beatrice and Simon Henig. Women and Political Power: Europe Since 1945. London: Routledge, 2001. Strom, Sharon Hartman. Women’s Rights. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Italy.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /eur/119086.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

J Jackson, Shirley Ann Shirley Ann Jackson, born August 5, 1946, in Washington, D.C., is a renowned American physicist and the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Her career in science has included leadership positions in academe, business, and government, and she has received many awards in recognition for her work in these areas. Jackson received her B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968 in the field of theoretical physics. Although she was one of a small minority of African American students at the university, she continued her studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, eventually becoming the institute’s first female African American doctoral graduate, in 1973. Her primary area of research has been in theoretical elementary particle physics, which uses theoretical concepts and mathematical formulas to understand subatomic particles, and she has continued her research into this area through many postdoctoral appointments. Postdoctoral Positions Jackson worked as a research associate for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, and the European Center for Nuclear Research in Switzerland before joining the Theoretical Physics Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1976, where she remained as a researcher until 1991.

In 1991, Jackson began her career as a professor at Rutgers University, where she taught both graduate and undergraduate courses in physics until 1995. In 1995, Jackson was appointed by President William Clinton to serve as chairwoman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the organization charged with supervising the safety of reactor by product material in relation to public health, the environment, national security, and other related issues. She was the first black woman to hold this position, and she served in this capacity until 1999. In 1999, Jackson became the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, becoming the first black woman to achieve this distinction. Further, she was the first black woman to become president at any top 50 research university in the United States. As president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, she has surpassed fund-raising goals established for the university and supported the move to hire significantly more faculty members to reduce class size. Despite the success, her presidency has not been without controversy, and she has been criticized for her substantial compensation package by faculty members and the news media. Honors and Awards Jackson has been the recipient of many awards and honors for her work in research and education. She is an invited member in the American Physical Society and the American Philosophical Society, and in 783

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1998 she was inducted in the National Women’s Hall of Fame for her work as a scientist and for her contributions to education, science, and public policy. In 2002, Jackson was recognized as one of the Top 50 Women in Science by Discover magazine, and in 2004 she was named a fellow of the Association for Women in Science, which seeks to promote equity in the participation of women in the sciences. In 2007, Jackson was selected as the 2007 recipient of the National Science Board Vannevar Bush Award, which recognizes lifetime achievements in science and contributions to public policy. In 2009, Jackson was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Jackson chairs the New York Stock Exchange Regulation Board, and she also serves on the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution. She is on the board of directors for many organizations, including IBM Corporation, FedEx Corporation, and Marathon Oil Corporation, and she is a trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. See Also: Educational Administrators, College and University; Physics, Women in; Science, Women in. Further Readings June, Audrey Miller. “Shirley Ann Jackson Sticks to the Plan.” The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 15, 2007). O’Connell, Diane. Strong Force: The Story of Physicist Shirley Ann Jackson (Women’s Adventures in Science). Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2006. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “President’s Profile.” http://www.rpi.edu/president/profile.html (accessed June 2010). Jennifer Adams DePauw University

Jamaica Jamaica is an island nation in the Caribbean that became independent from Great Britain in 1962. The population of almost 3 million are primarily black (91.2 percent) with an additional 6.2 percent of mixed heritage. Over 60 percent of Jamaicans identify with

Growing unemployment in Jamaica has increased income inequality and some women sell food to try to make a living.

a Protestant church while a small minority (2.6 percent) are Roman Catholic and about 30 percent do not indicate any religion. Jamaica has a young age structure because of its high fertility rate (2.25 children per woman) and a high degree of migration out of the country by working age adults: 31.4 percent of the population is age 14 or younger. In 2009, the country had a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $8,300 with tourism, services, and remittances (money sent from relatives working abroad) being the most significant sources of revenue. The country has one of the highest per capita debt burdens in the world (131.7 percent of GDP in 2009) making it difficult for the government to deliver high-quality social services, while growing unemployment has increased income inequality and exacerbated a serious crime problem. Education and Employment Opportunities The rate of female literacy (91.6 percent) in Jamaica exceed that of men (84.1 percent) and more than twice as many women as men enroll in tertiary education. Compared with men, women hold about 50 percent more of Jamaica’s professional and technical jobs although women are less likely to be in the labor



force, more are likely to be unemployed, and earn only about 63 percent as much as men do for similar work. Mothers are entitled to 12 weeks of maternity leave at 100 percent of salary. The World Economic Forum ranks Jamaica in the middle third of countries on gender equality. On a scale in which 1 indicates perfect equality and 0 indicates inequality, in 2009 Jamaica received an overall score of 0.701 with 1.000 for educational attainment (highest in the world), 0.971 for health and survival, 0.743 for economic participation and opportunity, and 0.091 for political empowerment. In the Jamaican government, women hold 15 percent of the seats in Parliament, 13 percent of ministerial positions, and have had one female head of state (Portia Lucretia Simpson-Miller, who served from March 2006 to September 2007). In Jamaica, almost all women receive at least four prenatal care visits and almost all births are attended by skilled personnel. However, outcomes lag behind: the childhood immunization level is below 90 percent, the maternal mortality ratio is 170 per 100,000 live births, and infant mortality is 26 per 1,000 live births. Save the Children rates Jamaica 23rd on its Mothers’ Index, 24th on its Women’s Index, and 28th on its Children’s Index, out of 75 Tier II or less developed countries. Excellence in Sports One very visible area of excellence for Jamaica women is athletics where they regularly win Olympic medals and world championships particularly in the sprints. Well-known Jamaican track stars include Merlene Ottey, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Lorraine Fenton, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Tayna Lawrence, Beverly McDonald, and Sandie Richards. See Also: Government, Women in; Poverty; Representation of Women in Government, International; Sports, Women in; Track and Field, Women in. Further Readings Hausman, Ricardo, et al. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2009. http://www.weforum.org/en/Communities /Women%20Leaders%20and%20Gender%20Parity /GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010).

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Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethechild ren.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd_pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Jamison, Judith Judith Jamison (1943– ) is the artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the most renowned and traveled dance companies in the world. She has received numerous awards, honors, and appointments and has been recognized nationally and internationally as one of the top dancers and choreographers of all time. Under her leadership and direction, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater continues to perform worldwide and provide dance and choreography training and education. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jamison began dance lessons at age 10. She attended Fisk University and the Philadelphia Dance Academy. She received her first big break into dancing after being discovered by famed U.S. dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille, who invited Jamison to perform the ballet The Four Marys. The following year Jamison moved to New York. She auditioned for a performance and was seen by Alvin Ailey, who invited her to join the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Jamison became one of the primary dancers in the company and added choreographing to her repertoire. She quickly gained attention, performing nationally and internationally, dancing duets with famous dancers such as Mikhail Baryshnikov set to the music of legendary musician Duke Ellington. She became a sought-after solo act and choreographer. Jamison left the company in 1980 to star in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. In 1988, she started her own dance company, the Jamison Project. A year after she started the Jamison Project, she returned to take over as artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the request of Alvin Ailey.

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Charitable Works and Accolades Under Jamison’s leadership, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has developed programs to bring dance into the lives of young people. Ailey’s Arts in Education and Community programs serve over 100,000 youth. The Ailey Camp provides a summer program for low-income youth, offering dance and creative writing classes, personal development seminars, and field trips. AileyDance Kids offers dance training to schools in the New York Tri-State area and has expanded into New Jersey as well. These programs serve to assist youth and young adults in honing their dancing and choreographing skills in preparation for a career in dance, as well as introducing dance to the community. Jamison has received many accolades in her lifetime. In 1999, she was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 2001, she was honored with the National Medal of Arts, the highest award for artists that is given by the government of the United States. She won both an Emmy Award and American Choreography Award for Outstanding Choreography for A Hymn for Alvin Ailey, a PBS special program. Jamison received the Making a Difference award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Bessie Award for her commitment to preserving the arts. She has been honored at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Honors, was one of 2009’s Time 100: The World’s Most Influential People, and received a Presidential Appointment to the National Council of the Arts. Jamison announced that she would retire in 2011, and remain with Alvin Ailey as artistic director emerita. See Also: Alternative Education; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Dance, Women in. Further Readings Dunning, Jennifer. Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1998. Jamison, Judith. Dancing Spirit: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday, 1993. Maynard, Olga. Judith Jamison: Aspects of a Dancer. New York: Doubleday, 1982. Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University

Japan Shifting economic and social realities in the 21st century have presented Japanese women with opportunities as well as challenges as they try to balance various interests and concerns. They have attained some progress, especially in terms of their participation in electoral politics, while remaining confronted by views and practices that hinder their full participation in the government and business sectors. These obstacles include notions of elective office and managerial positions as the domain of men. To nurture women’s interests, nongovernmental organizations equipped women for political and business careers. Women have also pursued other routes for reform, including grassroots political activism and have found other means of self-fulfillment outside of marriage and having children. Mainstream Politics More than 60 years after Japanese women exercised their right to vote, their role in policy- and decisionmaking processes remains minimal. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international organization of parliaments, ranked Japan 97th (as of October 2009) out of 187 countries, in terms of the number of women legislators. Yet an increasing number of women have ran and won elections and been appointed to public office. The proportion of women in the lower house of the Diet (national legislature) reached an unprecedented 11 percent or 54 women—11 more than the previous number—after the August 2009 election. Women governors comprised 8.5 percent of the national total in 2004. Ota Fusae, Japan’s first female governor, was elected in Osaka in 2000. From 2001 to 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro appointed 10 women to the cabinet, including Tanaka Makiko, who became Japan’s first female Foreign Minister. Koizumi’s appointees represent more than half the women in the cabinet (18) from 1960 to 2000. Women, however, remain a minority among the powerful bureaucrats who man the different ministries. Interest in issues related to the family, health, education, the environment, and consumption, which male politicians tend to ignore, have spurred a relatively high number of women to run for election. Most of these areas are extensions of women’s domestic roles, and gave women the confidence to enter



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Amid an unstable economy, more women in Japan are staying single or postponing marriage and not having children. Japanese women now have more opportunities available to them with the social realities of the 21st century.

the electoral arena while limiting the extent of their participation in policy and decision making. Women legislators and cabinet appointees tend to be involved on declining birthrate, education, welfare, environment, consumer affairs, and gender equality, while their male counterparts are engaged in diplomacy and defense, budget and finance. There are also obstacles that prevent women from entering the electoral arena, including heavy familial responsibilities, the high cost of electoral campaign and lack of financial resources needed for personal support organizations (kôenkai) that are crucial for winning elections, and a political culture that considers elective office as more appropriate for men. Few political parties field female candidates as serious contenders for the political race. To nurture the aspirations of women who want to run for election, nonpartisan schools in Japan have trained women for political careers.

Grassroots Political Activism Many women have turned to grassroots activities, lobbying for such issues as clean environment and food safety. As members of cooperatives and women’s groups, they advocated for consumer and environmental issues, gathering signatures and staging boycotts to effect change. Women’s involvement in related endeavors (e.g., peace/antiwar) became prominent in the postwar years. Women’s grassroots activities represent their attempts to influence policy making from outside the government and serve as platform for those who wish to pursue other avenues for reform. Education, Labor, Family, and Health Women constitute more than 50 percent of those who finished secondary (51 percent) and junior college education (89 percent), and less than half (40 percent) of those who completed a university degree,

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according to 2008 research. The majority of women in the labor force are employed in relatively lowstatus and low-paying jobs (e.g., clerical and sales), as outworkers (doing piecework at home), and on a temporary or part-time basis with unstable work conditions. The nature and types of work deemed appropriate for women are linked with the perception of women’s roles as wives and mothers. Amid an unstable economy and rising cost of living, more women are staying single or postponing marriage and not having children. The average marrying age for women has increased to 28.5 in 2008. Others try to balance paid work, child rearing, and elderly caretaking responsibilities. Having the highest life expectancy in the world (86 years, or seven years longer than men in 2005), Japanese women are the main caretakers of the aged, many of whom are bedridden. Concerned with Japan’s fluctuating birthrate (1.34 children born per woman as of 2007) and an aging society (21.5 percent of the population was 65 years and older as of 2007), and their impact on the labor force, the government and business sector have supported the idea of aiding the work–life balance by encouraging men to participate in childcare and housework. Yet many women find it difficult to balance home and paid work, due to unfavorable work schedules and incremental changes in household division of labor. Those with capital have often started their own businesses. Some seek personal fulfillment, rather than profit, wanting to provide an alternative to maledominated and money-oriented economy. Although the number of women entrepreneurs is relatively low, government loans for new businesses intended to stimulate the ailing economy, as well as nongovernment forums that train women how to establish and run a business, support the growing trend of women entrepreneurs in Japan. See Also: Business, Women in; Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Entrepreneurs; Representation of Women in Government, International; Working Mothers. Further Readings Iwanaga, K. “Women’s Political Representation in Japan.” In Kazuki Iwanaga, ed., Women’s Political Participation and Representation in Asia. Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS Press, 2008.

Kato, M. “Women Lack Confidence, Ambition for Diet: Experts.” Japan Times Online (September 10, 2009). http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090910f3 .html (accessed September 2009). Mackie, V. “Feminist Critiques of Modern Japanese Politics.” In B. G. Smith, ed., Global Feminisms Since 1945: Rewriting Histories. London: Routledge, 2000. National Women’s Education Center of Japan. “Gender Statistics Database.” http://winet.nwec.jp /cgi-bin/toukei/load/bin/tk_search.cgi (accessed November 2009). Rosenberger, N. Gambling With Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. Shimizu, K. “Going for President: Female Entrepreneurialism a Budding Industry.” The Japan Times Online (April 6, 2002). http://search.japantimes .co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20020406b4.html (accessed July 2010). Febe D. Pamonag Western Illinois University

Jewelry Design, Women in The history of jewelry is as old as the history of humankind. Burials from 30,000 b.c.e. show the use of nonprecious metals, including materials like shells, pebbles, and even animal teeth and claws during prehistoric times. Jewelry pieces have been used as talismans and amulets to evoke good luck or ward off evil—a belief which still exists today for some. Jewelry through the ages has evolved from being a form of currency, a display of wealth and status, and as a fashion accessory, to being considered an art form. Through about the 17th century, owning and wearing jewelry was reserved for the upper classes and the wealthy. The 18th century saw new techniques in manufacturing, and a developing popularity of costume jewelry for the middle class. Sonia Delaunay’s (1884–1979) jewelry derived inspiration from paintings. Others derived inspiration from royalty like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Queen Victoria, Princess Diana. Hattie Carnegie (1889–1956), an Austrian designer, started at Macy’s creating hats but became renowned for her costume jewelry during World War II. Irene Castle (1910) was

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famous for her narrow velvet headband with pearl trimmings that was worn on the bobbed hair popular at the time. Luxurious Costume Jewelry Two great women, Coco Gabriel Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, firmly established the connection of fashion to jewelry design in the 1920s. Schiaparelli (1890–1973) was Italian, and used cubism and surrealism on her jewelry designs, creating phosphorescent brooches, earrings, and paperweights. Chanel was a French designer who had a very strong influence on jewelry. Her first jewelry shop debuted in 1924, and she opened a boutique in 1929 selling jewelry, scarves, hats, and belts. Chanel’s signature style—tweed suits with rows of pearls and a gilt chain bag—remains fashionable. Chanel was a pioneer for introducing luxurious costume jewelry, which quickly became popular worldwide. By this time her jewelry designs, as well as her clothing line, attained the exclusivity she desired, placing her at the top of the fashion and jewelry industries. Her beliefs were that a suit was naked without jewelry, but that too much money kills luxury. She espoused that when wearing a lot of jewelry, some should be “faux,” some should be authentic. Her designs have been copied worldwide, yet the House of Chanel retains its exclusivity through their unique method of placing a band of metal around the edge of precious and semiprecious stones instead of placing the stones into a base. This has become a trademark for Chanel and many modern-day jewelers. Chanel was inspired by the rich jewelry design of the Renaissance, Byzantine periods, and Egyptian jewelry. Amazingly enough, because of Chanel’s vision and talents, she had 2,400 employees even during the Great Depression of 1932. For some time, Chanel reduced her output as the depression settled in and new labor laws came into effect, but was back in full production by 1957. Madame Gripoix designed the first jewelry line for Poiret—the first couturier in costume jewelry design, and continued to prosper in the 1920s and 1930s. Madame Gripoix incorporated Chanel’s use of Venetian patterns on glass beads, derived from Egyptian designs. Many designers imitated her style and work. Madeleine Vionnet was a fierce competitor. Judith Leiber was well known for her bags and jewelry. Suzanne Belperson, Mary Quant, Vivienne

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Westwood, Ann Demeulemeester, Charles Caroline, andMadeleine Cheruit are all women jewelry designers of great renown. Elsa Peretti is an Italian designer who gained acclaimed in 1969 for her use of horns, ebony, ivory, and silver in jewelry making. She collaborated with Tiffany’s, and has been working with them since 1974. Her work portrays asymmetrical heart pendants in gold, and small diamonds and affordable stones on delicate chains. Paloma Picasso, daughter of Pablo Picasso earned her fame from creating exotic costume jewelry and jeweled bikini strings. She successfully launched her line through Tiffany’s in 1980. Her work has featured unusual color combinations and shiny, polished metals. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Entrepreneurs; France; Italy. Further Readings Charles-Roux, Edmond. Chanel and Her World: Friends, Fashion and Fame. New York: Vendome Press, 2005. Cullen, Georgina O’Hara. The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Fashion and Fashion Designers. London: Thames & Hudson, 1998. Peacock, John. 20th Century Jewelry, The Complete Sourcebook. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. Judy Jamal Columbia University

Jingjing, Guo Guo Jingjing is an international sports figure from the People’s Republic of China. She is well known for her diving performances and gold medals at the Olympic Games; her celebrity status in China, where she is nicknamed “The Princess of Diving”; and a colorful personal life that has been intensely reported and scrutinized by the media in Asia and around the world. Jingjing was the leading member of the Chinese national women’s diving team. She has successfully competed in numerous diving events in the Asian Games, Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Cup. As well as holding several world championship titles, notable highlights of her career include two gold medals (Woman’s Springboard Diving and

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Women’s Synchronized Springboard Diving events) in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens; and, four years later, two gold medals in the same events at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Despite her announcement in 2006 of retirement, Jingjing continued to compete in diving events, such as in the 2009 World Championship where she came in first place in two competitions. Pressures of Celebrity Jingjing was born in 1981 in north China’s Hebei Province. She began diving when she was 7, and was selected to the national team at age 11. Like other Chinese Olympic champions, she became a household name across the country. She is now one of China’s richest sports stars, as a result of numerous endorsement deals with national and multinational companies. However, Jingjing’s career has not been without criticism. For example, she was once expelled from the national diving team following complaints of excessive commercial activities, and was later readmitted following a public apology. Commercial advertising activities of Olympic champions is a sensitive issue in China, which is regulated by administrative centers within the government (state control over many aspects of people’s lives is a dominant feature of Chinese society). Following her rise to star status, Jingjing’s personal and social life has been closely scrutinized by the media, particularly in China and Hong Kong. Newspapers and gossip magazines have speculated on her personal and romantic relationships, especially her meetings in public with Kenneth Fok, the grandson of a Hong Kong business tycoon. At the time of the Beijing Olympics, for example, some media outlets questioned whether her personal relationships would undermine her chances of success in the competitions. Improvements in Status of Women Jingjing followed in the footsteps of former Chinese springboard diving champions Gao Min and Fu Ming­ xia. In recent years, an increasing number of female sports champions have achieved celebrity status and wealth in China. The achievements of Chinese women such as Jingjing and others come at a time when there is an urgent need to improve the status of women in Chinese society. In China, there is a cultural and historical tradition of male dominance, based on a stereotypical division of gender and social roles in which women have held devalued positions. Despite some

recent improvements, especially in urban areas, gender inequalities still remain in education, income, and status. Female national sports figures and celebrities such as Guo Jingjing help to achieve the empowerment of Chinese women and to improve gender equality. See Also: Celebrity Women; China; Olympics, Summer; Olympics, Winter; Sports, Women in; Stereotypes of Women; Swimming. Further Readings Dong, Jinxia. Women, Sport and Society in Modern China: Holding Up More Than Half the Sky. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2003. Wasserstrom, Jeffrey. China in the 21st Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Xinran. The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices. Boston: Anchor, 2003. Gareth Davey Hong Kong Shue Yan University

Johnson, Sonia Sonia Johnson is an American feminist activist, author, and speaker. Born February 27, 1938, Johnson was raised in Logan, Utah, by a religiously conservative family who belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She practiced Mormonism until she was excommunicated from the church in 1979 for her public feminist positions. Since that time, Johnson has developed a self-reflective, personal feminist philosophy that has as its focus as women and their experiences, rather than patriarchy and male experiences. Johnson earned a B.A. in English from the Utah State University, and her M.A. and Ed.D. degrees from Rutgers University. She married soon after completing her undergraduate degree, and she and her husband had four children together. Johnson and her husband were both employed as teachers in various positions in locations that included California, Malaysia, and Virginia. A Time of Reinvention Soon after the family settled in Virginia, Johnson became interested in feminist politics. The Church

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of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was publically opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)—a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ensure equality between men and women— but Johnson supported the amendment. She marched in a public rally for the ERA in Washington in July 1978 under a banner that read “Mormons for the ERA,” which received attention when she was invited to speak at a Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights as a female representative of Mormon supporters. She continued a period of activism over the next several months that included public speeches and demonstrations, along with negotiation with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but she was ultimately excommunicated in 1979 for her public support of the ERA. This experience, followed by a divorce from her husband, is described by Johnson as a time of reinvention for her, in which she reconsidered her previously held beliefs and interpretations. She began using methods of civil disobedience, including chaining herself to the Republican National Headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 1980 to protest their removal of the ERA from the presidential platform. She also participated in a hunger fast to support the ERA that involved sitting in the Illinois Legislature wearing purple banners to draw attention to the struggle for equal rights. Although Illinois ultimately failed to ratify the amendment, Johnson was well known for her activism by the end of this time. Government Discontent In 1981, Johnson published her first book, From Housewife to Heretic, which was an autobiography of her development as a feminist activist. She would go on to publish five additional books including Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation (1987), in which she details her discontent with government as a patriarchal force, and The Ship That Sailed Into the Living Room: Sex and Intimacy Reconsidered (1991), in which she redefines relationships outside of the lens of patriarchy. She ran for president in 1984 as a candidate for the Citizens Party, although she garnered little media notice in this move. She continues to refine her feminist philosophies to focus on women and a women-centered world, and she has adopted a stance that does not include nor consider men or patriarchal constraints. Although Johnson identifies with lesbian-

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ism, her later writings suggest a move away from any limitations in her definition of relationships, which is an extension of her move away from institutions she sees as constructed by patriarchy. See Also: Equal Rights Amendment; Feminism, American; Lesbianism; Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Further Readings Foss, Karen A., et al. “Sonia Johnson.” In Karen A. Foss, et al., Feminist Rhetorical Theories. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999. Johnson, Sonia. From Housewife to Heretic. Albuquerque, NM: Wildfire Books, 1989. Johnson, Sonia. The Ship That Sailed Into the Living Room: Sex and Intimacy Reconsidered. Albuquerque, NM: Wildfire Books, 1991. Jennifer Adams DePauw University

Jordan Jordan is a Middle Eastern country of 6.3 million people sharing borders with Israel and the West Bank, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia as well as a small seacoast on the Gulf of Aqaba. It became independent of Great Britain in 1946. Most, 98 percent, of the population is Arab and Sunni Muslim, 92 percent, with minorities of Christians, Shia Muslims, and Druze. The population of Jordan is young, with almost one-third of the population aged 14 or younger. The population growth rate is just shy of 2.2 percent despite a negative migration rate due to a high fertility of 3.46 children per woman coupled with a birth rate of 27.38 births per 1,000 population and long life expectancy of 78.6 years for men and 81.18 years for women. Jordan has a small economy and a lack of natural resources including oil and water. The Gross Domestic Product per capita in 2009 was $5,300 and about 14 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The country houses about 1.8 million Palestinian refugees, half a million Iraqi refugees, and has about 160,000 internally displaced persons stemming from the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.

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Journalists, Broadcast Media in cases of fetal impairment. In 2002, over 50 percent of women reported using contraceptives, including over 40 percent who use modern methods. Jordan reserves six seats in its House of Representatives, also called the Chamber of Deputies, for women, where seven women currently serve in the House. Seventeen percent of government ministers were female as of 2009. Jordan is a transit and destination country for human trafficking for forced labor and sexual exploitation and is on the Tier 2 Watch List for failure to investigate cases of trafficking and internal forced labor. The latter refers to women who have also migrated to Jordan to work legally as domestic servants but have found themselves in conditions of forced labor, including physical and sexual abuse and non-payment of wages. See Also: Islam; Queen Noor of Jordan; Trafficking, Women and Children; World Economic Forum.

A Jordanian entrepreneur received small business loan assistance for her home-based business producing pickles.

Gender Discrimination The World Economic Forum ranks Jordan 113th out of 134 countries on gender equality. On a scale where 1 means perfect equality and 0 means inequality, in 2009 Jordan’s score was 0.681. Jordan scored highest on educational attainment (0.985) and health and survival (0.971) but substantially lower in economic participation and opportunity (0.594, ranked 112th) and political empowerment (0.064, ranked 111th). Female literacy lags behind their male counterparts, 84.7 percent versus 95.1 percent, but females currently outnumber males in all levels of education. Working women constitute a disproportionate percentage of professional and technical workers but earn an average of 72 percent of a man’s salary for comparable work. Almost all births in Jordan take place in health facilities and over 90 percent of women receive four or more prenatal care visits. The infant mortality rate is 22 per 1,000 births and the maternal mortality ratio is 41 per 100,000 live births. Abortion is legal only to save the mother’s life or mental or physical health or

Further Readings Hausman, Ricardo, et al. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2009. http://www.weforum.org /en/Communities/Women%20Leaders%and%20 Gender%20Parity/GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010). United Nations Statistics Divisions. UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info. http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Journalists, Broadcast Media The landscape of U.S. broadcast news changed in 1971 after a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate that directed that stations needed to diversify their staffs in order to retain broadcast licenses. From 1971 to 1976, networks hired large numbers of women and men of color to meet the new requirements. Many of this early generation are still familiar names: Connie Chung, Jane Pauley, Diane Sawyer, Carole Simpson, Leslie Stahl, and Barbara Walters got their starts in national broadcast news during this period.



Their heirs are the well-known anchors and reporters currently in mid-career on network television news shows. In 2006, shifts in daily news shows—morning, evening, and nighttime—led to several higher profile positions for women anchors. Elizabeth Vargas briefly co-anchored the ABC evening news cast with Bob Woodruff; Cynthia McFadden was named a Nightline co-host; and Robin Roberts replaced Charlie Gibson as Diane Sawyer’s co-anchor on Good Morning America. The biggest news that year, however, came when Katie Couric was made the first woman solo anchor of the evening news at CBS. This move generated much commentary, a cover story in Newsweek, and discussion on blogs and mass media among the media punditry, with some hailing it as a break in the glass ceiling for women. Others saw Couric as a news lightweight without the “gravitas” necessary to anchor the evening news. CBS stated publicly that she was hired in part to attract younger viewers at a time when network news was losing viewers at a fast pace, particularly the younger demographic. Market Share and Commercial Appeal More women have taken anchor positions at a time when the broadcast media are increasingly worried about market share and commercial appeal. The content of national newscasts has concomitantly softened as well. While it is true that as the number of women anchors and reporters have increased, as have the number of feature stories, it is not clear what the cause and effect relationship is. It is possible that as commercial interests become more important to news organizations, more features are offered, and more doors open for women, as they are often associated with soft news. It is also possible that the content of news is changing, and the division between hard and soft news is less meaningful when stories combine elements of both to interest a wider public, such as stories on the environment, healthcare, and other quality of life issues. Even as the number of feature stories has increased, the gender of the reporter is not related to the number of features. Diane Sawyer was named the sole anchor of the ABC evening news show, World News Tonight, in 2009, making the face of the national news for two out of three networks a woman. The evening news has lost an estimated million viewers per year since 1980. Still, network shows deliver news to about

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three times as many viewers as cable news shows, and the national news anchor continues to be a central national figure. In 2006, studies showed that the diversity of correspondent’s gender and race was up over previous years. Women reported 28 percent of all network news stories, and CBS Evening News led the pack, with 34 percent by women and 15 percent by minorities. However, on Couric’s program, while her exposure increased, other women appearing on that show fell by 40 percent. In local news broadcasts, while women and men are both represented on air, white men dominate on-air positions overall. More significantly, it is still the case that as men gain more experience, they get more air time and are seen as ever more credible. As women age, they get less air time, as a rule. Additionally, 65 percent of bachelor’s degrees in journalism went to women in 2003—more than double the 30 percent in 1970. However, newsrooms are still quite male dominated. In 2003, only 26.5 percent of local stations had a female news director, and men made up the majority of assignment editors (60 percent) and managing editors (70 percent). In 2007, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was accused of “ageism” after it fired 58-yearold female news broadcaster Moira Stuart from its Sunday morning news show. In early 2010, as a result of this and other accusations that the network favored younger women, it is now hiring and re-hiring older anchorwomen, including Julia Somerville, 62, and Moira Stuart, 61. Cable News The rise of cable news networks, beginning with CNN in 1980, believed to be responsible for the erosion of the network audience, has also fragmented the U.S. news audience. For the most part, women have been present as coanchors with men on CNN, and also have a presence as reporters, most notably Christiane Amanpour as the chief foreign correspondent, whose influence has continued to grow—she was given a daily show on CNN International called Amanpour. Also on CNN, Candy Crowley is a longtime senior political correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux is a White House correspondent and the primary substitute on The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer, Jeanne Meserve is a longtime

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political correspondent who has covered homeland security since the September 11 attacks, and Jeanne Moos has developed a distinctive feature story style. Cable news channels have also changed the meaning of journalism. They have come to rely on hourlong political news discussion programs that do not report the news in traditional ways of understanding the term news, but discuss the day’s events with guest interviews. While women have had a place in the cable lineups, men are most often the strongest voices. CNN has showcased some women stars on their own political news shows, for instance Paula Zahn, Judy Woodruff, and Connie Chung. Andrea Mitchell is a news veteran with a show on MSNBC. The blurring of lines between news and commentary has produced personalities that may be best seen as pundits. Rachel Maddow, who has her own nightly show on MSNBC, blends news and commentary with left-slanted analysis central to the purpose of the program. On the right, personalities Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Laura Ingraham make frequent appearances on various political commentary shows, mostly on Fox News, opining on more than reporting news. Maddow and Ingraham also both have very successful daily radio shows. Within this expanding universe of editorializing talk, women are still by far the minority of those deemed stars, and even those who speak at all. Public Television and Radio News The primary news show on PBS, The News Hour With Jim Lehrer, has boasted the talents of women reporters like Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Margaret Garrard Warner, Judy Woodruff (who returned to the show after years as a political reporter at CNN), and Gwen Ifill, who has also hosted Washington Week in Review since 1999. National Public Radio (NPR) actually has more women as its primary voices than men. This is especially distinctive given that it is radio, as women’s voices were historically thought to be too shrill or lacking the proper authority to be on the radio. At most, women’s voices traditionally were only a part of the daytime broadcasting. Susan Stamberg was the first host of the evening news show, All Things Considered, and the first woman to anchor a U.S. newscast, in 1981. Stamberg continued as an arts reporter at NPR, and is joined by veteran

Barbara Walters was one of the first women to be hired in broadcast media after the FCC mandate in 1971.

news analysts and anchors Linda Wertheimer; Cokie Roberts, political correspondent; and Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent. All Things Considered is currently anchored by Michelle Norris, Melissa Block, and Robert Siegel, alternately. The morning news show, Morning Edition, has been hosted bicoastally by Renée Montaigne and Steve Inskeep since 2004. Women reporters from around the world who work on both shows include Anne Garrels, Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, Eleanor Beardsley, and Sylvia Poggioli. Alternative Broadcasts Alternative news broadcasts have expanded beyond radio to include television broadcast via satellite. Perhaps the best known example in the United States is

Journalists, Print Media



Amy Goodman, who was the News Director at Pacifica Station WBAI in New York until she launched the program Democracy Now! in 1996. Originally conceived as a news show to track the 1996 election, the show continued and grew to cover national and international news, subtitling itself “the war and peace report.” It is currently broadcasted by over 800 radio stations and DIRECTV. Goodman has distinguished herself as an investigative journalist focusing on peace and human rights, and identifies herself as an advocacy journalist. Goodman is actively working to develop the next generation of independent journalists through training and internships at Democracy Now! Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host, and producer of Uprising, a morning show that reports of national and international issues. It originates from the Pacifica Los Angeles station, KPFK, and is syndicated around the country. Laura Flanders has made her name as a progressive feminist voice in a number of independent radio news shows. She currently hosts GRITtv on Free Speech TV, a daily political news discussion program. These independent voices are unconstrained by corporate sponsorship, and continue to improvise with new technology to develop new avenues for those who are not heard on mainstream news a place to offer their perspectives. See Also: Amanpour, Christiane; Couric, Katie; Journalists, Print Media; Walters, Barbara. Further Readings Byerly, Carolyn and Karen Ross. Women and Media: A Critical Introduction. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. Chambers, Debora. Women and Journalism. London: Routledge, 2004. Goodman, Amy. Breaking the Sound Barrier. New York: Haymarket Books, 2009. Kapoor, Nivedita. “BBC Recruits Older Women Presenters.” Suite101.com (February 3, 2010). http:// british-tv.suite101.com/article.cfm/bbc-recruits-older -women-presenters (accessed June 2010). Whitt, Jan. Women in American Journalism: A New History. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Jennifer Reed California State University

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Journalists, Print Media In the 21st century, women are now well established as newspaper reporters. In the United States, women comprise 37 percent of the full-time staff of daily newspapers, 36.9 percent at weeklies, and 43.5 percent at newsmagazines. Their status is not equal to men’s, however, especially at the uppermost rungs of the print hierarchy. Overall, women earn about 20 percent less than men. A “glass ceiling” has been cracked, but it blocks women’s promotion to key decision-making positions and to high-prestige areas of journalism that men have long seen as their domain, such as politics, business, and sports. Women are disproportionately found in smalltown, regional, and community newspapers—especially weeklies—and in low-status, “soft” areas, such as human-interest stories and features. Nor has the shift to professionalism in journalism eradicated the sexist culture of many newsrooms, although most women profess not to be bothered by it. Whether the crisis of urban dailies or newspapers’ transition to multiplatform structures will level the playing field for women remains to be seen. Gender Divides in Subjects and Writing The contemporary status of women journalists must be understood in historical context. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, print journalism was a carefully guarded male enclave. Over time, a few “exceptional” women managed to invade news genres otherwise restricted to men and gain front page status. For them, the highest compliment was to be told they were “just like men,” and that they were “newsmen.” Much more often, when women journalists began to enter the field in increasing numbers, it was primarily to write for and about women, covering society, home, and family issues. The other entry route for women was a genre known as “sob sisters” in the United Kingdom, and they were known for their dramatic, personal, and emotional stories that supposedly brought readers to tears. Stunt journalists, such as the pseudonymous Annie Laurie and Nellie Bly, also attracted attention. These were topics and writing styles men were not interested in. To attract advertising for department store and products aimed at women, publishers needed female

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readers. They therefore created “women’s pages” and hired women to write women’s news, gossip, and advice columns. In any case, the women’s pages opened the door for the feminist debates of the 1960s, and provided space for issues such as equal pay, divorce, and abortion. In the wake of the feminist movement, most newspapers abandoned women’s pages, per se, although some of these issues reemerged in newly invented “lifestyle” sections. The notion of a “women’s style” in journalism is controversial. On the one hand, feminist critics complain that women are required to produce a particular news “commodity” that, in the name of women’s interests, exploits a highly personal, confessional approach. Other scholars say women do and should have a distinct style. Women journalists themselves say that they believe women offer a more human perspective, that “the news is the news,” and that the same ethical standards apply equally to all journalists. Women do appear to be more likely to draw on women as sources, include the voices of ordinary citizens, and focus on social problems and issues associated with women, such as reproductive rights, education, and childcare. Other than this, there is little to indicate that women and men approach journalism work differently. Some data that suggest gender differences in what readers are interested, however, align with conventional gender stereotypes. Such notions appear to be confirmed, for example, by data that women make up 38 percent of the readers of the Wall Street Journal, but 49 percent of the readers of the New York Times. In any case, the perception that women are disinterested in sports, business, and foreign relations would not explain why only about a quarter of the syndicated columnists are women, few women run op-ed pages of major newspapers, and only a handful of political cartoonists are women. In the 1970s and 1980s, many women organized to fight sexism and discrimination in recruitment and assignment decisions, salary, and promotion decisions, and they successfully litigated several class action suits against major news organizations, including Newsweek and the New York Times. Many of these associations, however, are now dormant, primarily because women working in print themselves rarely believe that gender remains a discrimination factor.

War Reporting During World Wars I and II, when military officials refused to accredit women, few women did war reporting. More often, they replaced men in newsrooms until peacetime, when women were typically evicted from newsrooms. In contrast, during the Vietnam War, women could travel at their own expense to Vietnam, even if no news organization formally sent them. Once there, some military officials and soldiers enjoyed talking to women journalists; some women even claimed to have an advantage over male competitors. Now, women war correspondents are prominent, although they are not seen as “normal.” Their lives are scrutinized, and working mothers in particular are criticized for risking their lives. In general, the question of whether women and men should report on wars and conflicts in the same way remains unsettled. Some say (and consider it praise) that women reporters can personalize stories, highlight the human, nonmilitary dimensions of war (including the specific impacts of wars on women, children, and other civilians), and provide political and historical context. Thus, women are said to challenge the “bullets and bombs” discourse that otherwise pervades war reporting. Others insist that that all good reporters provide full context. Importantly, some female wars journalists resent and reject invitations to cover the “women’s angle,” which is unlikely to appear on the front page. Compared to broadcasters, newspapers have typically assigned fewer women correspondents to conflict zones; this is probably because broadcast media are better at exploiting feminine beauty. Early pioneers in news reporting include Helen Thomas, who wrote for the United Press International (UPI) for 57 years, eventually becoming the White House bureau chief. Another prominent U.S. journalist is Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation since 1995, and publisher since 2005. Statistics in Reporting and Management Since university-level journalism schools never anticipated that women would apply, they did not exclude them. This encouraged women to consider journalism careers in the early and mid-20th century, and many curricula adapted to their presence by steering women toward “writing for women.” Since the 1970s, women have outnumbered men in university journalism programs; they are now about two-thirds of

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the student body. Among journalists with less than five years experience, women outnumber men. This may result from women leaving the profession early, deterred by problems with advancement, childcare, or the entire newsroom culture. According to one 2002 survey, job satisfaction was strong among journalists, but women were slightly less satisfied than men. Another 2002 study found that 45 percent of women journalists (and 33 percent of men) expected to quit; in particular, “career conflicted” women were dissatisfied, and 64 percent of this group blamed gender discrimination. The crisis of newspapers caused by competition with free media and even citizen journalists and loss of revenue to the Internet has caused general instability, downsizing, and lower pay in journalism. This may cause fewer men than women to seek journalism careers, and more men to quit. The most pronounced disparities are in management. Class action suits have not broached the question of upper management; women make up only about 20 percent of the top editors of the 100 largest papers. Four women have been president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in its 87-year history; three of these have been elected since 2000 (including one woman of color). Women represent about 20 percent of the publishers at large newspaper groups like Gannett and McClatchy. Since the suffrage and abolitionist papers and contemporary third-wave publications, feminist periodicals have enabled women to take on ownership, decision making and editorial roles, and to participate in the public sphere on their own terms, albeit on a nonprofit basis. Whether in print or online, women-run, “alternative” newspapers and magazines have proposed new ideas about womanhood and experimented with distinctive organizational and management structures. Feminist news outlets have provided skills training for women, but women don’t often transition back and forth between feminist press and mainstream press. See Also: Feminist Publishing; Journalists, Broadcast Media; Media Chief Executive Officers, Female; Ms. Magazine; Thomas, Helen; vanden Heuvel, Katrina; Women’s Magazines. Further Readings Chambers, D., L. Steiner, and C. Fleming. Women and Journalism. New York: Routledge, 2004.

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Edwards, J. Women of the World: The Great Foreign Correspondents. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Graham, K. Personal History. New York: Knopf, 1997. Hemlinger, M. A. and C. Cynthia Linton. Women in Newspapers 2002: Still Fighting an Uphill Battle. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2002. Mills, K. “What Difference Do Women Journalists Make?’ In Pippa Norris, ed. Women, Media and Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Steiner, L. “Gender in the Newsroom.” In Karin WahlJorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch, eds., Handbook of Journalism Studies. New York, Routledge, 2009. Weaver, D., et al. The American Journalist in the 21st Century. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007. Linda Steiner University of Maryland

Judaism Judaism is a religious civilization of the Jewish people. The term Judaism (Yahadut in Hebrew) was first used among Greek-speaking Jews in the 1st century c.e. The language spoken and/or read by Jews is Hebrew (Ivrit), but Aramaic is also an ancient Jewish language that has found its way into the Talmud and other sacred books. Another language associated with Jewish people is Yiddish, which is still the common language among Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Jewish Law Jewish law is called halacha. Jewish society was governed by halacha, which is a legal system that pervaded all aspects of life. It is also a religious system and its influence is much more pervasive than an ordinary legal system, for it is responsible for legal and ethical behavior. It has molded the major institutions of Jewish life, including marriage and the family. Judaism is based on the doctrine that there are two sacred Torahs— the Written Torah (the Bible) and the Oral Torah (the traditions, including the rabbinic ones)—out of which the halacha develops. Eventually, the Oral Torah was written down and became part of Jewish Sacred literature. However, since the Oral Torah was based on learning and discussion among sages who devoted

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their life to study and clarification, it was never monolithic in its decisions. Halacha has shown amazing flexibility and staying power by being able to accommodate disagreement. The earliest codifications and interpretations of halacha—the Mishnah (c. 200 c.e.), the Tosefta (240 c.e.), and the Talmud (Jerusalem c. 400 c.e. and Babylonian c. 500 c.e.)—preserve minority as well as majority opinions. Later attempts were made to codify preceding material, and codes appeared, such as the Yad he-Hazakah, also known as Mishneh Torah, of Maimonides, the Tur of Jacob ben Asher (14th century), and the Shulhan Arukh by Joseph Caro (16th century). Finally, there is a vast collection of responsa literature that includes rabbinical rulings on specific questions. These responsa date back to the 750s and continue to be written today. Less frequent are takkanot, which are ordinances or rulings promulgated to meet a specific need and which, in effect, change the halacha by creating legislation. Some rulings had to do with instituting marriage contracts, outlawing polygamy, prohibition of giving too much money to charity, child support, and so on. These takkanot were ordained by sages to regulate life and to radically alter, or amend, an existing law. Although these takkanot have great potential, they are rarely used today since they can be described as revolutionary rather than evolutionary. Jewish descent is on the one hand patralineal, a Jew is referred to as X son (or daughter) of a father— yet, the determination of who is a Jew is matrilineal, except in the Reform Movement. In Israel, anyone who can show Jewish ancestry is entitled under the Law of Return (1950) to immigrate to Israel. However, since the Israeli Rabbinate is controlled by the Orthodox, many immigrants who are eligible for citizenship are not able to be married in Israel. Jews number about 13.5 million worldwide and about 80 percent of Jews live either in Israel or in North America. Conservative and Reform Movements Both the Conservative and Reform Movements take a historical approach to traditional sources and have progressive understandings of religious practice. The Orthodox Movement is more diverse. The modern Orthodox has a few women who are all but rabbis in name (ABRs) and have separate but equal participation in services. The haredi world has their its divisions (often to be seen in their dress) and even the Hassidic

missionary movement of the Chabad have their divisions with those believing that the Lubavitcher Rebbe is the Messiah and those who don’t. None of the movements lives in a vacuum and almost all are aware of, even if not always adapting to, the modern human rights agenda. On this agenda are changes regarding women’s status, patrilineal descent, homosexual rights, and intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. The following institutions train clergy and offer degrees in Jewish subjects like the Bible, Jewish History, Philosophical Thought, Talmud, and Midrash education. The Orthodox Yeshiva University, which traces its origins to Yeshiva Eitz Chaim, was founded in 1886 on New York’s Lower East Side. In 1896, the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) was founded. Yeshiva was granted university status in 1945 and today includes a college of liberal arts and sciences for women and graduate schools of medicine, law, social work, and psychology. The Reform Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest Jewish seminary in the Ameri-

A woman lighting the Sabbath candles and praying, one of the three Jewish commandments reserved for women.



cas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators, and communal workers in Reform Judaism. It has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College is located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is the only seminary affiliated with Reconstructionist Judaism, a liberal movement established by Mordecai Kaplan that views Judaism as the “evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people.” From its second year in 1969, RRC students included women. Since 1984, RRC has admitted and ordained openly gay and lesbian rabbis, the first major rabbinic seminary to do so. The Conservative institutions include the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City and American Jewish University in Los Angeles. Both of these are recognized universities in addition to ordaining rabbis. In addition to the mainstream movements there are the Jewish Renewal movement and the Society for Humanistic Judaism. Treatment of Women The plurality of opinion and interpretation that constitutes halacha also applies to its treatment of women. The attitude of halacha toward women can be characterized as ambivalent rather than monolithic. Until recently, the input of women into the halachic process was rare, and it was almost always men who had the authority to make halachic decisions. In biblical law, women are perceived as chattel. In the 10th commandment in Exodus we are told not to covet our neighbor’s house, wife, slave, maid, ass, ox, or anything that belongs to our neighbor. In Deuteronomy 5:18, the wife precedes the house, field, slave, maid servant, ass, ox, and everything that belongs to the man. Monetary transactions accompanied many changes of a woman’s status. A mohar (price of virginity) had to be paid to the father of the “bride” by a rapist. The husband is the master (ba’al), whose permission to rule over his wife originates in Genesis 3:16, where God tells the first woman that her husband shall rule over her. The word ba’al implies ownership as well as lordship; as in the law about the ba’al of the ox spelled out in biblical law. When a woman gets married, the father’s property rights are transferred to the husband. If the husband’s property is damaged, compensation is paid to him. There are other biblical sources that support the view of woman as chattel. The first has to do with the description of how a man comes to get a wife.

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The verbs describing this act are lakach (to acquire) and ba’al (to possess). It is written that “a man acquires a wife and possesses her. [If ] she fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her, [he can] write her a bill of divorcement, hand it to her and send her away from his house.” Marriage in the post-biblical era reflects the transition of the marriage “acquisition” or purchase from a private deal between two adults or between two families to a social and religious institution administered by the community and under rabbinic supervision. This change gives rise to rabbinic control over marriage and divorce, matters that in the biblical period were purely a family matter. Patriarchal Religion Carolyn G. Heilbrun wrote that “men can be men only if women are unambiguously women.” Jewish tradition contains many statements detrimental to women. This is because Judaism is a patriarchal religion, a religion which, to use Kate Millet’s terminology, was run by a male God and whose theology was essentially “male supremacist, and one of whose central functions [was] to uphold and validate the patriarchal structure.” However, Jewish sources are not monolithic. Some Jewish texts studied by the scholarly Jewish male portray women as lesser beings: stupid, talkative, and lewd. Others imply that she is spiritually higher than the male, and therefore potentially capable of more than the man. Since Jewish learning took place in a sex-segregated setting isolated from the presence of women, very often the only things a man knew about women was learned second hand from books. The dual message he received (spiritual being versus lewd being) led him to both admire and look down on women. In Jewish tradition, there were three commandments that were reserved for women: lighting candles, separating a portion of dough, and ritual immersion after the end of the menstrual period. However, today it is commonly accepted that women are educated equally with men and that they are allowed to pray either communally with other women in an Orthodox setting or as equal partners to men in the other movements. Some of the roles that women have taken upon themselves are publicly reading from the Torah scroll, being counted as a part of the quorum of 10 (minyan), serving as a cantor, rabbi, and halachic decisor.

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Many women also don prayer shawls and phylacteries (less common) and head covering. The only area that remains problematic is that of women serving as legal witnesses in cases where Jewish law requires two witnesses. One way of getting around this is to require four signatures, two men, and two women. Another interesting innovation in Modern Orthodox settings is that of requiring 10 women and 10 men to form the necessary prayer quorum. It is too soon to tell what the impact of modernity will be on the entire spectrum of Jewish practice, but change is in the air. The feminist movement, which goes back to the early 1970s, has influenced all major branches of Judaism. Some of its achievements include women’s ordination as rabbis, use of feminine language and imagery to describe God, use of prenuptials to protect women from becoming agunot (chained women), being counted as equal in the quorum, equal rights in marriage, and assumption of positions of leadership in the synagogue and within the general Jewish community. See Also: Chabad Movement; Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward; Israel; Rabbis, Female. Further Readings Biale, Rachel. Women and Jewish Law. New York: Shocken Books, 1984. Dorff, Elliot N. and Arthur Rossett. The Living Tree. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. “Halakha.” Encyclopedia Judaica. Jerusalem: Keter, 1971. Millet, Kate. Sexual Politics. London: Sphere Books, 1971. Sigal, Phillip. “Elements of Male Chauvinism in Classical Halakha.” Judaism, v.24/2 (1975). Wegner, Judith Romney. Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Naomi Graetz Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Judges, Women as Women’s participation in the judiciary is one indicator of aspirational and actualized formal and substantive gender equality. It symbolizes and engages broader issues such as access to political power, con-

ceptions of agency and strategies for furthering social citizenship. The recent appointment of Sonia Sotomayor as the first woman of Puerto Rican descent to the United States’ Supreme Court accentuates how women’s ability (or lack thereof ) as official decision makers remains a site of contest and contradiction. Justice Sotomayor’s assertion that ”wise Latina women” may well reach ”better conclusions” than white male judges in specific contexts, has reignited questions about the potential impact of a gender integrated bench. The first part of this article is an overview of the commonalities and divergences lens through which the judicial role can be examined. The second part outlines similarities that female judges share across multiple jurisdictions. It sketches out the shared features of the gendered legal culture in which women work, such as the persistence of overt and more subtle discrimination and assumptions about women’s natural tendencies toward certain kinds of labor. It also points to the overall effect of women’s increased participation in formal adjudication and the challenges female judges may pose to dominant understandings of authority, impartiality, integrity, and justice. While acknowledging and recognizing many similarities among women judges, the second part also addresses their differences, which are embedded in systems of power based on race, class, sexual orientation, ability, religion, ethnicity, and nationality. Attention will be drawn to the specific contexts in which particular women judges work and how the judicial function relates to broader social conditions such as war, ecological disasters, famine, political dictatorships, unemployment, lack of access to education, structural adjustment policies, direct and indirect discrimination against minority groups, systems of imperialism and colonialism, neocapitalism, environmental degradation, and global poverty. The final part suggests where feminist thinkers, working at the intersection of gender and judging turn their attention: nonformalized and noninstitutionalized modes of judgment by women. This article grapples with a number of questions. Can we, and should we, speak in terms of gender-specific modes of judgment? How do particular women find their way to the judiciary? Are there jurisdictions where law remains largely a male and masculine preserve? To what extent do women judges feel they are



expected to act on behalf of all women? How does official legal decision making better promote justice when more members of equality-seeking groups are named to the bench? Do women and other ”outsider” judges impact the everyday and institutional actions of their counterparts from more dominant social locations? What constitutes judicial objectivity and impartiality and to whom is it attributed? Commonalities and Divergences: A Framework The question of whether women judges ”make a difference” highlights feminist concerns about the utility of gender—or the category “women”—as the focal point of the women’s equality movement. Feminist standpoint theories note that women’s experience is a site of privileged understanding. Dominant legal processes and practices have historically excluded and continue to exclude the complexity and diversity of many people’s lives, including those of most women. As ”outsiders,” women judges may be better positioned to understand the realities of other outsiders such as people of color, the aged, sexual minorities, members of nondominant racial, ethnic and cultural groups, and people living with physical and intellectual disabilities. Accordingly, women sitting on the bench can provide a unique perspective on the matters they hear by virtue of their difference, their lives as women, and especially their experiences of discrimination. This unique and consequently ignored, devalued and excluded perspective will further formal and substantive equality. It also will serve as a corrective because without it, legal actors and legal institutions will continue to systematically favor men and disadvantage women. However, the impact of gender equity on the bench is complicated by differences in women’s experiences, depending on where they are located along shifting axes of privilege and disadvantage. Thus, the category of female judges remains open to deconstruction or at least destabilization. Each female judge’s subjectivities—like any other woman’s—are multiple and often conflicting because of the different cultural and racial identities, physical and intellectual abilities, geographic locations, political affiliations, social power, economic means, and sexual orientation she embodies and inhabits. Thus it seems untenable to suggest that the voices of women judges can or should be representative of all women.

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And yet, as the next section suggests, there are particular expectations of female judges, and women on the bench do face similar struggles. Moreover, there is evidence that women judges have had and do have a direct and meaningful impact on the lives of women and other equality-seeking groups. Commonalities and Differences: A Discussion Empirical research shows that globally women continue to be underrepresented and marginalized within all levels of the judiciary. There continues to be social and economic barriers to women’s participation in judicial roles. Research in Guinea, India, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe has found that inequality in terms of education, health and employment, discrimination, the feminization of poverty, the effects of armed conflict, and the urban–rural divide as well as the effects of armed conflict, trade liberalization and human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) all affect women disproportionately and reduce the probability that they will attend university, let alone law school, or assume leadership and decision-making roles. Further, while in the West women are no longer excluded from the legal profession—and indeed gender parity has been achieved in most law schools— female lawyers are still paid less than men, more frequently leave the profession, experience sexual harassment in the workplace, and are excluded from informal networks in law firms that would enable them to get peer recognition and higher profile cases. In Australasia, North America, and most of western Europe, lack of access to childcare and affordable housing, economic, physical and sexual violence, and the persistence of the wage gap continue to be barriers to women’s substantive equality and their participation in the kind of law work that could eventually lead to an appointment in the judiciary. There is, at the same time, a global trend toward greater gender equity in the judiciary. Any country or state party that signs and ratifies the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) makes a commitment to implement legislation and policies that foster gender equality. Such a commitment usually includes generating conditions for women’s increased participation in public life and official decision making, especially the judiciary. Similarly, the Protocol on the Rights of Women

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in Africa explicitly mandates parity for women in the judiciary. Many countries have developed policies that stem from a normative commitment to gender equality and from a desire to counter gender bias in the courts. In France, Italy, Lebanon, and the Netherlands, women make up at least half of the judiciary in lower-level courts—though their numbers decrease exponentially in more senior-level courts. Pakistan’s Access to Justice Program includes the appointment of female judges and magistrates as part of an effort to combat and control domestic violence. In Israel, women currently constitute 40 percent of all judges. Almost a third of judges in Thailand are women. In Algeria, women are relatively well represented at about 35 percent. However, female Algerian judges are not allowed to adjudicate questions of personal status law such as marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance under Shari`a law. Though Malaysia has a long history of appointing Muslim women in civil courts, it has yet to name a woman to a Shari`a court. Indonesia has named over 100 women to adjudicate on matters of Shari`a law. Iran and Sudan have also named women to Islamic courts. Currently, four out of the nine (44 percent) justices of the Supreme Court of Canada are women. Egypt, which has previously been criticized for lagging behind on the question of gender equity on the bench, has recently appointed 30 women to its Supreme Judicial Council. These appointments were made despite claims by Islamic fundamentalists that women should be banned from the bench. Finally, 15 women sit on Kenya’s High Court, and women make up approximately 30 percent of all judges in that country. Conversely, there are no women who have ever held a judicial position in East Timor. Northern Ireland has never appointed a woman to its Appeal Court. Of India’s 617 high court judges, only 45 (14 percent) are women. Until 2004, no woman had ever sat on the United Kingdom’s highest court. In Bahrain, it was only in 2006 that the first woman judge was appointed to the Greater Civil Court. Women make up only 18 percent of the judiciary in South Africa. In Sweden, women comprise 23 percent of permanent judges; however, they also made up 60 percent of nonpermanent judges, who have less income stability, social power, and sanctioned authority. In Australia, Canada, and the United States, women of color and aboriginal women are vastly underrepresented. Women living

with physical disabilities are extremely underrepresented in all jurisdictions. In Israel, no woman of Arabic descent has ever been named to the judiciary. In the realm of international law and institutions, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1325 in 2000. Its goals included the recognition that women’s contribution to conflictresolution was undervalued and underutilized. The resolution has been used in Egypt and elsewhere to ground proactive governmental measures designed to attain gender integration. Nevertheless, only one woman sits at the International Court of Justice, the United Nation’s principal judicial organ. No women currently sit on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Conversely, the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is independent from the United Nations’ system, has a high numbers of women judges (seven of 18 currently presiding). This more equitable gender representation may be attributable to the ICC provisions mandating women be on the bench. Discrimination Scholars and activists have compiled research on both the overt and subtle factors that impede women’s recruitment and promotion in the judiciary. Women working as judges experience overt discrimination, especially political and cultural practices that outright exclude women’s entry into the profession or ghettoize them in particular judicial functions. For instance, there are more women in lower-courts than in upper-level courts in all jurisdictions surveyed. There is a paradox here. Women judges in lower courts have lower wages, less social power, and are less formally engaged in upper-level law making. However, the greater number of women in lower-level judicial positions may have real effects. While their decisions are subject to appeal and being overturned by an upper level court, it is also at the court of first instance where relevant facts are determined and brought together to construct a cohesive narrative of women’s lives. These ”fact patterns” are the stories to which the law will be applied. Women judges may narrate these stories in a way that is more sensitive to the broader context in which conflict emerges and to experiences of discrimination more specifically. Cultural feminists have pointed out that women judges’ emphasis on facts; contextual approaches; holistic, intuitive, and



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their allies, and other progressives have successfully argued in some countries that there are no verses in the Koran, no provisions in the Hadith and no other traditional order that ban women from the judiciary.

Navanethem Pillay became the first non-white female judge on the South African high court in 1995.

empathetic modes of judging; and practices that balance multiple interests may better position them to deal with the specifics of women’s experiences. This viewpoint is vulnerable to charges of essentialism about how women as a group think and behave. However, the transformative potential of imagining different modes of judgment alone shatters one of the common law’s most persistent fictions that judges do not make law, they merely find it and apply it to the facts before them in a measured manner, unobstructed by feelings, beliefs, or past experiences In Islamic countries, women’s role in the judiciary is often more circumscribed. Women work as judicial clerks rather than adjudicators in Afghanistan. In Malaysia, they may only adjudicate over civil matters. Women in Kuwait may hold positions as investigative judges but are barred from serving adjudicative functions. In Saudi Arabia women are barred from all judicial functions. This reality suggests and reflects inherited assumptions that women have a natural proclivity toward emotional labor or certain skills that are better suited for particular aspects of the law. In these countries, Islamic law has been interpreted restrictively by fundamentalists to deny women judicial appointments. However, Muslim feminists,

Indirect Discrimination Women also experience indirect and institutional discrimination. Women across various social locations continue to take on the lion’s share of child and elder care and in most jurisdictions, the judicial workday— as in other employment sectors—is not organized in ways that recognizes or accommodates women’s care work; sexist beliefs and stereotypes, such as pregnant women do not look authoritative are still circulated. Like many other women working in the legal profession, women judges face persistent sexual harassment. Recently, formal and informal, direct and implicit methods have been used in most jurisdictions to address discrimination within the judicial realm, including advisory committees with employment equity mandates; diversity training and continuing judicial education sensitize and maintain awareness about gender, culture, and race biases; statutory reform and constitutional amendments; and proactive (affirmative) strategies that promote diversity in the judiciary (such as South Africa’s institutional redefinition of merit to take into consideration the qualitative potential for and as a judge rather than just quantifiable past experience). Further, retired justices also have become activists once relieved of their judicial functions. For instance, Martha Koome, formerly a justice of South Africa’s High Court, is currently championing the cause of women disinherited by sexist interpretations of property law. Outsiders In the West for instance, the objective standard is the white heterosexual male judge; his wisdom, rational thought, and independence is presumed. Women, members of racial and sexual minorities, and people with disabilities, on the other hand, are always already perceived as marked by their subjectivity, as having to transcend their partiality, and as having to rein in their feminist or otherwise critical (“activist”) tendencies. Having the markers of outsider status, whether because of gender or otherwise, seems to increase the likelihood that a judge will be a renegade or dissenter; that is, there is evidence that women judges tend

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to disagree with majority opinions more often than men do. Their outsider status has certainly rendered women judges vulnerable to backlash and vilification in the media. In Canada, Justices Corrine Sparks and Leslie Baldwin had their impartiality and judgments viciously called into question and even subject to formal complaints because they were, respectively, considered biased as a member of a racial minority and overly committed to complex gendered analyses of domestic violence. On another level, the vast majority of women appointed to the bench still share the experience of being pioneers. Justice Navanethem Pillay was the first woman to open a law practice in her home province, the first black woman appointed to the Supreme Court of South Africa, and the only woman on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Ertha Pascal Trouillot, the first woman judge in Haiti at the civil tribunal, was the first woman at the Supreme Court and the only woman ever to sit as provisional president of Haiti. Fathima Beevi was the first female judge of the Supreme Court of India, the first Muslim woman appointed to the highest court of any country in the world, and the first female governor of the state of Tamil Nadu. Dubai’s first woman to be named as a judge, Ebtisam Ali Rashid Al Bedwawi, is only 27 years old. Unlike men who can usually rely upon and negotiate within informal networks, access to mentors for women judges has been more complicated and often very difficult. Women judges formally organized in 1991 through the creation of the International Association of Women Judges, a nonpartisan organization with the mandate to advance women justices and to create networks and mentorship programs for women in the judiciary. Affiliates include both male and female members from more than 80 countries. Similarly, in 1993, homosexual judges formed the International Association of Gay and Lesbian Judges to serve as a resource to provide mentoring opportunities for lesbian judicial officers. Actual Effects of Women’s Judgment In most jurisdictions, popular and academic accounts have found that, at the very least, more women on the bench will increase the appearance of justice. It is difficult, however, to measure the impact of parity for women on the bench because of complicating vari-

ables such as the area of law, the ideological leanings and other identity markers of an individual judge, and the relationships or collegiality on the bench. Despite these methodological challenges, there is compelling empirical evidence that increased representation of women on the bench has had a direct and significant impact on women’s lives around questions of physical and sexual violence, access to safe and state-funded abortion, pay equity, affirmative action, and harassment in the workplace. Domestically, the judgments of many female justices—often written as dissenting opinions—have called attention to gender bias in specific areas of law, dispelling myths about women and other groups whose experiences are often improperly characterized in the legal process. For instance, orthodox understandings in criminal law is based on assumptions about women’s sexuality and tax regimes that reduce child rearing to a personal choice by individual women; employment, welfare, and housing law decisions often reinforce assumptions that women have male providers. In Canada, Justice Bertha Wilson recognized discrimination as a tort; and Justice Claire L’HeureuxDubé relied on social science evidence to shatter assumptions about sexual assault complainants. Further, while Islamic law has sometimes been interpreted to restrict what women can say before male judges in divorce proceedings, the recent appointment of two women judges presiding over Islamic courts in the Middle East—Asmahan Liwheidi in Hebron and Khulud Mohammaed Faquh in Famallah—have fostered conditions in which female litigants can speak about their experiences of sexual and physical violence. Internationally, the landmark precedent for international and regional judicial bodies on the issue of sexual violence is almost entirely attributable to Fathima Beevi’s presence as the only woman on the Rwandan Tribunal during the Akayesu case. During that first international war crimes trial, the accused was found guilty of genocide for crimes which expressly included sexual violence; it also was the first time an accused has been found guilty of rape as a crime against humanity. Similarly, the nature of the cases that go before the ICC directly impact women and especially women victims of war crimes. The ICC has jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity as well as war crimes. While the court recognizes that anyone in



conflict zones can be the victim of these crimes, the statute states that certain crimes can only be committed against women—for example, as in forced pregnancy or sterilization—and others, such as rape, sexual assault, and forced prostitution, are committed disproportionately against women. Beyond Formal and Institutionalized Judging Judging is not limited to the formal and institutional realms. For instance, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers is an alliance of 13 women elders from across the globe that was organized to uphold indigenous practices and ceremonies and affirm the right to use plant medicines free of legal restriction; their mandate is to protect the lands where their people live and upon which their cultures depend, to safeguard the collective heritage of traditional medicines, and to defend the earth from further destruction. Feminist painter Judy Chicago and feminist filmmaker Trinh T. Min Ha have created artefacts that explicitly and implicitly explore the relationships between gender, law, and judgment. Similarly, in Canada, a group of feminist activists and academics have formed the Women’s Court of Canada (WCC). Justices of the WCC correct and rewrite Supreme Court of Canada decisions that do not uphold meaningful conceptions of substantive equality. Moreover, while television personality Judge Judy’s performance (in the literal and figurative sense) of judgment on her small claims court television program is open to feminist critique, she does nonetheless shatter the rational/emotional dichotomy at the core of most dominant understanding of law. Unlike views of the judge as impartially applying the law to the cases at hand, Judge Judy combines emotional and emotive statements, expresses outrage and engages in shaming tactics while providing reasons for judgment without relying on precedent. She highlights the discretionary nature of judging and calls into question popular

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assumptions and mythical stories of judges as apolitical, objective, neutral, disengaged, and constrained. Finally, in terms of mediation, women circulate and deploy traditional knowledge and methods of conflict prevention and resolution around the globe. In Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Namibia, Tanzania, and Somalia, despite having been marginalized by the formal, top-down, institutionalized, male-dominated peace negotiations and rebuilding strategies, women have mobilized to engage in local-level peace-building. These variegated practices and processes undermine dominant modes of judgment in ways that account for more feminine and especially feminist views of conflict resolution. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Ginsburg, Ruth Bader; Representation of Women; Shari`a Law; Sotomayor, Sonia. Further Readings Bazelon, Emily. “The Place of Women on the Court: An Interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” New York Times (July 7, 2009). Belleau, Marie-Claire and Rebecca Johnson. “Judging Gender: Difference and Dissent at the Supreme Court of Canada.” International Journal of the Legal Profession, v.15 (2008). Brooks, Kim, ed. Justice Bertha Wilson: One Woman’s Difference. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 2009. McGlynn, Clare. “Judging Women Differently: Gender, the Judiciary and Reform.” In S. Millns and N. Whitty, eds., Feminist Perspectives on Public Law. London: Cavendish, 1999. Moran, Leslie. “Judicial Diversity and the Challenge of Sexuality: Some Preliminary Findings.” Sydney Law Review, v.28 (2006). Suzanne Bouclin McGill University

K Kali for Women: Feminist Publishing in India Kali for Women was Asia’s first feminist publishing company, founded by two visionaries in 1984. Ritu Menon and Urvashi Butalia, two zealous women came together and pooled $100 to begin that which may be called a revolution in terms of feminist publishing in India. The objective behind this venture was to bring women’s work out of Social Studies’ books and into the areas of fiction, memoirs, and biographies, even pamphlets and monographs; to bring women’s writing into the foreground; to build up a knowledge base of such writing; and to provide a forum and a platform for women’s writing on a range of issues. The Kali for Women publishing house was set up as a nongovernmental organization. Butalia and Menon took on editorial jobs and design and print jobs from other publishing houses to make the money for their own publishing house. The Kali for Women publishing house became an important milestone in women’s writing and publishing not only in India but also across the world. Women’s Publishing Icons The publishing house derives its name from Kali—a Hindu Goddess, who is supposed to be the epitome of power and in this sense the name is quite significant. The house publishes fiction, primers, historical,

and academic texts, besides The Kali Diary produced for United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which provides a list of women’s organizations. The publishing house has today come to be associated with names which have acquired the status of icon in the field of women’s writing/publishing. Gita Sen, Nayantara Sahgal, Vandana Shiva, and Urvashi Butalia are some of the names published by Kali for Women. The house keeps pace with the latest developments in women’s issues and trends in women’s studies. It is one publishing house that was not tempted by the profits that it could make in the Western markets. It was in the Indian tradition that Kali for Women was based. In an e-mail interview Butalia emphasized Kali’s focus on globalizing what was considered parochial: “So along with foregrounding women’s voices, reflecting their thinking, building a knowledge base, we also wanted to reverse the flow of information that has traditionally been from countries of the north to the south. We thought it was time to say and show that we can do this as well, and to put our books out there with everyone else’s books, and let them take the place they deserved.” The publishing house broke up in 2003, with Menon and Butalia splitting up. With the growing change in the publishing scenario, the need for expansion was felt by both of the partners. For almost 20 years this publishing house served the cause of Indian women without any other precedent and left many successors including its own offshoots in Zubaan and Women 807

