The aim of this paper is to show that any process of benefit sharing that does not guarantee the representation and participation of women in the decision-making process, as well as in the distribution of benefits, contravenes a central demand of social justice. It is argued that women, particularly in developing countries, can be excluded from benefits derived from genetic research because of existing social structures that promote and maintain discrimination. The paper describes how the structural problem of (...) gender-based inequity can impact on benefit sharing processes. At the same time, examples are given of poor women’s ability to organise themselves and to achieve social benefits for entire communities. Relevant international guidelines (e.g. the Convention on Biodiversity) recognise the importance of women’s contributions to the protection of biodiversity and thereby, implicitly, their right to a share of the benefits, but no mechanism is outlined on how to bring this about. The authors make a clear recommendation to ensure women’s participation in benefit sharing negotiations by demanding seats at the negotiation table. (shrink)

NCMRD initiated the Women in Management Research Program in January 1988. One of the objectives of the program is to help managers and policy makers deal with issues arising from women's increased participation in managerial and professional jobs backing research to help arrive at solutions to the problems being encountered both by institutions and by women themselves. Significant research funds have been raised from the private sector and ten projects have been funded to date. This article describes (...) the early development of the Program and its research mandate. (shrink)

The maternal‐fetal HIV transmission trials, conducted in developing countries in the 1990s, undoubtedly generated one of the most intense, high profile controversies in international research ethics. They sparked off a prolonged acrimonious and public debate and deeply divided the scientific community. They also provided an impetus for the revision of the Declaration of Helsinki – the most widely known guideline for international research. In this paper, I provide a brief summary of the context, outline the arguments for and against the (...) controversial use of placebo controls, and focus on particular areas that I believe merit further discussion or clarification. On balance, I argue that the researchers failed in their duties to protect the best interests of their research subjects, and to promote distributive justice. I discuss the difficulties of obtaining valid consent in this research context, and argue that it is unethical to inform women of their HIV status without at least offering them prophylactic treatment for their unborn children. A global view of justice, which endorses international equity, cannot be squared with international research guidelines that allow ‘local conditions’ to define the scope of duty to the control group. Finally, I suggest that the heated debate reflects a tension, if not an outright war, between two conflicting meta‐ethical systems, or incommensurable paradigms, that underpin scientific research involving human subjects. (shrink)

_The word Development is devious and captivating, however, the development path is perplexed. In most cases, the governments try to attain economic, military, technological, and infrastructural development, whereas, the power centers evade investing and working on issues of Human Development. The governments of countries like Pakistan strive to shuffle the attentiveness of the world by spending a huge amount on building the roads, on bridges, and transportation and in maximization of arms and ammunition. Human development (...) in Pakistan has always been neglected due to various reasons. A huge population of almost a 22million having as low as 154 th position in the human development index. The patriarchal system has created the social and cultural environment that is supporting persistence male domination, remains the major obstacle in the intellectual, social, and economic growth of women. This paper addresses the conceptual and methodological aspects of human development and women’s empowerment in Pakistan, it explains the challenges and trends concerning women’s empowerment throughout Pakistan’s history, specifically in key areas such as individual, education, and health, economic and political participation, and especially Women’s limited and controlled mobility._. (shrink)

In recent years, more and more Chinese women have joined the legal profession and have made remarkable achievements in this field. Gender stereotypes, however, which involve a deep-rooted social concept, have seriously hindered Chinese women’s development in the legal profession and have had a profound and adverse impact on women’s career progression. Based on the statistical data in the public domain as well as the ethnographic data drawn from interviews with legal professionals and informal conversations with (...) lawyers known to the principal author, this paper focuses on women in the Chinese legal profession, identifies the causes of women’s dilemmas in their career development as well as the impact of gender stereotyping on them within the legal profession in order to provide some insights on improving gender equality in China. According to the authors, the causes of gender stereotypes in China are diverse: Existing legal institutions promote and maintain such stereotyping practices; traditional gender concepts enter into and disseminated in people’s thoughts; the theory of biological determinism in the field of science misleads the general public; and the legal system constructs women’s status as workers and mothers. In view of this, it is necessary to achieve substantive equality in China’s legal profession by weakening men’s domination of the legal profession, improving the structure and ideology of relevant institutions and policies in offering women more incentives for career development, and also changing women’s understanding of and efforts against biased gender stereotypes. This will help break down China’s gender stereotypes, promote gender equality in the legal profession, and address the dilemma of women’s legal career development. (shrink)

