Towards a Feminization of Agricultural Labour in Northwest Syria

Smallholdings in the rural areas of northwest Syria are a result of land fragmentation that is due to inheritance. Because of rapid population growth combined with land fragmentation, these smallholdings are increasing and cannot sustain the rural households whose sizes and needs are also increasing rapidly This situation has led to increasing numbers of males migrating to urban areas in Syria and to neighbouring countries looking for work opportunities. In addition, recent agricultural intensification trends seem to have led to the emergence of a waged labour force which, in the absence of male workers owing to significant rates of migration, is now predominantly female. Agricultural labour use depends upon household characteristics and resources (type of labour used, gender of labour waged/exchanged/familial). The article attempts to present a comprehensive analysis of household labour use in distinctive farming systems in one region of Syria that has undergone great change in recent decades, and examines the changes in the composition of the agricultural labour force. Secondary information, rapid ural appraisals and formal farm surveys were used to gather information on the households in a study area where different farming systems coexist. The results show that the decrease in landholding size, the resulting male migration, and land intensification have resulted in the expansion offemale labour in agriculturalproduction, which has been termed in this research a 'feminization of agricultural labour'. This suggests that agricultural research and extension services will have to work more with women farmers and farm workers, seek their wisdom and involve them in technology and transfer. This is not easy in conservative societies but requires research and extension institutions to take this reality into consideration in their programmes.     

Who wants to be a woman? young women's reflections on transitions to adulthood

The focus of this article is on how Finnish young women construct their transitions to adulthood and how they imagine their futures as women. Tensions in this process are analysed: many young women want to accelerate their shifts towards independent adult status. At the same time, some of them attempt to postpone the point of being locked into the lives of adult women. They look forward to acquiring the legal status of an adult citizen and to moving to homes of their own. But they want to stay young, which means time for relationships, studying, work and travel, and definitely not children at an early age. Being an adult woman does not seem to be a very tempting position for some young women; being a girl is considered by them to open more possibilities. Those young women who are keener to embrace female adulthood are also discussed, focusing on ways in which they envisage their futures, and what contradictions they experience. These tensions are explored drawing from the research project ‘Tracing Transitions — Follow-Up Study of Post-16 Students’. In the study, 40 young women and 23 young men aged around 18 years were interviewed individually, in paris or in groups of three. The project is grounded on ethnographic research in which the same young people were followed when they started secondary school at the age of 13 years.     

Young,middle, and late adolescents' comparisons of the functional importance of five significant relationships

The present study investigated how young (11–13-year-old), middle (14–16-year-old), and late (17–19-year-old) adolescents compared the relative functional importance of their relationships with their mother, their father, their most important sibling, their best same-sex friend, and their most important teacher. Mothers and fathers were perceived as highly important sources of affection, instrumental aid, and reliable alliance by all adolescents; however, the parent-adolescent child relationship was also ranked high on the conflict dimension. Best same-sex friends were ranked highest in all three adolescent groups for intimacy and companionship. Siblings, too, were perceived as important sources of intimacy and companionship; they were also ranked high for the nurturance and conflict dimensions. Relationships with teachers received very low ratings in general.This study was made possible by a grant to the authors by the National Institute of Mental Health, grant 1 RO1 MH42858-01A1, and by funding through the Home Economics Research Institute of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and the Iowa Agricultural and Home Economics Experiment Station, Iowa State University.The first author received his Ph.D. degree in 1976 from the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota. His area of specialization is developmental psychology. He is a professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011. The second author received her Ph.D degree in 1987 from Iowa State University; her area of specialization is educational measuremenl and statistics. She is the teacher specialist for research, testing and evaluation for the Ames Community Schools system, and a research associate at Iowa State University. Both authors share an interest in studying the effects of stress factors on adolescent development and educational achievement.     