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Unlimited begun by Butalia and Menon, respectively. It is to be acknowledged, however, that Kali set a trend in India and today even mainstream publishers are increasingly turning to publishing women’s writing in India and elsewhere. The objective that Kali began with has been accomplished and once the target was achieved bifurcation/diversification was certainly the need of the day. See Also: Feminist Publishing; India; Journalists, Print Media; Women’s Magazines; Women’s Review of Books; Women’s Studies. Further Readings Butalia, U. et al. Making a Difference: Feminist Publishing in the South. Chestnut Hill, MA: Bellagio Publishing Network Research and Information Center, 1995. Deonandan, Ray. “Kali for Women: Feminist Publishing in India.” IndiaStar: A Literary-Art Magazine, http://www .indiastar.com/deonandan.html (accessed May 2010). Zubaan, an Imprint of Kali for Women. “From Kali to Zubaan.” http://www.zubaanbooks.com/zubaan_profile .asp?TxtFile=Kali2Zubaan (accessed May 2010). Asha Choubey MJP Rohilkhand University

Karpinski, Janis Brigadier General Janis Karpinski of the U.S. Army Reserves came into the public eye with the release of photographs depicting a series of humiliation techniques apparently used on male Arabic prisoners in two cell blocks of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. The entire prison facility, along with 16 others, was nominally under the leadership of General Karpinski, who was later (in 2005) demoted to Colonel and asked to resign from the U.S. Army Reserves. As the officer of record for the prison, she was reprimanded by the Army and by the George W. Bush administration, while seven of the Military Police under her command were convicted of misconduct: most notably Lynndie England, who received a threeyear prison term, and Charles Graner, who was sentenced to 10 years. But as the story unfolded, it was clear that the orders that resulted in these practices,

and many others that violated the terms of the Geneva Convention, came from much higher levels. Ms. Karpinski’s name gradually came to light. While some spoke out in defense of her personnel, others involved were considered “‘a few bad apples.” Even before more complete details of higher-level collusion were revealed, many questioned how such an otherwise successful, career military officer could have allowed the abuses “on her watch.” What emerged was a much more disturbing story. Military History Ms. Karpinski, born May 25, 1953, in Rahway, New Jersey, was one of six children of Nelson Arthur and Ruth (Sorenson) Beam, and grew up in a conservative, Republican family. She was interested in a military career at an early age, but didn’t actualize this interest until she completed a B.A. in teaching and met and married George Frank Karpinski in 1974. The couple decided to join the Army together in order to travel and to receive the government incentives offered to married couples and women. She completed officer training school and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant U.S. Army in 1977, advancing through the ranks to Captain by 1981. She was assigned to intelligence in Mannheim, Germany, and between 1985 and 1986 was commander of the military police at Fort McPherson, Georgia. She resigned from the regular Army in 1987 and joined the U.S. Army Reserve. She continued to receive security and intelligence assignments until 1991 and the onset of the Persian Gulf War, when she returned to the regular Army and a post in Saudi Arabia. For this service, she received a Bronze Star. She also worked in the United Arab Emirates helping to set up military training programs for Arab women in the Gulf region, and served as a commander of the 160th military police battalion in Tallahassee, Florida. By the time the Iraqi War began, she returned to the Reserves and was made a Brigadier General, and oversaw a prison reconstruction program in Baghdad in 2003. General Karpinski, at that time, oversaw the Army Reserves’ 800th Military Police in Iraq, with responsibility for 17 prisons and 3,400 security personnel (Abu Ghraib and its military police among them). England, Graner, and the other security personnel charged in the Abu Ghraib incidents worked under her. However, the personnel in charge of the cell blocks where the

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violations of the Geneva Conventions took place did not. They were under the leadership of General Geoffrey Miller, formerly of the Guantánamo Bay facility. Scapegoat or Criminal In Karpinski’s book, she reveals that Army policy toward the Reserves was probably responsible for the fact that she received only a small portion of the funds necessary to carry out her responsibility of refurbishing prisons that had been looted by Hussein’s forces before they left. She also noted a major disparity in the number of security personnel assigned to guard a population of over 7,000 prisoners. Within months after she nominally took over the supervision of the prisons used by the United States for prisoners of war and political prisoners, the shocking photographs of abuse were shown around the world. There is evidence that her superiors knew about them long before she did, and that they occurred between October and December 2003. By this time, Karpinski was no longer actually in command of Abu Ghraib. Major General Antonio Taguba filed a report in February 2004, and CBS’s 60 Minutes ran the story, complete with photographs, on April 29, 2004. What seemed most memorable about the photographs, as discussed in Tara McKelvey’s book, One of the Boys, are the pictures of women like England participating in often sexually explicit humiliation. Ms. Karpinski charges that superiors in the regular U.S. Army set her up as a scapegoat to conceal a vast number of abuses, and that in fact many of the practices meant to break down prisoners for later interrogations were a normal part of military intelligence, sanctioned at least up to the level of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. There was enough substance to her allegations that she was not convicted of a crime. Ms. Karpinski, currently a business consultant specializing in training women for management, has continued to protest the characterization of both herself and her soldiers after her resignation. She has presented information on policies sanctioned by the Bush administration under the guise that the prisoners under question were terrorists and thus not entitled to any legal protections, a battle that is still being fought after Bush has left office. Ms. Karpinski, associated around the world with Abu Ghraib, is also known for her attempts to publicize the treatment and inequali-

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ties experienced by women in the military, and for her efforts to end mistreatment of Arabic prisoners. In addition to a great number of public appearances, interviews, and news reports, her book One Woman’s Army describes her career along with details of Abu Ghraib and larger issues of prisoner abuse. See Also: Abu Ghraib; Conflict Zones; Ehrenreich, Barbara; Iraq; Islam; Military, Women in the; Military Leadership, Women in; Military Stationed in Muslim Countries. Further Readings Cohn, Marjorie. “Abu Ghraib General Lambastes Bush Administration.” Interview with Janis Karpinski, August 3, 2005. U.S. Labor Against the War. http:// www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=9002 (accessed June 2010). Democracy Now. “Col. Janis Karpinski, The Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the Geneva Conventions.” Interview with Janis Karpinski (October 26, 2005). http://www.democracynow.org/2005/10/26 /col_janis_karpinski_the_former_head (accessed June 2010). Karpinski, Janis. One Woman’s Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story. New York; Miramax Books, 2005. Mazetti, Mark, et. al. “Inside the Iraq Prison Scandal.” U.S. News and World Report, v.136/18 (2004). McKelvey, T., ed. One of the Guys, Women as Aggressors and Torturers. Jackson, TN: Seal Press, 2007. Janice M. Bogstad University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

Kazakhstan Adjacent to the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world, with 16 million residents. The country became part of the Russian and then Soviet empires, and became host to the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons testing during the height of the Cold War. In 1991, Kazakhstan was the last country to declare its independence from the former Soviet block and its former leader. In 2007, Parliament gave the president lifetime power and privileges. The

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USAID helped the Yassy community in southern Kazakhstan build an irrigation system to benefit residents. Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world and has 16 million residents.

country is ethnically and culturally very diverse, in large part due to Stalin’s deportation of various ethnic groups that migrated to Kazakhstan. While the country has an oil industry, the transition to capitalism has been challenging. Violence and Sex Trafficking The status of women in Kazakhstan has decreased in large part due to the economic stagnation after the fall of the Soviet Union. While women have equal rights under the law, the reemergence of old gender ideas and the capitalist economy have undermined the status of women. The end of communism also meant the end of government childcare and state-run businesses which hired women. In the new market economy, women earn a third less than men on average. Increased childcare costs and decreased wages have plunged women into poverty. Women have tried to redefine their economic lives, and now make up 80 percent of

the country’s market vendors. Women made up 46 percent of the overall labor force, primarily in healthcare and social services, or traditionally pink collar jobs. While women have equal access to education, they are limited in their economic opportunities. Violence against women is a national problem. While Kazakhstan adopted domestic violence laws in 1999, which included an action plan on improving the status of women, there is little enforcement in place. The nation has criminalized rape in all forms, including spousal rape; however, the United Nations estimates that 60 percent of women experience some form of domestic violence. The Commission on Gender Issues has estimated that more than 30,000 women file complaints each year, but that 40 percent of domestic violence cases were unreported. Violence and poverty contribute to increased prostitution, sexual harassment and sex trafficking, all of which have become serious problems. Young women are pressured to enter the sex trade because of severe

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poverty and orphans are kidnapped or forced into prostitution. The Kazakhstan sex trade has been growing over the last two decades. The transition to capitalism and subsequent economic collapse have negatively impacted the status of women. Poverty has increased the sex trade and violence against women. While laws to protect women exist, there is no enforcement. However, Kazakhstan did adopt the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and has developed a plan to address women’s issues. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Prostitution in Combat Zones; Rape and HIV; Russia. Further Readings Aitken, Jonathan. Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan: From Communism to Capitalism. London: Continuum Press, 2009. Olcott, Martha Brill. Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002. Schatz, Edward. Modern Clan Politics: The Power of “Blood” in Kazakhstan and Beyond. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

Kenya Kenya, a sub-Saharan, East African country, has a total population of 39 million. Women make up roughly 49 percent of the population, with an average life expectancy of 49 years. The acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic affects life expectancy and infant mortality and lowers population growth. Women’s equality is hindered by two key obstacles: poverty (50 percent of the Kenyan population lives below the poverty line) and traditionalism. Women represent 75 percent of the agricultural workforce but make an average monthly income two-thirds less than men. Violence against women, including domestic violence between intimate part-

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ners, is a primary concern for many African-ethnic women. Traditional custom allows spousal discipline against women, and there is currently no law against spousal rape. There are also high rates of child rape and molestation, and girls younger than 14 years who are assaulted are not categorized as rape victims but, rather, labeled as “defiled.” In addition, female genital mutilation afflicts approximately 50 percent of Kenyan women. Other traditions more prevalent in rural areas, increasing the discrimination against women living in these regions, include requirements such as requesting a husband’s consent for national identification and passports. Women also cannot inherit land and live on family property only by the request and permission of her in-laws. Seventy percent of the illiterate population in Kenya is composed of women. Even with free primary education, eliminating poverty as an obstacle, a girl’s education is hindered by additional factors—girls often leave school to prepare family meals, a nationwide lack of sanitary pads means many school-age girls stay home when menstruating, and the schools are in need of more restrooms for the students. Many girls cannot afford school uniforms or must wear secondhand uniforms, which is seen as a source of shame. Schools also permit bullying by boys— another circumstance that may keep a girl from attending—and when faced with a choice between sending a son or daughter to school, boys are favored over girls. Other traditions mark a girl’s exit from school, including female genital mutilation and adolescent marriage. Finally, family cases of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) may require girls to stay home and care for their ailing parents or siblings, work to offset family debt and provide income for sustenance, or divert funds to medical bills resulting from the disease. Girls are shown to be three times more likely to contract HIV and are more often coerced into engaging in sexual intercourse with older men— often their teachers. Kenyan Women in Politics Women are just starting to take a more prevalent role in politics, including at the university level. However, despite their ability to participate, women are still

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A young Maasai woman with a baby on her back helping an older woman loading a donkey with water cans from a well in a very arid region of Kenya. The Maasai live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.

subjected to discrimination such as campaign posters being removed, intimidation, and physical abuse. At the higher levels of government, there are efforts under way to pass laws guaranteeing women a specific number of seats in Parliament. At last count, 13 of 210 Parliament seats were held by women—the highest number in Kenya’s history. See Also: Educational Opportunities/Access; Female Genital Surgery, Types of Forum for African Women Educationalists; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Reproductive Rights. Further Readings Human Rights Watch. “Double Standards.” http://www .hrw.org/en/reports/2003/03/03/double-standards (accessed June 2010). Mbilinyi, M. “Women Studies and the Crisis in Africa.” Social Scientist, v.13/10–11 (1985).

Nelson, D. “Problems of Power in a Plural Society: Asians in Kenya.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, v.28/3 (1972). O’Connor, E. “Contrasts in Educational Development in Kenya and Tanzania.” African Affairs, v.73/290 (1974). Silliman, J. and Y. King. Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development. Cambridge, MA: South End, 1999. Stromquist, N. “Women and Illiteracy: The Interplay of Gender Subordination and Poverty.” Comparative Education Review, v.34/1 (1990). Wojcicki, J. M. “Socioeconomic Status as a Risk Factor for HIV Infection for Women in East, Central and Southern Africa: A Systematic Review.” Journal of Biosocial Science, v.37/1 (2005). Jennifer Jaffer Independent Scholar



Kim, Yu-Na Yu-Na Kim is a figure skating champion from South Korea. She is most known for her impressive scores and for breaking the world record in figure skating at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada— the first medal in figure skating for South Korea. Those in the world of figure skating have claimed that her fiercest rivalry is with Mao Asada of Japan, whom she beat at the 2010 Winter Olympics but lost to at the 2010 World Figure Skating Championships. In April 2010, the International Skating Union ranked Kim first in the world of figure skating. At that time, she also held the record for the short program, free-skating program, and the combined total. Being the first female skater to move past 200 points is also an honor that she has earned. In South Korea, Kim has received various endorsement deals and is the public face of products from mobile phones to fabric softeners. Born in Bucheon, South Korea, on September 5, 1990, Kim began figure skating at the age of 7. Her first coach, Ryu Jong-Hyeon, saw great potential in her and predicted that she would one day be a skating champion. The Triglav Trophy in Italy was the site of her first competition in 2002, at which she won gold in the novice category. At the age of 12 she became the youngest person to win the South Korean Figure Skating Championships. She continued to compete nationally and internationally, defending her titles at such competitions as the World Junior Figure Skating Championships, Junior Grand Prix, World Championships, and Four Continents Championships. In 2006, Kim began training in Toronto, Canada, at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club. She moved to the country in 2007. In the Grand Prix Final competitions, Kim won the gold medal twice and the silver once. In the Four Continents Championships, she brought home the gold. In the World Championships, she has won the bronze medal twice and the silver and gold once each. In addition, in the Winter Olympics she won the gold while setting a world record. Kim is most known for her bent-leg layover, jump combinations, speed, artistry, and grace on the ice. Even before competing at the Winter Olympics, Kim was a millionaire as a result of her many endorsement deals in South Korea—at one time, Forbes esti-

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mated her as having made over $8 million in endorsements alone. She received intense scrutiny from her home country before the Olympics, with many hoping that she would live up to the fanfare already given her before the games began. The pressure of competing and defending her numerous records has led Kim to question whether or not to continue competing or turn professional. She has indicated an interest in eventually pursuing her education at university and studying sports psychology. See Also: Figure Skating; Olympics, Winter; South Korea. Further Readings Judd, R. The Winter Olympics: An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, Lore and Events of the Games. Seattle, WA: Mountaineers Books, 2009. Milton, Steve. Figure Skating’s Greatest Stars. Richmond Hill, Canada: Firefly Books, 2009. Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University

Kirchner, Cristina Fernández de Cristina Fernández de Kirchner became president of Argentina in 2007, the first woman to be elected to that office. She is also the wife of Nestor Kirchner, her immediate predecessor as president. Some critics say that she owes her victory to her husband’s immense popularity, but Cristina Kirchner brought nearly two decades of political experience to the office, having served as both a provincial and national legislator, and a reputation as an advocate for human rights and women’s issues. She also was among her husband’s most influential advisers during his tenure as Argentina’s head of state. Kirchner is often compared to Eva Peron and Hillary Clinton, and, like them, her appearance and personal life often generate more press than her political activities. Political Crusader Cristina Elizabeth Fernández was born in 1953 in La Plata, near Buenos Aires, and was the daughter of a bus driver and a homemaker. She became active in the youth branch of the Peronist movement as a

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student in the early 1970s. It was then that she met Nestor Kirchner, who was also a law student and activist. The couple married in 1975. A year later they moved to Nestor Kirchner’s home province of Santa Cruz where they ran a successful law practice. She was first elected to the provincial legislature as a member of the Peronist Justicialist party in 1989, a feat she repeated in 1993. She was elected to the Senate in 1995, and again in 2001 and 2005. During her first term as senator, she became a vocal critic of President Carlos Menem, appearing on political talk shows to attack his economic policies. When she returned to the Senate in 2001, she furthered her reputation as a crusader against government corruption and for social and economic justice. Nestor Kirchner’s election to the presidency in 2003 meant that Cristina Kirchner had dual responsibilities. Sources report that her husband made few decisions without soliciting her opinion. She used her influence in the Senate to consolidate the administration’s policies. When candidates to succeed Nestor Kirchner were named, his wife was among them, and she quickly emerged as the leading candidate. Cristina Kirchner won the general election in October 2007 with 45.3 percent of the vote, well ahead of her closest competitor. Argentina’s “Latin Hillary” Comparison to the famed Evita is inevitable for female politicians in Argentina, and Kirchner’s travels and glamour led easily to Peron comparisons, as did her oratory skills. Kirchner has also been termed the “Latin Hillary.” Like Hillary Clinton, she met her husband while they were law school students, helped her husband fulfill his political ambitions as governor of a small southern state, and, against the odds, as president of his country. She ran for the presidency after proving herself as a politically powerful senator. Kirchner’s presidential popularity has been threatened by inflation and accusations of corruption. The ruling Peronist Party lost control of Congress in midterm elections that many see as a referendum on the presidency. Journalists continue to write about her designer clothing and speculate about her having plastic surgery, but her insistence of sovereignty over the Falklands has the approval of more than 80 percent of Argentineans and the unanimous support of

other Latin American countries. She cannot succeed herself as president, but some prognosticators remain convinced that Cristina Kirchner will be Argentina’s once and future president. See Also: Argentina; Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Heads of State, Female; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Bevins, Vincent. “Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: A Profile of the Argentinian President.” http://www .newstatesman.com/south-america/2010/03/kirch ner-malvinas-president (accessed March 2010). Levitsky, Steven, and María Victoria Murillo. “Argentina: From Kirchner to Kirchner.” Journal of Democracy, v.19/2 (2008). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Kiribati Formerly the Gilbert Islands, Kiribati ended its history as a British protectorate in 1979. The islands, which include 33 separate Pacific coral atolls, are still largely agricultural, and 56 percent of the population live in rural areas, although the service industry (66.8 percent) provides the lion’s share of Kiribati’s Gross National Product. The per capita income is approximately $5,300, but the islands are heavily dependent on financial aid from the European Union, the United States, Australia, and other countries as well as on remittances from I-Kiribati (Kiribati citizens) who work abroad. Kiribati has long been a patriarchal society, with well-defined roles for women and men. In recent decades, the government has made a conscious effort to remove barriers that have historically limited women, and Kiribati joined the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2004. Ethnically, Kiribati is homogeneous, and 98.8 percent of the population are Micronesian. The people are more diverse religiously, however. More than half of the residents are Roman Catholic, and another 40 percent are Protestants. English is still the official language.

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In response to a changing economy and the conscious effort to address inequities, women are now entering the workforce in large numbers. By 1990, 60.9 percent of women were in the workforce, but most of them labored in low-paying unskilled and semiskilled positions. In 1999, women broke down the barrier that had shut them out of politics by electing the first female to Parliament. By 2008, there were two women in the 45-member legislature, and a number of women were serving as permanent government secretaries. The median age for females in Kiribati is 21.3 years. With a total infant mortality rate of 43.48 deaths per 1,000 live births, female infants (38.36) have a distinct edge over male infants (48.35) that continues throughout their lives, resulting in a female life expectancy of 66.45 years as compared to 60.14 for males. Kiribati ranks 46th in the world in fertility, and women give birth to an average of 4.04 children each. Both females and males stay in school for 12 years. There are no laws against sex discrimination, but women do have full rights of inheritance and property ownership. Domestic violence is considered a serious problem in Kiribati society, but it is often dealt with only by community censure. Rape laws exist and are enforced when necessary. Contrary to husbands who marry noncitizens, I-Kiribati wives cannot confer citizenship on foreign husbands. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Property Rights. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “World Factbook: Kiribati.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/kr.html (accessed February 2010). Ottis, Ginger. “Women in the House.” Ms. Magazine (February–March 2000). United States Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Kiribati.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hr rpt/2008/eap/119042.htm (accessed February 2010). WIN News. “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997; Kiribati.” WIN News, v.24/2 (Spring 1998). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

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Kngwarreye, Emily Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c. 1910–96) was an Aboriginal artist from Utopia in the remote desert region of Australia’s Northern Territory. Her exact date of birth is uncertain, but she was in her late 70s when she began painting on canvas, creating a phenomenal number of artworks in the eight years before her death. Untutored in the techniques of Western art, she nevertheless produced works that have been compared to such masters as Monet and Kandinsky. Many art critics consider her to be one of the greatest abstract artists of the 20th century. For the greater part of her life, Kngwarreye lived the ordinary life of a woman among the Anmatyerre, who had lived on their traditional lands for thousands of years. Kngwarreye participated in awelye, the ancient ceremonies for women that utilized body painting. Kngwarreye’s first art was the designs painted on breasts, shoulders, and neck, using ground ochre to form the linear and curved lines that she would later use in her paintings. The designs relate to the individual woman’s “Dreaming.” For women, Dreaming was connected to fertility and their traditional roles as nurturers and food gatherers. After Kngwarreye achieved fame as an artist, her response to questions about her work never varied: her painting was “whole lot, everything.” It was about her Dreaming, her land, her people, the essence of the world she knew. New Style Develops From Traditional Body Markings In 1977, as part of an adult literacy course for the women of Utopia, a batik-making fabric workshop was begun. Kngwarreye was a founding member of the group. She adapted the traditional body markings of the awelye and her perceptions of the land itself to the batik fabric. When the group began working with acrylics on canvas, she found the medium most suited to her bold use of color. Her first canvas, Emu woman 1988–89, reproduced on the cover of The Summer Project catalog for the exhibition at the S. H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney in 1989, attracted much attention. In 1990, she had two one-woman shows. Within three years, her art had been shown in more than 50 exhibitions throughout the world. Between 1989 and her death on September 2, 1996,

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she completed more than 3,000 paintings. Galleries and private collectors purchased her work for substantial amounts. However, Kngwarreye continued to live a largely traditional life as a senior law woman of her people and uses her income to support her community. A major retrospective of her work traveled to galleries throughout Australia in the late 1990s, and in 2007, Earth’s Creation sold for $1,056,000, breaking the record for work by an indigenous artist. In 2008, an exhibition of Kngwarreye’s paintings in Japan drew more than 130,000 people in what had been called the largest single-artist exhibition to travel internationally from Australia. The same exhibit, valued at more than $130 million, appeared at the National Museum of Australia later the same year. Hailed as a genius, Kngwarreye is difficult to categorize. Some insist she should be viewed solely as an aboriginal artist. Others see her through the lens of abstract impressionism. Margo Neale, curator at the National Museum of Australia, suggests both views are limiting. She terms Kngwarreye a hybrid artist whose power is greater than labels. See Also: Art Criticism: Gender Issues; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Australia; Australian Aboriginal Artists. Further Readings Bates, Elizabeth. “Emily Kame Kngwarreye.” http://www .dreamweb.nl/emilyengels.htm (accessed March 2010). Caruana, Wally. Aboriginal Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. Neale, Margo, ed. Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2008. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Ku Klux Klan First established in the 1860s, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a right-wing white protestant American organization that seeks to preserve the purity and supremacy of white Christian America. Jews, African Americans, immigrants, and homosexuals are

regarded by the KKK as threats to this mission, and its activities have included propaganda, protests, and violence against these groups during its various waves of activity. The KKK continues to exist today, albeit in a diminished and fragmented form. However, Klan activity is believed to be increasing in a backlash to economic instability and perceived threats to white Christian values. Female Roles The position of women within the KKK has shifted during key waves of Klan activity. The KKK has traditionally been a male-dominated organization, but it has occupied a contradictory position in relation to women, both reinforcing traditional female roles and gradually recognizing the benefits of attracting women members. During its first wave (1860s to 1870s), women were excluded from joining, with the emphasis being the development of a brotherhood of white Christian men. The second wave of KKK activity, which began in 1915, led to the establishment of the Women’s Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) in 1923. Through forming the WKKK, the KKK sought to bolster support by capitalizing on women’s recently granted suffrage. According to Kathleen Blee, the WKKK attracted an estimated half a million women in the 1920s. It had little involvement with the violent racism for which the KKK was infamous, but instead employed tactics such as boycotting and discrediting non-white, and particularly Jewish, individuals and businesses. According to Blee, the KKK viewed the WKKK as its auxiliary force, yet WKKK leaders challenged this subordinate position by advocating women’s empowerment and rights, without undermining women’s reproductive and homemaker roles. Collectively, both movements have played a major role in fueling racist beliefs and acts across America. Amid leadership struggles and the exposure of corruption in the KKK, the WKKK had largely dissolved by the end of the 1920s. The KKK in Today’s Society The contemporary KKK is a disparate collection of competing Klans. Klan organizations rarely release membership numbers, but the Anti-Defamation League estimate that there are 5,000 members across at least 40 different Klan groups. Most Klans now claim

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to be nonviolent and law-abiding, although the secret practices of some Klan groups were exposed following the murder of Cynthia Lynch when she attempted to leave a Klan initiation rite in Louisiana in 2008. Most contemporary Klan organizations are open to men and women, with no separate women’s organization. Kathleen Blee’s study of women in organized racism finds that although the rhetoric of Klan organizations may portray women as equal, core responsibilities and leadership positions remain largely inaccessible to them. An exception is The Knights Party, Arkansas, which declares itself the most genderinclusive Klan and has a separate minisite for women on their Website, an online television program for women, and a high-ranking female spokeswoman, Rachel Pendergraft. See Also: Political Ideologies; Religion, Women in; White Supremacy. Further Readings Anti-Defamation League. “About the Ku Klux Klan.” http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/kkk/default .asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat =Extremism_in_America&xpicked=4&item=kkk (accessed December 2009). Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Ferber, Abby L. ed. Home-Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism. New York: Routledge, 2004. Wade, Wyn Craig. The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Rebecca Barnes University of Derby

Kumari, Living Goddess in Nepal Kumari is a living virgin goddess worshipped in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. The living kumari is a young prepubescent girl who is chosen in an elaborate process similar to that of Tibetan lamas, after which the Nepalese believe the goddesses Taleju or Durga inhabits her body. Taleju is the protective god-

Kumari Devi, one of Nepal’s virgin “Living Goddesses,” photographed in Kathmandu in 2007.

dess of the country and its ruler. The kumari is worshipped as the goddess and honored in the annual Indra Jaatra harvest festival. The kumari tradition originated from the unique Nepalese interplay of the Hindu and Vajrayana Buddhist religions. There are various kumari in Nepal, but the most significant is the Kumari Devi (Raj Kumari) of Kathmandu. Senior Vajracharya Buddhist priests select the true kumari from young girls of the Shakya Buddhist clan of the Newar community in the Kathmandu Valley. Only girls with excellent health who have shed no blood are considered. The girls are then checked for the 32 perfections of a goddess, known as battis lakshanas, including physical characteristics such as hair and eye color and voice quality. A potential kumari’s horoscope must be compatible with the king’s, and her family must be devoted to him. Those girls who have the necessary attributes then enter a darkened room

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and observe a series of frightening rituals designed to test their character. The true kumari will show calm fearlessness. She must then be able to identify her predecessor’s clothing and jewelry. The selected kumari is cleansed through tantric rituals and inhabited by the goddess. Her feet must never touch the ground. She resides in the Khumari Ghar (Khumari Chowk), a three-story brick palace located in Kathmandu’s Hanuman Dhoka (Durbar) Square. King Jaya Prakash Malla built the palace in 1757. Legend claims that he had angered a kumari and built her the palace as atonement. People visit the Khumari Ghar to view its intricate carvings and try to glimpse the kumari as she occasionally appears at the palace windows. Her days are spent studying and performing religious rituals. During the Indra Jaatra harvest festival of late August or early September, the kumari appears on the third day to travel through the streets of Kathmandu in a chariot. Thousands gather to worship her. She also blesses the king by placing a mark known as a tika on his forehead. The Nepalese government pays for her expenses, as well as those of her caretakers. Once a kumari either begins menstruation or bleeds in any way, she is no longer considered a kumari and is expected to leave the palace and return to everyday life. A new kumari is quickly chosen. Former kumari often have a difficult time adjusting because they receive no education while serving and because of the traditional belief that a man who marries a former kumari will die young. They receive a small pension from the Nepalese government. See Also: Buddhism; Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints; Hinduism; Nepal. Further Readings Allen, Michel. The Cult of Kumari: Virgin Worship in Nepal. Kathmandu, Nepal: Mandala Book Point, 1996. Majupuria, Indra and Patricia Roberts. Living Virgin Goddess Kumari: Her Worship, Fate of Ex-Kumaris, and Sceptical Views. Gwalior, India: M.D. Gupta, 1993. Shakya, Rashmila and Scott Berry. From Goddess to Mortal: The True-Life Story of a Former Royal Kumari. Kathmandu, Nepal: Vajra, 2005. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Kuwait Kuwait is a Muslim country located in the Middle East. Forty-five percent of the nation’s citizens classify themselves as Kuwaitis, and 35 percent as Arabs. After several decades as a British protectorate, Kuwait achieved independence in 1961. With a per capita income of $55,800, Kuwait is the seventh richest country in the world. Ninety-eight percent of the population live in urban areas, and more than 99 percent of the workforce are engaged in either service or industry. Kuwait is ranked 31st on the United Nations Development Programme list of countries with very high human development. As a major and strategically located oil-producing nation, Kuwait forged alliances with key Western nations and organizations, notably the United States. In 1991 when Iraq attacked the small nation, the United Nation’s went to Kuwait’s defense. Both male and female Kuwaitis also responded to the call for duty, and female recruits, who served without pay, outnumbered male servicemen. The cost of that four-day siege has been estimated at $5 billion. Since that time, the government has become more open to individual rights, and the legislature has begun asserting itself. Women in Kuwait Kuwait is highly traditional in its approach to women but the Kuwait–Iraq conflict helped open some doors for women. Kuwaiti women finally won the right to vote in 2005, and four women were elected to the National Assembly in 2009. These gains were tempered by the insistence of Islamic legislators that a clause be added to the suffrage language, requiring women to abide by Islamic law. Social indicators reveal that the median age for females is 22.7 years. Kuwait has an infant mortality rate of 8.97 deaths per 1,000 live births, and the country ranks 160th in the world in this area. The life expectancy of females is 78.96 years compared to 76.51 years for males. The fertility rate is 2.76 children per woman. Female literacy has been on the upswing in recent decades, rising from 59 percent in 1991 to 91 percent in 2005. Both males and females generally have at least 12 years of school, but females now outnumber males in higher education. However, wages for females lag far behind those of males. In 2005, for

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instance, the estimated earned income for females was $12,623 as compared to $36,403 for males. Violence and Women’s Rights Foreign-born women who live in Kuwait are particularly vulnerable to violence, and a number of Filipino maids have been raped and/or physically abused. Although many victims are afraid to come forward, some who do have been able to obtain justice. The Filipino, Indian and Sri Lankan embassies have frequently provided shelter to victims of domestic abuse from their individual countries. Wives, particularly those who are foreign born, also are frequently the victims of domestic abuse. Reports on such cases suggest that violence occurs in 15 percent of Kuwaiti marriages, and 60 percent of those involve wives who are not Kuwaiti citizens. Despite important gains in women’s rights, Kuwait continues to restrict women’s lives in a number of ways. Wives are required to obey their husbands, and they need their husbands’ permission to obtain passports. Citizenship is passed to children through the father, and women’s testimony is not given equal weight in courts. Inheritance laws are based on Islamic law, often limiting women’s property rights. Although 28 percent of women of working age are employed, employment opportunities are restricted, and women are banned from occupations that are considered dangerous or unhealthy. Women are forbidden to marry non-Islamic men, and women who marry foreigners are required to pay residence fees for them. Polygamy continues to flourish, but males are required to notify their first wives and provide them with separate residences at the first wife’s request. In 2005, in response to resistance to an AmericanIdol–type television show in which male and female teenagers competed against one another, the government banned all forms of entertainment that included women singing, dancing, or entertaining audiences. See Also: Domestic Violence; Equal Pay; Infant Mortality; Islam; Military, Women in. Further Readings Keddie, N. R. Women in the Middle East: Past and Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women. “Kuwait.” http://www.niew.gov.my/niew/index.php?option=com

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docman&task=cat_view&gid=105&Itemid=60&lang=en (accessed February 2010). Nour, Al-Falah. “No Going Backward.” Gender Watch, v.1/6 (May 1991. Priya, Verma, et al. “Kuwait: Women Gain Political Rights.” Off Our Backs, v.35/5–6 (May–June 2005). Stachowski, R., et al. “Kuwait: Ban on Women Performers.” Off Our Backs, v.34/7–8 (July–August 2004). “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1998; Kuwait.” WIN News, v.25 (Spring 1999). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country in central Asia, founded in 840 c.e. The nation became part of the Mongol Empire in the 12th century, and was absorbed into the Soviet Union in the early 20th century. It is a mountainous region bordered by China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. During the fall of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan became an independent, democratic republic. However, independence did not bring stability, as the country has suffered from political, cultural, and economic tumult. The government is secular, but the population is 75 percent Muslim and 20 percent Russian Orthodox. As fundamentalism spread in the area, tensions increased over asserting Islamic law. Although Kyrgyzstan received financial backing from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the country has suffered economic hard times, which has exacerbated the country’s problems with organized crime. In 2005–06, four Members of Parliament were assassinated. Two-thirds of the 5.2 million residents live in rural areas, and 34 percent of the population are under the age of 18, which further destabilizes the country. Equality for Women Legally, women faired well under the communist government, with equal rights. Kyrgyzstan also has a history of female equality, as its early nomadic societies had women working as equals alongside men. However, with the reintroduction of capitalism and

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After an exchange program in the United States, a woman in Kyrgyzstan formed her own organization, Atyn Kol, with the marketing skills she learned. The women are shown preparing wool for handmade carpets.

religious fundamentalism, many patriarchal attitudes reemerged, especially in the countryside. Women also earn considerably less than men. Women in Kyrgyzstan are better off than their sisters in other central Asian countries, but culture and tradition are limiting their full equality. Women do have a political voice in Kyrgyzstan. They have the right to vote, and females comprise 23 of the 75 Members of Parliament. In addition, women hold prominent national positions, such as ministers of Finance, Education and Science, Labor and Social Development, and Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court. Legally, women have the same rights as men, and there are laws against sexual harassment, violence, rape, and spousal rape. However, culturally, violence against women is ignored, and very few women press charges. It is estimated that 40 to 60 percent of the crimes against women

involve domestic violence. The tradition of forced marriages or “bridal kidnapping” is illegal, but in wide practice, especially in rural areas. With the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, there have been recent efforts to decriminalize polygamy. In 2007, the president signed a law to achieve equal rights, asserting that it “establishes state guarantees in terms of providing equal rights and opportunities for persons of various sexes in political, social, economic, cultural, and other fields . . . and aims to protect men and women against discrimination on the basis of sex.” With such legal assurances, the women of Kyrgyzstan need to address the culture of patriarchy, which prevents the enforcement of such guarantees. See Also: China; Marriages, Arranged; Polygamy, CrossCulturally Considered; Russia.

Further Readings Abazov, Rafiz. The Kyrgyzs: A Modern History (Central Asian Studies). London: Routledge, 2010. Bauer, Armin, et al. Women and Gender Relations: The Kyrgyz Republic in Transition. Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 1997. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Kyrgyzstan.” https://www.cia.gov/library/pub

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lications/the-world-factbook/geos/kg.html (accessed July 2010). Khalid, Adeeb. Islam After Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

L LaDuke, Winona Winona LaDuke is a Native American writer, environmentalist, professor, and activist. She is part of the Anishinabe tribe, one of the largest tribes in North America. LaDuke’s work primarily focuses on recovering land for the Anishinabe people. She was the vice presidential candidate on the Green party ticket with Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000. LaDuke is the founder and director of the White Earth Recovery Land Project and the founder and cochair of the Indigenous Women’s Network. She has received numerous awards and is known internationally for her commitment to American Indian people. LaDuke was born in Los Angeles, California, to an Anishinabe father and Jewish mother. At a young age she moved to Ashland, Oregon, where she was raised. At the age of 18 she was the youngest person to ever address the United Nations, speaking on issues facing Indian peoples. She went to Harvard University and earned a degree in Rural Economic Development and later earned her master’s degree from Antioch University in Community Economic Development. Although she worked for a time as a high school principal on the Anishinabe White Earth reservation in Minnesota, she soon realized that her work was in land recovery for her people. LaDuke worked tirelessly to recover lands rightfully owned by the Anishinabe people after an 1867 treaty agreement with the U.S. government. She was success-

ful in thousands of acres of ancestral land being bought back by her people. It was during this process that she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project—the largest reservation-based nonprofit organization in the United States. The goals of this project are land recovery, Ojibwe language preservation, environmental concerns, and cultural and agricultural sustainability. The White Earth Land Recovery Project is also the umbrella organization for Native Harvest, a program to expand the production and selling of native foods and harvests. She serves as a board member for the Trust for Public Lands Native Lands program and the Christensen Fund—organizations involved with land sustainability and cultural preservation. Current Efforts In 2010, LaDuke was the director of Honor the Earth, which was established in 1993. The primary goals of this organization are to work for a green community that is sustainable and culturally relevant, to financially support native community organizing and social justice efforts, and to push native issues and concerns from the margins to the center of political life. These goals are accomplished through the Energy Justice, Building Resilience, and Youth Leadership initiatives. Honor the Earth is also active in publishing literature that speaks to their work for native communities. There are several causes and issues with which LaDuke was concerned as the vice presidential nominee for the Green Party, and that she continues 823

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to speak to in her work as an activist. Working with Women of All Red Nations, she has brought attention to the forced sterilization of American Indian women. She has also been outspoken about the United States’ involvement in wars—she believes that the United States is a country preoccupied with war for the sake of opportunity, and not human rights. LaDuke is in favor of preferences in education and employment based on race, ethnicity, and sex; was a fierce opponent of the welfare reform bill of 1996, saying that it hurt women; and wants representation for indigenous people at the United Nations. She speaks out against environmental racism and has alleged that the federal government is responsible for dumping waste materials into Indian lands. She is also against genetic engineering of wild rice, which is a mainstay and financial revenue for Native people. LaDuke has appeared in a number of films as well, including Anthem, The Main Stream, and Skins. LaDuke has received many accolades. Most notable was her induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007. The White Earth Land Recovery Project received the International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity in 2003, LaDuke received the Human Rights Award from Reebok in 1988, she was one of 1994 Time magazine’s 50 most promising leaders, and in 1996, she was awarded the Thomas Merton Award, which is given to those who exemplify the struggle for peace and equality and work toward social justice. She also was given the Dream Maker award by the Ann Bancroft Foundation for her dedication to Native rights. In 1997, LaDuke was honored by Ms. Magazine and named Woman of the Year. LaDuke lives in Minnesota on the White Earth reservation. She is a mother to three children and a grandmother to one.

LaDuke, W. The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur, 2002.

See Also: Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Issues, Women and; Indigenous Women’s Issues.

Advocate for Women and Gays During an interview with Larry King, Gaga said, “I am a feminist.” In particular, Gaga encourages her viewers to analyze their assumptions about women. Gaga claims that most of her costumes are “a rejection of people’s views about women.” At her Video Music Awards performance in 2009, Gaga performed a portion of “Paparazzi.” By the end of the number, she was drenched in fake blood; this costume encouraged viewers to think of the damaging ways in which the media portrays women.

Further Readings LaDuke, W. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999. LaDuke, W. Last Standing Woman. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur, 1997. LaDuke, W. Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005.

Leesha M. Thrower Northern Kentucky University

Lady Gaga Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986, Lady Gaga has developed into an exuberant performer known for her lyrics, performances, videos, fashion, and sexuality. Her outrageous outfits and shocking performances often stir controversy, but Gaga hopes to be remembered as an icon and activist, primarily for women and for the gay community. Gaga’s debut album, The Fame (with songs like “Love Game,” “Poker Face,” and “Just Dance”), found international success. Her second album, The Fame Monster (which includes the hits “Bad Romance,” “Telephone,” and “Alejandro”), brought more fame. In her short career to date, Gaga has already sold over 15,000,000 records. The most controversial element of Gaga’s artistry remains her sexuality, which she flaunts openly. Rumors sparked early in Gaga’s career that she was a member of the intersex community—that she possessed both male and female reproductive organs. Gaga allowed the rumors to perpetuate as controversy and her record sales grew exponentially, before finally confronting the rumor. She revealed she had only female genitalia and accused those who participated in the rumor mongering of associating power and success strictly with men, which Gaga says, is why people unsettled by her status and influence assigned her a penis.

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her life. She promises to continue to write, perform, shock, and advocate for many years to come. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Madonna; MTV; Rock Music, Women in. Further Readings Herbert, Emily. Lady Gaga: Behind the Fame. New York: Overlook Press, 2010. Lady Gaga Interview. Larry King Live. CNN, June 1, 2010. “Lady Gaga Speech at the National Equality March—October 11, 2009.” www.youtube.com /watch?v=T1QYXHzgRw4 (accessed June 2010). Spines, Christine. “Lady Gaga Wants You.” Cosmopolitan (April 2010). Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

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Lady Gaga, perfomer and gay activist, giving a speech at the 2009 National Equality March.

Gaga serves as an advocate for the gay community. She spoke at the National Equality March in October 2009, where the audience proudly displayed signs that said “Gay for Gaga.” Gaga told protesters that speaking at the rally was the most important moment of her career. She screamed into the microphone at President Barack Obama, asking if he was listening to the pleas she and her fellow protesters made about members of the gay community receiving rights equal to those of the straight community. The following year, Time magazine named Gaga one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Concerns about Gaga’s workaholic attitude worry fans and fellow performers, who fear Gaga, like her idol Michael Jackson, may develop a substance dependency or work herself into exhaustion. A former experimenter with drugs, Gaga assures the public that her abusive behaviors are behind her and that show business saved

There are more than 100 million land mines in almost 70 countries around the world and they kill or maim approximately 26,000 people annually, inflicting physical and psychological damage to individuals, families, and communities. Seventy-five to 80 percent of land mine victims are civilians in countries at peace, the majority of them women and children in poor, rural areas. Although land mines are inexpensive to manufacture, they are extremely difficult and dangerous to remove. Women have taken leadership roles in worldwide efforts to ban their use and to aid land mine survivors through organizations such as the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). These activists argue that land mines’ limited military usefulness is countered by their great humanitarian costs. Antipersonnel land mines are often buried weapons that explode through a triggering mechanism such as a trip wire or the pressure of a person’s body weight as they walk over or near them. The modern land mine was first widely used during World War II in the mid20th century. Terrorist and rebel groups have begun making homemade land mines, known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Land mines can remain active for decades or longer. Arguments against their military use include that they violate international rules of

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warfare by their inability to distinguish between civilian and military targets and the injuries they inflict are disproportionate to military objectives for their use. Modern military technology such as motion-detection equipment further limits their usefulness. Land mines were initially developed as defensive devices aimed to maim enemy combatants, but in the late 20th century they became increasingly used as weapons with which to terrorize civilian populations. Modern land mines also began to kill increasing numbers of the soldiers they were designed to protect. Even newer “smart mines,” which have self-destruction or deactivations mechanisms, still fail or claim civilian victims. Early land mine fields were carefully marked and mapped, but technological developments such as the ability to drop mines from aircraft made careful record keeping more difficult and less likely. Natural phenomena such as weather can also cause minefield locations to shift over time. One of the main problems with land mines is their indiscriminate nature—civilians, peacekeepers, and aid workers are common victims and most are killed or injured in countries at peace. Injuries caused by land mines include blindness, burns, limb injuries or losses, and shrapnel wounds. Other dangers include loss of blood, difficulty in getting the victim to medical care, inadequate medical care, amputations, and secondary infections such as gangrene. The United Nations (UN) has registered approximately 250,000 amputees worldwide. Surviving victims face long hospital stays and rehabilitation as well as ongoing physical and psychological problems. Children injured by land mines often never return to school and adult victims often struggle economically because of a lack of vocational training or other forms of support. Victims often face social exclusion and discrimination. Families who lose their main provider also struggle. Fear of the presence of mines limits community development. Communities where land mines are present often have limited or no access to farmlands, roads, waterways, and public utilities, which threatens food production and livelihoods. The presence of minefields also hinders social services and emergency relief assistance. Their presence slows the resettlement of refugees and displaced populations. Poor countries’ economies are further strained under the expense of removing land mines and caring for their victims. Public activism against land mines surged in

the 1990s. Women are among the most prominent land mine ban supporters, including the late Diana, Princess of Wales as well as Heather Mills and Queen Noor of Jordan. The ICBL, a worldwide coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) formed in 1992, is the global leader in this struggle. The group’s mission includes monitoring mine usage and removal, implementation of humanitarian programs for affected communities and survivors, promoting public awareness, and research services. They publish the annual “Landmine Monitor Report” and other information. One of the ICBL’s major accomplishments was the passage of the International Mine Ban Treaty, commonly known as the Ottawa Treaty, in the late 1990s. The group and spokesperson Jody Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize for this achievement. The activism of groups such as the ICBL has dramatically reduced global production, trade, and stockpiles of land mines, reduced the number of land mine victims, and increased humanitarian assistance for victims and land mine removal and eradication efforts. See Also: Conflict Zones; Health, Mental and Physical; International Action Network on Small Arms; Nongovernmental Organizations Worldwide. Further Readings Cameron, Maxwell A. and Robert J. Lawson. To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Monin, Lydia and Andrew Gallimore. The Devil’s Gardens: A History of Landmines. London: Pimlico, 2002. Williams, Jody, et al., eds. Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy, and Human Security. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Landscape Architecture, Women in This history of women in the field of landscape architecture has been tumultuous. Initially, women were thought to be well suited to the field because of a



natural inclination toward gardening. There were few opportunities for formal education, and most female landscape architects, including pioneer Elizabeth Bullard of Bridgeport, Connecticut, learned their craft by providing on-site assistance to male relatives or by teaching themselves. By the late 19th century, landgrant schools began offering courses in landscape design, and women, particularly those of the middle class, began to seek out advanced degrees in the field. As a result, landscape architecture became more professionalized. This professionalism was accompanied by male dominance of the field, with the result that women were marginalized. Battles With the Old Boy’s Club The field of landscape architecture underwent vast changes in the 20th century, becoming more interwoven with the related fields of art, sculpting, and architecture, and many women landscape architects began viewing themselves as artists. This stance increased tensions with conservative males of the old guard who disliked this blending of fields. In the 21st century, 34 percent of all landscape architects are female, as are half of all students in the field. Many women insist that female landscape architects continue to be denied opportunities for jobs and career advancement because of the “old boy’s club” that operates its own informal network. They insist that women frequently run into a roadblock caused by gender stereotyping, which suggests that women are not capable of meeting the requirements of modern landscape architecture. This claim was borne out in 2007 when Martha Schwartz, often considered the most prominent contemporary female landscape architect, resigned from an adjunct position at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, announcing that the program had never hired a female landscape architect into a tenured position in the 106 years of its existence because of the “entrenched sexism” of male faculty members. Some efforts have been made to address discrimination of female landscape architects. The American Society of Landscape Architects has established the Women in Landscape Professional Practice Network with the express aim of promoting “personal and professional development” for female landscape architects. In 2008, ELLE DÉCOR and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum began recognizing “outstanding

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female achievement” in the fields of architecture, communications, fashion, interior, landscape, and product design. The first annual celebration of this event took place in New York City at the Harold Pratt House. Notable Landscape Achievements Some of the women who became the most celebrated in their field in the late 20th and early 21st centuries include Martha Schwartz, Diana Balmori, and Maya Lin. Schwartz, who also has a background in fine arts, has achieved international fame through her work on such projects as the Cosmopolitan Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Children’s Discovery Centre in Damascus, Syria. Although born in Spain, Balmori spent much of her childhood in England and Argentina. She has become known for innovativeness in sustainable systems. Her works range from creating the master plan for the Abandoibarra District in Bilbao, Spain, to bringing Robert Smithson’s dream for a manmade floating island around New York City to fruition. Lin, a Chinese American, is best known for her design for Washington, D.C.’s Vietnam War Memorial, which bears the name of all 58,261 Americans who lost their lives in southeast Asia. Other celebrated female landscape architects include Nancy Goslee Power, Pamela Burton, Achva Benzinberg Stein, and Kathryn Gustafson. Best known for gardening designs, Power is the author of Power of Gardens. Burton is celebrated for her designs of urban, campus, and residential buildings; Stein, who serves as director of the Graduate Landscape Architecture Program at the School of Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture at the City College of New York, has worked around the world designing projects that focus on socially conscious urban development. American Kathryn Gustafson designed the Gardens of the Imagination in Terrasson, France, and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in London’s Hyde Park. Other women, including Angela Danadjieva and Janis Hall, have been instrumental in advancing the success of corporate landscape architecture. Struggles to Combine Work and Family Because of the perceived prejudice against women and the disinclination of males to provide flexible working situations for women who were raising families in addition to working as landscape architects, by the 1980s,

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nearly half of all women in the field eschewed large firms, choosing instead to open their own smaller enterprises. This phenomenon became known as the “big firm blues.” Many female-owned firms have achieved considerable recognition. For example, Carol R. Johnson Associates, the largest of these firms, has been involved in park design, reclamation projects, campus planning, and recreational and waterfront design. A smaller firm owned by Patricia O’Donnell has become known for cultural landscape preservation. Christy Ten Eyck, who opened her own firm in 1997 with a staff of three, now juggles numerous projects, including work on a public park in Phoenix, Arizona. Landscape architecture for women is often a collaborative project. For instance, in the design of South Cove Plaza in New York City, landscape architects Susan Child and Steven Goldberg combined efforts with environmental artist Mary Miss and architect Stanton Eckstut to produce a stunning waterfront recess along the Hudson River. See Also: Architecture, Women in; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Business, Women in; Education, Women in; Lin, Maya. Further Readings Close, Leslie Rose. “Women Landscape Designers” In Pat Kirkham, Women Designers in the USA 1900–2000. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. “ELLE DÉCOR and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Announce First ‘Women in Design’ Event.” Women’s Health Weekly (December 4, 2008). Redden, Elizabeth. “Twist on Harvard’s Gender Battles.” Inside Higher Ed. v.18 (January 2007). http://www .insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/18/harvard (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Laos The People’s Democratic Republic of Laos is located in southeast Asia, and is one of the least densely populated Asian countries. The population is multicultural, with ethnic Lao, Chinese, and Vietnamese being the

largest of the nation’s ethnic groups. Buddhism is the predominant religion. Women enjoy relatively high social status and equal constitutional rights but are expected to be subservient to men. Poverty, the sex trade, and health issues negatively impact many women’s lives. Marriage and childbirth represent a girl’s passage into adulthood. Laotians generally select their own marriage partners with parental approval. Patrilineal ethnic groups emphasize parental involvement in the process more than matrilineal ethnic groups. Dowery payments are still prevalent, and polygyny exists among some ethnic groups. The nation’s fertility rate is high at 4.41 births per woman and the infant mortality rate is 77.76 per 1,000 live births. The state generally recognizes men as heads of household for religious and political purposes. The Family Code provides for equal marriage and inheritance rights, and divorce initiated by either spouse is acceptable and not uncommon. Family Life and Social Practices Most families live in rural villages. Nuclear family households are increasingly common but also are usually located near the households of other kin. Both patrilineal and matrilineal societies exist. Most families participate in subsistence rice cultivation. There is little separation of household tasks by gender, although women generally perform the household chores. Ethnic Lao emphasize the avoidance of separation between mother and infant so the child can be fed whenever hungry. There is limited state provided childcare. Older children often assist in the care of younger children. There are government-run primary schools but they are largely inadequate. Higher education is limited and mostly obtained abroad. In 2001, the literacy rate stood at 61 percent for women and 77 percent for men. Social practices are generally guided by one’s age and gender. There is an emphasis on politeness, a resistance to outright conflict and an avoidance of public body contact, especially between members of the opposite sex. Although government liberalization in the 1990s eased many restrictions, the government still regulates many areas such as censorship of reading materials and insistence on traditional women’s dress styles. Female social and cultural status is ambiguous and changing, particularly in urban areas where traditional status and customs are often lost.

Latvia



Buddhist men’s social status is enhanced by their ability to become monks and that ability is largely credited to their mothers. Women serve as shamans and spirit mediums among practitioners of traditional ethnic Lao religions. Laos is one of the world’s most impoverished nations. Most of the population consists of rural subsistence farmers. State social welfare programs are limited. Problems include inadequate food, clean water, sanitation, drugs, prostitution, small crimes, infectious diseases, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and inadequate healthcare. Prostitution and the sex industry exploit large numbers of women despite legislation against it. Modern healthcare is limited but improving and often combined with traditional medicinal practices and herbal medicines. A social insurance system has existed since 2001 and life expectancy stands at 59 years for women and 54 years for men. Many children work despite child labor laws. Key employers include both local and long distance trade; agriculture, especially rice cultivation and limited manufacturing and industrial fields, including an increasing number of foreign-owned garment making factories that employ predominantly women in poor conditions for low wages. There are a small number of women in professional fields. The 2005 unemployment rate was 2.4 percent. Men predominate in the political arena, although women have slowly entered the field and have full citizenship rights, suffrage, and equality under the state. Rural village committee membership is usually limited to senior males. Women benefit from the social and cultural Lao Women’s Union and the significance presence of international aid groups. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Asia; Rural Women; Sex Workers; Sweatshops; Water, as Women’s Issue. Further Readings Ireson, Carol. Field, Forest, and Family: Women’s Work and Power in Rural Laos. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. Ireson, Carol. The Lao: Gender, Power, and Livelihood. Westview Case Studies in Anthropology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2008. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

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Latvia Almost from the beginning of its history, Latvia, an eastern European nation bordering the Baltic Sea, was controlled by foreign powers, including Germany, Poland, and Sweden. By 1940, Latvia had established its identity as a republic, but the country fell to Russia in 1940. It took more than half a century before independence was regained after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Russian presence is still felt in Latvia, however, and Russians comprise almost a third of the population. Even though almost 58 percent of the population are Latvian, approximately 38 percent speak Russian. There is some religious diversity, but the majority of Latvians are either Lutheran (19.6 percent) or Eastern Orthodox (15.3 percent). Latvia became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union in 2004. By the early 21st century, 68 percent of the population had become urbanized. Mixed History of Progress In 2009, Latvia’s estimated per capita income was $14,500, making Latvia the 79th richest country in the world. Latvia has a mixed history of progress for women. In 1995, women filled only 15 of 100 seats in the country’s Parliament. By 2008, that number had expanded by only seven seats. However, 4 of 19 cabinet members were female. Women constitute the majority of both the population, and the workforce, and Latvian law guarantees women equality. However, there is a serious gap between theory and reality. An unemployment rate of 18.6 percent has created major issues for women. In 1992, 93 percent of Latvians lived below the poverty line, and economic problems resulting from a large budget deficit have continued to disproportionately affect women and children. This is offset to some degree by the government’s compensation to mothers of young children. Subsidies begin with the 28th week of pregnancy and end when a child starts kindergarten. Domestic violence and human trafficking also continue to be major concerns. Among Latvian nongovernmental organizations, Marta is the most active in the field of women’s rights. With a rate of 8.77 deaths per 1,000 live births, Latvia ranks 162nd in the world in infant mortality. Female infants (6.82) have a significant advantage over

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male infants (10.63), and this health advantage continues throughout life, with a female life expectancy of 77.59 years compared to 66.98 years for males. The median age of Latvian females is 43.4 years. On average, women give birth to 1.3 children each. Like many former socialist republics, Latvia struggles with major social issues. It ranks 60th in the world in human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevalence (0.8 percent). Latvians also have an intermediate risk of developing bacterial diarrhea and tickborne encephalitis. There is virtually no difference between male and female literacy, with each at near 100 percent, but there are distinct differences in the pursuit of education. Females generally go to school for 17 years, whereas males go for 14 years. Although rape is against the law, there are no legal prohibitions specifically aimed at marital rape. Penalties for rape depend on factors that include the nature of the crime, the age of the victim, and the criminal history of the perpetrator. Sentences range from probation to life imprisonment. The Skalbes Crisis Center has expressed the conviction that rape victims are reluctant to come forward because of the tendency to blame them rather than the perpetrator. While the law bans violence against women, domestic violence has not been expressly outlawed. Both the police and local women’s support groups admit that domestic violence is a major problem in Latvia. Many women refuse to come forward out of ignorance and mistrust of the legal system. There are no women’s shelters in Latvia, but battered women can turn to family crisis centers for assistance. Prostitution is legal in Latvia and has strong links to organized crime. Sexual harassment, which is against the law, also is a major problem, and laws are ineffectively enforced. See Also: Domestic Violence; Infant Mortality; Prostitution, Legal; United Nations Conferences on Women. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Latvia.” http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/lg.html (accessed February 2010). Grike, G. Women in Latvia Today: Changes and Experiences. Duluth, MN: New Moon, 1997.

Neft, N. and A. D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status of Women in 140 Countries, 1997–1998. New York: Random House, 1997. U.S. State Department. “2008 Human Rights Report: Latvia.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/ eur/119087.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Law Enforcement, Women in The U.S. Department of Justice conducts a census of federal, state, and local law enforcement every four years; the last census was conducted in 2004. According to a Bureau of Justice statistician, in 2004, females represented 16 percent of all employed federal law enforcement officers. Moreover, about one-third of these female officers were members of a racial or ethnic minority, with Hispanics/Latinas representing the largest group at 33 percent. In its census, the Justice Department did not report the number of female law enforcement personnel at the state and local level. However, a 2001 study on the status of women in policing, conducted by the National Center for Women in Policing, indicated that females represent approximately 13 percent of state and local law enforcement personnel, with women of color representing about 5 percent of those positions. This article devotes discussion to the history of women entering into law enforcement in the United States, the challenges female officers across the world face in their profession and in their communities, and suggests policy implications for women seeking careers in law enforcement internationally and for those already employed in law enforcement. History of Women in Law Enforcement Historically, policing has very much been a maledominated profession and females’ entry into the profession was not met with open arms. In the early 1900s, some police departments recognized the need for women to assist in the department on cases involving women and children. The early female officers were referred to as police matrons and lacked the



full power and authority of male police officers. In 1910, Alice Stebbins Wells was appointed as a detective by the Los Angeles Police Department and is considered the first official policewoman to be hired in the United States. With Wells’s hiring into the police department, many other departments followed this lead and began hiring more women in their departments. However, these early hires were relegated to working solely with women and juveniles and in support positions to male officers. In fact, many of these policewomen were required to have more education than their male counterparts, were not permitted to perform patrol duties, and were not allowed to compete with male officers for promotions. Thus, females’ entry into the policing profession was fraught with discrimination and bias. The practice of discrimination against women in policing continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1960s, there was a growing social awareness in the United States of discrimination impacting individuals in society based on their race or gender. With this greater social awareness, individuals brought issues of discrimination to the forefront of the U.S. court system and many landmark cases paved the way to making employment in policing less discriminatory. One piece of legislation that assisted women is the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which required that men and women be given equal pay for equal work. Another legislative ruling that assisted women in the police profession was Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employer discrimination on the bases of race and color, as well as national origin, sex, and religion. It applied to employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. This legislation assisted women in the policing profession to some extent, and a few police departments began assigning female officers to patrol. In 1968, the Indianapolis Police Department became the first department in the nation to assign two women to regular patrol duties in a marked police car. However, many police departments were still reluctant to assign females to patrol duty. Impact of the Equal Opportunity Act Throughout the 1970s, the feminist movement was well under way and continued to draw attention to the plight of women in society. With increasing attention being directed toward female inequity in the work-

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place (as well as to other groups in society), additional legislation was implemented. The Equal Opportunity Act of 1972 sought to strengthen Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by again asserting that those seeking employment should be treated fairly and should not be discriminated against based on their race, sex, religion, color, or national origin. An additional provision of the Equal Employment Act of 1972 was the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Program, which instituted policies such as affirmative action and offered assistance to those who may have been discriminated against. Even with this legislation, however, women faced additional hurdles in entering the policing profession. Additional barriers that prevented women from entering the policing profession included common standards required by police departments in regard to physical attributes such as weight and height and physical fitness standards. If women did not meet a particular height or weight requirement for a police department, they were unable to apply to the department for an officer position. Additionally, the physical fitness standards were not modified for females given any differences in physical abilities (e.g., no differences in regard to push-ups, sit-ups, or running times). In a historic Supreme Court ruling, Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), the Court ruled that businesses, including the police profession, cannot establish a policy that has a detrimental impact on the hiring of a particular group in society. It was only after the Griggs ruling that police departments had to modify their employment standards (i.e., suspend or modify height, weight, and physical fitness standards) for females and that ruling finally allowed a larger number of females to enter the policing profession. Challenges Women Face in Law Enforcement While the feminist movement in the 1970s in the United States assisted women in entering the policing profession in greater numbers, females in law enforcement still encountered plenty of challenges on the job. In some cases, female officers experienced discrimination in the workplace. They may have been legally allowed to become officers, but that did not mean that their fellow male officers welcomed them. At the time, many male officers believed that policing was a man’s job and expressed disapproval at a woman’s presence in the workplace.

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Other male officers expressed concern about whether females could cope with danger effectively (they are too emotional) and could command authority with the public. Because women have been stereotyped as being too emotional, some researchers have set out to determine if their emotionality has resulted in more harm to them on the job. Research has indicated that female officers are less likely to use their firearms and less likely to be harmed on the job. Thus, females may be better at deescalating violent situations, perhaps due to having stronger verbal skills than male officers, thereby resulting in a lesser likelihood of injury on the job. In 2007, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that all 57 officers killed in the line of duty were male. Female officers in other countries have also faced challenges. For example, female police officers in Bahrain are segregated into working in female police units are often required to work mostly on cases involving women and children. In India, female officers often work in sex-segregated policing units as well, but they report a desire to be more fully integrated into police work. This is a trend observed for many women in law enforcement around the world. In the Philippines, female officers report that they are often viewed as being physically weak by their male colleagues. Despite the research on the capabilities of female officers, some male officers have harassed their fellow female officers or have simply refused to work with them on patrol. Harassment in policing experienced by female officers included improper touching, sexist and racist comments, destruction of their personal property, and having sexual materials (i.e., pornography) placed on their office desks. Harassment of female police officers has occurred internationally in countries such as Australia, England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. African American women in policing have experienced both racist and sexual harassment even by African American male officers. In 1985, Ramona Arnold, a Seminole, Oklahoma, police officer, brought further attention to the plight that female officers experienced on the job. She sued the city of Seminole due to the discrimination she experienced on the job, which included sexual harassment and termination due to her voicing the discrimination claims. When she was hired in 1977, her supervisor told her that he did not believe women should be police officers, he refused to speak to her, and he even stated that

This female police officer in Russia may experience bias and not receive the same level of respect given to male officers.

he would harass her until she quit or was fired. Arnold was passed over for promotions that ultimately went to male officers with less service and seniority. She was victorious in her lawsuit in 1985 (Ramona Arnold v. Seminole, Oklahoma), and she was awarded back pay and reinstatement. Clearly, female officers have experienced discrimination in the workplace by their peers who do not view them as being fit for “a man’s job” despite their abilities or who view them as a token. Although promotions are possible for female officers in the United States, women continue to be underrepresented in higher administrative ranks such as captain. This tendency for females to be less represented as police leaders has been exhibited in other countries such as England, Wales, and Bahrain. Although the workplace environment has improved for female officers, a report by the International Association of Police Chiefs (1998) states that female officers still experience gender and racial bias and harassment on the job.



Female officers experience challenges from the public as well. Some community members possess bias and do not give female officers the same level of respect they give to male officers. In India, this appears to be a challenge for female law enforcement officers. In the United States, it seems that citizens may also be incapable of accepting the authority of a female officer—particularly if she is a minority. With officers facing bias in the workplace and in the community, it is no wonder that many female officers experience job stress and report dissatisfaction with their job. The job stress associated with policing has been well documented in the literature for officers in many countries including the United States, United Kingdom (UK), India, China, and the Netherlands. In the United States, police officers, regardless of gender, are more likely to be dissatisfied with their job, experience health problems such as high blood pressure, experience marital problems, and increase their intake of alcohol and tobacco. For officers in other countries such as the Netherlands, job stress and burnout are key problems that they face. It appears that the organizational culture contributes to the stress experienced by international police officers. Policy Implications Clearly, one policy implication is the aggressive recruitment of females into the profession across the world. Departments need to be strategic in their recruitment practices. In the United States, several cities have held Women in Law Enforcement Career Fairs, where a large number of state and federal law enforcement agencies convene to recruit new officers. This type of career fair demonstrates to women in the community that the policing profession wants them to apply and to work with them. It also sends a powerful message to all police agencies and citizens that police departments are united and committed to hiring more female officers. In other countries, this may pose more of a challenge as female entry into law enforcement is discouraged due to cultural barriers for women in the greater community. As stated earlier, female officers are less likely to be represented at higher ranks. Research has reported that many female police officers in countries such as the United States and the UK do not seek promotions due to family or child care issues. If departments could be supportive of child care issues for all officers in general and the special needs that female

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officers may have in regard to childcare, perhaps more females would seek positions at higher ranks. See Also: Equal Pay; Health, Mental and Physical; Nontraditional Careers, U.S.; Sexual Harassment. Further Readings Collins, Pamela A. and Scarborough, Kim. Women in Public and Private Law Enforcement. Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001. Heidensohn, Frances. Women in Control?: The Role of Women in Law Enforcement. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996. Wexler, J. D. and D. D. Logan. “Sources of Stress Among Women Police Officers.” Journal of Police Science and Administration, v.11/1 (1983). Elaine Gunnison Independent Scholar

League of Women Voters The League of Women Voters was founded in 1919 during the intense political battle for women’s suffrage in the United States. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), the largest political organization with the goal of increasing women’s participation in politics through voting, preceded the League of Women Voters. With the passage of Nineteenth Amendment, the goal of the League of Women Voters expanded the initial mission of the NAWSA beyond securing voting rights for women to participation in a wide range of political and civil activities. Maud Wood Park was the first national president of the league. The league has been involved in many different legislative and political milestones such as lobbying for the Equal Rights Amendment and helping to establish the United Nations. The League of Women Voters was one of the first groups to receive status as a nongovernmental organization from the United Nations. The league has a history of partnering with other liberal advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations such as the American Association of University Women and the National Organization for Women to lobby for changes in policy ranging from increased access to education and jobs to policy supporting economic independence for women.

