From Dictatorship to Democracy: Four Chilean Women’s Memories

A law school dean, a university president, a scholarly judge, and the head of the Foreign Ministry division in charge of Chile’s frontiers agree: The Constitution of 1980 was the initial turning point in Chile’s transition from autocracy to pluralism.

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Ples Bilong Mere</Emphasis>*: Law,Gender and Peace-Building in Solomon Islands

This article discusses women and peace-building in Solomon Islands and the effect of law, theory and practical circumstances on their role. It looks at the place of Solomon Islands women in society historically, with particular reference to war and peace. It then analyses their current status from a legal perspective, looking at the existing Constitution, the proposed Federal Constitution, and relevant aspects of international law. It questions whether gender equity provisions are sufficient to promote participation at a practical level. The article also disputes the effectiveness of various international, regional, and local initiatives, designed to enhance the status of women. The article discusses the application of some of the theories relating to women and peace-building to the circumstances of Solomon Islands. It concludes by looking to the future and discussing means of consolidating women’s position, and increasing their involvement in leadership and decision-making.

Claiming rights in exile: women’s insurgent citizenship practices in the Thai-Myanmar borderlands

ABSTRACT

This paper examines insurgent citizenship practices employed by activists in the exiled Burmese women’s movement from the 1990s and onwards. Consisting of political exiles, refugees and ethnic insurgents, this movement has successfully used the transnational, transitory space of the borderlands to constitute its participants as political subjects with legitimate claims to rights, citizenship and leadership. Drawing on interviews, this analysis interrogates women’s activism through the lens of insurgent citizenship practices. Thus, how have Burmese women’s activists claimed rights and lived citizenship in exile? Three main strategies are examined: firstly, women activists have positioned themselves as political actors and authorities through involvement in governance and humanitarian aid delivery in refugee camps. Secondly, they have claimed rights and political subjectivity through engagement with international norms, networks and arenas. Thirdly, they have claimed citizenship and political influence in oppositional nation-making projects through engaging with and negotiating ethno-nationalist armed struggles. The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of women’s insurgent citizenship practices, showing how they navigate multiple marginalized subject positions, direct their rights claims towards multiple governing authorities, and enact multiple political communities.     

When things get hairy: afros,cornrows, and the desegregation of US military hair salons in West Germany

This article employs ‘hair’ as a lens for investigating the ways in which black women’s experiences in the US military and West Germany were racialized and, at the same time, gendered. Based on the personal stories of Women’s Army Corps member Babette Peyton, who got court-martialed in Germany in 1975 for wearing her hair in cornrows, and Marie Davenport, teacher and beautician in Frankfurt, who desegregated the local military hair salon, this article uncovers black women’s mundane activism against racial and gender discrimination. Their experiences and perseverance demonstrate that black military women made critical contributions to the Civil Rights Movement while abroad in Germany.     

Rationalizing pay inequity: women engineers,pervasive patriarchy and the neoliberal chimera

This article argues that neoliberalism with its pervasive patriarchy and co-option of feminism, renders women tacitly complicit in gendered pay inequalities. We show that in New Zealand, one of the world’s most neoliberal nations, women who might precisely be best equipped to argue for equal pay – engineers – do not do so because neoliberalism makes many feel responsible for, and accepting of, their lower salaries. In interviews and focus groups, many women engineers talk of deserving less pay than men because of their ‘choices’, their ‘personality’ and their lack of ‘responsibility’. In a disempowering environment, some women show agency by disavowing gender as a reason for the pay gap. Such narratives of individualized shortcomings reduce hope of collective action that might uncover and dismantle the systemic causes of pay inequity, which are not due to a woman’s choice or personality but rather what we frame as the neoliberal chimera.     

US Women Federal Court Judges Appointed by President Carter

There is considerable disagreement as to whether any gender differences on the bench are symbolic, substantive, or both. This paper, based on never-before published surveys and personal interviews conducted in the early 1980s, contributes to that discussion by describing what women appointed to the federal bench by President Carter between 1976 and 1980 had to say about gender differences in their first years in office. I conclude that these early experiences and comments by women on the bench are still relevant today and presage much of the research on judicial gender which has followed.

“I’m Not a Vet!” Marginalisation and Practices of Resistance to Ageing by Women Hockey Players

ABSTRACT

Participation in team sports constitutes both a site for perpetuating discriminatory cultural perceptions of ageing women as well as a means of resisting and challenging such perceptions. Using Markula’s framework of Foucauldian feminism, we examine the marginalisation of women who play hockey in Australia and their acts of resistance against discriminatory processes related to ageing. This analysis draws on an ethnographic study of an Australian women’s field hockey club. Fifteen women took part in two one-on-one in-depth interviews focused on their experiences of mental health and emotional well-being in relation to playing hockey. Although participating in a team sport offers a means of resisting negative stereotypes of ageing women, the quasi-professionalisation that occurred at this particular club across the data collection period constrained these women’s acts of resistance. These findings illuminate the impact of a club’s structure and culture on women’s experiences of social inclusion in the context of Australian team sport.     

Do female legislators benefit from incumbency advantage? Incumbent renomination in a flexible-list PR system

This study investigates whether female legislators, just like their male colleagues, also benefit from incumbency advantage in the form of privileged access to candidate selection. This is done by examining whether female and male MPs receive the same reward for equivalent political performance when renomination decisions are made by political parties. Political performance is conceptualised in terms of incumbents’ popularity among voters, readiness to vote along the party line and legislative activity. An original dataset comprising 1032 observations on Czech legislators elected between 1996 and 2017 is used in the analysis. The results suggests that well-performing female MPs are just as likely as their male colleagues to secure a favourable renomination outcome. This result should not, however, be interpreted as evidence of gender-neutral access to re-election and political seniority as past research clearly indicates that female MPs need to work harder than men to produce the same political output.     

解放思想开拓创新奠定“百年女大”发展新基石--《山东女子学院中长期发展战略暨“十三五”事业发展规划》解读与说明

中国需要女子大学，办女子大学是一种优势。“百年女大”是山东女子学院长远发展的愿景，表现为六大战略目标和三个阶段的步骤。“十三五”期间，要着重采取五大行动来实现十大目标，就保障措施而言，尤其需要发挥思想的先导作用，建立强大的师资队伍，培养富有开拓精神的干部队伍。     

Gender and vote revelation strategy in the United States Congress

Legislators approach each election as if they might lose. Electoral insecurity coupled with gender stereotypes held by voters and lawmakers alike may lead female legislators to communicate more voting decisions to voters as a signal of their policy-driven efforts. Using an original data-set of over 40,000 official e-newsletters and Real Simple Syndication feeds sent by members of Congress, I show that women reveal more roll call votes to constituents than their male counterparts. Significant differences exist between male and female incumbents in the frequency of vote revelation despite the fact that male and female legislators use these communication techniques to reach constituents at the same rates and call attention to similar bills. These differences persist after accounting for the effects of party, seniority, district fit, and other potential confounds. Women highlight their ability to fulfill the roles expected of lawmakers by explicitly signaling involvement in lawmaking activities more frequently than men. In a second test, I analyze the types of bills legislators reveal votes on and find no differences between men and women.