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Vice President and Publisher: Rolf A. Janke Senior Editor: Jim Brace-Thompson Project Editor: Tracy Buyan Cover Designer: Janet Kiesel Editorial Assistant: Michele Thompson Reference Systems Manager: Leticia Gutierrez Reference Systems Coordinator: Laura Notton
Golson Media President and Editor: J. Geoffrey Golson Director, Author Management: Susan Moskowitz Senior Layout Editor: Mary Jo Scibetta Layout Editors: Kenneth Heller, Lois Rainwater, Mary Sudal Copy Editors: Anne Hicks, Laura Liebeck, James Mammarella, Mary Miller, Barbara Paris Proofreaders: Joyce Li, Mary Beth Curran Indexer: J S Editorial
Copyright © 2011 by SAGE Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of women in today’s world / Mary Zeiss Stange, general editor, Carol K. Oyster, general editor, Jane E. Sloan, multimedia editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4129-7685-5 (hardback) 1. Women--Encyclopedias. 2. Women--Social conditions-21st century--Encyclopedias. I. Stange, Mary Zeiss. II. Oyster, Carol K. III. Sloan, Jane, 1946HQ1115.E55 2011 305.403--dc22 2010049272 11 12 13 14 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents Chronology of Women in
vi vii xv xxvii xxxix
Resource Guide Appendix: Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action Index Photo Credits
1609 1623
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1633 1777 1891
About the Editors Mary Zeiss Stange, General Editor, is Professor of Women’s Studies and Religion at Skidmore College, where for nine years she served as director of the Women’s (now Gender) Studies Program. Her work is broadly interdisciplinary, with current emphases on the intersections among gender and environmental studies, social and environmental justice, and global ecofeminism. Her books include Woman the Hunter (1997), Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (with Carol K. Oyster, 2000), Heart Shots: Women Write about Hunting (2003), and Hard Grass: Life on the Crazy Woman Bison Ranch (2010). She edited Stackpole Books’ “Sisters of the Hunt” series of reprints of classic women’s outdoor writing, and is the author of numerous scholarly articles and review essays, for publications ranging from the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, the Women’s Studies Quarterly and the Women’s Review of Books to the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Liberty Magazine. She is a contributing writer for USA Today’s Op-Ed page. She earned a B.A. in English Literature, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion and Culture Studies, all from Syracuse University. Carol K. Oyster, General Editor, is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute for Ethnic and Racial Studies at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. Her work focuses on gender and racial stereotypes, and attitudes toward societally marginalized groups. Her books include Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (with Mary Zeiss Stange, 2000), Groups: A User’s Guide (2000), and Introduction to Research: A Guide for the Health Science Profesional (with W.P. Hanten and L.A. Llorens, 1987). Other works include “Whose Death Is It, Anyway?” (in N. Bauer-Maglin and D. Perry [editors], Final Acts: Death, Dying and the Choices We Make, 2010) and “Social Insecurity: A Cautionary Tale” (in N. Bauer-Maglin and A. Radosh [editors], and Women Confronting Retirement: A Nontraditional Guide, 2003). Oyster earned her B.A. in Psychology from UCLA, an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Loyola Marymount University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Delaware. Jane Sloan, Multimedia Editor, is the Media Librarian at Rutgers University Libraries in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and former Women’s Studies Librarian at Rutgers, and Cinema-Television Librarian at the University of Southern California. She is the author of several cinema studies reference books on Robert Bresson, Alfred Hitchcock, and most recently Reel Women, on contemporary feature films about women. She was the recipient of the Award for Significant Achievement in Woman's Studies Librarianship, from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Women's Studies Section (WSS) in 2008. vi
Introduction
The close of the first decade of the 21st century is an ideal time to reflect on the status of women in today’s world. Women’s situation in virtually every conceivable arena—from poetry to politics, education to economy—changed more dramatically in the last 100 years than in the preceding 1,000. And, especially since the turn of the millennium, as the pace of new technologies and new information continues to accelerate, so too has the apparent speed of that social and cultural evolution. It is therefore an apt historical moment to mark progress made in so many areas, while at the same time pondering the complex challenges that accompany change, and bearing in mind that change is not always or invariably for the better. This, in a nutshell, is what the Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World is all about. When we commenced this project, we immediately became aware of its unavoidably vast scope. How does one (or, in our case, two) begin to identify which issues are of greatest import to over half the world’s population? Who should appropriately be singled out, in terms of their accomplishments, as the most significant women on the planet? How might a reference work capture the myriad realities of what it means to experience life as a female in genuinely global terms: across lines of nationality, class, race and
ethnicity, ability, religion, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, politics . . . to name just some of the considerations we had constantly to bear in mind? Our assignment, for this initial edition of the encyclopedia in four print volumes and online, was to identify roughly a thousand entries, with a one million-word limit for the resulting text. As daunting as this may sound, we quickly understood that while this encyclopedia could do considerably more than merely scratch the surface it would not be possible to cover everything about women in today’s world. Nor, indeed, would it be desirable to attempt it. Any reference work that claimed complete comprehensiveness on this subject would immediately, and rightly, be suspect. We knew there would be some gaps in the areas these volumes cover, many of which will be filled in the two successive updated online editions, consisting of an additional 500 entries and another half-million words, that we project over the next two years. We have, in this initial four-volume offering, done our best to include what we believe to be the essentials. And we are confident that anything this encyclopedia of women in today’s world may lack in terms of completeness is more than made up for by its overall coherence and consistency of purpose. vii
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A few words about its purpose, as we general editors envision it: In terms of its audience, we see this work, like any good encyclopedia, more as a starting point, than as an end in itself. That is, whether those who consult this work are simply casual readers looking for some reliable information on a particular subject, or students or scholars commencing research for some specific project, we intend that the entries here will not simply provide reliable information, but will also spur further reflection and provide the essential guidance as to where to look next for more specialized or refined information. You might say that, as its structure evolved, in global terms this encyclopedia is conceived more as a map or an itinerary than as a travelogue. Additionally, while it is intended to be useful for a variety of audiences, there is one in particular that deserves special mention here: the community of feminist and women’s and gender studies scholars. Our approximately 400 contributors are, overwhelmingly, members of that community, here in the United States and around the world. We are aware that its critics charge that scholarship grounded in feminism is tainted by political and other biases. However, we also recognize that just as the global women’s movement is primarily responsible for the positive changes that have occurred for women and girls over the past century, so too the “academic wing” of that movement—women’s and, more recently, gender studies—provides the best lens through which to chart and analyze those changes. Feminist analysis is today acknowledged to be a fundamental critical tool across the academic disciplines. Throughout the process of assigning and editing entries, we have emphasized fair and balanced presentation as a fundamental requirement, no matter how controversial a given topic might be. Entries that leaned too far in any political or theoretical direction suggesting bias—including that for which only the hackneyed phrase “political correctness” suffices— were not included. We are pleased to say that as a result, the Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World represents the genuine depth and diversity of current scholarship by and about women, and is the most comprehensive reference work available on women worldwide that is firmly grounded in women’s and gender studies.
