“Marriage Is Perseverance”: Structural Violence, Culture, and AIDS in Malawi

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole C. Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Transactional Sex ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Concurrent Partner ◽  
Male Labour

This article uses contemporary Malawian proverbs about gender as a window on connections between structural violence, culture, and AIDS in Malawi. Malawi's colonial and post-colonial history forms the backdrop for considerations of Malawi's changing sexual landscape. The author argues that Malawi's legacy of structural violence, particularly the colonial introduction of male labour migration and massive gender inequalities, irrevocably altered Malawian gender roles. Any attempt to explain Malawi's high rate of AIDS must therefore consider how structural violence became entwined with cultural norms in the production of a competitive sexual economy based on multiple concurrent partner and transactional sex.

Through Women’s Lens: Imperial and Postcolonial Class and Gender Hierarchies

2018 ◽  
pp. 110-132
Author(s):  
Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes ◽  
Heather Norris Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Historical Discourses

This chapter charts how changing geo-political relations during late colonialism influenced conventional imperial ideologies of race, gender and identity and brought about a fundamental shift in women’s visual literacy. Through their unofficial, un-commissioned and private visual records of early post-colonial history, women were often able to promote new understandings of political, racial and gender transformations specific to crucial times for the British Empire and the Commonwealth. It argues that British women amateur filmmakers transcended traditional historical discourses in recording their own first-person narratives. The chapter centres on the analysis of particular sequences filmed in markedly different geo-political contexts by Queen Elizabeth II, Audrey Lewis, and two of Maharaja Vijaysinhji of Rajpipla’s British female friends. Their films prompt new perspective on how and why British women amateur filmmakers chose to record men as possible agents of national and imperial post-colonial identity. The cine-women discussed in this chapter witnessed and filmed radical shifts in representations of gender-driven, post-imperial roles within specific cultural norms and opportunities. As a result, questions of gendered and visual appropriation are considered in relation to feminist and postcolonial theories while acknowledging that the interpretation of British women's amateur visual practice often requires new methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches.

scholarly journals What Lies beneath Sustainable Education? Predicting and Tackling Gender Differences in STEM Academic Success

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1671
Author(s):  
Maura A. E. Pilotti
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Bias ◽  
Interior Design ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Stem Fields ◽  
High School Gpa ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles

In many societies across the globe, females are still underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM fields), although they are reported to have higher grades in high school and college than males. The present study was guided by the assumption that the sustainability of higher education critically rests on the academic success of both male and female students under conditions of equitable educational options, practices, and contents. It first assessed the persistence of familiar patterns of gender bias (e.g., do competencies at enrollment, serving as academic precursors, and academic performance favor females?) in college students of a society in transition from a gender-segregated workforce with marked gender inequalities to one whose aims at integrating into the global economy demand that women pursue once forbidden careers thought to be the exclusive domain of men. It then examined how simple indices of academic readiness, as well as preferences for fields fitting traditional gender roles, could predict attainment of key competencies and motivation to graduate (as measured by the average number of credits completed per year) in college. As expected, females had a higher high school GPA. Once in college, they were underrepresented in a major that fitted traditional gender roles (interior design) and over-represented in one that did not fit (business). Female students’ performance and motivation to graduate did not differ between the male-suited major of business and the female-suited major of interior design. Male students’ performance and motivation to graduate were higher in engineering than in business, albeit both majors were gender-role consistent. Although high school GPA and English proficiency scores predicted performance and motivation for all, preference for engineering over business also predicted males’ performance and motivation. These findings offered a more complex picture of patterns of gender bias, thereby inspiring the implementation of targeted educational interventions to improve females’ motivation for and enrollment in STEM fields, nowadays increasingly available to them, as well as to enhance males’ academic success in non-STEM fields such as business.

Tense and Tender Ties: The Politics of Comparison in (Post) Colonial Studies

Itinerario ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 263-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Laura Stoler
Keyword(s):  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Colonial Encounter ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Research Domain