Computerized relaxation training has been suggested as an effective and easily accessible intervention for individuals with psychological distress. To better elucidate the neural mechanism that underpins the effects of relaxation training, we investigated whether a 10-session computerized relaxation training program changed prefrontal gamma-aminobutyric acid levels and cerebral blood flow in women with psychological distress. We specifically focused on women since they were reported to be more vulnerable to develop stress-related disorders than men. Nineteen women with psychological distress (...) but without a diagnosis of psychiatric disorders received the 10-day computerized relaxation training program that consisted of 30-min cognitive-relaxation training and 10-min breathing-relaxation training per day. At baseline and post-intervention, perceived stress levels, anxiety, fatigue, and sleep quality were assessed by self-report questionnaires. Brain magnetic resonance spectroscopy and arterial spin labeling scans were also performed before and after the intervention to evaluate GABA levels and relative CBF in the prefrontal region. Levels of perceived stress, anxiety, fatigue, and sleep quality improved following 10 sessions of computerized relaxation training, resulting in a significant relief in composite scores of stress-related symptoms. The prefrontal GABA levels decreased, while relative CBF increased after the intervention. In addition, a greater increase in relative prefrontal CBF was associated with better composite scores of stress-related symptoms following the intervention. The current findings suggest that computerized relaxation training may improve stress-related symptoms through modulating the prefrontal GABA levels and CBF in women with psychological distress. (shrink)

Very little research into women farmers in developed countries has been produced by economists, but much of what has been studied by scholars in other disciplines has economic implications. This article reviews such research produced by scholars in all disciplines to explore to what extent women farmers are becoming more equal to men farmers and to suggest further contributions to the literature. As examples, topics that has been widely researched in developing countries but have received almost no attention (...) in developed countries include comparisons of men and women farmers’ productivity and their access to and use of resources. Discoveries in these and other areas will be important not only for their insights into the agricultural industry in developed countries, but also because they will inform, and be informed by, research on women farmers in developing countries. (shrink)

Most studies examining gender and development programs in international nongovernmental organizations consider how these organizations construct global policy agendas, or how such policies are implemented in local contexts. However, INGOs originate in specific countries. Drawing on the varieties of capitalism literature, this article analyzes the impact of “national gender imaginaries” on gender and development programs implemented by INGOs in Cambodia. Based on 43 in-depth interviews, I argue that INGOs from Scandinavia, the United States, and South Korea, informed by (...) different gender imaginaries, pursue different ways of promoting women in development. Local Cambodian nongovernmental organizations, aware of this variation in national models among INGOs, employ distinct strategies to appeal to donors while adapting the models to the Cambodian context. (shrink)

This article focusses on women and the organisational leadership structures of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe. The aim is to identify the roles, practices and contributions of women to the developmental agenda in the church. The AFM in Zimbabwe identifies leadership positions in their various assemblies as pastor, elder, deacon and lay worker. From these ranks, the provincial and national leadership is chosen. The access to and participation of women in these offices and leadership positions will (...) be investigated to ascertain their input to the development of the church and perception of women in the society. The article discusses the mechanisms for the election of leadership in the AFM in Zimbabwe. It analyses leadership succession and leadership roles within the AFM in Zimbabwe from the perspective of gender equity and the involvement of women in policy-making, decision-making and the management of the church. Four aspects of the Exploratory Descriptive Normative Action research model were utilised from a practical theology perspective. The article shows that women do not have access to top leadership positions in the AFM in Zimbabwe even though there are no explicit policies that regulate their exclusion. It highlights their contribution to the development of the church despite this exclusion and engages critically with the unspoken assumption that women are not fit to take up the presidium offices and develop the AFM. The article finds that unquestioned patriarchal discourse contributes to women’s invisibility, which results in their not being taken into consideration when choices are made to elect people for higher leadership positions in the church. (shrink)

Why do women have more difficulty pursuing research careers than men? Although this topic has been extensively investigated in industrialized countries, prior studies provide little comparative evidence from less-developed areas. Based on a survey of 293 scientists in Ghana, Kenya, and the Indian state of Kerala, this article examines gender differences on a variety of individual, social, and organizational dimensions. The results show small or nonexistent differences between women and men in individual characteristics, professional resources, and the organizational (...) conditions under which research is conducted. The article argues that a combination of educational and research localism increases the likelihood of restricted professional networks for women. Gender inequality in the research systems of the developing world may be based on systemic deficits in the acquisition of social rather than material resources. The most important implication is that educational policy for development should focus on international opportunities for women in the near future. (shrink)