How the Encyclopedia Was Created: Goals We drew our inspiration for the overarching goals of this encyclopedia from its title, and these goals are threefold. First, this encyclopedia is about women in today’s world. While the ever-expanding disciplines of gender studies, LGBTQ studies and queer theory all afford ample opportunity for addressing the lives and experiences of men, those subjects fall outside the purview of this work, except to the extent that information about men is necessary to illustrate or illuminate some relevant aspect of women’s reality. Hence, for example, the entries on the social construction of masculinity and the Roman Catholic priesthood, while superficially male-centered, are included here to serve the larger goal of comprehending some specific facets of women’s lives. Second, our goal is to focus on women in today’s world. The emphasis throughout is consistently contemporary and, in spirit, future-oriented. Of course, any definition of “today” is bound to be to some extent arbitrary, but our guiding principle was to concentrate on the world post-2000. While we realize this excludes some iconic issues and individuals in women’s studies, our aim here is to create a unique resource, containing information that is as current and forward-looking as we could make it, and which cannot readily be found in one place elsewhere. Such historical information as is necessary to an adequate understanding of any entry’s subject is, naturally, included. But we kept this as much as possible to a minimum, as readers searching for deeper history of subjects like the 19th-century women’s suffrage movement or educational opportunities available to women in medieval Europe have plenty of other places to look. Our focus is on the issues, ideas, and people that will extend and expand our understanding of women’s progress into the future. Our third goal, and in some ways the most challenging to achieve, has been to focus on women in today’s world. In a sense, in global terms, there are so many facets to women and their lives that only an encyclopedia could hope to begin to capture them all. Yet, at every step along the way of aiming for a truly global perspective and content, we were reminded of how much ground there is (quite literally) to cover, and how impossible it would be to cover it all. We therefore identified 15 broad thematic categories that
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we felt would, with reasonable inclusiveness, organize this work as a resource on today’s women in global terms. We shall turn to the category list (Reader’s Guide) presently, but first must note one other question we had to address early on, regarding how to approach the subject of women in today’s world. That question was, simply put, which women do we want to feature? Standard reference works on women invariably include entries devoted to individual women: their lives, discoveries, accomplishments, places in history. While we appreciate its utility, we determined from the start to eschew this “great women” approach. This was, in part, because there are so many prominent, high-achieving women out there around the world these days that any attempt to include them all would be doomed to futility. But, more fundamentally, as scholars and as feminists we wanted to steer clear of the distaff version of the “great man” approach, which must necessarily entail setting some sort of standards for what constitutes “greatness” in the first place— standards which are clearly impossible when one is thinking in global terms, and which tend to default to the patriarchal “conquering hero” model which we intended to avoid at all costs. This is not say readers won’t find some conventionally “great women” here: heads of state, corporate CEOs, entertainers, scientific innovators, powerbrokers and Nobel laureates. Failing to include such extraordinary, and often internationally celebrated, women would weaken our goal of accurately representing women’s status in the world today. But for every household name, there are two or three others who will be, while no less remarkable in their accomplishments, unfamiliar to most persons who consult this encyclopedia. We call the entries on all the women we have included “Signal Biographies,” to suggest that their life stories exemplify some particular aspects of the range of women’s experience. We trust that in reading these women’s stories in light of one another—for example, Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust and Nepalese education activist Stella Tamang, or Serbian human rights activist Stanislavka Stasa Zajovic and V-Day founder Eve Ensler—readers will come to appreciate the depth and breadth of the ways in which some truly great women are changing the world in which we all live. In keeping with our
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emphasis on women in the world of today, all but a very small handful of the women whose lives are included as Signal Biographies in this work are still alive and active. The Organization of the Encyclopedia Once we determined our overall goals and objectives for this project, our next task was to figure out the most effective way to organize its content. As mentioned above, we wanted to create a unique resource, containing an array of information about women not available in one unified source elsewhere. After playing around with a variety of categorical combinations, we lit upon the following as the best overall structure for organizing our material for the encyclopedia’s Reader’s Guide: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Activism in Theory and Practice Arts Business/Commerce/Economy Countries Education Environment Government/Law and Justice Health: Mental and Physical Media and Popular Culture Religion Science and Technology Sports and Recreation Sexualities War and Conflict Women’s Lives
Each category contains several different types of entries. But descriptions of theories, organizations, women’s social, political or cultural problems, and the roles they assume are not enough. We accompany these entries with the biographies of some of the remarkable women who have developed the theories, worked in or run those organizations, sought to solve those problems and lived those roles. Granted, our strategy has created some strange bedfellows: Where else could Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dolly Parton and Lady Gaga comfortably occupy the spotlight together under the category “Arts”? Or legendary White House correspondent Helen Thomas share a press pass with supermodel-turned-interviewer Tyra Banks? Or, on a somewhat darker note
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perhaps, Iraq war heroine Tammy Duckworth march with Abu Ghraib’s Lynndie England and Algerian terrorist/freedom fighter (and, subsequently, senator) Zohra Drif-Bitat. But what may, to the casual observer, look like serendipity we prefer to think of as an illustration of the astonishing variety of women’s lives, on every level. As to the categories that make up the Reader’s Guide: While the guide is arranged alphabetically, the categories are organized thematically, and in many ways their themes necessarily overlap. Nonetheless, those themes can be broadly summarized as follows: Activism in Theory and Practice. Having historically been largely excluded from access both to power and to resources, women have been forced to identify and create their own strategies for change. Both in theory and in practice (and the necessary relationship between the two is complex and often subtle), women have been in the forefront of the creation and development of groups for the protection children’s rights and family rights, animal rights and nature rights; movements for and against reproductive freedom; and, of course, for women’s rights, under a variety of banners both liberal and conservative. Women have worked together to create groups as diverse as RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), MADRE in Latin America, the Tibetan Women’s Association, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The lives of women like Native rights activists Winona LaDuke and Wilma Mankiller, disability rights activist Simi Linton, human rights activist Shirin Ebadi and women’s rights activist Engy Ayman Ghozlan illustrate the interconnection of efforts worldwide to conquer inequality, as well as the theories underpinning those efforts. Arts. As recently as a generation ago, when literary anthologies and art history texts featured at best the occasional token female, and the worlds of theater, dance and cinema were totally under male control, the bitter joke in feminist circles was that “Anonymous” must have been a woman. Not only have feminist arts historians and literary scholars done superb work of rediscovering a tradition of women’s artistry, women are today among the prime movers in the shaping of contemporary arts. Because of—and explicitly in resistance to—the conventional association of “wom-