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The League of Women Voters is a national organization with individual chapters operating largely as autonomous entities. The decentralized nature of the organization allows local and state chapters the flexibility to address the most pressing political and civic issues in their communities while working with the support of a national organization. According to the organization’s Website, there are over 900 state and local league chapters. League chapters exist in every major city in the United States, as well as in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Hong Kong. Local and state League of Women Voters chapters report to the national organization on specific issues. Much of the league’s work is conducted at the grassroots level, with membership in local and state chapters dictating the focus of advocacy work and education activities within their communities. The League of Women Voters Is a Nonpartisan Political Organization The league’s primary mission is to encourage active participation in government through voting registration drives and education about elections, the voting process, and public policy. The League of Women Voters has two separate roles, one that focuses on citizen education and voter services, and another that focuses on advocacy and action. The league’s education work may take different forms and involves a range of activities such as facilitating mock elections with school children, hosting public forums on policy issues, and organizing debates for political candidates. The league’s popular publication, Smart Voter, provides nonpartisan information for national, state, and local elections. Although the league is nonpartisan, the organization does take action by supporting an issue or endorsing a policy. This process involves multiple steps including careful selection and study of an issue or policy to reach a position; this is achieved through discussion and agreement to reach a consensus among the membership. League members may then take action or advocate for a particular issue or policy once a position statement is reached by consensus. The League of Women’s Voters has both elected and appointed leaders, and members can volunteer to serve on boards as a chair or committee member. Membership dues and donations financially support the league’s activities. Members also donate resources such as their expertise and time. Anyone can join the

League of Women Voters, yet some scholars note that despite having open membership, the league continues to be dominated by older, middle-class, collegeeducated professionals. Although the league does not officially identify as a feminist organization or women’s advocacy group, some mistakenly assume that the organization only supports a narrow range of issues that divide along gender lines. Expanding women’s influence and participation in the formal political process remains one of the League of Women Voters’ greatest legacies. The league continues to serve as an important source for communities, through voter education, registration drives, and providing impartial voter information on political candidates and legislation during elections. The flexibility provided by the league’s structure ensures that the membership at the local level is allowed to guide grassroots efforts in the spirit of the mandates issued by the organization’s national leadership. The structure of the league allows the organization to be resilient in an ever-changing political climate for local communities as well as at the national level. Recently, the League of Women Voters has created position statements for such issues as protection of water rights, environment issues, immigration policy, healthcare reform, and redistricting of voting districts. Due to the education and advocacy work by its membership, the League of Women Voters remains an important political and civic organization. See Also: Equal Rights Amendment; National Organization for Women; Voting Rights. Further Readings Costain, Anne N. “Representing Women: The Transition From Social Movement to Interest Group.” The Western Political Quarterly, v.34/1 (1981). Davis, Flora. Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in America Since 1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. League of Women Voters. http://www.lwv.org (accessed June 2010). Mueller, Carol. “The Gender Gap and Women’s Political Influence.” Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, v.515 (1991). Marcia Hernandez University of the Pacific



Lebanon In western Asia on the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon has a rich culture and history, dating back over 7,000 years. The country has a parliamentary democracy, with a president and prime minister. Lebanon’s 4 million residents are very ethnically and religiously diverse. To curb sectarian violence, the government recognizes 18 different religions, and has quotas for the various groups in government positions. The Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, caused a generation to grow up in wartime. The people also suffered civilian casualties in 2006, during the monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah. The war-torn country, however, has been able to create a stable government, commercial economic system, and a tourist trade. While women have gained some rights and improvement in status in the last few decades, a 2005 United Nations report suggested that Lebanon need to address women’s family and marital rights, gender violence, and issues of citizenship. Both laws and customs prevent women from reaching gender equality or equal opportunity. Culture of Chauvinism The culture of chauvinism limits women’s access to political or economic power. Women won the right to vote and have held office since 1953, yet they still only comprise 2 percent of the Members of Parliament and 1 percent of municipal councils. Legally, women have the right to sign contracts, receive medical care, and access to contraception. However, women cannot transfer citizenship to their children if they marry a foreigner. Citizenship is determined through the father. Also, a woman’s religion can limit her as well. Non-Muslim women are entitled to the same inheritance rights as men, but Muslim women are only allowed to inherit 25 percent of the sum. There are also laws that prevent people of different religions from marrying. Women comprise 27 percent of the workforce, but are limited to traditionally feminine professions—many of which are denied welfare benefits. Even when women enter professions such as banking, they are not promoted. Women have access to education and constitute more than half of all university students, but they are primarily relegated to the feminine fields of the arts and social sciences.

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Patriarchal rule dominates family life. Despite international pressure, the government has been reticent to address the prevalent issue of violence against women. Citing culture tradition in which family matters are private, there are no laws to protect women from spousal or family abuse. In an “honor killing,” a man can be pardoned in court for murdering a female relative who engaged in premarital sex, same-sex relationships, or adultery because she has shamed the family. Despite patriarchal customs, a women’s movement does exist in Lebanon. Women such as Laure Moghayzel, helped found women’s groups such as the Lebanese Women’s Council, the Lebanese Association of Women Lawyers, and the Committee for the Political Rights of Women. In 1996, through the pressure of these women’s groups, Lebanon ratified the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Lebanese feminists are pushing for greater access to political power, believing that if women had a voice in local, municipal and national affairs, they could achieve greater equality. In comparison to the status of women in many Middle Eastern countries, Lebanese women fair well in terms of legal rights and access to education. However, because of the prevalent chauvinistic attitudes which claim women are inferior to men, women have very little political, social, economic, or familial power. Equal citizenship and laws that protect women from domestic violence are two key areas on which Lebanese feminists are currently focusing. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Equal Rights Amendment; Honor Killings; Islam; Islamic Feminism. Further Readings Abisaab, Malek. Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (Beyond Dominant Paradigms in the Middle East). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009. Bechara, Souha. Resistance: My Life for Lebanon. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2003. Cortas, Wadad Makdisi. The World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman. New York: Nation Books, 2009. Peteet, Julie. Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

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Ledbetter, Lilly Lily Ledbetter is a fair-pay activist from Alabama who became well-known across America for her discrimination lawsuit against Goodyear, and her subsequent efforts to encourage the Congressional passage of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. She was a production supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 to 1998. Although she worked in a male-dominated industry and received commendations and awards for her service, including a “Top Performer” award in 1996, she experienced sexual discrimination throughout her employment at Goodyear. In 1998, Ledbetter received an anonymous note listing the salaries of male colleagues in her position, and discovered that she made 15 to 40 percent less than any of the men, most of whom had less seniority and experience. Ledbetter immediately took her claim to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), fil-

ing discrimination complaints under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. She claims that shortly thereafter, she was forced into an early retirement by Goodyear. A jury awarded her $3.8 million in damages, which was subsequently reduced to $360,000 by the trial judge because of caps on damages under Title VII. After an appeals court ruled against Ledbetter, she appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2007, the Court ruled 5–4 that Ledbetter’s case should be dismissed because although she filed a complaint of pay discrimination within 180 days of receiving a paycheck, she did not file her claim within 180 days of the first discriminatory decision made against her by Goodyear. The statute involved does require a plaintiff to file a complaint within 180 days from the date of the discrimination; however, decades of EEOC precedent as well as the decisions of nine federal appeals courts had previously allowed that clock to reset after each discriminatory paycheck when equal pay issues were

Lilly Ledbetter was a speaker during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law by President Obama, eliminating the time limit for an employee filing a complaint of pay discrimination.



involved. The Supreme Court ended that precedent, and decided that the 180 days must be counted only from the first moment of discrimination, whether or not the victim knew about it, and whether or not it continued for years afterwards. Many, including Justice Ginsburg in her dissent in the case, pointed out that the decision means that as long as employers can hide the discrimination from the employee for six months, they are legally permitted to get away with it indefinitely. That case, known as Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., became one of the most well-known Supreme Court cases in recent years, spurring multiple grassroots movements to “overturn the Court.” Ledbetter, working together with many women’s and civil rights groups, turned her sights to a congressional amendment to the Civil Rights Act explicitly allowing each new discriminatory paycheck to reset the clock. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was proposed shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, but was defeated by Republicans in the Senate in April 2008. It was reintroduced after the 111th Congress took office in 2009, and that time passed quickly and was the first legislation signed into law by President Obama on January 29, 2009. It was the first bill President Obama signed into law after taking office on January 20, 2009. In brief, the law mandates that there be no time limit for an employee to file a complaint of pay discrimination if he or she is still on the company payroll. Under the new law, Lilly Ledbetter would have been able to file a complaint of pay discrimination against her former employer when she found out that she had been discriminated against and underpaid for years. Ledbetter continues to serve as a voice for pay equity for women. She has remarked that the effects of her discrimination are lasting a lifetime; even in retirement, her pension and Social Security, being based on her salary, will continue to retain the effects of the discrimination. See Also: Bullying in the Workplace; Equal Pay; Lilly Ledbetter Act; Management, Women in; Sexual Harassment; Working Mothers. Further Readings George, Bindu. “Ledbetter v. Goodyear: A Court Out of Touch With the Realities of the American Workplace.” Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, v.18/253 (2008).

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Goldstein, Amy. “Democrats Overturn Barrier to UnequalPay Suits.” Washington Post (January 28, 2009). Ledbetter, Lilly and Linda Hallman. “For Women, What a Difference a Year Almost Made.” The Huffington Post (January 29, 2010). http://www.huffingtonpost.com /lilly-ledbetter/for-women-what-a-differen_b_436113 .html (Accessed November 2010). Lee, Young Eun. “Creating a Proper Incentive Structure: A Case Study of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.” Cardozo Jounral of Law & Gender, v.15/117 (2008). Miller, Frederic P., John McBrewster, and Agnes F. Vandome, eds. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Beau Bassin, Mauritius: Alphascript Publishing, 2010. U.S. Committee on Education and Labor. “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.” http://edlabor.house.gov/lilly-ledbetter -fair-pay-act/index.shtml (accessed April 2010). Deborah Anthony University of Illinois at Springfield

Leibovitz, Annie Annie Leibovitz is one of the most famous and esteemed women photographers of our time. Her portraits have achieved iconic status: the photo of Demi Moore in the nude, holding her pregnant belly; John Lennon’s naked body curled around a fully dressed Yoko Ono; Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk; and Leonardo DiCaprio with a swan curled around his neck are just a few of the unforgettable photographs in which Leibovitz captures her subjects in a gripping and provocative manner. In 1991, when her museum show Photographs: Annie Leibovitz, 1970–1990 opened at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Leibovitz became the first woman portraitist whose to have work exhibited at this museum. She has also been hailed as a living legend by the Library of Congress. A Living Legend Born in 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz was interested in the arts as a teenager and was drawn to a wide range of creative output, from music and painting to photography. She enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute to study painting. Later, however, she discovered that her real passion was photography.

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In the 1970s, she started her photographic career by working for Rolling Stone. Her portrait of John Lennon appeared on the cover of the January 21, 1971, issue. While working for this magazine, she photographed many rock stars and musicians, including Bob Marley, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Sting, Keith Richards, and Mick Jagger. From Rolling Stone she moved to Vanity Fair, where her photographs, featured on the cover of the magazine, had celebrities as their subjects, including Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, and Jack Nicholson. In addition to music and movie celebrities, Leibovitz’ s portfolio also contains the portraits of famous politicians, such as the George W. Bush cabinet, Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton, the Queen of England, and the Obama family. Her collection of photos titled Women was published in 1999 and contains more than 100 photographs. It is an impressive book, with powerful photographs of women living in America at the end of the 20th century. Photography has contributed widely to the stereotyping of women. In the accompanying essay, Susan Sontag considers the way Leibovitz undermines and complicates the image of women within the framework of a medium such as photography. For example, Leibovitz juxtaposes the portrait of the glamorous showgirl Narelle Brennan shot in color with a black-and-white portrait of Brennan as an ordinary woman in jeans and T-shirt holding her daughters. Sontag points out the wide range of women’s portraits shot by Leibovitz. In addition models of beauty, success, and self-esteem, she photographs models of aging and transgressiveness. The book contains portraits of powerful women (e.g., Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Supreme Court justices), artists (e.g., Louise Bourgeois, Susan Sontag, Cindy Sherman, Yoko Ono), actresses (e.g., Gwyneth Paltrow and Blythe Danner, Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Sarandon, Sigourney Weaver), and sportswomen (e.g., Marion Jones, tennis players Martina Navratilova and the Williams sisters, and Ila Borders, the first woman to pitch on a man’s professional baseball team). Among the “average women,” there are working-class women, a waitress, and a washerwoman. There are also plenty of portraits of “average women” whose occupations transgress traditional gender norms. We can see women as soldiers, drag car racers, mountain bikers, bull riders, coal

miners, and rabbinical students. Thus, Women exemplifies the diversity of womanhood and undermines any concept of essence in “woman.” Personal Projects Leibovitz recognizes Sontag’s influence on her life and work from the beginning of the 1990s. They met when Leibovitz was photographing the writer for her book AIDS and Its Metaphors, and their relationship lasted until Sontag’s death in 2004. During this period, Leibovitz worked on projects such as Women, and she also traveled to Sarajevo during the war. Among her Sarajevo photos, the most compelling is a black-and-white photograph of a bicycle collapsed on the pavement, smeared with blood, titled “Sarajevo, Fallen Bicycle of Teenage Boy Just Killed by a Sniper.” She has also recorded the horrors of war in Rwanda. In her recent book A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005, Leibovitz presents not only her characteristic celebrity photographs but also personal pictures of her parents, siblings, children, nieces, and nephews. This collection of photographs and works such as Women, in addition to the photographs taken in Sarajevo and Rwanda, demonstrate that Leibovitz’s work goes beyond celebrity shots and displays her great talent. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Celebrity Women; Photography, Women in. Further Readings Leibovitz, Annie. American Music/Annie Leibovitz. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003. Leibovitz, Annie. Annie Leibovitz at Work. London: Jonathan Cape, 2008. Leibovitz, Annie. A Photographer’s Life: 1990–2005. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006. Leibovitz, Annie. Photographs, 1970–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Leibovitz, Annie and Susan Sontag. Women. London: Jonathan Cape, 2000. Schirmer, Lothar, ed., and Elisabeth Bronfen. Women Seeing Women: A Pictorial History of Women’s Photography From Julia Margaret Cameron to Annie Leibovitz. London: Haus, 2002. Zita Farkas Independent Scholar



Lesbian Adoption Emerging research on lesbian adoption explores and discusses the social, legal, and political issues and implications, but because gay family adoption is such recent legally supported phenomena, there is minimal information. Anecdotal information suggests that lesbians have been adopting children for decades as single parents; however, it is only recently that adoption agencies have been made accessible to lesbian and gay parents. There are unique challenges for lesbians who wish to adopt; however, there are also supportive practices emerging within those agencies that value the inclusion of a wide range of family compositions to support the needs of the many children waiting to be adopted. Lesbians who adopt disrupt the heterosexual family narrative and widen the space for re-conceptualizing more diverse family constellations. Current Research Narratives from qualitative research about lesbian adoptive parents describe their experiences and charts the particular ways they navigate the challenges faced, including negotiating the tensions between “begin out” in the adoption process and their legal and social realities. Research demonstrates that negative beliefs based on stereotypes and fallacies are still demonstrated by the public at large toward lesbian parents, but more damaging are those negative beliefs held by professionals who either hold lesbian parents to higher standards due to their orientation or dismiss them as potential candidates. Research reveals that some of the negative myths still present include the belief that gay parents are more prone to abuse their children, less likely to remain committed in their relationships, that the children will be purposefully isolated from opposite sex gender roles, and that gay parents will be poor role models. Current research is also tracking the positive experiences of lesbian parents, who find support in either specific agencies or with certain professionals; these findings are being utilized for training and developing best practices, and reflect shifting attitudes toward lesbian adoption as potential resources to meet the needs of children. While more research is needed in this area, current research suggests that lesbian parents contribute positively to the lives of children they

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adopt, despite a heteronormative milieu, discriminatory practices, and oppressive structures. Family can be broadly defined as any two people who choose to call themselves “family.” While the term family is imbued with heteronormative cultural ideology and is often used politically to promote a conservative, moral order in the public sphere, lesbians who adopt offer a widened potential for understanding family and present an untapped potential resource for children in need of families. While it is sometimes viewed as negative that lesbian and gay parents are often encouraged to adopt those children that are more challenging to place, this reverse privileging does ensure that children with diverse needs, such as mobility or behavioral issues, children of color and older children have a greater opportunity to achieve “forever families” in a wider pool of choice. Lesbians who adopt may reduce foster care drift through providing additional resources in the permanency planning for children, and contribute to diversifying family structure to meet particular needs. Tensions and Barriers Some well-meaning professionals may believe that they are saving children from presumed social isolation and hesitate to place children with lesbian families for more benevolent, though misguided intentions. An argument made to oppose same-sex adoption focuses on the importance of opposite sex role models in a child’s home in order to grow up to live a functional and adequately gendered life. Socialization theory upholds and argues for traditional ideas about gender and family, any difference is perceived as deviant. Feminists have critiqued socialization theory, suggesting that the organization of gender roles in patriarchal societies is highly restrictive. Meta-analysis of research in child development studies has shown that children raised in lesbian and gay families are not only typically as well adjusted as their heterosexual parented peers, but they often demonstrate greater sensitivity to and celebration of diversity in myriad forms. Some birth-parents object to same-sex parents adopting their children, or may prioritize heterosexual parents are preferential, rendering the open adoption process particularly risky for lesbian parents. Social workers assessing potential families for adoption may assume heterosexuality. Lesbian parents believe that disclosure of their sexual

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orientation could have negative consequences in the process. While legislation and policies are shifting to include adoption by lesbian and gay parents, attitudes and practices reflect cultural ideals and often take longer to achieve acceptance, tolerance and celebration. Many lesbians report the belief that their disclosure or visibility may cost them the ability to adopt without prejudice. Lesbian parents believe that are often held to higher standards than non-lesbian parents, and report experiencing pressure from professionals to adopt “less desirable” children. Supportive Practices Professionals are encouraged to be aware of stereotypes, and to reflexively check their own biases. Sexual orientation does not predict parental capacity. As sexual orientation may be a less salient aspect of a woman’s identity, professionals are encouraged to value the importance of considering lesbian women’s individual experiences. Agencies that revise their application and intake forms to include more inclusive and gender neutral language are greatly appreciated by lesbian parents. As follow-up services are often geared toward heterosexual families, those agencies that are mindful to offer support services that are inclusive to diverse family structures facilitate positive “family esteem” and support the cohesion of newly formed adopted families. Protective factors in lesbian adoption include strong partner relationships, positive social support, and resilient personalities. Services that foster these protective factors would be supportive of lesbians who choose to adopt. Legal Challenges Worldwide Many countries have absolute bans on lesbians and gays adopting children. Opposition tends to be strongest in countries that are predominately Roman Catholic because of the Vatican’s position on the issue. Some of the countries that ban adoptions by lesbians and gays, single or in committed partnerships, do allow heterosexual single persons to adopt. As a result, a 1998 French case aroused international attention. When a lesbian, known only as “Emmanuelle B,” applied to become a single adoptive parent, she was turned down on the basis that her household suffered from the “lack of a paternal figure.” That decision launched a wave of gay rights protests in France

because lesbians and gays vehemently objected to being told they were unfit to be parents because of their sexual orientations. In 2008, the European Court of Human Rights issued a condemnation against France, accusing the country of engaging in legal sexual discrimination. The following year, the case was overturned. By that time, the originator of the case had turned 48, and was employed as a nursery school teacher. Gay rights activists expressed mixed reactions to the decision. On the one hand, they were elated to have the adoption barrier removed, but they were appalled that the decision applied only to single persons and did not extend the right of adoption to same-sex couples. While the United States is generally more open to lesbian and gay adoptions than France, the federal system allows individual states to govern adoption laws. Florida is the only state in the Union to use that authority to deny lesbians and gays the right to adopt children solely on the basis of their sexual orientations. However, lesbians and gays are permitted to foster children in Florida. The American Civil Liberties Union has launched the End Florida Adoption Ban campaign, and celebrities such as Rosie O’Donnell and Cynthia Nixon, who are both outed lesbians, have been involved in arousing public indignation over children being deprived of loving parents simply because those would-be parents are homosexuals. In 2010, the world spotlight focused on Hollywood, Florida, where Vanessa Alenier, a lesbian was denied the right to adopt a foster child to whom she is related. An earlier case involving a gay man whose petition to adopt two foster children who had been in his care for several years is still making its way through the Florida courts, and the outcome of that decision may have a significant impact on the Alenier case. Although the man had won the right to adopt the two boys earlier, the state had appealed the decision. In Great Britain, gay rights activists have achieved some success. In 2002, both England and Wales passed the Adoption and Children Act, permitting both lesbian and gay couples to adopt children. Scotland followed suit with the Adoption and Children Act of 2007. All three countries also allow single lesbians and gays to adopt. By 2008, both children’s and gay rights activists were expressing disappointment that the rate of gay and lesbian adoptions had actually declined at



the same time the rate of heterosexual adoptions had risen. That same year, a survey conducted by Action for Children revealed that two out of five individuals in Britain were opposed to adoptions by gay males, and 36 percents were against lesbian adoptions. In the former countries of eastern Europe, individual nations have made great strides in recognizing the rights of gays and lesbians; however, they have fallen short of accepting the right of same-sex couples to adopt children. The Czech Republic, which legalized same-sex partnerships in 2006, is often held up as a model for its neighbors. Despite legal gains, there has been little public support for allowing lesbian and gay adoptions, even though a government working group has recommended passage of such a law. Both Hungary and Slovenia have also legalized same-sex partnerships, but neither country has cleared the way for lesbian and gay adoptions.

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As early as 2001, Frans Kgomo, a South African judge handed down a landmark decision legalizing the right of same-sex couples to jointly adopt children, declaring that there was overwhelming evidence to support the notion that children brought up in such homes “had developed well, were happy and well adjusted.” The case concerned Anna-Marie de Vos, a judge of the Pretoria High Court, and her partner, Suzanne Du Toit. The couple had been together for 11 years, and the judge had an adopted daughter and son. However, du Toit was not legally eligible to serve as legal guardian for the children. According to South African law, only samesex couples were allowed to adopt children jointly, and lesbian partners had no legal authority to seek guardianship upon the death of a partner who possessed sole guardianship. Nor did the nonguardian parent have the right to perform daily parenting roles such as signing school reports. In order to remove this barrier, the

Some of the negative myths about gay parents are that they are less likely to remain committed in their relationships, that the children will not have exposure to opposite sex gender roles, and that gay parents will be poor role models.

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couple was asking that portions of the Child Care Act be overturned in view of South Africa’s ban on sexual discrimination based on sexual orientation. Around the world, decisions such as the one handed down by Judge Kgomo have been applauded, but in many areas legal barriers to lesbian and gay adoptions continue to infringe on the rights of homosexuals, while limiting the right of children to find loving parents. See Also: Adoption; Childcare; Coming Out: Foster Mothers; Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Homophobia; Lesbians; Roman Catholic Church; Sexual Orientation– Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States. Further Readings Brown, C. and C. Cocker. “Lesbian and Gay Fostering and Adoption: Out of the Closet and Into the Mainstream.” Adoption and Fostering, v.32/4 (2008). Engelhart, K. “Same-Sex Couples Fight to Adopt.” Maclean’s, v.122/46 (2009). Goldberg, A. E., J. B. Downing, and C. Sauck. “Choices, Challenges, and Tensions: Perspectives on Lesbian Prospective Adoptive Parents.” Adoption Quarterly, v.10/5 (2007). Hicks, S. “Good Lesbian, Bad Lesbian: Regulating Heterosexuality in Fostering and Adoption Processes.” Child and Family Social Work, v.5 (2000). Pedrag, S. “South Africa Issues Landmark Ruling in Lesbian Adoption Case.” Lesbian News, v27/4 (2001). Ross, L., R. Epstein, C. Goldfinger, L. Steele, S. Anderson, and C. Strike. “Lesbian and Queer Mothers Navigating the Adoption System: The Impact on Mental Health.” Health Sociology Review, v.17/3 (2008). Szalai, P. “Frozen in Success.” Transitions Online (June 9, 2008). Taylor, A. “Vulnerable Children Still Waiting for Placements.” CommunityCare (November 6, 2008). http://www.communitycare.co.uk/ Articles/2008/11/05/109856/gay-couples-overlookedin-adopters-shortage.htm (accessed July 2010). J. Mortenson University of British Columbia, Okanagan

Lesbian/Gay Clergy The issue of homosexuality is one of the most controversial and debated topics in religious contexts, with a particularly contentious question being whether homosexuality should prohibit access to formal roles in religious leadership. These issues have received the most attention in Western societies and almost exclusively in relation to Christianity and Judaism, both of which accept women clergy, albeit not in all denominations nor at all levels. The issue of lesbian and gay clergy is a significant one, bringing together two of the most polarizing issues in contemporary Christianity and Judaism: the ordination of women and attitudes toward homosexuality. Within these faiths, therefore, lesbian women seeking clergy positions must surpass the barriers of both their gender and their sexual orientation. The 21st century has witnessed increasing opportunities for lesbian clergy, although these developments remain the source of great tension and division. Lesbian and Gay Clergy in Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, and Buddhism For various reasons, the place of lesbian and gay clergy has scarcely presented itself as an issue for debate within Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, or Buddhism. Within Hinduism and Sikhism, women have a low profile in religious leadership, and in spite of the scarcity of references to homosexuality in scripture, the wider social and cultural context has either discouraged or prohibited homosexuality. In Islam, there is a much more explicit condemnation of homosexuality, with the most extreme intolerance being evident in countries governed by Shari`a law. There are also limitations on the roles that Muslim women can take in religious leadership, with suitably qualified women generally being permitted to lead others in prayer, but only for woman-only congregations. In spite of the widespread intolerance of homosexuality, there are a small number of openly gay male imams internationally. In Buddhism, monks and nuns are required to take a vow of celibacy, and breach of this vow is regarded as a disrobing offense; this applies equally to heterosexual or homosexual intercourse, and so the sexual orientation of Buddhist monks and nuns is not of prime concern. Within Roman Catholicism, where



ordination is only open to men, because priests similarly take a vow of celibacy, discussions of Catholic priests’ sexual orientation has been less prolific than it has been across Protestant denominations and within Judaism. However, the Roman Catholic Church deems homosexuality to be unnatural and unacceptable, and a Vatican policy in 2005 stated that men who had deep-seated homosexual tendencies or supported gay culture, even if not practicing homosexuals, were unsuitable for priesthood. Lesbian and Gay Clergy in Judaism Accessibility to lesbians and gay men to clergy (rabbi) positions in Judaism varies among the four main denominations or movements of Judaism: Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. Within the Reconstructionist and Reform movements—the most liberal branches of Judaism—there is an established tradition of ordaining gay and lesbian rabbis. Within the Reconstructionist movement, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College was the first rabbinical seminary in the United States to prohibit sexual orientation–based discrimination, admitting its first openly gay student in 1984 (Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman), and shortly after ordaining its first openly gay rabbi (Rabbi Deborah Brin). In 1991, a policy prohibiting employment discrimination against lesbian and gay rabbis seeking positions in congregations was implemented across the Reconstructionist movement in the United States. Within Reform Judaism, the largest branch of Judaism in the United States, the Central Conference of American Rabbis—the largest rabbinic association in the United States—has permitted the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis since 1990, following a report by the Ad Hoc Committee on Homosexuality and the Rabbinate. However, the committee could not decide whether gay and lesbian rabbis should remain celibate, and no subsequent stipulation of this has been made. In the United Kingdom (UK), Liberal Judaism (the equivalent of Reform Judaism) also ordains gay and lesbian rabbis. This is in stark contrast to Orthodox Judaism, which adopts the most fundamentalist interpretation of the Torah and internationally refuses to ordain gay male rabbis or female rabbis, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Conservative Judaism, which sits between the liberal Reform and Reconstructionist movements and

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Orthodox Judaism, is the most recent Jewish movement to accept gay and lesbian rabbis. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, an international body based in the United States, voted in 2006 to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis. Decisions regarding the admission of gay and lesbian rabbis have been left to the discretion of individual synagogues and seminaries, however. Further, in an attempt to keep this ruling consistent with Jewish law, gay rabbis are not allowed to engage in sodomy. Following this decision, the two conservative seminaries in the United States have changed their admissions policies to accept lesbian and gay entrants, but the two conservative seminaries outside the United States, in Jerusalem and Buenos Aires, have decided against this. Gay and Lesbian Clergy in Protestant Christian Denominations It is within Protestant denominations that debates regarding gay clergy have been the most controversial and, increasingly, the most polarized. While conservative Evangelical denominations and denominations such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Seventh-Day Adventists continue to take a strong stance against homosexuality for lay members as well as clergy, the more dominant thread of the debate has involved disagreement both within and between Protestant denominations regarding whether lesbian and gay clergy should remain celibate or whether they may be in a committed sexual relationship. The requirement for celibacy is supported by the Presbyterian Church and the United Methodist Church in the United States, and the Church of England, Methodist Church of Great Britain, and United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom (UK), to give a few examples. The Church of England revised its policy in 2005 to permit gay and lesbian clergy to enter legal civil partnerships, but with the understanding that these partnerships should not be sexual. In contrast, numerous denominations have opened up ordination to lesbians and gay men in committed sexual relationships, including the United Church of Canada, and in the United States, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, and most recently in August 2009, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. A number of denominations in Europe also accept noncelibate and openly gay and lesbian clergy,

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including the Episcopal Church of Scotland, the Lutheran Church of Norway, the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, and the Lutheran Church of Sweden, which elected its first openly lesbian bishop in 2009. Another important organization is the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), which is a global network of approximately 250 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)–affirming churches in 23 countries. MCC welcomes openly LGBT clergy, including those in committed sexual relationships. MCC also has a strong record in relation to the ordination of women and promotion of women into the most senior positions in the organization. Debates regarding the ordination of noncelibate gay men and lesbians reached crisis point in 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay and noncelibate bishop, Gene Robinson. This decision created a significant and, as some have feared, potentially insurmountable schism in the Anglican Communion, a body of 80 million Anglicans in churches across 160 countries. Following Robinson’s appointment and the breakaway of some Episcopal congregations that opposed the appointment, the Lambeth Commission in the Windsor Report commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury asked the Episcopal Church to apply a moratorium (temporary ban) on ordaining noncelibate bishops while efforts were made to reach a consensus on this issue. The Episcopal Church agreed and the ban was in place until July 2009, when bishops in the Episcopal Church voted to overturn it. Later in 2009, Canon Mary Glasspool was elected to become an assistant bishop in the Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. Her election and subsequent ordination in May 2010 were controversial within the Anglican Communion because of both her gender and her open lesbianism and long-term partnership. The Episcopal Church’s defiance of the moratorium has shed doubt on its future in the Anglican Communion. A number of provinces within the Anglican Communion have indicated they cannot remain in communion with churches that ordain noncelibate gay and lesbian clergy and have instead joined the conservative Anglican Churches of North America, which was inaugurated in 2009 in response to the schism. Members include some African Anglican provinces that are opposed to homosexuality, including the Anglican churches of Nigeria and Uganda.

See Also: Anglican Communion; Christianity; Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward; Judaism; Metropolitan Community Church; Priesthood, Episcopalian/Anglican; Rabbis, Female. Further Readings Alpert, Rebecca T., Sue L. Elwell, and Shirley Idelson, eds. Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Congregation for Catholic Education. “Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies.” http://www.vatican.va /roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents /rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20051104_istruzione_en.html (accessed January 2010). Hazel, Dann. Witness: Gay and Lesbian Clergy Report From the Front. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000. Jewish Mosaic. “The Reconstructionist Movement on LGBT Issues.” http://www.jewishmosaic.org/page /load_page/58 (accessed January 2010). Lambeth Commission on Communion. The Windsor Report. London: Anglican Communion Office, 2004. http://www.anglicancommunion.org /windsor2004/downloads/windsor2004full.pdf (accessed January 2010). Siker, Jeffrey S., ed. Homosexuality and Religion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007. Rebecca Barnes University of Derby

Lesbians Definitions for the term lesbian range from identifying the people of the Greek island of Lesbos, to female homosexual, to women who are sexually oriented to women. The term has both psychological and social meanings. Contemporary terms for lesbians begin with derivatives of the name of a 16th century b.c.e. poet, Sappho, from Lesbos. Some slang terms include sapphic, lesbo, dykey, butch, and lezzie. These terms are sometimes used to denigrate girls and women who identify themselves as lesbian, and other times are reclaimed by gay women as an act of empowerment. The word lesbian can be used as a



noun as in, “she is a lesbian” or as an adjective as in, “lesbian mother.” Lesbians may identify themselves in a more masculine gender roles, earning them the name butch lesbian or more feminine role, earning them the term lipstick lesbian. Visibility for Women and Lesbians The acceptance of lesbian identity in the 21st century is not secure, and could not have taken place without the work of many pioneering predecessors. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir explored questions of female identity when she commented that “one is not born a woman, one becomes one.” Two lesbian writers, Monique Wittig and Adrienne Rich, furthered this premise to question both female heterosexuality and gender identity. Wittig boldly declared, to the shock of her audience at the Modern Language Association Convention in 1978, “I am a lesbian, not a woman.” In her 1980 groundbreaking essay that ignited much public debate, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Rich argued that lesbian identity requires breaking the compulsory way of life. The key contribution of these and many other writers was to disengage biological sex from socially constructed gender identity. That is, rather than presume that having female genitalia dictates which clothes women should wear, the sports they should play, the education they should have access to, and the people with whom they have emotional and sexual relationships, there was an acknowledgment that an individual’s feelings and wishes must play a part. Instead of insisting that the natural order of things is a presumption of patriarchy and heterosexuality that ties women to reproduction and opposite-sex sexuality, lesbian writers offered an alternate way of thinking. They insisted that gender was socially constructed, and depended on a psychological attachment to gender that was not solely biological. Within such a framework, gender identity allowed women who did not identify under a system of heteropatriarchy to redefine womanhood outside the imposition of opposite sex imperatives and passivity. Even with the heightened attention and acceptance of women and lesbians living independent of men, the struggle to identify as a woman and lesbian outside heteropatriarchy is still ongoing. Lesbian writers continue to help legitimize relationships between women. There is a growing library

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of lesbian novels for teens, such as those authored by Nancy Garden. Authors such as Jeanette Winterson continue to add to the growing literary work, with lesbian themes penned by lesbian authors. Academic work contributes to contemporary debates about legal and social constructs of lesbian identity. These include the writings of E. J. Graff, Sara Ahmed, and Brenda Cossman from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, respectively. Earlier writings exposed marriages of women living full lives with other women, such as David Mamet’s 2002 play, Boston Marriage, female-to-female attractions, and the revelation of rich and famous women who had long intimate relationships with other women that were found recorded in private documents (see Lillian Faderman’s 1991 work, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers). Uncovering such histories alone was not sufficient to legitimize lesbian relationships. Seismic changes occurring since the 1920s repositioned women in the world order: World War II forcing large numbers of women to leave their homes and take on traditionally men’s jobs outside of the home; the radical bra-burning 1960s and 1970s of women’s liberation; and the more diversified 1980s and 1990s when conditions advanced further to permit women to enter public debates in ways they never had before. What lesbians in particular brought to this political landscape was a notion that women had sexual desire, and that their desire was not always oriented toward men, that they were not satisfied to be relegated to the domestic sphere, and that lesbians could not be reduced to be identified solely by their sexual orientation. The legacy of these political movements is that a more legitimate gender identity, one that has been expanded beyond heterosexual women, was made possible in many parts of the world. Current political movements have seen changes in same-sex benefits and laws in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In Canada, a law allowing samesex marriage was passed in 2005; a growing number of states in the United States have legalized domestic partnerships, and a handful of European countries, South Africa, various South American nations, Australia, and New Zealand also have passed laws legalizing same-sex relationships. Where these laws are in place, lesbians are able to openly and legally live together, organize family units, have children together, and adopt each other’s children. In some

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instances, immigration is made possible through the recognition of lesbian relationships. This is not to suggest, however, that homophobia has been eradicated in countries with even the most progressive same-sex laws, such as legal marriage. Multiple and Interlocking Identities As is the case in any marginal identity, the more compounded one’s identity is, the more difficult it is to avoid social penalties. For instance, some indigenous women and women of color have noted that the term lesbian doesn’t apply to them because it is perceived to exclude them and privilege white women. From the mid-1970s on, groups such as the Salsa Sisters and Third World Wimmin were created as a way for lesbians of color to break into white-dominated spaces and resist racial discrimination. It is more common today to find groups that represent and welcome lesbians of color. Because of the way in which social identities are either accepted or not in certain cultures, white, middle-class, able-bodied lesbians are likely to have more privileges than black, poor, or disabled lesbians. Lesbian identity joins heterosexuality as two of a number of sexually oriented identities available to women. Others include transgendered women, or men who identify with the female gender. Another is transsexual women, or men who identify as women and undergo a sex change surgery. In cases of female trans identity, the person may or may not be a lesbian. Lesbian identity in the case of male to female is sometimes challenged by other lesbians as not legitimate. Thus, transphobia may be part of some lesbian communities. The Aboriginal term two-spirited represents those born with both male and female spirits, and is a term that has been reclaimed by lesbians, gay men, and those who identify themselves as transgendered or queer. Prior to colonial contact, two-spirited women fought as male warriors and formally partnered with other females. They were revered and honored as a “third gender,” who were often seen as visionaries and healers. Women with disabilities are often overlooked in lesbian circles because of society’s tendency to view people with disabilities as not possessing sexual desire, whether opposite or same sex oriented. More research needs to be done to examine how different groups are able, or not able, to raise funds to create spaces that include the full range of multiple lesbian identities.

Internationally, lesbian identity is often extremely complex. In some countries there is no language for the identity, nor are there public spaces in which lesbians can congregate. In 1994, Lepa Mladjenovic was given the international human rights award, Filipa de Souza, for lesbian rights. She spoke out about the constraints and invisibility of lesbians in Belgrade, Serbia. As Deepa Mehta’s film, Fire (1996), demonstrates, in some countries, to be caught in a lesbian relationship is punishable by the family and/or the state. Punishment can be as severe as a death sentence or serving long jail terms. In some conservative and religious communities, identifying as a lesbian is cause for psychological reassignment. Robert Spitzer, an American psychiatrist, claims to be able to “cure” same-sex orientation by reorienting lesbians (and gay men) to the opposite sex. He supports his claims with questionable research that is challenged by many doctors in the field of psychology and psychiatry, as well as by the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington. Lesbian Activism The Daughters of Bilitis began formal lesbian political mobilization in the mid-1950s, and many other groups have followed in their wake. Since 1992, the Lesbian Avengers—lesbian activists who take direct action in public spaces such as street theaters and marches— have created space for lesbians in the male-dominated gay rights movement. The first Dyke Marches took place in the early 1990s in New York City, and in Washington, D.C. Dyke Marches have since become a mainstay during many Pride celebrations in larger urban centers. The Dyke Marches celebrate women loving women, and often takes place a day before larger Pride Parades. Male supporters are invited to attend, but not to march. The march is traditionally started by the loud motorcycle revving of the group Dykes on Bikes. Popular Culture Lesbian identity is not a singular category, and as noted above, has a complex and varied history. Popular media represents lesbians in ways that can further identify, categorize, vilify, and normalize them. Lesbian kissing on television and in movies can attract much publicity and attention. There is some debate about when the first televised all-female kiss took place. On the TV show LA Law, a kiss took place in 1991 between the actors Michele Greene and Amanda



Donohoe, and on the Roseanne show, a kiss occurred in 1994 between actors Roseanne Barr and Mariel Hemmingway. That debate seems less important now that lesbians have been portrayed more often on TV shows such as The L Word, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, ER, Queer as Folk, Friends, and Spin City. Comic books have also included lesbian characters. Alison Bechdel, in her long-running comic strip (1983–2008), Dykes to Watch Out For, provided a diverse range of contemporary lesbian identities with which younger lesbians could identify. Bechdel’s comic strip addressed political and personal issues in the lives of young lesbians, such as relationships, homophobic family angst, and the meaning of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (an annual woman-only music festival that began in 1976, and is attended predominantly by lesbians). In the Batman comic strip, the lead female character, Renee Montoya (Batwoman) was first developed as a police officer, a Latina, and a tough, beautiful woman before coming out in the series as a lesbian in 2003, in Batman: The Animated Series, and later in the New Batman Adventures. This readily available range of popular culture, activities and literature creates a stronger sense of lesbian identity for lesbians today. Lesbians in the public eye in the early 21st century included Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell (television hosts), Dorothy Alison (novelist), Angela Davis (activist), Melissa Etheridge (musician), Amy Ray and Emily Saliers (musicians, Indigo Girls), k. d. lang (musician), and Marilyn Waring, Linda Ketner, and Kathleen Wynne (politicians). See Also: Coming Out; Drag Kings; Dykes on Bikes; Homophobia; Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward; Lesbian Adoption; Lesbians in the Military; Same-Sex Marriage; Sexual Orientation and Race; Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation– Based Social Discrimination: United States. “Two-Spirit.” Further Readings Herdt, G. H. Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay and Lesbian Lives. Jackson, TN: Westview Press, 1998. Hollows, J. Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000.

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Horne, P. and R. Lewis, eds. Outlooks: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities and Visual Cultures. London: Routledge, 1996. Jacobs, S. E., W. Thomas, and S. Lang. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Rich, A. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” In A. Rich, ed., Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979–1985. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Sickels, A. Adrienne Rich (Gay and Lesbian Writers). New York: Chelsea House, 2005. Williams, S. Lesbianism: A Socialist Feminist Perspective. Seattle, WA: Red Letter Press, 2003. Wittig, M. The Lesbian Body. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Wittig, M. The Straight Mind. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Doreen Fumia Ryerson University

Lesbians in the Military Women’s roles in the U.S. military have varied. Initially, women were not permitted to serve in the military under any circumstances. Later, women were permitted to serve as clerical staff during World War I and in the Women’s Army Corps, the Navy WAVES, and the Coast Guard SPARS during World War II. In some instances, women served in the military by posing as men. Reception to women service members varies; nevertheless, the reception of lesbians in the military has been consistently negative. As a result of a ban on homosexuals’ being service members, lesbians have not been able to serve in the military. In 1993, Congress and President Bill Clinton compromised on the president’s attempt to lift the ban on homosexuals’ serving in the military. The compromise “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy acknowledged that homosexuals had served in the military, many with distinction; eliminated homosexual sexual orientation as a bar to military service; and called for an end to questioning of and investigations into an individual’s sexual orientation and behavior. Census 2000 data showed that 28,681 lesbians were serving on active duty and in the guard/reserve. These data further suggested that lesbians and bisexual women

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are more likely to serve in the military than gay or bisexual men. For example, 6.2 percent of the women enlisted in the military were lesbian or bisexual, while only 1.5 percent of the men were gay or bisexual. Increased Harassment Many argue that the DADT policy has resulted in more homosexuals being discharged from the military. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) explained that the DADT has had an extremely negative impact on lesbians, and women in general. Through “lesbian baiting,” women—both homosexual and heterosexual—have faced harassment when attempting to advance their careers in nontraditional fields or reporting unwanted advancement by male colleagues. It has also been suggested that DADT has contributed to increased harassment of lesbians. For some, fear of being “outted” often keeps lesbians from reporting harassment from male peers. Reports by the Palm Center and the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute supported SLDN’s claims that women are disproportionately discharged under DADT. For example, while women made up only 15 percent of enlisted military in 2008, they represented 34 percent of servicemembers who were discharged. The percentages vary by branch; however, in the Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force, the percentage of women discharged under DADT is almost three times their overall representation in the branch. Lesbians were discharged from the Air Force at alarming rates. While women comprised only 20 percent of those enlisted in the Air Force, they represented 62 percent of servicemembers discharged under DADT. Similarly, 14 percent of Army servicemembers are women, and they represent 36 percent of those discharged under DADT. There have been many publicized stories of lesbians who have been discharged from the military since the implementation of DADT. In 2003, Cathleen Glover was discharged from the Army after acknowledging that she was a lesbian in a letter to her commanding officer. Spec. Glover had served as an Arabic linguist. Not even the unique language skills of Spec. Glover assisted her in retaining her position. Thirty-seven other homosexuals have also been discharged from the Defense Language Institute by the Department of Defense. Kansas Army National Guard specialist Amy Brian was discharged in 2009

after a civilian reported seeing Spec. Brian kissing her partner in a Wal-Mart checkout line. Jene Newsome, a former sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, was also discharged because of her sexual orientation. Officials at Ellsworth Air Force Base were informed of Sgt. Newsome’s marriage to her female partner by Rapid City, South Dakota, police officers. The officers reported seeing the Iowa-issued marriage license on a table in Newsome’s home while they were attempting to arrest her partner. In his election campaign, President Barack Obama called for a repeal of the DADT policy. During his State of the Union Address on January 27, 2010, the president announced that his office planned to work with Congress and the military to repeal the policy that denies homosexual Americans the right to serve as military servicemembers. Many homosexuals continue to serve, albeit silently—they wait for 2011, when it is proposed that the repeal will be written into an appropriation bill. See Also: Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Homophobia; Lesbians; Military, Women in the; Military Leadership, Women in; Sexual Harassment. Further Readings Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara. http:// www.palmcenter.org (accessed June 2010). Lehring, Gary L. Officially Gay: The Political Construction of Sexuality by the U.S. Military (Queer Politics, Queer Theories). Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. http://www.sldn .org (accessed June 2010). Qiana M. Cutts Argosy University, Atlanta

Lesotho The Kingdom of Lesotho is an enclave within South Africa. Its 1993 constitution still recognizes customary or traditional law, although it also grants civil and political rights to both women and men. The Constitution also recognizes domestic violence and rape as criminal acts and provides for equal rights for men



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Young women in the Kingdom of Lesotho, an enclave within South Africa. Prior to reforms in 2007, married women in Lesotho were considered minors and could not sign legal documents or own property without their husbands consent.

and women on property ownership. Heavily dependent on men, however, Basotho women are considered legal minors under the permanent guardianship of father, brothers, or most likely, husbands, with no right to own land, but they do gain usufruct rights through marriage, as in several other African countries. The government passed a law in 2006 aimed at eliminating discrimination against married women, but it has had little effect so far. Customary law grants ownership rights only to men. Women are de facto heads of households but have limited job options, as 50 percent of the male workforce works in South Africa. Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland, which are intimately tied to South Africa’s mining economy, have the highest human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence (41 percent) in Africa. Lesotho has had one of the world lowest women’s life expectancy averages, at 36 years in 2007, very

closely followed by Swaziland (34 years for women; 33 years for men) and Botswana (33 years for women; 35 years for men). Life expectancy at birth is quite low, and 32.3 for men and 32 for women. Basotho women are highly disadvantaged within the family structure, and early marriage is prevalent. It is estimated that 18 percent of girls between 15 and 19 years old are married, divorced, or widowed. Polygamy is legal, although the proportion of population practicing it is minimal. As a result of marriage customary law, custody of children is almost always granted to the father. In contrast, female enrollment in higher education is quite high in this country—at the National University of Lesotho, in 1997, 1,121 women were enrolled, as opposed to 892 men. Some women have actively fought to promote gender rights through political mobilizing and lobbying. The political path toward gender equality possibly

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began with the 21st century, through gender policies such as the Lesotho Gender Policy or the Gender and Development Policy. The Lesotho Gender Policy (2003), based on the “realization of human rights for all,” “equal participation principles in development,” and “nondiscrimination and empowerment of the marginalized,” was promoted by the Minister of Gender and Sports. Limakatso Ntakatsane founded the Kopanang Basotho Party in 1992, and the Basotho Women’s Parliamentary Caucus was established, among other political structures, as part of the implementation of the Gender and Development Policy (2003). The Executive Committee Ruling of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (ruling party) showed 41 percent female and 59 percent male. The 2002 general elections registration recorded a voting population that was 57 percent women and 43 percent men, so the future seems quite promising in this regard. See Also: Botswana; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Property Rights; South Africa; Swaziland. Further Readings Chaka-Makhooane, L. Sexual Violence in Lesotho: The Realities of Justice for Women. Maseru, Lesotho: Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Education Trust, 2002. “Lesotho: African Union Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality.” 2006. http://genderismyagenda.com/country _reports/states_reports_eng/lesotho_report.pdf (accessed June 2010). Mosetse, P. Gender Stereotypes and Education in Lesotho. Bloemfontein, South Africa: University of the Free State, 2006. Soledad Vieitez-Cerdeño University of Granada

Lessing, Doris Doris Lessing, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2007, is an English female novelist of the post–World War II period; her prolific and varied literary career, however, extends into the first decade of

the 21st century with the publication of such recent novels as The Cleft (2007) and Alfred and Emily (2008). Doris Lessing’s status as a feminist writer is as much unsolicited as inescapable. In spite of her attempt to drown her literary voice in the major political and communal issues of her age, thus instinctively shying away from a stereotyped feminine sensibility, many of her novels are today celebrated as feminist manifestos, deep psychic insights into the contemporary feminine self in both white colonial and metropolitan societies. Doris Lessing hence represents a controversial image of the contemporary female writer at war with her own “feminine” expression; her novels in addition show the development of the debate around women’s oppression and liberation into unprecedented frankness about hitherto silenced psychosexual issues like matrimony, motherhood, and sexual liberation. As a female writer, Lessing followed a quite neat line of development from autobiography to collective and communal experience. Her writings have always shown, however, a willful overshadowing of feminism by political and global concerns, thus seemingly asserting masculine values. Her own fiery character and eloquent anger against the patriarchal urge to mold her into a delicate, submissive femininity is expressed by her rejection of feminine models (represented by the much-despised mother figure) and her self-assertive choice of masculine modes of experience (especially her own experience as a left-wing activist and immigrant in bleak, postwar London). In art, as much as in life, Lessing’s feminine rebellion is expressed by her flight into universal and as such, masculine, experience. Transcending Femininity The movement from the personal (feminine) to the collective is best illustrated by Lessing’s early novel sequence, The Children of Violence (1952–69), which recounts the personal development of Martha Quest from adolescence and early youth spent on an African farm in Southern Rhodesia to middle-aged, neurotic disintegration and decay in a mid-20th century London threatened by nuclear catastrophe. The novels’ heroine represents the tormented, self-conscious female in search for a way out of the stasis of both colonial life and middle class, conventional matrimony. The most abhorred aspect of femininity, matrimony and motherhood, is an unbreakable cycle of

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repetition explained by the tyrannous rule of biology (pertaining to pregnancy and childbirth) and the stunting life of bourgeois colonial female society. The only way to break free is taking an active part in cultural, historical change through the renunciation of marriage and motherhood, immersion in left-wing politics, sexual freedom, and self-fulfilment associated with regaining England. The Golden Notebook (1962) comes out as a revolutionary feminist novel contrary to its author’s intention. The novel anticipates later debates around female liberation while presenting a psychological insight into female love and sexual relationships with men. It is a deep study of the dilemma of the intellectual female and her struggle between “independent” commitment and intellectualism, on the one hand, and the urge to embark on the tossing waves of emotional and heterosexual relationship on the other. The novel makes a pointed critique of male attitudes and female emotional dependency, and paints a sinister image of woman on the verge of personal disintegration. Issues around feminine experience remain constant throughout Lessing’s literary career apart from her dip into space fiction in the late 1970s and 1980s. From The Grass Is Singing (1950) to The Cleft (2007), feminine experience resurfaces from the novelist’s will to foreground communal and universal experience. While The Grass Is Singing represents both black and white as the victims of the pernicious system of Apartheid, the issue is expressed in terms of Mary Turner’s struggle with an insipid married life and a profoundly destabilizing sexual attraction to her black servant. In The Cleft, Lessing reimagines humanity’s beginnings as a lost feminine utopia where maleness is both physiological perversion— “Monsters. The deformed ones, the freaks, the cripples . . .” Lessing writes—and destructive mental constitution. See Also: Feminist Publishing; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender, Defined; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Novelists, Female. Further Readings Fand, Roxanne J. The Dialogic Self: Reconstructing Subjectivity in Woolf, Lessing, and Atwood. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1999.

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Robinson, Sally. Engendering the Subject: Gender and SelfRepresentation in Contemporary Women’s Fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Brontë to Lessing. London: Virago, 1993. Spacks, Patricia Meyer. The Female Imagination: a Literary and Psychological Investigation of Women’s Writing. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976. L. Tayeb Higher Institute of Human Sciences

LGBTQ LGBTQ is an acronym for the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans/transgender/transsexual, and queer, a term with historical roots in the political and social activism of the industrialized world over the last century. LGBTQ is intended to encompass a broad range of individuals who are conceptualized as part of a sexual and gendered minority for whom various rights and protections are sought. Some variation of the term LGBTQ is used by grassroots local, national, and global political and social organizations to indicate the individuals and groups forming their constituency. Depending on the context, groups might order the letters in distinctive formulations, for example, using LGB to identify a constituency that includes lesbian, gay, and bisexual but that may not directly be concerned with transgender, transsexual or queer issues. In the contemporary era, LGBT/GLBT is most commonly used in the English-speaking nations of the global north, or industrialized world. Placing lesbians first in the term LGBT is seen as an important political move for some groups in redressing the dominance of gay men and celebrating the place of women. Categories like lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer are far from universal, cross-culturally understood terms. On the contrary, these ways of understanding and manifesting sexual and gender difference are specific to particular cultural contexts. With globalization, the spread of particular sexual identities has been uneven and adapted distinctly to reflect local circumstances. This entry highlights some of

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the key ways that LGBTQ has been developed in the global north and critically examines the worldwide relevance of the acronym. LGBTQ Worldwide The term LGBTQ is not a worldwide term. On the contrary, it is a historically and culturally specific way of identifying and labeling gender and sexual difference. Currently, worldwide, there are significant variations in how sexual identity, attraction, and desire are named and understood, and how this relates to gender, family and kinship forms. Thus, while desire and sex might happen between men and between women across the world, it is not always understood as a defining feature of one’s identity, nor as a way of organizing familial/kinship relationships. Similarly, solely understanding gender within binary categories of male–man/female–woman is not a universal understanding found worldwide. It is often assumed that countries in the global north, such as the United States, are “better” and “more developed” in terms of the rights of LGBTQ people, and that those in the global south (or “developing nations”) repress LGBTQ people. While there is evidence of this, for example in the United Kingdom (UK), the Equalities Act 2010 makes public bodies accountable for their LGBT populations, there are also challenges to these rights and protections. In 2009, there were a spate of homophobic beatings and killings in London, England. Contrasting this, South Africa has some of the most liberal laws in relation to sexuality, and has led the way in legislative progress. History of LGBTQ Activism In its current configuration, LGBTQ reflects accumulated and sometimes contested sets of meanings, stemming from the emergence of globally distinctive gay and lesbian rights movements. The labeling of sexual and gender identities as LGBT is relatively recent, evolving from the medical categorization of homosexuality in the 19th century. Visible homosexual activism emerged as early as the 1800s in Europe and in the post–World War II era in North America, the UK, and Australia. In the UK, a secret society, the Order of Chaeronea, was established in 1897, “for the cultivation of a homosexual moral, ethical, cultural and spiritual ethos.” Activist organizations in North America, Scandinavia, Britain, and other European

countries after World War II used the word homophile to refer to both homosexuals (men and women) and to those heterosexuals who were interested in or supported their political and social causes. In Canada, the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT) and the University of Toronto Homophile Association (UTHA) were established in the late 20th century, and provided local community center space for socializing, education, political activism, and support. In the global north, most of the identifiable early organizations were administered by both men and women: by the early 1960s, many had dropped the term homophile in favor of the term gay, a term understood as encompassing both men and women. However, lesbians increasingly found reasons to form their own organizations. Although there was some engagement with the early feminist movements, lesbians often found the early women’s movement somewhat hostile, given concerns about women’s organizations being perceived as lesbian. Certain lesbian groups had little common interest with gay male activism until political activism increasingly focused on obtaining human rights protection around sexuality. Many organizations, once calling themselves simply “gay,” began to incorporate both the terms lesbian and gay in their naming. As political activism gained momentum in the global north throughout the 1980s, bisexuals sought admission to gay and lesbian organizations for social and political support, prompting the inclusion of the “B” organizational nomenclature. Bisexuals were sometimes seen as taking advantage of heterosexual “privilege” when looking for the assistance of gay and lesbian organizations when necessary; they also were sometimes viewed, particularly in some lesbian communities, as introducting diseases and the potential for male violence. Bisexual women have spoken of exclusion and rejection from social and support lesbian networks because of their desires for and relationships with men. Bisexuality also challenged the binary understandings of sexual orientation as either homosexual or heterosexual. Nevertheless, bisexual political and social interests were largely incorporated into (or subsumed under) gay and lesbian political organizations, reflected in the use of the term LGB. Trans, transgendered, and transsexual individuals have a historically and geographically distinctive con-



nection with gay and lesbian communities and their political and social organizations. The so-called gender inversion of gays and lesbians has been a staple of medical discourse and social and political approbation, beginning with the psychoanalytic and medical discourses of the early 20th century. After World War II, gay and lesbian communities included drag queens and “fairies,” butches, and femmes, and nonconforming gender identities were highly visible. With lesbian feminist politics in the 1970s, butchfemme culture was seen as obsolete and oppressive; a misguided and perverse reassertion of heterosexual roles in lesbian life. Offering a robust critique of masculinist society, lesbian feminism has sought to challenge heteropatriarchy and establish an independence and autonomy for women. More recently within lesbian feminism, transgendered and transsexual women were viewed with distrust and sometimes open hostility. Trans women are often regarded as men, and in this way unable to transcend the gender they were assigned at birth, reiterating an essentialist understanding of gender. How trans people relate to LGBT scenes, spaces and services varies geographically; in Brighton in the UK, for example, organizations worked hard to develop services that were inclusive to, and catered for, trans people before they became LGBT. In this context, activism around LGBT enables trans people to fight from a position of collective support. There are numerous forms of trans lives and experiences; some are defined by trans identities and enjoy being part of LGBT scenes and activisms. Others see themselves as trans only when transitioning, such that they then seek to live in their chosen gender. Still others seek to question the gendered binaries of male/female and live as neither, both or either. By the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s, a growing global north transgender and transsexual movement increasingly called for the inclusion of “gender identity” as a protected ground against discrimination and also for the broader, more flexible, notion of “gender expression,” which seeks to work beyond the binary gender category and open up the possibility for multiple and unstable gendered opportunities. Questioning LGBTQ Identities Political activism in the global north has been grounded in a politics of identities, which regards

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sexual orientation and gender identity as an essential, stable and unchanging identity forming in early childhood. Despite the largely essentialist arguments underpinning gay and lesbian identity politics, many now question the stability of these identities. The emergence of queer theorizing in the humanities and the social sciences in the 1980s challenged the heteronormative presuppositions structuring LGB identity politics. “Queer” for some is used as an umbrella term encompassing individuals who do not identify with essentialist categories such as “gay” or “lesbian,” and whose practices of desire, sexualities and genders are fluid, unstable, and transformative. Despite this anti-essentialist stance and rejection of identity politics, individuals understanding themselves as part of a queer minority continue to work within LGB organizations; the recognition of their presence is signaled by the “Q.” Yet, queer is also a way of understanding gender and sexuality that recognizes the fluidity of identities and the ways in which these are recreated. Queer conceptualizations seem better able in the global context to capture sexual and gendered forms and models that are not legible or coherent within Western categories, reflecting diverse organization of sexualities and genders along multiple axes. Globalizing LGBTQ Most scholars would assert that LGBTQ is an acronym specific to the political, historical and cultural circumstances of the global north. Many international rights organizations utilize the term LGBT and advocate largely on an essential, stable and universal understanding of sexual orientation. Their success in asserting this perspective is reflected in such organizations and declarations as the United Nations Human Rights Conventions, International Conference on LGBT Human Rights 2006, and the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. A key moment in activism that has in many ways globalized LGBTQ politics was the Stonewall Riots of 1969 that started after a police raid at a popular bar in the gay community, the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The Stonewall Riots became iconic across the global north because of the way the streets were used to visibly protest. Although in many places,

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the Pride marches inspired by Stonewall dissipated, they have more recently reemerged, grown in size, and in become increasingly commercialized. Sydney Mardi Gras is now a huge tourist attraction, boasts a large parade and a huge party. However, in other places, Pride marchers have experienced abuse, violence, and a lack of state support. In 2009, a Pride march took place in Riga, Latvia, after the ban on the event was overturned; however, in the same year Pride marchers in Poland and Russia clashed with the police. For many in the global south, LGBT human rights activism, while offering protection to those operating within Western identity categories of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered or transsexual, has excluded those who do not occupy these categories. Research in India about the hijras, for example, demonstrates the problems inherent in importing gendered concept from the global north to non-Western locations. The hijras can be defined as a “third sex,” and this questions the binary models of gender through which many aspects of society in the global north are understood. It also reworks understandings of “transgender” and the medical, social, and other models associated with this. In Indonesia, research has shown that same-sex female couples have intimate relationships that are not defined as lesbian; they also rework Western notions of butch–femme conventions as they negotiate the structures of society and employment. The adoption or rejection of lesbian and gay identities is mediated by class, race, and ethnicity in specific local and national contexts. In other words, there is no global gay identity: the globalization of LGBTQ does not determine how on a local level gender and sexuality is done. Transnational Activism and Assumptions of Progress There is often an assumption of progress, development, and superiority associated with LGBTQ identities in the global north that then translates into a patronizing desire to help LGBTQ activists in the global south. Engagements since the 1970s with LGBTQ activism in the global south have challenged the uncritical adoption of European and North American sexual identities and models of identity politics. There can be little doubt that supporting marginal-

ized groups is necessary across the globe. However, where it is perceived that ex-colonial powers are trying to control a nation, global north demonstrations, media attention and so on can be counterproductive to attaining sexual and gender liberation in the global south. For example, LGBT activists from across African nations wrote an open letter that asked Peter Tatchell to stop campaigning on their behalf, arguing that their expertise and advice was ignored in his and Outrage’s campaigns. These activists pointed to Uganda and Nigeria, where internal activist advice was ignored and large campaigns deployed by Outrage; these campaigns, they feared, would have a detrimental effect in part because they drew attention to repressive bills that were already “dead,” but could be revived as a negative reaction to Outrage’s campaigning. Understanding transnational activist support and learning requires a recognition of the complexities of how gender and sexual difference is lived across the globe. This also honors expertise, and works against reductionist tactics that can, for example, portray all Muslim countries as intolerant of same-sex desires. A geographically engaged understanding of LGBTQ lives can work to enable activism that supports sexual and gender liberation across the globe, from our own doorstep to thousands of miles away. See Also: Bisexuality; Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Lesbians; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States; Transgender; Transsexuality.

Further Readings Boellstroff, T. The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Hemmings, C. Bisexual Spaces: A Geography of Sexuality and Gender. New York: Routledge, 2002. Herdt, G. H. Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay and Lesbian Lives. Jackson, TN: Westview Press, 1998. Kennedy, E. and M. Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. London: Routledge, 1993. Puar, J. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

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A woman in Liberia speaks out, after years of women’s voices being silent, about a local resolution to end Liberian discrimination against women. The men behind her are seen laughing and covering their faces in amusement.

Reddy, G. With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Stryker, S. and S. Whittle. The Transgendered Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006. Tucker, A. Queer Visibilities: Space, Identity and Interaction in Cape Town. Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell, 2009. Warner, T. Never Going Back: A History of Gay Activism in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Kath Browne University of Brighton Catherine J. Nash Brock University

Liberia The Republic of Liberia is marked by a high population growth rate and low life expectancy. There are a variety of ethnic groups and religions, including a small percentage of Liberico Americans (Amerafricans) descended from freed slaves from the United States repatriated to Africa. Rural women largely remain in traditional subservient gender roles and exercise more limited rights than their urban counterparts. Women are affected by high domestic violence, fertility, and poverty rates, female genital mutilation, political instability, and a continuing human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) epidemic. Women played a key role in the peace movement that ended the

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repressive presidency of Charles Taylor and helped elect Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2005. Among Liberia’s indigenous ethnic groups, women are valued for their agricultural labor and childbearing and polygyny is considered the ideal state, although most males do not have multiple wives. Bride wealth payments are still common. Among Liberico Americans and Christianized indigenous groups, there is a religious emphasis on monogamy. A few men maintain what are termed “country wives” in addition to a religiously sanctioned “ring wife.” In some areas, intermarriage is eroding tribal distinctions. The fertility rate of 5.79 births per woman and the infant mortality rate of 138.24 per 1,000 live births are both high. Indigenous groups are patrilineal and male dominant, and consider wives as property. Husbands have legal claim to their wives’ children whether or not they are the biological fathers. Women handle domestic and childcare responsibilities. Domestic violence and female genital mutilation are common; the victims have little recourse. Women receive less education than men, generally receiving eight years as opposed to 11, and few receive higher education. There is a large gap in literacy rates at 73 percent for men but only 42 percent for women in 2003. Most rural residents have no access to Western style healthcare and rely on traditional medicine. Serious disease threats include malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera. The continuing HIV/AIDS epidemic has left behind many orphans. Life expectancy is very low, at 40.71 for men and 43 for women. Most rural agriculture is subsistence based, with tasks segregated by gender. Men clear the land while women and children plant, weed, and harvest the crops. Educated women often work outside the home, mainly in white-collar jobs. These women lose some of the social status gained through their education and employment if they must also perform traditional female activities such as farming or hauling water. Many indigenous societies have separate political systems run by each gender.

crimes. Accusations included crimes against women, including the use of rape as a tool of oppression, as well as backing insurgent forces that committed abductions, tortures, murder, and the conscription of child soldiers. The conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone left hundreds of thousands dead and over 1 million refugees. Liberian women played a key role in ending the conflict and forcing Taylor to resign in 2003, through the formation of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. The movement also aided the 2005 election of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman elected head of a sub-Saharan African state and herself a prominent peace activist and international leader. As a result, women have emerged as a significant political constituency and have emphasized free and compulsory education, healthcare, employment training, voter registration, rape prosecution, and collaboration between the government and nongovernmental organizations on women’s issues.

Key Role in Change of Government Liberian women faced violent oppression during the government of President Charles Taylor from 1997 to 2003, which was marked by conflict. The United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone would later charge him with crimes against humanity and war

Liechtenstein is a small nation of 160 sqare kilometers landlocked in central Europe that shares borders with Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is an extremely prosperous country with a diversified economy that includes a large financial services sector. In 2009, Liechtenstein had the world’s highest per

See Also: Heads of State, Female; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered; Rural Women; Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson. Further Readings Dahn, Kadiker. Learning From the Lives of Exiled Liberian Women: An Oral History From 1979 to 2006. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag, 2009. Liberian Women Peacemakers: Fighting for the Right to Be Seen, Heard, and Counted. Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2004. Moran, Mary H. Civilized Women: Gender and Prestige in Southeastern Liberia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

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capita Gross Domestic Product of $122,100. It uses the Swiss Franc as its currency, and the nation’s culture is heavily influenced by surrounding countries, particularly Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. Liechtenstein’s national language is German. The population of 34,761 (estimate as of July 2009) is primarily Roman Catholic (76.2 percent). Women in Liechtenstein only won the right to vote in 1984, but since then, the country has established gender equality as a principle in law with the Gender Equality Act of 1998, revision of the Marriage Act in 1999, and revisions in laws concerning rape and domestic violence. Liechtenstein provides a generous package of benefits to support women as both workers and mothers, including maternity leave of up to 20 weeks, support payments for children, and statesupported day care facilities. Liechtenstein has a low fertility rate (1.52 children per woman), and high life expectancies for both men (76.59 years) and women (83.52 years). There’s also a high net migration rate (4.66 migrants per 1,000 population), resulting in a positive growth rate of 0.702 percent. Maternal and child health services are excellent and the infant mortality of 4.25 deaths per 1,000 live births is among the lowest in the world. Literacy and Education Literacy in Liechtenstein is 100 percent for both men and women. Boys and girls attend elementary in approximately equal numbers but slightly fewer girls than boys are enrolled in secondary education. Substantially fewer women than men are enrolled in tertiary education, although women’s enrollment in higher education is increasing rapidly. Women constitute about 40 percent of the labor force in Liechtenstein. In 2009, women held 24 percent of seats in the national (unicameral) parliament. As of 2010, women also hold major positions in the government including Dr. Aurelia Frick, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cultural Affairs and Justice; and Dr. Renate Müssner, who is the Minister of Public Health, Social Affairs, and Environmental Affairs, Land Use Planning, Agriculture and Forestry. Several women from Liechtenstein have achieved world-class status in sports. Hanni Wenzel won three Olympic medals and four Olympic medals in Alpine skiing, including two golds at Lake Placid, New York,

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in 1980. Urzula Konzett won a bronze medal in slalom skiing in the 1984 winter Olympics in Sarajevo. See Also: Maternal Mortality; Olympics, Winter; Roman Catholic Church; Sports, Women in. Further Readings Portal of the Principality of Liechtenstein. http://www .liechtenstein.li/en/eliechtenstein_main_sites/portal _fuerstentum_liechtenstein/home.htm (accessed February 2010). United Nations Statistics Divisions. UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info. http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Life Expectancy, International Comparisons of Life expectancy is the number of years an individual can expect to live if conditions remain constant. Age at death varies tremendously from country to country and from group to group within a country. In most countries, life expectancy increased dramatically during the 1900s due, in part, to fewer deaths among children and pregnant women. Public health measures such as access to clean water, sanitation, and vaccinations for children were largely responsible for improvements in health. Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), however, is decreasing life expectancy in some countries. Females live longer at every stage of life and in almost every country. While the average global life expectancy is 68 years, it is about 70 years for women and 65 for men. Life expectancies are reported separately by sex. One of the largest differences is in Russia where women live 13 more years than men. Life expectancy ranges from 86 years for women in Japan to 42 years for women in Afghanistan. Regionally, women in Africa have the shortest life expectancies. Explanations for this sex difference include biological advantages for women, their responsibilities for family health, and risky behaviors and occupations for

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men. Women’s longer lives are typically coupled with higher rates of illness and disability, however. Life expectancy is also reported by age; years of additional life vary at each age. Infant mortality rates (deaths from birth to one year per 1,000 live births) are roughly 400 times higher in the poorest countries than in the richest countries. Under-5 mortality rates (deaths by age 5 per 1,000 live births) are also much higher in poorer regions. Globally, almost 20 percent of deaths are children less than 5 years old. Average life expectancy is reduced dramatically when infants and children die. These deaths are unexpected in richer countries, but more common in other parts of the world. Most of these deaths are preventable with vaccines, antibiotics, and proper nutrition. About half a million women die each year as a result of pregnancy and childbirth; maternal mortality is higher in poor countries or poor populations within richer countries. Women with access to good prenatal care, healthy diet, attended births, and access to birth control are at much lower risk of death during pregnancy and delivery. Developed Countries Life expectancy in high-income countries (i.e., Japan, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, western Europe) is about 80 years. People are healthier and live longer at all stages of life in richer countries; most deaths occur among the elderly. For example, on average, women in the United States live until age 81, and men, age, 76, but substantial differences exist between groups. Life expectancy for white women is about 80, for black women it is about 76 years. The leading causes of death in the United States and other developed countries are heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease, unintentional injuries (especially motor vehicle accidents), diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, and septicemia. HIV/AIDS is not a leading cause of death. Infectious diseases account for less than 1 percent of deaths in richer countries. Infant mortality rates are very low in developed countries, about 5 or fewer per 1,000 live births. In some countries, such as Iceland and Sweden, the rate is 2/1,000 births. In the United States, roughly 6/1,000 infants die before age 1. Under-5 mortality rates are also low, about 4 or 5/1,000 live births; the child mortality rate in the United States is 8/1,000

live births. The expectation is that children will live to grow up. Children are more likely to die from unintentional injuries and violence than from communicable diseases. Maternal mortality rates are also low in developed countries. Rates are relatively high in the United States, largely because of the high number of deaths among African American mothers. Developing Countries In middle-income countries, the impact of living conditions, economic opportunities, gender inequalities, and poverty becomes more obvious. Communicable diseases and infant, child, and maternal deaths are more common than in richer countries. Life expectancy and causes of death vary in developing countries; individuals living in the former Soviet Union struggle with more health problems and higher mortality than those in South America, for example. Countries in Asia and the west Pacific have the highest rates of chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Life expectancy has increased for many of these regions. Female life expectancy is 66.9 years in Arab states, 70.4 years in east Asian and Pacific countries, 71.7 in Latin American and Caribbean countries (Haiti is an exception, with a life expectancy for women of 52.7), 63.2 in south Asia, and 68.1 in eastern European countries. Infant and child health is improving in many middle-income countries. On average, about 27 infants and 34 children die per 1,000 live births. China and India demonstrate both the range of life expectancies in developing countries and exceptions to the rule of female advantage in life expectancy at each age. In China, women’s life expectancy is approximately 75 years. The infant mortality rate is 19/1,000 live births (22/1,000 for females and 16/1,000 for males), and under-5 mortality rate is 22/1,000 live births (26/1,000 for girls and 19/1,000 live births for males). Women in India can expect to live about 65 years. The infant mortality rate is 54/1,000 live births (55/1,000 for females and 54/1,000 for males); under-5 mortality rate is 72/1,000 (77/1,000 for females and 67/1,000 for males). In both China and India, as in all developing countries, women outlive men, but their unusual patterns of increased mortality among female infants and children due to infanticide and neglect are unique.