Despite its place in the humanities, the career prospects and numbers of women in philosophy much more closely resemble those found in the sciences and engineering. This book collects a series of critical essays by female philosophers pursuing the question of why philosophy continues to be inhospitable to women and what can be done to change it. By examining the social and institutional conditions of contemporary academic philosophy in the Anglophone world as well as its methods, culture, and (...) characteristic commitments, the volume provides a case study in interpretation of one academic discipline in which women's progress seems to have stalled since initial gains made in the 1980s. Some contributors make use of concepts developed in other contexts to explain women's under-representation, including the effects of unconscious biases, stereotype threat, and micro-inequities. Other chapters draw on the resources of feminist philosophy to challenge everyday understandings of time, communication, authority and merit, as these shape effective but often unrecognized forms of discrimination and exclusion. Often it is assumed that women need to change to fit existing institutions. This book instead offers concrete reflections on the way in which philosophy needs to change, in order to accommodate and benefit from the important contribution women's full participation makes to the discipline. (shrink)

This article argues that the condition of women in Third World societies cannot be separated from the colonial experience since the power relationships that were established during the colonial era between Europe and its territories, and between women and men, have not varied significantly and are still recreated through contemporary mechanisms. For example, development projects promoted by Western countries to modernize the Third World have, in the long run, better served their own interests than those of their (...) intended beneficiaries. As a result and contrary to expectations, growth and prosperity still elude the Third World. We also show that during the current international economic crisis, women's unpaid or underpaid labor has become the basis of new development programs and policies and is crucial to the recent phase of capitalist development. We discuss how the structural position and status of women and colonies closely resemble each other and have served as the foundations of the capital accumulation process and the development of industrial nations. The concept of women as a last colony thus becomes a compelling metaphor of liberation and leads us to stress the need for a worldwide process of gender decolonization, entailing the reformulation of power relations between women and men. (shrink)

The book analyses the two decades of the brutal civil war of northern Uganda. The author modified Lederach's peacebuilding framework to include peacemaking to bring out the argument that women and men make significant contributions to the peace processes and point out women's position as top leadership actors. The book uncovers the under-emphasised role of women in peacemaking and building. From grassroots to national level, women were found to have organised themselves and assumed roles as advocates, (...) negotiators and mobilisers. The actions by women became evident at the stalemated Juba peace talks when women presented the Peace Torch to the peace negotiating teams who on the occasion shook hands for the first time and peace was ushered inches Their initiatives and non-violent actions offer lessons to resolve civil conflicts in Africa. The book recommends that women should undergo relevant training in times of peace as this would make them more effective in times of need. (shrink)

The ‘epistemic’ violence that has beset gender discourses in education refutes the claim that progress is measured by figures and numbers of Jordanian women in schools and the workplace. While such discourses demand to be contextualized, deconstructed and resisted, they also necessitate creating a link between political praxis and gender politics. My argument centres on the indispensable role critical discourse can play in locating these instances of ‘epistemic’ violence and revealing the manner in which the themes of constructed gender (...) knowledge have been subjugated to the political praxis of each context. Interventions by donors and NGOs have more often than not been emasculated by the political considerations of governments and establishments. The result has been ‘disciplined’ gender politics in education, perpetuating traditional discursive practices, roles and stereotypes instead of acting as an emancipatory power. Human development reports and traditional literature on gender bias in education have failed to account for such discursive/power practices. In this paper, I shed light on the national, the international and the textual ‘knowledge’ that surrounds gender bias in education in a context like Jordan. I conclude by demonstrating the importance of the national and its discursive practices in reformulating approaches based on the international (human development reports) and the textual (literature on gender bias and stereotypes in education). (shrink)

At Chithurst Buddhist Monastery, in the UK, in 1979, four women joined the newly formed community of Theravada monks. They lived initially as novices, and their wish to engage more fully with the life of renunciation, combined with the support and commitment of the community leader Ajahn Sumedho and other monks, led to the formation of a unique order of Theravada Buddhist nuns, who became known as siladhara. This paper will appear in two parts. This first part begins with (...) a brief contextual overview of Theravada nuns, from the founding and decline of the order of bhikkhunis to the various forms of ordination available for women in the Theravada world today. It then gives a history of the order of siladhaa? from its inception until approximately 2000, focusing on the development of their rule and ordination procedures, the way the order has changed over the years and issues and conflicts it has had to deal with, as well as a period when some nuns lived in a women-only community. My research was undertaken by personal interview with founding members of the order as well as by e-mail, telephone and written communications with nuns past and present and with a senior monk involved in the order’s early days. The history until the present day and consideration of future developments will form the second part of the paper. (shrink)

This history of the unique community of Theravada nuns known as siladhara, based at Amaravati and Chithurst Buddhist monasteries is presented in two parts. The history from its inception in the late 1970s until the years 2000 appeared in Buddhist Studies Review 23. This second part gives the most recent developments in the order, from 2000 to the present day, plus reflections on the future. The research is based on personal interview with founding members of the order as well as (...) email, telephone and written communications with nuns past and present. It considers the implications of the revived bhikkhuni ordination for the siladhara and addresses the possibilities for the future. It describes the founding of a parallel order of Theravada nuns in Western Australia, with some significant differences to the UK nuns. It concludes that in attempting a form of monasticism for women, giving all the advantages of renunciation but at the same time negotiating the difficult synthesis of Western expectations, traditional Theravada cultural norms and the monastic rule itself, it has largely succeeded. (shrink)