en’s arts” with “lower” art forms, we have included in this category a broad array of women’s artistic production, comprehending rock and hip-hop as well as classical music, romance novels along with the work of Pulitzer- and Nobel-prize honorees, feminist filmmaking and Bollywood, urban architecture and landscape design. Business, Commerce, and Economics. Women increasingly participate in the institutions that have traditionally been the bastions of male power. Women run small and large companies, multinational corporations and sports organizations. They work in offices and laboratories. They design clothing and model the designs on the catwalk. Women are also, however, the largest unpaid—and underpaid—workforce in the world. The entries in this section highlight both women’s positive advances across the fields of business and commerce, and also the long way they have yet to go. In the latter regard, we paid particular attention to contemporary efforts to raise the standard of living of women and girls, and their access to financial and other resources, in developing nations—ranging from Grameen Bank of Bangladesh to UNIFEM to women’s thrift cooperatives and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development. Countries. This article category significantly gathers together up to date information about the current state of women’s affairs on a country-by-country basis, arranged by continent and/or hemisphere. While each entry is an invaluable resource in its own right, taken together these entries also provide an international, intercultural platform for the comparative and cross-cultural thrust of this encyclopedia. Education. Feminist historian Gerda Lerner has argued that the educational disadvantaging of women and girls has historically been the primary reason for their subordination. In this category we bring together comprehensive information regarding efforts, worldwide, to counteract that disadvantaging, in initiatives like UNICEF’s “Girl-friendly Schools” program, the Global Campaign for Education, No Child Left Behind and the Campaign for Female Education in Africa. We pay attention as well to the roles women play in education at all levels, in institutional and alternative contexts. And we mark the achievements
of scholar-administrators like U.S. university president Shirley Ann Jackson, and Brazilian indigenous educator Adir Casaro Nascimento. Environment. Ecofeminism, and the environmental activism it engendered, from the Green Belt movement in Africa and India’s Chipko, to diverse movements for environmental protection ranging from Love Canal to the antinuclear protests in the United Kingdom: all have been the products of women’s grassroots energy. This owes in no small part to the fact that, whether the environmental crisis takes the form of drought or disease or toxic waste, women and their children are invariably most directly affected. Women like Val Plumwood, Wangari Maathai, and Vandana Shiva have therefore devoted their lives both to theorizing about, and activism for the protection of, the rights and interests both of endangered people and endangered places. Government/Law and Justice. Women today run countries as well as companies; they head political parties as well as social justice action movements. This broad category attempts to give a flavor of the manifold import of women’s political activity today, and the extensive range of issues confronting political activists and agenda-setters. It also comprehends the increasing role women play in framing legislation— yet with a critical eye to the fact that when it comes to laws surrounding their own reproductive health and behavior, control of that legislation still too frequently rests in the hands of men. This category takes up, as well, the role that violence plays in women’s lives, in regard to such worldwide facts as rape and domestic violence on the one hand, and to their own capacity for violence on the other. Women serve as police officers, attorneys judges, and prison guards. Sometimes the crime perpetrators they arrest, prosecute, convict, and guard are also women. Health: Mental and Physical. The biology of their bodies creates a unique set of life experiences for women. Women’s lives are affected by such universal health issues as cancer, heart disease and—particularly in the developing world as well as in poor communities in the United States and other developed nations—HIV/AIDS. Yet evidence shows that, up until recently, in virtually every area medical research
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has failed adequately to include women, either as researchers or as subjects. The complex realities of sex, sexuality, and reproduction shape the contours of women’s mental as well as physical health. Pressures on girls and women to focus on body image and beauty are associated with increases in eating disorders and cosmetic surgery. Such pioneering women’s health reformers as Somali anti-FGM activist Waris Dirie, Dutch abortion rights activist Rebecca Gomperts, and former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders are profiled in this category. Media/Popular Culture. Some of today’s women gain celebrity for discovering cures or creating art, others for breaking athletic records or bringing peace to hitherto war-torn countries or managing media empires or producing cutting-edge journalism. In our increasingly image-obsessed age, some women are famous simply for being famous. And beyond fame and celebrity, popular culture presents a potpourri of images, ideas, ideals and role models which shape the possibilities of self-perception available to girls and women for better and for worse. The entries in this category run the gamut from Barbie dolls and Dora the Explorer to Ms. magazine and Our Bodies, Ourselves; from baby beauty pageants to pornography, slasher movies to soap operas, reality television to roller derby. Religion. Perhaps no aspect of human social or cultural life worldwide has had a greater impact on the lives of women and girls than religion. The ways in which religious ideas and ideals about the female/ feminine shape the expectations of and possibilities afforded to women are portrayed in these entries across religious and national boundaries. We pay significant attention, as well, to feminist resistance to patriarchal religion in a variety of contexts, to the changing landscape of marriage and ministry, and to the role religions play in shaping public policy relating to sexual and reproductive behavior. The signal biographies in this category include Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori and Amina Wadud, and religious renegades like Sonia Johnson and Starhawk.
Science and Technology. This category suggests the many ways in which women are entering scientific and technological fields formerly closed to them—