This essay takes as its subject how intimate domains - sex, sentiment, domestic arrangement and child rearing - figure in the making of racial categories and in the management of imperial rule. For some two decades my work on Indonesia's Dutch colonial history has addressed patterns of governance that were particular to that time and place but resonant with practices in a wider global field. My perspective thus is that of an outsider to, but an acquisitive consumer of comparative historical studies, one long struck with the disparate and congruent imperial projects in Asia, Africa and the Americas. This essay invites reflection on those domains of overlap and difference. My interest is more specifically in what Albert Hurtado refers to as ‘the intimate frontiers’ of empire, a social and cultural space where racial classifications were defined and defied, where relations between coloniser and colonised could powerfully confound or confirm the strictures of governance and the categories of rule. Some two decades ago, Sylvia van Kirk urged a focus on such ‘tender ties’ as a way to explore the ‘human dimension’ of the colonial encounter.’ As she showed so well, what Michel Foucault has called these ‘dense transfer point[s]’ of power that generate such ties were sites of production of colonial inequities and, therefore, of tense ties as well. Among students of colonialisms in the last decade, the intimacies of empire have been a rich and well-articulated research domain. A more sustained focus on the relationship between what Foucault refers to as ‘the regimes of truth’ of imperial systems (the ways of knowing and establishing truth claims about race and difference on which macro polities rely) and those micro sites of governance may reveal how these colonial empires compare and converge.

Gender inequality in the work environment: a study of private research organizations in India

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Namrata Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Women In Leadership ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ideal Woman

Purpose Since liberalization in the 1990s, India has witnessed a growth in the number of educated middle-class women in professions. However, there are few women in leadership positions and decision-making bodies. While the earlier notion of the ideal woman as homemaker has been replaced by one which idealizes women of substance, a woman’s role in the family continues to be pivotal and is even viewed as central in defining Indian culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how and to what extent gender inequalities are reproduced in the organizations employing educated professionals. Design/methodology/approach Based on the perspective that gender is socially constructed, this paper analyzes gender inequality in Indian organizations through semi-structured interviews of men and women scientists in two private pharmaceutical laboratories. Findings The findings show reproduction of a gendered normative order through two types of norms and practices: one, norms and practices that favor men and second, socio-cultural norms that devalue women in public spaces which help to maintain masculinity in the workplace. Although these practices might be found elsewhere in the world, the manner in which they are enacted reflects national cultural norms. Originality/value The paper highlights how various norms and practices enacted in the specific Indian socio-cultural context construct and maintain masculinity at workplace depriving opportunities to professional women which affect their rise to leadership positions.

Good governance and local autonomy in the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Europe and the Caribbean: An uneasy relationship

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Jaap Woldendorp
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Local Autonomy ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Netherlands Antilles ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Overseas Territories

The existence of a specific ministry for overseas territories in the Netherlands — Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (Interior Affairs and Relations within the Realm or Kingdom) — is the outcome of a few hundred years of (post) colonial history. In the 1970s and 1980s Dutch governments pushed for independence of the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname in order to get rid of the colonial stigma. In 1975, Suriname became an independent state. However, subsequently a combination of factors made decolonization of the Netherlands Antilles unfeasible. The first factor was the experience with the negative developments in Suriname after its independence.

Critical Strategies for Information Systems Development Projects

2011 ◽  
pp. 179-189
Author(s):  
Chung Kim ◽  
Dane Peterson ◽  
Jerry Chin ◽  
Tonya Barrier
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
International Markets ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Rate Of Failure ◽  
Diverse Cultures ◽  
Is Failure ◽  
Is Projects

Despite enormous progress in the methodologies and technologies used in the development and implementation of Information Systems (IS), IS failure continues to plague the efforts of many companies. According to a recent report, up to 90 percent of all IS projects fail to achieve their goals, 80 percent are late and over-budget, and 40 percent are abandoned (Clegg et al., 1997). Since information systems are becoming increasing critical for the strategic operations of organizations, the high rate of failure for IS projects is of great concern to both organizational management and IS professionals. Developing and implementing successful international IS have proven to be even more difficult due to such factors as the diversity and disagreement among the participants (Mantelaers & Van Den Berg, 2000). However, with an increasing number of firms expanding into international markets, the need to develop and implement IS which cross national boundaries and span diverse cultures is rapidly growing (Palvia, 1998). Adding to the importance of developing successful international IS is the realization that they constitute an essential tool for assisting organizations in coping with the increased competition associated with global markets. Thus, there is an urgent need to acquire knowledge about whether the factors found to be critical for developing successful IS in one country are also applicable to developing international IS involving countries with different cultural norms.

Gender

2017 ◽  
pp. 644-672
Author(s):  
Paola Giuliano
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Attitudes Toward Women ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
And Gender

Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children and therefore persist until today. We review work on the historical origin of differences in female labor force participation, fertility, education, marriage arrangements, competitive attitudes, domestic violence, and other forms of difference in gender norms. Most of the research illustrates that differences in cultural norms regarding gender roles emerge in response to specific historical situations but tend to persist even after the historical conditions have changed. We also discuss the conditions under which gender norms either tend to be stable or change more quickly.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document