Least Developed Countries Africa is the poorest continent in per capita income and by most health measures. High death rates among infants, children, and pregnant women and widespread HIV/AIDS infections shorten life expectancy significantly. Poverty and lack of necessities such as clean, available water, sanitation, and adequate diet are largely responsible. Life expectancy for African women is 54 years. Seventy percent of the world’s HIV infections are in sub-Saharan Africa, and over half are women. This depresses life expectancy to below 50 years in some African countries. Communicable diseases account for about 72 percent of deaths on the African continent. Tuberculosis and noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, lower respiratory infections, and injuries are also prevalent. Infant and child mortality rates are highest in subSaharan Africa. Childhood diseases such as measles and diarrheal diseases are responsible for many deaths. Malaria is another disease that is concentrated in Africa; the highest malaria mortality rates are for children under 5. Africa also has 19 of the 20 countries with the highest maternal mortality rates. (The other is Afghanistan.) In Sierra Leone, 2,000 mothers die per 100,000 live births. Influences Health and life expectancy are influenced by hereditary factors, such as genetic predisposition to disease. This does not account for the large disparities in life expectancy around the globe. Individual lifestyle has a larger impact on life expectancy in richer countries than poorer ones. For example, in richer countries, individuals can choose to overeat, putting them at risk for heart disease, for example. In poorer countries, individuals have fewer choices in their diet. The diseases of poorer countries often result from too few calories, leading to death directly through starvation or indirectly through malnutrition that weakens the body. Women and children are most vulnerable to the health impact of a poor diet. Environmental factors can also contribute to lower life expectancies. Access to clean water and adequate sanitation are crucial to health, and lack of access impacts women and children the most. Air, water, soil pollution, climate change, and conflict decrease

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years of life in some areas more than in others. The increased number of motor vehicles is related to more traffic-related deaths. Available, affordable healthcare systems also contribute to better health and longer lives. Patients in rural areas may live hours away from the nearest healthcare facility, making access almost impossible. Many pregnant women in poor countries die because they do not have skilled attendants for delivery. Vaccines and antibiotics can prevent many child deaths in poorer countries. Measurement Estimates of mortality are fairly reliable even in countries without a strong vital registration system. Infant mortality rates are more problematic since all deaths may not be reported. Most of the rates reported here are from 2007 World Health Organization (WHO) statistics. See Also: Cancer, Women and; Heart Disease; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Infant Mortality; Infanticide; Maternal Mortality; Women’s Health Clinics; World Health Organization. Further Readings Heron, Melonie, Donna L. Hoyert, Sherry L. Murphy, Jiaquan Xu, Kenneth D. Kochanek, and Betzaida Tejada-Vera. “Division of Vital Statistics. Deaths—Final Data for 2006.” National Vital Statistics, v.57/14 (2009). Heron, Melonie and B. Tejada-Vera. “Deaths: Leading Causes for 2005.” National Vital Statistics Reports, v.58/8 (2008). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, (2009). UC Atlas of Global Inequality. http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu /cause.php (accessed November 2009). World Health Organization (WHO). World Health Statistics: Mortality and Burden of Disease. Geneva: WHO, 2009. Rebecca Reviere Howard University

Lilly Ledbetter Act The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was signed into law by President Barack Obama on January 29, 2009. It was the first bill President Obama signed into

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law after taking office on January 20, 2009. In very basic terms, the law eliminates the time limit within which an employee must file a complaint of pay discrimination as long as he or she continues on the employer’s payroll. In other words, under the new law, Lilly Ledbetter, for whom the act is named, would have been able to file a complaint of pay discrimination against her former employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., when she found out that she had been underpaid because of her gender for years. She was unable to win her case because under the statutes of limitations of the old law, she had taken too long to file a complaint about a discriminatory practice of which she was unaware. The Road to Success The road to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was long. Lilly Ledbetter worked as a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Alabama for 19 years. In a corporation dominated by men, she experienced sexism on the job throughout her tenure, yet was often praised for her work as a supervisor. She did not know the extent to which she was underpaid until an anonymous person left a paper in her mailbox detailing the salaries of her male counterparts. She was being paid 20 percent less than the lowest-paid male supervisor. Armed with this information, Ledbetter filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Initially, a jury found Goodyear guilty of discrimination and awarded Ledbetter $3.8 million in back pay and damages. This sum was reduced to $360,000 because of caps on damages under Title VII. On May 29, 2007, however, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict by a vote of 5–4. The opposition, led by Judge Samuel Alito, claimed that although Ledbetter did file a complaint of pay discrimination within 180 days of receiving a paycheck, she did not file the complaint within 180 days of when Goodyear decided to pay her less than her male counterparts. Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who voted in favor of Ledbetter, argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling does not take into account the reality for women in the workplace and urged Congress to reverse the ruling legislatively. The Lilly Ledbetter Act is not solely about gender discrimination. The act clarified that every paycheck or other compensation resulting from an earlier dis-

criminatory pay decision constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act and applies to workers who file claims of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, or disability. It reversed a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that made it more difficult for Americans to pursue such claims. The act amends Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, extending the statute of limitations to file claims of compensation discrimination under all of the major federal civil rights laws. Compensation Discrimination Guidelines Before the Ledbetter Act, employees had 180 days to file a complaint of compensation discrimination, or 300 days if the state has a fair employment agency. Under the new law, there is no statute of limitations as long as the employee remains on the payroll of the alleged discriminatory corporation, as each payment of wages is a new unlawful discriminatory act. The employee needs only to establish that he or she is a member of a protected class and that he or she was paid less than those who are not members of a protected class to file a complaint of discrimination. Congress made the law retroactive to May 28, 2007, the day before the Supreme Court ruled against Lilly Ledbetter in her Title VII discrimination lawsuit. Therefore, the Lilly Ledbetter Act applies to all pay discrimination charges that were pending on or after that date under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. Lilly Ledbetter never saw a penny from her suit against Goodyear, but she helped set in motion a series of events that would eventually make the workplace a more equitable environment for many Americans. For example, the Paycheck Fairness Act, passed by the House in January 2009, would help to strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963, as well as the Lilly Ledbetter Act. See Also: Bullying in the Workplace; Equal Pay; Ledbetter, Lilly; Management, Women in; Sexual Harassment; Working Mothers. Further Readings Barnes, Robert. “Over Ginsburg’s Dissent, Court Limits Bias Suits.” Washington Post (May 30, 2007).

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Miller, Frederic P., John McBrewster, and Agnes F. Vandome, eds. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Beau Bassin, Mauritius: Alphascript Publishing, 2010. U.S. Committee on Education and Labor, “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.” http://edlabor.house.gov/lilly-ledbetter -fair-pay-act/index.shtml (accessed April 2010). Katie M. White University of Maryland

Lin, Maya Maya Ying Lin is a noted American architect and sculptor. She was born October 5, 1959, in Athens, Ohio, to Henry and Julia Lin, Chinese immigrants and professors at Ohio University. She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from Yale University in 1981 and 1986, respectively, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1987. Lin is best known for her controversial design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, one of the most visited sites in Washington, D.C. Maya Lin was a 21-year-old undergraduate student at Yale when she won a contest to design a memorial for Vietnam veterans sponsored by veteran Jan Scruggs and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF). Design criteria stated that the memorial must harmonize with its surroundings, be reflective in nature, contain the names of the more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers killed or missing in Vietnam, and that it did not make a political statement about the controversial U.S. involvement in the conflict. Lin won the contest and a $20,000 prize on May 1, 1981, in a unanimous decision from a panel of noted architects and landscape designers who served as judges. Lin’s simple but powerful design featured two long paneled walls of reflective polished black marble that gradually increase in height and meet in an inverted V-shape. Lin’s design received a mixed reaction, with some praising its haunting and interactive qualities while others felt that it was too different, abstract, and not patriotic enough; some also questioned her youth and Asian heritage. Secretary of the Interior James Watt initially halted construction. The dispute was settled through the agreement that a bronze statue by Frederick Hart, titled the Three Servicemen, and an inscribed flagpole would be added near the

Maya Lin’s student project submission at Yale’s School of Architecture for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

memorial. Later additions included Glenna Goodacre’s sculpture known as the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, and an In Memory plaque dedicated to those lost to war-related illnesses. Lin moved to Washington, D.C., to oversee construction of the memorial, which was dedicated on Veteran’s Day of 1982. In 1988, she received the Presidential Design Award for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Memorial attracts more than four million annual visitors, many of whom leave personal mementos such as flags, flowers, letters, pictures, and other objects, or trace rubbings of the names of relatives or friends listed on the wall. The National Park Service collects and displays objects left at the memorial. After the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Lin later moved to New York City, where she opened her own studio. She designed homes as well as sculptures. Lin’s sculptures are noted for their large size

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and minimalist but evocative, interactive designs. She often uses natural materials in her work. The chief influences on her sculptures include landscape, universal harmony, science and technology, history, Asian themes, and personal experiences. Lin created the Wave Field at the University of Michigan, a series of 50 earthwork grass waves in eight rows where pedestrians can study or enjoy leisure activities. Lin’s other notable projects included the 1988 Civil Rights Memorial commissioned by the Southern Poverty Center in Montgomery, Alabama; an outdoor chapel at Juniata College in Pennsylvania; the Women’s Table at Yale University; and a large clock that hangs at Penn Station in New York City. Director Freida Lee Mock told Lin’s story in the Academy Award-winning, 1995 PBS documentary Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. See Also: Architecture, Women in; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Vietnam. Further Readings Lashnits, Tom. Maya Lin (Asian Americans of Achievement). New York: Chelsea House, 2007. Malone, Mary. Maya Lin: Architect and Artist. Springfield, NJ: Enslow, 1995. Scruggs, Jan C. and Joel L. Swerdlow. To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Linton, Simi Simi Linton is among the foremost experts on disability studies, arts, and culture. She holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from New York University and was on the faculty at the City University of New York for 14 years. She has been active in the disability rights movement since 1971 when she was injured in a car accident en route to protest the Vietnam War. In 1998, Linton developed disability/arts consultancy for filmmakers, artists, and cultural institutions (e.g., Smithsonian, Margaret Mead Film Festival, and the Public Theater), working to shape the

presentation of disability in the arts. Linton lectures widely on the cross-disciplinary relevance of disability studies, advocates for greater representation of disabled artists, and argues to incorporate disability into the multicultural curriculum. Her work brings an insider’s perspective to the many professional and artistic achievements of people living with disability and the persistent discrimination they face. Changing Societal Views on Disability Her book, Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity, was among the first to establish the legitimacy of disability studies as an interdisciplinary field. Challenging medical definitions that treat individual conditions as pathologies, disability studies exposes the social, political, and economic determinants of disability as a contested designation that structures inequality. Claiming Disability not only affirmed the relevance of disability to the humanities but also cultivated community by making apparent the shared realities of individuals with different impairments, too often characterized as living lives of tragedy, shame, and suffering. In her book, Linton wrote, “We are bound together, not by a list of our collective symptoms but by the social and political circumstances that have forged us as a group.” Linton’s memoir My Body Politic provides personal insight into an often invisible world, documents the evolution of her identity politics, and celebrates the pleasures associated with coming out as a disabled woman. Simi Linton promotes an inclusive, egalitarian society. Her scholarship and creative endeavors aim to transform narrow conceptions of beauty and movement; to legitimize alternative forms of selfexpression; and to establish greater public presence of disabled people on college campuses, onstage, and as parents, partners, and professionals. Her work encourages dialogue on policy issues. For instance, she presents on the forgotten history of disabled people exterminated at the advent of the Holocaust and engages politically against the selective availability of physician-assisted suicide based on faulty presumptions that a life with disability is not worth living. In collaboration with others, Linton has advocated for greater attention to the legal and personal complexities confronting a new generation of disabled veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and navigating purposeful lives in politicized bodies.

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Her current project is a documentary film titled Invitation to Dance. The film brings the disability arts movement to the screen, and simultaneously reveals the lived experience of disability. Invitation to Dance is based on Linton’s memoir, My Body Politic. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Disability Definitions; Film Directors, Female: United States; Iraq; Peace Movement; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Linton, Simi. Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Linton, Simi. My Body Politic: A Memoir. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. “Simi Linton.” http://www.similinton.com (accessed May 2010). Michelle R. Nario-Redmond Hiram College Kathryn C. Oleson Reed College

Lithuania Lithuania’s post–World War I independence ended with annexation by the Soviet Union in 1940. Fifty years later, in 1990, Lithuania reclaimed its independence, even before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. By 2004, Lithuania had become a member of both the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Ethnic Lithuanians are the dominant group in the country, comprise 83.4 percent of the population, but there also are small groups of Polish (6.7 percent) and Russians (6.3 percent). Almost 80 percent of Lithuanians are Roman Catholic. By 2008, 67 percent of Lithuanians lived in urban areas. Women’s rights groups have been active since the late 19th century, and women won the right to vote in 1920. However, activism was outlawed under Communism. Since the early 1990s, women’s rights groups have reasserted themselves. According to the constitution and the law, females have equal rights of property, inheritance and opportunity. In reality, women lag behind men in almost every field.

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Domestic violence and human trafficking are of major concern. After a period of prosperity, the recent global economic downturn adversely impacted Lithuania with unemployment rising from 4.8 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009. At the same time, per capita income dropped from $18,000 to $15,000. Four percent of the population began living in poverty. Women and children are disproportionately affected by these changes. In business, women face a glass ceiling that prevents advancement into professional and managerial positions; and according to reports issued in 2008, the wage gap between men and women is 79 percent. In 1997, there were two female ministers in the 17-member cabinet. By 2008, 26 women sat in the 141-seat Parliament, but the number of women in the cabinet had declined to only one. Overall, 5 percent of mayors, 21 percent of municipal council members, and 5 percent of local administration directors were female. Infant Mortality and Domestic Violence Lithuania ranks 176th in the world in infant mortality, with a rate of 5.13 deaths per 1,000 live births for females and 7.73 deaths per 1,000 live births for males. Females maintain their health advantage, and life expectancy for females is 80.1 years compared to 69.98 years for males. The median age for women is 41.9 years. Lithuanian women have a fertility rate of 1.23 children. Lithuanians of both sexes are at risk for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), approximately 0.1 percent, and they have an intermediate risk of contracting bacterial diarrhea through food- and waterborne diseases and tickborne encephalitis. There are no gender differences in literacy (99.6 percent), but females generally receive 17 years of schooling versus 15 years for males. Domestic violence has been a perpetual problem, and is often associated with alcohol abuse. As the result of organized crime, some females, including minors, are forced or tricked into prostitution abroad. Due to post-Communist reforms, rape, including spousal rape, carries a prison term of three to five years. Domestic violence is dealt with through regular criminal codes rather than laws designed for that purpose. A 2008 law forces perpetrators rather than the victim to leave the family residence, and the government established the National Strategy for Reduction of Domestic Violence

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against Women. With the assistance of nongovernmental organizations and the European Union, various programs were established and 39 shelters established to provide help to victims of domestic violence, forced prostitution and human trafficking. Sexual harassment is illegal in Lithuania, and victims can turn to the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman’s Office for help. However, most cases go unreported. See Also: Domestic Violence; Trafficking, Women and Children; United Nations Conferences on Women. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Lithuania.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/lh.html (accessed February 2010). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Devine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status of Women in 140 Countries, 1997–1998. New York: Random House, 1997. “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997; Lithuania.” WIN News, v.24/2 (Spring 1998). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Little League The history and visibility of Little League Baseball and Softball has left an indelible mark on youth sport participation in America and throughout the world. Little League Baseball and Softball is a nonprofit organization based in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Little League, and its premier annual event the Little League World Series, is widely recognized as being the most visible producer of youth baseball and softball. Though Little League has maintained a strong presence as a preeminent provider of youth sport opportunities, it has gone through various changes since the league’s inception. Little League’s origin dates back to 1939, when it was founded by Carl Stotz as a boys-only youth baseball league. Since its inception, Little League has experienced dramatic change, including expanded

program offerings and diversity in regards to program participants throughout the United States and internationally. Under Little League International, individual member affiliates throughout the world provide baseball and softball leagues to boys and girls ages 5 to 18. Currently, both boys and girls play on Little League teams. That, however, has not always been the case. Originally only boys were allowed to participate on Little League Baseball teams. Resistance to female participation was based on factors such as the preconceived belief that girls were more prone to injury than boys, that their involvement would weaken the masculinity of the game thereby discouraging boys from playing, or claiming that the organization was a private entity. Title IX and the Aftermath Following the furtherance of female sport opportunities resulting in the passage of Title IX in 1972 and other social liberation movements, and ultimately after numerous legal battles, Little League Baseball was ordered to allow female participants. In 1974, subsequent to a court order, Elizabeth Osder became the first female to “officially” play in Little League Baseball. This watershed event opened the door for additional girls interested in participating in Little League Baseball, Little League Softball, and Senior League Softball programs as well (with the latter two established in the aftermath of this ruling). Currently Little League Baseball and Softball boasts remarkable numbers in regards to funding, participation, and corporate support. The organization is separated in a divisional structure consisting of four levels. The first level includes Local Little League affiliates, followed by District, Regional, and International Divisions. A large percentage of operational funds for Little League Baseball and Softball are provided by Little League International. Additional financial support is provided by various corporate sponsors. The majority of the processes necessary to execute Little League events are managed by a network of volunteers. Little League Baseball and Softball coaches, umpires, and scorekeepers are typically individuals who donate their time to the organization. Since its inception, Little League Baseball has evolved tremendously. Contemporary program offer-

Locavorism/Slow Food Movement



ings include developmental sport camps and multiple divisions of baseball and softball leagues for boys and girls age 5 to 18. It is presently estimated that nearly 3 million young people participate on approximately 7,400 Little League Baseball and Softball teams globally. The future of Little League Baseball and Softball appears to be bright, as the preponderance of youth sport offerings for both boys and girls will lay a foundation for involvement, development, and expansion of the sport that serves as America’s national pastime and a global phenomenon. See Also: Coaches, Female; Sports, Women in; Sports Officials, Female; Title IX. Further Readings Ardell, Jean H. Breaking Into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. Berlage, Gai I. Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994. Cohen, Marilyn. No Girls in the Clubhouse: The Exclusion of Women From Baseball. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Fields, Sarah K. Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sports in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Little League Baseball and Softball. Structure of Little League Baseball and Softball. http://www.littleleague .org/Learn_More/About_Our_Organization/structure .htm (accessed November 2009). Ring, J. Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Jason W. Lee University of North Florida Elizabeth A. Gregg Jacksonville University

Locavorism/Slow Food Movement The 20th century witnessed the growth of large corporate farms and massive industrial feed lots, along with the demise of family farms. Multinational companies became dominant in the production, packag-

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ing, and distribution of food, and American consumers became removed from the sources of their food. A back-to-the-land movement inspired by the works of Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Helen and Scott Nearing emerged in the 1960s to 1970s. Outbreaks of foodborne diseases were not uncommon. In the late 1990s, Eric Schlosser reported some of the more unsavory practices of the meat industry, and Michael Pollan’s work made us more conscious of how our food affected our health. Consumers began to be more aware of the dangers associated with an industrialized food supply and looked for alternative means of provision. Two approaches to eating emerged from these concerns Locavores In 2001, Gary Paul Nabhan published a book in which he described a year of eating foods harvested within 250 miles of his home in Arizona. His book inspired Jessica Prentice to coin the term locavore (or localvore) to describe one who consumes locally sourced food. In 2005, she challenged the residents of the Bay Area of San Francisco to eat only from their “foodshed” for one month. Doing so was based on the belief that local food is better for both the consumer and the environment, as it required fewer miles of transport and delivered a fresher product. The San Francisco locavores defined a 100-mile radius to be their local source of food. Because of the climate, this limitation allowed the necessary quantity and diversity of foodstuff. Some items were difficult to source in that radius—for example, home-grown flour, coffee, and olive oil. Today, locavores allow for exceptions for favorite food items, as the family of writer Barbara Kingsolver did when they spent a year of eating locally. The main theme of locavorism is to attempt to eat locally as far as it is possible. This has the double benefit of supporting the local economy and securing fresher food. Critics of the local food movement, such as James E. McWilliams, point out that there are inherent geographic limitations to local eating and that local food is usually more expensive than food provided by large agribusiness. However, the locavore movement thrives today, where geography allows and where consumers are concerned about their carbon footprint. In 2007, the Oxford American Dictionary declared locavore to be the word of the year.

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Slow Food Just across the San Francisco Bay, in Berkeley, a related food movement was well in progress and was brought to the attention of Americans by Alice Waters, chef and owner of the restaurant Chez Panisse. Ms. Waters practiced locavorism in her food purchasing but also advocated for food that is prepared carefully, with a view toward sensual pleasure. Only the best ingredients are to be used, and cooking must not be rushed. She believed that food worth eating takes time to prepare and to savor. Her beliefs are shared by members of Slow Food International, of which she is vice president. Whereas locavores are concerned about where food comes from and the carbon footprint it leaves, subscribers to the Slow Food Movement are concerned with how their food is grown and prepared for consumption. The Slow Food Movement began in 1989 as a reaction to the proliferation of industrialized fast food. Carlo Petrini, a political and food activist of Bra, Italy, organized a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant near the Spanish Steps in Rome. The protestors threw fresh macaroni—a dish that takes time to make. The Slow Food Movement has grown to an international community that claims more than 100,000 members in 132 countries, with the snail as the chosen symbol for the organization. The members are bound together with the desire to eat local, sustainable, organic food that has been carefully cooked to maximize taste. They hold against food without flavor and genetically modified food. They support food biodiversity, native planting, the preservation of heirloom seeds, and small farmers. They are a politically and socially active group that spread their ideas through their convivia, or local chapters. Slow Food efforts have led to the Terra Madre Network of producers, who gather together every two years to share information on sustainable foodways. Criticism of the Slow Food Movement usually invokes the costs involved or the time taken to prepare it. Organic fresh food is expensive, and not everyone can afford it. Prepared food from the supermarket is less expensive and easier to put together for a meal, given the fast pace of many lifestyles. Members of the Slow Food Movement would argue that the supermarket lifestyle is precisely why many humans have diseases related to diet—diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity. Members of the move-

ment might recommend that Americans slow down a bit and eat delicious slow food. See Also: Gardening; Health, Mental and Physical; Waters, Alice. Further Readings Bendrick, L. Eat Where You Live: How to Find and Enjoy Local and Sustainable Produce, No Matter Where You Live. Seattle, WA: Skipstone, 2008. Kingsolver, B., et al. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. McWilliams, J. E. Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. Boston: Little, Brown, 2009. Namhan, G. P. Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Petrini, C. Slow Food: The Case for Taste. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Pollan, M. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual. New York: Penguin, 2009. Pollan, M. In Defense of Food. New York: Penguin, 2009. Pollan, M. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: Penguin Books, 2007. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Una Bray Skidmore College

Love Canal Love Canal has come to signify the environmental contamination of a community. Since 1978, it has been a symbol in the fight for clean communities across the nation and for the belief that the fight can be won. Worldwide, the notoriety of Love Canal has kept the grassroots environmental movement alive, encouraging residents’ awareness of and mobilization against neighborhood contamination from chemical landfills and their perceived health threats. The envisioning of Love Canal began in 1898 when William T. Love, a land developer from Knoxville, Tennessee, developed a plan to build the canal and transform Niagara Falls into an economic power for the 20th century. Love proposed a model city in



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land was deemed public space, Hooker deeded the land to the school board for $1. The deed included details of the chemicals buried in the area and directed that excavation and development of the land were unwise. After meetings between the school board and Hooker Electrochemical Company, the school board accepted the deed, thinking that the construction planned would not disturb the chemicals underground.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency photo of the cleanup efforts in the abandoned toxic neighborhood.

which his goal was to harness waterfalls to generate electricity that would attract industries. Love’s technology and development plan included using direct current to generate electricity and connecting the lower and upper Niagara River with a manmade canal. Love’s model city never materialized because economic depression gripping the country at the turn of the century which forced him into bankruptcy. Furthermore, Nikola Tesla’s invention of the alternating electric current rendered the technology of direct current obsolete. All that remained of Love’s vision was a partially finished canal that was 60 feet wide, 10 feet deep, and 3,000 feet long, used as a swimming hole in the early 1900s. Chemicals and Municipal Waste Dumped Into Canal In 1940, Hooker Electrochemical Company acquired Love’s partially completed canal for a chemical waste landfill. Between 1942 and 1953, Hooker disposed of 22,000 tons of chemical waste. The city of Niagara Falls, New York. and residents obtaining permits from the local health department also used the canal for disposing municipal waste. Company technicians believed the canal was an adequate landfill because of its cement sides and its depth. When Hooker closed the landfill in 1953, a clay cap was placed over the waste barrels and covered with grass. In 1953, the city of Niagara Falls approached Hooker about acquiring the property. Because the

Home and School Built on Canal Site In January 1954, the city of Niagara Falls began construction on the canal property with the development of the 99th Street School and surrounding residences. The houses bordered the canal on the east and west, and the school playground was located on top of the dumpsite. Underground sewer systems, basements, and roads also accompanied the construction of the new community. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, reports surfaced of children with rashes and burns on their hands and feet after playing on the school playground. Residents also complained of clogged sump pumps, strange smells, and leaking basements. In 1976, Niagara Gazette reporter, Mike Brown, became interested in the complaints and arranged for the analysis of samples of basement sludge. Analysis revealed high concentration of benzene among other dangerous chemicals. The publication of the findings sparked concerns of residents like Lois Gibbs whose son attended the 99th Street School. Concerned about the proximity of the chemical site to the school, Gibbs started a door-to-door campaign asking residents if they or their children had any health problems and when the health problems began. Health Emergency Declared Taking note, on August 2, 1978, the New York State Department of Health Commissioner, Robert Whalen, announced that a health emergency existed at Love Canal and advised the evacuation of pregnant women and children under age 2. Within that year, remedial work started immediately following the discovery of chemical migration. Because of complaints of fumes and the general frustration of residents, the state ordered a temporary relocation program initiated by New York State Department of Transportation. Residents were provided food allowances and

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living accommodations in area hotels and college dormitories. Because of concern over the high health risk to residents beyond the first two blocks closest to the canal, and much pressure from Lois Gibbs, the Homeowners Association, and local political representatives, a third evacuation took place on May 21, 1980, that included all homes within a 10-block radius of the canal. Before Love Canal, there was no discussion about contaminated communities. The social processes that occurred within this community offer an analysis of how environmental problems in communities are defined, reacted to, and remedied. Although other communities have been confronted with environmental disasters, Love Canal is the first such case in which people were evacuated and resettled. The Environmental Protection Agency conducted two habitability studies that led to resettlement of the area in 1990. Three of the seven areas in the 10-block Emergency Declaration Area were deemed not safe for residential use, but safe for light industrial purposes. To date, these areas have not been resettled, but residents who chose to remain still live there. Legislatively, Love Canal has proved to be an important precedent for grassroots activism as well as policies for brownfields redevelopment since it set forth motion that culminated in the Superfund program, which was developed as part of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, which allocates federal funds for the cleanup of dangerously contaminated sites across the nation. The placement of a chemical waste site on the list is based on the potential harm and severity of the buried material. Lois Gibbs went on to found the Citizens’ Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, a nonprofit group that has assisted numerous communities with environmental problems. She has since renamed it the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice in recognition of the fact that the antitoxics movement, inspired by Love Canal, has now joined forces with the environmental justice movement made famous by the work of Robert Bullard. Through this effort, Gibbs helped the nation to recognize the link between people’s exposure to dangerous chemicals in their communities and serious public health impacts. As a result, in 1998, on the 20th anniversary of the crisis, she received the prestigious Heinz Award for the Environment.

See Also: Birth Defects, Environmental Factors and; Cancer, Environmental Factors and; Cancer, Women and; Gibbs, Lois. Further Readings Brown, M. Laying Waste: The Poisoning of America by Toxic Chemicals. New York: Pantheon. 1979. Brown, M. “Red Tape Stalls Dump Solution.” Niagara Gazette (February 5, 1978). Brown, M. “Unreasonable: Newspaper Editorial Niagara Falls, New York.” Niagara Gazette (September 16, 1979). Bullard, R. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990. Levine, A. Love Canal: Science, Politics, People. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1982. Dara Nix-Stevenson University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Luxembourg Luxembourg is a landlocked country in central Europe sharing borders with Germany, France, and Belgium. It has long been involved in international trade cooperation, beginning with the Benelux Customs Union in 1948 (with Belgium and the Netherlands) and was a founding member of the European Economic Community. The population of about half a million is primarily Roman Catholic (87 percent). Luxembourg has a stable and diversified economy and in 2009 had a per capita Gross Domestic Product of $77,660, the third highest in the world. Much of the labor force is foreign or cross-border workers from neighboring European countries, and Luxembourg has one of the highest net migration rates in the world at 8.44 per 1,000 population. The World Economic Forum ranks Luxembourg in the middle third of countries on gender equality. On a scale from 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality) Luxembourg in 2009 achieved an overall score of 0.689 (63rd out of 134 countries). The country received scores of 1.00 for educational attainment (tied for highest in the world), .973 for health and survival (80th), 0.638 for economic participation and opportunity (73rd), and 0.144 for political empowerment (57th).



Literacy stands at 100 percent for both men and women in Luxembourg, and women are more likely than men to be enrolled in tertiary education. About 60 percent of women in Luxembourg are in the labor force, versus 75 percent of men, and women constitute 43 percent of the nonagricultural labor force. Women earn about 70 percent of what men do for the same work and overall earn about 55 percent of what men do. As of 2009, women held a third of the seats in Luxembourg’s Parliament and 17 percent of government ministry positions. Luxembourg provides excellent maternal and childcare and services, and all births are attended by trained staff. Infant mortality is extremely low at 3 per 1,000 live births as is maternal mortality, at 12 per 100,000 live births. Mothers are entitled to 16 weeks of maternity leave at 100 percent of their wages. Save the Children ranked Luxembourg 9th among 43 Tier I or more developed countries on its Children’s Index, 28th on its Mothers’ Index, and 34th on its Women’s Index.

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See Also: Liechtenstein; Maternal Mortality; Representation of Women in Government, International; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Luxembourg.” https://www.cia.gov/library/pub lications/the-world-factbook/geos/lu.html (accessed July 2010). Eccardt, Thomas M. Secrets of the Seven Smallest States of Europe: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2004. Reid, Andrew. Luxembourg: The Clog-Shaped Duchy: A Chronological History of Luxembourg From the Celts to the Present Day. Self-published, AuthorHouse, 2005. Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

M Maathai, Wangari Wangari Muta Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, is an activist for environmental conservation, democracy, and women’s rights; a professor; and a former Kenyan parliamentarian. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work as a political advocate who helped combat poverty and deforestation by organizing women to plant millions of trees. Maathai was born on April 1, 1940, the third of six children, along with several half siblings, in a small village near Nyeri, Kenya. Her parents were subsistence farmers who belonged to the largest ethnic group in Kenya at the time, the Kikuyu. Maathai’s father and his four wives moved their family to Nakuru in 1943 to live on land owned by a European settler, who employed Maathai’s father as a driver and mechanic. At age 11, Maathai attended a Catholic boarding school in Kenya until she won a scholarship to Mount St. Scholastic College in Kansas, where she graduated in 1964 with a degree in biology. She went on to earn a master of science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966. Her doctoral work included 20 months at the University of Giessen in Germany and about 2 years at the University of Nairobi, where she became the first woman in East Africa to earn a Ph.D., in 1971, and joined the faculty, teaching veterinary anatomy. She became department chair in 1976.

Maathai was married to Mwangi Maathai, a Kenyan businessman and politician, from 1969 until their divorce in 1979, and together they have three children. In 1977, she began growing trees in her backyard and soon gave seedlings to local women, paying them to start their own nurseries. In Kenya, women gather firewood for cooking, and Maathai saw her tree-planting program as a way to help women while saving deforested lands. Today, the Greenbelt Movement has helped create thousands of nurseries and has helped plant more than 40 million trees on community lands in Kenya alone. Political Life Maathai often protested the Kenyan government’s attempts to limit democracy and destroy the environment, despite the retaliatory beatings and jail time she received. Later, she worked within the government to effect change. She was elected to Kenya’s Parliament and served from 2002 to 2007, including an appointment as assistant minister for environment and natural resources from 2003 to 2007. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Maathai has received numerous awards, including France’s highest honor, Legion d’Honneur, in 2006, and honorary degrees from universities worldwide. She served the boards of more than a dozen organizations, including the National Council of Women of Kenya, and the Women and Environment Development Organization. She has served the United Nations in several 871

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capacities, including its commissions on governance and the future and on the U.N. Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament. In 2009, Maathai became a U.N. Messenger of Peace. Her most recent book is The Challenge for Africa, published in 2009. See Also: Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Issues, Women and; Green Belt Movement; Kenya; Women and Environment Development Organization. Further Readings Greenbelt Movement. http://www.greenbeltmovement .org (accessed July 2010). Maathai, Wangari. The Challenge for Africa. New York: Pantheon, 2009. Maathai, Wangari. The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. New York: Lantern Books, 2003. Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. New York: Knopf, 2006. Carolyn Edy University of North Carolina

Macedonia (FYROM) In 1991, after peacefully separating from Yugoslavia, Macedonia entered into a conflict with Greece over its new name. A compromise was reached, designating the newly independent country as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, better known simply as Macedonia. National Statistics In recent years, Macedonia has struggled economically, reporting a minus 2.4 percent real growth rate and 35 percent unemployment in 2009. Also last year, per capita income was estimated at $9,000, and almost a third of the population lived in poverty. Approximately 67 percent of the citizenry lives in urban areas, but a fifth of the Gross National Product was still derived from the agricultural sector. Two-thirds of the population, 64.2 percent, is Macedonian and 25.2 percent are Albanian. Almost 65 percent of the population are Macedonian Orthodox and one-third is

Muslim. Macedonian women have equal rights with males according to both the Constitution and legal codes, however, customs continue to dictate a secondary role for women. The Department of Gender Equality is responsible for protecting women’s legal rights. In the 1990s, women, working chiefly through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), became heavily involved in promoting social, political, health, and cultural improvements for women. Despite that work, major problems surround the issues of domestic violence and human trafficking. Mothers have legal rights with fathers where children are concerned, but little information is available as to whether or not those rights exist in practice. Although women do have equal inheritance and property rights, vast inequities exist in practice. Among Albanian women living in Macedonian, many have had suffrage rights usurped by male family members who cast proxy votes on their behalf. Macedonian law guarantees a third of party seats to women; and out of 120 seats in Parliament, 38 are female. However, only two women sit on the 22-member cabinet. Macedonia ranks 158th in the world in infant mortality, with a rate of 9.01 deaths per 1,000 live births. The life expectancy for women is of 77.38 years compared to 72.18 for males. The median age for females is 36.2 years. Macedonian women have a fertility rate of 1.58 children. Males are more likely to be literate than females, 98.2 percent compared to 94.1 percent, but there is no gender difference in levels of education. Domestic violence is a major social problem, but it has not been not been adequately addressed. Since it is considered a family rather than a legal issue, only limited official help is available. Researchers have demonstrated the prevalence of psychological abuse of women in Macedonia. While NGOs do provide some assistance, their ability to help is limited by lack of resources. Macedonia serves as a transit point for human trafficking from eastern Europe to the Middle East and western Europe. All forms of rape are illegal, but many cases, particularly those involving the rape of spouses, are not reported. Even when reported, few cases are prosecuted because of strict laws concerning proof. Prostitution is illegal, but laws are rarely enforced. The same is true of sexual harassment laws. See Also: Domestic Violence; Trafficking, Women and Children; United Nations Conferences on Women.

Machismo/Marianismo

Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Macedonia.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/mk.html (accessed February 2010). Copic, S. “Wife Abuse in the Countries of the Former Yugoslavia.” Feminist Review, v.76 (April 2004). Neft, N. and A. D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status of Women in 140 Countries, 1997–1998. New York: Random House, 1997. Nicolic, Ristanovic. “Sex Trafficking: The Impact of War, Militarism, and Globalization in Eastern Europe.” Michigan Feminist Studies, v.17 (2003). Social Institutions and Gender Index. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Macedonia, FYR.” http:// genderindex.org/country/macedonia-fyr (accessed February 2010). U.S. State Department. “2008 Human Rights Report: Macedonia.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /eur/119091.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Machismo/Marianismo Machismo and marianismo are ideological constructions, originating in 19th-century Spanish and Latin America, which serve as a model for gender relations. Machismo refers to an idealized understanding of male behavior and power while marianismo is the term for the corresponding female role. The terms are predicated on a heightened and exaggerated masculinity and femininity. While often naturalized as the innate roles of men and women, machismo and marianismo are culturally and historically specific. These constructions arose at the same time as the Victorian ideal of separate spheres, with men in the public world of finance and politics and women in the private sphere of the home. Machismo and marianismo are a Latin American variant that first appeared in the 1800s and are still prevalent today in altered forms. While the ideology and understandings of male and female differences encouraged rigid gender roles, both sexes, nonetheless, behaved,

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and continue to behave, in a range of ways often at odds with gender norms. Thus, the practice does not always reflect the ideology. Moreover, gender relations and the accompanying ideology are not static, not only evolving over generations but changing within the lifetimes of individuals. Machismo and marianismo are two sides of the same coin; each of them cannot exist or be understood without the other. The practice of machismo implicitly relies on notions of “proper” womanhood, and similarly, the definition of marianismo can only be understood in relation to a macho masculinity. In most basic form, they are the ideological and cultural expressions of male domination and female subordination. As such, they both espouse limited roles and experiences for men and women, creating a binary understanding of the two groups. They are predicated on the notion of separate realms for men and women and in most ways are stereotypical and one dimensional. Origin and Historic Understanding The two terms and the system of gender relations they describe are rooted in the colonial period in Latin America. While men inhabited the worlds of politics, economics, and public institutions, women were taught to emulate the Virgin Mary, particularly her spirituality and her role as intercessor. Within the colonial legal system, the Spanish crown granted women limited legal rights and defined a secondary role for them that relegated them to the home, family, and church. Although, in practice, women and men behaved in a myriad of ways, the ideology and legal system served to relegate each to his or her place. This system was rooted in fears concerning female chastity because legitimate birth was the primary means by which status and wealth were inherited and reproduced. Thus, machismo and marianismo were deeply connected to historic understandings of honor and shame in which a man’s honor was based on the virtue of his mother, sister, or wife and his willingness to defend these through violence if necessary. Perhaps the most notable example of a woman who exceeded her role was La Malinche, who served as translator, strategist, and mistress to Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico. A counterpoint to the Virgin Mary, she was vilified for her role in these and

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other activities, exemplifying the fate of women who involved themselves in political and military affairs. In the 19th century, gender constructs transferred the religious spirit inherent in the worship of the Virgin Mary to secular motherhood. The counterpoint of this is the woman gone bad, the “whore,” the “slut,” and in Mexico, La Malinche. These categories create limited and static definitions of womanhood. In practice, they are often challenged, negotiated, and denied. The 19th century brought the dismantling of the colonial state throughout Latin America, and at the same time, machismo and marianismo emerged as an explicit ideology. Although this political change brought about new roles for women, there were significant continuities in the roles of men and women between the colonial and the modern period. In both systems, women remained legally, socially, and economically dependent upon men. Nonetheless, there was considerable change in gender roles, and the evolving gender ideology should be understood within the context of modernizing states and capitalist development. Masculine Behavior and Power Machismo is a cultural phenomenon that varies across space, time, ethnic group, age, and social class. It is an expression of masculine power and is predicated on a series of limited and conventional understandings of masculine behavior. Based on the concept of an “innate” masculinity, the defining attributes of “macho” are courage, invulnerability, honor, sexual prowess and fertility, the latter linked to what is considered to be a sexual drive much higher than that of women. Within this schema, men are responsible for protecting and providing for their families, allowing their wives, mothers, sisters, and children to remain safely within the boundaries of the home. In this view, the sanctity of the home is threatened by the rampant sexuality of other men and the harsh realities of politics, business, and the world in general. It is the duty and obligation of the man, the husband, father, or son, to protect the women and children within it. Marianismo, in turn, is generally considered to complement machismo in that a passive and longsuffering woman submits herself to the dominance of the male. It suggests that the subordination of women

is a sacred obligation. The ideology of marianismo is based on the notion of an idealized womanhood in which women are semi-divine, morally superior, and spiritually stronger than their male counterparts. As such, they willingly deny their own individuality and humbly sacrifice themselves for their husbands and children. Invoking the intercessory role of the Virgin Mary, women serve as the moral compass for their families, interceding for sinful husbands and guiding the clan on the road to salvation. Within the confines of the home, women wield power through household and family yet the power is, ultimately, based on abnegation. The ideology of marianismo may offer women a private realm in which they have power as well as a sense of identity and continuity with the past, thus explaining why women submit to the norm. Yet, on balance, the rigid sexual division of labor and relegation of women to the private sphere has serious, negative consequences for women. In the modern period, men often care for children and women work outside the home. This is especially true for those who need two incomes to maintain a family. Indeed, the gender ideology is generally understood to be largely confined to the middle and upper classes and a means to enforce class and race as well as gender ideology. For these classes, the sexual division of labor often excludes women from more lucrative economic roles, and therefore, female dependence on men is increased and the relegation of women to the home more commonplace. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; “Masculinity,” Social Construction of; Mexico. Further Readings Arrom, Sylivia. The Women of Mexico City. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985. Ascencio, Marysol W. “Machos and Sluts: Gender, Sexuality, and Violence Among a Cohort of Puerto Rican Adolescents.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly: New Series, v.13/1 (1999). Collier, Jane F. “From Mary to Modern Woman: The Material Basis of Marianismo and Its Transformation in the Spanish Village.” American Ethnologist, v.13/1 (1986). Ehlers, Tracy Bachrach. “Debunking Marianismo: Economic Vulnerability and Survival Strategies Among Guatemalan Wives.” Ethnology, v.30/1 (1999).

Madagascar



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Gutmann, Matthew C. The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Sara Katherine Sanders University of Oxford

Madagascar The Republic of Madagascar is located off the southeastern coast of Africa. The population is a mixture of ethnicities and religions. Women generally have influence in society, have access to good medical care, and do not face widespread domestic violence. However, women still face traditional subservient gender roles and wage-earning gaps and do not occupy top-level positions in business and government. Madagascar ranked 78th of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Arranged marriages and polygyny have decreased in prominence in recent years. The 2009 fertility rate was high, at 4.8 births per woman, and skilled healthcare practitioners attend 45 percent of births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 72 per 1,000 live births, and the maternal mortality rate was 510 per 100,000 live births. State social insurance and employers provide women with 14 weeks of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of their wages. Only 27 percent of married women use contraceptives. Divorce is common, with property acquired during marriage divided equally. The population is primarily rural and lower class. There are both nuclear and extended families as well as single-parent female-headed households, the numbers of which are increasing. Fathers are the main authority in families in Madagascar, and women and children perform most domestic chores. Education is compulsory from ages 6 to 14 years, but many rural children, whose work is needed in agriculture, do not attend. Female school attendance rates stand at 99 percent at the primary level but drop to 21 percent at the secondary level and 3 percent at the tertiary level. There is also a gender gap in the literacy rate, which stands at 65 percent for women and 77 percent for men. Problems include malnourishment and

A young woman from the village of Amkarinomby demonstrates how she weaves hats, baskets, and purses.

inadequate healthcare. Life expectancy is 50 years for women and 47 years for men. Eighty-four percent of women participate in the labor force, but most rely on their husbands for financial support. Women make up 38 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 43 percent of professional and technical workers. Key employers include agriculture, education, services, and artisan crafts. A gender gap still exists in the average estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which stands at $723 for women and $1,034 for men, and unemployment rates, which stand at 3.49 percent for women and 1.74 percent for men. There is a social security system for wage earners. Women have the right to vote, and recent laws have addressed women’s issues such as equal pay. Women

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hold 9 percent of parliamentary seats and 13 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Marriages, Arranged; Polygamy, Cross-Cultural; Rural Women. Further Readings Cole, Jennifer. Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Huntington, R. Gender and Social Structure in Madagascar. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. Sharp, Lesley A. The Possessed and the Dispossessed : Spirits, Identity, and Power in a Madagascar Migrant Town (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Maddow, Rachel Rachel Maddow (born April 1, 1973) is an American political commentator and cable news anchor and, until recently, a radio talk show host. She is known for her liberal political leanings and acerbic wit as host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC TV, a role she has had since September 2008. Maddow’s relationship with MSNBC began in 2005 when she became a regular contributor to The Situation With Tucker Carlson. She was also a regular commentator and occasional guest host on Race for the White House With David Gregory and a frequent guest and sometime guest host on Countdown With Keith Olbermann. She was on the air with Air America Radio from its inception in spring 2004 through 2010, first on “Unfiltered” with Lizz Winstead (cocreator of The Daily Show) and Chuck D (of hip-hop group Public Enemy), and then with her own eponymous show. Her first job hosting a radio show came after she entered and won a contest sponsored by WRNX in Holyoke, Massachusetts, to find a new on-air personality. WRNX hired her to cohost the popular The Dave in the Morning Show. In 2002 she joined WRSI in Northampton, Massachusetts as a morning show host.

Before Maddow began her career in broadcasting, she earned a B.A. in public policy from Stanford University in 1994. After graduation, she received a Rhodes scholarship and began studying at Lincoln College at Oxford University in 1995. She graduated with a D.Phil. in politics in 2001 after completing a dissertation titled “HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons.” Professional and Community Service Maddow is known for being a dedicated human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and prisoners’ rights activist and is regularly honored for her professional and community service. In 2008, Maddow was included in Out Magazine’s “Out 100: Gay Men and Women Who Moved Culture” and was named to the magazine’s Annual Power 50 List the following year. In 2009, she received a Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; her MSNBC show was the only cable news show nominated for a Television Critics Association award in the Outstanding Achievement in News and Information category. In March 2010, Maddow won a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Award in the category Outstanding TV Journalism—Newsmagazine for her segment, “Uganda Be Kidding Me.” Bartending is a skill that Maddow holds dear, often crafting cocktails when she appears as a guest on other talk shows, such as Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, as well as on her own. The Rachel Maddow Bar was a feature of the 2009 White House Correspondents Dinner After-Party, hosted by MSNBC at the Washington Historical Society. Maddow made up her own creative cocktails for the event. She splits her time between Manhattan and western Massachusetts with her partner, artist Susan Mikula. See Also: Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Journalists, Broadcast Media; Lesbians. Further Readings Lehoczky, Etelka. “Left and Centered: Air America’s Rachel Maddow Is Out, Brilliant, and Ready to Defend the Other L Word: Liberal.” The Advocate (August 2004). Lehoczky, Etelka. Rachel Maddow: A Neowonk Guide to the Leftist, Lesbian Pundit. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2009.

Madonna

Traister, Rebecca. “Rachel Maddow’s Life and Career.” The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/ traister (accessed April 2010). Katie M. White University of Maryland, College Park

Madonna Born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958, into an Italian American Catholic family, Madonna grew up to become one of the most powerful and iconic women in the American music entertainment industry. In the wake of second wave feminism, Madonna achieved great critical and commercial success by carving out a niche for the sexually empowered and entrepreneurial female popstar. Scandal and controversy have followed Madonna throughout her career. Along with creating catchy pop songs, Madonna is well known for her provocative music videos (e.g., Like a Virgin, Papa Don’t Preach, Like a Prayer, Justify My Love), which helped make MTV a household name in the 1980s. During the critically lauded Blonde Ambition Tour in 1990, a public furor erupted over one particular performance in which she simulated masturbation on stage. Madonna continued to gain the ire of social conservatives by performing fellatio on a bottle in the 1991 documentary Truth or Dare, which gave the public a backstage look into the singer’s personal life. Beyond the Music Sphere These public acts of sexual defiance culminated with the 1992 release of Sex, a highly stylized collection of photos depicting Madonna in various sexual scenarios with both women and men, some of whom were celebrities. Many critics attacked Madonna for her immorality and demanded the book be censored, while her fans applauded her bisexual transgressions as a celebration of human sexuality. Madonna’s legitimacy was further challenged in 2008 when she became a Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame inductee. The media debate centered on Madonna’s contributions to rock, or lack thereof, and whether her mass commercial appeal and popular music warranted such a prestigious recognition.

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Not satisfied with her role as musical pop star, Madonna has successfully expanded her empire by delving into the worlds of fashion, writing and directing, publishing, and acting. While her acting career has generally not been well-received, there are notable exceptions such as her acting role in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), praised by many feminist scholars for raising important questions about the female gaze and desire in patriarchal Hollywood cinema, and Evita (1997), for which she received a Golden Globe Nomination for best actress in a comedy/musical. Madonna’s cultural influence has been profound and pervasive, as her multiple transformations and controversies have attracted the attention of numerous scholars working in a variety of fields, namely feminist and queer theory, cultural studies, film and media studies. Scholarly debates about Madonna encompass a broad spectrum of topics, such as subcultural appropriation, the politics of representation, the male gaze, body modification, reception studies, and postmodernism. Critical studies of Madonna reveal her—as symbol, image, and brand—to be a critical nexus for the exploration of contemporary attitudes about sexuality, gender, race, consumer culture, and feminism. Throughout her career, Madonna has also lent her name to numerous social causes, most notably her human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) advocacy work in the 1980s. She played an important role in bringing attention to the issues and helped humanize the experiences of the many gay men who were living with and dying from the disease, at a time when they were being vilified in the media. Recently, Madonna has focused much time and money raising awareness about the plight of children in developing countries, namely Malawi, the birthplace of her two adopted children, son David Banda and daughter Mercy James. Given Madonna’s history in the public eye, the adoptions have also been questioned and debated. See Also: Adoption; Celebrity Women; Censorship; HIV/ AIDS: North America; Malawi; MTV; Queer Theory; Rock Music, Women in. Further Readings Cross, Mary. Madonna: A Biography. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007.

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Mistry, Reena. “Madonna and Gender Trouble.” Theory. org.uk. http://www.theory.org.uk/madonna.htm (accessed October 2009). Schwichtenberg, Cathy, ed. The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992. Stacey, Jackie. Desperately Seeking Difference. The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture. London: Women’s Press, 1988. Natasha Patterson Simon Fraser University

MADRE MADRE, Spanish for the word mother, is an organization created, advised, and sustained by women. By 2010, MADRE boasted a membership of over 25,000 and thus functions as a strong international political force. MADRE’s slogan, “Demanding rights, resources and results for women worldwide,” supports the mission of “advancing women’s human rights by meeting immediate needs and building lasting solutions for communities in crisis,” as advertised on the MADRE Website. The organization examines, in particular, U.S. foreign policy and how it affects women and children around the world. In 1983, a group of Nicaraguan women invited some American women to witness their war-dominated lives. Nicaraguan women, ceaselessly threatened by the Contra War, sought help from the United States because the United States helped fund the Contra militias and was thus partly responsible for the violence in Nicaragua during the early 1980s. Unsettled and shocked by what they witnessed, some of the women who had visited Nicaragua founded MADRE and vowed to educate Americans about the ramifications of U.S.-sponsored policies throughout the world and how those policies affected women who found themselves ravaged by war and its accompanying violence. Since the organization’s inception in the early 1980s, MADRE has assisted women in countries including Mexico, Pakistan, Lebanon, Haiti, Colombia, Cuba, Kenya, and many others. Since the beginning of the 21st century, MADRE has increased efforts to combat problems affecting

women around the world. MADRE prides itself on not opening new offices in the countries in which it supports projects; instead, the countries receiving assistance from MADRE build their own programs and thus sustain and expand existing efforts into successful organizations that also champion the rights of women. The organization does provide relief and protection in critical situations; once any urgency has been addressed, MADRE encourages women to work toward change. Current Projects MADRE classifies its projects into three primary categories: Women’s Health/Combating Violence Against Women, Peace Building, and Economic/ Environmental Justice. Some of the current projects in the Women’s Health/Combating Violence Against Women include the Afghan Women’s Survival Fund and the Safe Birth Project (based in Palestine). The Afghan Women’ Survival Fund supports an escape network that has saved the lives of many women fleeing from Afghanistan. The Safe Birth Project supports the Midwives for Peace Organization, which helps Palestinian women deliver babies safely (they are often prohibited from going to hospitals by the Israeli military, who also deliberately keep ambulances from reaching Palestinian women in labor). Protecting the Children of War is one of MADRE’s Peace Building programs; the program combats the exploitation of children in Colombia who, at ages as young as 8, are being recruited to serve as soldiers in various conflicts. Women Farmers Unite qualifies as Economic/Environmental Justice Programming. Women Farmers Unite provides assistance to female farmers in Sudan by giving them the resources to grow food, rather than only supplying them with food. The results of this program have been especially promising, since MADRE’s assistance has helped female farmers produce more food and become more self-reliant. MADRE assists preexisting organizations in various countries to help advance and to protect the rights of women. Some of the organizations MADRE has partnered with are LUNDU in Peru, Daughters of the Stars in Panama, the Indigenous Information Network in Kenya, the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, the Women Workers’ Committee of Guatemala, and Taller de Vida in Colombia.

Mail-Order Brides



Though MADRE’s primary mission is to offer support to women and children in need, the organization also works tirelessly to educate the public about human rights in general. The organization’s Website provides scores of links to credible, detailed articles concerning atrocities affecting women and children. The Website provides a link to their own “Press Room,” under which several article called “Talking Points” are categorized. Each “Talking Points” article provides a detailed history of the conflict examined (like “Women in Afghanistan: Confronting the Legacy of U.S.-Supported Extremism” or “Iraq: Six Years of ‘Liberation’ and an Epidemic of Violence Against Women”) and also discusses the ramifications of the United States’ involvement in the conflict. MADRE, admired for bringing relief and assistance to women and children around the world, must also be reckoned with as a growing and empowering political force. By educating people about the consequences of U.S. foreign policy, MADRE creates awareness of and ultimately champions human rights on an international level. See Also: Arab Feminism; Human Rights Campaign; Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan; Violence Against Women Act; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Women’s Resource Centers. Further Readings Association for Women’s Rights in Development. http:// www.awid.org/eng (accessed July 2010). MADRE. www.madre.org (accessed June 2010). Sontag, Debra. “Sexual Assaults Add to Miseries of Haiti’s Ruins.” The New York Times (June 24, 2010). Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

Mail-Order Brides A mail-order bride is a woman who advertises her availability for marriage—either in a paper-based catalog or more recently on the Internet—and then subsequently marries a man, usually from another, more wealthy country. The common perception is of mail-order brides as desperate, passive women and of

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the men who “purchase” wives as inadequate, unable to get a wife any other way. The reality is sometimes more complicated. Historically, mail-order brides were likely to come from more developed countries; they married men who themselves had previously traveled abroad to farm, to mine, or otherwise start a new life. The women who chose this path to marriage did so because they thought they could achieve a better lifestyle than if they remained at home����������������� —���������������� as either a married or single woman. Similarly today, mail-order brides are hoping for a better life in terms of more financial security through their husband, or maybe even a job of their own. They are now, however, more likely to originate from developing countries and marry men from wealthier countries such as the United States (the largest importer of mail-order brides), Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, among others. The majority of mail-order brides are from southeast Asia, including the Philippines (exporter of more brides per year than any other country), from nations of the former Soviet Union; and from Latin America. Before the advent of the Internet, women typically placed paid advertisements in magazines and catalogs, but nowadays the vast majority of potential mail-order brides advertise online—although the “shopping for” and “purchase” of mail-order brides may still involve physical as well as virtual tourism. Men who advertise themselves similarly for marriage have been referred to as mail-order husbands, but this is a much less common practice. Stereotypical Assumptions The practice of mail-order marriage is controversial, not least because it draws upon traditional expectations of femininity and female behavior, and masculinity and male behavior. Stereotypes are often used to advertise potential brides, with men being offered a “traditional” relationship with a woman who meets the so-called feminine ideal as beautiful, exotic, and passive; for example: • Where can you meet exotic Asian women? • Foreign Brides, International Russian Women, Oriental Girls, and Latin Ladies. • AsianDate.com—Meet 1,000 Asian Women online. (various Website advertisements).

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• Our membership program is designed for single men looking for mail-order brides who are beautiful, significantly younger, educated, unspoiled by feminism, and whose culture is one of support and respect. (Website ad) On the other hand, prospective husbands are sometimes warned of the extra financial outlay attached to women of certain nationalities; for example: • Whereas a Thai is unprepared for cold German winters—one has to buy her clothes—a Pole brings her own boots and fur coat. And she is as good in bed and as industrious in the kitchen. (Website advertisement) These and other such examples suggest that the use of the Internet and catalogs to buy and sell brides demonstrates a continuation of unequal gender relationships. In support of this, when wives are “bought” rather than attracted in ways that are thought to be “natural,” their purchase is likely to attract hostility, ridicule, or moral censure. However, it is important not to take these stereotypes at face value. The popular discourse surrounding men who buy brides is that they are pathetic and inadequate, unable to attract a woman by the more accepted routes of Western courtship. However, studies show that many such men are college or university educated and economically and professionally successful, thus, stereotypically at least, “eligible” to women in their own communities and countries. Possibly then, the issue is not whether the men themselves are appropriate husband material, but that they themselves are rejecting contemporary Western marriages and courtships. In support of this, surveys suggest that many men who marry women via mail-order bride services are seeking a wife who shares their desire for traditional values: that is, to be homemaker for a bread-winner husband. Supporting and Challenging the Stereotypes Popular discourses surrounding women who offer themselves as brides are frequently judgmental and disapproving, often positioning the women as victims of their husbands and the agencies that advertise them. Indeed, there is evidence of trafficking of

women for marriage and of mail-order brides being abused, even killed by their husbands. However, rather than viewing all women on mail-order Internet sites as victimized and exploited, it is possible to argue that for some, seeking such a match may be an act of agency. Admittedly an act of limited agency, for truly free women would not need to seek such a marriage, but it may be the only kind of agency available to women who are entrapped in social and economic structures that limit their life opportunities. The “ideal family”—a father, mother, and their children living together—is enshrined in legal, social, religious, and economic systems; promoted in advertising; referred to by government, and reflected in housing and social policy. This in turn reinforces the view of this type of family form as “normal,” “natural,” and “inevitable,” which leads to prejudice and discrimination toward those who are not part of families that meet this “ideal.” Ironically, mail-order bride or mail-order husband families are attempting to create this “ideal,” but are still condemned by some as “unnatural.” See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Internet Dating; Marriage; Stereotypes of Women; Wedding Industry. Further Readings Johnson, Erika. Dreaming of a Mail-Order Husband. Russian-American Internet Romance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. Letherby, Gayle and Jennifer Marchbank. “Cyber-Chattels: Buying Brides and Babies on the Net.” In Y. Jewkes, ed., Dot.cons: Crime, Deviance and Identity on the Internet. Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2003. So, C. “Asian Mail-Order Brides, the Threat of Global Capitalism, and the Rescue of the U.S. Nation-State.” Feminist Studies, v.32/2 (2006). Gayle Letherby University of Plymouth

Mairs, Nancy Nancy Mairs is a feminist poet, memoirist, and essayist. Although Mairs has written about diverse subjects, she is best known for her writings about life as



a disabled person. Diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) at age 28, she has lived most of her adult life dealing with the limitations her disease and society’s response to the disabled impose. Beginning with her much anthologized essay “On Being a Cripple,” first published in Plaintext (1986), her first collection of essays, Mairs has written candidly about living with MS. Born July 23, 1943, in Long Beach, California, Mairs grew up in Boston, the daughter of John and Anne Pedrick Smith, a naval officer and a tax collector. In 1963, she married George Mairs, a teacher; and in 1964, she graduated cum laude from Wheaton College. A decade later, after working as an editor at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard Law School, Mairs moved with her husband and two young children to Tucson, Arizona, where she entered graduate school at the University of Arizona, earning the M.F.A. in creative writing (poetry) in 1975 and the Ph.D. in English literature in 1984. Distinctive Writing Style Garners Critical Praise Mairs’ earliest publications were two volumes of poetry, but it was her essays that garnered the most prestigious critical attention. Plaintext (1986), autobiographical essays written for her doctoral dissertation, earned a positive review from a New York Times Book Review critic, and others soon followed, praising Mairs for her honesty, astringency, complexity, and wit. Remembering the Bone-House (1989) was even more openly autobiographical, covering such subjects as former lovers, motherhood, and illness. In Carnal Acts (1990), Mairs continued with what was becoming her trademark disconcerting candor, considering the effects of the progressive debilitation of MS. Even in essay collections that focused on other topics, Mairs disclosed intimate details of her life. Ordinary Time (1993), a spiritual autobiography, includes accounts of adultery (both Mairs’s and her husband’s). Voice Lessons (1994) examines her creative process and the shaping of her “voice” and of the role her particular circumstances as reader, student, daughter, wife, and mother played in forming her voice. Her next book, Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled (1996) is Mairs’s take on life in a wheelchair. Determined to make readers see the wholly human, flawed, and privileged person in the

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motorized chair, Mairs uses comedy, passion, and an uncommon wisdom to ruminate on sex, nurturance, the right to life and death, the power of language, and the importance of advocacy. In A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories (2001), Mairs explores death and dying both in ethical issues such as euthanasia and capital punishment and in her own life, ranging from the death of a beloved pet to her parents’ deaths to her own suicide attempt and the murder of her foster son. Religious Experimentation Her 2007 book, A Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith, draws upon her experience as a member of a group that experiments with Catholic liturgy, celebrates mass in members’ homes, and shares a commitment to social justice that is rooted in the group’s origins in the Sanctuary Movement, a religious/political movement in the United States during the 1980s that sheltered Central American refugees from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Mairs describes her theology as subversive and admits to believing in randomness rather than reason to explain her disease that now in an advanced stage has left her a quadriplegic who finds reading and writing increasingly difficult. After living for more than 35 years with a disease that leaves her more and more a self-described “body in trouble,” Mairs continues to display an ability to find humor in the midst of suffering and the sacred in the midst of the commonplace. See Also: Disability Definitions; Health, Mental and Physical; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Heffern, Rich. “Nancy Mairs: The Spirituality of a Body in Trouble.” National Catholic Reporter (October 5, 2007). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/ is_40_43/ai_n27406612/?tag=content;col1 (accessed March 2010). Mairs, Nancy. A Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith. Boston: Beacon Press, 2008. Mairs, Nancy. Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

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Malawi

Malawi Malawi is a landlocked nation of 15 million people in southern Africa, sharing borders with Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia. Malawi became independent from Great Britain in 1964. It is one of the poorest countries in the world (its 2009 Gross Domestic Product was $900 per capita), and more than half the country lives below the poverty line. Most of the population is Christian (79.9 percent), with 12.8 percent Muslim. Life expectancy is among the lowest in the world, at 49.39 years for men and 50.67 years for women. A high fertility rate (5.59 children per women, the 14th highest in the world) results in an extremely low

median age of 16.8 years; 45.8 percent of the population is 14 years or younger. The population growth rate is 2.746 percent—among the highest in the world. Abortion is legal only to save the woman’s life, and less than a third (28.1 percent) of Malawian women report using modern methods of contraception. Until recently, women played little role in politics in Malawi. However in 2009 Loveness Gondwe became the first women to run for president. She was not elected, but Joyce Banda does serve as vice president in the current government. As of 2009, 27 women held seats in Malawi’s Parliament (of 193 total), and Gondwe, elected first deputy speaker, rose higher than any other women in that body. Seven

Women suffer disproportionately from poverty and related social conditions. For instance, girls are less likely to attend school, and fewer than half of Malawian women are literate, as opposed to over three-quarters of men.