This history of the unique community of Theravada nuns known as siladhara, based at Amaravati and Chithurst Buddhist monasteries is presented in two parts. The history from its inception in the late 1970s until the years 2000 appeared in Buddhist Studies Review 23. This second part gives the most recent developments in the order, from 2000 to the present day, plus reflections on the future. The research is based on personal interview with founding members of the order as well as (...) email, telephone and written communications with nuns past and present. It considers the implications of the revived bhikkhuni ordination for the siladhara and addresses the possibilities for the future. It describes the founding of a parallel order of Theravada nuns in Western Australia, with some significant differences to the UK nuns. It concludes that in attempting a form of monasticism for women, giving all the advantages of renunciation but at the same time negotiating the difficult synthesis of Western expectations, traditional Theravada cultural norms and the monastic rule itself, it has largely succeeded. (shrink)

This book contains a selection of papers from the workshop *Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy* held in October 2019 in Tilburg, the Netherlands. It is the first volume devoted to the role of women in early analytic philosophy. It discusses the ideas of ten female philosophers and covers a period of over a hundred years, beginning with the contribution to the Significs Movement by Victoria, Lady Welby in the second half of the nineteenth century, and ending (...) with Ruth Barcan Marcus’s celebrated version of quantified modal logic after the Second World War. The book makes clear that women contributed substantially to the development of analytic philosophy in all areas of philosophy, from logic, epistemology, and philosophy of science, to ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. It illustrates that although women's voices were no different from men's as regards their scope and versatility, they had a much harder time being heard. The book is aimed at historians of philosophy and scholars in gender studies. (shrink)

Resumo: Yang Naimei (杨耐梅) é uma estrela de cinema chinesa da primeira metade do século XX. O estudo discute a prática de vida e o significado de Yang Naimei como uma flapper chinesa. Flapper se refere à garota moderna que cresceu na Europa e na América, na década de 1920, e desafia o estilo de vida tradicional. Yang Naimei é boa em atuar como uma mulher indisciplinada, na tela. Ela teve muitos relacionamentos em sua vida. Ela acumulou riqueza e reputação (...) com sua carreira de atriz, que incorpora totalmente as características da flapper. No entanto, a sociedade da época não oferecia espaço suficiente para o desenvolvimento sustentável da geração de mulheres, como Yang Naimei, na vida econômica, política e pessoal. Com a sua juventude passada, ela foi eliminada pela indústria cinematográfica e sofreu com a pobreza e a doença, na segunda metade de sua vida. Tomando Yang Naimei como uma silhueta dos tempos, pode-se refletir sobre as voltas e reviravoltas do caminho de desenvolvimento das mulheres chinesas. (shrink)

The argument of this paper is that texts in the history of political thought are rather more loquacious on the question of women than has often been supposed. The argument is developed using examples from Plato's Republic, notably the sections on injustice and tyranny. The paper concludes by suggesting the general implications of its approach for the concerns and style of political theory, particularly as to the importance of understanding symbolic and mythic elements in works of political thought.

This introductory article positions the Special Issue devoted to women in corporate management. Women in all developing countries face a glass ceiling to advancement to senior management in medium and large organizations. It then reviews the eight manuscripts in the collection, integrating women in management themes into the mainstream of business ethics.

Transgender women are an important subgroup of the transgender umbrella and have their own unique gender identity. This article aimed to understand and measure the latent concept of gender identity among Chinese transgender women from a multi-dimensional perspective. Through a two-phase, iterative scale development process, we developed the Gender Identity Scale for Transgender Women in Chinese. Literature reviews, expert consultations, and focus groups constitute phrase 1 of the study, which resulted in the first version of GIS-TW (...) with 30 items. In phrase 2, exploratory factor analysis on a sample of 244 Chinese transgender women revealed a six-factor solution across the 22 items. The Bem Sex Role Inventory was included to test for convergent validity, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used to test discriminant validity. Then we conducted the confirmatory factor analysis with an independent sample of 420 Chinese transgender women, which produced the final version of GIS-TW with 21 items. The internal consistency and test-retest stability of each factor was good. In conclusion, the GIS-TW is a reliable and valid psychometric tool for the assessment of Chinese transgender women’s gender identity. Future application of the scale will help transgender women obtain better gender confirmative interventions. (shrink)

