Will Gender Self-Declaration Undermine Women's Rights and Lead to an Increase in Harms?

This article considers and rejects claims that reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) to allow gender self-declaration will undermine non-trans women's rights and lead to an increase in harms to non-trans women. The article argues that these claims are founded on a mistaken understanding of the proper legal relationship between the GRA and the Equality Act 2010 (EA), and that the harm claim, in any event, lacks a proper evidential basis. The article considers three legal arguments made by gender critical feminists: that sex-based exceptions under the EA cannot be invoked against trans women with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), that the appropriate legal comparator for a trans woman non GRC-holder in a discrimination case is a non-trans man, and that section 22 of the GRA, which protects the privacy of GRC-holders, undermines the ability of women's organisations to regulate access to women-only spaces.     

Sisters in Terrorism? Exploding Stereotypes

New Terrorism is increasingly deploying women in the field as combatants. Female suicide bombers have proven to be highly effective, precisely because of the persistence of gender stereotypes in target societies. Women terrorists convey a powerful message of political seriousness, heighten the sense of intimidation and threat, and attract greater mass media attention—all key strategic objectives of New Terrorism. Gender stereotypes are also at work in explanations for women's recourse to terrorist activism. Such stereotypes simplify complex motivations and either overvalue or undervalue women's agency. The net result of this stereotyping is that women end up worse off individually and collectively, domestically and internationally. The lives of women in geopolitical hotspots have become more precarious, and the valorization of women terrorists undermines the quest for women's emancipation in fundamentalist cultures. In Western democracies, paternalistic outrage at women's subordination under fundamentalist regimes may have initially served as a dubious justification for military and other interventions, but the involvement of women in terrorist activism now risks reinforcing an even more dangerous “clash of civilizations” thinking. One effect is to undermine the demands for greater gender equality in Western democracies as well as indirectly support the war on women political agenda domestically.     

The Case of Fearful Women:

Women's reported level of fear of crime is three times higher than reported by men. Crime surveys though show that it is young men who are at greatest risk to violent victimisation. This paper explores this criminological conundrum of women's fear of crime. It proposes that the analysis and the construction of the concept 'fear of crime' fail to capture women's lived experiences of sexual and physical violence. It further examines the crime prevention advice to women and concludes that this advice is founded upon faulty assumptions about what types of situations pose the greatest danger to women's sexual and physical safety. Conventional criminology and its adherence to the view of violent crime as 'street crime,' the paper concludes, distorts and sensationalizes violence against women.     

Women's and men's fear of gang crimes: Sexual and nonsexual assault as perceptually contemporaneous offenses

Perceptually contemporaneous offenses are crimes that are coupled in people's minds when they express fear. Previous studies have shown that fear of rape predicts women's fears of other crimes. This study examined the differential effects of sexual and nonsexual assault as offenses that may be coupled with specific gang crimes. For both women and men, once physical harm is accounted for by controlling for fear of nonsexual assault, fear of rape explains much less variance than it does when it was included alone. We argue that fear of physical harm, not the sexual intrusion in rape, has the strongest effect on fear for both women and men.     

Stop,Collaborate, and Listen: Women's Collaboration in US State Legislatures

Collaboration plays a key role in crafting good public policy. We use a novel data set of over 140,000 pieces of legislation considered in US state legislatures in 2015 to examine the factors associated with women's collaboration with each other. We articulate a theory that women's collaboration arises from opportunity structures, dictated by an interaction of individual and institutional characteristics. Examining the effect of a combination of characteristics, we find support for an interactive view of institutions, where women's caucuses accelerate collaboration in Democratic‐controlled bodies and as the share of women increases. Collaboration between women also continues in the face of increased polarization in the presence of a caucus, but not absent one. Our findings speak to the long‐term consequences of electing women to political office, the importance of institutions and organizations in shaping legislative behavior, and the institutionalization of gender in politics.     

Law,language, and the power of ‘invisible threats’ of violence against women

Violence, and the threat of violence, is a pervasive feature of women's lives. From high-profile threats in politics to everyday harms such as domestic abuse, violence, threat, and intimidation control women's behaviour and silence their voices. Yet in many cases the pernicious and harmful effect of threat is not captured by the law. Drawing on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and empirical research undertaken in Northern Ireland, this article analyses the ways in which both objective and ‘incorporated’ social structures generate invisible forces of fear and threat that the law does not see, but that women feel and structure their lives around. The article develops the novel conceptual tool of ‘invisible threats’ to capture threat as harm, to show the relation between threat and gendered (in)securities, and to challenge institutions of the law to respond better to invisible threats as perceived and articulated by women.     

Without Peers

Abstract

This writing will, in two parts, trace the development of Anglo-American law in regard to women and jury service from the early Anglo-Norman jury to the present American system. In this long history, women were largely excluded from the public world of the legal system. As criminal defendants, they did not face a jury of their peers. The first part, contained in this edition, examines the limited participation of women in the legal system in medieval and early modern England, colonial America, and the new American nation ending with their entry into the public world and the victory of women's suffrage in the United States. Within this setting, this first section traces the evolution of trial by jury. The second part, to follow, will examine the twentieth century legal, and political, struggle for women's full participation in the American jury system.     