The trouble with ‘women in computing’: a critical examination of the deployment of research on the gender gap in computer science

The pessimistic scenario for ‘women in information communications technology’ and for ‘women in technology’ generally is even more paradoxical and insidious with respect to ‘women in computing’. Studies within this field not only report insignificant improvement in the proportion of women in Western countries’ computing fields but also alert us of a declining trend. Moreover, that decline has been accompanied – or even preceded – by years of research and programs that have specifically focused on increasing women’s participation in computing; however, they have not had the expected effect. More surprisingly, there has been a significant increase in the representation of women in all other science-related fields and professions. Our aim is to provide some clues to fight the feeling of inexorability that may be entailed by the research on women in computing. We will argue that part of the problem is related to the static nature of the research deployed around the problem of ‘women in computing’, primarily, the research constructed around the ‘leaky pipeline’ metaphor. We provide a synthesis of the critiques this research has received in recent decades and highlight research trends that render other landscapes visible when studying ‘women in computing’. These trends help us question how we are conducting research within this field and urge us to problematise assumptions about computing and gender that we may paradoxically continue to reproduce even while denouncing the paucity of women in computing and studying the reasons for this state of affairs. In short, we present the need for different researchers’ eyes that allow different landscapes of women and computing to be seen and produced.     

Adolescent discipline: Different family members' perception

Adolescence is perhaps the most difficult period of child rearing for parents. This study attempted to identify disciplinary techniques used by parents as perceived by mothers, fathers, and their adolescent children. Results indicated several significant areas of intrafamilial disagreement in regard to disciplinary techniques utilized, although all subjects tended to agree that some form of verbal reasoning was the primary disciplinary technique utilized with these adolescents.This study was funded, in part, by the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (H-644) and the School of Home Economics, The University of Georgia.Received his Ph.D. in child and family studies from the University of Tennessee. Current interests include adolescent development, family influences on sex-role development, and dual-work families.Received her Ph.D. in sociology from Iowa State University. Major interests include family research methodology, assessment of family power, and marital dissolution.Received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Texas. Current research interests include parenting, sex roles, and socialization across the life-span.     

Women in agriculture in Nigeria: Problems and policies for development

This paper focuses on the involvement of Nigerian Women in Agriculture. A total of 600 women was selected for study in three different areas of Nigeria (West, North and East) in order to capture differences in the socio-economic activities of the women.A ranking of the socio-economic activities of the women studied indicated that their most important activity was the care of children, followed by house-keeping and then trading. A ranking of the women's preferred socio-economic activity revealed that the women would like to spend less time on home-related activities to increase time spent on farming, processing and trading. On an overall basis, trading was the women's most important occupation outside the home, followed by farming. Yoruba women of Western Nigeria are more often traders than Ibo women of Eastern Nigeria, who are often farmers. The Hausa/Fulani women of Northern Nigeria are positioned between the two other groups with respect to their involvement in farm operations. For the whole of Nigeria, economic considerations are a major determinant of the extent to which women are involved in farming as against processing and trading. Once men move out of farming into such non-farm occupations as factory work, mining and distribution of industrial goods, women take up food production for home consumption and for sale, regardless of which ethnic group they belong to, although in relative terms the restricting influence of the Moslem religion on the women in the North must be acknowledged. About 40 per cent of all the women studied could be classified as farmers, 28 per cent as processors and 52 per cent as traders. Processing was often part of farming or trading. The women were mainly involved in the production, processing and trading of such food crops as maize, rice, cassava, yam and palm oil. They were rarely connected with agricultural export crops such as cocoa, cotton and groundnuts. The women who were farmers undertook most farm operations themselves, including the more difficult ones such as land clearing and land preparation for planting. When necessary, they used supplementary family and hired labour. An analysis of the women's life and work indicated that they feel themselves left behind in the general drive towards development.The main policy implication of the research findings is that an employment-educational and incomes strategy needs to be devised for the women in order to enhance their contributions to agricultural and rural development in Nigeria and for their own personal fulfilment.     