As the lowest in the caste hierarchy, Dalits in Indian society have historically suffered caste-based social exclusion from economic, civil, cultural, and political rights. Women from this community suffer from not only discrimination based on their gender but also caste identity and consequent economic deprivation. Dalit women constituted about 16.60 percent of India’s female population in 2011. Dalit women’s problems encompass not only gender and economic deprivation but also discrimination associated with religion, caste, and untouchability, which in (...) turn results in the denial of their social, economic, cultural, and political rights. They become vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation due to their gender and caste. Dalit women also become victims of abhorrent social and religious practices such as devadasi/jogini, resulting in sexual exploitation in the name of religion. The additional discrimination faced by Dalit women on account of their gender and caste is clearly reflected in the differential achievements in human development indicators for this group. In all the indicators of human development, for example, literacy and longevity, Dalit women score worse than Dalit men and non-Dalit women. Thus, the problems of Dalit women are distinct and unique in many ways, and they suffer from the ‘triple burden’ of gender bias, caste discrimination, and economic deprivation. To gain insights into the economic and social status of Dalit women, our paper will delve more closely into their lives and encapsulate the economic and social situations of Dalit women in India. The analyses of human poverty and caste and gender discrimination are based on official data sets as well as a number of primary studies in the labor market and on reproductive health. (shrink)

This article explores obstacles to understanding the history and contemporary experiences of women in Scotland, and to the development of feminist research in Scotland. It is argued that explanations which invoke Scottish male chauvinism and misogyny alone are insufficient, and that the marginalization of women in Scotland is produced both by male domination within Scotland, and by English cultural and political hegemony within the UK. The article comments on the relationship of the concept of ‘Britishness’ to that (...) of ‘Scottishness’ (and other identities within the UK) and illustrates how the frequent confusion of ‘British’ with ‘English’ serves to obscure Scottish experience. It is also argued that the place of Scotland within the British state has led to the creation of an institutional framework that disadvantages women, and a system of government that excludes women. This implies that feminist debates on the state in Britain require a specific focus on the form of the British state, and in the context of constitutional change in particular this is important for the development of future strategies. It is argued that the double marginalization of women in Scotland is not just a problem in relation to the development of feminist research, but is also a political problem in that it contributes to a degree of alienation from feminism in England. The article concludes by arguing for the necessity of recognition of difference, but also for dialogue, as the basis for feminist alliances in different parts of the UK. (shrink)