Malaysia



women hold ministerial positions, and four women hold judgeships (of 27 total). The World Economic Forum ranks Malawi in the middle third of countries on gender equality. On a scale in which 0 indicates inequality and 1 perfect equality, in 2009 Malawi had an overall score of 0.674 (76th of 134 countries) with scores of 0.960 (116th) on health and survival, 0.930 (113th) on educational attainment, 0.594 (42nd) on economic participation and opportunity, and 0.159 (48th) on political empowerment. Women suffer disproportionately from poverty and related social conditions. For instance, girls are less likely to attend school, and fewer than half of Malawian women are literate, as opposed to over threequarters of men. Patrilineal customs often mean that despite laws to the contrary, a woman and her children do not inherit family property after the husband’s death. Women make up almost half the labor force but earn about 74 percent of what men do for similar work. Maternal and child care is poor—about half the births are attended by skilled personnel, and infant and maternal mortality are both high, at 76 per 1,000 live births and 1,110 per 100,000 live births, respectively. An estimated 11.9 percent of adults in Malawi are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which is the ninth-highest infection rate in the world. About 60 percent of adults living with HIV and and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are female, and young women (aged 15–24 years) are several times more likely than men of their age to be infected, in part because of cultural and social customs that increase female exposure to HIV. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; Poverty; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Hausman, R., et al. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2009. United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Wills, A. J. An Introduction to the History of Central Africa: Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. London: Oxford University Press, 1985. Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

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Malaysia Malaysia is a country that is made up of the Malay Peninsula south of Thailand, and the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is a former British colony, and is a multiethnic and multireligious society. It has a population of 28 million, with its major ethnic groups being the Malays, 60 percent; the Chinese, 26 percent; and the Indians, 10 percent. Malay, or Bahasa Melayu, is the official language of the state. It is a relatively wealthy country within southeast Asia, with major industries in computers, petroleum and chemicals, palm oil, rubber, and timber. Malaysia is a majority Muslim country in most of its states, but its economy is dominated by a powerful ethnic Chinese community. In 1971, the Malaysian government began the New Economic Policy, which implemented positive discrimination toward the Malay community in the areas of education, business, and the civil service. However, ethnic Chinese continue to make up the wealthiest community in the country. Malays are the most dominant political group, while Indians are the poorest ethnic group. Ethnic Conditions The conditions of Malaysian women differ by ethnicity. As Muslims, most Malay women are governed according to the Islamic laws of the Syariah Court, and also by Malay customary law, or adat. According to Syariah laws, for example, men and women are supposed to be maintained in separate spaces. If a Muslim man or woman is caught in “close proximity” to a person of the opposite gender outside of marriage, this is deemed as khalwat, a legal offense that may lead to a fine and/or imprisonment. In 2006, Marina Mahathir, the daughter of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, compared conditions of Malay women to peoples living under “apartheid,” because of their legal separation from men in the public sphere. This pronouncement generated a great deal of controversy. In comparison with Muslim women in the Middle East, however, Malaysian Muslim women enjoy a great deal more personal and legal freedom; they manage to play a prominent role both in business and public life. In addition, Malay women receive some measure of positive discrimination, as the state recognizes all Malays as bumiputera, or “sons of the soil.” In order to make it easier for Malays to enter more lucrative pro-

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fessions and the civil service, for example, Malaysian universities maintain different standards of admission for Malays than for other ethnic groups. Malaysians from minority ethnic groups, mainly the Chinese and Indian Malaysians, are allowed to set up their own schools to teach in their respective languages. However, they find it more difficult to enter national universities. These discriminatory economic and educational policies have most affected the minority Indian population, and in turn minority Indian women. Of the Indian Malay community, about 15 percent live in urban squatter settlements, with total household income below the minimum wage. Improvement Over Time In general, however, the conditions of Malaysian women have improved greatly since the country gained independence in 1957. Maternal mortality rates have greatly decreased, and life expectancy has increased to 74 years. There has also been great progress in women’s education in general. The Malaysian Constitution provides 11 years of free basic education for all Malaysian children, and by 1999 well over half of Malaysia’s university students were female. Malaysian women have also been actively involved in Malaysia’s industrialization from the 1980s and 1990s forward. The Sixth Malaysia Plan, the national economic development campaign of the early 1990s, specifically targeted Malaysian women for entry into the labor force, particularly into industries such as electronics, textiles, and clothing. In 1957, the proportion of female employees in the manufacturing sector was about 17 percent; by 1995 this had grown to 43 percent. In addition, according to the Malaysian Constitution, Malaysian women are recognized as possessing the same amount of social, civil, and political rights as their male counterparts. See Also: China; Educational Opportunities/Access; India; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Islam; Shari`a Law. Further Readings Andaya, B. W. and L. Y. Andaya. A History of Malaysia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News. “Malaysia Country Profile.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia -pacific/country_profiles/1304569.stm (accessed June 2010).

Ong, A. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. Adeline Koh The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

Maldives The Maldives is a series of 1,190 islands in the Indian Ocean, south of India. Only 200 of the islands are habitable and most residents live in small fishing villages. Sitting only 4 feet, 11 inches above sea level, Maldives is the lowest country in the world, and rising sea levels pose a real threat to the future of this island nation. In 2004, the nation suffered a devastating tsunami, which altered the environment and left many of its 390,000 residents homeless or in poverty. The Maldives has a constitutional democracy, with a bill or rights. Sunni Islam is the official religion of the nation, which also requires all of its citizens to be Muslim. While Islam and social custom prevent women from full equality, women gain status as wives and mothers. Most women take on a traditional family role, with full responsibility for the children and household affairs. The average woman gets married by the age of 16, and has been married twice by the time she is 20. Divorce is relatively easy if it is mutual, otherwise women have to petition the court. Maldivian culture functions as a patrilineal kin group, whereby women keep their father’s last name and need his consent to marry. Family ties are very strong in the Maldives, and as wives and mothers, women have a great deal of authority over family affairs, although their husbands have the final voice. A woman convicted of adultery is sentenced to 100 lashes and banishment to an uninhabited island for a year. No punishment exists for male adulterers. There also are no laws regarding domestic violence, sexual harassment, or spousal rape. One in three women ages 15 to 49 report to be victims of physical or sexual violence. While the constitution enables women to vote and serve in office, under their Islamic laws, a woman cannot be head of state. Women do have some legal protections. Women can own and control their own property, yet, inheri-

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tance laws favor sons, who receive twice as much as daughters. Girls have equal access to education, and actually have higher literacy rates than boys through primary education because many sons leave school by ages 9 or 10 to help their fathers. However, more boys travel abroad for college, as girls usually get married and do not pursue higher education. Women do receive equal pay for equal work, and women comprise 37 percent of the overall workforce and 21 percent of government employees. Many women rely on informal household economies, such as rope making for an income. Poverty and social custom limit women’s opportunities. See Also: Divorce; Equal Pay; Islam; Poverty. Further Readings Kenworthy, Lane and Melissa Malami. “Gender Inequality in Political Representation: A Worldwide Comparative Analysis.” Social Forces, v.78/1 (1999). Maloney, Clarence. People of the Maldives Islands. New Delhi, India: Orient Longman, 1980. Siedler, Helen. “Report on the Survey of Island Women.” National Planning Agency, Government of the Maldives, 2007. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California

Mali Mali is a vast landlocked country in West Africa with a population of 13 million people. Islam is the major religion (over 90 percent), followed by traditional African beliefs and Christianity. The largely rural population is predominantly occupied with agriculture, livestock raising, and fishing; 77 percent of primary sector workers are women. Most Malians live below the poverty line. A former French colony, Mali’s legal system is based on a combination of customary law and the French civil law system. Although the constitution prohibits all discrimination on the basis of sex, many of women’s civil liberties are restricted, including their freedom of movement, which is limited by the obligation to follow their husbands. Despite Mali’s

Training for schoolteachers in Mali has introduced them to ideas and strategies they can use in their classrooms.

ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985, its legal code provides little protection to women and contains discriminatory stipulations such as the requirement that a woman have her husband’s agreement to embark on commercial business. In the area of marriage, Malian law provides for unequal treatment of men and women; for example, the legal age of marriage for men is 18 years, but it is only 15 years for women. The legal code recognizes men alone as heads of household and accords sole family and parental authority to husbands. Polygamy is legal, allowing a husband to take up to four wives, and 42 percent of Malian women live in polygamous unions. Many traditional practices discriminatory to women also persist, including “betrothal at birth,” when a baby girl is promised at birth for marriage to a particular individual or into a particular family. Female genital surgery—a custom involving the alteration or removal of the external female genitalia—is widely practiced in Mali, particularly in rural areas, with recent data from the United Nations

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Children’s Fund indicating that at least 85 percent of ever-married women have undergone the practice. However, the government, although not outlawing the practice, has declared the abandonment of female genital surgery a priority as part of its strategy for increasing women’s empowerment. To this end the Malian government has founded a national committee to eliminate this and other traditional practices harmful to women and children. Education and Illiteracy Women are poorly represented at all levels in the education system. The illiteracy rate among rural women in particular is extremely high (around 90 percent), which is related to the prevalence of early marriage of girls in rural areas and the excessive workload of rural women, as well as a lack of teaching materials and women’s inability to afford them. Malian women have very limited access to legal services and are particularly vulnerable in matters of divorce, child custody, and inheritance. Sociocultural and socioeconomic constraints reinforce women’s secondary status in society, compounding the problems of illiteracy and extreme poverty hampering the country’s development. However, numerous women’s groups are active that promote the rights of women and children, and the Malian government has recently adopted an action plan concerned with the advancement of women, with the aim of removing obstacles to the enhancement of the status of women and the improvement in women’s living conditions. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Female Genital Surgery, Types of; Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered. Further Readings Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. “Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Combined Fourth and Fifth Reports of States Parties.” Mali, CEDAW/C/ MLI/2-5. (2004). Holloway, Kris and John Bidwell. Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2006.

McKissack, Patricia and Frederick McKissack. The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa. New York: Henry Holt, 1995. Máire Ní Mhórdha University of St. Andrews

Malta Malta is an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea with a population of some 405,000; it became independent of Great Britain in 1964. It is a prosperous country with a 2009 per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $23,800 and a high standard of living. Income distribution is among the most even in the world (Gini Index of 26.0, eighth lowest worldwide). Most of the population—98 percent—is Roman Catholic. The World Economic Forum ranks Malta in the lower half of countries in terms of gender equality. On a scale where 1 indicates perfect equality and 0 inequality, in 2009 Malta’s overall score was 0.664, or 88th out of 134 countries. On health and survival rates for women, Malta scored 0.974 (77th); on educational attainment 0.995 (47th); on economic participation and opportunity 0.594 (105th); and on political empowerment 0.124 (69th). Women in Malta have a higher literacy rate than men (93 versus 90 percent) and more women than men are enrolled in tertiary education (36 percent versus 27 percent). However, women are less likely to be in the labor force (40 percent versus 78 percent) and earn 73 percent of what men do for similar work. Women constitute 18 percent of legislators, senior officials, and managers, and 41 percent of professional and technical workers in Malta. In 2009, women held nine of 100 seats in the Maltese Parliament, and 15 percent of the government minister positions. Agatha Barbara was the first and (still, as of 2010) only woman to serve as president of Malta (1982–87). Traditional Maltese culture places a high value on fertility and childbearing. This is reflected in current policies that provide 14 weeks of maternity leave at 100 percent of wages, along and a high standard of maternal and childcare: 100 percent of births are attended by skilled personnel, while infant and mater-

Management, Women in



nal mortality are quite low, at 5 per 1,000 live births and 8 per 100,000 live births, respectively. Abortion is illegal, but 86 percent of married women report using birth control. Save the Children ranks Malta seventh among 41 More Developed Countries on its Children’s Index, 29th on its Mothers’ Index, and 33rd on its Women’s Index. See Also: Gender Quotas in Government; Representation of Women in Government, International; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Hausmann, Ricardo, Laura D. Tyson, and Saadia Zahidi. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2009. http://www.weforum.org /en/Communities/Women%20Leaders%20and%20 Gender%20Parity/GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010). Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_ hd_pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Division. “Gender Info.” http:// data.un.org/Explorer.aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Management, Women in The discussion of women in management emerged in response to a perceived masculinization of management, given the disproportionately low number of women in managerial positions. Organizations are said to give priority to men as more suitable for managerial roles as a result of preconceived ideas about women. Historically, women have struggled to break the dichotomous positioning they share with men, where they are seen as opposites; women being mainly associated with the home (private sphere) and men mainly associated with work (public sphere). This positioning finds its roots in the reproduction versus

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production dichotomy. This debate links women with motherhood, and men with productive roles; as a result women are seen as inadequate workers because motherhood is considered to be incompatible with work in organizations. Special roles and positions, as well as limitations, have historically affected women at work. While these vary across cultures, stereotypes are generally linked to perceived differences between men and women, rather than specific cultural beliefs. The existing patriarchal social system of the 19th century established men as the dominant sex in the workplace. Underlying Patterns of Gender Identity Karen Legge notes that the discursive construction of the “problem” of women in organizations suggests that men are being considered the norm against which women need to be compared. This provides an important foundation for the development of a body of knowledge that attempts to identify the positive features that are overlooked in the assessment of women’s suitability as managers, and also highlights how personal and organizational characteristics inhibit women’s opportunities. For instance, career interruptions due to childbearing are seen as lack of commitment, hence it is generalized that women’s commitment to the workplace is not as solid as men’s due to the timing and spacing of their absences. Furthermore, the idea of a ruthless “go-getter” seems to pervade notions of successful managers. As a result, the presence of women in management is conflictive, because it breaks with the patterns of subordination and “invisibilization” that have traditionally affected them in both social and organizational settings. Two central elements of the debate on women in management are assessment of managerial leadership and opportunities of career progression. On the one hand, differences between male and female styles are considered to be linked to effectiveness in the workplace. Women’s collaborative/participatory style is considered less assertive than men’s tough, autocratic approach. Similarly, differences in the way power is exerted are salient; while women generally focus on personal power, men focus on structural power. In terms of career progression, barriers to gender equality, such as the glass ceiling, occupational segregation, benevolent sexism, and other forms of adverse

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treatment, constrain women’s achievement in the workplace by limiting their access and visibility in the managerial arena. The work of Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe has focused on leadership differences between men and women. Some key findings are that women are more likely to adopt a transformational leadership style, while men are more likely to adopt a transactional leadership style. This difference is fundamental to the way men and women are perceived to be effective managers, as transformational leadership focuses on people, while transactional leadership focuses on outcomes. Workplace Structures and Advancement Strategies Women account for 40 percent of the global workforce, and there has been an increase in the number of women in management across the world in the last 20 years as a result of factors such as globalization, the internationalization of business, changes in societal arrangements, and more women entering higher education. Other trends that have facilitated this are the emergence of female values as desirable leadership qualities, and some feminization of management. However, women remain underrepresented in senior management; statistics by the International Labour Organization indicate that the increase of women in managerial roles worldwide has been minimal. Many arguments attempt to explain the lack of women at the top; for example sex role learning, socialization patterns; limited networking, and race and gender issues. These can be summarized as related to structural barriers, stereotypes, and individual differences. The structural barrier discussion suggests that as a minority in management, women struggle to fit in with the majority culture. However, other aspects of the structural discussion need consideration. For example, as defined by and for the majority culture, structures adversely affect women’s movement by limiting opportunities. Similarly, organizations do not embrace the different developmental needs of men and women. For instance, networking, alongside mentoring, has been noted as instrumental to managerial career progression. However, differences in both networking opportunities and patterns of networking interaction between men and women result in limited opportunities for women to establish links and develop sup-

Table I: Women’s Share as Administrative and Managerial Workers, 1996–99 and 2000–02 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50 %

United States Brazil Bermuda Colombia Philippines Venezuela Thailand Sri Lanka

1996 99

Chile

2000 02

Malaysia Bahrain Japan Pakistan Bangladesh Saudi Arabia Source: Wirth (2004:14).

port systems to further their careers in management. Lack of support networks hinders women’s ability to empower themselves and gain support and respect from others. As a result, women develop strategies to counteract this. These include consistently exceeding performance expectations; developing a style that male managers find nonthreatening; and seeking out difficult assignments or tasks with high visibility. In some cases, women have to work twice as hard to gain similar recognition to their male peers. This is associated with gender stereotypes and it is important to note that by engaging in these strategies, women contest the gender order. The down side is that life cycles and personal choices become secondary, and women risk having to choose between work and other aspects of their lives. Roles, Traits, and Identities In line with these situations, the impact of gender roles is particularly relevant; organizations and management have historically being considered to promote masculine values. For example, effectiveness has usually been



Management Styles, Gender Theories

linked to behaviors considered to be masculine, such as individualism, aggressiveness, and competitiveness. Feminine traits, such as bonding, solidarity, and sensitivity to others’ needs, on the other hand, have been equalled with weakness as they seem inconsistent with superior performance and competitiveness. Even as there is not one single definition of manager, the managerial role seems framed by strict gender stereotypes, where men are masculine and women are feminine; and organizations are masculine hence women are considered to be out of place. Virginia Schein notes the existence of a “think manager—think male” mentality, which assumes that the characteristics of successful managers are more similar to and have more in common with those of males than those of females, thus making females unnatural for the task. Other issues women in management face are related to how they construct their identities as managers; they have to “change their ways” and assume a masculine posture in order to live up to the expectations of the managerial role. However, they are also vilified for doing so, as they are then seen as aggressive and radical, which is not as acceptable for women as it is for men.

lytical category is relevant to understand how experiences of women in management vary across cultures and geographical spaces.

Solidarity and Diversity More recently, discussions about women in management have shifted toward the exploration of solidarity behavior between women, and also to the relationship between management and diversity. Sharon Mavin has made an important criticism to the women-in-management discussion as it relates to the issue of solidarity behavior for women in management. This aspect is overlooked in womenin-management literature, hence the discussion is portrayed as one sustained by sisterhood. One of the issues affecting women in management is that they are ruthlessly assessed by men and unsympathetically assessed by other women. On the other hand, the discussion on management and diversity contests fixed ideas of “woman,” highlighting the sociocultural nature of the woman category and how this has implications for the term women in management. In addition, it is relevant to consider that problems faced by women vary in nature and intensity based on other categories related to difference, such as ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic background. As a result, diversity as an ana-

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See Also: Antifeminism; Business, Women in; Gender, Defined; Glass Ceiling; Management Styles, Gender Theories; “Masculinity,” Social Construction of; Parental Leave; Parental Leave Act; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Alimo-Metcalfe, B. “An Investigation of Female and Male Constructs of Leadership and Empowerment.” Women in Management Review, v.10/2 (1995). Davidson, M. J. and R. J. Burke. Women in Management: Current Research Issues Volume II. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000. Mavin, S. “Queen Bees, Wannabees and Afraid to Bees: No More ‘Best Enemies’ for Women in Management?” British Journal of Management, v.19 (2008). Powell, G. N. and L. M. Graves. Women and Men in Management. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003. Schein, V. “Managerial Sex Typing: A Persistent and Pervasive Barrier to Women’s Opportunities.” M. Davidson and R. J. Burke, eds. Women in Management. London: Paul Chapman, 1994. Wirth, L. “Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling: Women in Management—Update 2004.” Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Office, 2004. Jenny K. Rodriguez University of Strathclyde

Management Styles, Gender Theories The gendering of management styles is related to the association between masculinities and femininities as fundamental traits that define management styles and determine their effectiveness based on how successful they are in the struggle for power and resources. The discussion of gender in management is a shift from what initially was focused on women in management, and the distinctions between the management styles of women and men. The discussion progressed toward how the construction of femininity and masculinity defined man-

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agerial traits and styles. This discussion can be theoretically placed within a “gender-centered” approach to explain the disadvantaged position of women in management. Gender influences the way behaviors, characteristics, individuality, and attitudes of women and men are seen and understood. As a result, based on assumptions about women and men and the way they “should be,” their styles are categorized as suitable or not suitable for the managerial role and the perceived effectiveness of their management style is directly linked to these assumptions. An important point is made by Nancy Chodorow who notes that gender differences and more generally the experience of difference do not exist as things in themselves but are socially and psychologically created and situated within relations established by women and men. Gender Differences These differences between women and men are embedded in social systems and are determined by gender roles, which are socially and culturally defined notions about behavior and emotions of men and women which are instrumental in the way their identity is constructed. A combination of messages about gender-appropriate behavior, and structural dimensions such as sexual division of labor and desirable job traits establishes gender norms that determine expectations of the managerial role. Both women and men find themselves complying with these expectations or falling outside “the norm,” which sustains the idea of gendered management styles. The acceptance of these notions creates gender schemas that regulate the way individuals think about what women and men “should be like” and creates fixed perceptions and acceptable/unacceptable expectations of people and social dynamics. In the workplace, this creates ideas and expectations about what management is, what a manager should behave like, and what are the characteristics of the person best suited to be a manager. Some common distinctions between women and men in management are associated with the way they establish relationships with others. For example, based on patterns of socialization, women are said to focus on establishing relationships and finding commonalities, whereas men are said to focus on competition and outperforming one another.

As a result, women are considered to lack the confidence and assertiveness to be effective managers, whereas men are considered to be more natural for the task given these traits which are seen as appropriate to deal with the demands of the managerial role. An important point is this discussion is that organizations are gendered social environments and the logic of interpretation of practices and actions has a strong base on gendered shared societal beliefs and assumptions. The correlation between “innate” feminine or masculine attitudes and behavior is usually grounded in two dimensions of the managerial role: leadership and management skills. Gender and Leadership One of the most common ways to discuss gendered management styles is focusing on leadership. Early empirical work found no significant differences between men and women, and on the contrary suggested that in management positions, similarities are more striking than differences. However, the specificity of gender worlds subsequently became central to identifying differences between men and women. Structure is a important aspect and research findings made reference to female leadership as transformational and people oriented, and male leadership as transactional and task oriented. These created dichotomies encompas traits that are thought to be characteristic of women and men. For instance, as transformational leaders, women are said to be interpersonal-oriented and centred on involvement and collaboration; use persuasion and inspirational motivation, and generally demonstrate a participatory management style. Men on the other hand are said to be more concerned with outcomes and use a contingent reward approach; for instance, by rewarding good performance and punishing bad performance. These characterizations are based on assumptions about women and men; for instance, women are stereotypically considered to be warm, caring, tactful, subjective and sensitive. Men are considered to be independent, aggressive, objective, logical, and analytical. Gender and Management Skills In relation to management skills, distinctions between women and men are established by speaking about “soft” skills and “hard” skills. Just like the dichotomy of feminine/masculine, the soft/hard

Manga



dichotomy aims to highlight the weak and strong aspects of management. Soft skills are related to the social, the subjective and the emotional and in most cases are referred to as “people skills.” Hard skills are related to the numerical, the objective and the factual. In this distinction, women and men are stereotypically dichotomized with women being considered as having mostly soft skills and men considered as having hard skills. Nonetheless, an important element in contemporary discussions of management skills addresses the reversal of the gender order, for instance, through the general feminization of management and even the masculinization of women in management. The assumption still prevails that there are distinct feminine/masculine skills, regardless of whether individuals challenge the gender order or not. More importantly, these distinctions still present masculinity as the ideal against which women are measured or compared, hence this indicates that the behavioral and attitudinal standard expected reflects what are perceived to be masculine values. Managerial Values This leads to the issue of managerial values. It is normally assumed that managerial values should portray a strong competitive element since organizations are generally in the market to be competitive. As such, collaboration, relationships and commonalities are identified as possible weaknesses. The result is that whilst men seem to encompass desired managerial values; women’s capabilities and management competence are put into question. An influential study was conducted by Carol Gilligan, who studied differences in moral reasoning between women and men. She argues that although they differ in their notions of what is ethically moral, this does not mean that they are both wrong but rather the principles, values and concerns they prioritize are different. The issue is then that in the case of women, these principles, values and concerns are seen as less relevant to organizational aims than those of men. In that sense, there is a pervasive culture of masculine ethics in organizations; for example, Virginia Schein and Marilyn Davidson noted the “think manager, think male” mentality in organizations, which perpetuates that the managerial role is expected to be performed by men and to be constructed around perceived mas-

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culine values. In summary, gendered management styles are the result of the combination of organizational structures, and behavioral and cultural causes. More specifically, assumptions about the gender roles of women and men, and dichotomies created by expectations of management as primarily a masculinized function create ideas definitions of effective management, traits of managers and different types of management styles. See Also: Business, Women in; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Management, Women in. Further Readings Chodorow, N. “Feminism and Difference: Gender, Relation, and Difference in Psychoanalytic Perspective.” Socialist Review, v.9/4 (1979). Eagly, A. H., et al. “Gender and Leadership Style: A Meta Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin, v.260 (1990). Gilligan, C. and J. Attanucci. “Two Moral Orientations: Gender Differences and Similarities.” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, v.34 (1988). Rigg, C. and Sparrow, J. “Gender, Diversity and Working Styles.” Women in Management Review, v.9/1 (1994). Schein, V. “Managerial Sex Typing: A Persistent and Pervasive Barrier to Women’s Opportunities.” In M. Davidson and R. J. Burke, eds., Women in Management. London: Paul Chapman, 1994 Schein, V. and M. Davidson. “Think Manager, Think Male.” Management Development Review, v.6/3 (1993). Statham, A. “The Gender Model Revisited: Differences in the Management Styles of Men and Women.” Sex Roles, v.16 (1987). Wajcman, J. “Desperately Seeking Differences: Is Management Style Gendered?” British Journal of Industrial Relations, v.14/3 (1996). Jenny K. Rodriguez University of Strathclyde

Manga Manga, the Japanese name for comics, is rooted in Japanese graphic arts and caricatures dating back as far as the 12th century. The contemporary manga genre, involving mostly story manga, emerged in the

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1950s and expanded in the 1960s. Unlike single-frame caricature, story manga consists of dozens of frames that engage readers in the story as the plot develops. Children are generally assumed to make up the majority of comic book readers, but development of story manga into complex tales and human dramas helped manga attract adults who grew up with the genre. Japan’s economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s helped the manga industry expand its readership to include children, adolescents, young adults, homemakers, middle-aged businessmen, and working women. To respond to these readers’ needs and expectations, manga addresses a range of forms and topics reflecting Japanese society and culture, including science fiction, love stories, adventure, history, sports, and politics. By the early 1990s, manga was a major part of the Japanese publishing industry. Slow Opening to Women Cartoonists Historically, manga had been a primarily male domain until the mid-1960s. In this regard, Machiko Hasegawa (1920–92), Japan’s first nationally acclaimed woman cartoonist, was the only exception. Hasegawa became popular through her daily newspaper strip Sazae-san, that had started in 1946. She comically depicted the everyday life of Sazae, a homemaker in an extended family in postwar Japan. Despite Hasegawa’s success, male cartoonists continued to dominate manga. Even after the first monthly serialized comic magazines for girls appeared in the mid-1950s, men wrote manga stories for female readers. Depictions of women, such as their bodies, feelings, and tastes, were thus limited to male perspectives. In the mid-1960s and 1970s, women cartoonists brought new voices and expressed priorities that their female audience shared. This contributed to the expansion of girls’ weekly and monthly comic magazines such as Nakayoshi, Ribon, and Māgaretto and attracted young readers to inner worlds of dreams, fantasy, love, and human relationships. These manga also featured female protagonists and heroines such as Osukaru (Oscar) in Berusaiyu no bara (Rose of Versailles) by Ryoko Ikeda (1947– ) and more recently Usagi Tsukino in Bishōjo senshi sērā mūn (Sailor Moon), who earned national recognition and global mass popularity. When television became available in most Japanese households in the 1960s, the medium did not threaten Japanese manga. Serialized popular manga

Manga reflects Japanese society and culture, including science fiction, love stories, adventure, history, sports, and politics.

were often adapted for television animation, which increased the popularity of the original comic books. In the 1990s, manga popularity began declining in Japan. The decreasing population of a younger generation who were expected to be manga readers into adulthood was a major reason. New options for home entertainment, especially video games, and expanded choices of media networks made manga less competitive and less able to sustain a large readership. Despite challenging circumstances, manga remains the popular entertainment source for many Japanese people regardless of their gender or age. Charismatic cartoon characters play important roles in manga’s survival. Along with Japanese anime or animation, manga has expanded its overseas market, becoming a global phenomenon as Japan’s iconic representative of popular culture.

Mankiller, Wilma

See Also: Anime; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Cartoonists, Female; Japan. Further Readings Gravett, Paul. Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics. London: Laurence King Publishing/Harper Design International, 2004. Kinsella, Sharon. Adult Manga: Culture & Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. Misaka, Kaoru. “The First Japanese Manga Magazine in the United States.” Publishing Research Quarterly, v.19/4 (2004). Schodt, Federik L. Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1997. Toku, Masami. “What Is Manga? The Influence of Pop Culture in Adolescent Art.” Art Education, v.54/2 (2001). Ayako Mizumura University of Kansas

Mankiller, Wilma One of the most prominent leaders of the late 20th century bore a surname that spoke of her impact on the Cherokee Nation, U.S. politics, and indigenous peoples’ rights across the globe. Wilma Mankiller was born on November 18, 1945, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. One version of her surname, Outacity, is an honorary title conferred on a person with exceptional skill in warfare. The title also sometimes refers to individuals who can change minds and affect bodies to avenge wrongs. From her early experiences as an activist and community organizer to her leadership of the Cherokee Nation as the first female Principal Chief in modern history, Wilma Mankiller was just such a persuasive force and role model for Cherokee sovereignty. Political and Cultural Consciousness Her family left their home while Wilma was still a child to follow the promise of a better life promoted by a Bureau of Indian Affairs relocation program. Unfortunately, life for Indians in the San Francisco relocation program was wrought with poverty and injustice. During her adolescent years in the Bay

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Area, Mankiller’s involvement with the San Francisco Indian Center heightened her political and cultural consciousness. Later, although married with two young children, she found political inspiration and personal empowerment from both a college education and the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island, in which several of her siblings were active participants. Mankiller’s subsequent work as director of the Native American Youth Center in East Oakland and her involvement with the Pit River Tribe’s battle over ancestral land rights solidified her commitment to tribal sovereignty and community organizing. By 1974, conflicts between Mankiller’s increasing involvement in community affairs and her husband Hugo Olaya’s traditional expectations of his wife resulted in the dissolution of their marriage. Shortly thereafter, she moved with her two daughters, Gina and Felicia, back to Oklahoma to work for the Cherokee Nation. Shortly after returning to Oklahoma, Mankiller was severely injured in an automobile crash and then diagnosed with myasthenia gravis. As she recovered, she continued to champion community causes. As Community Development Director for the Cherokee Nation, she went to work on the Bell Project, a community-based effort to improve living conditions in the rural town of Bell, Oklahoma. Working on the project brought Mankiller to the attention of her future husband, Charlie Soap, and Chief Ross Swimmer, who asked Mankiller to run for the contested position of deputy chief in 1983. After their victory, Swimmer accepted an appointment to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, promoting Mankiller to Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Political Career In 1987, Wilma Mankiller ran for the office of Principal Chief and was victorious. The election was significant for many reasons, including the return of Cherokee women to positions of leadership they had historically occupied before European colonization and the Trail of Tears. During her years as Principal Chief, Mankiller revised tax laws affecting businesses operating on Cherokee land, expanded health services, championed youth programs, and signed an historic self-governance agreement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. These successes led Mankiller to run for a second full term, and she was reelected with almost

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83 percent of the vote. In April 1994, Mankiller was invited to moderate a presidential summit of tribal leaders. Her efforts contributed to the creation of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Indian Justice. Mankiller received recognition for her philanthropy, activism, and education related to Indian issues. Wilma Mankiller was named Ms. magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in 1987, was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, and was honored as one of the nation’s most extraordinary older women by the American Association for Retired People. Upon her death in April 2010, more than 1,000 people attended her memorial service at the Cherokee National Cultural Grounds. See Also: Indigenous Women’s Issues; Ms. Magazine; Native American Religion; Philanthropists, Female; Political Ideologies; Representation of Women in Government; Steinem, Gloria. Further Readings Agnew, Brad. “Wilma Mankiller: Cherokee,. In R. David Edmunds, ed., The New Warriors: Native American Leaders Since 1900. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Mankiller, Wilma and Michael Wallis. Mankiller: A Chief and Her People. New York: St. Martin’s, 1993. Perdue, T. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change 1700–1835. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Emily Plec Western Oregon University

Maquiladoras Maquiladoras or maquila are terms often used synonymously to identify a foreign-owned factory in Mexico or Central America. In some contexts, the term maquila is used to refer to the factory and maquiladora to the factory worker. The maquiladora workers are predominately female; approximately 70 percent of this workforce are women, some are as young as 12 years of age. They work in a sweatshoplike setting earning extremely low pay, working long hours and under scandalous conditions.

International export production facilities in Mexico have been in existence since the 1960s; during the 1980s the number of these factories began to grow rapidly. A major driving force, enabling transnational corporations to profit tremendously and encourage outsourcing, was facilitated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA was, at the outset, a Republican initiative under George H. W. Bush, but ultimately was signed into law on December 8, 1993, by President Bill Clinton. NAFTA’s goal was to facilitate trade between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The maquiladora has its origins in Mexico, but this model has been expanded to the nations of Central America. The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) under the George W. Bush administration was passed by a 217-to-215 vote on July 27, 2005, but the January 1, 2006 implementation date passed without international action due to staunch criticism. However, CAFTA could not be halted and was implemented in El Salvador on March 1, 2006; Nicaragua and Honduras on April 1, 2006; Guatemala on July 1, 2006; and the Dominican Republic on March 1, 2007. Costa Rica is the only remaining nation included in CAFTA to not have the trade agreement ratified, as they are currently waiting to hold a referendum. ”Free Trade” and Wage Slavery The creation of a “Free Trade Zone” is taken advantage of by multinational corporations who use NAFTA and CAFTA, not to facilitate trade with Mexico and Central America, but to minimize production cost and maximize profit. Factories are built within the Free Trade Zones at minimal costs; no federal or state taxes need to be paid, as would be mandatory if the factory was located in the United States. Machinery and raw materials can be shipped across the border to Free Trade Zone factories duty-free, and completed products shipped around the world at reduced tariffs. The arrangement benefits U. S. multinational corporations in their ability to relocate production for tremendous savings. In addition to the tax and tariff benefits, the most significant and profound savings is reduced labor costs. The multinational corporation, to maximize profit, has the goal of searching for and demanding the lowest wages. The average compensation for an entire day of work for a maquiladora worker is less



than the hourly wage for comparable work in the United States. A maquiladora worker can expect to make $3 to $4 a day. Also, the companies do not have to pay any benefits; for example, social security, retirement, health insurance, or unemployment insurance. The multinational corporation has a vested interest in producing goods using this model. NAFTA and CAFTA may have their goals as advancing trade, but the maquiladora workers do not make enough money to buy any of the products they produce. Worker and Environmental Protection U.S. companies utilizing the maquiladora are not subject to the guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The factories are not held to the same (or any) standards for worker safety and rights, as Mexico and other nations lack an adequate staff and funding to complete the task of regulating safety and waste. Workers are exposed to unsafe conditions, with the potential of immediate and longterm effects. The labor is fast paced and machinery does not have safety features, which increases risk of immediate physical injury (e.g., cuts and amputation). Long-term injuries from rapid repeated motion without adequate rest or ergonomic accommodations are common (e.g., stress injury, carpal tunnel syndrome). Maquiladoras produce goods for a spectrum of industries; workers are placed into harm’s way as they are rarely provided protective gear and there is inadequate ventilation as they work with toxic, sometimes carcinogenic materials (e.g., plastics, resins, glue/ adhesives, lacquer/paints). Many companies actively relocate to utilize materials in the maquiladoras that have been banned for use in the United States. In addition to the potential harm to workers, there are many maquiladoras that pollute the surrounding area and environment by dumping their waste locally. Many members living in communities near maquiladoras have been known to become ill due to the pollution of surface and ground water, air, and land. Some factories use waste export and control companies, but repeated research has documented these are the minority of cases. Worker’s Rights and Human Rights The most egregious violation is the (ab)use of child labor. The maquiladora is staffed by children and young adults ranging from 12 to 20 years of age.

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These workers are mostly female, and work very long hours under extreme conditions. The typical maquiladora work day spans from 10 to 12 hours, sometimes longer if there are large orders to fulfill. Workers have been known to be beaten and threatened with loss of pay for not making their daily required production. In addition, workers are sometimes forced to take home work to complete if they do not meet their quota. It has been documented that the use of female labor is preferable as young women are easier to control. Female workers have been forced to take birth control pills daily so they do not become pregnant. If they do become pregnant, they are urged to abort the baby to maintain employment or are fired without pay if they choose to not comply. There are no unions or worker organizations to protect workers’ rights. Maquila workers are threatened, fired, and sometimes physically harmed when attempting to organize for workers’ rights or providing information to the press. Further, workers who have been caught organizing or talking about the conditions are usually blacklisted and they become unable to solidify employment in any of the other factories in the area. The economic and political power of the multinational corporation makes it difficult to sway these business practices. Most corporations deny direct knowledge of these practices as they subcontract the oversight and operations of the factories to other companies; being one step removed from the process allots the option of denial. A similar business model is currently used by multinational corporations in China. See Also: Ecofeminism; Human Rights Campaign; Migrant Workers; Sweatshops; Unions. Further Readings Bickham Mendez, Jennifer. From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor, and Globalization in Nicaragua. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Fatemi, Khosrow. The Maquiladora Industry: Economic Solution or Problem? Westport, CT: Praeger, 1990. Fuentes, Annette and Barbara Ehrenreich. Women in the Global Factory. Boston: South End Press, 1983. Iglesias Prieto, Norma and Gabrielle Winkler. Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora: Life Histories of Women

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Workers in Tijuana. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Rosenberg, Jerry Martin. Encyclopedia of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the New American Community, and Latin-American Trade. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Paul E. Calarco, Jr. Hudson Valley Community College

Mariana Islands, Northern The Northern Mariana Islands, a group of 14 islands in the same chain as Guam in the North Pacific Ocean, is a self-governing commonwealth in political union with the United States. Major islands include Saipan, Rota, and Tinian, and the total land mass is 464 square kilometers with a population estimated in July 2009 to be 51, 484. The population is highly urbanized, and most inhabitants live on the island of Saipan. Indigenous inhabitants of the Northern Mariana Islands are U.S. citizens but do not elect representatives to the Electoral College, which selects the U.S. president. The Northern Mariana Islands receive substantial financial assistance from the United States but also have local industries including tourism, agriculture, and garment production. Despite a total fertility rate of 2.2 children per woman and a birth rate of 21.97 births per 1,000 population, the Northern Mariana Islands have the lowest population growth rate in the world (minus 7.078 percent) as a result of the highest out-migration rate in the world (minus 89.7 per 1,000 population). Coupled with high in-migration of foreign workers, this means that only about half the island’s inhabitants are U.S. citizens. Because these foreign workers are predominantly female, the Northern Mariana Islands have an extremely low male-tofemale ratio, particularly in the 15- to 64-year-old age group (84 men per 100 women in that age group). The population is primarily of Asian (56.3 percent) or Pacific Islander (36.3 percent) origins, with a small Caucasian minority (1.8 percent) and the remainder of mixed or other ethnicities. The major language groups are Philippine languages (24.4 percent), Chinese (23.4 percent), English (10.8 percent), and other Pacific island languages (9.5 percent). Most islanders

are Roman Catholic or other Christian denominations, although traditional beliefs are also practiced. Life expectancy is similar to in the United States (at 74.08 years for men and 79.47 years for women), as is infant mortality (at 6 deaths per 1,000 live births). Literacy is almost universal, at 96 percent for women and 97 percent for men. Primary influences on the culture of the Northern Mariana Islands include Roman Catholicism, the native Chamorro culture, and United States. Large families and traditional gender roles remain common, as do extended kinship networks, which may include people who are friends of one’s family, rather than blood relatives. Garment Industry and Current Issues Recently, international attention has focused on the exploitation of women working in the many garment factories that have been established on Saipan to take advantage of two facts: goods made in the Northern Mariana Islands can enter the United States duty-free, and the minimum wage is lower than in the United States. Many of these factories have been found to exploit their workers, usually young women from poor families in Asia, by means such as forcing them to labor under sweatshop-like conditions, charging them exorbitant amounts for inferior housing and food, requiring them to work overtime, and failing to pay promised wages. These women are classified as “guest workers” who do not have the right to apply for U.S. citizenship and are not protected by U.S. labor, civil rights, or immigration laws. Human trafficking is also a problem, with women being trafficked to the Northern Mariana Islands for prostitution, sometimes through deception by promising the women other types of employment, then forcing them to work as prostitutes. See Also: Migrant Workers; Roman Catholic Church; Sweatshops. Further Readings Clarren, Rebecca. “Paradise Lost: Greed, Sex Slavery, Forced Abortions and Right-Wing Moralists.” Ms. Magazine (Spring 2006). http://www.msmagazine.com /spring2006/paradise_full.asp (accessed April 2010). Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. “Marianas (USA).” http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook /Marianas.php (accessed April 2010).

Marriage

United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed April 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Marriage Historically, and across cultures, marriage is considered to be the socially recognized bonding of a man and woman. As these terms are culturally variable, marriage manifests differently around the world and over time. Broadly defined, marriage is a means of creating kinship that typically involves a social union or legal contract between individuals, and in many instances families as well. Despite the diversity of marriage practices across cultures, marriage is typically formalized by a wedding to indicate the beginning of a marriage and is recognized by the state, a religious authority, or both. All of the major world religions have strong views relating to marriage, usually decreeing that marriage is a duty, gift, sacrament, responsibility, or requirement. The legal, political, economic, and social consequences of marriage for women and men have been well documented. In fact, marriage is a topic that has concerned social scientists around the globe, because it reveals a tremendous amount about the universal features of the human condition and because of the remarkable diversity of marriage customs that exist cross-culturally. Commonality and Diversity in Definition In working toward a definition of marriage, scholars agree that no one definition of marriage applies to all cultures. Most definitions of marriage involve some outlining of rights associated with both sexual monopoly and rights with respect to children— although there are those who criticize marriage defined in this way because there are cultures that do not require marriage to legitimate children. In addition, the specifics of these rights vary across cultures. Anthropologists and other scholars have also noted that marriage is known in almost every society as a fundamental economic, social and cultural institu-

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tion. Most people around the world expect to marry regardless of the particular cultural context, social class, country of origin, ethnic group, or religious background from which they come. Nearly 45 years ago, E. E. Evans-Pritchard posited that in simple societies, there was no such thing as an unmarried woman; companionship was weak and women had little choice in whether they would or would not marry. In this view, marriage is a universal, or nearly universal, social institution. In addition to the universality of marriage in simple societies, Evans-Pritchard also noted that the concept of romantic love was nonexistent; and women could not choose a career instead of marriage. During the same period, Meyer Fortes proclaimed that the topic of marriage had been exhausted in anthropological thought, given the breadth of kinship studies. His declaration that so much was known about the customs and institutions of marriage in all human societies, and his subsequent conclusion that it was unlikely that anything new on the subject of marriage could be added, failed to account for the ongoing impact of social change. The Re-Examination of Marriage The prevalence, or universality, of marriage around the world, however, masks its heterogeneity, the historical changes the institution has undergone in local contexts, and the shifts and variations in social roles and statuses of people both within, and outside, of marriage. The re-examination of marriage continues to reveal that marriage is more diverse and more fluid than previously implied. For the past two decades, scholars have examined how the encounter between local and translocal/global cultural currents reshapes social practices and cultural configurations; this is particularly evident in the realm of marital relationships and practices. The expectations and experiences of women and men in their relationships, particularly their marital relationships, are changing, expanding, and shifting. For women, in particular, their engagement with modern and global ideas about love and monogamy influence decisions regarding when to marry, who to marry, whether to (re)marry, and so on. In fact, love, work, and choice of who to marry— previously considered absent from women’s experience of marriage in the non-Western world—now

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complicate marriage and relationships over the life course around the world. People marry for a host of reasons, including social, emotional, economical, legal, practical, spiritual, and religious. In most cultures there are inherit benefits and rights afforded to married couples, ranging from gaining control over a spouse’s sexual services, labor, and property to establishing the second legal guardian of a parent’s child. Other rights can include responsibility for a spouse’s debts, visitation rights when a spouse is in jail or hospitalized, control over a spouse’s affairs when the spouse is debilitated, and establishing a relationship between the families of spouses. The exact nature of these rights differs between and within cultures. Marriage Restrictions Who a person marries, or the preferred marriage partner, as well as restrictions on who one can marry, are also factors with tremendous variability cross culturally and historically. Restrictions on marriage to relatives are common in all cultures. Marriage between parents and children, or between siblings, is considered incestuous and is not permitted in most places. Marriage between distant relatives is more ordinary. In some cultures parallel-cousin (in the same descent group and are from the parent’s same-sexed sibling) or cross-cousin (from the parent’s opposite-sexed sibling) marriage is the preferred partner for a marriage. Marriage is promoted between first cousins in some cultures because is said to help keep property within an extended family. Concomitantly, cousin unions in some cultures would fall under an incest taboo and may even be illegal. While the frequency with which they occur has diminished, arranged marriages still exist in many parts of the world. Arranged marriage is when someone other than the couple seeks, organize, and choose the potential marriage partner. Historically, arranged marriages have deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world. Today, however, arranged marriage is still practiced in parts of south Asia, the Middle East, east Asia, and Africa. Arranged marriages can involve parents, extended families, and/ or a matchmaking mediator or representative who is either a professional or trusted third party. This is not to say that the prospective bride and groom are not involved or that the opinion of bride and groom are not considered or solicited.

Dowry and Bridewealth Historically, dowry and bridewealth were associated with marriage, and are still part of marriage negotiations and processes in many countries. A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage and is usually a part of a wider marriage settlement and contract. Dowry was widely practiced in Europe, often seen as an early form of inheritance for women; failure to pay the dowry could result in a marriage being called off. Dowries are no longer commonplace in the Western world, and are mostly considered obsolete. In some cultures, dowries continue to be requirements of the marriage process; Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Sudan are a few examples. Some countries, such as India, where the practice of dowry is commonplace even today, have had to impose restrictions on the payment of dowry by, in fact, making it illegal. The reason for this is to protect women from bride burning; in India there are thousands of deaths per year of brides due to disputes over dowries. However, making dowry illegal has proven ineffective at protecting young women. In other cultures, the groom or his family are expected to pay a bride price, or bridewealth, to the bride’s family for the right to marry the daughter, which is payable to the bride and/or various members of her family. Bridewealth is a social, symbolic, and economic matter of reciprocity. Bridewealth continues to be a part of the marriage process in many African countries, as well as in parts of Asia. Some traditions, among Muslims in particular, maintain that if a divorce occurs, the bridewealth is to be returned to the groom/groom’s family. In many countries, particularly in Europe and North America, marriage does not include dowry or bridewealth payments and marriage partners have the choice of combining or keeping their property separate. Sexual Issues in Marriage Marriage is also an institution in which sexual and intimate interpersonal relationships are acknowledged in a variety of ways that vary according to culture or subculture. For example, the practice of polygyny, where a man is married to more than one woman, dramatically impacts the intimate and sexual relationships between spouses with particular consequences for women. Restrictions against polygyny are found in most coun-



tries, although there are a number of cultures which continue the practice. Two societies may be described as polygynous but this does not mean that the practice is experienced in the same way. For example, wives may be required to live together in one polygynous setting, while in another they may have separate houses. Sexual relations in polygynous societies also vary. A husband may have sexual relations with all of his wives concurrently, or upon subsequent marriages he may cease sexual relations with his first wife. Extramarital affairs, adultery, or infidelity is widely acknowledged as a violation of marriage by almost all cultures. At the same time, however, extramarital relations, while often secret, are actually a widespread and widely acknowledged social practice. Many of the world’s major religions look with disfavor on sexual relations outside of marriage, both before marriage and with someone other than a spouse. Adultery, sex with someone other than one’s spouse, is considered to be a crime and justification for divorce in many cultures. In other cultures it is anticipated and considered preferable to alternatives, such as polygyny. Changing Definitions The definition of marriage has recently been under debate as same-sex couples work to achieve the right to marry in the United States and elsewhere. This process has stirred up not an insubstantial amount of controversy as the public and politicians debate the definition of marriage and the rights associated with it. Despite the intense debate over same-sex marriages, there is a long history of various types of same-sex marriages ranging from informal, unsanctioned relationships to highly ritualized unions. Examples of same-sex marriage exist from Ancient Greece and Rome as well as some regions of China. Woman-marriage is acknowledged in at least 40 precolonial African cultures. Present day examples of woman-marriage have endured to the present, and E. Kathleen Gough, as well as others, has demonstrated the importance of the practice among the Nuer ethnic group. The practice of woman-marriage in this setting, however, looks nothing like what same-sex couples in the United States seek. Monogamous, heterosexual relationships are the most commonplace form of marriage; however, they are not the only type of marriage found throughout the world, both contemporarily

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and historically. It should also be noted that marriage, in its modern form, is significantly different from the historical one. The death of a partner usually signifies the end of a marriage. In monogamous cultures the surviving partner is permitted to remarry. Most societies currently permit and provide for the end of a marriage through divorce, and people are then free to remarry. Like marriage, the process of divorce varies crossculturally. Some religions, such as Islam, have always provided a means to end a marriage, whereas the right to end a marriage was only acknowledged in Western countries in recent decades. See Also: Divorce; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Marriages, Arranged; Widows. Further Readings Bledsoe, Caroline and Giles Pison, eds. Nuptiality in SubSaharan Africa: Contemporary Anthropological and Demographic Perspectives. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1994. Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan. Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1965. Fortes, Meyer. Marriage in Tribal Societies. London: Cambridge University Press, 1962. Hirsch, Jennifer, et al. The Secret: Love, Marriage, and HIV. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009. Wilcox, W. Bradford and Nicholas H. Wolfinger. “Then Comes Marriage? Religion, Race, and Marriage in Urban America.” in Social Science Research, v.36/2 (2007). Susi Krehbiel Keefe Independent Scholar

Marriages, Arranged Marriage is a contract between two individuals, but when it is brought about by their parents or families and not the boy/girl who get married, it is known as arranged marriage. Since arranged marriages are brought about by people who are not the involved parties—bride or groom—love is no consideration at all. However, there are other, more important factors which become the focus of concern in arranged

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Arranged marriages are often looked upon as means to ensure the lineage and tradition in the cultures practicing it. A couple sits on display at a wedding held in the small town of Pakistan called Qila Dedar Singh near Gujranwala.

marriages. For example, the vocation of the groom is an important factor, although a bride’s vocation is not considered as important. There are also, most importantly, caste, class, religion, family reputation, horoscope, age, language and other considerations. Matchmaking is sometime an obsession with parents and relatives in cultures where arranged marriages are in vogue. Arranged marriages are common in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Japan, India, and Nepal. Before 1949, when the Communists outlawed it, tong yang xi in China was very common. This was a form of arranged marriage where a girl from a poor family would be sent to a rich family even as a child. She would work as a slave, and in exchange for her services the family would marry a young male member to her once she became marriageable. The rich family would thus have a bride, as well as a free maid.

This type of marriage was also practiced in Taiwan where it was known as shim pua; however, it went out of vogue after the economic prosperity of the 1970s, which made such arrangements unnecessary. The Orthodox Jews practice shidduch, which begins with dating by arrangement by the parents and then works toward marriage with mutual consent. A more acceptable form of arranged marriage is prevalent in the rural parts of North America, Japan, and Iran. Parents introduce their child to the potential spouse and then the children manage the relationship if they are interested in marriage. In fact, marriages are often looked upon as means to ensure the lineage and tradition in the cultures practicing it. Arranged marriages are linked with family honor, as love marriages are sometimes supposed to bring disgrace to the family. In fact, the system of arranged marriage was devised by the upper class in



order to safeguard their caste/class/community from dilution by people belonging to an outside or lower caste/class/community. Hence, there is a zeal to marry within the caste/ class/community/religion. Arranged marriages in India are brought about by the consent of the groom and his family primarily, and little importance is attached to the bride’s choice or consent. In bygone times, child marriage was the most evil form of arranged marriage, but with legislation against it, the evil tradition has to large degree died out. New Dimensions to Ancient Traditions Matchmaking Websites have given a new dimension to arranged marriages. These Websites have the bioprofile of the prospective bride and groom, accompanied sometimes by their photographs as well. Families and parents search for suitable profiles and then arrange for a meeting between the eligible man and woman. Sometimes it is the bride or groom themselves who manage their profiles and arrange their marriage on behalf of their families. This is a more progressive form of arranged marriage, which is gaining favor in light of time constraints increasing due to both young men and women becoming equally career oriented. Arranged marriages have a long history in India where the swayamvar system used to be the norm of the day. When there was a marriageable daughter in the family, a date would be fixed for marriage and a public announcement would be made. All eligible boys would flock at the fixed time on the fixed date, and the bride would garland the groom whom she found most suitable. Apparently it would be a marriage of choice, but actually the grooms would be invited by the parents without consulting the bride, so the choice would be arranged by parents only. Arranged marriage has many proponents as well as opponents. Its proponents feel it guarantees stability, but stability always depends on sincerity of the partners, whether it is a love marriage or an arranged one. Changes in Social Valuation of Marriage In cultures where arranged marriages were most prevalent, the engendered norms are breaking down and increasingly men and women are entering into marriages based on love and choice. Gradually, in the erstwhile conservative societies like India, caste, class, and religion are losing relevance while education and

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compatibility are becoming more important grounds for marriage. Parents can now see their children’s logic and they are increasingly giving in to the choice of their children. Also, since job considerations are taking young men and women to greener pastures, the marriageable youth, away from their families, stay in close proximity with members of the opposite sex. Love is then a normal offshoot and much of the time it also results in marriage. In modern times, however, people like the Rev. Sun Myung Moon have seen a sociopolitical relevance in arranged marriages; they advocate cross-cultural arranged marriages as a means of peace building. Moon has been arranging unification marriages through his Unification Church for decades. However, some couples who got married through such public weddings have complaints that their partners do not even speak the same language as they do. In India, public marriages are arranged more for social/economical reasons than for political/religious ones. Marriageable men and women from economically weaker families are introduced to each other through public ceremony, and all the couples get married under one roof with minimal show and pomp. Since in India, dowry is a major consideration, public marriages save a lot of young women from this ordeal. According to surveys, the system of arranged marriage is fast breaking down even in India, which was supposed to be its major hub. Increasingly, love marriages are being seen as the only remedy toward breaking caste and class barriers that have eaten into the Indian culture. Moreover, it is the only solution to the menace of dowry that is widely practiced in India. See Also: Afghanistan; Divorce; Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; India; Iraq; Japan; Marriage; Nepal; Pakistan; South Korea; Sri Lanka. Further Readings Batabyal, Amitrajeet A. Stochastic Models of Decision Making in Arranged Marriages. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006. Frolova, Ekaterina. Agency Within Subordination: Tajik Women’s Experiences With Arranged Marriages. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag, 2009. Myers, Jane E., Jayamala Madathil, and Lynee R. Tingle. “Marriage Satisfaction and Wellness in India and the United States: A Preliminary Comparison of Arranged

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Marriages and Marriages of Choice.” Journal of Counseling and Development, v.83 (2005). Seth, Reva. First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice From the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Asha Choubey MJP Rohilkhand University

Marshall Islands The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a matrilineal society. In addition to daily duties such as home and family maintenance, women have the right to own and inherit land. This places the Marshallese women at the center of the society. Despite this matrilineal establishment, women are less educated, more unemployed, and are compensated less for work than are men in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Teenage pregnancy in the Republic of the Marshall Islands is the highest among the other Pacific Islands and, according to the nongovernmental organization Women United Together in the Marshall Islands (WUTMI), 80 percent of Marshallese women have reported domestic abuse. Programs and services for such abuse and teenage pregnancy are limited in the country. WUTMI is a chartered, nonprofit organization designed to advocate for the Marshallese women. WUTMI’s campaigns include educating parents on how to raise healthy and strong children (Parents as Teachers Project); increasing awareness of domestic violence and advancing legislation to combat abuse (Protection of Women-Enhancing Human Rights Project); and researching the reaction of Marshallese citizens toward women leaders in government (Gender Equality in Leadership Project). In 2006, the Republic of the Marshall Islands was the first of the Pacific Islands to propose a Gender Budget Initiative. The nation’s budget was targeted to provide gender equality through implementing expenditure of money more appropriately and equally for both genders. The measure was intended to signify the priorities of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which was proposed as host of the pilot Gender Budget Initiative for the other Pacific Islands, by virtue of its matrilin-

eal society and its grassroots women’s organizations, such as WUTMI. While the bill failed to pass, it is still thought to have brought awareness to gender inequality and government accountability in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated the atomic bomb Castle Bravo at Bikini Atoll on the Marshall Islands as a nuclear test. The fallout from Castle Bravo was intended to drop into the ocean; however, wind currents relocated the fallout to two inhabited atolls in the Marshall Islands: Rongelap and Utirik. Women there reported suffering irregular and excessive menstrual cycles, back pain, and pelvic deformities from the fallout. Many women also delivered what are known as “jelly babies” (malformed fetuses); however their claims that these fetuses were radiation related was dismissed. Marshallese women have also reported suffering goiter tumors, resultant of radioactive exposure. See Also: Domestic Violence; Environmental Issues, Women and; Health, Mental and Physical; Nongovermental Organizations Worldwide; Teen Pregnancy. Further Readings Pollock, Nancy J. “Marshall Islands Women’s Health Issues: Nuclear Fallout.” http://www.converge.org.nz /pma/RMIwomen04.doc (accessed November 2009). Sharp, Rhonda and Sanjugta Vas Dev. “Integrating Gender Into Public Expenditure: Lessons From the Republic of the Marshall Islands.” Pacific Studies, v.29/3–4 (2006) Women United Together in the Marshall Islands. “Projects.” http://www.wutmi.org/projects.html (accessed November 2009). Sarah Heilbrunn California Polytechnic State University

Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene, an important female figure in the Christian belief system, has experienced renewed interest in the late 20th and early 21st century. Viewed traditionally as a sinner in need of Jesus’s assistance, Mary Magdalene and her image have undergone positive revisions during recent years in which her



status as a powerful member of Jesus’s ministry has been somewhat restored. Recently, scores of authors, desperate to reveal Mary Magdalene’s story, have published both scholarly and fictional works analyzing her. Books like Robin Griffith-Jones’s Beloved Disciple: The Misunderstood Legacy of Mary Magdalene, the Woman Closest to Jesus, Lynn Picknett’s Mary Magdalene: Christianity’s Hidden Goddess, Bruce Chilton’s Mary Magdalene: A Biography, and Jane Schaberg’s Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament explore the saint and examine her true role in Christianity, usually based largely on scriptural evidence. Interest in Mary Magdalene reached fervent heights after the publication of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code in 2003. In the novel, Brown weaves together the story of the Holy Grail, the Catholic Church, and the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Brown suffered criticism for his portrayal of the Church and various historical inaccuracies; nonetheless, the theories he introduced to the general reading public about Mary Magdalene

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were met with passionate, obsessive interest. Some of these theories were that the Holy Grail was, in fact, Mary Magdalene, who was carrying Jesus’s child at the time of his crucifixion (the Holy Grail was thought to hold Jesus’s blood, and in being pregnant with his child, Mary Magdalene indeed would have carried his blood within her). Brown’s novel also suggested that the Church feared having a powerful female figure to worship (which Mary Magdalene would have been, as Jesus’s wife), so Church fathers—thousands of years ago—instead described her as a prostitute to be pitied, rather than a woman worth revering. In 2004, the film The Passion of the Christ (directed by Mel Gibson) portrayed Mary Magdalene far differently than in Brown’s novel and other contemporary works about her. In this film, she is demure and synonymous with the adulteress whom Jesus saves from stoning. Gibson’s film portrays Mary Magdalene traditionally, as a woman of scandal, instead of an important and respected member of Jesus’s ministry. A renewed interest and movement to defend Mary Magdalene from historical slander has garnered her a recent wealth of popular and scholarly attention. She remains one of the most important women in Christianity and recently, has become a focus for analysis of women’s roles in religion in general. See Also: Christianity; Da Vinci Code, The; Religion, Women in; Roman Catholic Church; Virgin Mary; Womanist Theology. Further Readings Brown, D. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Chilton, B. Mary Magdalene: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, 2005. Griffith-Jones, R. Beloved Disciple: The Misunderstood Legacy of Mary Magdalene, the Woman Closest to Jesus. New York: Harper One, 2008. Lutzer, E. The Da Vinci Deception. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004. Picknett, L. Mary Magdalene: Christianity’s Hidden Goddess. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2004. Schaberg, J. Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament. New York: Continuum, 2002.

The Penitent Magdalene by Guido Reni, c. 1635. Mary Magdalene is one of the most important women in Christianity.

Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

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“Masculinity,” Social Construction of Debates about the nature of what it means to be a woman or man have existed since humans began recording written language. However, the nature of the conversation about masculinity and femininity evolves and changes at a rapid pace. One explanation for the fluid nature of gendered behaviors comes from social constructionism, or the philosophical view referring to the ways a society builds or creates reality through social interactions. It may help to think of social constructionism as a set of hidden or expressed rules about what we accept as truths in society. More specifically, it is a sociological view that considers how we use language to describe and make meaning in social contexts. For example, a social constructionist might argue that a concept like masculinity only exists because a particular group of people agree that it has specific meaning and significance. Inherent in the theory is that meanings can and often do change over time to reflect different historical, social and cultural influences. Social constructionism gained popularity in the United States during the 1960s after Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann published The Social Construction of Reality. They argued that most of our everyday knowledge of reality—what we would call common sense—comes from and is maintained through our social interactions. Social constructionism was one of several forces that helped support the Women’s (or Feminist) Movement in the United States at that time by challenging long-held assumptions that biological differences between the sexes could be grounds for granting different social and legal rights such as voting or owning property. Since then, the public conversation about what it means to be a man or a woman in modern society has changed and will likely continue to evolve. One social concept or construct that has generated a great deal of research and theory during the past 30 years is masculinity. Just using the word masculinity in conversation is likely to bring with it a set of assumptions and some level of assumed shared meaning. Early notions of masculinity were rooted in essentialist or deterministic views which suggested that all men are born with a set of characteristics or

traits that can be defined and described. For example, an essentialist view of masculinity might argue that aggression is a fixed trait of being born male or at least directly influenced by the presence of different levels of testosterone in men and women. In contrast, a social constructionist view might suggest that men and women vary in their levels of aggression depending on context and social cues. For example, a certain society might accept a parent showing physical aggression to protect his/her child from harm, but not to challenge an unfair school policy at a parent– teacher conference. Although this simple example highlights different views on a concept like aggression, modern social constructions of masculinity are much more complex given the cultural diversity in today’s world. Social Construction of Gender Roles While the term sex refers to the biological or reproductive capabilities of being born male or female, the word gender refers to all of the others things we associate with maleness or femaleness regardless of anatomy or reproduction. People across all cultures tend to take on roles that are seen as more or less appropriate for males and females, and there is a broad range of roles that exist within and between different cultures. For example, in many countries men have historically taken on primary responsibility for earning income while women take primary responsibility for providing care for young children. These gender roles are the behaviors and expectations that a society associates with being masculine or feminine—not predetermined roles based only on biology. Society constructs the rules and standards about how men and women should think, feel, and act, and works to constrain them from certain behaviors that violate notions of masculinity or femininity. The process of learning those rules begins in childhood and continues throughout our lifetimes as societies change. Given that gender and gender roles can be seen as largely constructed by our environment, it is important to explore how societies influence the concept of masculinity. Social Constructions of Masculinity Masculinity refers to the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that are most often associated with being or behaving male in our society. For example, being



“masculine” in many cultures has been associated with encouraging self-reliance, seeking power, achievement in the work role, dominance over others and the environment, homophobia, avoidance of femininity, and discouraging emotional expression, dependence on others, and seeking help. Some have argued that some of these behaviors may have been adaptive to our ancestors for survival (e.g., dominance over animals through hunting) or access to resources for potential mates (e.g., achievement through work for greater share of financial resources). This deterministic view of masculinity has been labeled hegemonic masculinity because some of the behaviors and attitudes can cause harm to self and others. For example, a great deal of research in the past 30 years has demonstrated relationships between traditional, hegemonic masculinity and a range of harmful physical, emotional, and interpersonal problems. For example, men who conform more to hegemonic masculinity have higher rates of substance use, depression, risk taking, violence, and suicide, including using more lethal means (e.g., guns). They also demonstrate more homophobia (e.g., heterosexual men are less likely to interact with gay men), diminished sense of sexual agency with prostate cancer, and decreased help-seeking behaviors for a broad range of health problems. However, social constructionists have challenged the idea of masculinity as a stable trait because it fails to explain the wide variation in men’s (and women’s) behaviors. Rather than looking at a dominant and stable construct of masculinity, we should consider the existence of multiple masculinities that are contextualized and dynamic constructions. Central to the social constructionist argument is that masculinity is demonstrated in any number of ways and is often influenced by societal conditions, interpersonal relationships, and changing gender role expectations. Quite simply, men and women are capable of behaving in different ways in different contexts. A contemporary example of the influence of language and fluid nature of masculinity is the phenomenon of the metrosexual man introduced by Mark Simpson in the mid-1990s. While concern for appearance and physical beauty was historically associated with femininity, the metrosexual man is one who puts more emphasis on maintaining his appearance than traditional men from previous generations. This cultural shift in masculinity, or at least a subset of behav-

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iors and attitudes associated with it, was supported by a new set of products and services such as men’s cosmetic lines, clothing accessories, and men’s spas that would have been considered unthinkable only one generation ago. As a true reflection of the social constructionist view, the term retrosexual emerged shortly thereafter as a response to these changing gender norms. In essence, the retrosexual man is one who rejects the modern concern for appearance and instead reflects previous stereotypes of masculinity. This shift and reaction to changes in the value of physical appearance is just one of many possible constructs of masculinity, and serves to illustrate the importance of social context in how we define our sense of reality. Cross-Cultural Constructions of Masculinity Perhaps the strongest argument in support of the role of social context in how we express gendered behaviors comes from cross-cultural comparisons of masculinity. Although some of the dominant norms of masculinity outlined above are found across a wide variety cultures and even historical periods, exceptions to those norms challenge a strict essentialist view of gender. Notable examples come from anthropologist David Gilmore’s experiences living with men and women in cultures around the world. Although violence and war have often been associated with traditional masculinity in societies, there is no tradition of combat or even warriors in the !Kung bushmen of southern Africa. In Tahiti, Polynesian men and women have been described as almost indistinguishable in their behavior, personalities, and roles, with women often in positions of power and men showing no concern for behaviors that might be considered effeminate in Western cultures (e.g., men dancing together in close physical contact). Finally, the Semai of southest Asia are also known for their nonviolence, minimal use of gender distinctions in their language, and lack of competitiveness in children’s play. Women’s Roles in Constructing Masculinity One other lens social constructionists can use to critique masculinity is how it is displayed and experienced by women within a culture. We know that gendered behavior does not follow strict biological determinism because women show variation in what are considered traditionally masculine traits and behaviors. Consider

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three characteristics and norms which have historically been associated with masculinity: physical (e.g., athletic, strong), functional (e.g., provider for family), and sexual (e.g., sexually aggressive or experienced). Women in many contemporary cultures have seen a significant shift with respect to these characteristics as evidenced by the growth of women’s professional sports, increasing participation in the workforce, and changes in sexual expression. Situational contexts can also influence women’s endorsement of masculine norms as they do for men. A social constructionist would argue that masculinity and femininity does not describe who we are in all situations, but helps determine what we do in any given situation. Challenges to Social Constructionism One of the challenges in taking a social constructionist view of masculinity is the difficulty in defining and measuring levels of it. While supporters of the view argue that it is a helpful viewpoint precisely because it cannot be simplified outside of our experiences, opponents point out the lack of consistency due to everchanging social contexts in which we find ourselves. They further argue that it is not a pragmatic approach because it depends so heavily on history, time, and social factors. Supporters have responded that taking a constructionist view provides a more realistic framework with which to understand why we do the things we do, and accounts for why “strong” men can show weakness and “peaceful” women can be aggressive. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender, Defined; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Homophobia; Nontraditional Careers, U.S. Further Readings Addis, Michael and James Mahalik. “Men, Masculinity, and the Contexts of Help Seeking.” American Psychologist, v.58/1 (2003). Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books, 1966. Gilbert, Lucia Albino and Murray Scher. Gender and Sex in Counseling and Psychotherapy. London: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. Gilmore, David. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990.

Kahn, Jack. An Introduction to Masculinities. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Ryan A. McKelley University of Wisconsin, La Crosse

Mata Amritanandamayi Math Mata Amritanandamayi Math (also known as M. A. Math) is a charitable humanitarian organization, founded by the female Hindu spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, who is known popularly as “Amma.” Through its various centers (ashrams) and branch groups, M. A. Math offers educational, financial, medical, and social welfare assistance to disadvantaged people in India and overseas. Key projects in India include care centers for the elderly; schools, training centers, and orphanages for children in need; free housing schemes for the homeless and handicapped; health and medical services; free meals; and, more recently, relief assistance to victims of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Serving Women Worldwide and Locally A large number of M. A. Math projects cater to the needs of women, such as women’s shelters and pensions for widows and the destitute. As well as reaching the poor in India, the organization operates worldwide in Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, South Africa, the United States, and elsewhere; and is recognized as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) by the United Nations. M. A. Math has donated tens of millions of dollars in aid to international projects, as well as providing local projects in various countries. Amma and a small number of her followers founded M. A. Math in the early 1980s as an informal ashram to serve the local community in the city of Kollam, north of Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala state in southwestern India. The center and its location are now known as Amritapuri; it serves as the organization’s headquarters. Although M. A. Math caters to people from all backgrounds and religions, it embodies Hinduism principles in its activities and teachings, blending spiritual awareness with practi-



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See Also: Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints; Hinduism; India; Nongovernmental Organizations Worldwide. Further Readings Canan, Janine. Messages From Amma: In the Language of the Heart. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 2004. Cornell, Judith. Amma: Healing the Heart of the World. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Poole, Karuna. Getting to Joy: A Western Householder’s Spiritual Journey With Mata Amritanandamayi. Seattle, WA: Shantini Center, 2000. Gareth Davey Hong Kong Shue Yan University

Amma has devoted her life to philanthropic activities and is known as the “hugging saint.”

cal humanitarian service. Also, some projects focus specifically on Hinduism, such as the construction of Brahmasthanam temples throughout India for Hindu worship. Amma has devoted her life to philanthropic activities. In recognition of her contributions, she has been presented with numerous international honors, such as the 2002 Gandhi-King Award for Non-Violence by the World Movement for Nonviolence; and the Fourth Annual James Parks Morton Interfaith Award in 2006. She travels all over the world delivering speeches and teachings. In addition to being credited as the founder of M. A. Math, Amma is known in the international media as the “hugging saint” because her blessings take the form of an embrace symbolizing compassion and healing. Large numbers of devotees congregate every day to hug the spiritual leader, and there have been times when she has hugged thousands of visitors daily, stretching over many hours. It has been claimed that Ms. Amritanandamayi has embraced tens of millions of people during the past three decades. Her remarkable life story, as well as the success of M. A. Math, have been documented in several books and documentaries, and were showcased recently in the 2005 film titled Darshan: The Embrace.