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from aerospace exploration to astronomy, engineering to earth science—and transforming those fields in the process. It also includes several entries exploring 21st-century technological realities as various as sexting, Internet dating, computer gaming and cyber-stalking, and their potential impact on women and girls. Sports and Recreation. Women play tennis and soccer, they excel at golf and figure skating, they lift weights and run marathons, they hunt and ride in rodeos. A post-Title IX generation of girls has grown up experiencing exercise and sports participation as normal components of their education. Some have gone on to careers in coaching or as referees. The entries in this category point to the breadth of women’s sports participation, which is borne out by such biographies as those of figure skater Kim Yu-Na, golfer Annika Sörenstam, race-car driver Danica Patrick, boxer Laila Ali, and Olympic shooter Kim Rhode. Sexualities. This category of entries takes up the increasingly complex discourses surrounding sexuality and sexual orientation, LGBTQ theory and activism, and queer theory. Some entries depict how in certain cultural contexts, tolerance of diverse gender identity and expression is institutionalized. Others portray the institutionalization of discrimination based on these same factors. War and Conflict. Women invariably suffer disproportionately in conflict zones, both in terms of being victimized by the hardships that all people experience in wartime and, more especially, in being treated by turns as instruments of and/or as spoils of war by enemy combatants. Women at the same time serve in the militaries of several of the world’s nations, in some contexts seeing combat, and suffering from its aftereffects. Women also figure as very active participants in terrorist and insurgent movements around the world. Women’s Lives. Finally, there are certain social and cultural features of women’s lives which are intimately tied to institutionally defined social roles among humans in general, and among women in particular. Issues of aging and discrimination are universal. For many, heterosexual marriage, motherhood, divorce
and widowhood are pivotal concerns. Lesbians’ loves and lives revolve around other women, sometimes generating hatred or violent reactions from society at large. To marry or not, whether or not to bear children are for some women matters of choice, while for others the “choice” is dictated by biology or by other people—sometimes without the affected woman’s consent, or even her knowledge. Parenthood is for some a solitary journey, perhaps chosen but sometimes involuntary. Women are mistresses and mail-order brides, Quinceañeras and prom queens, nannies and homemakers, “helicopter parents” and “soccer moms.” This brief summary of our organizational themes can at best suggest the virtually inexhaustible range of material available to our contributors. We trust that, reading one category of entries against another, users of this reference work will make their own further connections among our original 15: indeed, we very much encourage them to! One final dimension of this encyclopedia that must be noted is that it is quite intentionally a work still in progress. The process of putting together this initial offering, available simultaneously in four print volumes and online, was itself a lesson in how much work there remains to be done. Our approximately 400 contributors, representing dozens of nationalities based in educational institutions and working as independent scholars on five continents, have amassed an astounding amount of information about women in today’s world. But there is, needless to say, more ground yet to cover. Hence, in a very real sense, our end in this project is also our beginning. We are already hard at work on the first of two online supplements of this encyclopedia, to be published in 2012 and 2013. Each will contain another 250 entries, adding a total of 500 more entries and approximately a half-million more words, to amplify and supplement the content of these first four volumes. Therefore, while as its General Editors we are both proud of what we have accomplished here, we are equally pleased to say that, in a very real sense, the best is yet to come. Multimedia Edition The print edition of the encyclopedia is complemented by a multimedia online edition, with the
inclusion of some 99 video clips from news agencies that were researched by Multimedia Editor Jane Sloan to illustrate key articles and themes within the work. Reflecting what life is like for women around the world, the multimedia clips work with the text articles, ranging from the topics of abortion in Poland to women’s political status in Yemen. Moreover, the several hundred photographs and captions complement the articles as well, yielding a multifaceted presentation. Acknowledgments This encyclopedia is the result of the combined efforts of a number of people without whom the project could not have been completed. We wish, first of all, to thank Rolf Janke, Publisher, and Jim BraceThompson, Senior Editor, of SAGE Publications for their vision in creating this encyclopedia and for their continuing enthusiasm. We owe Multimedia Editor Jane Sloan a wealth of gratitude for her skillful and thoughtful selection of the multimedia components which complement and enhance the written words here. We are grateful to Geoff Golson, President and Editor of Golson Media, for inviting us to edit the encyclopedia and for his patience, organization, and support throughout the process. Sue Moskowitz, Golson Media’s Director of Author Management, has been amazing in her ability to recruit and manage a cadre of writers whose diversity and expertise have contributed so richly to the finished product. Thanks as well to Senior Layout Editor Mary Jo Scibetta. Finally, we wish to thank the SAGE production team. In addition, Mary Zeiss Stange is grateful for Skidmore College’s support of her work on this project, in
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the form of funding travel and research assistance. My special thanks to the students in the fall 2009 Women’s Studies Senior Seminar, for their brainstorming and constructive suggestions about potential headwords, and more especially to my 2009/2010 research assistant Arielle Kouffman for her energy and many creative insights. During summer 2010, Alexis Shenfil Smart brought a “Millennial” perspective and a global awareness to our continuing work: The forthcoming online supplements of this encyclopedia will owe much of their international depth and topical variety to her invariably savvy discoveries and suggestions. As always, my appreciation for Carol Oyster’s good humor, sharp intellect, and willingness, from time to time, to yield the social scientific passive voice to my editorial pen. Carol Oyster would like to thank her colleague, Mary Zeiss Stange, for continuing our previous collaboration by asking me to join her in this project. Coming from complementary academic disciplines, our joint efforts have once again resulted in a product of which I am very proud. I would also like to express my most profound gratitude to my daughter, Katherine, for her patience in allowing me to prattle on endlessly about the project, for contributing a number of the headwords that appear in the work that reflect both her generation’s perspective and her own successful progress in her medical education, and for making me proud in too many other ways to express. Mary Zeiss Stange Carol K. Oyster General Editors
Reader’s Guide
Activism in Theory and Practice Animal Rights Arab Feminism Bat Shalom—Jerusalem Women’s Action Center Chicana Feminism Children’s Rights Codepink Critical Race Feminism Domestic Violence Centers Eagle Forum EMILY’s List Environmental Activism, Grassroots Family Research Council Feminism on College Campuses Feminist Majority Foundation Feminists for Life Focus on the Family Gay and Lesbian Advocacy General Union of Palestinian Women Global Feminism Granny Peace Brigade Independent Women’s Forum Indigenous Women’s Rights: Bolivia Iranian Feminism Islamic Revolution in Iran
MADRE Million Mom March Mothers Against Choice Mothers Against Drunk Driving NARAL National Organization for Women National Women’s Political Caucus Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq Panchita’s House: Domestic Workers Rights in Lima, Peru Peace Movement Rape Crisis Centers Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Social Justice: Activism Take Back the Night Third Wave Tibetan Women’s Association Transnational Feminist Networks Vagina Monologues, The White Supremacy Womanism Women in Black Women Involved in Farm Economics Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom xv
