"Engendering" environmental projects: the case of eco-timber production in the Solomon Islands

This article discusses the case of timber production in the Solomon Islands and links between environmental protection and gender. Many environmental projects are undertaken without regard for gender roles and relations. The Solomon Western Islands Fair Trade (SWIFT) initiative included women in only a peripheral way. This article justifies the involvement of women in environmental projects and then evaluates the operations of SWIFT. A role for women in local environmental projects should be recognized because of women's roles, knowledge, and interests. Use of natural resources is gender-based. In the Solomon Islands, women are identified as having the greater interest in the long-term sustainability of the environment and greater reliance on natural resources to fulfill their roles, but forestry is men's work. The price of tropical woods has tempted Micronesian governments to exploit forests to enhance their foreign exchange earnings. Environmental degradation from logging is particularly severe in the Solomon Islands. The population fulfills many basic needs from forests. Forests can provide cash earnings. The author conducted an evaluation of effectiveness of SWIFT in 1996. The SWIFT project allows rural people to earn cash from sustainable timber extraction without signing with logging companies. Women are affected by SWIFT due to their husbands' appropriation of their earnings, their peripheral role, and lack of representation in senior positions and use of women's forestry expertise. The article offers a model for genderizing eco-projects. Men need to be encouraged to work more as partners with women.     

Individual differences and the pursuit of legal rights

In this article we explore the role of individual differences in the proclivity to pursue legal rights. A series of field surveys and a laboratory experiment indicated that a measure of claim propensity was consistently related to the reporting of “rights” problems, the tendency to make claims in response to these problems, and preferences for styles of conflict resolution. Although the findings leave many unanswered questions that will have to be addressed in future research, the most important contribution of the article, we believe, is that it draws attention to rights, or claims, consciousness as an important phenomenon and demonstrates that it is amenable to empirical investigation.     

The mother's house of the San Francisco Zoo: the art of engendering space in the modern city

The Mother's House of the San Francisco Zoo opened in 1925 as a sanctuary for women visiting the grounds, and in the 1930s, was ornamented through an ambitious decorative program sponsored by the Public Works of Art Project. The program consists of long-overlooked murals painted by Helen Forbes (1891–1945) and Dorothy Pucinelli (1901–1974), and large-scale mosaics executed by the Bruton sisters—Margaret (1894–1983), Esther (1896–1992), and Helen (1898–1985). While the Mother's House could be interpreted as symbolizing a gilded cage that restricted woman's agency within the modern city, it can also be read as expanding women's roles in the public sphere. My article examines the Mother's House as a case study of the gendering of space wherein the site served not to inhibit woman's movement and participation in the modern city, but rather expanded the feminine realm beyond the domestic sphere, as well as supported the professionalization of women as public artists.     

A century (plus) of parenthood

This paper summarizes the broad foundations of the changing nature of parenthood by examining trends in coresidence with children under age 15. Our study uses data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) to provide a portrait of demographic parenthood in the US over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In describing changes in parenthood over the past 110 years, we distinguish between those living with own children and those living with other children. We focus in particular on changes in gender patterns of coresidential parenthood and changes in the likelihood that divorced men and women live with children. We also examine the impact of the baby boom on parenting. Our findings support a recasting of ongoing discussions of the parental roles of American men and women by shifting the historical demographic focus from biological transitions to the social aspects of parenting.     

The Praxis Assignment: Experiential Learning in a Large Social–Community Psychology Class

In this article, a faculty member, a graduate student teaching assistant, and four undergraduates describe their experiences with a “Day of Social Justice Praxis Assignment” as a form of experiential learning in a 120-person social-community psychology course. The faculty member lays out the goals of the course and her hopes for the specific assignment. The undergraduates reflect on their experience with the assignment, and the graduate student contextualizes how their work is reflective or not reflective of the work produced in the class and course concepts. The article ends with a critical and frank discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of the assignment.