To object or not to object: The question of women judges in Egypt

Developing countries where women have not been permitted into the judiciary are excluded from feminist scholarship on women and the law. Such exclusion limits comparative views to a specific cultural‐historical domain. This paper explores the case of Egypt, where women have not entered the judiciary, in an attempt to extend the cross‐cultural discussion. A premise of the paper is that a theological vision of women's gender roles, which is qualitatively different from the prevailing one in the West, is a strong influencing factor on women's access to the judiciary in Egypt. After presenting a brief overview of women's status in Islam, this paper explores perspectives on women's role as judges within Islamic Shari'a. Building on the brief exploration of Islam's views regarding women's access to the judiciary, this paper then presents contemporary debates regarding women as judges in the Egyptian case. A recommendation for a more careful examination of the theological influences on the Egyptian debate regarding women's access to the judiciary concludes the paper.     

Women and the judiciary in Syria: appointments process,training and career paths

This article describes the recruitment, training and career paths of women judges and public prosecutors in Syria over a period of 30 years (1975–2005). It analyses both quantitative and qualitative data drawn from official statistics and interviews conducted with 67 women judges and public prosecutors in Syria's largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. The paper focuses on how training of the judiciary has changed since the founding of the new Institute of Judicial Studies and the effect this change has had on women's career paths. The entry of women to the judiciary in 1975 and the restructuring of the training system in 2002 are the two most important events in the recent history of the judiciary in Syria.     

Women Corrections Officers in Men's Prisons

ABSTRACT

Women have worked as corrections officers (COs) in some adult male prisons in most states for the past two decades. However, the degree of acceptance of women COs and the perception of women officers' job performance by men officers have varied greatly. This study was based on the results of a survey of men and women officers working in men's prisons in a midwestern state. Comparisons of the officers' responses about women's acceptance, safety, and perceived job performance revealed some significant gender differences. The results indicated that while women faced some resistance among men officers, it was not to the extent suggested by previous research studies, and the resistance came primarily from more experienced men officers. Women officers were confident of their ability to work effectively in men's prisons. The resistance to women that persists among some men officers is likely to provide an obstacle for women seeking opportunities for advancement and promotion in adult male prisons.     

Women's Political Representation in the European Union

Feminist studies of the European Union seek to make sense of a field that has become enormously complex. Gender equality has been an issue in the EU since the inclusion of Article 119 on equal pay in the Treaty of Rome 1957 but has since widened to the recognition of equality between women and men as a fundamental principle of democracy for the whole EU. Gender equality is present both in gender-specific policies, such as women's participation in the labour market, sexual harassment and reconciliation of work and family, as well as informing the basic principles and functioning of the EU institutions wherever gender mainstreaming is implemented. Feminist explorations of the EU have tended to overlook one aspect of EU gender policies: women's political representation in the EU institutions. This article seeks to address this gap.     

Women's agency in Australia's first fertility transition: a debate revisited

The place of women's agency in the fertility transition of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century is a contested one. Some argue that the transition was achieved mainly through male methods of contraception. Others, including many arguing from an Australian perspective, contend that women's agency in fertility decline was significant. In this article, the authors revisit the issue of women's agency in Australia. Drawing on a range of archival sources and scholarship, they seek to demonstrate that women in Australia in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had access to contraception, albeit limited, and, where that failed, to abortion. The authors argue that the changing political and educational climate, which saw women gaining the vote in 1894 in South Australia and admission to secondary and higher education and paid work, provided the setting for women's changing status. Their increasing agency – an agency many women worked to secure – encouraged women to challenge many traditional practices.     

Bridging the Gender Gap In Bill Sponsorship

Under what circumstances do men sponsor issues that are traditionally regarded as salient primarily to women? By examining the sponsorship of legislation in the upper and lower chambers of 15 state legislatures in 2001, we explored the conditions under which men are likely to focus attention on policy areas involving women's issues and children's issues. We found little effect of institutional context (such as party control of the legislature or diversity within the legislature) on the sponsorship behavior of either men or women. Personal characteristics such as race, education, age, and family circumstances are associated with sponsorship by men, but not by women. Committee service is also strongly associated with sponsorship behavior, particularly for men. Differences in sponsorship are relatively marked in the sponsorship of legislation that focuses on reproduction or other health issues particularly relevant to women. We conclude that the boundaries of the set of issues traditionally defined as “women's issues” may be changing over time and that it is important to recognize that the influences on the sponsorship of women's issues can be different for men than they are for women.     

