Overcoming Inner Division: post-suffrage strategies in the organised German women's movement

German women were working within a context strikingly different from either the USA or the UK following the granting of suffrage in 1918. Focusing on the largest of the bourgeois women's organisations, the Federation of Women's Associations (Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, BDF), this article situates the post-suffrage strategies and priorities of the German women's movement within their particular national context. The BDF have been accused of failing to fully utilise the vote as a tool for change, but a study of their journal, Die Frau, shows that it was the weight of external factors that reduced the BDF's impact, rather than any failure of courage or commitment by the women. An overview of German press coverage of female suffrage before, during and after the war sets out the mental landscape within which the women were operating and gives for the first time a much-needed indication of public response to the issue.     

Is ‘good enough’ peacebuilding good enough? The potential and pitfalls of the local turn in peacebuilding in Timor-Leste

There is a palpable sense of humility within the United Nations and other international institutions regarding peacebuilding. Rather than seeking to implement the liberal peace, they now pursue the more modest goal of ‘good enough’ outcomes. This shift reflects a growing consensus in the critical literature that space needs to be provided for the local agency that will ultimately determine the outcomes of peacebuilding. At first blush this emphasis on local agency is positive; it offers an important correction to the technocratic and generally top-down nature of liberal peacebuilding. But, is the ‘good enough’ approach to peacebuilding good enough? What are the pitfalls and potential of the local turn? This article uses a case study of Timor-Leste to answer these questions. It finds that the local turn can help lend legitimacy to the state and increase opportunities for political participation and the delivery of public goods at the local level. However, the emerging evidence from Timor-Leste also highlights the pitfalls of the local turn. Most significantly, the state can transfer responsibility for public goods provision to the local level in order to lessen the burden on the state and to divert attention from ineffective or illegitimate central institutions.     

Cortisol Stress Response Variability in Early Adolescence: Attachment,Affect and Sex

Attachment, affect, and sex shape responsivity to psychosocial stress. Concurrent social contexts influence cortisol secretion, a stress hormone and biological marker of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity. Patterns of attachment, emotion status, and sex were hypothesized to relate to bifurcated, that is, accentuated and attenuated, cortisol reactivity. The theoretical framework for this study posits that multiple individual differences mediate a cortisol stress response. The effects of two psychosocial stress interventions, a modified Trier Social Stress Test for Teens and the Frustration Social Stressor for Adolescents were developed and investigated with early adolescents. Both of these protocols induced a significant stress reaction and evoked predicted bifurcation in cortisol responses; an increase or decrease from baseline to reactivity. In Study I, 120 predominantly middle-class, Euro-Canadian early adolescents with a mean age of 13.43 years were studied. The girls’ attenuated cortisol reactivity to the public performance stressor related significantly to their self-reported lower maternal-attachment and higher trait-anger. In Study II, a community sample of 146 predominantly Euro-Canadian middle-class youth, with an average age of 14.5 years participated. Their self-reports of higher trait-anger and trait-anxiety, and lower parental attachment by both sexes related differentially to accentuated and attenuated cortisol reactivity to the frustration stressor. Thus, attachment, affect, sex, and the stressor contextual factors were associated with the adrenal-cortical responses of these adolescents through complex interactions. Further studies of individual differences in physiological responses to stress are called for in order to clarify the identities of concurrent protective and risk factors in the psychosocial stress and physiological stress responses of early adolescents.     

Land reforms and voluntary resettlement: household participation and attrition rates in Malawi

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the factors influencing household participation in and withdrawal from a World Bank-funded voluntary resettlement scheme moving 15,000 low-income farming households within and across rural districts in Malawi. Using a survey of 203 beneficiary households, focus groups and in-depth interviews, we identify a lack of access to land and conflict over land in the area of origin as salient participation factors in resettlement, while withdrawal factors include lower access to infrastructure and poor soil quality in resettlement areas. We also highlight limited prior awareness of actual conditions in resettlement areas, low and biased participation in the decision to move, a greater desire for formal land titles due to loss of customary entitlement as a result of resettlement, and widespread ambiguity and confusion over titles for resettled plots. In this context, we point to a pattern of ‘negative resettlement’, in which households remain resettled despite major grievances, for lack of an alternative option, contrasting with ‘positive resettlement’, where households remain by choice. We suggest that intra-district resettlement is more likely to be successful than inter-district resettlement when there is a risk of informed consent deficiency. These findings point to the relative failures of this particular resettlement scheme, and suggest possible improvements for land redistribution schemes from agro-industrial projects to poor households.     

The shadow block: Female bonding in quilters

In these brief notes, the author's aim is to situate Born in Flames historically, including within the history of feminist theory. His starting point for thinking through this film was the presumption that what it means now differs from what it meant in its own time. While that would be true of almost any text, it has seemed to the author that Born in Flames, as an incendiary text, is extraordinarily provocative in the very ways that make it now seem “dated.” It remains inspiring, however, because it offers a vision of intersectional political coalition more radical than any feature film that we are likely to see now, despite the influence of decades of feminist, queer, and critical race studies. Revisiting the discourses the film generated at the time of its release, the author has come to recognize that, though times and the trends in theory have changed since 1983, the stakes of the revolution in the film have not. It presents a desire to make the world otherwise, economically and culturally.     

Public awareness programs and non-traditional career choices among women

Abstract: Achieving employment equity has become an important organizational goal. An important part of an Employment Equity Program (EEP) is to inform designated group members (i.e., women, members of visible minorities, disabled persons and aboriginal peoples) that career opportunities are available to them. Public awareness programs that provide this information, such as publicity campaigns and visits to schools and community centres, are infrequently used, however. The research reported in this article demonstrates that public awareness programs can be used to encourage designated group members to apply for jobs that are traditionally avoided. In this study, young women demonstrated a greater interest in and intention to choose non-traditional careers after participating in a public awareness program (an information session) about one specific non-traditional career (police officer). Implications of this research for recruiting and employment equity initiatives are discussed. Sommaire: L'éuité en matière d'emploi est l'une des principales préoccupations des organisations. 1 cet effet, les programmes d'équité en matière d'emploi (PEME) visent à corriger la discrimination dans l'emploi à 1'égard des groupes défavorisés (femmes, minorités visibles, handicapés et autochtones). Les programmes d'information publique offrant une telle information, par le biais de campagnes d'information, de visites scolaires et dans les centres communautaires, sont cependant peu utilisés. Dans cet article, les réultats de notre recherche démontrent que les programmes d'information publique peuvent encourager les membres des groupes défavorisés à soumettre leur candidature dans les secteurs d'emploi non-traditionnels. Dans cette étude, des jeunes femmes ont montré un intérêt plus prononcéà choisir une carrière non-traditionnelle après avoir participéà un programme d'information publique (une séance d'information sur la carrière d'officier de police). Pour terminer, nous discutons les implications de cette recherche sur le recrutement ainsi que les programmes sur l'équité en matière d'emploi.