Maternal Mortality Childbirth can be dangerous for women, particularly poor women. Over 500,000 women die each year from childbirth-related causes, or about one each minute. Deaths result both from direct physical problems and from underlying poverty and gender inequalities. Skilled birth attendants and healthy living conditions contribute to healthier births. Maternal mortality rates in various parts of the world vary from 9 per 100,000 births to 450 per 100,000 births. Maternal mortality is defined as death while pregnant or within 42 days after pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes. Up to 15 percent of all births are complicated by unpredictable, potentially fatal, but usually treatable conditions. If such cases are untreated, the mothers, and often their babies, die. Direct and Underlying Causes Most deaths occur within the first 48 hours after delivery (or pregnancy termination), and 80 percent result from direct immediate causes. Postpartum hemorrhaging is responsible for about one-quarter of all maternal deaths; if severe bleeding begins, a woman can die within two hours. Infections leading to blood poisoning (childbirth fever), usually avoidable in sterile conditions, are the second leading cause. Preeclampsia from high blood pressure during pregnancy, can result in fatal convulsions for the mother. Another

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direct cause of death is obstructed labor, when the baby’s head is too large for the mother’s pelvis, or the baby is in an abnormal position. Complications from unsafe abortions also kill many women. Poverty is the most important underlying cause of maternal mortality, and women’s high rates of poverty (compared to men’s) reflect their second-class status in general. Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths occur in poor parts of the world. Even within richer countries the rates vary, and childbirth is more dangerous for poor women. For example, black women in the United States are about three times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than white women. Poor women in general have less access to healthcare before and during childbirth, adequate nutrition, sufficient clean water, hygienic living and birthing conditions, and transportation to healthcare facilities. Risk of death also increases for mothers under the age of 20, and even more for mothers under the age of 15. The risk also increases with each additional pregnancy. Other indirect causes of maternal death which are more common among women in poverty include malnutrition, anemia, HIV/AIDS, and malaria. Responses and the Continuing Priorities The United Nations proposed the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 to meet several of the most pressing challenges in impoverished countries. One goal is to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015. Of all the goals, this one has been least successful, with the largest gaps remaining between rich and poor nations. The most critical intervention for maternal health is to increase the presence of skilled birth attendants, such as midwives, physicians, and nurses. In the developing world, about 58 percent of births are attended; in some countries, this factor is as low as 10 to 12 percent. The individual with midwifery skills manages normal birth, recognizes the onset of complications, starts treatment, and if necessary, supervises transfer of mother and baby to a setting for emergency care. A healthcare facility must be fairly close if complications occur. After the mother reaches the facility, she must be able to afford culturally acceptable treatment; the clinic and providers need essential drugs and sufficient equipment. Wealthier and urban women have greater access to clinics and services than rural and poorer women.

Additionally, maternal mortality can be reduced substantially with universal access to knowledge, reproductive healthcare before and after birth, contraception, family planning, and access to safe abortions. Adolescents are at high risk for dying during childbirth, and their reproductive healthcare needs (including freedom from early pregnancies and marriages) must be considered. Women must also have good nutrition, healthy living conditions, and freedom from violence in their homes and communities. They must have access to a healthcare environment that is adequate, affordable, and appropriate. Reducing poverty and increasing the status of women through education and legislation help insure women’s health at this critical time. The problem is underreported globally. The poorest countries with the highest maternal mortality rates are also the countries with limited vital statistics data. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Infant Mortality; Midwifery; Nurses; Nutrition in Pregnancy; Poverty; Pregnancy; Prenatal Care. Further Readings Koblinsky, Marjorie A., ed. Reducing Maternal Mortality: Learning From Bolivia, China, Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, and Zimbabwe. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2003. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). “Population Issues: Safe Motherhood.” http://www.unfpa.org/ mothers (accessed November 2009). World Health Organization. “Maternal Mortality in 2005.” http://www.who.int/whosis/mme_2005.pdf (accessed November 2009). Rebecca Reviere Howard University

Mathematics, Women in Historically, women have had less involvement in mathematical activity than men. Although women’s participation and achievement have increased rapidly across the world since the beginnings of the second wave of feminism, differences (particularly in par-



ticipation) exist in the majority of countries. Many explanations have been offered for these differences connecting to a range of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors. As a result, a range of initiatives has been developed to promote interest in mathematics among women. While some approaches see mathematics as a fixed body of knowledge and seek to change women so that more of them want to pursue mathematics, others have used the focus on gender to find different ways of doing mathematics. The Western narrative of the history of mathematics is dominated by men. The male dominance of mathematics in the past is related to the way that women had few opportunities to pursue the study of mathematical and scientific work and to dominant ideas that such studies would affect their mental and physical health, being viewed as particularly detrimental to their reproductive capacity. Despite this there have been a number of women mathematicians, although their contributions have often been excluded or downplayed in official accounts of the subject’s development. These women include Hypatia, an early Egyptian astronomer and philosopher; Emilie du Châtelet (1706–49), a French mathematician and physicist who translated Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica into French adding her own commentary; Sophie Germain (1776–1831), a French mathematician who contributed work on elastic surfaces and number theory; Mary Somerville (1780–1872), a Scottish mathematician and scientist whose books brought ideas in physical science to a wider audience; Ada Lovelace (1815–52), an English mathematician who is generally acknowledged as the first computer programmer; Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), an English nurse and statistician who developed original modes for presenting data; Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–91), a Russian mathematician who worked on analysis and mechanics and was the first woman appointed to a full professorship in northern Europe; and Emmy Noether (1882–1935), a German mathematician who made far-reaching contributions to the fields of algebra and topology. As education and wider society gradually opened up to women during the 20th century, more women were able to study mathematics. However, gender differences in examination attainment and participation persisted. These have been the focus of considerable attention since the 1970s when the education of girls and women became a focus in the West

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due largely to the influence of the second wave in the feminist movement. A range of organizations developed to address this issue, including the International Organization of Women and Mathematics Education, European Women in Mathematics, the Association for Women in Mathematics (U.S.), the Gender and Mathematics Association (UK), and the Ada Byron Organization (Spain). More recently, the push to increase women’s participation in mathematics has moved into the mainstream as part of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and in many Western countries, as part of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) agenda. In current policy, mathematics is seen as central to national competitiveness in the context of the new global knowledge economy. Within this, the promotion of women in mathematics is a route to addressing the decline in participation in the subject and to producing sufficient mathematically qualified workers to service the economy. Both in these policies and in feminist interventions, mathematics is viewed as a “critical filter” controlling entry to high-status educational and employment opportunities and to a range of cognate fields such as engineering, physics, and computing. Gender Differences Gender differences in mathematics attainment have been recorded both in terms of average scores and in the distribution of the scores. General patterns are that male students’ results tend to have a higher average than female students’ results, particularly on spatial topics, and to be more extreme than female students’ results with higher proportions at the bottom and top of the range. However, the evidence on differences in attainment is ambiguous. There is a “file drawer problem” since studies showing no gender differences are less likely to be published than those that do find differences. The nature and size of gender differences in performance vary both historically and geographically. They also depend on how the test itself and individual test items are framed. It is possible to produce mathematics tests which on average favor men or women or which produce essentially identical averages. Mathematical test scores always show substantial overlap between boys and girls and men and women and within-group variation in results is consistently much higher than the differences between the genders.

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Differences in mathematical participation also show considerable variation across different social contexts. Although they continue to be found in some form in the vast majority of countries, the level at which they start varies. For example, in the United States, mathematics is largely gender balanced until postgraduate level; while in the United Kingdom, boys outnumber girls by nearly two to one in A-levels, the first mathematics qualification to be taken after the end of compulsory schooling at age 16. The “She Figures” report published by the European Commission shows that the proportion of doctorates in mathematics and statistics awarded to women rose from 30 percent in 2002 to 34 percent in 2006. However, this figure varied from 14 percent in Slovenia to 60 percent in Lithuania. The number of women involved in mathematics declines rapidly at higher levels. Data collated by the European Congress of Mathematics in 1998 showed that, in the mid1990s, Italy and Luxembourg were the only European countries where more than 10 percent of mathematics professors were women. Biological, Psychological, and Sociological Explanations Biological explanations have been offered for gender differences in relation to mathematics based in differences in relation to chromosomes, hormones, and brain lateralization. Such biological explanations generally draw on ideas from evolutionary psychology, which argues that since humans have spent over 99 percent of their evolutionary time as hunter-gatherers, so their minds have evolved adaptations in response to the selection pressures of that environment. Gender differences in the hunter-gatherer environment, together with men and women’s different investments in their offspring, have meant that successful genes were often ones that have different phenotypic effects in men and women. These differences are then used to account for contemporary gendered behavior patterns. Psychological explanations have been offered for gender differences in mathematics based in differences in relation to self-esteem, confidence, anxiety, and/or self-concept. One particularly influential strand of research suggests that girls and women are more likely than boys and men to attribute success in mathematics to chance and failure to more stable and internal factors such as the difficulty of the subject

and their inability at it. This female pattern of attributions is viewed as maladaptive because it leads girls and women to feel that they cannot do mathematics and so produces a state of “learned helplessness.” Those developing sociological explanations for gender differences in mathematics have critiqued the biological and psychological explanations for ignoring both the educational context and wider social issues. They have instead argued that differences in the socialization of boys and girls produce differences in attainment and participation in mathematics. They have pointed to the lack of female role models; the widespread gender stereotyping in mathematics textbooks; the mass media and the views of parents, teachers, and peers; and boys’ dominance of school lessons, monopolizing classroom space, equipment (particularly technology), interactions, and teacher time. “Ways of Knowing” Another strand of explanations (which may be biologically, psychologically, or sociologically oriented) has developed arguments that there are gendered preferences for different “ways of knowing,” leading male and female students to favour different teaching, learning, and assessment styles. For example, the use of closed questions and multiple-choice tests, the directive pedagogic style with little room for discussion and the conception of mathematical knowledge as abstract and unconnected from the world, have been seen to be antithetical to women’s “ways of knowing.” In an influential critique of the explanations discussed above, Valerie Walkerdine challenged the terms of the debate. She argued that the problem had never been one of “real” differences between boys’ and girls’ performances in mathematics but instead was about how these differences were constructed. For example, she noted that girls’ better average performance than boys in early mathematics tests in the United Kingdom was labeled (by teachers and researchers) as resulting from rule following and rote learning, things that were not seen as valuable to pursuing higher level mathematics. In contrast boys’ lower average test scores were taken as evidence of their real understanding and flair in the subject, things which were seen to stand them in good stead for the future. She explained that these constructions are possible because of an historical alignment of rationality with masculinity in Western thinking, in

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opposition to femininity, which is aligned with the irrational and the emotional. The increasing engagement of women with mathematics has contributed to changes in our understandings of what mathematics is and how it can be done. The notion of mathematical activity has been expanded to include, for example, women’s traditional craftwork and everyday activities such as calculating calories as part of dieting. Women’s less linear career pathways have helped to challenge a range of stereotypes of mathematicians such as the idea that they do their best work when they are young. And feminist interventions have been part of questioning the conception of mathematics itself as abstract and unconnected to the world. See Also: Computer Science, Women in; Physics, Women in; Science, Women in; STEM Coalition. Further Readings Agnes Scott College. “Biographies of Women Mathematicians.” http://www.agnesscott.edu/Lriddle/ women/women.htm (accessed August 2009). Henrion, Claudia. Women in Mathematics: The Addition of Difference. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. Mendick, Heather. Masculinities in Mathematics. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2006. Walkerdine, Valerie. Counting Girls Out. London: Falmer, 1998. Heather Mendick University of London

Mauritania After gaining independence from France in 1960, Mauritania became embroiled in both external and internal strife before instituting democratic rule in 2005. However, ethnic tensions continue to cause concern, and there are major differences in the traditions and lifestyles of the urbanized Moorish and rural black populations. Around half of the workforce is engaged in agriculture and livestock, and 30 percent are unemployed. Mauritania has a per capita income of $2,100 and a poverty rate of 40 percent.

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The majority of the population is of mixed Moor/ black heritage (40 percent). The rest are evenly divided between Moors and blacks. There is no diversity in religion, as all Mauritanians are Muslim. Shari`a law continues to dictate the conditions under which many women live, but some customs have been discarded by educated, urbanized Moor women. The government and nongovernmental organizations work together to improve the status of women. Both female gender mutilation and gavage, the forced feeding of adolescent girls, have been outlawed. Although women have legal rights to equality, property ownership, and child custody, it is only more educated, urban women who are able to take full advantage of those rights. Other major concerns include arranged marriages, violence against women, involuntary servitude, and societal discrimination of women. The Secretariat for Women’s Affairs and women’s rights groups work together to inform women about the dangers of female genital mutilation and educate them about their rights. Equal pay is mandated by law, and some employers offer generous family-leave policies. According to Shari`a tradition, a woman can be married or divorced without her consent. However, divorce rates (37 percent) are high among Moor women, and wives can also end marriages by repudiating their husbands. Female court testimony carries only half the weight of that of men. Female genital mutilation is generally performed on infant girls between 7 days and 6 months of age. The government has now forbidden all hospitals from performing female genital mutilation. The practice of involuntary servitude has declined to some extent. By law, adult males can leave servitude at will; however, mothers find it more difficult to leave because they may not be able to take their children if they leave. Women have the right to vote and are active in party politics. The quota system dictates that 20 percent of candidate lists be women. In 1997, more women voted than men for the first time. By 2008, 15 women served in the National Assembly, eight sat in the Senate, and four were in the cabinet. Mauritania has the 35th highest infant mortality rate in the world (63.42 deaths per 1,000 live births). Female infants (58.03 deaths per 1,000 live births) have a considerable advantage over male infants (68.65 deaths per 1,000 live births). That advantage

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continues throughout life, and women have a life expectancy of 62.59 years compared with 58.22 years for men. The median age for women (20 years) is somewhat higher than that of men (18.3 years). Mauritanian women have a fertility rate of 4.45 children. Mauritanians have the 59th highest human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) adult prevalence rate (0.8 percent) in the world. They also have a high risk of contracting bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, Rift Valley fever, meningococcal meningitis, and rabies. Nearly 60 percent of men are literate, but only 43.4 percent of women are able to read and write. All Mauritanians have a school life expectancy of eight years. There is a major problem with domestic violence, but it is generally left to families and ethnic groups to deal with the matter. From an official perspective, rape is rare. However, nongovernmental organizations insist that there are high

incidences of unreported rape. Wealthy men accused of rape have reportedly managed to avoid prosecution and imprisonment. Prostitution is a growing problem, and there are reports of trafficking of Chinese women for use in brothels that cater to foreigners. See Also: Domestic Violence; Female Genital Mutilation, Geographical Distribution; HIV/AIDS: Africa. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Mauritania.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/ the-world-factbook/geos/mr.html (accessed February 2010). “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2000: Mauritania.” WIN News, v.27/2 (2001). Fallon, Kathleen M. Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

School children in Mauritania in 2008. A survey of children not attending school in Mauritania found that 25 percent needed to support their families or perform domestic work, and 22 percent did not attend because of the distance to school.

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Helms, Jesse, et al. “Women and Human Rights.” WIN News, v.23/2 (1997). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Tripp, Aili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Mauritania.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/ af/119013.htm (accessed March 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Mauritius After centuries of foreign domination, Mauritius— an island nation located in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar—eventually became a British protectorate. After obtaining independence in 1968, Mauritius became one of the most highly developed countries in Africa. Some 42 percent of the population now lives in urban areas, and 70.5 percent of the gross national product is derived from the service industry. With a per capita income of $12,400 and an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent, 8 percent of the population live in poverty. Most Mauritians are Indo-Mauritian (68 percent), but there is also a large group of Creoles (27 percent). The largest religious groups are Hindu (48 percent), Roman Catholic (23.6 percent), and Muslim (16.6 percent). Although English is the official language, more than 80 percent of the population speaks Creole. Mauritian females have legal equality, and the government and nongovernmental organizations have worked together to improve the status of women and address inequities that do exist. The most pervasive problem is domestic violence. The number of women in the national legislature trebled in 2005, rising from four to 12, and making it a banner for women in politics. Previously, Mauritius had one of the lowest female participation rates in politics in Africa. This increase was in large part a result of the success of woman-oriented nongovernmental organizations. Social indicators reflect government commitment to addressing problems. Total infant mortality is 12.2 deaths per 1,000 live births.

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Female infants (9.77 deaths per 1,000 live births) are more likely to survive than males (14.51 deaths per 1,000 live births), as are adult women, who have a life expectancy of 77.65 years compared with 70.53 years for men. The median age is 32.7 years for women and 31 years for men. Mauritius has a fertility rate of 1.81 children per woman. Social Indicators Despite a human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) adult prevalence rate of 1.7 percent, Mauritius has been able to avoid many of the diseases that plague less-developed African nations. The literacy rates of 80.5 percent for women and 88.4 percent for men are high among African countries, and as a rule, Mauritians are well educated. Women generally complete 13 years of school compared with 14 for men. Despite high ratings on many social indicators, women in Mauritius are frequently the victims of violence. They are beaten and even burned alive. The government has set up a gender bureau and passed new legislation to deal with the problem. However, the emphasis is on producing cohesive families, rather than on dealing with the causes of violence or providing support for victims. Rape, including spousal rape, is illegal, and laws are generally enforced. However, many cases go unreported because of familial and cultural influences and the fear of retaliation. Mauritius has passed sexual harassment laws, but they have proved largely ineffective. Although illegal, prostitution is widespread. See Also: Domestic Violence; Representation of Women in Government, International; Roman Catholic. Further Readings Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Mauritius.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/mp.html (accessed February 2010). Fallon, Kathleen M. Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

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Tripp, Ail Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Mauritius.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /af/119014.htm (accessed March 2010). Yoon, M. and Sheila Beware. “The Mauritian Election of 2005: An Unprecedented Increase of Women in Parliament.” Journal of International Women’s Studies, v.9/3 (2008). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

McCartney, Stella Stella Nina McCartney is a fashion designer who was born in London, England, on September 13, 1971, to ex-Beatles singer Sir Paul McCartney and American photographer Linda McCartney, née Eastman. McCartney and his wife also performed together in the band Wings, which they formed in 1971. Interested in fashion since her early teenage years, she worked with Christian Lacroix on his first couture collection since she was 15. She also took on an apprenticeship with renowned Savile Row tailor Edward Sexton. McCartney attended foundation year at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, in Bromley, England, and then enrolled at London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in fashion design. She graduated in 1995, with a collection that was famously modeled by her friends, supermodels Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. This collection was selected by several retailers including Browns in London, and Bergdorf Goodman in New York. After two collections under her own name, she was appointed head designer at Chloé, a Paris-based ready-to-wear fashion house, in 1997. Her style was distinguishable by the juxtaposition of lace petticoats and intricate tailoring. She occupied the post for four years, assisted by her friend and fellow designer Phoebe Philo. In 2001, she was recruited by the Gucci Group to develop her own label, a post that she accepted. Philo then took over McCartney’s position at Chloé. Branching out, McCartney launched her own perfume in 2003, and a line of luxury organic skin prod-

ucts, Care, in 2007. McCartney has had many collaborations with other brands. Since 2004, she has an ongoing partnership with athletic-wear icon Adidas, where she designs lines for various sports including running, swimming, golf, winter sports, and more recently, triathlon. In 2005, McCartney created a single collection for international apparel manufacturer and retailer H&M; in 2008, she designed backpacks for sportswear bag brand Le Sportsac. In November 2009, she created a line of children’s and infants’ apparel for mainstream American retailer Gap, which was extended into a second season in March 2010. Today, her 16 boutiques include locations in Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, and more recently, Milan and Beirut. Champion of Green Issues McCartney is a lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and refuses to use leather or fur: all her bags are produced in faux, “green” alternatives. She is an animal rights activist and supports People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The motto “Suitable for Vegetarians” can be found on the bottoms of her line of shoes, and inside clothes, notably for Adidas products. The designer does use wool, silk, and other animal-derived fabrics in her product lines. Her green efforts have been rewarded several times. In 2005, she received the Organic Style Woman of the Year Award in New York. In 2009, the Natural Resources Defense Council honored her work during its 11th Annual “Forces for Nature” Benefit, for “Pioneering Environmental Work in Fashion and the Media Industries.” Professional Achievements, Forming a Family Stella McCartney also received the Woman of Courage Award for her work with cancer charities, at the Unforgettable Evening Event 2003 in Los Angeles. McCartney is said to have been especially motivated by her own mother’s death to breast cancer in 1998. Her design skills, too, have often been honored through, for example, the Glamour Award for Best Designer of the Year, in 2004, and the Elle Style Award for Best Designer of the Year in 2007, both in London. Stella McCartney has been married to British publisher Alasdhair Willis since 2003. The couple has three children: two sons, Miller Alasdhair James Willis (born 2005), Beckett Robert Lee Willis (2008), and a daughter, Bailey Linda Olwyn Willis (2006).

McCorvey, Norma

See Also: Animal Rights; Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Business, Women in; Celebrity Women; Working Mothers. Further Readings British Broadcasting Corporation News. “Stella Triumphs in New York.” 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/enter tainment/982824.stm (accessed July 2010). Brozan, Nadine. “Chronicle.” 1995. http://www.nytimes .com/1995/06/14/style/chronicle-526795.html (accessed July 2010). Craven, Jo. “Vogue.com Who’s Who: Stella McCartney.” http://www.vogue.co.uk/biographies/080422-stella -mccartney-biography.aspx (accessed July 2010). Alice Pfeiffer Independent Scholar

McCorvey, Norma Norma McCorvey is the pseudonymous “Jane Roe” of the 1973 landmark Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States. In 1995, McCorvey recanted her position and joined the pro-life movement. Her extraordinary life story casts light on an array of issues, including the rise of the Christian Right in politics and the ways in which class tensions have informed the ongoing conflict over abortion. Born to a poor family in 1947, McCorvey grew up mainly in Texas. In her autobiography, she recounts a hardscrabble life marred from an early age by physical, sexual, and substance abuse. By 1970, when she signed on as the plaintiff in the Texas court case that would become Roe v. Wade, she had already born and relinquished two children. Disturbed by her daughter’s lesbian relationships, McCorvey’s mother had seized custody of her firstborn; McCorvey herself had given the second-born up for adoption.

Roe v. Wade Still in her early 20s, McCorvey was working as a carnival sideshow barker when she became pregnant again. She tried to find a doctor who would perform an abortion, falsely claiming to have been raped. Eventually, she was referred to two young lawyers,

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Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, who were seeking a potential plaintiff for a case designed to challenge Texas’s strict abortion statute. At the time, a number states had already enacted laws allowing for “therapeutic” abortions in special cases, and Hawaii and New York were on the verge of passing legislation that legalized medical abortions up through the 24th week of pregnancy. By the time her case reached the Supreme Court, McCorvey’s relationship with Weddington and Coffee had soured, and she would later claimed that her lawyers used her as a “pawn.” (By then, Roe. v. Wade had become a class action lawsuit.) McCorvey particularly resented the fact that Weddington did not reveal that she herself had undergone an illegal abortion in Mexico in 1967. Speaking to a reporter in 1994, she complained, “When I told her then how desperately I needed one, she could have told me where to go for it. But she wouldn’t, because she needed me to be pregnant for her case.” In the end, “Jane Roe” never underwent an abortion; she gave birth and put the baby up for adoption. More than two years later, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas law that had prevented her from terminating her pregnancy, along with all other state laws that criminalized abortion prior to viability. Activism and Conversion

Roe v. Wade galvanized a “pro-life” movement that has fought ever since to recriminalize abortion. Within this ongoing battle, McCorvey has been a controversial figure since the mid-1980s. After revealing her identity in a 1984 interview, she delivered speeches on behalf of the pro-choice movement, and she later published a book, I Am Roe, which is both memoir and pro-choice manifesto. But in 1995, when working at an abortion clinic in north Dallas, she befriended members of Operation Rescue, a pro-life group that had set up shop next door to the clinic. Soon thereafter, she experienced a dramatic conversion and began working for the organization. In 1997, she founded her own outreach effort, Roe No More Ministry, and published a new book, Won by Love, in which she explains her transformation. In 2003, McCorvey became the plaintiff in a new lawsuit (McCorvey v. Hill) that attempted, unsuccessfully, to reopen Roe v. Wade. The factors that informed McCorvey’s stunning defection from the pro-choice movement are subject to

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debate. In Won by Love, she writes that she experienced a sudden moment of clarity when confronted with an image of a developing fetus. “I kept seeing the picture of that tiny, 10-week-old embryo, and I said to myself, that’s a baby!” she wrote. “It’s as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth— that’s a baby!” Yet McCorvey also clearly felt slighted by prominent pro-choice activists and marginalized within the movement. She complained that its leaders kept “as wide a hedge around me as possible,” declining to invite her to address large rallies or to attend the 1993 White House celebration marking the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Such grievances may also have contributed to McCorvey’s change of heart. Today, she remains active in the pro-life movement. See Also: Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion Laws, United States; Operation Rescue; Pro-Life Movement; Roe v. Wade; United States. Further Readings Garrow, David J. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of “Roe v. Wade.” Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. McCorvey, Norma, with Andy Meisler. I Am Roe: My Life, “Roe v. Wade,” and Freedom of Choice. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. McCorvey, Norma, with Gary Thomas. Won By Love. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1997. Rebecca Jo Plant University of California, San Diego

Media Chief Executive Officers, Female Female media chief executive officers (CEOs) are in a position to make decisions that shape both industry and culture. The term media CEO refers to those people working as top executives in media industries including, but not limited to, film, television, radio, advertising, and digital media. Like any CEO, the media CEO is considered the primary liaison, manager, and marketer for her company; rather than possessing any one area of expertise, she must have an understanding of her company at every level, as well

as a clear vision for the company’s future. For a media CEO working in film production, that vision guides her major decisions of, for example, whom to hire and fire and what projects to “greenlight” (give permission to proceed). A CEO works in the interest of the company’s owner, board members, and shareholders, and her successes or failures are judged by the company’s profits and losses. Historically, men have held the vast majority of CEO positions, with women almost entirely excluded from executive boardrooms on an international scale. During the first decade of the 21st century, the film and television industries became notable exceptions to this; in 2005, the same year that less than 1 percent of CEOs for top companies were women, almost every major studio in Hollywood employed a female CEO to run its motion picture production. Women executives have become much more common in entertainment than in previous decades, and this change has both inspired celebration and, for some, raised the question of whether discussion of gender in the media industries is still necessary. However, while much public attention has been given to women in key creative and decision-making positions, quantitative research shows that major disparities remain at nearly every echelon of media companies, and that there is still much progress to be made before gender equality can be declared in this business sector. A New Approach During the 1990s, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, two major industry trade journals, began publishing annual special issues with the goal of drawing attention to women’s power and achievements within the media industries. Both trade journals have since optimistically declared that due to changing perceptions women can move more easily up the executive ranks, and female executives have finally become familiar in the boardroom. Those influential female CEOs held up as examples of such positive changes to women’s status include Stacey Snider as CEO of Dreamworks, Judy McGrath as CEO of MTV Networks, Cecile Frot-Coutaz as CEO of FremantleMedia, Abbe Raven as CEO of A&E Networks, Debra Lee as CEO of BET, Andrea Wong as CEO of Lifetime, Kay Koplovitsz as CEO of USA Networks, and Paula Wagner as CEO of United Artists. The success of these women was met with much celebration in trade journals and the popular press



throughout the early 2000s. Yet at the same time as trade articles questioned whether gender distinctions were still meaningful, the success of female CEOs was also framed according to gender stereotypes, including their perceived maternal instincts and ability to nurture. The increase in female CEOs represents progress, but high-profile success stories represent only a fraction of those working in the media industries, where gender stereotypes persist and disparities in employment are still drawn along gender lines. Disparities Remain Quantitative research points to the ongoing need for critical attention to the gender of those working within media industries. Studies have confirmed that increased numbers of female executives in the early 2000s do not reflect women’s status in the industries overall. For example, a study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania documented the number of women in executive positions and on boards of directors for entertainment companies. Between the years 2000 and 2001, the percentage of women in top executive positions decreased from 14 percent to 11 percent. Dr. Martha M. Lauzen, with the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, conducts annual studies of women’s employment in film and television. The results reveal that disparities remain at every level of the industries. In 2008, Lauzen found that women made up only 16 percent of all directors, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors that worked on the 250 highest grossing films in the United States, with 22 percent of films employing women in none of those five categories. Such research ultimately points to what both studies refer to as a “glass” or “celluloid ceiling”—a barrier that, while difficult to see, has thus far prevented women from achieving equal status with men. Further evidence of this barrier can be seen in the fact that the owners of media companies remain almost entirely men. The impact of female CEOs has been great, and yet it can be overestimated. The numbers show that more change is needed before gender equality can be declared in media industries. See Also: Business,Women in; Chief Executive Officers, Female; Film Directors, Female; Film Production,Women in; Management, Women in.

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Further Readings Bollinger, L. and C. O’Neill. Women in Media Careers: Success Despite the Odds. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008. Byerly, C. M. and K. Ross. Women & Media: A Critical Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Holt, J. and A. Perren, eds. Media Industries: Theory and Method. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Lauzen, M. M. “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2008.” http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/2008_celluloid _ceiling.pdf (accessed December 2009). Ryan Noelle Bowles University of California, Santa Barbara

Medical Research, Gender Issues in Medical research is undertaken in order to better understand causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. One of the most important experimental methods in medical research in the United States is the clinical trial, which ensures the safety and efficacy of new treatments before they are widely prescribed. In the mid-1980s, researchers began to recognize that biological differences between women and men could have a significant impact on health, although the majority of medical research prior to this time had been conducted almost exclusively on men. Since then, sex differences have become a focus of attention in medical research. Critics argue that some research fails to account for the differences in women’s and men’s biology, yielding a body of medical knowledge that leads to inadequate or even dangerous treatments for women. In addition, it is suggested that research regarding women’s health is underfunded in comparison to men’s health issues. Several national and international organizations have called for additional research into the importance of sex differences in health. History and Changes by Research Bodies The U.S. Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 required for the first time that drugs be proven safe through clinical trials before being made available

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to the public. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) became the governing body for the oversight of clinical trials of new therapies. Trials are carried out in several phases, all of which include human subjects, to determine the toxic dose, efficacy of the medication, and effect on morbidity and mortality. During the 1940s and 1950s, most clinical trials used male volunteers, although women were sometimes subjects of research concerning the female reproductive system. Inclusion of both male and female subjects was not considered important in most research studies, since women were regarded essentially as smaller versions of men, biologically indistinguishable except for by their reproductive systems. In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers recognized the connection between birth defects and two drugs: thalidomide, which had been widely prescribed for morning sickness in pregnant women, and diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic estrogen prescribed to prevent miscarriages. In an effort to protect women from such dangers, the FDA published a guideline in 1977 that excluded women of childbearing age from participating in most phases of clinical trials. Although the FDA’s intention in issuing the exclusion guideline was the protection of women’s and fetal health, it resulted in the systematic exclusion of women from clinical trials for a decade. However, by the mid-1980s, researchers began to see that the findings resulting from male-only trials could not be extrapolated to women as successfully as had once been thought. Change was slow to come, since many researchers preferred the simplicity of male-only studies, which did not have to account for the extra variable of gender or the more cyclic nature of women’s physiology. In 1986, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to deny funding for research that did not include both male and female subjects, but given the relatively minor percentage of research funded by NIH, their effort did not bring significant change. To further promote women’s health, NIH created the Office of Research on Women’s Health in 1990, which supports advocacy and education and works to ensure that women are adequately represented in medical research. The FDA made a series of revisions to their guidelines throughout the 1990s to require inclusion of women in clinical trials, but do not require that results be analyzed for sex-dependent variations. Following several mandates for gender equality in the

1990s, the World Health Organization (WHO) created its Department of Gender, Women, and Health in order to encourage gender equity in healthcare, in part by calling for increased inclusion of women in medical research. Gender Differences in Health Men and women experience different patterns and manifestations of illness beyond the obvious variation in diseases of the reproductive organs. A 2001 report by the Institute of Medicine concluded that sex was a significant factor in behavior, perception, and health, calling for increased investigation into the biological reasons for such differences between men and women across the entire life cycle. The report theorized that hormones, bodily cycles, and genetic differences all play a role in the ways that men’s and women’s biology differs. These biological variations mean that nearly every major organ functions differently in women and men, if only slightly. For example, the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone affect the rate of digestion, while the fluid makeup of men’s and women’s gastrointestinal tracts differs—making women more susceptible to certain illnesses and men more susceptible to others. Hormones have an effect on nearly every part of the body, and the major differences in levels of sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone account for some of the biological variations seen between men and women. However, researchers also recognize that men and women differ at the cellular level, and these differences have not yet been fully explored. Since men and women’s bodies function differently, it is not surprising that men and women can respond in significantly different ways to medications. For example, women generally achieve longerlasting pain relief from the class of drugs known as kappa opioids than do men; in fact, kappa opioids can actually cause worsening pain in some men. It is also thought that women’s livers metabolize certain drugs differently than do men’s. However, doctors do not generally consider gender in prescribing medications, and sometimes fail to provide the treatment best suited for the patient based on his or her sex. Given that clinical practice is grounded in knowledge derived from research that focused almost exclusively on men for decades, women are sometimes misdiagnosed because manifestations of illness in women



are not as well understood. For example, only since the late 1990s have researchers made significant investigation into women’s heart attacks. Recent research shows that many, if not most, women who suffer heart attacks do not experience the classic and well-known heart attack symptoms identified through years of research on men. Instead, women’s symptoms are considered “atypical” in comparison to the clinical picture of heart attacks based on middle-aged male subjects. Women who suffer heart attacks may consequently delay seeking treatment, be misdiagnosed, or receive treatment that is less effective or even harmful to them. While much discussion of gender in medical research focuses on improving healthcare for women, consideration of gender differences can also benefit men. Whereas women’s heart attacks are more likely to be missed because heart disease is considered a “men’s illness,” men can also suffer from diseases traditionally considered “women’s illnesses.” For example,

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several organizations have been active in encouraging women to take steps to prevent osteoporosis and seek screening, creating the notion that osteoporosis is a women’s disease. However, although the incidence of osteoporosis in men is lower, they are still at risk, and many clinicians are unsure how to interpret bone mass density studies in men since no research has investigated this area. Researchers also have yet to significantly explore men’s health disadvantages, such as why men have a lower life expectancy than women, why male babies are twice as likely to die at birth, or why outcomes are less favorable for men in certain types of cancer. Directions of Current and Future Research It is still not completely understood why men and women respond differently to certain illnesses and treatments. Further, although rates of women’s inclusion in medical research have steadily risen over the

Given that clinical practice is grounded in knowledge derived from research that focused almost exclusively on men for decades, women are sometimes misdiagnosed because manifestations of illness in women are not as well understood.

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last several decades, much of the research that has formed the foundation of medical knowledge was conducted primarily on men. Thus, it is important that research not only consider sex differences, but also that the findings of these studies are incorporated into medical training and clinical practice. Several national and international organizations, such as the NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health and WHO’s Department of Gender and Women’s Health, have issued recommendations for research to investigate the cellular and genetic differences between men and women, target diseases that affect women, and explore differences in men and women’s health across the entire life span. Some nonprofit organizations also promote research into sex-based differences in health. For example, funded in 1990, the Society for Women’s Health Research aims to promote funding of research that explores sex differences, and encourages more researchers to embrace the concept of sex-based biology. See Also: Breast Cancer; Cancer, Women and; Eating Disorders; Heart Disease; Menopause, Medical Aspects of; Mental Health Treatment, Bias in. Further Readings Glezerman, Marek. “Discrimination by Good Intention: Gender-Based Medicine.” Israel Medical Association Journal, v.11 (2009). Greenberger, Phyllis and Jennifer Wider, eds. The Savvy Woman Patient: How and Why Sex Differences Affect Your Health. Sterling, VA: Capital Books, 2006. National Institutes of Health. “Office of Research on Women’s Health.” http://orwh.od.nih.gov (accessed April 2010). Valk, Minke, S. J. R. Cummings, and Henk van Dam. Gender and Health: Policy and Practice: A Global Sourcebook. Oxford, UK: Oxfam Publications, 2006. Wizemann, Theresa M. and Mary-Lou Pardue, eds. Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter? Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2001. http://www.nap.edu/openbook .php?isbn=0309072816 (accessed April 2010). World Health Organization. “Gender, Women, and Health.” http://www.who.int/gender (accessed April 2010). Lisa Federer University of California, Los Angeles

Megan’s Law Megan’s Law is the unofficial term for statutes within the United States that allow local police departments the authority to make data accessible to the community concerning individuals listed as registered sex offenders. Each state determines what data will be made public and how they will be distributed, but common information consists of the offending individual’s name, photograph, address, dates of imprisonment, and the type of crime committed. While these data may be viewed on one’s computer, the authorities possess the right to print the individual’s photo in a newspaper, on road signs, or in any manner they feel that benefits the community. Mandated Reporting on and by Sexual Offenders Megan’s Law within federal statutes is called the Sexual Offender Act of 1994 (also known as the Jacob Wetterling Act), which mandates that any individual found guilty of perpetrating a sex crime against a child must inform the local police regarding any address change or change in job after being discharged from detention (either from the penitentiary or psychiatric hospital). These requirements vary from state to state; that is, the individual might have to notify the authorities for 10 years, or possibly until death. Every state has the right to command that each individual involved in a sex crime must register, regardless of whether or not one of the victims was a minor. If an individual convicted of a sex crime does not update his/her data, he/she has committed a felony and can be sent back to jail. Megan’s Law supplies the public with two primary data benefits: (1) any individual convicted of a sex crime must register; and (2) one’s community will know whether a citizen is a sexual perpetrator. Each state handles this differently, and the rules and regulations regarding an individual’s registration and/or how the community is alerted changes periodically. A supplement to Megan’s Law concerning the registration of criminals is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, a measure that categorizes sex offenders regarding their potential danger to local neighborhoods. On July 29, 1994, Jesse Timmendequas kidnapped, brutally raped, and murdered Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old girl who lived across the street from his



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Megan’s Law is called the Sexual Offender Act of 1994, which mandates that any individual found guilty of perpetrating a sex crime against a child must inform the local police regarding any address change or change in job after being discharged from detention.

residence in Hamilton Township, New Jersey. The 33-year-old Timmendequas had a long history of committing heinous sexual crimes and thus upon conviction of this latest criminal act was sentenced to death. However, while he was on Death Row in December 2007, he received a sentence of life without parole due to the New Jersey Legislature abolishing the death penalty. Timmendequas had lived, with two other sexual offenders, in a house opposite the Kankas. Megan’s parents, Richard and Maureen Kanka, later stated that if they had known this, they would have made their daughter promise to stay away from all three. Before Megan’s Law, community groups would often handout flyers telling neighbors about sex offenders who lived within their neighborhood. The

Kankas, after the vicious murder of their daughter, circulated a petition insisting that the New Jersey legislature devise a law making sure that there would be no repeat of Megan’s murder. More than 400,000 citizens signed their names and consequently, Megan’s Law became statutory less than three months after the child’s death. Questions of Effectiveness In 1995, the federal government initiated 42 U.S.C. § 13701, called the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which contained conditions mandating that a neighborhood receive a warning concerning sex offenders within their vicinity. In addition, it stipulated that each state formulate a process for informing the community whenever a sex

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offender is released from prison and lives within their neighborhood. In an effort to gauge the effectiveness of Megan’s Law, a group of researchers stated that the law had zero impact regarding the span of time before a sexual offender was rearrested and sent back to jail; likewise, they stated that Megan’s Law did not significantly lower the rates of sexual reoffending. Moreover, it had no effect on reducing the number of victims involved in sexual offenses. See Also: Child Abuse, Perpetrators of; Child Abuse, Victims of; Sex Offenders, Female; Sex Offenders, Male. Further Readings Levenson, Jill S. and Leo P. Cotter. “The Effect of Megan’s Law on Sex Offender Reintegration.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, v.21/1 (2005). Levenson, Jill S., David A. D’Amora, and Andrea L. Hern. “Megan’s Law and Its Impact on Community Re-Entry for Sex Offenders.” Behavioral Sciences & the Law, v.25/4 (2007). Welchans, Sarah (2005). “Megan’s Law: Evaluations of Sexual Offender Registries.” Criminal Justice Policy Review, v.16/2 (2005). Zgoba, Kristen, Philip Witt, Melissa Dalessandro, and Bonita Veysey, 2008. “Megan’s Law: Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy.” New Jersey Department of Corrections. http://www.ncjrs.gov /pdffiles1/nij/grants/225370.pdf (accessed July 2010). Cary Stacy Smith Mississippi State University Li-Ching Hung Overseas Chinese University

Mehta, Renu Renu Mehta is the founder of Fortune Forum, a network that unites philanthropists, celebrities, politicians, and business leaders to target global poverty, environmental issues, and disease. Mehta, daughter of Indian textiles mogul Vijay Mehta, left what she described as a comfortable job with her family’s business to devote her efforts to philanthropic causes. In collaboration with Nobel

Prize–winning economist Sir James Mirrlees, she has proposed the Mehta/Mirrlees (MM) Model, a fiscal incentive that matches private donations with government money in order to meet the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals. The MM Model has been endorsed by an impressive list of luminaries including three Nobel laureates in economics. Mehta grew up in London, the spoiled youngest child and only daughter in a wealthy family. She credits her parents’ inculcating Gandhi’s ideas for her spiritual values and her brother Vimal, born with Down’s syndrome, for making her sensitive to others. Her first ambition was to work in fashion, and with that goal in mind, she studied at the London College of Fashion. In her early 20s, she spent 18 months as a model, but found it boring. She worked as head of design at Sphere, the fashion arm of the family business. Her job included travel to Milan and Paris and left ample time to party at the trendiest clubs. At 35, she found that her life lacked meaning. Her first attempt at conquering her ennui was a charity event she organized in three weeks. The event, held at a members-only London nightclub, boasted attendees such as Eric Clapton and Jools Holland and raised £100,000. Its success convinced Mehta to resign from her job and pursue her new interest. Her father advised her to spend a year reading about issues. She read one book, The World Ahead, by Federico Mayor. Determined to do something to address the problem Mayor’s book had awakened her to, Mehta established the Fortune Forum with half a million dollars of her own money. Binding Private Donors to Public Efforts The first Fortune Forum Summit was held in September 2006. Bill Clinton delivered the keynote address, and the work of the British Red Cross, African Renaissance, WaterAid and Alliance for a New Humanity were highlighted. The event raised $1.7 million, but after costs were deducted, only half that amount went to charities. Mehta decided that fund-raising was too limited to achieve her goals and transformed Fortune Forum from a charity to a network designed to attract and direct cash contributions. The boldest move of the newly defined organization came about through a chance meeting at a party. Mehta’s conversation with Patricia Wilson, wife of Cambridge economist Mirrlees, led to a meeting between

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the fashion heiress and the Nobel laureate. The result was the MM Model, a plan designed to persuade people, particularly the wealthiest, to give more to charity. Mehta and Mirrlees argue that only by partnering with private donors can governments, who were falling short of UN targets even before recent economic problems, hope to end poverty and world hunger. In 2009, the unlikely partners challenged the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations to agree to match private donations with government aid. The plan has the backing of Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the UN and four Nobel Peace laureates: Mairead Maguire (1976), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984), the 14th Dalai Lama (1989), and Dr. Rajendra Pachauri (2007). See Also: India; Philanthropists, Female; Poverty; United Kingdom. Further Readings Flintoff, John-Paul. “Renu Mehta, the New It Girl.” Times Online (February 1, 2009). http://www.timesonline .co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5604439.ece (accessed April 2010). Mehta, Vijay. The Fortune Forum Code: For a Sustainable Future. London: VM Centre for Peace, 2006. Slater, Lydia. “Billionaires Beware: This Woman Wants Your Wallet.” Daily Mail (July 19, 2009). http://www .dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1199663/Billion aires-beware--This-woman-wants-wallets.html (accessed July 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University

Menopause, Medical Aspects of Menopause, a normal developmental transition, marks the end of a woman’s reproductive capacity. It is defined as the absence of the menstrual cycle for 12 consecutive months, and it typically takes place in a woman’s early 50s. Women who are using hormone therapy for symptoms may have difficulty determining when they actually reach menopause because the hormones obscure the physiological transition. Although the words menopause and menopausal

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are frequently used to describe the remainder of a woman’s life after the end of regular menstruation, the appropriate medical term for that time of life is postmenopausal. Perimenopause refers to menstrual cycle–related and other physical signs and symptoms that occur in the five to 10 years around (i.e., prior to and just after) menopause as the ovaries gradually stop producing the hormones estrogen and progesterone. During the perimenopausal transition, a woman’s menstrual period will vary in length, periods will occur at irregular intervals, and the intensity of the menstrual flow also will vary as levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) increase. The surgical removal of both ovaries (usually in connection with a hysterectomy) results in a sudden (rather than the natural, gradual) emergence into menopause. The shortened transitional period is often accompanied by more bothersome symptoms and reports of greater discomfort. Perhaps because of its association with aging, menopause is viewed by many in Western societies as a negative event. Physical Symptoms Associated With Menopause Transitional discomfort has been reported to include, but is not limited to, vaginal dryness, decrease in sexual arousal, hot flashes, trouble sleeping, night sweats, difficulty concentrating, fluctuating mood states, urinary incontinence, headaches, vertigo, weight gain, and aches and pains. It is important to know that most women do not experience all of the symptoms; in fact, some women report that they did not notice any signs or symptoms until they realized that they had not had to buy tampons or pads for months. No one can predict what an individual woman’s experience will be like until she finds out for herself. Hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and joint pain have been linked to declining estrogen levels. The experience of hot flashes is as unique as each woman to whom the sensation occurs. Hot flashes often include sudden rushes of perspiration, redness or flush in the face, heat sensations in the chest and/or back, and waves of heat that pulsate from the head throughout the torso. Hot flashes can occur as rarely as a few times per week or as often as a few times per hour. The average length of a hot flash is about three minutes. Not all

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women experience hot flashes, but they are the most commonly reported symptom of menopause. Declines in a woman’s sexual libido can be due to a number of reasons, including relational problems, stress, or other environmental factors, as well as the decline in the natural lubrication of vaginal walls due to changing hormone levels. The vagina may become tightened, narrowed, or shortened, which can result in painful intercourse or difficulty masturbating that contributes to a loss of interest in sexual activity. However, some women report increases in libido after menopause; they find that the end of worries about pregnancy and contraception provide a renewed sense of sexual freedom. Research does not support the idea that changes in a woman’s mood are related to ovarian development and activity. However, lack of sleep due to night sweats (i.e., hot flashes that occur overnight), worries about other signs and symptoms of menopause, the stresses and strains of midlife women’s busy lives, and concerns related to aging and body image that occur around the same time as menopause may be responsible for the anxiety and irritability some women experience. A woman’s mental health history, her current level of stress, her physical health, her coping skills, and the amount of social support she has are the best predictors of her emotional state during midlife. Other changes women often report around the time of menopause (e.g., forgetfulness, aches and pains) are not directly related to ovarian processes, but may be due to aging. Urinary incontinence that begins at midlife may be a result of hysterectomy complications, side effects of medications, or other medical problems. Women should consult their doctors about any physical concerns they have. Coping With Transitional Discomfort Coping with physical symptoms is an important task during the menopausal transition. Good health habits, such as exercise, a healthy diet, adequate time for sleep, and stress management, are often helpful. Vitamins E and C and increased dietary sources of phytoestrogens (e.g., flax and sesame seeds, soy milk, tofu, hummus, dried apricots, and dates) may help to minimize hot flashes. Some women have noted that stress, caffeine, alcohol, hot weather, and/or spicy foods tend to trigger hot flashes, and they have taken steps to manage or

eliminate those environmental triggers. Techniques for managing hot flashes and night sweats include dressing in layers, carrying a fan, standing in front of an air conditioner or open refrigerator, sipping cool drinks, sleeping nude, and using imagery (e.g., imagining oneself walking through a snowstorm or swimming in a cold mountain stream). Over-the-counter water-based personal lubricants are an effective form of relief for vaginal dryness. Declines in libido should be discussed openly with one’s sexual partner. Longer periods of foreplay, a vacation in a romantic location, changes in position, or new techniques can be stimulating. Sex therapy may be helpful to couples at midlife. Hormone Therapy Pros and Cons Hormone therapy is often helpful for women whose hot flashes are severe, long lasting, or very frequent. Although this type of therapy has been popular in the past, physicians currently recommend that this treatment be used at the smallest possible dose for the shortest possible period of time. It is not recommended for women at high risk for cancer or heart disease, and it is important for women to know that perimenopausal symptoms often recur after the hormone therapy is stopped. Women who have difficulty coping with their perimenopausal symptoms should have a talk with their doctors about hormone therapy and other possible methods for managing their discomfort. Hormone therapy (also known as hormone replacement therapy or HRT) was popularized in the 1960s after the publication of Robert Wilson’s book Feminine Forever, which led to the medicalization of menopause. In his book Wilson described menopause as a deficiency disease (like beriberi or pellagra), whose cure is estrogen. He suggested that doses of synthetic estrogen would allow women to maintain youthful faces, bodies, and sexuality as they aged. The treatment was initially known as estrogen replacement therapy (ERT); however, it soon became apparent that ERT put women at high risk for uterine cancer. Combined estrogen and progesterone (HRT) seemed to reduce that risk. Since then, hormone regimens have been modified to include different levels of those hormones or the use of more natural hormones, such as estirol, estrone, estradiol, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Later, physicians hypothesized that hormone therapy was an important way to protect women against

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heart disease, osteoporosis, and other chronic illnesses. The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), a major, multisite, government-funded research project conducted from the mid-1990s to early-2000s, showed that those hypotheses could not be substantiated. The WHI was stopped earlier than planned because women in the HRT group had a higher rate of breast cancer, heart attacks, and strokes than did women in the control group. Other side effects of HRT include, but are not limited to, blood clots, gall bladder disease, ovarian cancer, cardiovascular disease, headaches, mood irregularity, nausea, bloating, breast tenderness, and vaginal bleeding. Thus, it is recommended that women try to manage their symptoms in other ways before seeking hormone therapy. See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward; Health, Mental and Physical; Hysterectomies; Menopause, Social Aspects of. Further Readings Kagan, L., B. Kessel, and H. Benson. Mind Over Menopause: The Complete Mind/Body Approach to Coping With Menopause. New York: Free Press, 2004. Voda, Ann M. “Menopause: A Normal View.” Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology, v.35/4 (1992). World Health Organization (WHO) Scientific Group. “Research on the Menopause in the 1990s.” Geneva: WHO, 1996. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/WHO _TRS_866.pdf (accessed July 2010). Joan C. Chrisler Amanda L. Almond Connecticut College

Menopause, Social Aspects of Menopause (the last menstrual cycle), like menarche (the first menstrual cycle), is a normal, developmental transition that signals a change in physiological functioning and social status. Both menopause and menarche usher in a new stage of life; both close some doors and open others. Menarche closes the door on childhood, which some girls regret. Yet most girls look forward with eagerness to find out what challenges and experi-

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ences adolescence and adulthood will bring. Menarche raises a girl’s social status; she becomes more important and more interesting. Menopause closes the door on fertility; it means that women will no longer be able to become pregnant and bear children. Some women regret the lost opportunity to have a child (or another child), but others are relieved to see the end of responsibility for contraception and menstrual hygiene management. However, fertility is associated with youth and beauty, and perimenopausal women find it difficult to look ahead with eagerness to see what life has in store for them. Instead, many women see menopause as a signal that their best days are behind them. In youth-oriented societies, menopause lowers a woman’s social status; she becomes less important and less interesting. Attitudes Toward Menopause In societies where older women are respected more than younger women are, attitudes toward menopause are more positive than they are elsewhere. For example, in some Asian, African, and Native American cultures, elders are celebrated for their wisdom, experience and longevity, and so women gain rather than lose social status at menopause. Women who live in societies with a positive cultural emphasis on aging report fewer perimenopausal symptoms than do women in societies with youth-oriented cultures. For example, a recent study of women in China showed that they report very few physical symptoms in comparison to women in North America. The medicalization of menopause (i.e., the cultural belief that menopause is an illness to be treated medically, rather than a natural and necessary developmental transition) contributes to a general, negative attitude toward menopause and expectations that women will suffer and need treatment. Such expectations can cause women to focus on every ache, hot flash, and unusual sensation; worry about them; and thus magnify their importance. Women might also attribute to menopause symptoms that are related to aging in general or to a chronic illness and actually have nothing to do with menopause itself. These misattributions can also make perimenopause seem worse than it is. Surveys of midlife women have typically shown that women have mixed feelings about menopause.

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Among the reasons why women see menopause negatively are the loss of fertility, the symptoms that tend to accompany it, the belief that it has come too soon, the fact that menopause is a clear sign of aging, and a sense of being less feminine. Positive aspects of menopause include the end of the bother of managing menstruation, the end of the need for contraceptives, and a general sense of liberation. Older women tend to have more positive views of menopause than younger women do, and older women are more likely than younger women to agree that postmenopausal women feel freer, calmer, and more confident than ever before. In a recent cross-cultural study done in the United States and Mexico, college students were asked to list at least five words or phrases that describe “a menopausal woman.” The students listed more negative (52) than positive (17) and neutral (28) words. The most common negative words were classified as emotional alteration (e.g., “angry,” “uncontrollable”), negativity (“depressed,” “frustrated”), contempt (“old,” “incomplete”), and illness-related (“aching,” “fatigued”). Positive words included “admirable” and “experienced”; neutral words included “changing” and “mature.” The young students in the study obviously had had no personal experience with perimenopause, but they seem to have accepted the idea that menopause is an illness rather than event to be anticipated with eagerness or even with equanimity. There are not many cross-cultural studies of attitudes toward menopause, perhaps, in part, because menopause remains a topic many women are uncomfortable discussing. For example, there is no word for menopause in Japanese, although the term kônenki refers to a time in midlife when women are thought to be vulnerable to emotional problems. This could refer to changing roles in life, or it could refer to menopause, as one recent study that compared Japanese and Australian perimenopausal women showed that the Japanese reported more psychological symptoms (e.g., anxiety), whereas Australians reported more vasomotor symptoms (e.g., hot flashes). A study of Native American women who lived on a Papago reservation showed that menopause is rarely discussed, and younger women do not know much about it. If Papago women experience symptoms, they seek advice from female elders or from the medicine man.

Menopause in Popular Culture Many older women have reported that the worst part of menopause was not knowing what to expect. This is, in part, because each woman’s experience is different, so doctors cannot predict whether their patients will have an easy perimenopause or a difficult one. However, it is also because, until recently, menopause was not talked about in public very much, and women tended to keep their experiences private. If there is any upside to the medicalization of menopause, it is that menopause is now a topic of conversation, at least in Western industrialized countries. Television commercials, magazine ads, and articles about perimenopausal symptoms and treatments are common, and talk shows have frequently taken up the topic. Several best-selling books about menopause and women at midlife have been published in recent decades, and the Health and Medicine sections of newspapers and news magazines have also addressed it. Mentions of menopause are now common enough in popular culture in the United States that it might be surprising to younger readers to learn that the first mention of menopause on television was highly controversial. The 1970s sitcom All in the Family aired an episode in which Edith was experiencing perimenopausal symptoms. The characters used the euphemism “the change of life” so that uninitiated viewers would not be embarrassed by the plot line. Is all of the cultural attention helpful or harmful to society’s view of perimenopausal women? That is a difficult question to answer. Certainly women are better served if they have more information about the signs and symptoms of menopause and how to cope with them. However, media reports that emphasize the medicalization of menopause contribute to younger women’s (and men’s) negative attitudes toward menopause, and lead women to worry about whether they will be able to cope with it. Media reports that conflate common midlife experiences, such as the “empty nest syndrome” (i.e., children moving away from home), the development of chronic illness (e.g., arthritis), and signs of aging (e.g., grey hair, wrinkles, hearing loss), with menopause do a disservice to women by misattributing the stresses and strains of everyday life to perimenopause. An article published in USA Today in 2000 referred to menopause as “the last remaining corporate taboo.”

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Although the author was perhaps well meaning and intended to say that menopause should not be a taboo topic, the article suggested that many perimenopausal women in the workforce experience debilitating symptoms and so need special assistance and understanding. Articles such as this might be more likely to hurt than to help the reputation of midlife women workers. Menopause-related humor is increasingly common; it appears in cartoons and comic strips, television and movies, greeting cards, jokes women share via e-mail, and even in the theater in the form of the popular Menopause: The Musical. Although some scholars are concerned that the exaggerated symptoms portrayed in these media might add to negative views of menopause, the humor seems to be more gentle than the nasty humor about premenstrual syndrome, for example, and much of it is produced by women for women. Laughter and seeking social support are among the best ways to cope with any problems, and that is what women are doing when they share jokes about hot flashes or go with friends to see a musical about menopause. There is a lot of laughter at support groups run by the Red Hot Mamas.

did not start her career as an artist until she was in her 70s. The members of the Red Hat Society show us all what fun women can have together and how important friendships are as women age. Although it is natural to feel some regret as the door closes on the reproductive years, women should step boldly through the door that opens to the next stage of life to see what challenges and opportunities lie ahead. The postmenopausal years can be an empowering time for women who reject negative cultural views and write their own destiny.

Toward a More Positive View The old saying “Life begins at 40” suggests that once one’s children are grown up, people have more time, energy, and financial means to devote to their own interests. Today, many say that “50 is the new 40.” This might be especially true for women, as they are giving birth at a later age than was once the case, and today’s women are better educated, healthier, more physically fit, and more financially independent than their mothers and grandmothers were when they were in their 50s. Women in their 50s are going back to school to pursue new interests, changing careers, starting businesses, traveling, and using their free time for volunteer work or hobbies. Today’s midlife women are blurring and diversifying the traditional gender and age roles, and setting a course for themselves. A rocking chair on the porch is not the right place for every grandmother. The role of mother will always be a valued and respected role for women, but it is hardly the only important role women can play. Women can (and do!) make significant contributions to culture and society at every age. Remember that Grandma Moses

Joan C. Chrisler Jaimee Versace Connecticut College

See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward; Menopause, Medical Aspects of; Menstruation; Menstruation, Rituals Surrounding; Vagina Monologues, The. Further Readings Cooper, Sue Ellen. The Red Hat Society: Fun and Friendship After 50. New York: Warner Books, 2004. Muhlbauer, Varda and Joan C. Chrisler. Women Over 50: Psychological Perspectives. New York: Springer, 2007. The Taos Institute. The Positive Aging Newsletter. http:// www.taosinstitute.net/positive-aging-newsletter (accessed July 2010).

Menstruation Menstruation is the monthly occurrence in women’s lives where their bodies shed the lining of the uterus, resulting in approximately four to seven days of bleeding and discharge through the vagina. During menstruation, women lose an average of 10 to 80 mL of menstrual blood along with some endometrium lining that looks like tissue mixed with blood. People sometimes misinterpret this tissue-like substance for an early miscarriage, but it is in fact a normal part of women’s menstrual cycles. Symptoms Women typically experience a range of symptoms associated with menstruation, particularly uterine cramps (“dysmenorrhea”) that are caused by the contractions of

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the uterine muscles as the uterus expels the blood from the woman’s body. Menstruation typically occurs from early teenage years until mid- to late-40s, though timing of onset of menstruation as well as menopause varies greatly. Girls can begin menstruating as early as 8 or 9 years old, and women can go through menopause as late as their sixties. In average premenopausal women, menstruation pauses only during pregnancy and for some time after childbirth (“amenorrhea”). Typically, menstruation is a physiological event that allows women’s bodies to rebuild the endometrium every fertility cycle, thus ensuring adequate opportunity for fertilization should she desire to become pregnant. Many women refer to menstruation as their “period” (short for “menstrual period”). Women sometimes say they are “on the rag” or “visiting Aunt Flo” as informal or slang references to the event. Women may also say they are “late” when their menstrual cycle does not start on time as expected, sometimes indicating pregnancy. Irregularity of menstrual cycles is fairly normal, as stress, emotional problems, physical strain, malnutrition, and hormonal imbalances can cause menstruation to become irregular. Hormonal birth control methods like the birth control pill, Depo Provera, hormone-based IUDs, Norplant, and the patch also can cause menstruation to cease entirely or become much lighter. Birth control pills control for a shorter menstrual cycle precisely every 28 days, while Depo Provera and Norplant often completely eliminate the menstrual cycle. New birth control options like Seasonale allow for a period every three months. Menstruation is part of the reproductive cycle and typically occurs every 28 days. In a typical menstrual cycle, women will bleed during days one through five and will ovulate on day 14 and 15 of the cycle. They will then bleed again at the start of the next cycle. During ovulation, women are fertile and can become pregnant. While it is technically possible to become pregnant during menstruation—as an egg could be released irregularly during this time, or sperm could be inserted into the vagina and wait for an early ovulation cycle—it is not likely. Debates about whether women synchronize their menses while cohabitating is also debated; some researchers believe that this does occur, while more recent research suggests that this does not occur. Disagreements about the evolutionary purpose of menstruation also continue, as researchers cannot fully explain why human females do not

absorb the endometrium like many other female mammals do during their menstrual cycles. Notably, only humans and their close evolutionary relatives (e.g., chimpanzees, gorillas) menstruate through the vagina with distinct discharge. Other mammals have a menstruation period but their bodies simply absorb the tissue and blood into the body, perhaps because their tissue is less complicated than human tissue. Cultural Differences Cross-cultural differences in the experience of menstrual symptoms have been noted, as Western women more often report that their periods distress them, while non-Western women describe them as a natural part of life that is relatively nondistressing. Often, women experience a variety of intense sensations prior to and during menstruation, including menstrual cramping, abdominal pain, migraine headaches, depression, bloating, nausea, sleeplessness, emotional sensitivity, changes in sex drive, breast swelling, binge eating, and irritability. Recent debates about the existence of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD)—a more severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS)—have ensued following the decision by the American Psychiatric Association in 1993 to classify PMDD as a mental disorder that warranted further study. Some research has shown that women typically believe other women have more severe menstrual symptoms than their own, indicating that the idea that menstrual symptoms are universal might be a cultural myth. Women differ greatly in their reported physical and emotional symptoms. Some feminist theorists believe that women’s expression of anger and sadness during menstruation might occur because it is the only socially acceptable time period when they can express these unpopular or “unfeminine” emotions. Having a menstrual cycle might give women permission to express emotions that are not otherwise socially sanctioned. Others argue that women’s physiological changes cause emotional, psychological, and physical symptoms that women experience as real, and that they mirror the kinds of symptoms women describe during pregnancy. Different Cultures, Different Perceptions Throughout history, cultures have had different ways of thinking about and addressing women’s menstruation. In some parts of the world, menstruation has



been thought to give women special powers and to inspire fear in others. Some cultures, like the Gerai people, believe that men, too, can menstruate, and they see it as a sign of honor. In other non-Western cultures, women have been placed in “menstrual huts” away from the rest of the tribe because menstruating women were thought to contaminate food and destroy the harvest. Orthodox Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam prohibit intercourse during menstruation because it contaminates men’s bodies and fertility, while other cultures require rituals to be performed at the end of menstruation (e.g., “Mikvah” in Judaism or “ghusl” in Islam) in order to cleanse women from menstruation. Recently, the Japanese government has considered enacting “menstrual leave” to acknowledge women’s “disabled” status during menstruation and to allow them time off from work. Different concerns arise for Western and non-Western women, as Western women express concern with managing their periods (e.g., keeping them secret), while non-Western women express concern with violating cultural taboos about keeping menstruation secret. Western women spend billions of dollars annually buying products that conceal menstruation, leading to multimillion dollar advertising campaigns targeting young women. Many products have been developed to help women manage menses, including products to absorb the blood (e.g., tampons, menstrual pads, menstrual cups) and products to ease symptoms of menstruation (e.g., drugs that relieve cramping, iron supplements, and so on). Western women most often use menstrual pads, rectangular pieces of material worn on the underwear to absorb menstrual flow, and tampons, cotton cylinders inserted into the vagina to absorb menstrual flow. Recently, reusable items such as menstrual cups and sea sponges have gained popularity as women have more directly addressed the environmental impact of disposable menstrual products. Also, because tampons can cause toxic shock syndrome (TSS), a disorder that results from leaving the tampon inserted into the vagina for too long a period of time, some advocate not using any method that involves insertion of cotton into the vagina. Non-Western women most often use reusable rags, or sometimes leaves, to absorb their menstrual flow. A recent report on menstruating women in developing countries advises that

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hygiene surrounding the washing and drying of cloths is a top priority for public health officials. Feeling Shameful The Western world typically constructs menstruation as something that should be kept secret and hidden. Research has shown that women often feel shame about menstruation and want to keep tampons and menstrual pads hidden from view. Commercials advertising menstrual products often espouse their ability to help women keep menstruation a secret. Women also typically feel conflicted about whether to engage in sexual intercourse during menstruation, as some believe it is “dirty” and “disgusting,” while others believe it is “pleasurable” and “sexy.” Some studies have shown that men’s attitudes toward menstruation also vary greatly, as some men find menstruation to be repulsive, while others feel accepting and tolerant of women’s menstrual periods. In controlled experiments, men believed that menstruating women were less intelligent and less attractive than nonmenstruating women, perhaps indicating that social pressures to keep menstruation secret might relate to the judgments men make about women who menstruate. Regardless of individual attitudes, the cultural norm mandates that women do not publicly announce menstruation or advertise their menstrual status. Learning the Facts Sex education about menstruation varies greatly, as most girls learn about menstruation in public schools during the fifth or sixth grade. Classes that address menstruation are often sex segregated and emphasize menstruation as something to be “managed” rather than something to be embraced. Girls learn why they menstruate, how to put in a tampon or use a menstrual pad, and what to expect from their menstrual periods. Because sex education is not federally mandated, some states have no sex education classes for young people. In these cases, girls only learn about menstruation from their families and friends, often leading to the dispersal of misinformation about menstruation. Studies have shown that parents tend to give a wide variety of misinformation to young girls about menstruation, particularly surrounding the physiological causes of menstruation. Race and socioeconomic status differences have also been noted in the way women learn about

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menstruation, as women of color and working-class women are more often socialized to think about menstruation as a “life change” and a “rite of passage,” while white women and middle- and upper-class women learn about menstruation in more medical terms (e.g., how to manage it, what processes happen with their bodies). Similar differences have been found between Western and non-Western women as well. Anthropologist Emily Martin found that, in the United States, working-class women felt more positive about their menstrual cycles than did middle- and upper-class women, in part because their mothers socialized them to conceptualize menstruation as a positive change that occurs when becoming a woman. Middle- and upper-class women typically experience more fear and dread about menstruation than do working-class women. Women often struggle with their body image and feel that they are inadequate and in need of “maintenance” throughout the life span. Because of this, women’s ideas about menstruation often correlate with their body image, as those with better body image feel more positively about menstruation than do those with negative body image. Comfort with menstruation predicted more healthy eating behaviors and more responsible attitudes toward drinking and driving. Research has also shown that those who feel more positively toward menstruation typically have more positive attitudes toward sexuality, particularly masturbation, in that those who embraced menstruation also embraced masturbation. Better Attitudes and Affirming Views In response to these conflicting attitudes about menstruation, menstrual activists have begun campaigning for better attitudes toward menstruation in recent years. These activists have focused their efforts on promoting a positive, affirming view of menstruation within institutions like education, the health industry media, and the family. They have advocated that schools change their sex education to include more positive views of menstruation, and they have attacked the medical field for conceptualizing menstruation as a mental disorder (PMDD). They have also challenged the toxicity of commercial menstrual products, embraced menstruation as a form of power and political protest, and critically examined advertisements that celebrate menstrual suppression. Some

argue that cultivating these positive attitudes will unite women, particularly mothers and daughters, and will teach women to adopt attitudes that encourage full embodiment. Gloria Steinem’s famous essay, “If Men Could Menstruate,” highlights the way that, because menstruation happens to women, it is considered disgusting and something to be hidden. However, if men menstruated, Western cultures might look at it quite differently. She sarcastically argued that if men could menstruate, menstrual products would be subsidized by the government, menstruation would become an enviable event where men would competitively compare their menstrual flow, and men’s ability to menstruate would be used as an excuse to keep women out of certain institutions like the military. Though menstruation is often considered “disgusting,” Steinem and other menstrual activists have noted that such constructions are arbitrary and highly dependent on the power structures that currently exist. Disgust about menstruation might simply result from larger narratives about women having less power than men, as men’s bodies set the standard for what is considered “normal,” while women are always fighting against notions that women’s bodies are “abnormal.” See Also: Body Image; Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder; Premenstrual Syndrome; Sex Education, Comprehensive; Sex Education in the Home. Further Readings Bobel, Chris. “From Convenience to Hazard: A Short Story of the Emergence of the Menstrual Activism Movement, 1971–1992.” Health Care for Women International, v.29/7 (2008). Freidenfelds, Lara. The Modern Period: Menstruation in 20th Century America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Howie, Gillian and Andrew Shail. Menstruation: A Cultural History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Marin, Emily. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001. Steinem, Gloria. “If Men Could Menstruate.” http://www .mum.org/ifmencou.htm (accessed November 2009). Breanne Fahs Arizona State University



Menstruation, Rituals Surrounding Rituals surrounding menstruation have an important role in cultures throughout the world, though different cultures approach menstruation in different ways. From first menses to celebration rituals to ceremonies that ensure purity, menstruation is a complicated cross-cultural event. Often, menstruating women are separated from their cultures, either to deem menstruation a spe-

Dogon sculpture, c. 17th–18th century. In the Dogon culture, women stay in a special hut during their menstrual cycle.

