Stage model for female criminals: business school students’ perceptions of white-collar offenders

We know that half of the population in Norway is female, and we know that females represent 6% of the white-collar crime prison population. In the stage model overview, we derive percentages from the literature into the gender model to explain stepwise reduction from 50% to 6%. In our empirical research, we asked two groups of business school students to come up with their own estimates for the stages in the model for female criminals. While estimates from executive students resulted in 3% women in prison, bachelor students’ estimates resulted in 10% women in prison. The most obvious discrepancy between the research literature and our two survey groups is related to relative convictions. Based on the literature, we suggested that female defendants receive more serious convictions because they may perceive and feel more guilt for a crime, for example in terms of regret, shame and depression. Thus women may have a tendency to confess more easily. Both executive students and bachelor students disagree with this estimate of 140%, as they suggest 62% and 69% respectively. One reason for their suggestion of less serious convictions for female white-collar criminals – sometimes labelled pink-collar criminals – might be that family situation and other elements are taken into account before a verdict is passed on a woman. Another substantial discrepancy is related to detection risk. The literature suggests a low detection risk for women, but may be not as low as we estimated at 30%. Both executive and bachelor students believe that the gender difference in detection likelihood is not that formidable, as they suggest 75% and 65% respectively.     

‘Flat and fabulous’: women’s breast reconstruction refusals post-mastectomy and the negotiation of normative femininity

The ‘pinkification’ of breast cancer culture in recent years conflates women’s empowerment with the celebration of hyperfemininity. Consistent with this trend, reconstructive surgery post-mastectomy is increasingly normalised: restoring the breasts is to restore ‘lost’ femininity. Contextualised within the pressures of this normalisation, our article explores how women who decide against breast reconstruction negotiate their non-normative ‘flat’ bodies. We examine women’s posts in a breast cancer forum about their refusals of breast reconstruction. Using thematic and feminist post-structuralist analyses, we suggest that although health and body acceptance discourses enable resistance to embodied femininity norms, pressures to conform permeate practices related to appearance. Clothes and prosthetic breasts enabled forum participants to pass as ‘healthy’, ‘whole’, and ‘recovered’. The study’s findings emphasise the limitations to agency and resistance that emanate from the ways constraining gender discourses infiltrate every aspect of a woman’s life. In line with a critical awareness approach to breast cancer education, we discuss the possibilities of resistance afforded by the safe spaces of online communities.     

Gender differences in perpetuating factors,experience and management of chronic insomnia

The higher prevalence of insomnia in women has been attributed to biological factors, which are less likely than cognitive and behavioural factors to play a role in perpetuating insomnia. Gender differences in perpetuating factors have not been extensively examined. This study compared men’s and women’s self-reports of factors that perpetuate insomnia; experience of symptoms, perceived severity and impact on daytime functioning; and use of strategies to manage insomnia. Data were collected at baseline, using reliable and valid measures, in a project that evaluated behavioural therapies for insomnia. The sample (N = 739) consisted of women (62.4%) and men (37.6%). Gender differences were found in: (1) perpetuating factors: men took more naps and held more unhelpful beliefs about insomnia, whereas women experienced higher pre-sleep arousal; (2) perception of insomnia severity: higher among women; (3) perceived impact of insomnia: higher fatigue among women; and (4) use of strategies (higher in women) to manage insomnia. Gender differences were of a small size but could be associated with women’s stress, expression of somatic symptoms, and interest in maintaining their own health to meet multiple role demands.     

Gender differences in European volunteer rates

The main goal of this research is to identify the reasons for gender differences in European volunteer rates in different types of voluntary organisations. To that end, we focus in volunteer rates at individual and national levels. We have drawn our data from the European Values Survey (EVS, 1999 and 2008). We have employed Logit models carrying out independent estimations for the individual likelihood of working as a volunteer for four categories: social awareness, professional, education and social justice. We have carried out independent estimations and we have also repeated estimations by gender subsamples. Our main result is that social factors might be even more relevant for decisions to volunteer than individual socio-economic factors. Specifying the peer group as much as possible allows better control of social variables. For example, studying the female volunteer rate is more relevant to control for the female national NGO membership rate than the total national rate. We also highlight important gender differences. For example, education is positively correlated with decisions to volunteer for both genders in all categories, but the educational effect is stronger for men in relation to professional activities and stronger for women in relation to social awareness and social justice activities.     