Undermining Gender Equality: Female Attrition from Private Law Practice

The number of women in the legal profession has grown tremendously over the last 40 years, with women now representing about half of all law school graduates. Despite the decades‐long pipeline of women into the profession, women's representation among law firm partnerships remains dismally low. One key reason identified for women's minority presence among law firm partners is the high level of attrition of women associates from law firms. This high rate of female attrition undermines efforts to achieve gender equality in the legal profession. Using a survey of 1,270 law graduates, we employ piecewise constant exponential hazard regression models to explore gendered career paths from private law practice. Our analysis reveals that, for both men and women, the time leading up to partnership decisions sees many lawyers exit private practice, but women continue to leave private practice long after partnership decisions are made. Gender differences in leaving private practice also surface with reference to cohorts, areas of law, billable hours, firm sizes, and career gaps. Notably, working in criminal law augmented women's risk of leaving private practice, but not for men, while taking time away from practice for reasons other than parental leaves, hastens both men's and women's exits from private practice.     

Women's Defences

ABSTRACT

This paper examines theoretical and practical problems surrounding the use of women's defences such as Battered Woman's Syndrome, Premenstrual Syndrome and Postpartum Depression. A framework for deconstructing women's defences which exposes power relationships preserved by legal discourse is offered. The central argument presented is that a contextual examination which links practice to theory reveals that women's defences are not necessarily harmful to women, but that specific feminist strategies must be developed to ensure that such defences do not replicate existing power-knowledge dynamics within legal discourse.     

Profiles of urine samples from participants at rave party in Taiwan: prevalence of ketamine and MDMA abuse

Drug abuse patterns are different due to cultural, social and geographical differences. Methamphetamine (MA) is the most important drug of abuse in Taiwan followed by opiates. Recently, there has been an increase of ketamine and MDMA abuse in disco dancing clubs. Here, we report the patterns of drug abuse by the participants in a metropolitan city disco-dancing club and the general public in Taiwan. The positive rates of common drugs of abuse detected in samples collected from participants in a dancing club were as follows: MDMA, 75.7%; ketamine, 47.0%; MA, 41.6%; opiates, 0%. Marijuana and cocaine were detected at much lower rates (3.4 and 4.7%, respectively). Ketamine and one of the amphetamines were detected together in 42.9% of the samples. The positive rates in samples collected from police detainees suspected of drug abuse in the general public were as follows: MA, 76.0%; OPA, 37.0%; MDMA, 6.0%; ketamine, 2.0%.     

Women in a changing economy: the misleading tale of participation rates in a historical perspective

In this article I focus on women's advancement in the Swedish labour market during more than a century. By applying a long-term perspective I give the historical background to what is commonly seen as a success story. By reassessing census and labour force survey data I show that participation rates may tell a misleading tale not only for the past but also for the present. In a long-term perspective, Sweden does not stand out as a country with high female labour force participation rates. It was not until the mid-1960s that market work came to play a larger part of women's life, since young women worked until they had children and older married women returned to the labour force after having raised a family. During the late 1960s and the 1970s, women with children under the age of seven became an integrated part of the labour force. It seemed as if welfare reforms supported women's market work in an unprecedented way; gender differences in labour force participation decreased and became very small. A reassessment of labour force participation rates together with alternative measures of market work such as at-work and market-hours rates show that similarly to how they underestimate women's market work and contributions to production during the early decades of the twentieth century, they overestimate women's market work at the end of the century, neglecting the extent to which reproductive responsibilities still interfere with women's paid work through absence and part-time work.     

Claiming Citizenship: The Political Dimension of Welfare Fraud

This article exposes the political dimension of welfare fraud by investigating—in the context of the Israeli welfare reform of 2003—how forty‐nine Israeli women who live on welfare justify welfare fraud. I find that women's justifications cannot be fully explained by traditional noncompliance theories that view welfare fraud as an individual, private, criminal activity that solely reflects on the fraudster's moral character or desperate need. Instead, women's justifications for welfare fraud are better understood as a sociopolitical struggle for inclusion and deservedness—as a political act that reflects an alternative concept of citizenship with respect to women's unpaid care work.     

Beyond the census. Reconstructing Dutch women's labour market participation in agriculture in the Netherlands,ca. 1830–1910

Many historians have pointed out for various countries that nineteenth-century national censuses do not accurately reflect women's economic activity. This was no different for the Dutch national censuses. In this article, we argue that under-recording was especially severe in agriculture, and that this problem increased towards the end of the century. The rise in under-recording was partly due to an increased irregularity of women's work on farms, but it also reflected changing living standards and ideologies, in which work was increasingly defined as undesirable for women. In relative terms, agriculture did become less important to men and women alike because of mechanization and industrialization. Nevertheless, agriculture continued to employ many women, especially married women and daughters working on their husbands' and fathers' farms. By offering additional source material and methods for estimating women's labour force participation in agriculture on a regional level, such as relating their occupational status to their husbands', and estimating the number of days worked, we aim to offer an enhanced methodology for gauging the work of women in agriculture, which may be applied to future research.