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Signal Biographies Brady, Sarah Ebadi, Shirin Ensler, Eve Ghozlan, Engy Ayman LaDuke, Winona Linton, Simi Mairs, Nancy Mankiller, Wilma Michelman, Kate Zajovic, Stanislava Stasa Arts Australian Aboriginal Artists Bollywood Classical Music, Women in Country and Western Music, Women in Dance, Women in Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago) Film Actors, Female Film Directors, Female Film Production, Women in Guerrilla Girls Hip Hop National Museum of Women in the Arts Novelists, Female Photography, Women in Poets, Female Representation of Women Studio Arts, Women in Sweet Honey in the Rock Visual Arts, Women in Women Make Movies Signal Biographies Chicago, Judy Coppola, Sofia Duffy, Carol Ann Holzer, Jenny Kngwarreye, Emily Leibovitz, Annie Lessing, Doris Morrison, Toni Oates, Joyce Carol Parton, Dolly Showalter, Elaine Te Kanawa, Dame Kiri Walker, Alice
Walker, Kara Zaimont, Judith Lang Business, Commerce, and Economics Association for Women’s Rights in Development CEOs, Female Child Labor Cosmetics Industry Cowgirls Crafting Industry Diet Industry Direct Sales Domestic Workers Economics, Women in Entrepreneurs Equal Pay Fair Trade Fashion Industry Financial Independence of Women Glass Ceiling Grameen Bank of Bangladesh International Monetary Fund International Women’s Day Management Management Styles, Gender Theories Maquiladoras Mentoring Microcredit Migrant Workers Nannies 9to5 Nontraditional Careers, U.S. Parental Leave Partner Rights Part-Time Work Philanthropists, Female Poverty Poverty, Feminization of Sewa in India Sex Workers Sexual Harassment Sweatshops Trafficking, Women and Children Unions United Nations Development Fund for Women Unpaid Labor Wedding Industry Women’s Cooperatives
Reader’s Guide
Women’s Funding Network Women’s Thrift Cooperatives Work/Life Balance Signal Biographies Ledbetter, Lilly Mehta, Renu Nooyi, Indra Stewart, Martha Countries Africa Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo Congo, Democratic Republic Côte D’Ivoire Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger
Nigeria Rwanda São Tomé and Principe Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Americas Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Bahamas Barbados Belize Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname
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Trinidad and Tobago United States Uruguay Venezuela Asia Afghanistan Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Bruei Darussalam Cambodia China East Timor Georgia India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Korea, North Korea, South Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Maldives Moldova Mongolia Myanmar Nepal Oman Pakistan Palestine Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Seychelles Singapore Sri Lanka Syria Tajikistan
Thailand Turkey Turkmenistan Ukraine United Arab Emirates Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen Europe Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia (FYROM) Malta Monaco Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania San Marino Serbia and Montenegro Slovakia Slovenia Spain
Reader’s Guide
Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Pacific Australia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu Education Adjunct and Contingent Faculty American Association of University Women Attainment, Elementary School Completion Attainment, College Degree Attainment, Graduate Degree Attainment, High School Completion Campaign for Female Education College and University Faculty Community Colleges Educational Administrators, College and University Educational Administrators, Elementary and High School Educational Attainment, Effect of Unpaid Labor on Educational Opportunities/Access Elementary Educators Family and Consumer Sciences Fields of Study Financial Aid Forum for African Women Educationalists “Girl-Friendly” Schools Global Campaign for Education Hate Speech and Bias on College Campuses High School Teachers Home Schooling National Women’s Studies Association No Child Left Behind Professional Education, Trade/Vocational Schools
School Fee Abolition Initiative Single Sex Education Title IX Vocational and Trade School Faculty Women’s Colleges Women’s Resource Centers Women’s Studies Signal Biographies al-Faiz, Norah Jackson, Shirley Ann Nascimento, Adir Casaro Tamang, Stella Environment Birth Defects: Environmental Factors Cancer: Environmental Factors Climate Change as a Women’s Issue Drought Ecofeminism Environmental Justice Famine Green Belt Movement International Conference on Population and Development Locavorism/Slow Food Movement Love Canal Navdanya Overpopulation Rachel’s Network Toxic Waste as a Women’s Issue Vegetarian Feminism Water as a Women’s Issue Women’s Environment and Development Organization Signal Biographies Brockovich, Erin Gibbs, Lois Maathai, Wangari Plumwood, Val Shiva, Vandana Waters, Alice Government/Law and Justice Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity AMBER Alerts Attorneys, Female
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Convention on the Rights of the Child Convention to End Discrimination Against Women Council of Women World Leaders Crime Victims, Female Drug Trade Equal Rights Amendment Feminist Jurisprudence Gender Quotas in Government Girl Gangs Guns and Gun Use Hate Crimes Heads of State, Female Honor Killings Honor Suicides International Action Network on Small Arms Judges, Women as Law Enforcement, Women in League of Women Voters Lilly Ledbetter Act Megan’s Law Nongovernmental Organizations Parental Leave Act Perpetrators, Female Political Ideologies Prison Administration Prison Guards, Female (U.S.) Prisoners, Female (U.S.) Rape, Legal Definitions of Rape, Prosecution Rates Representation of Women in Government: International Representation of Women in Government: U.S. Roe v. Wade Self-Defense, Armed Self-Defense, Unarmed Sex Offenders, Female Sex Offenders, Male Social Justice Theory United Nations Conferences on Women United Nations Conventions Violence Against Women Act Voting Rights White House Council on Women and Girls Signal Biographies Albright, Madeleine Bachelet, Michelle Bhutto, Benazir
Bruntland, Gro Harlem Clinton, Hillary Rodham Gandhi, Sonia Ginsberg, Ruth Bader Kirchner, Cristina Fernández de Merkel, Angela Obama, Michelle O’Connor, Sandra Day Palin, Sarah Pelosi, Nancy Queen Noor Rice, Condoleezza Robinson, Mary Sarkozy, Carla Bruni Sigurðardóttir, Jóhanna Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson Thatcher, Margaret Health: Mental and Physical Abortion, Access to Abortion Laws: International Abortion Methods Addiction and Substance Abuse Anxiety Disorders Bariatric Surgery Birth Defects Body Image Botox Breast Cancer Breast Reduction Surgery Caesarean Section, Rates of Chastity Pledges Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital Childbirth, Medication in Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural Contraception Methods Cosmetic Surgery Crisis Pregnancy Centers Depression Diabetes Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of Disability: Definitions Doulas Dysthymia in Minority Population Eating Disorders Fecundity
Reader’s Guide
Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of Female Genital Surgery, Types of Fertility Freedom of Choice Act “Freedom of Conscience” Legislation Gardasil Gender Dysphoria Gender Reassignment Surgery Global “Gag Rule” Health Insurance Issues Heart Disease HIV/AIDS: Africa HIV/AIDS: Asia HIV/AIDS: Europe HIV/AIDS: North America HIV/AIDS: Oceania HIV/AIDS: South America Hysterectomies Infant Mortality Infanticide Infertility, Incidence Infertility, Treatments Life Expectancy, International Comparisons of Maternal Mortality Medical Research, Gender Issues Menopause: Medical Aspects Menopause: Social Aspects Menstruation Mental Health Treatment, Access to Mental Health Treatment, Bias in Mental Illness, Incidence Rates Midwifery Nurses Nutrition Nutrition in Pregnancy Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Physicians, Female Physicians, Specialties Physicians Assistants, Female Plan B Planned Parenthood Post-Abortion Trauma Syndrome Postmenstrual Dysphoric Disorder Postpartum Depression Postpartum Psychosis Pregnancy