Dehumanizing representations of women: the shaping of hostile sexist attitudes through animalistic metaphors*

Women are frequently depicted as non-human objects or animals. While female animalization has typically been conceptualized in the psychological literature as communicating a unitary perception of women, linguistic research suggests that there are at least two distinct animalizing linguistic metaphors for women that depict women at opposite ends of a sex-based power differential: ‘women-are-predators’ and ‘women-are-prey’. Are these linguistic metaphors able to shape sexist attitudes towards women? US Male and female undergraduates read an article, which concerned women voters in an election year, containing language that described women as predatory, prey-like, or in a humanized manner (baseline). They then reported their ambivalent sexist attitudes towards women in general. Consistent with both metaphors’ emphasis on sex-based power differentials, both male and female participants, who read about predatory women, exhibited greater agreement with hostile sexist attitudes than participants who read about prey-like women. This study suggests that the continued transmission of animalizing metaphors for women may help perpetuate prejudicial beliefs about appropriate roles for women in society. Media communicators might learn to identify and eliminate the use of the animalizing terms in their own work.     

Scoring women on their labor changes

Women have less opportunities in the labour market than have men. Theories and material on inequality between the sexes are available, but it is not possible to determine accurately the precise handicap that women experience: an adequate means of measurement is lacking.In this article, the theoretical basis for the new complex variable LCS (Labour Chances Score) is described. LCS is developed to enable the measurement of the labour chances of arbitrary groups on the labour market, and to compare them. The LCS method has made the available qualitative data quantifiable. Scores are measured on the four elements of LCS: (being subject to) regulations; (being subject to) expectations; (unfolding) qualifications; (participation in) communication.The LCS mothod is to be used for policy research, as well in the emancipation of working women. Once a low score on a LCS-element is found, policy can be made to remove it.     

Theorizing Gender and Musical Composition in the Computerized Classroom

Classroom The increased use of information technology in schools is generally perceived as a positive, dynamic step into the future. By providing IT facilities for all children throughout their education we are affording them access to a wider range of career opportunities and educational experiences. Feminists have long debated the extent to which technology can be exclusionary for women because of its construction as a masculine domain, emphasizing 'masculine' characteristics of mastery, skill and control. By focusing on the music classroom, Armstrong explores gender and the compositional process and the effects of an overtly technological approach to composition. In the early part of the essay, she draws on Sherry Turkle's early work based on observations of male and female computer programmers. Despite observing a variety of computational styles Turkle concluded that, although technology allowed for this diversity, computer culture did not, noting that many females preferred a style that did not favour the canonical, plan-oriented, abstract thinkers who 'constitute an epistemological elite'. In her own research, Armstrong found that girls often became alienated from their own creative work because the culture of the music classroom appears to privilege a particular style of working. By focusing on the singing voice and the corporeal, Armstrong draws on aspects of cyberfeminism to illustrate how girls can transcend and subvert this masculine culture.     

Police,Prisons and Prisoners: the view from the Home Office

Those with some knowledge of the history of the British women's suffrage campaign will be well acquainted with the experiences of suffragettes at the hands of police and prison officials. It is, however, through the writings of the suffragettes that such treatment is usually articulated and in this article I shall, instead, describe how the Home Office viewed the suffrage campaign, how it attempted to keep the movement under control, and whether it was likely that it would succeed in doing so. The Home Office had two problems, that of policing the suffragettes and then of dealing with the women once they had achieved their aim of imprisonment. The article is divided into two sections. The first deals with policing and the second with the way in which the Home Office handled suffrage prisoners.     

unreal women: sex,gender, identity and the lived experience of vulvar pain

In this paper, I take up the lives of women with persistent vulvar pain for what they can reveal about the enmeshment of gender, (hetero)sexuality and bodily practices. Women with vulvodynia are unable to perform the central heterogendering act of penetrative intercourse with a male partner. They describe this inability as rendering them effectively ‘genderless’, described as being ‘not a real woman’ or a ‘fake woman’. I analyse their perceptions of gender and bodily performance in relation to feminist theorizing about gender and sexuality, and I argue for the centrality of the lived body to the epistemology of feminist efforts to theorize gender. This paper is based on in-person interviews with 20 women and web-based open-ended interactions with 70 women with vulvodynia.     