Women’s entry into the legal academy in significant numbers—first as students, then as faculty—was a 1970s and 1980s phenomenon. During those decades, women in law schools struggled: first, for admission and inclusion as individual students on a formally equal footing with male students; then for parity in their numbers in classes and on faculties; and, eventually, for some measure of substantive equality across various parameters, including their performance and evaluation both in and in front of the classroom, as (...) well as in the quality of their experiences as students and faculty members and in the benefits to be reaped from their tenure. This part of the story of women’s entry into the legal academy in the 1970s and 1980s—a story of attempted admission, then inclusion, then integration and assimilation, and then, finally, equality—is now a familiar one, at least in broad outline. It is not, in its entirety, an uplifting story. According to a raft of articles produced by women law students in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, women law students during those decades participated less in the classroom, were called on and responded to differently when they did participate, suffered from more law-school-induced anxiety disorders and other mental health issues, graduated with lower GPAs and less law review experience, published fewer notes and filled fewer editorial positions on those journals, held fewer leadership positions overall while in law school, and had far more difficulties connecting with mentors, teachers, and would-be recommenders among the faculty than male students. Women law professors during those decades were tenured at significantly lower rates than men and, particularly at high prestige schools and at schools with fewer female faculty among the tenured ranks, were hired at lower rates that did not reflect their number in the pool of qualified applicants, had trouble asserting or maintaining authority in the classroom or being perceived as having authority, taught lower-prestige courses and received low teaching evaluations, and, like their students, were published far less frequently in the major and most prestigious law reviews. Much of this, albeit not all, has not changed much for either students or faculty. As women in law schools enter the posttenure and midcareer phase, many of the old problems persist while new ones appear: women faculty are invited to participate on panels less often than men, and both women students and faculty are underrepresented as authors in law reviews. Although gender-neutral parental leave is now available to faculty at most law schools, many such policies are still ad hoc. There is considerable worry, although no hard evidence, over whether men disproportionately use the time off to write rather than care for children. Women are still disproportionately overrepresented in some fields and underrepresented or unrepresented in others, and those fields correlate in unsurprising ways with levels of prestige: the more women in a field, the less prestigious. As elsewhere in the workforce, women faculty in legal education suffer from sexual harassment, most of which is unremedied. Women still suffer a pay gap in law schools that remains unaddressed at most universities, as it does elsewhere in academia. There is a sizeable literature on these depressing phenomena that stubbornly do not seem to abate. In these comments, however, I want to focus on another, less appreciated, part of the story of women’s entry into the legal academy in the 1970s and 1980s: the emergence of a body of scholarship—sometimes called feminist legal theory—produced by some of these women legal scholars over the same time period. The story I want to focus on, in other words, is not that of second- or third-wave women’s struggles within the academy, either for admission, acceptance, assimilation, or equality in law schools. Rather, this Article focuses on the story of the scholarship some of those second-wave assimilated women produced once they got there. Feminist jurisprudence, understood largely as scholarship on issues pertaining to gender equality, was launched in the 1970s, endures today, and continues to shape debates. Feminist legal theory, however, was in effect a subfield within feminist jurisprudence and, as its name implies, was an attempt to fashion a broad- based theoretical account of the relationship of law in liberal legal regimes to women’s subordination, patriarchy, and gender and sexual inequality— particularly in a post–civil rights era, when women enjoyed broad access to rights of formal equality, reproductive liberty, and liberal antidiscrimination law. Feminist legal theory so understood—a body of scholarship in search of a theoretical understanding of the relation of law to women’s subordination or, more simply, of law and patriarchy—was birthed in the 1970s, nurtured in the 1980s, and matured in the 1990s. I suggest in this Article that it is now seemingly in decline, and may soon disappear altogether. The reasons for this trajectory, I believe, are to date unexplored. Some reasons are fairly self-evident. Feminist legal theory was a product of three time-specific factors peculiar to the 1970s and 1980s: it reflected the political and the legal struggles of second-wave feminism. The critical theory schools were, to varying degrees, present or thriving in the academy in the 1970s and 1980s, within which feminist legal theory was birthed, grew, and then coexisted with critical theory, albeit at times very uneasily; and this feminist theory reflected second-wave women faculty and students’ mixed experiences of assimilation, success, and alienation in law schools themselves, as briefly recited above. Those three factors—the background politics, the presence of critical theory in law schools, and the differences in women’s experience of those schools—are all themselves either disappearing or dissipating in felt urgency, albeit in different ways and at different speeds, and that dissipation clearly is a part of the story of feminist legal theory’s decline. There are other reasons for its decline as well, however. Some are internal to feminism and feminist theory, and some pertain to the changing nature of legal scholarship from the 1980s to the present. I explore these reasons in Part II below. The story of the development of a distinctively feminist legal theory during the 1970s through the 1990s, and the story of its decline in the 2000s, is of obvious relevance to the history of second- and third-wave feminism. It should also be of interest for what it reveals about the nature of legal scholarship as it was understood, received, and produced in those decades. Its decline likewise reveals something about the changing nature of legal scholarship and the legal academy today. Thus, one conclusion I draw is that the feminist legal theory of the 1970s through the 1990s—regardless of the truth or lasting power of its claims—stands as an example of a type of legal scholarship that was somewhat distinctive to those decades. That form of legal scholarship, furthermore, likely can only emanate from the legal academy. For a host of reasons, we are currently in danger of losing this entire genre of intellectual work, which would be the polity’s loss, not just feminism’s or the legal academy’s. (shrink)

Stereotactic neurosurgery emerged in the mid-20th century following the development of a stereotactic frame by Spiegel and Wycis. Historically women were underrepresented in clinical and academic neurosurgery. There is still a significant deficit of female scientists in this field. This article aims to demonstrate the career and scientific work of some of the most important women who contributed to the development of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery. Exceptional women from all over the world, represented in this (...) review, assisted the evolution of modern stereotactic and functional neurosurgery as neurosurgeons, neuropathologists, neurologists, neurophysiologists and occupational therapists. Fortunately, we could conclude that in the last two decades the number of female researchers has increased significantly. (shrink)

Throughout the 1980s, there was considerable public discussion in Britain about the legitimacy of scientific research upon human embryos and about the advisability of seeking to develop new science-based techniques that would further extend medical control over human reproduction. In 1990, legislation was passed permitting such research, but at the same time restricting its scope and specifying how the technologies of assisted reproduction were to be implemented. The present study examines how women contributed to, and were represented in, the (...) final phase of parliamentary debate over the proposed legislation. (shrink)