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cial and powerful occurrence, or to denigrate it as a potentially contaminating event that could spoil food or otherwise disrupt cultural traditions. In cultures that separate women from their tribes, women are not permitted to cook or have sex with their partners until menstruation ceases. Some cultures even designate a “menstrual hut,” such as the Dogon culture from the central plateau region of Mali. Scholars disagree about whether these societal exclusions represent patriarchal dominance over women, or whether they empower women by allowing them to have female-only space where domestic and sexual labor are not required or demanded. Similar to discussions of veiling, the establishment of women-only spaces is controversial. Godlike Powers and Parallels Some cultures treat menstruation as a revered and worshipped event, such as the Khoisan culture of southern Africa, which considers women at their most powerful while menstruating. By placing women in menstrual huts, the Khoisan culture deems them “inviolable” and capable of “godlike” acts such as sending down bolts of lightning at the snap of a finger upon any disrespecting male. As another example, some cultures routinely encourage men to cut their genitals and allow them to bleed; such bleeding is thought to show respect toward powerful, menstruating women. As women’s menstruation perhaps cleanses the body, some cultures also believe that men need similar cleansing through bloodletting. Some cultures construct menstruation as a punishment from higher powers. In Mayan mythology, menstruation was thought to arise as a punishment for premarital sex. When the Sun God wooed the Moon Goddess, her father the Earth God punished her by having her destroyed. Her “evil blood” of disobedience colored the water of the sea and the lake red and sank into the earth. This menstrual blood then transformed into snakes and insects, thus bringing about disease and poison as well as medicinal plants. From this blood, the Moon was reborn, and human procreation was engendered. Additionally, other cultures that worship goddesses and nature typically value menstruation as a sacred act, as women’s menstrual periods are associated with phases of the moon or with the moon goddess. Indeed, some people around the world

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nickname menstruation “moontime.” Women’s menstrual cycles are thought to derive from cycles of the moon, and as such, become in sync with a partners’ cycles in order to maximize reproductive potential. Christian Religions Most Christian religions do not specify any rituals related to menstruation, preferring instead not to discuss it. Some Christian denominations, particularly the Eastern Orthodox Church, advise women not to receive Holy Communion during their menstrual periods, particularly in Greece and Russia. Other denominations follow rules laid out in the Holiness Code, which prohibit sexual relations during menstruation because women are “unclean.” In Islam, the Qur’an forbids sexual intercourse during menstruation but allows physical intimacy. During menses, women need not pray or fast, and they are also not permitted to enter mosques. After the completion of menstruation, women are expected to perform a ghusi, or spiritual bath, to cleanse them so that they may again pray, fast, and enter a mosque. This bath is also expected of both women and men after they have sexual intercourse. In Judaism, menstruating women are prohibited from sexual intercourse or physical intimacy during menstruation and for one week after. Until she takes a mikvah, or ritual bath, she is not permitted to interact with her husband in any way. Orthodox Judaism forbids menstruating women from touching or passing things to men during her menstrual period, as she is considered contaminated. As a result, women are often secluded from men for approximately two weeks per month. In Hinduism, menstruating women cannot attend religious ceremonies for the first four days of her cycle. In Nepal, Hindu women are confined to a shed where they eat only dry foods, salt, and rice until menstruation ceases. While Buddhist practices do not designate menstruation as an event worthy of any particular rituals, Hinduism has influenced Japanese and Thai culture such that many Buddhist cultures now ban women from attending temples. Sikhs believe that women are impure while menstruating and should not attend religious services. Jainism also deems that women should not cook or attend temples while menstruating, and many modern Jain temples have large signs on temple doors that specifically prohibit menstruating women from entering temples.

See Also: Buddhism; Hinduism; Islam; Judaism; Menstruation; Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder; Sikhism. Further Readings Buckley, T. and A. Gottleib. Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Dornan, J. “Blood From the Moon: Gender Ideology and the Rise of Ancient Maya Social Complexity.” Gender and History, v.16/2 (2004). Howie, G. and A. Shail. Menstruation: A Cultural History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Knight, C. Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. Breanne Fahs Arizona State University

Mental Health Treatment, Access to Most information about women’s health has until recently focused on family planning, reproduction and parenting, but has overlooked mental well-being. Yet there is a mounting problem of mental ill health among women, and the need to promote healthy living has never been greater than today. Mental health disorders affect some 450 million people worldwide, interfering with their ability to lead productive and satisfying lives. Men and women experience many of the same mental health issues, but there are some striking differences in their incidence, course, and treatment. A better understanding of gender dimensions of health will help to address the global health problem. Women’s health and well-being is interconnected to other topics in this encyclopedia because gender differentials in healthcare stem from issues such as gender roles in society; power and control differences; and discrimination and social inequality. This article explores these issues in relation to women’s access to mental health treatment, beginning with a look at women’s health services and willingness to seek treatment, followed by a discussion of minority women and cross-cultural differences in healthcare.



Health Services for Women Health service provision is usually divided into two levels: primary healthcare providers, such as general practitioners and family doctors who represent the first stage of treatment; and secondary healthcare such as hospitals. Many studies from industrialized countries report that women are more likely to utilize primary healthcare and outpatient mental health services than are men, but less likely to seek specialist and inpatient care. Men tend to seek care at a later stage, after the onset of symptoms, and delay consulting a doctor until symptoms become severe. Women tend to have a better knowledge of health and treatment options. A common complaint among women is that male doctors are unsympathetic. Healthcare professionals commonly assume that women’s mental health needs are the same as those of men. Some doctors might think that dealing with gender and psychosocial issues underlying mental health is not a legitimate part of their role. A consequence is that women’s health concerns might not be understood and diagnosed by doctors. Poor patient–doctor interaction could lead to dissatisfaction with health services and nonadherence to medical advice and treatment. Women and men with mental illness have different needs in rehabilitation. Yet most mental health services are generic, mixed-sex services. There are a limited number of doctors who specialize in women’s mental health. Many women find mainstream services to be inaccessible or inappropriate. For example, women who have been abused (physically, emotionally, or sexually) often have difficulty occupying mixed-sex wards and talking to male medical staff. Furthermore, women who have children might need health services that offer childcare facilities and mother-and-baby units; and might be reluctant to seek help when childcare facilities are not available because of fears of losing custody of children, especially among vulnerable groups such as lone teenage mothers. Health and social support services directed toward women are increasing in number, but they remain inadequate. They typically have a narrow focus on reproductive health and fertility control. The majority of women-only support services are provided by the voluntary sector such as charitable trusts, support organizations, and community groups, etc. They are often not officially defined as mental health service,

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and do not always fit the criteria for alternatives to hospital treatment. Women are major contributors to health services through their roles as healthcare providers and primary caregivers in the family. However, they are less represented in executive or management-level positions, and tend to occupy lower-status occupations such as in nursing, midwifery, and community health services. Willingness to Seek Treatment Women and men experience emotions and mental health in similar ways, but there are differences in their willingness to consult health services and disclose that they have mental health conditions. For example, women are more likely to disclose problems such as depression, generalized anxiety disorders, emotional problems, and eating disorders; but less likely to admit to problems such as alcohol abuse and antisocial personality disorder. A likely reason is gender stereotyping in emotional expression and social behavior. Based on gender differences in the social acceptability of certain mental health problems, men and women learn different ways to channel their emotions to match society’s gender-based stereotypes. For example, a common stereotype in Western society is that women tend to be more emotional than men and, therefore, more prone to emotional problems and depression. According to the World Health Organization, the lifetime prevalence of major depression is almost twice as common among women. Another example is the widely held assumption that certain groups of women succumb to some mental health problems, such as binge-eating disorder which has a higher incidence among young white women, even though it is reported by other ethnic groups and also men. Similarly, women are less likely to report issues such as alcohol abuse, presumably because it is not socially sanctioned to do so. On the other hand, the prevalence of alcohol dependence is more than twice as high in men than women; and men are more than three times more likely to be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Gender stereotypes pose a barrier to accessing health treatment because they reinforce social stigma and discourage women to disclose problems and seek help. Gender stereotypes on the part of the doctor may

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also lead to a bias in the diagnosis of mental health problems. Doctors are more likely to diagnose problems such as depression in women, and less likely to diagnose problems with alcohol. Minority Women and Cross-Cultural Differences Minority women use fewer health services, and there is an underrecognition of mental illness among them. Many women encounter barriers to health treatment such as discrimination, lack of knowledge, poor language skills, isolation, poverty, lack of trust in the medical system, stigma-related concerns, and other social, economic, and cultural barriers. Western conceptualizations of illness and health provision may be less relevant to ethnic minorities and might even produce negative outcomes. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) people experience a number of health inequalities. Their special mental health needs are often overlooked in health services that hold assumptions about women being heterosexual. Some healthcare workers might discriminate against same-sex partners. There is wide variation across countries in the prevalence of mental ill health and availability of services such as policy and legislation, mental health facilities, and therapeutic drugs. In many low-income and middle-income countries, access to healthcare is limited, particularly in rural areas. Many patients suffering from mental health problems are undiagnosed and untreated. Reasons include limited numbers and types of mental health professionals; low position of mental health on public health agendas; and scarcity of information about mental health. For example, there is variation across countries in the number of mental health professionals. According to the World Health Organization, the median number of psychiatrists (a medical doctor with postgraduate training in psychiatry) is 1.20 per 100,000 population. This number varies across world regions: Africa (0.04), Americas (2.00), eastern Mediterranean (0.95), Europe (9.80), southeast Asia (0.20), and the western Pacific (0.32). Similarly, the median number of psychiatric beds per 10,000 population varies across regions: Africa (0.34), Americas (2.60), eastern Mediterranean (1.07), Europe (8.00), southeast Asia (0.33), and the western Pacific (1.06). In many developing countries, mental health professions experi-

ence poor working conditions and low social status, and there are few incentives to live in rural areas. Some countries have no national mental health policy or mental health legislation. Women face inequality in nearly every culture. Women tend to have lower incomes than men, even when doing the same job. Women are more likely to occupy low status and part-time employment, and do unpaid domestic and caring work. Women are overrepresented among those with low education and living in poverty. Many studies have shown an association between indicators of poverty and the risk of mental disorders. Health of women is affected by social and economic factors, such as access to education, household wealth, and place of residence. This disadvantaged position hampers the ability of millions of women worldwide to access healthcare and achieve the best possible level of health. Unequal power relations and gendered norms in society lead to differential access to health resources. Therefore, any consideration of women’s health should take into account the wider historical, economic and social

More effort is needed to develop mental healthcare that is genuinely sensitive to women’s needs.

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aspects, particularly social inequalities and violation of women’s rights. The reasons why health systems fail women are often complex. More effort is needed to develop mental healthcare that is genuinely sensitive to women’s needs. A better understanding of gender dimensions of health will help to address the mounting global problem of mental ill health among women. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Health, Mental and Physical; Mental Health Treatment, Bias in; Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of; World Health Organization. Further Readings Daver, Bhargavi. Mental Health From a Gender Perspective. New Delhi, India: Sage, 2001. Peters, David, Sameh El-saharty, Banafsheh Siada, Katja Janovsk, and Marko Vujicic. Improving Health Service Delivery in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2009. United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service. Women’s Mental Health: Into the Mainstream—Strategic Development of Mental Healthcare for Women. London: UK Department of Health, 2002. World Health Organization. Women’s Mental Health: An Evidence Based View. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2000. Gareth Davey Hong Kong Shue Yan University

Mental Health Treatment, Bias in Mental health is traditionally defined in terms of emotional well-being and an absence of mental illness. More recent perspectives take a holistic approach that considers how social and cultural variables, such as gender, interact with health. It is important to consider gender for several reasons. Mental disorders are the result of a complex interaction between biological, psychological and social factors, of which gender plays an important role. There is a mounting problem of mental ill health among women, which interferes with their ability to lead productive and satisfying

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lives. There is a gender bias in access to health services, diagnosis of mental health disorders, treatment seeking behavior, treatment outcomes, etc. A better understanding of these issues will help to promote good mental health among women and provide congruent healthcare services. This article explores gender differentials in mental health treatment, beginning with a look at the diagnosis and treatment of mental ill health, through to recovery and outcomes. As treatment options for mental illness are diverse, and involve a wide array of treatments and health professionals, this article presents a general overview of the topic. Diagnosis of Mental Health Family doctors and general healthcare centers represent the first stage of mental health treatment: they diagnose health problems, prescribe medication, and offer basic therapeutic services. The second stage consists of hospitals and specialist mental health services. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, is the standard assessment handbook used by mental health clinicians in the United States and many other countries to classify and diagnose mental disorders. The DSM has been criticized for its limited coverage of both women-only disorders and sex differences in mental health. In particular, there has been a call for more focus on women’s mental health in relation to reproduction, such as during menstrual cycle, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, and so on. Another criticism is that the DSM follows the biomedical model of health, reducing mental health to a biological basis, while overlooking psychosocial and other factors. Studies suggest that there is no overall difference between men and women in the diagnosis of most mental health problems, especially severe mental disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But there is a clear bias in some common health issues, as doctors are more likely to diagnose depression, emotional problems, generalized anxiety disorders, and eating disorders among women. Women are more likely than men to suffer from the coexistence of more than one mental disorder (comorbid mental disorders). Conversely, men are more commonly diagnosed with problems such as alcohol dependence, substance abuse, and antisocial personality disorder.

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The words sex and gender are closely related, but have different meanings. Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics of men and women, such as genetics, brain functioning and hormones; whereas gender refers to socially constructed behaviors and roles that societies consider appropriate for men and women. Although a number of health differences between men and women can be explained by biological sex differences, there are also sociocultural explanations. For example, one explanation for differences in the prevalence of mental disorders between men and women is gender stereotyping, which means society’s norms concerning the social acceptability of certain mental health problems for men and women. For instance, the prevalent stereotype in Western society that women are the emotional and weaker sex is believed to encourage women to seek treatment for some emotional problems, but discourage men from doing so. Gender stereotypes on the part of the doctor may also lead to a bias in diagnosis of mental health problems, which might account for the larger proportion of women diagnosed and receiving treatment for certain mental problems. Psychological Therapy There is also a bias in the therapeutic treatment of mental health. Therapists often have stereotypical assumptions and roles regarding women, failing to address gender and power aspects; and are sometimes insensitive to their unique circumstances and needs. Theories and models of counseling, psychology and mental health have been criticized. They tend to regard symptoms as having the same meaning for men and women, and fail to appreciate how symptoms might be shaped by the broader social and gender contexts. Treatment approaches differ in how they recognize gender equality. For instance, whereas some therapists use frameworks that regard both partners as equal—for example, in relationship therapy—other approaches such as psychoanalytic and family psychology have traditionally overlooked gender equality and assume that power equity does not exist in families. Women from minority ethnic groups face additional bias, as health provision is dominated by Western models and sociocultural factors that might be less relevant to patients in minority groups. In addi-

tion, the special mental health needs of minority groups such as lesbian, bisexual and transgendered women are often overlooked in health services that hold assumptions about women being heterosexual. Women clients appreciate the option to choose a female therapist. Some women feel more comfortable with a female therapist, especially if their troubles are specific to women or related to sexism in society. Women who have been physically, emotionally or sexually abused might find it difficult to interact with male medical staff. There are issues about gender equality among doctors and other healthcare professionals, such as the number of men and women who train to become doctors, and the barriers they face in career progression. For example, the majority of psychiatrists in the world are male; and female psychiatrists complain of inequalities in salary, career structure, and so on. In university medical schools, fewer women are professors, department heads, deans, university presidents, etc. However, women outnumber men in lower status jobs such as in nursing. Primary caregivers of elderly people with cognitive disabilities are almost always female relatives. Women receive less health treatment than men due to inequalities associated with gender roles. Unequal power relations and gendered norms in society lead to differential access to health resources. Women’s overrepresentation among those living in poverty means that they are less able to pay for health services, and ill health is more common among those in poverty and difficult circumstances. Medication and Treatment Outcomes Drug therapy—such as antidepressants, anxiolytics, and mood stabilizers—is the core of mental health treatment, and is usually prescribed by a psychiatrist or family doctor. Research on medication use suggests that women are more likely to be prescribed drugs for mental health issues. Reasons include a higher proportion of women diagnosed with common health issues such as depression and anxiety; greater health-seeking behavior and inclination to use primary health services; differences in reporting health conditions and symptoms; and a gendered pattern of communication about health and treatment, as it is often women have a better knowledge regarding treatment.



There is a gender bias in treatment outcomes. Most research on this topic has focused on the treatment of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Women with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders generally show less severe courses of illness; better responses to drug therapy; and more favorable hospital treatment outcomes such as fewer hospitalizations, less likelihood of relapse, and so on. This bias can be partly explained by social construction of gender such as social expectations of men and women; and the ways that men and women cope and respond to their health problems. Biological differences such as structural brain differences and hormonal differences are also likely to play a role, but more research is needed. Another key consideration in mental health treatment is variation across countries in the availability of mental health services and therapeutic drugs. In many low-income and middle-income countries, access to healthcare is more limited, particularly in rural areas. In the developing world, many patients suffering from mental health problems are undiagnosed and untreated. Reasons include limited numbers and types of mental health professionals, low position of mental and public health agendas, and limited public knowledge about mental health. Most middle- and low-income countries devote very little of their health expenditure to mental health. Another reason is that gender inequalities tend to be more pronounced in non-Western countries: the lower social status of women, greater social expectations of men, and women’s responsibility and expectation to care for children all impinge on access to health treatment. In many countries, mental illness among women attracts a greater amount of stigma and rejection. This article has shown that comprehensive and effective approaches to mental health treatment are undermined by gender-based stereotypes and barriers. There is a lack of understanding of the distinct historical, economic and social experiences tied to women’s health. There is a need to overcome bias to create a positive environment for healthcare and recovery. Key issues such as gender and the social context must be incorporated into the planning, delivery and evaluation of services; and doctors and mental health providers must develop a better understanding in the role of gender in mental illness.

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Improvement is needed to help to provide gender congruent services for women. See Also: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of; Medical Research, Gender Issues in; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of; World Health Organization. Further Readings Daver, Bhargavi. Mental Health From a Gender Perspective. New Delhi, India: Sage, 2001. Hayes, Bernadette, Pauline M. Prior, and Jo Campling. Gender and Health Care in the UK: Exploring the Stereotypes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Repper, Julie and Rachel Perkins. Social Inclusion and Recovery: A Model for Mental Health Practice. London: Bailliere Tindall, 2003. United Kingdom National Health Service. Women’s Mental Health: Into the Mainstream—Strategic Development of Mental Healthcare for Women. London: Department of Health, 2002. Gareth Davey Hong Kong Shue Yan University

Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of Economic, legal and environmental factors combine with cultural and individual aspects to place women at greater risk of mental disorders in every country around the world. Women of color and sexual minorities face even greater risks for mental disorders due to racism and discrimination. Poverty and interpersonal violence are some of the risk factors for mental disorders that women face at greater rates than men, even in developed and wealthy nations. Mental disorders result from a combination of biological, psychological and social factors in ways that are not yet well understood. Regardless of cause, the more stressors one has, the more likely one is to develop a mental disorder and the more severe the disorder is likely to be. This means that any disadvantaged group in society will have more risk factors

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for developing a mental disorder. Women, people of color, sexual minorities, and members of lower social classes remain oppressed around the world. Statistics are not available for all disorders from all countries because of differential recognition and research funding for mental disorders at the national level. For example, 40 percent of countries in the world do not have any kind of established mental health policy. It is also true that mental disorders remain one of the most stigmatized of all conditions, which makes underreporting likely. When research is conducted, heterosexual, middle-class to upper-class males are considered the norm against which all people are compared. This means that women are less likely to be the focus of formal studies, and the data available regarding women of color, poor women, and sexual minority women remain especially scarce. Therefore, the data provided herein are preliminary at best, with much more information required worldwide. Rates of Mental Disorders There are many different types of mental disorders, but the ones that tend to be researched in large population studies are mood disorders (depression and anxiety disorders, including phobias), psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia), bipolar disorder (a combination of mania and depression), and substance use disorders. This means that somatization disorders (where psychological distress results in physical symptoms, including pain disorders), adjustment disorders (difficulty adjusting to a stressful life event), eating disorders (including restricting, purging, and combinations thereof ), trauma, and culture bound syndromes (disorders specific to a given culture) are not included. It is important to note that the disorders that are not included in most studies occur disproportionately in women. According to the available data, men and women have similar rates of mental disorders worldwide, with roughly 25 percent of the world’s adult population suffering from a mental disorder at any given time. These numbers vary by country: 15.5 percent in Australia, 23.2 percent in the Netherlands, 26.2 to 29.5 percent in the United States, and 31.1 percent in Germany. Mental health problems account for 10.5 percent of all disability worldwide—more than cancer and heart disease—and violence, substance abuse, physical injuries, and sexually transmitted infections account for

30 percent of all disability worldwide. Mental disorders tend to be chronic and their effects range from loss of productivity to temporary or permanent disability, homelessness, and in some cases, suicide. In the United States, people with mental disorders die 25 years earlier than the general population. Some mental disorders occur equally in men and women around the world, such as bipolar disorder (0.4 percent) and schizophrenia (0.4 percent). These disorders are thought to have more of a biological component, though stress can exacerbate or prolong the symptoms. Other disorders vary greatly in men and women. For example, alcohol use disorders affect 2.8 percent of men but only 0.4 percent of women, though women’s alcohol use is increasing worldwide, particularly among indigenous women. All other disorders disproportionately affect women, which is thought to be due to social factors like gender discrimination, a higher workload than men, domestic violence, sexual and reproductive violence, and increased societal pressures. Depression, anxiety and somatization disorders all occur twice as often in women than men. This includes mood disorders that are only diagnosed in women, such as postpartum depression and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Anxiety disorders have a longer course in women: indeed, women are two times more likely than men to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a stressful event. Eating disorders are sometimes classified as a culture-bound syndrome because they occur almost exclusively in wealthy, industrialized nations. In the United States, 35 percent of women in the general population have some type of eating disturbance, but this number reaches as high as 90 percent on college campuses. European Americans and Asian Americans tend to be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa or bulimia whereas Latinas and African Americans display more complicated patterns of overeating and restricting, which often leads to a diagnosis of Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Depression is a major risk factor for suicide. Considering that women suffer from depression twice as much as men, this makes suicide a significant issue for women. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in women aged 15 to 44 worldwide, though these numbers vary by country and ethnicity within countries. Suicide is the number one leading cause of death of



women aged 15 to 34 in rural areas in China, and the third leading cause of death of women aged 15 to 34 in Western Europe. In the United States, women attempt suicide twice as often as men but men are more successful at completing suicide. European American women are the most likely to commit suicide, followed by Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinas, and Native American women. In the United States, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women are more likely to commit suicide than heterosexual women. Risk Factors for Mental Disorders Education, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and exposure to trauma significantly impact the likelihood of developing a mental disorder. In general, the more education, socioeconomic status, and social status one has, the more likely one is to be mentally healthy. Women have less access to education worldwide compared to men and make up the majority of the world’s impoverished population, particularly if they have children or are a member of an oppressed ethnic or sexual group. Globalization had led to an increase in poor-quality jobs for women, especially in developing nations, which demonstrates that economic growth for a nation does not necessarily help women. Women all over the world earn less than two-thirds of a man’s wage for the same job, and women of color earn even less worldwide. Over 50 percent of homeless people in developed countries are women, and the average age a woman becomes homeless is decreasing. In the United States, 56 percent of people living in poverty are female, with unmarried women, women of color, and sexual minority females most likely to be poor. Violence disproportionately affects women, including domestic violence, family abuse, and sexual violence, such as rape. Rates of violence against women are rising for all ethnicities and social classes around the world. Intimate partner violence against women occurs throughout the life span, but is especially common in adolescents and young adults. Risk factors for intimate partner violence include economic inequality, no option of divorce for women, and men having greater decision-making authority in the home or family. Pregnancy is a time of increased violence against women from intimate partners. Domestic violence is common worldwide, with roughly 16 percent to 50 percent of women suffer-

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ing abuse from a romantic partner. Reported rates include 11.6 percent in North America, 16 percent in Cambodia and Mexico, 37.5 percent in North Korea, and 42 percent in Kenya. Sexual violence, including rape, is thought to occur in 20 percent of women’s lives worldwide. In the United States, women are more likely to be assaulted, injured, raped, or killed by a romantic partner (past or present) than any other type of assailant. In the United States and New Zealand, over 30 percent of women were victims of child sexual abuse. These numbers are likely underestimates, as it has been found that violence against women is usually not reported. Women who have been victims of any kind of violence, at any age, are more likely to develop a mental disorder, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance use disorders. They are also more likely to attempt and complete suicide, have poor overall health, and are more likely to suffer from other types of abuse throughout their lives. See Also: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Mental Health Treatment, Bias in; Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of; Suicide Rates. Further Readings Hughes, Tonda, Carrol Smith, and Alice Dan. Mental Health Issues for Sexual Minority Women: Redefining Women’s Mental Health. New York: Routledge, 2003. Kristof, Nicholas D. and Sheryl WuDunn. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Paludi, Michele A., ed. Feminism and Women’s Rights Worldwide: Volume 2, Mental and Physical Health. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2010. Slater, Lauren, Jessica Henderson Daniel, and Amy Elizabeth Banks, eds. The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. World Health Organization. Women’s Mental Health: An Evidence Based Review. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2000. http://whqlibdoc .who.int/hq/2000/who_msd_mdp_00.1.pdf (accessed July 2010). Geneva Reynaga-Abiko University of California, Merced

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Mentoring Despite positive changes in gender equality and recent shifts in cultural and demographic landscapes, women still have unique needs and concerns that can differ from their male counterparts. Often situated within a society that places them toward the lower quadrant of the organizational hierarchy, women must still combat feelings of inferiority, oppression, and marginalization in a male-dominated society. Through formal and informal conventions, women are participating and volunteering in mentoring programs in an effort to confront negative societal messages while increasing their social capital, visibility, and representation in a myriad of areas. Women serving as mentors are purposely chosen based on a vast array of traits, experiences, and characteristics that may be valuable to others. These women provide their mentees an opportunity to learn and to practice skills that are meant to aid in an individual’s personal or professional development. Based on their experiences, women can provide an honest evaluation of circumstances and goals while instilling a sense of encouragement and confidence in those to whom they offer their guidance. Often seen as an extension of the family, female mentors tend to build rapport and energize those involved in their social interventions by confronting the many uncomfortable social and professional realities that may exist in their respective communities. Female mentors understand the oppression that manifests itself in a complex society and therefore possess the ability to prepare others to lead successful, independent, and fulfilling lives through practical advice and contextually specific discussions. On some occasions, however, these relationships can foster an unhealthy dependence and may highlight the power differential that they may be attempting to circumvent. Motivation and Encouragement Women of all ages have sought out mentors to assist them in negotiating various settings and stages of life. Some women seek refuge from the isolation and loneliness they may feel. These women may question their purpose and intellect or may lack self-esteem and self-worth. Their competency and decision-making capabilities may be in question, and having someone that has accomplished similar goals and tasks often

serves as motivation and encouragement. Another reason women may seek or be assigned a mentor is for upward mobility. They may seek someone with qualities they wish to emulate as they strive to develop their own personal and/or professional crafts and skills. This relationship or coaching model may provide an increase in tangible and intangible resources and could expose hidden capabilities that may result in an increase in female visibility and representation. Mentoring is an established practice in many fields and communities. For women, it can offer solace from the complexities of male dominance and gender disparities and can also provide opportunities to acquire and further develop abilities not otherwise realized. Although the meaning, intensity, and dependent nature of these reciprocal relationships may vary, each requires devotion of time and energy from both the mentor and mentee. With time, these individualized yet collective voices offer reliable sources of support. See Also: Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity; Association for Women’s Rights in Development; Representation of Women; United Nation Development Fund for Women. Further Readings Brown, Mark and Stuart Ross. “Mentoring, Social Capital and Desistance: A Study of Women Released From Prison.” Australian and New Zealand Journal off Criminology, v.43/1 (2010). Dedrick, Robert F. and Freda Watson. “Mentoring Needs of Female, Minority, and International Graduate Students: A Content Analysis of Academic Research Guides and Related Print Material.” Mentoring and Tutoring, v.10/3 (2002). Laff, Michael. “The Guiding Hand: Mentoring Women.” Training and Development, v.63/9 (2009). Mason, Catheryn and Elizabeth Bailey. “Benefits and Pitfalls of Mentoring.” http://www.faculty.english.ttu. edu/barker/5377/Mentoring/BenefitsAndPitfalls MasonandBailey.pdf (accessed June 2010). Mentoring.org. “Spanning the Gender Gap in Mentoring.” http://www.mentoring.org/access_research/spanning (accessed June 2010). Corrie L. Davis Kennesaw State University



Merkel, Angela Angela Merkel is Germany’s first female chancellor. A Protestant from the former East Germany, she was elected head of state in September 2005 and assumed office on November 22, 2005. She has been the chairwoman of her party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), since April 10, 2000. Despite initial skepticism of her ability to lead Germany, she has proven herself a pragmatic and popular politician who was easily reelected in 2009. Her influence extends well beyond Germany; for four years in a row (2006–09), Forbes magazine named her the most powerful woman in the world. This is especially remarkable considering that she entered politics only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Upbringing and Personal Life Merkel was born as Angela Dorothea Kasner on July 17, 1954. Her father was a Lutheran pastor and her mother a teacher of English and Latin. She has two younger siblings, a brother and a sister. Like most children growing up in socialist East Germany, she was a member of the official youth movement Free German Youth (FDJ). From 1973 to 1978, she studied physics at the University of Leipzig. She then transferred to the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin, where she obtained a doctorate for her thesis on quantum chemistry in 1986. Her first marriage (1977–82), to fellow physics student Ulrich Merkel, ended in divorce. Her second and current husband, Joachim Sauer, is a quantum chemist and professor who, for the most part, has stayed outside of the public spotlight. Merkel has no children of her own, but Sauer has two adult sons by a previous marriage. Political Career In December 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Merkel got involved in the growing democracy movement in East Germany. She joined the new party Democratic Awakening (Demokratischer Aufbruch) and quickly rose in its ranks, becoming her party’s press secretary in February 1990. That August, she joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Soon thereafter, in the first postunification elections, she was elected to the German Parliament (Bundestag). As a protégée of then-chancellor

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Helmut Kohl, she first became Federal Minister for Women and Youth (1991–94), and later Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (1994–98). Following a financial scandal involving Kohl and other leading figures of the CDU, Merkel publicly broke with her former mentor and advocated for a fresh start. She was subsequently elected the first female chair of her male-dominated, socially conservative party. For the first four years of her reign as chancellor, Merkel led a “grand coalition” with the center-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). After her reelection in 2009, when her party obtained the largest share of votes, she formed a coalition government with the centrist, pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). Merkel is a smart, highly educated and skillful politician who uses her academic background in the sciences to analyze situations and develop strategies that are supported by many. Unlike many politicians, she is not a gifted speaker and not interested in grand gestures. She has, however, been widely praised for modernizing her party, especially in regard to family and migration policies, and for her ability to build coalitions. See Also: Germany; Government, Women in; Heads of State, Female; Political Ideologies. Further Readings Heckel, M. So Regiert die Kanzlerin [This Is How the Chancellor Governs]. Munich, Germany: Piper, 2009. Merkel, Angela. “Angela Merkel.” http://www .angela-merkel.de/ (accessed November 2009). Mills, Clifford W. Angela Merkel (Modern World Leaders) New York: Chelsea House Publications, 2007. Heike Henderson Boise State University

Metropolitan Community Church Metropolitan Community Churches (MCCs) have served as one of many touchstones to political activism for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)

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followers. The increased visibility of LGBT individuals seeking liberation from the closets sparked discussions on tolerance and acceptance of LGBT people as parishioners, communicants, volunteers, and clergy in Roman Catholic, conservative, mainline, liberal, and Evangelical Protestant churches, and Jewish synagogues throughout the United States. Notable was the absence of LGBT people in such discussions on church policies, practices, and teachings on homosexuality. Reverend Troy Perry lost his Pentecostal ministerial position when he disclosed his sexual orientation. However, Perry’s passion for his Pentecostal faith inspired him to place an advertisement in the September 1968 issue of the LGBT magazine The Advocate for a Christian service at his home in Los Angeles—the first meeting occurred on October 6, 1968 with 12 people. Two years later Perry and his followers had founded the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC) and by 2000, UFMCC boasted 48,000 members attending 314 churches in 18 countries—it is the faith group with the largest number of LGBT followers, worldwide. Dallas, Texas’s MCC is the largest with 3,000 members, in 2000. The success of the Dallas MCC has been a testament to MCC’s appeal to LGBT people searching for religious tolerance in the midwestern and southern states of the United States. The congregants and ministers in UFMCC’s first decade were largely men, some of whom had considered a ministerial career— in 1973, women represented only 10 percent of the flock. These parishioners shared the Word of God in lesbian and gay bars and published the national monthly magazine In Unity and half-a-dozen periodicals. Since 1972, the MCC has adopted gender-neutral language and encouraged loving commitments among its members—Perry had performed 250 holy unions or gay marriages by 1974. By 1989, 40 percent of MCC clergy were women, and women represented 30 percent of members. In 2009, women outnumbered men slightly in the clergy ranks. Adherents of MCCs credit the church for its allowance of a personal perspective on Christianity—the rituals of individual MCCs are generative in that congregations’ preferences determine the format for services, and clergy consider themselves to be ecumenical and inclusive. Parishioners have rejected the tendency

of liberal Protestant groups to conceptualize them as LGBT first and potential Christians second—MCC clergy have always considered LGBT people Christians first. UFMCC has resolved an inherent tension—that LGBT people can be “gay and Christian!” See Also: Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward; Lesbian/Gay Clergy; Social Justice Activism. Further Readings Enroth, Ronald M. and Gerald E. Jamison. The Gay Church. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1974. In Our Own Words. http://www.inourownwordsmcc.org (accessed August 2009). Metropolitan Community Churches. http://www .mccchurch.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home (accessed August 2009). Perry, Edith. (Foreword). The Lord Is My Shepherd and He Knows I’m Gay: The Autobiography of the Rev. Troy D. Perry as Told to Charles L. Lucas. Los Angeles, CA: Nash Publishing, 1972. Perry, Reverend Troy D. with Thomas L.P. Swicegood. Don’t Be Afraid Anymore: The Story of Reverend Troy Perry and the Metropolitan Community Churches. New York: St. Martin’s, 1990. Wilcox, Melissa M. “Of Markets and Missions: The Early History of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.” Religion & American Culture, v.11/1 (2001). Wilson, Rodney C. “ ‘The Seed Time of Gay Rights’: Rev. Carol Cureton, The Metropolitan Community Church, and Gay St. Louis, 1969–1980.” Gateway Heritage, v.15/2 (1994). Jonathan Anuik Lakehead University, Orillia

Mexico Women in Mexico are a diverse group that has historically contributed significantly to the political, social, economic, and cultural life of the region. Mexico is a highly stratified society, and therefore, women’s experiences vary according to class, race, and region. Thus, when considering the subject of women in Mexico, it is important to remember that



there is no one unified category, but rather, multiple and changing experiences. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the New World in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, Mexico was ruled by the Mexica. These indigenous people, rulers of the Valley of Mexico, developed what is now known as the Aztec Empire. Women played a critical role within this civilization, which was based on agriculture, expansion, and tribute. While the dominant gods of their polytheistic system were primarily male, there were also important female deities including Ometeotl, the Lord of Duality who incorporated both a male and female principle; and Coatlicue, or Mother Earth. Despite the narrowness and rigidity of roles available to them, Mexica women played important parts in the ongoing life of their society. Women were responsible for domestic chores such as cleaning and cooking. In addition, they spun, wove, and made ceramics. Perhaps, most importantly, they were responsible for agricultural production and animal domestication, reinforced perhaps by the deity Mother Earth. In a society largely sustained by farming, these responsibilities were important. Mexica society was clearly patriarchal—women’s lives centered on the home and motherhood. Women were expected to be virgins until marriage, and adultery was punished by stoning to death, which indicated the importance of female honor and its relationship to sexuality. If the husband was able to support more than one wife, polygamy was accepted. Elite women were expected to protect the poor, thus extending their role as mother to the marginalized. Perhaps this protective role was a precursor to the Virgin of Guadalupe, a figure who first gained prominence during the colonial period. The Conquest and Its Effects The Spaniards arrived in Mexico in 1517, beginning a period of colonialism that would last three centuries. While there were some similarities between the pre-conquest and the colonial regimes—both were powerful states based on political and military expansion, deeply religious, and male-dominated—the differences were significant. The conquest resulted in an enormous upheaval for the Mexica. Throughout the 16th century, approximately 90 percent of Mexico’s indigenous population died, largely a result of new

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A local woman sells seashells to tourists while walking on a beach in Acapulco, Mexico.

diseases introduced by the Spanish. An altered society emerged, and women both continued with their old roles and found new ones. Within the colonial system, women were likely to be found weaving cloth, making ceramics, tending to crops, selling goods in city markets, laboring in tobacco factories, or working as servants in large Spanish houses. Colonial society was divided according to race and social class. Indigenous women, for instance, were often found working in the homes of Spanish women. A woman’s legal position within the colony was that of a minor. Women could inherit property, titles, businesses, and land; nevertheless, once they were married, their husbands became the administrators of the property. The wealth of elite families was predicated on economic and kinship networks, and women played a vital role in maintaining familial networks.

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Much like the preconquest system, however, women’s most essential role was that of mother. Three Iconic Women Three figures emerged from the colonial period and became archetypes of Mexican womanhood: La Malinche, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. La Malinche was an indigenous woman who translated for the conquistador Hernán Cortés. As Cortés’s mistress, she was typically cast as a treacherous woman who denied her country and helped “the enemy.” Complementing La Malinche was the Virgin of Guadalupe, who succored the poor, particularly the indigenous peoples. Guadalupe, based on the Christian image of the Virgin Mary, provided an image of charitable motherhood and, during the War of Independence, became the image of the Nationalists. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz represented the artistic and intellectual achievements of Mexican women. Known as the Tenth Muse, she dedicated her life to learning and writing. As a nun, she believed that the only place where a woman could aspire to knowledge normally reserved for men was within the house of God. Sor Juana was perhaps one of Mexico’s first precursors of feminist consciousness. In the 19th century, Mexico gained its independence from Spain and began a process of liberalization and capitalist development. This century was marked by the rise of mariansimo, an ideology predicated on motherhood and women’s relegation to the home. This was possible only for elite women. The majority of women worked in factories, in artisanal industries, in commerce, and in food services, as seamstresses, spinners, weavers, and servants. By the 20th century, women’s work expanded to include store clerks, secretaries, and stenographers. Women gradually were incorporated into the educational system, and their increased work and public presence led to a heightened awareness of gender differences and the beginnings of a feminist movement. Women were active during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. They were most famously represented as soldaderas, women who traveled with and often fought alongside their husbands. The revolution ushered in a new period in Mexican society and provided women with different roles and a sense of national participation. This emerging awareness was perhaps

most visibly epitomized by leftist artists such as Frida Kahlo. The 20th century was marked by increased feminist activity, much of it centered on suffrage. By the end of the century, women had gained the vote, access to birth control, entered schools in higher numbers, and were employed throughout all sectors of the economy. The Outlook Today In present-day Mexico there is both change and continuity in women’s roles. More women than ever participate in the paid labor force, they are likely to have fewer babies than the women of past generations, and they continue their history of political participation. While women are increasingly likely to seek paid employment, they are also likely to quit their paid jobs after marriage. Since the 1970s, fertility rates among women have steadily declined, although there is a marked urban/rural difference with women in the countryside having more children than their urban counterparts. In both city and country alike, extended households are prevalent and, for many women, essential to juggling the demands of work and motherhood. In the 1980s and 1990s and women joined the paid labor force with greater frequency, particularly after the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, 1994) and the corresponding growth of maquiladoras (import–export factories) on the border between Mexico and the United States. Women can typically be found working in the textile, garment manufacturing, and electronics industries. They are represented in higher numbers than men in low-wage jobs and in the informal labor sector where the work conditions are difficult, the hours arduous and there is little or no maternity leave. Female immigrants often find domestic and childcare work in the United States, sending remittances home for the support of their families and children. Women may also cross the border as seasonal migrant farm workers. Mexican women continue to play a strong role in politics, whether participating at the grassroots level or in formal, electoral politics. While women often run for office in Mexico, they remain underrepresented at the state and federal levels of government. They are prominent in the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, holding positions of leadership and among

Michelman, Kate



the rank and file. Mexican women have joined transnational solidarity organizations and protests with women from the United States and Canada to protest the effects of NAFTA. Following a struggle for the right to first-trimester abortions, the Mexican Supreme Court declared in 2008 that an absolute constitutional protection of life in gestation would violate the fundamental rights of women. Despite these and other gains, persistent inequality remains, and Mexican women continue their struggle for change, contributing to the shape of the nation and its future. See Also: Government, Women in; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Machismo/Marianismo; Maquiladoras; Virgin of Guadalupe. Further Readings Arrom, Silvia Marina. The Women of Mexico City. Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 1985. Barndt, Deborah. Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Tuñón Pablos, Julia, translated by Alan Hynds. Women in Mexico: A Past Unveiled. Austin: University of Texas Press, Institute of Latin American Studies, 1999. Sara Katherine Sanders University of Oxford

Michelman, Kate A key figure in the pro-choice movement, Kate Michelman served as president of NARAL ProChoice America, the largest pro-choice advocacy group in the United States from 1985 to 2004. During this period, she emerged as one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, D.C. She has advised and campaigned for many political candidates, sought to defeat Supreme Court nominees who threatened to overturn Roe v. Wade, and worked to defeat a wide range of legislative attempts to deny or restrict women’s access to safe and legal abortion. Michelman was born in New Jersey in 1942 to an upwardly mobile Catholic family. From a very early age, she demonstrated a passion for politics and social justice, but it was personal experience that first led

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Michelman to the issue that would come to define her public life. In 1969, four years before the Supreme Court legalized abortion, Michelman’s husband left her for another woman. Soon thereafter, she learned she was pregnant. At the time, she was a stay-at-home mother and a practicing Catholic. Relying on the rhythm method for birth control, she had given birth three times in three years. Lacking the means to support her young family, Michelman grew desperate. After a failed suicide attempt, a doctor told her she might be eligible for a “therapeutic” abortion. To qualify, however, she had to obtain permission from both her estranged husband and an all-male hospital review board that subjected her to humiliating questions about her sex life. “Everyone else had control except me, and I had to bear the consequences,” she later explained. “It was then I became acutely aware of how desperate the situation is for women.” After this searing experience, Michelman gradually got her life back on track. She went on welfare for a time, took a part-time job in a library, and in 1972 remarried. She then worked for several years in the nonprofit and social service sectors. Her career as a champion of women’s reproductive rights began in 1980, when she was named executive director of Family Planning Services in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which under her tenure became the Tri-County Planned Parenthood. Michelman, who saw her job as providing clients with a full range of reproductive services—from abortion to infertility treatment—found herself drawn into the political fray. In the early 1980s, the pro-life movement, having abandoned hopes of reversing Roe through a constitutional amendment, had turned its energies to the state level, targeting Pennsylvania as a key battleground. Michelman’s experiences combating pro-life forces in Pennsylvania would prepare her to take on a national leadership role within the pro-choice movement. Michelman assumed the helm at NARAL in 1985 and two years later helped to lead the successful fight against Robert Bork’s appointment to the Supreme Court. Even as pro-choice forces managed to prevent the wholesale overturning of Roe, however, they failed to stave off a host of new laws that have restricted access to abortion, including laws that require parental notification for minors, impose mandatory waiting periods, or ban all public funding of abortions. In

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response to the shifting political climate, Michelman and NARAL consulted with pollsters and adopted a more conservative message—one that sought to protect abortion rights by tapping into the public’s widespread distrust of big government. Rather than insisting on women’s absolute right to control their own bodies, the organization began to stress the need to safeguard individuals against undue government intervention. Their new slogan asked, “Who Decides? You or Them?” Although this pragmatic strategy proved effective in reaching undecided voters, critics have argued that NARAL’s message has undercut its ability to defend the reproductive rights of poor women, who often rely on public funds. Michelman left NARAL in 2004 to cope with family medical emergencies. In 2001, her daughter, who was uninsured at the time, suffered a tragic accident that paralyzed her for life. The following year, Michelman’s husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Though he was previously a college professor with seemingly good benefits, his insurance has covered only a fraction of the costs of his long-term care. Once again, Michelman has drawn a larger, political lesson from her own personal experiences: She has used her family’s tragic story to call attention to the ways in which the current healthcare system leaves even solidly middle-class Americans vulnerable to financial ruin. At the same time, she has continued to champion women’s reproductive rights. Most recently, Michelman has denounced attempts to amend proposed healthcare legislation in ways that would deny women access to abortion services. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion, Ethical Issues; Abortion Laws, United States; NARAL; Roe v. Wade. Further Readings Michelman, Kate. “A System From Hell.” The Nation (April 8, 2009). Michelman, Kate. With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose. New York: Penguin/Hudson Street, 2004. Saletan, William. Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Rebecca Jo Plant University of California, San Diego

Microcredit Microcredit (also known as microlending, microfinance, village banking, and “barefoot banking”) involves providing small, short-term, collateral-free loans to the poor—typically women—living in developing countries. The loans, typically less than $100, are intended for the creation or expansion of small businesses so that recipients can earn the income necessary to move their families out of poverty. Although pioneered in the 1970s, the past decade has seen thousands of microcredit banks provide loans to more than 100 million people. Advocates claim that microcredit can help foster prosperity, enhance quality of life, build community, and promote women’s status. Yet, numerous challenges remain if microcredit is to expand and effectively meet the demand for assistance by the ever-increasing population of poor in the world. How Microcredit Differs From Traditional Aid Microcredit is regarded by many as a cost-effective means of combating poverty. Grounded in the concepts of self-help and entrepreneurship, microcredit represents a significant shift away from charity-based poverty alleviation programs and traditional government welfare programs. For one, most microcredit programs target women. This is both because women comprise the majority of the world’s poor, and because women often lack the collateral necessary to participate in traditional loan programs. Also, rather than providing free food, clothing, or services to individuals in need, microcredit programs provide participants with small cash loans. Recipients then use the loans to create or further develop small businesses (referred to as microenterprises). Types of microenterprises vary greatly: one loan recipient may purchase several goats and sell their milk; another may purchase a sewing machine to start a garmentmaking business; still another may purchase a refrigerator so she can add eggs, dairy products, and meat to the items she buys from her village store. A Bank as a Grassroots Unit The principle of communal responsibility is central to the microcredit system. To begin, a group of six to eight individuals come together to form a loan group. Several loan groups then combine to form a bank.



The bank is typically not an institution housed in a material building—instead, the bank is simply a group of individuals who are active participants in a microcredit loan program. Once a bank is established, participants (who are generally referred to as “members”) determine who receives the loans, set interest rates, negotiate terms of repayment, and levy penalties for late payments. Interest rates for most microcredit loans range from 10 to 15 percent, a rate that helps ensure the sustainability of microcredit programs. Loans are typically given for a maximum of six months, payments are made on a weekly basis, and once a loan is successfully repaid, the member may be eligible for additional loans to further expand their business. Bank members generally meet on a weekly basis to make payments. Meetings may take place in members’

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homes or even in a central location in the community such as a courtyard or field. The bank is built on trust and accountability—if a member of a loan group cannot make a payment, other members of her loan group try to help her find a way to do so and, if necessary, may loan her the money needed to make the payment. Those who do not make timely payments risk losing status and respect; they may also become ineligible for future loans. Loan money that is repaid is “recycled” and made available for additional loans. Positive Outcomes and Pressing Challenges Microcredit differs from traditional loans in several ways. First, microcredit loans do not require collateral or contracts. In addition, women comprise the overwhelming majority of participants in microcredit programs. Furthermore, microcredit loans have a high

A Cambodian woman has transformed a backyard chore into a lucrative business, with the help of USAID. She expanded her pig farm, and went from earning $300 per breeding cycle to $5,000 or $6,000 per cycle.

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repayment rate, as much as 98 percent in some loan programs. Finally, many microcredit programs provide not only financial assistance, but also offer savings accounts. Many also offer education and training in the following areas: business and financial skills, nutrition, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevention, maternal and infant health, sanitation, sustainable farming practices, literacy, and immunizations. Thus, while microcredit loans help recipients and their families most directly, there are a number of positive effects on the local community as well. Microcredit loans can help enhance the local economy, increase quality and availability of education, foster better health and hygiene, increase community solidarity, and improve overall quality of life. Despite these positive outcomes, a number of challenges remain. Loans are not always used for their intended purposes and some recipients use the money to purchase food or household goods, to pay school fees, or even for travel. In addition, while women are primary participants in loan programs, their husbands may control the use of loan money. Husbands may also use verbal or physical violence to pressure their wives into taking out loans. While some lending organizations boast repayment rates of up to 98 percent, not all programs are equally successful. Perhaps most importantly, only a portion of the world’s poor have access to microcredit; the demand for such loans far exceeds the supply. See Also: Entrepreneurs; Financial Aid; Financial Independence of Women; Grameen Bank of Bangladesh; Poverty; Poverty, “Feminization” of; United Nations. Further Readings Daley-Harris, Sam. “The State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2009.” Washington, D.C.: MicroCapital, 2009. http://www.microcapital.org /microcapital-paper-wrap-up-the-state-of-the-micro credit-summit-campaign-report-2009-by-sam-daley -harris (accessed July 2010). Fisher, Thomas and M. S. Sriram. Beyond Micro-Credit: Putting Development Back Into Micro-Finance. Oxford, UK: Oxfam Publishing, 2002. Rahman, Aminur. “Micro-Credit Initiatives for Equitable and Sustainable Development: Who Pays?” World Development, v.27/1 (1999).

Robinson, Marguerite S. The Microfinance Revolution: Sustainable Finance for the Poor. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2001. Smith, P. and E. Thurman. A Billion Bootstraps: Microcredit, Barefoot Banking, and the Business Solution for Ending Poverty. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Yunus, Muhammad. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. New York: PublicAffairs, 2007. Jillian M. Duquaine-Watson Texas Woman’s University

Micronesia After obtaining independence through a Compact of Free Association with the United States in 1986, the Federated States of Micronesia, located in the Pacific Ocean, established a constitutional government. As a nation comprising more than 600 islands spread along the Equator in the western Pacific Ocean, Micronesians are ethnically diverse. The largest ethnic groups are the Chuukese (48.8 percent) and the Pohnpeian (24.2 percent). Social Structure and Women’s Roles Micronesian society continues to be strongly hierarchical, and although the constitution bans gender discrimination, women are viewed largely by their reproductive and familial roles. Women who do work are generally relegated to entry-level jobs. Few women have been able to break down barriers that have prevented them from joining the ranks of decision makers. There are no women at all in the Micronesian Parliament, but there is one female in the Cabinet. Women are better represented in local politics. At the national level, the Women’s Interest Section of the Department of Health and Social Services has been charged with protecting women’s rights. According to the constitution, women have equal rights with males to own property. In the first decade of the 21st century, Micronesia continued to struggle economically, reporting massive unemployment (22 percent), overfishing, and overdependence on American foreign aid. With a per capita income of only $2,200, many Micronesians survive through subsistence farming and fishing. The



result is a poverty rate of 26.7 percent. Only 22 percent of the population lives in urban areas. Religiously, the country is divided fairly evenly between Roman Catholics (50 percent) and Protestants (47 percent). While English is the official language, various local dialects are also spoken. Reproductive Issues and Domestic Violence Parts of Micronesia have been isolated from the outside world for centuries, and cultural conditions affecting females, such as those surrounding pregnancy, remain strong. Many islanders still believe that evil spirits may cause a miscarriage or produce a child with birth defects if a pregnant woman visits the ocean at night or if she remains near a doorway for long periods. In some areas, women are expected to pay homage to males, and some religious meetings are segregated by sex. The median age for Micronesian females is 22.5 years. With an infant mortality rate of 26.1 deaths per 1,000 live births, Micronesia ranks 82nd in the world. Female infants (23.27) have an advantage over males (28.79) that lasts throughout their lives, resulting in a life expectancy of 72.93 years for females and 69.06 for males. Micronesian women have an average fertility rate of 2.89 children. Females (88 percent) lag behind males in literacy (91 percent). Domestic violence continues to be a problem, but incidences generally go unreported because it is considered a family matter rather than a legal issue. In recent years, island governments have begun addressing the problem by updating laws and training police officers to deal with reports of domestic violence. However, in the case of single women who are sexually assaulted, it is often argued that they invited attacks by traveling alone. See Also: Domestic Violence; Government, Women in; Poverty, “Feminization” of; Property Rights. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Micronesia, Federated States of.” https://www.cia.gov /library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fm.html (accessed February 2010). Flood, Nancy Bohac. “Change and Choice in the Western Pacific.” Midwifery Today, v.19/36 (1991). United States Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Federated States of Micronesia.” http://www

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.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eap/119048.htm (accessed February 2010). Women’s International Network (WIN) News. “Women and Human Rights.” WIN News, v.20/2 (1994). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Midlife Career Change In recent years, midlife career change for women has become a topic that has gained the attention of employers and employees in all types of workplaces. This is in part because over 30 years ago, a generation of young women embarked on adulthood with unique and unprecedented choices to make about family, career, and lifestyle. Now large numbers of these baby boomers have entered midlife with wonderfully diverse workplace and life issues and experiences. This entry explores contemporary midlife career change issues in the following areas: emerging definitions of mid-life and career; gender differences; overall challenges; influence of family responsibilities; and career barriers and successes. Flexibility in Defining “Midlife” and “Career” Definitions can be helpful in illuminating career change during midlife. First, “midlife” or “middle age” is defined in a variety of ways. Some sources report that it is a time in a person’s life that falls between young adulthood and old age, while others describe it between youth and old age. Depending on the source, it spans the ages from 35 to 55, 40 to 60, or 45 to 64. In fact, Victor Hugo (1802–85) once said that “40 is the old age of youth; 50 is the youth of old age.” The term midlife is closely linked with the terms midlife transition and midlife crisis. Wherever the age lines are drawn, the present middle-aged generation tends to have careers that are becoming more multidirectional instead of linear, transitional instead of constant, and flexible instead of unaccommodating. Because of a major shift toward multiple careers, with shorter times spent in each career, “boundaryless” careers necessitate an expanded definition of career that transcends the more traditional perceptions of a single employer, a

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single definition, and a single path. New descriptors emphasize a process of development, an evolving sequence of experiences, a course or path, work experience over time, a chosen pursuit, employment in one or more organizations, and a work-related life journey. Emerging definitions also include all work-related experiences instead of only those related to paid employment. For example, a woman may choose to spend the first part of her career as a homemaker and caretaker; she may work at home full time in these roles and also use her professional expertise to lead social change efforts in her community. When her children are older, she may choose to hold a full time paid position outside the home or return to school, retool, then enter the workforce. Because all types of work-related experiences—paid and unpaid alike—can provide critical developmental experiences, the most flexible definitions of careers encourage individuals to look at their life experiences more holistically as developmental strategies to create meaningful careers.

sional achievement, expanded choices in career and family roles), these women now report more depression and lower self-esteem than previous generations. Midlife can also bring discontentment or boredom, desire for employment and lifestyle changes, restlessness, notable increase or decrease in ambition, and health concerns. This phase can also bring frustrations with the gender inequality that remains in some organizations and industries. Although women have made progress with more women in middle and senior leadership, the percentage of women in top positions remains low. Women in their midlife phase also tend to reflect on their earlier decisions, plans, and goals. They may realize their own mortality and seek to reprioritize goals based on “meaning” related to what they want to do with their lives as a whole. Consequently, women often experience changes in priorities (e.g., importance of success, money, status, meeting others’ expectations) that can change the trajectory of their careers.

Differences and Challenges Career choices for women constitute major life decisions, and changes made at midlife tend to be very different from those made earlier in lives and careers. It is not uncommon for most individuals to make decisions during these years that change their careers in often a drastic way. However, the experiences of men and women during midlife tend to differ as gender continues to influence the way individuals negotiate paid work and all other areas of life. Women’s choices are often complicated by powerful social norms about gender and careers. Although midlife can be an energizing and exciting time for women, this life transition can be challenging. Women often have increased complexity and conflict in their lives surrounding work and family integration, changing roles and responsibilities, the glass ceiling, menopause and other health concerns, and general uncertainty. Today, more women than men report turbulent midlife transitions. The most common culprits include marital problems, death of loved ones, job stress, an employer’s unethical or poor behavior, or job disappointments and disillusionment. Surprisingly, although midlife women acknowledge more advantages than past generations (e.g., expanded opportunities for higher education, increased profes-

The Family Factors One of the most often-cited differences between genders is that women, more often than men, make important career decisions based upon family responsibilities. Women tend to experience more conflict and challenges with childcare, lack of personal time, and demanding schedules—and still they construct their careers around being able to spend time with their children. A woman’s career path often reflects the different choices she has made through the years as she has negotiated her responsibilities in the home and the workplace. Many mothers prefer flexible careers even though the choice may take a toll on their “career success,” which is often defined by others. Another fairly recent phenomenon is that women today in their midlife phase may be providing caregiving for two generations; they often have children at home and parents who need assistance. Women also continue to have the greater portion of home management responsibilities such as shopping, cleaning, childcare, and social engagements. Shaping Holistic Careers Although the term career barriers is often used to refer to the responsibilities women have that lead them toward choosing more flexible careers, the past

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definitions of “career success” are now being challenged and may soon change the way people use the word barrier. Career success has become much more complex: it changes within individuals over time, and increasingly refers to balancing external rewards and recognition (e.g., promotions, increased pay) with internal feelings of achievement, contributing, and being worthwhile. The question then becomes Who defines a successful career? More than ever before, women who are evaluating career alternatives during mid-life are looking for a greater sense of meaning and purpose in their work lives. They are motivated to choose a career that they feel will provide a greater sense of purpose in their overall lives. The need for many to strive toward developing their full potential will play an important role in career choices during midlife. When individuals have not had opportunities to discover personal meaning and growth, during midlife they often re-evaluate their past choices and begin the process of career decision making again. For many women, this cycle will continue until they obtain the meaningful and fulfilling work they desire. For some women, the responsibilities that have been previously termed “barriers” will become acknowledged work that can positively contribute to the holistic development of the individual they are becoming. The world is more complex that it was just a few decades ago, when today’s middle-aged women were children and adolescents. Women now have higher levels of stress and anxiety, increased commitments and responsibilities, and more roles and identities. Although there are many forces that drive change for women during midlife, inherent in this process are promising possibilities for new growth and development. Midlife requires both internal and external change for each woman who passes through this phase. Increasing awareness of self and the world can lead to better choices and increased confidence, so that a woman can find meaning in her quest for a successful career and life—however she chooses to define it. See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward Business, Women in; Childcare; Divorce; Glass Ceiling; Homemaking; Management, Women in; Menopause, Social Aspects of; Part-Time Work.

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Further Readings Baruch, Yehuda. “Career Development in Organizations and Beyond: Balancing Traditional and Contemporary Viewpoints.” Human Resource Management Review, v.16/2 (2006). Cohen, Benjamin N. “Applying Existential Theory and Intervention to Career Decision-Making.” Journal of Career Development, v.29/3 (2003). Emslie, Carol and Kate Hunt. “‘Live to Work’ or ‘Work to Live’? A Qualitative Study of Gender and Work-Life Balance Among Men and Women in Mid-Life.” Gender, Work and Organization, v.16/1 (2009). Gersick, Connie J. G. and Kathy E. Kram. “HighAchieving Women at Midlife: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Management Inquiry, v.11/2 (2002). Murtagh, Niamh, Paulo Lopes, and Evanthia Lyons. “What Makes a Career Barrier a Barrier?” Industrial and Commercial Training, v.39/6 (2007). Whitmarsh, Lona, Donalee Brown, Jane Cooper, Yolanda Hawkins-Rodgers, and Diane Keyser Wentworth. “Choices and Challenges: A Qualitative Exploration of Professional Women’s Career Patterns.” The Career Development Quarterly, v.55/3 (2007). Wright, J. “Coaching Mid-Life, Baby Boomer Women in the Workplace.” Work: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation, v.25/2 (2005). Susan R. Madsen Utah Valley University

Midwifery The word midwife means “with woman.” In many countries throughout the world, women routinely have midwives care for their entire pregnancies. According to the World Health Organization, most babies in the world are delivered into the hands of midwives. Midwives, who focus on the health of mother and baby, have been caring for pregnant mothers and delivering their babies much longer than organized Western medicine has been involved in the business of “giving birth.” Principles and Historical Development Midwifery care is founded on the principles of women-centeredness, acknowledging and supporting

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natural maternal processes, intervening only when necessary, and advocating for women and their families. Midwifery philosophy includes a valuing of the mind/body connection and “women’s ways of knowing,” including birthing women’s ability to attune to the rhythm of childbirth and knowing what they need better than anyone else. Midwives view birth as a normal physiological process, not a medical event. In the modern Western culture, midwives have fought to gain primary care provider status; the ability to deliver babies where the mother wishes, be that home or hospital setting; and to offer care, control, and choice to women. In North America, aboriginal midwives have reclaimed their ability to provide culturally safe and community-centered maternity care that is informed by elders and guided by aboriginal protocols.

Egyptian papyrus records dated as early as 1900 b.c.e. depict midwives engaged in delivering babies and caring for mothers during pregnancy. Midwifery is an ancient practice that offers contemporary women a shift from modern medicine and technology that often regards pregnancy as an illness to be treated medically, and the birthing process as a surgical procedure. Having a baby is an important social event in human life. Midwives focus on the birthing mother, her desires and designs for the actual birth, as well as making space for the mother’s social community. Many cultures worldwide value midwifery as essential in maternal care. In North America, midwives provide services to healthy women, while obstetricians provide care for high-risk pregnancies and intervene during birth complications.

Women whose primary care physicians do not support midwifery care are forced to either keep their intentions a secret, or avoid medical care. Regulation serves to enhance both safety and accessibility of midwifery care.