Women,poverty and agricultural growth in India

This article explores the interlinkages between gender, poverty and agricultural growth in India. It shows how women and female children of poor rural households bear a disproportionately high share of the burden of poverty. This is manifest especially in a systematic bias against females in the intra‐household distribution of food and health care. However, there are significant cross‐regional differences in the extent of the bias which is much higher in the north‐western states relative to the southern. Some of the likely factors ‐ economic, social, historical ‐ underlying these differences are discussed here. The specific problems of female‐headed households are separately considered. Also, the on‐going debate on the relationship between rural poverty and agricultural growth is critically examined. In addition, a detailed quantitative analysis is undertaken of the differential effects of the new agricultural technology, and associated growth, on the employment and earnings of female and male agricultural labourers (who constitute the bulk of the rural poor). The association between changes in these economic variables and others, such as in the incidence and pattern of dowry payments, is also examined, as are the implications of both these aspects for the situation of rural women in poverty in different geographic regions.     

Gender, familism and housing: matrimonial property rights in Ireland

This article explores the gender structure of housing rights, and specifically matrimonial property law, in the Republic of Ireland as a basis for examining the means by which women gain access to and control over economic resources, or capital. Taking the Family Home Protection Act (1976) and the ill-fated Matrimonial Home Bill (1993) as examples of legislation to strengthen women's matrimonial property rights, it is argued that these have been formulated using gendered, familist, categories of reform. The State's attempts to strengthen women's entitlements have been mediated by its constitutional commitment to maintain a preference for the marital family as well as its failure to recognise the economic value of women's unpaid domestic work. This article argues that in this context, the Irish State's strategy of gender equality, which is based on the equitable treatment of different household types, is divisive, ineffective. and inequitable.     

Rethinking the urban and rural divide in Latino labor,recreation, and activism in West Michigan, 1940s–1970s

During the 1940s–1970s, Latino labor experiences could not be confined to either urban and industrial or rural and agricultural settings. Unlike large metropolises, Grand Rapids, Michigan is a mid-sized, Midwest city wherein the urban center and industrial labor opportunities are located within thirty miles of agricultural areas. I argue that Latinos in West Michigan used both rural and urban areas for labor to meet their economic and social needs. Due to the gendered realities of labor from the 1940s to the 1970s, women played an instrumental role in planning and executing the movement of their families between spaces. In turn, this community’s activism was not limited to the boundaries of urban or rural space. This research shows how Latinos etched out an economic and social survival in places wherein they are not the majority or have a plethora of resources. As the Latino diaspora spreads into areas in the southern United States, we can look to how Latinos in Grand Rapids and the Midwest lived and worked to better understand the lived experiences of twenty-first century Latinos.     

‘Women want it’: In-vitro fertilization and women's motivations for participation

This paper is a partial summary of work undertaken as part of a degree in Sociology in 1984 at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.My research centred on two areas: the experience of women participating in an IVF program, and the use of that data to argue against a prevalent theme in discussions related to technology—that technology is neutral.The analysis of women's motivations for participation in an IVF program reveals that in order for IVF to be developed and implemented certain prerequisites are necessary. They include (a) adherence to the dominant ideology of motherhood; (b) the discourse on fertility, and (c) the dynamics of male medical science. I argue that IVF mirrors power relations between males and females as groups, and as such already its design reflects specific assumptions.     

