Effective evaluation of projects on violence against women and girls

What makes evaluations useful for interventions on violence against women and girls (VAWG)? This article reports on a qualitative comparative analysis of 39 evaluations, and shows that it takes a combination of elements to produce good evaluation effects. It identifies eight configurations of conditions which have generated effective evaluations. Key elements were the evaluation context, the evaluators’ sensitivity to gender and to the participants’ rights and security, and consultation with persons considered to be the ultimate “beneficiaries” of the intervention. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches could lead to effective evaluation. The article concludes with recommendations for evaluation users.     

Tangles,tears and messy conversations: using a media discussion group to explore notions of strong women

In this article, we discuss the experiences of six female secondary-school students participating in a media group that encouraged critical discussion and analysis of gender, particularly with respect to notions of strong women in popular media texts. Throughout the study, the participants viewed various forms of media and critically discussed gender representations. We describe the ways that we encouraged critical discussion that prompted the participants to challenge dominant perspectives and develop personal positions regarding gendered representations in popular media. Many discussions were convoluted and often contradictory. Throughout these debates, however, moments emerged in which participants identified complexities associated with gendered representations of strong women as related to privilege, beauty ideals and autonomy. We identify these moments as messy yet critical, requiring the researchers to challenge participants’ postfeminist notions of strong women. We emphasize the importance of ongoing dialogue and the potential of media for encouraging discussion.     

Microcredit and gender empowerment: policy implications for sustainable agricultural development in Eritrea

Sustainable agricultural development requires capital investment. However, farmers in Africa are constrained by inadequate access to microcredit. Therefore, this article examines the extent to which gender influences access to microcredit. The empirical results showed that women are less likely to be able to access microcredit, compared to men. The study also found that separate sets of factors including assets endowment, socio-economic, institutional, and technological factors significantly affected women’s and men’s access to microcredit. The article suggests that to promote sustainable agricultural development, gender differential should be critically considered in designing microcredit schemes that target farmers in Africa.     

Women on Wheels: empowering women through an innovative training and employment programme

Significant victories have been won due to the development sector’s engagement with gender inequality as a political project, but regressive shifts have also led to development being conceptualised as a managerial issue rather than as a process of social change. This article uses empirical research conducted in New Delhi, India with an organisation that trains and employs poor urban women as commercial drivers to discuss how an obsession with “cost effectiveness” and “scale” can delegitimise the valuable work of some organisations. This article encourages re-engagement with gender equality as a complicated social issue rather than as a technical-rational management project.     

War-child mothers in northern Uganda: the civil war forgotten legacy

The protracted LRA war in northern Uganda was characterised by the abduction and abuse of an unknown but significant number of girls and women. These girls were forced to carry guns and become wives to rebels, among other roles during captivity. Based on thirteen child mothers’ interviews and eight key informant interviews, the study found that the lives of formerly abducted mothers are tainted with stigma, rejection, and discrimination by in-laws, relatives, and the community, which leads to identity problems and limited possibilities for their integration. Child mothers’ return to school, small business engagement, and social involvement reduced their plight.     

Gender models: changing representations and intersecting roles in Dutch and Italian fashion magazines, 1982–2011

This article presents a comparative content analysis of gender representation in fashion magazines in Italy and the Netherlands. Updating Goffman’s classic study of Gender Advertisements, we study the intersections of gender, professional role, country and time in media representation. Thus, we combine and confront quantitative content analysis with insights from critical gender studies on polysemy and intersectionality. Analyzing a sample of 5840 images from mainstream, commercial and high fashion magazines published in 1982, 1996 and 2011, we find that gender representation strongly intersects with time, place, and notably: professional role. Models, who represent the specific ‘aesthetic capital’ of the fashion field, are portrayed in highly specific ways. Over time, gender differences in representation become stronger in Italy, while in the Netherlands male and female representation converges towards conventionally ‘feminine’ styles. In both countries, we find increasing prominence of (North-American) Goffmanian gender conventions and a new ‘withdrawn’ gendered style emerging in the early 2000s. This new style employs new signs and conventions to denote gender and professional status: it separates men from women, and models from non-models. Our analysis shows, first, that gender representation does not directly reflect gender inequality. Second, it demonstrates the impact of globalization on gender representation. Third, it highlights the polysemy and cultural specificity of visual signs: gender difference can be ‘ritualized’ and ‘stylized’ in various ways. These diverse gendered conventions intersect with other characteristics, and may convey diverse, and changing messages about the relation between gender and sexuality, power, aesthetics and (visual) pleasure.     

How do gender quotas affect public support for women as political leaders?

Gender quotas have shown themselves to be an effective means of getting more women into political office. Less clear is the broader effect of gender quotas on egalitarian attitudes. This article uses a cross-national dataset of 48 countries worldwide to examine the role of gender quotas in the generation of individual-level attitudes to women as political leaders. Firstly, gender quotas appear to improve perceptions of women’s ability as political leaders in countries where they are present, having controlled for a range of individual-level and contextual influences. Second, this effect differs by sex. For women, the presence of gender quotas alone increases their support for women’s political leadership, something theorised as a ‘vote of confidence’ effect. Thirdly, this effect is not dependent on the type of quota implemented and holds for quotas adopted voluntarily by political parties and those that are brought about via a broader legal change.     

Gender flexible pedagogy in early childhood education

Early childhood education (ECE) has long been recognized as one of the most gendered professions. This paper aims to examine how far ECE can become a space to deliver ‘gender flexible pedagogy’, a concept that incorporates ideas about staff modelling of alternative forms of masculinities and femininities, the value of a mixed gender workforce, and explicit gender teaching within curricula. The theoretical underpinnings of this concept are discussed drawing on data collected in discussions with pre-school teachers in order to understand the potential of this principle and identify how it can be practiced. The paper is based on two different interview based studies, one conducted in an Indonesian kindergarten and the other with Swedish preschool pedagogues. The findings suggest that gendered practices in ECE are rooted in teachers’ implicit gender beliefs influenced by larger socio-political discourses. Early childhood educators must develop an explicit gender consciousness before they can deliver a gender conscious pedagogy.     

新马岛屿争端之判决:依据与启示

2008年5月23日,国际法院对新马岛屿之争做出判决,将白礁岛判给了新加坡.国际法院的判词表明:有力的证据,即官方在争端事项上代表政府权力行使的言词及行为是新加坡赢得白礁岛主权的关键.因此,进行相关研究,为通过法律途径解决中国与他国之间的领土争端解决提供充分的理论和事实依据,具有重要的意义.国际法院对一些证据效力的判定也启示我们:在涉及领土争端的问题时,国家间关系的利益权衡固然重要,但在权衡时,也要尽可能地考虑这种权衡将来在法庭上可能产生的证据因素和影响.     

The Gendered and Racialised Division in the Korean Labour Market: The Case of Migrant Workers in the Catering Sector

Based on the empirical analysis of migrant women employed in the catering sector, this paper examines the gendered and racialised division in the Korean labour market. Given limited labour protection and the flexibilisation of the migrant workforce in the labour market, South Korea has been able to reduce possible economic and social costs and, at the same time, enjoy the benefits of the significant economic contribution of migrant workers. By looking at gender relations and racial discrimination in the catering sector, and inconsistent government policies, this paper underlines that migrant women are marginalised in the labour market owing to their ‘multiple vulnerability’ as women, migrants and undocumented workers.