Tensions Between Medicine and Midwives Many women believe that through the practice of Western medicine, the processes of pregnancy and birth have been taken from them and placed into the hands of doctors who do not prioritize the desires of the mother. As many as one-third of North American births that are assisted within the medical model use either surgical interventions, such as Caesarean sections, or technological interventions, such as forceps. Midwives believe that most episiotomies—the surgical procedure of cutting small incisions in the vaginal opening to facilitate birth—are typically unnecessary: for example, generally the incidence of medical interventions are greatly reduced within midwifery care. The intervention of using fetal monitors is controversial for midwives, given that when used in medical settings, it leads to mothers being three times more likely to receive a caesarean section, while the efficacy choosing fetal monitors over the use of manual devices is not clear. Manual devices used to listen to babies’ heartbeats are equivalent to fetal monitors in tracking the stability of the baby, but do not lead to increased surgical interventions. Midwives who work outside of the medical model use touch in profound and sensitive ways with the families they serve. Midwives may provide women in their care with healing touch, such as massage or Reiki, and they also tend to be more sensitive to women’s responses to invasive procedures during pregnancy. Midwives might use a women-centered approach and not assume that all women would find abdominal palpitation reassuring. Midwives might ask the mother if she would like to be palpated, or if the mother would like to be guided in doing it herself. As an antenatal assessment measure, midwives regard the woman’s comfort to be a priority to set birthing goals around, whereas medical practice often treats women and their desires as secondary to the birth process. Benefits to Mother and Baby Mothers who have had midwives deliver their babies report high satisfaction throughout their pregnancy and birthing process. Mothers report many reasons for this satisfaction, including, but not limited to, the belief that midwives are more sensitive and attuned to their needs; midwifery is a less intrusive practice than using obstetricians for uncomplicated births; midwives support creative approaches to childbirth

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that support the mother and her community, such as water births, squatting, and the use of birthing swings and birthing chairs. Midwifery practice delineates levels of intervention in birthing, with the aim to apply the least intrusive measures to facilitate the healthiest birth. Midwifery is often practiced in the women’s home or a birthing center that simulates a home environment, and where women are not exposed to some of the first-level interventions that could create anxiety, such as unfamiliar surroundings, hospital sights and sounds, and being exposed to other women’s birthing processes. Midwives spend more time talking to women than doctors, in part because their delivery of care is radically different. Midwives Around the World Britain’s system of maternity care is focused primarily on the practice of midwifery. Throughout many western European countries, midwives are the primary care provider for maternity. In Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, onethird of the births take place in the home. In Canada, midwives are qualified to provide total care in pregnancy, birth, and afterwards, acting as primary care health professionals for healthy women. In Germany and Italy, birth clinics are similar to the United States model, where midwives practice almost exclusively in clinical settings and obstetricians are often an important part of the pregnancy and delivery team. Midwifery in Australia and New Zealand is emerging from historical domination by medicine. Maternity services are delivered in private and public centers; both are publicly funded. Africa and Asia suffer the largest numbers of maternal/child deaths in labor, with midwives providing most maternity care. Indigenous societies around the world continue to use midwifery as primary maternal care. In North America, a renaissance in aboriginal midwifery care is unfolding, where traditional and contemporary practices are entwined. In recognition that current systems were not meeting the needs of Native Americans, Native American midwives have sought specific healthy policies and practice to support culturally safe midwifery care, respect for the participation of men and elders in pregnancy and delivery, and that pregnant women be protected within their communities through collective caretaking and responsibility sharing. The indicators of

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good health, such as proper nutrition and sleep, sufficient physical exercise, appropriate spiritual care, and reduced stress are all important components in holistic Native American midwifery care. Additionally, value is placed in honoring the placenta and cord as having important cultural symbolism and meaning. Research and Current Legislation The new midwifery is evidence based. Current research is undertaken and evaluated rigorously to support the efficacy of midwives practicing primary antenatal and postnatal maternity care. Prior to regulation, midwives charged “fee for service,” thus limiting access for those women and families who depend on publicly funded healthcare resources. Women whose primary care physicians do not support midwifery care are forced to either keep their intentions a secret, or to avoid medical care. Regulation serves to enhance both safety and accessibility of midwifery care. See Also: Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital; Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural; Doulas; Pregnancy; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. Further Readings Bourgeault, Ivy, Cecilia Benoit, and Robbie Davis-Floyd, eds. Reconceiving Midwifery. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2004. Devries, Raymond, Sirpa Wrede, Edwin Van Teijlingen, and Cecilia Benoit, eds. Birth By Design: Pregnancy, Maternity Care, and Midwifery in North America and Europe. New York: Routledge, 2001. Gaskin, I. M.. Spiritual Midwifery, 3rd ed. Summertown, TN: The Book Publishing Company, 1990. Kitzinger, Sheila. The Politics of Birth. London: Elsevier, 2005. Joani Mortenson University of British Columbia, Okanagan

Migrant Workers At present, over half of world’s migrant population are women. The highest increase in feminization of migration is in migrant domestic work, nursing, care work, and sex work. The greatest majority of migrant

women work in the informal sector, which besides being a window of opportunities for disadvantaged women, has the limitations of being often unregistered and exposed to economic, physical, sexual, and psychological risks. Definitions and Impacts The patterns of migration are from east to west and from south to north, but due to illegal migration, the statistics are often problematical. Women migrants tend to remain longer than male migrants abroad. There are many definitions of migrant workers: from a United Nations broader understanding of migrant worker as “a person who is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a state of which he or she is not a national,” to a more narrow view of migrant workers as low-wage manual workers, including illegal. The term also applies to persons who migrate for work within their own country, for example in China. Migrant workers can be “documented” (authorized to enter, to stay, and to engage in a remunerated activity) or “nondocumented” (not meeting the above criteria). At the societal levels, women’s migration shapes the welfare services in both the destination and in the home countries. Remittances are important contributions to national budgets in developing states, often exceeding international aid and foreign investment. Unlike social benefits, their allocation is free of bureaucratic costs and directed at the ones intended to. At the individual economic level, the poorest have the most to gain from moving. Yet, the social outcomes of individual women’s migration are controversial: ranging from being expressions of personal agency, to more ambivalent considerations on migration as a process that ironically reinforces conventional gender norms. Reasons and Motivations Why do women migrate? There are many theoretical models that aim to explain migration. Annie Phizacklea assessed four: (1) “push/pull thesis,” from the neoclassical economic perspective, the migrant is an autonomous individual (usually a man) engaged in a cost/benefit analysis; (2) “the household strategy perspective,” which while including women, still views households as indivisible entities; (3) “structural theories” situate migration within the wider socioeconomic



and political contexts, but understates individual agency; (4) “the migratory networks approach,” which involves a qualitative view of the social capital generating a culture of migration, not necessary related to poverty. One should not understate the demand for poorly paid work that contributes to the feminization of migration. Other explanations from scholars like R. Parreñas and S. Horton see migration as motivated by the Western ideology of “ideal childhood.” The “Care Drain” and “Care Chains” When migrating for domestic work, women are shifting the care roles traditionally associated to them, from the home country, to the ones of destination. Arlie Hochschild named this phenomenon “care drain.” She argued that women’s migration to affluent countries is providing economic returns, but contributes to a drain of care and love in their transnational families. Global care chains was the term coined to express the dynamic of care work that involves women from societies with different developmental levels, as migrants or recipients of their work. Hochschild’s influential position was challenged for being dichotomous and for underrating the degree of negotiation and agency involved in the international dynamic of care and domestic work. Unlike previously, today migrant domestic workers are more likely to be married, with dependent children in their home country, with a previous history of employment, and higher levels of education. All this transformed domestic work from a permanent occupation, into a (desirably) temporary one, with the potential for social mobility in the country of origin and rarely in the one of migration, according to H. Lutz. Nevertheless, a trend toward indefinite prolongation and permanence of migration may occur, often motivated by poor employment opportunities at home. As many highly educated women (e.g.. from former communist countries) undertake domestic work in developed countries, “the maid issue” ceased to be a matter of class and became one of ethnicity and nationality. Despite the model of the autonomous voluntary migrant (an inheritance of the “single adult male” model), migration is never completely independent or isolated from family. Recent research contradicts the profile of the single Chinese migrant woman, by demonstrating that both single and married women

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migrate, often leaving children in the care of grandmothers during successive episodes of departure. Worldwide there are culture-specific social expectations exerted upon migrant mothers, wives, and daughters, which simultaneously reinforce their moral culpability, a sense of sacrifice, and insecurity about relations with children and family obligations. Feminization of migration and transnational motherhood are recent phenomena. Transnational care giving remains largely unacknowledged and underresearched. Previous research has been mainly concerned with the effects on migration upon children remaining in the home country, than with the welfare of migrant women themselves. Yet, emotional and psychological health consequences, concerns over family reunification, anxieties over unauthorized immigration and exhaustion are still ignored social health issues in countries with high immigration. Besides, there is a need for addressing the higher level of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection than comparable population, among female migrant workers, especially domestic and sex workers. Nature of the Migrant Labor Environment Despite being presented as voluntary, migration is not free from political and economic pressures. Polarized economic development and the economic and political power exerted by developed countries are several structural factors driving international migration. Migrant workers are clustered in labor sectors that are themselves poorly paid (domestic work; care of children, sick, and the elderly; textiles; agriculture; tourism services). Thus, discrimination is often hidden by the type of employment and cannot be associated directly the migrant status. Nevertheless, the causality is ambivalent: it is not sure to what extent it is not the overrepresentation of migrants in certain sectors that lowered the salaries in the first place. Employed in occupations that are “dirty, dangerous, and demanding (3-D),” migrant women face high economic, social, and health risks. There are several public campaigns initiated by migrant domestic workers, trade unions and nongovernmental organizations (e.g., Kalayaan and Unite in the UK; NOVA in Philippines). The United Nations Convention for the Protection of All Migrant Workers came into force in 2003. However, through mid-2010, the dozens of ratifying states represent mainly sending countries,

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whereas no Western migrant-receiving state has ratified the convention. It does not propose new rights for migrants, but it guarantees a minimum level of protection for all migrants and equal treatment and working conditions with nationals. The ratification is a sensitive issue for receiving countries. Legalization, family unification for legal workers, status of children born abroad, border control, and issues of expedited removal are several highly politicized topics in the United States. Extent of Gender Role Changes Unclear To what extend is migration having an emancipator role in the lives of women from developing or transitional countries? There are mainly two traditions of research, proposing contrasting results. One group of studies argues that migrant women have increased autonomy, derived from their repositioning into the paid labor market, the control over earnings, and the increased household involvement of men back home. Migration is considered an expression of women’s agency, as it tends not to be imposed by family. Besides, it has been argued that migration into Western, more liberal societies offers the enabling circumstances for women to challenge the male hegemony in the domestic sphere. A different group of research, however, shows that one should not overestimate the degree to which migration liberates women from conventional gender roles. Migrant women redefine motherhood in ways that include breadwinning, but it does not appear that fathers are undertaking previous mothers’ tasks; rather, these are usually assumed by female kin. Besides, recent research reveals the reinforcement of gender inequalities in the context of migration, because of migrant workers’ marginal position in the receiving country. Secluded in occupations without possibilities of advancement, with low trust in institutions, Mexican women in the United States, for instance, avoid establishing cross-gendered networks outside work because of concerns over reputation. According to the same research, men in migrant couples, try to balance the disruption of family connections and lack of familiarity with the new environment by developing a defense mechanism that relies on idealized gender behaviors. Further research is necessary to explore the intricate transformations in gender relations that intervene during and after

migration and the forms of social control and care operating beyond borders. For the moment, a large research confirms Parreñas’s finding that although women’s migration has questioned several traditional gender practices, in effect it has not transformed the established gender ideology. See Also: Domestic Workers; Elder Care; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Grandmothers; Working Mothers. Further Readings Asis, Milagros Maruja, Shirlena Huang, and Brenda Yeoh. “When the Light of the Home Is Abroad: Unskilled Female Migration and the Filipino Family.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, v.25/2 (2004). Horton, Sarah. “Consuming Childhood: ‘Lost’ and ‘Ideal’ Childhoods as a Motivation for Migration.” Anthropological Quarterly, v.81/4 (2008). Lutz, Helma, ed. Migration and Domestic Work. A European Perspective on a Global Theme. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008. Parreñas, Rhacel. “Long Distance Intimacy: Class, Gender and Intergenerational Relations Between Mothers and Children in Filipino Transnational Families.” Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs, v.5/4 (2005). Phizacklea, Annie. “Women, Work and Migration.” Conference on “Migration and Mobility.” Kingston University, 1999. www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/briefings/ brief3.pdf (accessed July 2010). United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Human Development Report. Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development. New York: UNDP, 2009. Maria-Carmen Pantea Babeş Bolyai University

Military, Women in the Women have served a vital role in just about every major battle and in every major military throughout history, but their official participation has been limited in most countries throughout time. Women’s participation often comes in association with the military, in either civilian roles or in auxiliary corps, rather than as direct participants. Women’s current



position in most major world militaries is still quite precarious. Many countries are just now beginning to allow women’s service, since many militaries still rely on the conscription of men to fill their ranks. Those women who do serve in militaries also face many barriers both occupationally and socially. The most progressive inclusion of women in a major world military is the Israeli military, where women are active service members, and are even permitted in combat. Israel is also the only major military that conscripts women. The U.S. military, while also quite progressive in its acceptance and inclusion of women in its formal military service, still disallows women in certain combat positions, and has yet to include women in any form of the draft. Many European nations have a fluctuating history with women, often allowing them to serve in connection with the military during times of war. Many of these countries have only more recently begun to allow women into their militaries in a formal capacity during peacetime, and most of these roles are still restricted. This entry will focus on women’s participation in formal state militaries, rather than in guerrilla, militia, or other nonsanctioned militaries. The article does not address all world militaries, but focuses on some of those that allow women to serve, with an emphasis on the Israeli and U.S. militaries, both of which have high percentages of women who serve and a higher level of gender integration than other world militaries. Israeli Military The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was established at the same time as the State of Israel was founded in 1948, after World War II. The role of the IDF has changed greatly over the years, from guerrilla warfare, to more traditional warfare, to urban warfare and counter terrorism. Women have been active members of the IDF since its inception, though at varying rates and in shifting occupations over time. There are three different service routes within the IDF: Regular Service, which constitutes years of conscription that all Israeli citizens must serve; Permanent Service, which is a longer-term contractual agreement to serve in the military; and Reserve Service, where citizens are called up to active duty after the completion of their Regular Service. Participation in the Regular Service is mandatory for all non-Arab Israeli citizens over the age of 18.

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Men are required to serve three years, while women are required to serve two. While there are some exceptions made, based on physical or psychological injury or on religious grounds, women may also avoid service based on marital status. A third of female conscripts are exempt from military service based on religious or marital grounds, which is nearly twice the exemption made for male conscripts. Permanent Service commences after tenure in the regular service, and is open to any and all who wish to have a military career. While fewer women than men join the military on a permanent basis, as of 2002 women make up 33 percent of lower-rank officers, 21 percent of captains and majors, and 3 percent of the most senior ranks. While nominally Reserve Service can call up anyone who participated in Regular Service, in practice, mainly men are called up. The call to Reserve Service has soldiers participating in training and activities up to one month annually in order to keep soldiers’ training up to date. Reserve soldiers may also be called to active duty in times of imminent crisis. For women, those in combat roles get called for active reserve more often than those who served in noncombat roles, and many only for a few years following their active service. Women also have more opportunities for exemption based on marital status or pregnancy and/or parenthood. Women’s opportunities to serve in combat and combat related fields have changed greatly over time, but since 2005, over 80 percent of military occupational specialties (MOSs) are open to Israeli women, including navy shipboard service, piloting fighter jets, and even artillery positions. All women’s combat service is voluntary. In 2001, the IDF eliminated its Women’s Corps command as a means to help integrate women into regular service, but the IDF did keep an “adviser for women’s affairs.” Female soldiers now fall under the authority of individual units based on jobs, and not on gender. U.S. Military Women’s current participation in the U.S. military is vital to the survival of the institution, but in spite of this, their place within the organization is rather precarious. The changing landscape of U.S. social and political ideology has forced the military to adjust its

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U.S. female Airmen and Soldiers stand in an all-women formation as part of a 380th Air Expeditionary Wing retreat ceremony honoring Women’s History Month, March 19, 2010, at an undisclosed location in southwest Asia.

institutional structure to allow for the presence and participation of women. These changes have helped to increase the number of women participating and the types of roles they are allowed to hold, without equally influencing changes in the masculine culture of the institution. In order to understand women’s current situation in the military, one must first understand the long history of women’s participation. Women’s history with the institution has been one of conflict and inconsistency. The ambivalent relationship the military has historically had with women also helps explain many of the current social, cultural, and occupational challenges female soldiers still face today. Before 1941, the U.S. military was literally an exclusively male profession. Beginning in 1941,

women began their first certified involvement with the military. Women had previously served as nurses and aids to soldiers, but the Woman’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) marked the first instance when women were allowed to have an occupation directly associated with the military. The initial reasoning for wanting a women’s corps was to fill clerical position to free up men who currently filled those positions, and utilize them in other stations. The bill explicitly stated that the purpose for the WAAC was meant for service with the Army, not “in” the Army. The distinction was that these women were only aiding the military men in their pursuits, not joining them in the battle. They were not considered a direct branch of the military, as is evident in their title, Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. Because of their secondary,



or auxiliary, status, women were not entitled to the same pay, benefits, or ranks as their male counterparts. Soon after the commencement of the WAAC, other branches of the military, such as the Navy and Marines, began permitting women to join as integrated members, though in separate women’s corps. This in turn lowered the desirability for women to hold auxiliary positions in the Army. Because of this, the enlistment rate dropped drastically, and subsequently U.S. Congress signed a bill in 1943 establishing the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), where women were given full military status. The Army was later the first branch to make women a part of their regular, integrated service. Women within military service included the WACs, the WAVES (women accepted for volunteer emergency service in the Navy), the SPARs (Coast Guard), and the WAF (Women’s Air Force). These women served in a wide variety of military positions, ranging from drivers to photographers to pilots to weather forecasters. More than 150,000 women served during World War II—they served their country both domestically and abroad, and were honored with a number of medals and citations. The important services these women provided, no matter how good a job they did, did not lessen their social burden nor increase their status or opportunities within the military. Every achievement a woman made was met with direct opposition and required a fight on some level. After World War II, Congress felt pressure to install the various women’s corps (which were originally only a wartime addition) as a full-time part of the U.S. military. They accomplished this with the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in 1948. The act allowed women full-time participation in the military, instead of just wartime, but did not yet integrate women with the men. Women continued to serve in every branch of the military throughout the United States and at bases around the world. It was not until 1967 that the military finally lifted promotion restrictions, allowing women to rise to the positions of general and commander. At this time, entrance into previously banned areas of service made weapons training and defense readiness a mandatory part of women’s training. With more opportunity for upward mobility and the allowance of women into combat support positions, the size of the all-volunteer corps nearly tripled. From 1973 to

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1978, a time when men’s participation in the military dropped drastically after the disbandment of the draft and the installment of an All-Volunteer Force, women’s participation boomed. This drastic increase in women’s participation and the drastic decrease in men’s participation during this time lead to a decision uniting the two forces into one integrated Army: the Navy, Air Force, and eventually even the Marines later followed suit. Through 1981, the government placed a ceiling on the number of women allowed in the various branches of the military: the Army had the largest allotment of women, with a cap at 65,000. The government explained the ceiling by stating that it gave them the opportunity to better study the issue of women in combat. This ceiling prevented numbers of highly qualified women from enlisting or gaining a commission. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, there were a number of changes to the MOSs open to women. In 1994, the government lifted almost all restrictions on women’s combat assistance, and women were only restricted from occupations that would put them directly in ground combat, or into positions that dealt directly with those units. This opened up nearly 90 percent of career fields to women. These standards remained in place through the rest of the century and into the late-20th- and early-21st-century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this time, warfare has changed significantly. While women remain restricted from direct combat, they continue to fight, and even die, in combat-related fields. Although there have been discussions of once again changing the restrictions on women’s participation in combat, the regulations have not significantly changed since the mid-1990s. Over 30 years after the initial integration of women into the general U.S. military branches, women now make up around 15 percent of today’s total department of defense enlisted and officer positions. This is a significant increase over the not quite 2 percent that women constituted in the 1950s and through the early 1970s. European/NATO Militaries The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is a military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America, currently has 28 member states. As of the turn of the 21st century, 16

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member nations of NATO have women serving in their armed forces. Two of the exceptions are Iceland, which has no armed forces, and Luxembourg, where no women serve. In the United States, as outlined above, women make up over 15 percent of the armed forces. Canada has the second highest representation of women at just over 10 percent of regular service and almost 20 percent of the reserve forces. In Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (UK), women make up between 7 and 8 percent of the armed forces. Women comprise about 5 percent of the armed forces in Denmark, Portugal, and Norway, while in Greece and Spain, the rates are between 2 and 4 percent. Turkey currently only allows women officers, not as enlisted members of its armed forces; and in Italy, recruitment of women only began in 1999, so although the number of women who serve is still fairly low, there is public support for women’s participation. Until the 21st century, Germany limited women’s participation in the armed forces to positions in the medical service or in military bands. While women made up nearly a quarter of medical service positions, they were not allowed to serve in other roles within the military until 2000. In 2000, the European High Counsel ruled that it was against European law to disallow women’s service in most branches of the military. The court case on this issue was based on a suit by a German woman, and thus Germany changed its policies: many other European nations followed suit. Many European nations still rely on men’s conscription for a significant portion of their armed forces. There has never been a draft for women in any NATO country. While the issue of women’s service in the military has only come to the attention of many member states in the past decade, many of the nations are currently actively engaged in recruiting women, as well as increasing women soldiers’ quality of life, in order to increase retention rates. Most European nations still limit women’s participation to noncombat roles. South American Militaries Military dictatorships have long been central to Latin American governmental control. Many South America nations have a tradition of machismo and government dictatorships. But in recent years, women have

been appointed to start giving direction on matters of defense. Since the turn of the century, five South American countries have named women to head their defense ministries for the first time: Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. The appointment of women to these positions highlights women’s recent progress in the region. While many Latin American militaries remain exclusively male in their composition, the installment of women in key leadership positions denotes a changing relationship between the government and militaries, as well as the changing culture. The first appointment of a woman as a military leader came in 2002. Chile had a female defense minister who later became president, at which time she appointed another woman as defense minister. In Argentina and Uruguay, where military rule was also prevalent through the late 20th century, two women (both former human rights lawyers) are running the defense ministries. In all three countries, there is a changing relationship between government and military, with an increased emphasis on human rights, and a decreased reliance on military strength and power. Asian Militaries In China, military service is compulsory for all men at the age of 18, but because of the high rate of volunteers, China has not yet had to enforce the draft. Women in China are allowed to serve in medical, veterinary, and other technical positions, but are still disallowed from combat and combat-related positions. Women are also allowed to serve in the Indian, Pakistani, and the North and South Korean militaries. In most of these countries, as in most parts of the world, women’s roles are limited to medical, educational, or other noncombat-related fields considered more acceptable for women’s participation. Current Issues for Women in the Military Many women who occupy positions in militaries around the world are still somewhat limited in their field choices and face a “glass ceiling.” There are very few women in the highest ranks of any world military. Some scholars suggest the ceilings placed on women’s participation in countries like the United States, or the late start for women in European militaries, can in part explain the dearth of higher ranked women. Since it takes so long to get from the lower



to the higher ranks, usually 15 to 20 years, and since fewer women populated the military in the past 15 to 30 years, it would make sense that fewer occupy the higher positions today. This, however, is only part of the problem. Not only are women limited in numbers within their fields, they are also limited as to which fields that they can fill. Many militaries still limit the occupations they allow women to occupy. For the most part, women are excluded from all combat and some combat-related fields. Traditional outlooks on women assume that they do not want to be directly involved in combat, nor are they capable of such occupations. Many people believe that men are more physically and emotionally suited for combat roles. Opinions about women’s participation in combat fields vary cross-culturally, and have changed over time, but worldwide, there is still much contention on the issue. These views are not necessarily supported by fact or reality. Whether or not women want to be in combat roles, many are currently still exposed to combat and all of its associated terrors, without the associated benefits. Critics of the combat restrictions in place in many countries assert that with modern warfare, there is little distinction between combatant and noncombatant soldiers—both types are killed in battle without bias—and therefore, it is absurd to believe that the military can protect women by restricting them from combat positions. This lack of distinction on the part of the “enemy” and technology is especially apparent in the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where many women have died or have been captured while serving in positions listed as noncombatant. Other than restrictions in job opportunities and unequal representation in the higher ranks, women also suffer from social restrictions. During women’s participation in World War II, male soldiers spread a series of slanderous rumors about the women serving in the military, depicting them as prostitutes to the soldiers, as women of loose morals and poor character, and as women who were prone to be pregnant out of wedlock. These rumors lowered the moral of the women, and in some instances caused serious emotional distress. At a time when slandering a woman’s reputation was as harmful and dangerous to her as the acts described, this was a very dangerous and mildly successful tactic in discouraging women from

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joining the military. When investigated, these reports were found not only to be fallacious, but more often than not to be the result of disgruntled male soldiers who were uncomfortable letting women into their sacred space. Military historians believe that former notions of military women as prostitutes continue to vex modern military women. Some efforts to counteract these prejudices led militaries to instate conduct and appearance codes for women who joined. These rules included restricting female soldiers interactions with their male counterparts. As time has progressed, so too have the social restrictions placed on women. Women are no longer as restricted in their socialization with male colleagues, but an unhealthy social environment remains where military women live and work. Women in early-21st-century militaries have to deal with sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and cruel double standards. Beginning in World War I, military psychiatrists said that in order for women to achieve full participation in the military, men would have to rise above their prejudices about women and their roles. Almost 100 years after this initial observation and recommendation for change, women still serve beside men who are taught and encouraged to see their female counterparts not as peers, but rather as inferior or otherwise unsuited for military service. Facing Sexual Harassment and Assault One form of unhealthy social environment in the military is the abundance of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination has been prevalent in the military since long before women were even members, and the tradition has held through to the modern military. Most modern militaries have policies prohibiting sexual harassment, and even provide punishment for offenders. Militaries give special instruction during training and throughout a soldier’s years of service to discourage such behavior, but even the most strenuous, zero-tolerance policies hardly deter the behavior and are at most mildly effective. Sexual harassment continues to be a problem for most modern militaries, as it is all over the occupational world. Part of the problem of sexual harassment in the military is that people are often confined to very small areas with large numbers of people. People in the military not only work but frequently live in very close

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quarters, possibly breeding a hostile and dangerous environment conducive to sexual harassment. Some academics also hypothesize that sexual harassment is a way in which men express their hostility toward women for invading a once all-male domain. Studies of sexual harassment in the military were slow to occur, and changes made in response to findings have been implemented at an even slower pace. Although the colloquial definition of sexual harassment varies between female officers and enlisted women, all the military women in a number of studies agreed that sexual harassment does in fact occur. Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t stop at sexual harassment: many world militaries also have a much higher sexual assault rate than the civilian world. These assaults range from inappropriate touching to rape. Many assaults go unreported, due to problems with the process of reporting them, as well as women’s fears of retaliation, retribution, or sanction. In some military situations, women experience retaliation for both reporting and testifying, and since militaries are such group-minded arenas, woman are often hard pressed to find men, or other women for that matter, who will testify against the perpetrators of the offenses. There are a number of retaliations used when women bring suit against their aggressors: they are given bad evaluations, put under criminal investigation themselves, further sexually and physically assaulted, or generally made to “pay” for their “disobedience.” Even when a woman’s claims are heard and their perpetrators punished, critics complain that the punishments are often not nearly harsh enough, often consisting of nothing more than marching rounds or janitorial duties. All in all, militaries are socially and sexually dangerous places for women, making it difficult for them to immerse themselves in the culture, and perhaps discouraging other women from joining. Gender Gaps In spite of recent efforts on the part of governments to integrate or equalize their militaries, most world militaries still have a very distinct gender gap. As previously mentioned, qualifications for women differ from those of men, job and promotion opportunities vary greatly, and women face social roadblocks in advancing in their careers. For years, world militaries have overlooked, ignored, or questioned the potential and abilities

of women without considering how their perspectives and social attributes might benefit the military. According to military statistics, women in the military display overall better behavior, and therefore lose less time to disciplinary restrictions. They are also less likely to over indulge on alcohol or use and abuse drugs during military service. Women, on average, enter the military more educated than men, making them more suitable for certain occupations. Some studies show that the presence of women influences male soldiers, improving their behavior in some areas. Women, in effect, are a civilizing agent in the military. Future Aspirations In all countries, except for Israel, women are and always have been involved in military service on a volunteer basis. In countries where there is no male conscription, female participation has drastically increased the overall number of soldiers. In countries with male conscription and where some men seek to avoid service, many women still have a desire to serve. Instead of celebrating the fact that women are eager to serve, there is a great deal of resistance and an inordinate amount of debate surrounding women’s participation. With a host of logically circular critiques, many critics of women in the military claim both that women would not have to be in the military if things were going well, and that women are the reason things are not going well in the military. Needless to say, the road to full integration, not only occupationally but also socially, still has not occurred for women in military service. Most of the restrictions placed on women’s service and the discomfort with women’s participation in militaries have to do with cultural standards related to gender. While there are significant cultural differences between countries, one fairly consistent concept is the idea of gender segregation. Men are often associated with a kind of masculinity that lends its self to violence and aggression, while women are relegated to the realm of nurturing. Although there are mythological stories of women’s participation in war, such as the myth of the Amazons, for the most part, militaries have been the domain of men and an arena for exhibiting masculinity. Modern militaries still struggle with issues of gender stereotypes that suggest that women make life (give birth), while men take life (fight in wars). In spite of the ever-changing dynam-

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ics of modern militaries, some of these traditional ideas of gender remain, affecting women’s experience and opportunities with and in the military. Women’s participation in military service often comes out of necessity, rather than changing cultural ideologies. But in order for women to ever be fully integrated members of military service, not only the rules, but also the culture of the military must change. See Also: Glass Ceiling; Lesbians in the Military; Military Leadership, Women in; Military Stationed in Muslim Countries; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military; Sexual Harassment. Further Readings Addis, E., V. Russo, and L. Sebesta. Women Soldiers: Images and Realities. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994. D’Amico, F. and L. Weinstein. Gender Camouflage: Women and the U.S. Military. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Friedl, V. Women in the United States Military, 1901– 1995: A Research Guide and Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. Holm, J. Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1992. Rogan, H. Mixed Company: Women in the Modern Army. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1981. Sherrow, V. Women and the Military: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Stacie R. Furia Northland College

Military Leadership, Women in Biographies and histories document pervasive male dominance in military roles, while in the United States and worldwide, military cultures continue to be shaped by male leaders and heroes. Although women have unofficially been involved in the security and defense of the United States since the Revolutionary War, and women have been members of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) since its inception, Congress did not pass the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act until 1948. The act made women

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other than nurses eligible to serve in the active duty military in times of peace as permanent regular and reserve members of the Army, Navy, Marines, and the then recently formed Air Force. Major Historic Change Historically, women’s leadership in the military is a new phenomenon, one that gained momentum after the Vietnam War with the creation of the all-volunteer military force in the 1970s. After the creation of the all-volunteer military, U.S. gender integration of the Armed Forces began when President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 94-106 in 1975, opening the formerly all-male U.S. service academies to female applicants, and thereby creating conditions in which women officers would lead men. Women volunteered for the military services in record numbers after these changes, and, as the number of military women increased, the military and the government saw large numbers of female military volunteers as essential—rather than ancillary—due to the dearth of eligible men volunteering to serve in the military. The number of women in the U.S. military increased from 4 percent in 1974 to 14 percent in 2008. In 2008, the percentage of women in the active duty military included 6 percent in the Marines, 14 percent in the Army, 15 percent in the Navy, and 20 percent in the Air Force. The percentage of women in the military has increased, and so has the number of women selected and placed into the primary leadership roles of officer and noncommissioned officer. Although women leaders are evident in most military specialties, there is a disparity between men and women in some military combat specialties. Women still have limited opportunities based, on departmental regulations within the current combat exclusion policies that do not allow women the opportunity to serve in some combat specialties such as infantry, Special Forces, and armor positions. Globally, women military members have increased in many parts of the world. The scope of their military service has also intensified and expanded. In 2010, female Pakistani air force fighter pilots, female Israeli artillery soldiers, and Australian sailors all participate in combat operations with their male counterparts. Also noteworthy is the increase of women military leaders in many parts of the world.

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Leadership and Gender Leadership is a complex human interaction process; due to this complexity, there are hundreds of definitions of leadership. A common definition is that leadership is an influence process between two or more people who desire to accomplish a common goal. In addition to positive character attributes (i.e., values such as integrity, selfless service, duty, courage, respect, and emotional intelligence including empathy), the best leaders are confident, intelligent, make well thought-out decisions using their critical-thinking skills, and they are calm in the face of crisis or stress. The mental construct of leadership has masculine characteristics and traits. Worldwide, women have culturally been relegated to the lower rungs of the organizational hierarchy and have less frequently been afforded leadership positions or opportunities for promotion and advancement. This underrepresentation of women at the senior levels of organizations is called the “glass ceiling” effect. The glass ceiling is a phrase and a metaphor commonly used to describe the inability of women and minorities to ascend past a certain management level of an organization. The glass ceiling allegedly prevents or limits women from rising to the senior levels of management. Leadership competencies (behaviors) such as leading by example, clearly communicating a vision of the future, actively listening and motivating others, continually learning, creating a positive climate that accepts honest mistakes, one-on-one counseling and coaching, and developing subordinates or followers, are needed in today’s complex environments—and women prefer using these leadership competencies. Women’s Leadership Differences In general, men and women are equally effective as leaders, although men and women seem to lead in different ways. Stereotypical gender differences state that male leaders are task-oriented with controlling, transactional, and directive leadership styles, while women leaders are interpersonally oriented with transformational and collaborative leadership styles. In the 21st century’s global environment, women leaders prefer using participative decision making, sharing power and expertise, encouraging teamwork, showing concern for others, actively resolving conflict, and valuing diversity.

The collaborative, interactive, and democratic style of leadership that many women leaders use is called transformational leadership. Women are more likely than men to inspire, mentor, and creatively stimulate their followers while leading. These leadership actions have transformational qualities that build cohesive teams and encourage participation and relationship building. U.S. military doctrine expands the definition of leadership as the process of influencing others to accomplish the mission by providing purpose, direction, and motivation, while improving the organization and developing the subordinates. Globally, the military is dependent on good leaders to complete its mission. The role models that have been highlighted in military history are primarily male field generals from past wars. There is currently a void in the development of some potential military women leaders. A part of leadership development and relationships concerns the lack of mentorship for women in the military. Mentoring and Military Example Mentoring relationships have always existed in the workplace, although the term mentoring has not always been used to describe the relationship. Mentoring, also called “sponsorship” and “coaching,” is a factor mentioned by women military leaders when asked what factors they thought were important for advancement and promotion. Military leaders are found at every level and branch of the military. Every soldier, sailor, marine, and airman has an immediate supervisor or leader to guide their actions, decision making, and development for future leadership positions. Military leadership grooming, sometimes called mentoring, is critical for women. Many military women are not as exposed to mentoring, primarily due to fewer women leaders and role models in the military. A slow change in military leadership gender is being witnessed in the world. Although women were leaders in the military prior to the 21st century, Congressional law changes based on societal attitude changes and demands for equality enabled women to rise to the highest levels of the military (general or flag officer rank), attend the prestigious military academies, and command at all levels. An especially promising milestone for women’s increased opportunities for high-level military leadership occurred in November 2008 when U.S. Gen-

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eral Ann Dunwoody became the first woman fourstar general in the military. This huge achievement indicates women are being afforded advancement opportunities based on their leadership performance and decision-making ability. In summary, in the turbulent 21st century, decision making and leading others are infinitely more complex and challenging than in former times. In this environment, the military remains the vanguard for protecting society. Women leaders are essential to the successful operation of the military. They bring numerous needed leadership skills in developing self-directed teams, and they are empathetic critical thinkers who value both mission accomplishment and taking care of people. See Also: Combat, Women in; Glass Ceiling; Management, Women in; Management Styles, Gender Theories; Mentoring; Military, Women in. Further Readings Bass, Bernard, M. Bass & Stodgill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, & Managerial Applications, 3rd ed. New York: The Free Press, 1990. Eagly, Alice, et al. “Transformational, Transactional, and Laissez-Faire Leadership Styles: A Meta-Analysis Comparing Women and Men.” Psychological Bulletin, v.129/4 (2003). Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation, Inc. “Statistics on Women in the Military.” http://www.womensmemorial.org/PDFs/StatsonWIM .pdf (accessed July 2010). Yvonne Doll U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Military Stationed in Muslim Countries Women perform military duties in a number of countries where the dominant religion is Islam. Some female soldiers from Western countries are deployed in support of combat operations or otherwise stationed in Muslim countries. Women also serve in the militaries of a number of Muslim countries. There are numerous restrictions placed on these servicewomen.

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Women in Muslim Countries’ Militaries Several Muslim countries’ militaries contain women, though these women are often confined to traditionally feminine roles in administration, education, and medicine. When women are confined to limited specialties, they are also denied advancement opportunities and other benefits. Although women have served in Turkey’s and Jordan’s militaries since the 1950s, these countries have mainly limited women to noncombat positions. The Turkish Armed Forces restricts women to the officer, as opposed to enlisted, ranks. The Turkish Air Force is currently training its first female jet pilots, but Turkish women cannot serve in infantry, armor, or submarine specialties. Women primarily served in administrative and nursing positions in Jordan until the 1990s, when the government opened the bodyguard, military police, and military intelligence positions to women. Women have served in a number of other Muslim countries’ militaries, including revolutionary forces in Iran and Libya. Syrian women have enlisted since 1970, and they perform numerous specialties including parachuting. Libyan head of state Mu’ammar Quadhafi’s push for gender equality included opening the Libyan Women’s Military Academy, which opened in 1978. Bangladeshi women serve in the “Gentlewomen Cadets.” Pakistani women have served in the army since that nation’s founding, and recently they have entered into combat and elite forces positions. The militaries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Oman, and Sudan also have female soldiers. In some countries, such as Iran and the United Arab Emirates, women perform military duties while wearing a black chador, a cloak that cover the head and body. During the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the militaries in these countries welcomed women. While women served in the Iraqi military since 1981, the women usually occupied administrative positions. By June 2003, women performed administrative, medical, and public affairs duties in the Iraqi Armed Forces. By 2010, more than 120 Iraqi women completed combat training under American soldiers. In 1984, Khatol Mohammadzai became Afghanistan’s first female parachutist, and today she is the only serving woman general there. Women training for inclusion into the reorganized Afghanistan National

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Army conducted their first live-fire exercise in January 2007; many wore scarves to cover their hair and some their faces, while others simply wore the traditional military helmet without further cover. Western Women Soldiers Serving in War Zones Military women from several non-Muslim countries are currently aiding combat operations in Muslim countries. In fact, women from the United States, United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Spain, and Ukraine have died during military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The strict gender norms of Muslim countries have required the U.S. military to develop new positions for women soldiers. In Iraq, the U.S. Marines developed the “Lioness” program, where female troops served alongside male combat troops in order to search Muslim women without offending Islamic tradition. The perceived success of this program encouraged the development of “cultural teams” where U.S. Marine women engage directly with Afghan civilians to gain intelligence and the trust of the civilian population. The guerrilla nature of these wars has meant that numerous female soldiers have often come under fire, and they have returned fire. Although both the UK and the United States bar women from direct ground combat positions, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have no front lines, and this has meant that women in noncombat supply, transportation, and other specialties have had to participate in battle. These wars are also the first wars in which U.S. women have flown attack helicopters and fighter jets in close air support missions. Restrictions on Women Serving in Muslim Countries A number of rules constrain the actions and clothing of non-Muslim women serving in Muslim countries. In particular, women soldiers from the United States are encouraged to wear some form of head covering while serving in Muslim countries. These restrictions have generated controversy. In 1991, U.S. military commanders in Saudi Arabia directed women soldiers to wear the abaya, a cloak similar to the aforementioned chador; ride in the back seat of vehicles; and be accompanied by a man when traveling off the military installations. U.S. military men were forbidden to wear traditional

Saudi clothing, and women working for the U.S. State Department were not expected to wear an abaya. In response to a 2002 lawsuit brought by Lieutenant Colonel Martha McSally, the highest-ranking female fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. legislature forbade military commanders from requiring or encouraging the abaya. While the abaya was forbidden in Saudi Arabia, female soldiers have been encouraged to show cultural sensitivity in Iraq and Afghanistan by wearing headscarves when working with civilians. However, not all women wear these. Some of the women soldiers do claim the headscarves assist communication with Afghan men. While the U.S. military offers cultural sensitivity training for most soldiers deploying to Muslim countries, men are not encouraged to don Muslim cultural symbols or dress. These policies reflect not only a double-standard for military soldiers, but it links women primarily to culture and men primarily to traditional warfare. These military policies’ policing of gender coexists with strong praise for women’s recent combat performances in Muslim countries. See Also: Afghanistan; Iraq; Islam; Military, Women in the; Military Leadership, Women in; Turkey; Wars of National Liberation, Women in. Further Readings Carreiras, H. Gender and the Military: Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies. New York: Routledge, 2006. Holmstedt, K. Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2007. McSally, M. “Women in Combat: Is the Current Policy Obsolete?” Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, v.14 (2007). Lisa Leitz Hendrix College

Millennial Generation The terms Millennial Generation (Millennials) or Generation Y (Gen Y) are used to describe the generation that followed Generation X, which in turn



followed the Baby Boom generation. These generations are defined variously but a common definition of Gen Y (used, for example, by the Pew Research Center) is people born from 1977 to 1990, many of whom came of age in the early years of the New Millennium (2000). Millennial Generation Priorities One salient characteristic that has affected Millennials in many countries is a lowered fertility rate, particularly in industrialized countries. For instance, in the European Union (EU) from 1960 to 1964, the average total fertility rate was 2.64, while in 1980–84 it was 1.79, which is below replacement level fertility. This means that on average, families are smaller, allowing more parental resources to be spent on each child: some have termed Millennials “trophy children” and their parents “helicopter parents,” to refer to parents that play an unusually large role in their children’s lives. Smaller families increase the potential for generational conflict, as in the future, fewer workers will be required to support more retired people, who thanks to increasing life expectancy rates, will spend more years than previous generations drawing health and pension benefits. In most countries, women in Generation Y are far more likely to work outside the home than women of a generation or two earlier. For instance, in 2000 in the United States, about 75 percent of women aged 25–34 were working outside the home, compared to about 50 percent in 1975. Women in this age group are also less likely to be married and to have children compared to earlier generations. In 2000, about 60 percent were married and less than 60 percent had children, while in 1975 over 75 percent of women in this age group were married and 76 percent had children. Generation Y women are less likely to see a conflict between being a mother and having a career, and also less likely to believe that the so-called traditional family, in which the husband earns the money and the wife takes care of the children and household, is an optimal arrangement. Contrary to some reports in the popular press, Millennials place a high value on traditional family life. A 2009 Pew research study of U.S. Millennials found that their highest priorities were being a good parent (52 percent) and having a successful marriage (30 percent). A 2007 poll found that almost three-

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quarters of U.S. Millennials reported concerns about balancing professional and personal obligations. Female Millennials plan to marry and have their children later in life, in part because of the emphasis they place establishing a career. On the other hand, a higher proportion (over one third) of Millennial women who gave birth to children are unmarried as compared to earlier generations. Millennials are more tolerant of alternative families; for instance, only 32 percent disapprove of gay couples raising children, as opposed to 36 percent of Generation X and 48 percent of Baby Boomers. Generation Y Outside of the United States In most countries, Millennials are the best-educated generation in history. In sub-Saharan Africa, the duration of school attendance increased from slightly more than 4 years in 1970 to more than 8 years in 2008, while in North American and western Europe it increased from just under 8 years to almost 14 years in the same time period. In the United States, over half (54 percent) of Millennials have attended at least some college, and Millennial women are more likely than Millennial men to attend and graduate from college, reversing the pattern of previous generations. This pattern is found for the Millennial Generation in many industrialized countries as well, while in developing countries (particularly in south and west Asia and sub-Saharan Africa), men still compose a disproportionate share of college enrollees and graduates. Due to national and world economic conditions, Millennials face a tough job market in many countries. In 2009, 37 percent of U.S. 18-to-29-year-olds were unemployed—the highest share in that age group in over 30 years. In the EU, the youth unemployment rate has been twice that of the entire population over the past decade. See Also: Attainment, College Degree; Educational Opportunities/Access; Single Mothers; Work/Life Balance; Working Mothers. Further Readings Jones, Sydney and Susannah Fox. “Generations Online in 2009.” Pew Research Center report. http:// pewresearch.org/pubs/1093/generations-online (accessed October 2010).

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Pew Research Center. “Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.” (2010). http://pewsocialtrends. org/2010/02/24/millennials-confident-connected -open-to-change (accessed October 2010). Sloan Work and Family Research Network, Boston College. “Questions and Answers about Generation X/Generation Y: A Sloan Work & Family Research Network Fact Sheet.” (2008). http://wfnetwork.bc.edu /pdfs/GXGY.pdf (accessed October 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

Million Mom March Donna Dees-Thomases founded the Million Mom March in 2000. The march, which occurs in Washington, D.C., brings together a group of mothers outraged and terrified by the current state of gun violence in America. The women march to demonstrate support of gun laws that would make obtaining a gun more difficult for youth and criminals, and to quell— if not eradicate—gun violence. In her book Looking for a Few Good Moms: How One Mother Rallied a Million Others Against the Gun Lobby, Dees-Thomases chronicles how she became a champion of women campaigning for stricter gun laws. She explains that after learning about a random shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, California, Dees-Thomases felt paralyzed by shock and fear. In her preface, Dees-Thomases acknowledges all of the dedicated, supportive, untiring women who worked with her between August 1999 (when the Granada Hills shooting occurred) and May 2000, when the first Million Mom March was held on May 14—Mother’s Day. Though march members faced counterprotesters (the Sisters of the Second Amendment) and, as Dees-Thomases describes, “bullies” from the National Rifle Association, the women held a successful rally and continue to do so each year. Fight for Stricter Gun Control Laws Kristin Goss observes in her book Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America that the Million Mom March was the first cause to empha-

size women’s concerns about gun violence in America; women, until then, remained the underrepresented population in the gun control debate. The women marching were primarily concerned with children’s safety related to guns, and protesters built their rhetoric on the symbol of the child. In one well-known instance of Dees-Thomases using this rhetoric to her benefit, she claimed that in the nine months it takes a woman to grow and deliver a baby, the government should be able to design and implement stricter gun control laws. The organization classifies itself as grassroots and houses chapters across America. The mothers involved firmly support the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, members of which also work to establish stricter laws related to gun control. The Million Mom March Organization, in conjunction with the Brady Campaign, hosts a Website that educates readers about gun violence in the United States by sharing testimonies of those whose lives have been affected by gun violence. The Website also informs the public about current gun laws, organization chapters across the country, and ways to support the Million Mom March. Dees-Thomases describes the Million Mom March as developing from a march into a nationwide movement. She claims that before the march, she considered herself a mom, but during the process of designing the march and watching it realize itself, Dees-Thomases started to consider herself an activist as well. Under her leadership, the Million Mom March continues to gain support and, in the process, turns thousands of other women into activists every year. See Also: Brady, Sarah; Children’s Rights; Gun Control. Further Readings Dees-Thomases, Donna. Looking for a Few Good Moms: How One Mother Rallied a Million Others Against the Gun Lobby. New York: Rodale, 2004. Goss, Kristin. Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Million Mom March. http://www.millionmommarch .com (accessed July 2010). Karley Adney University of Wisconsin, Marathon County



Ministry, Protestant Protestant ministry is religious service performed within the Protestant tradition. Because of the numerous and varied denominations that make up the Protestant tradition, there is no singular model of Protestant ministry, or singular set of criteria for determining the ability and qualification of one to serve in ministry. Ordination is the process by which a church recognizes a person’s call and desire to serve in ministry, specifically the ministry of word and sacrament and/ or congregational leadership. The ordination process is more formal and institutionalized in certain denominations, particularly churches maintaining an episcopal polity, including Lutherans, Methodists, and Episcopalian churches, and churches maintaining a Presbyterian polity, such as Presbyterian and Reformed churches. For example, the United Methodist Church has an extensive ordination process with requirements that include completing graduate theological education, undergoing a psychological evaluation, providing written and oral responses to questions relating to doctrine, serving in ministry for one year, and receiving approval from denominational boards. The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s requirements include a graduate theological degree, passing a five-part examination, and approval from the presbytery. Other denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention, are marked by congregational polity in which ecclesial authority resides at the individual congregational level. These denominations recognize the gifts of ministry but do not have a formal, denomination-wide ordination process. Instead, the authority of ordination resides within the local congregational context, where both the requirements for ministry are established and the readiness and ability to serve in ministry are discerned. Women and Protestant Ministry In 1853, Antoinette Brown, a Congregationalist, was the first woman in the United States to be ordained. Her ordination occurred at the congregational level, as was the practice of the Congregationalist church. However, it would be another 100 years before women gained acceptance into the ordained ministry at the denominational level in the so-called Mainline denominations. The United Methodist Church and

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the Presbyterian Church (USA) began giving full ministry access to women in 1956, the Lutheran Church in America (the predecessor of today’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States) in 1970, and the Episcopal Church (USA) in 1976 Other denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod do not allow women to serve as senior pastors. The Southern Baptist Convention recognizes the gifts of women to minister within the church but maintains that the role of senior pastor is for men only. Similarly, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod maintains that the office of senior pastor is reserved for men and that women are only to assist the pastor within his role. Outside of the United States, women have had instrumental roles within Protestant ministry. In Latin America, women have been particularly drawn to Pentecostalism, where their participation has helped redefine gender roles. Although Latin American women have found freedom within Pentecostalism to express their spirituality and have served informally within the church, in many cases they are not interested in entering into formal positions within the church’s ministry, even when those positions are offered to them. Throughout some areas of Africa, women are being given the opportunity to receive theological education to prepare for ministry. However, in denominations that do ordain women within Africa, African women are facing the obstacles of male denomination and patriarchy. Women in Ministry The reason behind an opposition to women serving within Protestant ministry as pastors is largely based on a particular reading of Christian scripture. Churches disallowing women to serve in the pastoral office cite select biblical passages to support their policy. The texts often cited by opponents of women pastors reside within the New Testament writings of Paul as well as other writings attributed to Paul. Examples of these passages include 1 Corinthians 14:33–34, where women are told to remain silent in churches and to ask their husbands at home if they have questions; 1 Timothy 2:11–12, in which women are instructed to learn in silence and are prohibited from teaching men or having authority over men; 1 Timothy 3, in which the qualifications for elders and

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deacons are outlined; and Titus 1, in which elders and bishops are described with masculine pronouns. Further support for the case against women in ministry has come from an understanding of the biblical description of women’s and men’s roles, including statements asserting that man is the head of woman. Although those who oppose women in ministry cite biblical support for their position, there is debate as to whether or not the verses cited are understood and interpreted correctly. This issue becomes particularly questionable as supporters of women in ministry also find biblical support for their stance. In Acts 2:17 and Joel 2:28, it is written that both sons and daughters will prophesy. Mary Magdalene was commissioned to announce the news of Jesus Christ’s resurrection to the male disciples, as recorded in the Gospels. Within the New Testament, in particular, there are examples of women working within the ministry of the early church, including Chloe, Lydia, Nympha, Phoebe, and Priscilla, who led house churches in their homes. Finally, Junia, mentioned in Romans 16:7, is named as a female apostle. Collectively, these examples provide validation for those who support women within ministry. See Also: Evangelical Protestantism; Religion, Women in; Women’s Ordination Conference. Further Readings Clouse, Bonnidell. Women in Ministry: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1989. Grenz, Stanley J. Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995. Holifield, E. Brooks. God’s Ambassadors: A History of the Christian Clergy in America. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007. Heather Morgan Dethloff Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

Mistresses The term mistress has various meanings in our modern world. The most common use of the term describes women who have ongoing extramarital rela-

tionships with married men. Usually these relationships are continuing, secretive, and sexual in nature. Also, many married men provide financially for their mistresses. The term mistress is usually reserved for use in extramarital relationships only. The term does not require that the involved female be married, only the male. The acceptance, motivations, and levels of stigma attached to mistresses have changed over time and vary from one culture to the next. Historic Evolution and Significance The term mistress dates back to the 14th century and originates from Anglo-French and Middle English roots. The term’s original usage described a woman with power, a woman who owns property or servants, or a woman who is the head of an institution—usually in an educational setting. Earlier meanings of the word have largely ceased to be used due to the negative connotations derived from either the ownership of servants or common distain for the later connotation of adultery. Still yet, in many British-English speaking areas of the world, the term is used to denote an educational institution’s female headmaster or other administrative leader. The term mistress is historically significant because it was one of the first terms used to denote nonroyal female power holders. Prior to the development of the term, common women were often seen as powerless across cultures. Royal females have long been seen as powerful women but other leadership roles for females have been historically limited. Placing women in charge of educational institutions (at first only girls’ institutions) was a step in the direction of society’s acceptance of female leadership and early gender equality. The later and alternative meaning of the term also has historic significance. The use of this term, though similar in meaning, marks a clear etymological and cultural distinction from the use of the more ancient term concubine. Concubines are women who cohabitate with a man and his wife. The concubine held status in the household but was seen as ranking below the status of the wife. Historically, the practice of keeping concubines was well documented and largely accepted. This can be seen in early religious writings (Christian, Jewish, and Islamic texts) and Greek and Roman records. However, as time progressed, the practice of keeping concubines was largely shunned.

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This prompted mistresses to replace concubines as extramarital partners and live separately from the already-established matrimonial relationships. Famous examples of married men and mistresses can be seen throughout the remainder of world history and into the present day. Some notable couplings include European royalty (Edward II and Alice Perrers), politicians (John Edwards and Rielle Hunter), and celebrities (Tiger Woods and various women). Modern Cultural Variations Generally speaking, modern cultures are becoming less approving of the practice of men having or keeping mistresses. In U.S. culture, the practice is highly stigmatized yet frequently practiced. This distain for infidelity is seen legally and socially. Legally speaking, if a man has a mistress (or is otherwise unfaithful), his wife has the right to file for a divorce and usually receives alimony as a sign the man was at fault for the failed relationship. Socially speaking, there is often public embarrassment for the offending man and public anger at the existence of his extramarital relationship. Recently, political and celebrity affairs have sparked media firestorms that are sure to be long lasting and cause damage to reputations and careers. In other cultures, such as the Chinese culture, the practice of married men having mistresses is common and largely accepted as a type of status symbol. Many Chinese political and business leaders keep multiple mistresses. This tradition is an ancient practice in China that has made a recent resurgence. Many Chinese mistresses come from lower socioeconomic classes and become mistresses to powerful men to make financial or social gains. While the wives of these cheating men may not embrace the idea of mistresses, little opposition is noted in this particular culture. See Also: China; Feminism, American; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Marriage. Further Readings British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). “Islam: Slavery in Islam.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/ islam/history/slavery_1.shtml (accessed April 2010). Coonan, Clifford. “China’s Era of Corruption Feeds Desire for Concubines.” The Irish Times (August 8, 2009).

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Goldman, Russell. “Trouble in the Tiger Den: What Can Woods Do to Save Reputation?” ABC News (December 9, 2009). The Jewish Encyclopedia. “Concubines.” http://www .JewishEncyclopedia.com (accessed April 2010). MacIntyre, Ben. “Farewell to the Last Royal Mistress.” The Times (London) (February 12, 2005). Carl J. Brown East Tennessee State University

Moldova Moldova, a nation located in eastern Europe, has one the highest population densities of the former Soviet republics, but low fertility and high emigration has led to recent population declines. The dominant ethnic group is Moldovan (Romanian) and the dominant religion is Eastern Orthodox. Moldovan women have legal equality and high educational attainment, but face traditional domestic roles and high rates of violence; they are negatively affected by the country’s economic and political instability. Moldova was 36th of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. The 2009 fertility rate was 1.4 births per woman. The infant mortality rate was 16 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate was 22 per 100,000 live births. Women receive 126 days of paid maternity leave through the state Social Insurance Fund. Among married women, 68 percent use contraceptives. Due to economic and political crises, many young couples live with the groom’s parents, divorce and spousal abandonment rates are high, and many young women offer themselves as “mail-order brides.” Mothers, grandmothers, and older female siblings provide most childcare and perform most domestic chores. Education is compulsory from ages 6 to 17, with preschool and higher education also available. Female school enrollment rates stood at 87 percent for the primary level, 82 percent at the secondary level, and 48 percent at the tertiary level in the 2009 research. The average school attendance level is just over 10 years. 2009 literacy rates were high, at 98 percent for women and 99 percent for men. Problems include a poor economy, widespread poverty, poor

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Monaco cent of ministerial positions in 2009. Women have achieved the highest levels in business and politics, although they are underrepresented because of discrimination and because many women continue to prioritize their domestic lives. Political organizations and nongovernmental organizations pursuing women’s issues include the Christian Democratic League of Women of Moldova, the Women’s Organization of Moldova, and the Gender in Development Project. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Government, Women in; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children.

Many women in Moldova work outside the home due to economic necessity, comprising 55 percent of the labor force.

sanitation and safe water availability in rural areas, discrimination, unaffordable housing, and political and civil unrest. There are high rates of domestic violence, which is rarely prosecuted. Moldova is a source country for female sex workers, who are lured by jobs overseas and kidnapped. The state social insurance and medical system has deteriorated since the Soviet Union’s collapse. The 2009 life expectancy was low among European nations, at age 62 for women and age 57 for men. Many women work outside the home, due to economic necessity. Women comprise 55 percent of the paid nonagricultural labor force and 68 percent of professional and technical workers. Key employers include agriculture, education, industry, and services. There is a gender gap in average estimated earned income, which was $1,865 for women and $2,969 for men, and also in unemployment rates, which stood at 3.87 percent for women and 6.22 percent for men. Many workers must leave the country for better opportunities. Women have suffrage and equal legal rights. They held 24 percent of parliamentary seats and 11 per-

Further Readings Dyer, Donald, ed. Studies in Moldovan: The History, Culture, Language, and Contemporary Politics of the People of Moldova. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1996. Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. King, Charles. The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Studies of Nationalities). Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2000. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Monaco Monaco, the second smallest country in the world at two square kilometers, is located on the Mediterranean coast and shares a land border with France. It is a prosperous country (2009 per capita gross domestic product [GDP] $30,000) and the population of 32,965 (as of July 2009) enjoys a high standard of living similar to French metropolitan areas. Life expectancy of 76.3 years for men and 84.09 for women is 19th highest in the world. The population is 90 percent Roman Catholic; the leading ethnic groups are French (47 percent), Monegasque (natives of Monaco; 16 percent), and Italian (16 percent). Because Monaco does not levy an individual income tax, many rich foreigners reside there, making Monaco an extremely cosmopolitan country.

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The Monaco Constitution was revised in 1962 to include female suffrage. Women are equal by law in most aspects of life, and domestic violence is prohibited and rare. One exception to the general rule of equality is that unlike men, women who are naturalized Monegasque citizens cannot transfer that citizenship to their children. Women hold about onequarter of seats in the national Parliament and have served in key posts, including the mayor of Monaco and as members of the Crown Council, National Council, and Economic Council. Women comprise about 40 percent of the nonagricultural labor force and many hold professional positions. In 2009, Monaco became one of the last countries in the world to legalize abortion, but restricts it to specific circumstances including rape, fetal deformity, and mortal danger to the mother. Monegasque social security allows referrals to France for abortion (where abortion on demand is available through the first trimester and emergency contraception is available), although it does not cover fees for the procedure or medication. Monaco provides a high standard of maternal and childcare. The infant mortality rate is 5 per 1,000 live births, in the middle range for European countries but the lower quarter for all nations. The birth rate in 2009 was 9.1 per 1,000 population, among the lowest in the world, and the fertility rate was below replacement levels (1.75 children per woman), but one of the world’s highest net migration rates (7.58 migrants per 1,000 population) resulted in a positive population growth rate of 0.394 percent). See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, International; France; Government, Women in; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Pemberton, H. The History of Monaco, Past and Present. London: The British Library, 2010. United Nations Statistics Division. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). U.S. Department of State. “Monaco: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl /rls/hrrpt/2001/eur/8309.htm (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine

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Mongolia Mongolia, located in west-central Asia, is one of the world’s most sparsely populated nations. Khalkha Mongols are the majority ethnic group; the country’s main religions are Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. Women enjoy equal rights under the law. Key women’s issues include high rates of domestic violence, poverty, and child labor. Mongolia ranked 22nd of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. The average age of marriage is in the mid-20s. The traditional practices of arranged marriage and bridal dowries have decreased. Family sizes have also decreased. The 2009 fertility rate was 1.9 births per woman. Skilled healthcare practitioners attend 99 percent of births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 35 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate was 46 per 100,000 live births. The state social insurance fund provides women with 120 days of paid maternity leave at 70 percent of their wages. Of married women, 66 percent use contraceptives. Antidomestic violence legislation was passed in 2005. Most families live in patrilineal, rural nomadic camps and raise livestock. All family members contribute to household enterprise, but women perform most housework and childcare. Female school attendance rates stand at 89 percent at the primary level, 85 percent at the secondary level, and 58 percent at the tertiary level. Many rural children leave school so they can work. Literacy rate by gender is almost equal, at 98 percent for women and 97 percent for men. Problems include rapidly rising poverty rates and wealth differentials, street children, rising urban crime rates, and lack of post–Soviet funding for social welfare programs. Most have access to basic healthcare, but Western-style medicine is restricted to urban areas. Alternative medicine is also popular. Life expectancy is improving, at age 58 for women and age 53 for men. Some 60 percent of women participate in the labor force. Women comprise 53 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 54 percent of professional and technical workers. They are legally forbidden from hazardous work. Key employers include agriculture, livestock, manufacturing, industry, and service. Women are the majority of teachers at all education levels.

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A gender gap still exists in average estimated earned income, which stands at $2,172 for women and $3,603 for men. Unemployment rates are just over 14 percent. Women have the right to vote. Women hold 4 percent of parliamentary seats and 20 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no female heads of state. Women’s groups include nongovernmental organizations, as well as the Women’s Information and Research Center and the Committee of Mongolian Women. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Government, Women in; Marriages, Arranged; Rural Women. Further Readings Avery, Martha. Women of Mongolia. Boston: Asian Art & Archaeology, 1996. Hanson, J. L. Mongolia. New York: Facts on File, 2003. Hepburn, S., et al. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University

Montenegro After centuries of existence as a theocracy, the small Balkan nation of Montenegro became a secular principality in 1852. Following World War I, it became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which evolved into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After winning independence in 1992, Montenegro aligned with Serbia before opting for independence in 2006. Following that breakup, Montenegro launched a campaign to stabilize its economy with assistance from international financial institutions and applied for membership in the European Union. Today, 60 percent of the population have become urbanized. Montenegrins face an intermediate risk of contracting bacterial diarrhea and Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever. Montenegro is ethnically diverse. While 43 percent classify themselves as Montenegrin, additional key groups include Serbs (32 percent), Bosniaks (8 percent), Albanians (5 percent), and other minorities (12 percent) such as Muslims, Croats, and Romas. Less diversity exists in religion, and 74.2

percent of Montenegrins are Orthodox (Christian). However, the Muslim community is also large (17.7 percent). More people speak Serbian (63.6 percent) than Montenegrin (22 percent), the official language. Traditions are strong in Montenegro, and many customs relegate women to second-class citizenship. In theory, women have equal property and inheritance rights. In practice, the patriarchal system makes it difficult for women to assert those rights. The Council for Gender Equality is responsible for protecting women’s rights, and the council announced a new National Action Plan for Gender Equality in 2008. Montenegro has major problems with domestic violence, human trafficking, lack of support for women’s issues, and discrimination among the Roma population, which disproportionately affects Roma women and children. By 2007, unemployment had reached 14.7 percent, and 7 percent of the population was living below the poverty line. More than 42 percent of the unemployed were female, and employed women were earning 20 percent less than employed men. In 2009, per capita income was estimated at $9,800. There is a lack of reliable data on Montenegrin social indicators. Infant mortality is reported at 22.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 is 24.3. Life expectancy for females is 76.5 years, as compared to 71.6 for males. The median age for females is 38.4 years. Literacy for males (98.9 percent) outranks that of females (94.1 percent). In 2002, international researchers who conducted on-site interviews with Montenegrin and Serbian women found that unemployment aroused the most concern. It affected all groups, regardless of class and educational background, but it was particularly evident among Roma women who suffered from a lack of educational opportunities. This group was also the most susceptible to poverty, which restricted educational opportunities for children, access to healthcare, and overall living conditions. Like unemployment, domestic violence has a long prevalence in Montenegro, and support efforts have been hampered by inadequate resources and societal pressures. Most cases of domestic violence go unreported. The same is true for rape cases, even though rape, including spousal rape, is illegal. The fact that judges have considerable discretion over what is allowed in rape cases has discouraged many victims



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from coming forward. Most help is generated by female-oriented nongovernmental organizations, and there are constant complaints about the lack of support from social welfare services. Prostitution is illegal and is not considered a major problem. Human trafficking for the purposes of prostitution, on the other hand, is of major concern. Sexual harassment is illegal, but there is considerable ignorance of the subject among the general public. Victims receive little support. Politically, of 81 members in the Assembly, only nine are female. The only female in the cabinet is a deputy prime minister. One mayor is female. However, female participation in some areas is steadily increasing, and more women are becoming judges, lawyers, scientists, and physicians. See Also: Domestic Violence; Equal Pay; Government, Women in; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Bjerkan, Lise. “Creating Dialogue in a Landscape of Conflict in South Eastern Europe.” Canadian Woman Studies, v.22/2 (2002). Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Montenegro.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/mj.html (accessed June 2010). U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Montenegro.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/ hrrpt/2008/eur/119095.htm (accessed June 2010). Women’s International Network (WIN) News. “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1998; Serbia Montenegro.” WIN News, v.25/2 (1999). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar

Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historically, the mainstream branch of Mormonism, known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or LDS Church), has maintained an emphasis

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on the nuclear family as the most important aspect of religious expression. Although there are many negative stereotypes surrounding the Mormon Church and its treatment of women, the church provides a social structure that has at times been more helpful to feminism than other socioreligious structures. The Mormon Church remains a patriarchal, hierarchical institution that believes, above all, in the maintenance of the heteronormative nuclear family. Women are expected first and foremost in the church to be good wives and mothers, supporting men as heads of the household and of the church. Women cannot perform the role of the priesthood— a position open to all Mormon males over the age of 12 years—but they are assigned many duties in the maintenance of each Mormon ward (parish). Since the 1950s, these assignments have followed the guideline of “separate but equal”—that is, gender roles are strictly delineated but are not seen as superior or inferior to each other. Women and men mix freely in Mormon wards and are only separated during specific gender-based activities. Continuing education is of great importance to Mormon women. College education is common, and postgraduate learning that does not interfere with the maintenance of the home and family is encouraged. Mormon women are expected to be exemplary role models in knowledge, skills, and homemaking. Women in Church History The feminist branch of the Mormon Church has its roots in the very beginning of the church’s history. The Relief Society, a woman-run organization whose aim is to support members of the church through charitable contributions, was founded by the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1842. In 1870, Utah passed legislation allowing all Mormon women to vote, predating the Nineteenth Amendment by 50 years. Later, this decision was revoked by federal statute on Utah’s incorporation into the Union. Church leader Brigham Young encouraged all Mormon women to receive an education in the late 19th century, and Utah had one of the highest percentages of female doctors during this time. In the 1950s, the Mormon Church began to separate itself from the increasingly liberal American culture by reclaiming its roots in “family values.” Combined with advancements in technology and

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increased urbanization, women were seen less as autonomous agents working alongside men to carve a home out of the wilderness, and more as subjects under the authority of the Mormon priesthood. The women’s Relief Society became correlated under the direct influence of the priesthood in 1971, meaning that all of the Mormon Church was now controlled by its male priests. In 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment passed both houses of Congress and was ratified by 33 of the needed 38 states. The Mormon Church, stating that such an amendment would lead to a decline in family values, combated this passage. Although not solely responsible for the failure of the ERA, the Mormon Church, with the open support of its female members, was adamant that such a measure not be passed. Despite the explicitly patriarchal doctrine of Mormonism, the LDS Church is one of the first American religions to embrace the idea of a feminine deity. Called “Heavenly Mother” or “Mother in Heaven,” she is referred to explicitly in the Mormon hymn, “O My Father.” The theology of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. dictates that there is a heavenly family, consisting of both a mother and a father, responsible for the creation of all life on Earth. Although this theology existed at the beginning of Mormonism, Heavenly Mother is something of a taboo doctrine of the LDS Church. In 1978, the Mormon Church stated that Heavenly Mother was “modest” and that any explicit interpretation or teaching of her was inappropriate. During the 1980s, despite Mormon feminist writings that appealed to the idea of a divine feminine, the practice of praying to the Heavenly Mother, although not officially heresy, was considered inappropriate and borderline apostasy. This is justified by the fact that there is no theological evidence of Jesus praying to anyone but his Father in Heaven. Although women in the Mormon Church are encouraged to better themselves and seek education, this is done so only with the stipulations that they consider being a supportive wife and good mother to be their primary goals in life. Whether this “separate but equal” mentality is harmful to a woman’s wellbeing or helpful has been debated through much of Mormon literature. See Also: Feminist Theology; Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Johnson, Sonia.

Further Readings Barber, Phyllis. How I Got Cultured: A Nevada Memoir. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1992. Bradley, Martha Sonntag. Pedestals and Podiums. Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2005. Bushman, Claudia L. Contemporary Mormonism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. Cannon, Janeth Russell. Women of Covenant. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Books. 1992. Johnson, Sonia. From Housewife to Heretic. Albuquerque, NM: Wildfire Books, 1989. Austin J. Buscher Claremont Graduate University

Morocco In 1912, centuries of foreign rule interspersed with periods of independence came to an end when Morocco became a French protectorate. Independence was successfully achieved in 1956. Ethnically, 99.1 percent of the population are Arab Berber, and 98.7 percent are Muslim. Almost 45 percent of the population are engaged in agriculture, and only 57 percent of Moroccans are urbanized. Morocco has a per capita income of $4,600, an unemployment rate of 9.1, and a poverty rate of 15 percent. Legally, Moroccan women have equal rights with men, but in practice religious and ethnic traditions dictate a subservient role for some women, particularly those who live in rural areas. Historically, Morocco’s Civil Code has been based on Islamic law, which treated women as minors. Females needed the permission of male guardians (tuteurs) to marry. Husbands could end a marriage by repudiating their wives, and female consent was not needed in a divorce. In addition, husbands could demand unlimited sums before agreeing to a divorce. A woman’s inheritance was only half that of male heirs. Major reforms instituted in 2004 have made life more equitable for women, but violence against women, property rights for rural women, and arranged marriages continue to be major concerns. Morocco ranks 76th in the world in infant mortality (29.75 deaths per 1,000 live births). Female infants (24.49 deaths per 1,000 live births) have a considerably higher survival rate than males (34.77 deaths per



1,000 live births), and that advantage continues into adulthood, resulting in a life expectancy of 78.68 years for women compared with 72.42 years for men. The median age is 25.6 years for women and 24.5 years for men. Male literacy (65.7 percent) is considerably higher than that of women (39.6 percent), and men generally receive 11 years of schooling as opposed to 9 for women. Some reports indicate that female illiteracy may be as high as 90 percent in rural areas. Nongovernmental organizations have been instrumental in pressuring the government for more equitable treatment of women. In 2000, women’s rights groups sponsored a march to demand improved female literacy and educational opportunities, the end of early marriages, more equitable property distributions, divorce assistance, and the termination of repudiations of marriage and polygamy. The march drew hundreds of thousands of supporters to Rabat. At the encouragement of Moslem theologians, a countermarch in Casablanca drew from 200,000 to 500,000 participants. The success of the initial march is supported by major social reforms instituted in 2004 that gave women substantially more control over their lives and decreased the ability of husbands to have multiple wives, be divorced by repudiation, control property, and automatically gain custody of children. Since 2007, mothers have been able to endow citizenship on their children. Arranged marriages of young girls are declining. Women in Politics In 1997, only two women served in the 333-member Parliament, and there were none in the cabinet. Reforms now mandate the inclusion of women in positions of leadership. After the 2007 election, 34 seats were filled by women, and five women sat in the 33-member cabinet. Quotas require that 12 percent of local council members be women. Because family is so important, Morocco’s Criminal Code carries severe penalties for rape. However, most cases are not reported because of the social stigma attached to the loss of virginity outside of marriage. Perpetrators are sometimes encouraged to marry victims to preserve family honor. Both domestic violence and spousal rape are considered family issues. Abuse of young girls forced into domestic service is common. In 2006, the government launched a campaign to educate the public about violence against

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women, but feminists feel it has not gone far enough in implementing the reforms. A number of shelters and women centers now exist, operated by the Anaruz network and the Democratic League for the Rights of Women. Honor killings, prostitution, and sexual harassment continue to e