Premenstrual Syndrome Prenatal Care Psychotropic Medications Puberty Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined Rape, Incidence of Rape and HIV Rape Trauma Syndrome Rates of Psychological Disorders by Gender Reproductive Cancers Reproductive Health Issues Reproductive Rights “Revirginization” RU-486 Self-Mutilation Sex Education, Abstinence-Only Sex Education, Comprehensive Sex Education, Cross-Culturally Compared Sexually Transmitted Infections “Snowflake Babies” Sterilization Sterilization, Involuntary Suicide and Race Suicide Methods Suicide Rates Women’s Health Clinics World Health Organization Signal Biographies Bowers, Marci Dirie, Waris Elders, Joycelyn Gomperts, Rebecca McCorvey, Norma Solomon, Suniti Suleman, Nadia Yates, Andrea Media/Popular Culture Action Heroes, Female Advertising, Aimed at Women Advertising, Female Professionals in Advertising, Portrayal of Women in American Girl Dolls Anime Barbie Dolls Beauty Pageants Beauty Pageants (Babies/Young Children)
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Blogs and the Blogosphere Body Art Bratz Dolls Cartoonists, Female Celebrity Women Censorship “Cougars” Disc Jockeys Dora the Explorer Feminist Publishing Hello Kitty Journalists, Broadcast Media Journalists, Print Media Manga Media Chief Executive Officers, Female Ms. Magazine Our Bodies, Ourselves Pink, Advertising and Pornography, Portrayal of Women in Pornography Produced by Women Pornography/Erotica Reality Television Roller Derby Romance Novels Slasher Movies Soap Operas, Cross-Culturally Considered Sports Ilustrated Swimsuit Edition Toys, Gender-Stereotypic Women’s Cable Networks Women’s Magazines Signal Biographies Amanpour, Christiane Banks, Tyra Couric, Katie DeGeneres, Ellen Ehrenreich, Barbara Goody, Jade Hefner, Christie Huffington, Arianna Maddow, Rachel Madonna Paglia, Camille Queen Latifah Steinem, Gloria Thomas, Helen vanden Heuvel, Katrina
Walters, Barbara Winfrey, Oprah Religion African American Muslims Anglican Communion Black Churches Buddhism Candomblé Catholics for Choice Chinese Religions Christian Identity Christianity Chabad Movement Clergy Abuse/Pedophilia Contraception: Religious Approaches Creation Care Movement (Evangelical) Da Vinci Code, The Evangelical Protestantism Feminist Theology Fundamentalist Christianity Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints Hinduism Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Indigenous Religions, Global Islam Islam in America Islamic Feminism Judaism Ku Klux Klan Kumari, Living Goddess in Nepal Lesbian/Gay Clergy Machismo/Marianismo Mary Magdalene Metropolitan Community Church Ministry: Protestant Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Mujerista Theology Native American Religion New Age Religion Nuns: Buddhist Nuns: Roman Catholic Operation Rescue Orthodox Churches
Reader’s Guide
Orthodox Judaism Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered Priesthood: Episcopalian/Anglican Priesthood: Roman Catholic Progressive Muslims (U.S.) Pro-Life Movement Purity Balls Rabbis, Female Religious Fundamentalisms, Cross-Culturally Considered Revolve Roman Catholic Church Santería Secularity Law, France Shari`a Law Sikhism Southern Baptist Convention Stem Cell Research: Religious Arguments for and Against Suttee Taliban Veil Virgin Mary Virgin of Guadalupe Voodoo Wahabism Wicca/Goddess Spirituality Witchcraft: Worldwide Womanist Theology Women’s Ordination Conference Yoga Signal Biographies Barclay, Aviel Johnson, Sonia Pagels, Elaine Schori, Katharine Jefferts Starhawk Wadud, Amina Winkett, Canon Lucy Science and Technology Astronauts, Female Astronomy, Women in Biology, Women in Chatrooms Chemistry, Women in Computer Games
Computer Science, Women in Earth Science, Women in Engineering, Women in Internet Internet Dating Mathematics, Women in Multiverses, Gender Stereotypes in Pedophilia Online Physics, Women in Science Education for Girls Sexting Stem Coalition Veterinarians, Female Signal Biographies Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise Billa-Komaroff, Lydia Grandin, Temple Ride, Sally Shoemaker, Carolyn Sports and Recreation Auto Racing: Formula One Auto Racing: NASCAR Basketball: College Beach Volleyball/Volleyball Boxing Coaches, Female Coaches of Women’s Teams Cowboy Action Shooting Dykes on Bikes Exercise Science Figure Skating “Fitness” Golf Gymnastics Horse Racing, Women in Hunting Little League Olympics: Summer Olympics: Winter Pilates Rodeo Running/Marathons Shooting Sports, Women in Soccer, Children’s Soccer, Professional Sports Announcers, Female
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Sports Officials, Female Steroid Use Swimming Team Owners, Female Tennis Track and Field Weightlifting Women’s National Basketball Association Xtreme Sports Signal Biographies Ali, Laila Kim, Yu-Na Patrick, Danica Rhode, Kim Sörenstam, Annika Torres, Dara Visser, Lesley Williams, Venus and Serena Sexualities Africa Asia Bisexuality Civil Unions Coming Out Drag Kings Europe Gender, Defined Heterosexism Heterosexuality Homophobia Human Rights Campaign Intersex Lesbian Adoption Lesbians LGBTQ North America Oceania Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Queer Theory Same-Sex Marriage Sex, Defined Sex Education in the Home Sexual Orientation Sexual Orientation, Theories of Causation Sexual Orientation and Race
Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: United States Transgender “Two-Spirit” Signal Biographies Chase, Cheryl Feinberg, Leslie Flannery, Sarah Shepard, Judy Vincent, Norah War and Conflict Abu Ghraib Combat, Women in Community Defense/Resistance Conflict Zones Guerrilla Fighters, Female Land Mines Lesbians in the Military Military, Women in Military Leadership, Women in Military Stationed in Muslim Countries Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military Prisoners of War, Female Prostitution in Combat Zones Rape in Conflict Zones Suicide Bombers, Female Terrorists, Female Wars of National Liberation, Women in Signal Biographies Cornum, Rhonda Drif, Zohra Duckworth, Tammy England, Lynndie Karpinski, Janis
Women’s Lives Adoption Aging, Attitudes Toward Antifeminism Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural Child Abuse Perpetrators Child Abuse Victims Childcare Childlessness as Choice Dating Violence Diet and Weight Control Divorce Domestic Violence Elder Abuse Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America “Fatherlessness” “Femininity,” Social Construction of Feminism Foster Mothers Gender Roles: Cross-Cultural Girl Scouts Girls, Inc.
Reader’s Guide Grandmothers “Helicopter Parents” Homemakers and Social Security Homemaking Household Decision-Making Mail-Order Brides Marriage Marriages, Arranged “Masculinity,” Social Construction of Mistresses Mothers in Prison Property Rights Quinceañeras Rural Women “Security Moms” Single Mothers “Soccer Moms” Stay-at-Home Mothers Stereotypes of Women Teen Pregnancy Welfare Widows Working Mothers
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List of Articles
A Abortion, Access to Abortion, Ethical Issues of Abortion, Late Abortion Laws, International Abortion Laws, United States Abortion Methods Abu Ghraib Action Heroes, Female Addiction and Substance Abuse Administrative Assistants/Office Managers Adolescence Adoption Advertising, Aimed at Women Advertising, Female Professionals in Advertising, Portrayal of Women in Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Afghanistan African American Muslims Aging, Attitudes Toward Albania Albright, Madeleine al-Faiz, Norah Algeria Ali, Laila Alternative Education
Amanpour, Christiane AMBER Alerts American Association of University Women American Girl Dolls American Idol American Samoa Amish Andorra Anglican Communion Angola Animal Rights Animal Trainers, Female Anime Antifeminism Antigua and Barbuda Anxiety Disorders Arab Feminism Archery Architecture, Women in Argentina Armenia Art Criticism: Gender Issues Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview) Association for Women’s Rights in Development Astronauts, Female Astronomy, Women in xxvii