Background Notwithstanding the need to produce evidence-based knowledge on medications for pregnant women, they remain underrepresented in clinical research. Sometimes they are excluded because of their supposed vulnerability, but there are no universally accepted criteria for considering pregnant women as vulnerable. Our aim was to explore whether and if so to what extent pregnant women are vulnerable as research subjects. Method We performed a conceptual and empirical analysis of vulnerability applied to pregnant women. Analysis A conceptual (...) analysis supports Hurst's definition of vulnerability. Consequently, we argue that pregnant women are vulnerable if they encounter an identifiably increased likelihood of incurring additional or greater wrong. According to the literature, this increased likelihood could exist of four alleged features for pregnant women's vulnerability: informed consent, susceptibility to coercion, higher exposure to risk due to lack of knowledge, vulnerability of the fetus. Discussion Testing the features against Hurst's definition demonstrates that they all concern the same issue: pregnant women are only vulnerable because a higher exposure to risk due to lack of scientific knowledge comprises an increased wrong. Research Ethics Committees have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable, but a higher exposure to risk due to lack of scientific knowledge is a much broader issue and also needs to be addressed by other stakeholders. Conclusions The only reason why pregnant women are potentially vulnerable is to the extent that they are increasingly exposed to higher risks due to a lack of scientific knowledge. Accordingly, the discussion can advance to the development of practical strategies to promote fair inclusion of pregnant women in clinical research. (shrink)

The measurement of food intake has long been used to describe ‘adaptation’ to low energy intakes in certain tropical peoples. However, the methods available to quantify food intake are unlikely to reflect accurately real energy intakes in free living peoples. Alternatively, estimating energy expenditure shows some promise—particularly the measurement of basal metabolic rate . The BMR may be measured effectively in males, but females show wide intra-individual variation in BMR during their menstrual cycle, which makes BMR measurements more difficult to (...) interpret in the context of adaptation. The use of double-labelled water may be the only method suitable to quantify and define ‘adaptation’ to low intakes in women. (shrink)

Recently, two prescription drugs have become salient to breast cancer prevention. With the advent of these drugs, referred to as “chemoprevention,” a mandate has emerged to classify certain women as high risk for breast cancer to determine a group of legitimate users of the drugs. This article examines the development and standardization of the model used to create such a group of high-risk women. The author argues that while the model remains uncertain and controversial, it has become (...) the standard tool for the many jobs associated with legitimizing chemoprevention use in the United States. It has become the assumed standard—shaping practices, identities, and definitions—through its organizational embeddedness in the multiple practices and public images of chemoprevention despite its uncertainty and widespread critique. (shrink)

Examines criteria for settling on productive and situation-appropriate development projects.

This article focuses on the cultural world of Jewish women in Eastern Europe between the 16th century and the beginning of the 19th century. It reveals the extent to which Yiddish language and literature were a means of gaining knowledge for such women. This is because Yiddish - a Jewish language that developed around 1000 years ago among the Jews living in Ashkenaz - was the language of the people, of ordinary life, of business and social relations, and (...) also of the home and the kitchen. It was the language of female spaces, stigmatized by its ‘humble’ associations with women and uncultivated persons. In turn, Yiddish literature was closely associated with women and a female readership. (shrink)

During the British period, there were different kinds of education system to make the retreated women society of Bengal into a leading class. “Zenana” education is one of its education processes. The word, “Zenana” derives from Persian and means “Harem” or inside the household. So, the education system of those women who live in Harem is called “Zenana” education system. Generally, the introduction of home education for the Bengali women began from the middle ages. But the “Zenana” (...) education is the alternate form of the instruction of concealed women which was different from the existing home education system. This cultural education was initiated by the Christian Missionaries in the earlier part of nineteenth century. Later on, the Hindu society of Bengal also took part in it. But neither the opportunity nor the eagerness of taking Zenana Education continued among the Muslim women for a long time. “Dhaka Muslim Friendship Congress” which was established in 1883 started bringing into practice the “Zenana Education” among Muslim women. Later on the British government began patronizing the Zenana education for the Muslim women alongside the Hindu. The present paper examines the rise and development of Zenana education in the Muslim women society in Bengal from 1883 to 1933 on the basis of contemporary official, demo-official source materials. In addition, this paper will brief the reason of abolition of Zenana education system in 1933. (shrink)

The article discusses the problems of development of women’s political rights in Lithuania in the legal historical aspect starting from the 16th century, when some property and individual rights were enshrined in the first codifications of the laws of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. The aim of the article is to show that women’s struggle for political equality and suffrage at the end of the 19th and at the turn of the 20th century correlates with the movement (...) for re-establishment of the independent State of Lithuania. As a result in Lithuania equal suffrage and political rights were ensured from the very beginning of independence. In 1905 the Great Seimas of Vilnius recognized the principles of equality of women and men and declared the principles of equal general election to the Seimas (parliament); women’s suffrage, as one of the elements of legal equality, became constitutionally entrenched already in the first temporary Constitution of the State of Lithuania in 1918. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century women’s rights have been further developed, moreover, the first woman was elected as President of the Republic in the national elections in May 2009. (shrink)