Creating a Space for Absent Voices: Disabled Women's Experience of Receiving Assistance with Daily Living Activities

Feminist research on community care and ‘informal carers’ identified this as a women's issue but failed to address the interests and experiences of older and disabled women - those who received ‘care’. One consequence is that such feminist research has implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, undermined disabled women's rights to a home, children and personal relationships. Using qualitative research, the article highlights the actual experience of women whose physical impairment means that they need help with daily living activities, looking at the different circumstances in which such help is received.The disability movement's concept of ‘independent living’ raises particular issues for disabled women. ‘Independent living’ is about having choice and control over the assistance needed, rather than necessarily doing everything for yourself. However, gender inequalities may also inhibit the choice and control that women have in their lives.Assistance can be given within a personal relationship as an expression of love, but disabled women may also experience abusive, restrictive or exploitative relationships. Public services do not generally provide assistance in a way which enables a woman to have choice and control in her life, or even to carry out child-caring or homemaking tasks. The research on the various ways of receiving personal assistance found that those women who were able to purchase their own help were most likely to be living independently, in the sense of exerting choice and control in their lives.Feminist research can help to create a space for disabled women's absent voices, and add to the pressure for change in the way that personal assistance needs are met. This is a human and civil rights issue which has a key impact on the control that disabled women have over their lives.     

The conscientization of women: A rite of self- initiation with the flavour of a religious conversion process

In traditional societies, young men and women are initiated separately into the adult world and, for various reasons, the male rite has typically been much more dramatic and elaborate. In western industrialized society, the formal education system became the initiation rite, par excellence, by which boys passed from childhood and the world of women into the public, adult world of men. By gaining access, albeit belatedly, to this male initiation rite, many women have thus gained access to the public, adult world but have found that they have had to give up being women. Other women have remained with the traditional female initiation rites of marriage and motherhood and have discovered that society does not really consider them to be adults. Another group of women have tried both routes to adulthood and have been unable to integrate their identities as women and adults.When these women get together in consciousness-raising groups they find themselves undergoing a rite of self-initiation made necessary by the fact that neither the traditional female rites of marriage and motherhood nor the masculine rites of formal education are adequate for women who wish to be considered both female and adult. Women in CR groups develop a strong sense of themselves as adult women and then are faced with the crucial question of how to relate to a patriarchal society which does not accept or affirm this new identity. There is a parallel in the process of religious conversion which, if probed, can help feminists to reflect on what are the most effective ways for a minority group to influence the mainstream of society without losing its identity and original values in the process.     

Contextualizing the Construction and Social Organization of the Commercial Male Sex Industry in London at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century

Feminist theories are concerned to analyse how women can transform society so that they are no longer subordinated, by understanding how patriarchal relations control and constrict them.(Abbott and Wallace, 1997: 284)Feminisms start from the position that women are oppressed within a society, which is patriarchal and socially constructed within knowledge which is malestream. This traditionally defines men such that they are rendered subordinate, within a social world constructed by men. Feminisms are engaged with making transparent patriarchal constructs, and illuminating the ‘spaces’ within which women-realities can become more visible.This paper presents research undertaken by two key services working with male sex workers in central London. The insights gained from this research are discussed, as they allow comparison between the traditionally subordinate position of women and the contextual experiences of the ‘hidden’ population of male sex industry workers. It demonstrates, that like women, for male sex workers, hegenomic and heterosexist constructs ensure that they also occupy a subordinated position within society.     

Bhojpuri songs,women's work and social control in Northen India

This analysis is concerned with the construction and reproduction of gender identity in women's work songs, specifically songs of the millstone, or jatsaars, in the Bhojpuri-speaking region. Sung as accompaniment to the daily grinding of grain and spices, the songs, rich in narrative content, cover a range of women's concerns including caste and patriarchal anxieties. As the songs also serve a pedagogical purpose whereby societal values are transmitted from older to younger women, they serve to warn and prepare women for the hardships of married life, also spelling out the limits of transgression, the nature of punishments, and the rewards for compliance. Through the delineation of family relationships which might be potentially threatening and antagonistic, and by outlining approved codes of honour and conduct in such contexts, the songs indicate the extent to which women are complicit in their own oppression. While the jatsaar cuts across caste lines, the songs presented below are collected from women belonging to a range of castes and classes, and thus can be said to represent an authentic female voice. The main issue concerns the extent to which lessons learnt through the jatsaar have a bearing on female subordination in the sphere of agricultural production, particularly in relations with the employer in the field