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Attainment, College Degree Attainment, Elementary School Completion Attainment, Graduate Degree Attainment, High School Completion Attorneys, Female Australia Australian Aboriginal Artists Austria Auto Racing, Formula One Auto Racing, NASCAR Aviation, Women in Azerbaijan B Bachelet, Michelle Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Banks, Tyra Barbados Barbie Dolls Bariatric Surgery Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise Basketball, College Bat Shalom Beach Volleyball/Volleyball Beauty Pageants Beauty Pageants (Babies/Young Children) Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bhutto, Benazir Biology, Women in Birth Defects, Environmental Factors and Bisexuality Black Churches Blogs and the Blogosphere Body Art Body Image Bolivia Bollywood Bosnia and Herzegovina Botox Botswana
Bowers, Marci Boxing Brady, Sarah Bratz Dolls Brazil Breast Cancer Breast Reduction/Enlargement Surgery “Bridezillas” Brockovich, Erin Brundtland, Gro Harlem Brunei Darussalam Buddhism Bulgaria Bullying in the Workplace Burkina Faso Burundi Business, Women in C Caesarean Section, Rates of Cambodia Cameroon Campaign for Female Education Canada Cancer, Environmental Factors and Cancer, Women and Candomblé Cape Verde Cartoonists, Female Casaro Nascimento, Adir Catholics for Choice Celebrity Women Censorship Central African Republic Chabad Movement Chad Chase, Cheryl Chastity Pledges Chatrooms Chemistry, Women in Chicago, Judy Chicana Feminism Chief Executive Officers, Female Child Abuse, Perpetrators of Child Abuse, Victims of Child Labor Childbirth, Home Versus Hospital Childbirth, Medication in
Childbirth Methods, Cross-Cultural Childcare Childlessness as Choice Children’s Rights Chile China Chinese Religions Cho, Margaret Christian Identity Christianity Civil Unions Classical Music, Women in Clergy Abuse/Pedophilia Climate Change as a Women’s Issue Clinton, Hillary Rodham Coaches, Female Coaches of Women’s Teams CODEPINK College and University Faculty Colombia Combat, Women in Comedians, Female Coming Out Community Colleges Community Defense/Resistance Comoros Computer Games Computer Science, Women in Conflict Zones Congo Congo, Democratic Republic of the Contraception, Religious Approaches to Contraception Methods Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Convention on the Rights of the Child Coppola, Sofia Cornum, Rhonda Cosmetic Surgery Cosmetics Industry Costa Rica Côte d’Ivoire “Cougars” Council of Women World Leaders Country and Western Music, Women in Couric, Katie Cowboy Action Shooting Cowgirls
List of Articles Crafting Industry Creation Care Movement (Evangelical) Crime Victims, Female Crisis Pregnancy Centers Critical Race Feminism Croatia Cuba Cyber-Stalking and Internet Harassment Cyprus Czech Republic D Da Vinci Code, The Dance, Women in Dating Violence DeGeneres, Ellen Denmark Depression Diabetes Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Critiques of Diet and Weight Control Diet Industry Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago) Direct Sales Dirie, Warris Disability Definitions Disc Jockeys Divorce Djibouti Domestic Violence Domestic Violence Centers Domestic Workers Dominica Dominican Republic Dora the Explorer Doulas Drag Kings Drif-Bitat, Zohra Drought Drug Trade Duckworth, Tammy Duffy, Carol Ann Dykes on Bikes Dysthymia in Minority Population
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E Eagle Forum Earth Science, Women in East Timor Eating Disorders Ebadi, Shirin Ecofeminism Economics, Women in Ecuador Education, Women in Educational Administrators, College and University Educational Administrators, Elementary and High School Educational Attainment, Effect of Unpaid Labor on Educational Opportunities/Access Egypt Ehrenreich, Barbara El Salvador Elder Abuse Elder Care Elders, Joycelyn Elementary Educators EMILY’s List Engineering, Women in England, Lynndie Ensler, Eve Entrepreneurs Environmental Activism, Grassroots Environmental Issues, Women and Environmental Justice Equal Pay Equal Rights Amendment Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Evangelical Protestantism Exercise Science F Faculty, Adjunct and Contingent Fair Trade Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America Family and Consumer Sciences Family Research Council Famine Fashion Industry, Theoretical Controversies
Fatherlessness Faust, Drew Gilpin Fecundity Feinberg, Leslie Female Genital Surgery, Geographical Distribution Female Genital Surgery, Terminology and Critiques of Female Genital Surgery, Types of “Femininity,” Social Construction of Feminism, American Feminism on College Campuses Feminist Jurisprudence Feminist Majority Foundation Feminist Publishing Feminist Theology Feminists for Life Fertility Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Fiber Arts, Women in Fields of Study Figure Skating Fiji Film Actors, Female Film Directors, Female: Europe Film Directors, Female: International Film Directors, Female: Latin America Film Directors, Female: United States Film Production, Women in Financial Aid Financial Independence of Women Finland Fitness Flannery, Sarah Flight Attendants Focus on the Family Fonda, Jane Forum for African Women Educationalists Foster Mothers France Freedom of Choice Act “Freedom of Conscience” Legislation Fundamentalist Christianity Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints G Gabon Gambia
Gandhi, Sonia Gardasil Gardening Gay and Lesbian Advocacy Gender, Defined Gender Dysphoria Gender Quotas in Government Gender Reassignment Surgery Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural General Union of Palestinian Women Georgia Germany Ghana Ghozlan, Engy Ayman Gibbs, Lois Ginsberg, Ruth Bader Girl Gangs Girl Scouts “Girl-Friendly” Schools Girls Inc. Glass Ceiling Global Campaign for Education Global Feminism Global “Gag Rule” Golf Gomperts, Rebecca Goody, Jade Government, Women in Grameen Bank of Bangladesh Grandin, Temple Grandmothers Granny Peace Brigade Greece Green Belt Movement Grenada Guam Guatemala Guerrilla Fighters, Female Guerrilla Girls Guinea Guinea-Bissau Gun Control Guyana Gymnastics H Haiti Hate Crimes
List of Articles Hate Speech and Bias on College Campuses Heads of State, Female Health, Mental and Physical Health Insurance Issues Heart Disease Hefner, Christie “Helicopter Parents” Hello Kitty Heterosexism Heterosexuality High School Teachers Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints Hinduism Hip Hop HIV/AIDS: Africa HIV/AIDS: Asia HIV/AIDS: Europe HIV/AIDS: North America HIV/AIDS: Oceania HIV/AIDS: South America Holzer, Jenny Homemakers and Social Security Homemaking Homeschooling Homophobia Homosexuality, Religious Attitudes Toward Honduras Honor Killings Honor Suicides Horse Racing, Women in Household Decision-Making Household Division of Labor Huffington, Arianna Human Rights Campaign Hungary Hunting Hysterectomies I Iceland Independent Women’s Forum India Indigenous Religions, Global Indigenous Women’s Issues Indigenous Women’s Rights, Bolivia Indonesia Infant Mortality Infanticide
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Infertility, Incidence of Infertility, Treatments for International Action Network on Small Arms International Conference on Population and Development International Monetary Fund International Women’s Day Internet Internet Dating Intersex Iran Iranian Feminism Iraq Ireland Islam Islam in America Islamic Feminism Israel Italy J Jackson, Shirley Ann Jamaica Jameson, Judith Japan Jewelry Design, Women in Jingjing, Guo Johnson, Sonia Jordan Journalists, Broadcast Media Journalists, Print Media Judaism Judges, Women as K Kali for Women: Feminist Publishing in India Karpinski, Janis Kazakhstan Kenya Kim, Yu-Na Kirchner, Cristina Fernández de Kiribati Kngwarreye, Emily Ku Klux Klan Kumari, Living Goddess in Nepal Kuwait Kyrgyzstan
L LaDuke, Winona Lady Gaga Land Mines Landscape Architecture, Women in Laos Latvia Law Enforcement, Women in League of Women Voters Lebanon Ledbetter, Lilly Leibovitz, Annie Lesbian Adoption Lesbian/Gay Clergy Lesbians Lesbians in the Military Lesotho Lessing, Doris LGBTQ Liberia Liechtenstein Life Expectancy, International Comparisons of Lilly Ledbetter Act Lin, Maya Linton, Simi Lithuania Little League Locavorism/Slow Food Movement Love Canal Luxembourg M Maathai, Wangari Macedonia (FYROM) Machismo/Marianismo Madagascar Maddow, Rachel Madonna MADRE Mail-Order Brides Mairs, Nancy Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Management, Women in