This article focuses on the multilayered changes in the lives of Palestinian women over the years of the first and second Intifadas. On the one hand, women have become far more actively involved in politics, with a Women's Charter being drafted and legislation concerning women's rights being put on the political agenda. At the same time, the political shift from a Fatah- to a Hamas-dominated government has shifted understandings of whether the state should be secular or (...) Islamist. Paradoxical developments by which Hamas has, on the one hand, fostered women's education and job training opportunities, but, on the other, insisted on women's subordinate legal status, are reflected within the Islamist women's movement. The article discusses the decline in power of the leftist and secular political forces, and the resulting political conflicts between the earlier secular feminist movement and the more recent `Islamist feminism'. (shrink)

This book is a brilliant and timely analysis of the complex issues raised by the relation between women and philosophy. It offers a critical account of a wide range of contemporary philosophical and feminist texts and it develops this account into an original project of critical feminist thought. Braidotti examines contemporary French philosophy as practised by men such as Foucault and Derrida, showing that they rely on a notion of 'the feminine' in order to undermine classical thought, which bears (...) no direct relevance to the historical experience of women. Braidotti then looks at the attempts of contemporary feminist thinkers in Europe and the United States to show the gendered nature of discursive power games. She discusses the contributions of Luce Irigaray and many other feminist theorists to the understanding of sexual difference and of its implications for philosophy and politics. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in women's studies, feminist theory, social theory, cultural studies, philosophy and literature, and anyone interested in contemporary feminism and the relation between feminist theory, post-structuralism and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:M. C. Dillon LOVE IN WOMEN IN LOVE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Despite his sexism, his turgid prose, and his antiquated social conscience, Lawrence is on every bookshelf. This is not merely because of the vicarious erotic entertainment to be found in the saga of John Thomas and Lady Jane, but because Lawrence remains a major guru of romance. We take him seriously, look to him for guidance, measure (...) ourselves against Ursula and Birkin. If he is on our shelves—and his thoughts not far from our pillows—then his ideas starid in need of scrutiny. Women in Love is as much a treatise as a novel: we witness more talking about than making of love. The agon of ideas engulfs the agon of flesh. Hence, the book suits the present purpose. It cannot be taken as Lawrence's definitive statement on love—later works, notably Lady Chatterly's Lover, move in different directions—but it is his most philosophical treatment and, I think, most clearly expresses his conceptual framework, the parameters which define and limit his thinking. What he says about love in Women in Love may therefore illumine his depictions of the behavior of lovers in other works. Lawrence is a romantic. In the popular sense of the word he is one who makes of romance or erotic adventure a dominant life value. Lawrence is also a romantic in another sense insofar as he takes the transcendence or unattainability of the other as essential to the project of loving. These two senses are conceptually compatible but existentially in conflict. That is, if one's major undertaking in life is to seek erotic satisfaction, and if one desires only so long as the object is beyond reach, then one has established the groundwork for continual frustration. This, I will try to show, is what Lawrence has done. I Many writers have tried to bring the ideas implicitly present in and constitutive of romantic love to the level of explicit reflective awareness. 190 M.C.Dillon191 The most successful treatment I know is given by a writer who did not know—or at least did not say—that he was writing about romantic love. Sartre purports to reveal the inner structures of love itself—the unqualified, unrestricted essence of love. As I have tried to show elsewhere,1 he fails at this. But he succeeds admirably in unveiling the inner contradictions of romantic love. Our project here is to draw upon Sartre's insights: first, to develop a conception of romantic love, and then to discern the model of Eros which informs Women in Love. The key idea in romantic love is transcendence. Something is transcendent when it is beyond me, when I cannot adequately prehend it conceptually or master it with my will. The role of transcendence in romantic love is demonstrated clearly in Denis de Rougemont's book on Love in the Western World.2 There he shows that Tristan's passion for Iseult is directly proportional to her distance from him: he is increasingly attracted as she becomes further removed. On the other hand, when through various deeds of gallantry and subterfuge, he succeeds in winning her to his side, he loses interest and must create circumstances which put her again beyond his reach. The culmination of romantic love, according to de Rougemont, is death—it sets the other absolutely beyond reach. It also arrests and preserves at their apices the youth and beauty of the lovers and the intensity of the erotic relationship. It is, I believe, this complex of ideas that led Kierkegaard to this cynical reflection on the nature of romantic love: "When two beings fall in love with one another and begin to suspect that they were made for each other, it is time to have the courage to break it off; for by going on they have everything to lose and nothing to gain."3 The same idea, qualified by increased optimism, underlies Stendhal's notion of crystallization in his book On Love.* Love is predicated on the attribution of perfection to the beloved. Just as a plain bough emerges from the salt-saturated waters of the Salzburg mines encrusted with beautiful crystals... (shrink)