An Ideational Approach to Gendered Institutional Change: Revisiting the Institutionalization of a New Prostitution Regime in Sweden

Recent work in the field of feminist institutionalism has made important progress in furthering our understanding of gendered institutional change. I argue that gradual ideational changes play an essential role in processes of gendered institutional change, and that examining the interaction between ideas and gendered institutions is of great importance for gaining a better understanding of processes of this type. This article revisits an empirical study of gendered institutional change in Swedish prostitution policy in the effort to specify two idea-based mechanisms that are conducive to gendered change, namely, consensus concerning the problem and gendering of the problem.     

OECD 国家和中国生育产假政策的比较

生育保护假期制度是保障育龄妇女权益的重要手段,OECD国家将产假期限、工作保护和津贴补助三者有机结合,创设的陪产假和育婴假制度极大地促进了性别平等,帮助受雇者平衡工作与家庭的冲突,提升了生育保护水平。当前中国面临着二孩政策全面放开后生育率不如预期乐观的情况,如何走出低生育率陷阱成为亟需解决的问题。通过对OECD国家和中国现有的产假制度进行比较,研究为完善我国生育产假政策提供建议。     

女性“第二轮班”现象真的存在吗 —— 基于女性教育、职业和收入特征的实证研究

本研究借助国家统计局和妇女联合会的调查数据,对比了中国不同性别城镇劳动者在有酬劳动 时间和家务劳动时间分配上的差异特征,并利用面板数据模型验证了影响女性群体时间选择偏好的主要因素。 结果表明,在中国女性城镇劳动力者中,显著存在着“第二轮班”现象,即不仅参与有酬劳动,而且负担了很 大比重的无酬家务劳动。同时,教育、职业和收入等因素对不同性别劳动者时间分配有一定程度的影响。     

Postmillennial femininities in the popular romance novel

Popular romance fiction was thought to carry a patriarchal ideology and was often dismissed as a manifestation of ingrained prejudice and bigotry against the female sex. However, there appears to have been influence from feminism, particularly where Harlequin Mills and Boon stories use the contemporary world and ‘reality’ as a touchstone. In this article I will discuss how the heroines of Harlequin Mills and Boon postmillennial ‘Modern’ novels display various expressions of feminism which contribute to the construction of their identities but that ultimately these tales rely on the dismantling of these autonomous identities sine the heroine is still required to be ‘swept off her feet’.     

Talent alone does not suffice: erotic capital,media visibility and global popularity among professional male and female tennis players

Following Catherine Hakim’s notion of the increasing significance of ‘erotic capital’ in contemporary society, this paper addresses the effects of erotic capital in the realm of professional sports. Erotic capital may be closely related to popularity and thus represents a key marketing asset, in particular for female athletes facing a predominantly male audience. These ideas are examined here through analysing the media visibility of top tennis players in the German print media, as well as their global popularity (measured by search engine queries). The results provide further evidence of gender discrimination in sport since they show that the popularity of female athletes depends on their physical attractiveness whereas such a relationship does not exist for male athletes. Given gender-discriminatory consumer and print media preferences, female athletes face strong incentives to adapt to a sexualized sports culture that reinforces hegemonic masculinity.     

Gender and Vernaculars in Digital Humanities and World Literature

Abstract

This article discusses the large-scale and world-encompassing aspirations of digital humanities and world literature and their methodological accordance with the analysis of literature in smaller languages and of texts understood in social, transnational, and gendered contexts. Are Digital Humanities and World Literature establishing themselves as fields utilizing analytical tools that are at odds with the aims and perspectives of feminist literary history and reception history as a part of literary history? We argue that gender research and theory is insufficiently developed in both computational literary history and World Literature. An unproblematic understanding of translations, canonization, English as a global language, and the use of large-scale computational methods and formalized interpretive models is in many cases not beneficial for the understanding of texts by women writers or from feminist perspectives. Drawing on feminist criticism of computational methods and arguments for specialized rather than generalized knowledge about literary history, we propose that digitization in some form, be it a bibliographical database or digitization of a corpus of texts, may be thought of as part of the research process in projects oriented towards gender and cultural exchange.