Management Styles, Gender Theories Manga Mankiller, Wilma Maquiladoras Mariana Islands, Northern Marriage Marriages, Arranged Marshall Islands Mary Magdalene “Masculinity,” Social Construction of Mata Amritanandamayi Math Maternal Mortality Mathematics, Women in Mauritania Mauritius McCartney, Stella McCorvey, Norma Media Chief Executive Officers, Female Medical Research, Gender Issues in Megan’s Law Mehta, Renu Menopause, Medical Aspects of Menopause, Social Aspects of Menstruation Menstruation, Rituals Surrounding Mental Health Treatment, Access to Mental Health Treatment, Bias in Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of Mentoring Merkel, Angela Metropolitan Community Church Mexico Michelman, Kate Microcredit Micronesia Midlife Career Change Midwifery Migrant Workers Military, Women in the Military Leadership, Women in Military Stationed in Muslim Countries Millennial Generation Million Mom March Ministry, Protestant Mistresses Moldova Monaco Mongolia
List of Articles Montenegro Mormon Church/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Morocco Morrison, Toni Mothers Against Choice Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers in Prison Mozambique Ms. Magazine MTV Mujerista Theology Multiverses, Gender Stereotypes in Myanmar N Namibia Nannies NARAL National Museum of Women in the Arts National Organization for Women National Women’s Political Caucus National Women’s Studies Association Native American Religion Nauru Navdanya Nepal Netherlands New Age Religion New Zealand Nicaragua Nicks, Stevie Niger Nigeria 9to5 No Child Left Behind Nongovernmental Organizations Worldwide Nontraditional Careers, U.S. Nooyi, Indra North Korea Norway Novelists, Female Nuns, Buddhist Nuns, Roman Catholic Nurses Nutrition Nutrition in Pregnancy
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xxxiv List of Articles O Oates, Joyce Carol Obama, Michelle Obsessive Compulsive Disorder O’Connor, Sandra Day Olympics, Summer Olympics, Winter Oman Operation Rescue Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq Orthodox Churches Orthodox Judaism Our Bodies, Ourselves Overpopulation P Pacifism, Female Pagels, Elaine Paglia, Camille Pakistan Palau Palestine Palin, Sarah Panama Panchita’s House: Domestic Workers Rights in Lima, Peru Papua New Guinea Paraguay Parental Leave Parental Leave Act Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Partner Rights Parton, Dolly Part-Time Work Patrick, Danica Peace Movement Pedophilia Online Pelosi, Nancy Perpetrators, Female Peru Philanthropists, Female Philippines Photography, Women in Physician Assistants, Female Physician Specialties Physicians, Female Physics, Women in
Pilates Pink, Advertising and Plan B Planned Parenthood Plumwood, Val Poets, Female Poland Political Ideologies Polygamy, Cross-Culturally Considered Pornography, Portrayal of Women in Pornography Produced by Women Pornography/Erotica Portugal Post-Abortion Trauma Syndrome Postpartum Depression Postpartum Psychosis Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military Poverty Poverty, “Feminization” of Pregnancy Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder Premenstrual Syndrome Prenatal Care Priesthood, Episcopalian/Anglican Priesthood, Roman Catholic Prison Administration Prison Guards, Female (U.S.) Prisoners, Female (U.S.) Prisoners of War, Female Professional Education Professions by Gender Progressive Muslims (U.S.) Pro-Life Movement Prom Property Rights Prostitution, Legal Prostitution in Combat Zones Psychological Disorders by Gender, Rates of Psychology/Psychiatry, Women in Psychotropic Medications Puberty Puerto Rico Purity Balls Q Qatar Queen Latifah Queen Noor of Jordan
Queer Theory Quinceañeras R Rabbis, Female Rachel’s Network Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined Rape, Incidence of Rape, Legal Definitions of Rape, Prosecution Rates of Rape and HIV Rape Crisis Centers Rape in Conflict Zones Rape Trauma Syndrome Reality Television Religion, Women in Religious Fundamentalism, Cross-Cultural Context of Representation of Women Representation of Women in Government, International Representation of Women in Government, U.S. Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights Reproductive Cancers Revirginization Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Revolve Rhode, Kim Rice, Condoleezza Ride, Sally Robinson, Mary Rock Music, Women in Rodeo Roe v. Wade Roller Derby Roma “Gypsy” Women Roman Catholic Church Romance Novels Romania RU-486 Running/Marathons Rural Women Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia
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Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Same-Sex Marriage Samoa San Marino Santería São Tomé and Principe Sarkozy, Carla Bruni Saudi Arabia School Fee Abolition Initiative (Kenya) Schori, Katharine Jefferts Science, Women in Science Education for Girls Secularity Law, France “Security Moms” Self-Defense, Armed Self-Defense, Unarmed Self-Employed Women’s Association of India Self-Mutilation Senegal Serbia Sex Education, Abstinence-Only Sex Education, Comprehensive Sex Education, Cross-Culturally Compared Sex Education in the Home Sex Offenders, Female Sex Offenders, Male Sex Workers Sexting Sexual Harassment Sexual Orientation Sexual Orientation: Scientific Theories of Causation Sexual Orientation and Race Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: Outside United States Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: United States Sexually Transmitted Infections Seychelles Shari`a Law Shepard, Judy Shiva, Vandana
xxxvi List of Articles Shoemaker, Carolyn Shooting Sports, Women in Showalter, Elaine Sierra Leone Sigurðardóttir, Jóhanna Sikhism Singapore Single Mothers Single-Sex Education “Singletons”/Single by Choice Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson Slasher Movies Slovakia Slovenia “Snowflake Babies” Soap Operas, Cross-Culturally Considered Soccer, Children’s Soccer, Professional Soccer Moms Social Justice Activism Social Justice Theory Solomon, Suniti Solomon Islands Somalia Sörenstam, Annika Sotomayor, Sonia South Africa South Korea Southern Baptist Convention Spain Sports, Women in Sports Announcers, Female Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Sports Officials, Female Sri Lanka Starhawk Staša Zajović, Stanislava Stay-at-Home Mothers Steinem, Gloria STEM Coalition Stereotypes of Women Sterilization, Involuntary Sterilization, Voluntary Steroid Use Stewart, Martha Studio Arts, Women in Sudan Suicide and Race
Suicide Bombers, Female Suicide Methods Suicide Rates Suleman, Nadya “Octomom” Supermodels Suriname Suttee Suu Kyi, Aung San Swaziland Sweatshops Sweden Sweet Honey in the Rock Swimming Switzerland Syria T Tajikistan Take Back the Night Taliban Tamang, Stella Tanzania Te Kanawa, Dame Kiri Teachers’ Unions Team Owners, Female Teen Pregnancy Tennis Terrorists, Female Thailand Thatcher, Margaret Third Wave Thomas, Helen Tibetan Women’s Association Title IX Togo Tonga Torres, Dara Toxic Waste, as Women’s Issue Toys, Gender-Stereotypic Track and Field, Women in Trafficking, Women and Children Transgender Transnational Feminist Networks Transsexuality Trinidad and Tobago Trotta, Margarethe von Tunisia Turkey
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Turkmenistan Tuvalu “Two-Spirit” U Uganda Ukraine Unions United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United Nations Conferences on Women United Nations Conventions United Nations Development Fund for Women United States Unpaid Labor Urban Planning, Women in Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vagina Monologues, The vanden Heuvel, Katrina Vanuatu Vegetarian Feminism Veil Venezuela Veterinarians, Female Vietnam Villa-Komaroff, Lydia Vincent, Norah Violence Against Women Act Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Mary Virgin of Guadalupe Visser, Lesley Vocational and Trade School Faculty Volleyball. See Beach Volleyball/Volleyball Voodoo Voting Rights W Wadud, Amina Wahhabism Walker, Alice Walker, Kara Walters, Barbara Wars of National Liberation, Women in Water, as Women’s Issue
Waters, Alice Wedding Industry Weightlifting Welfare White House Council on Women and Girls White Supremacy Wicca/Goddess Spirituality Widows Williams, Venus and Serena Winfrey, Oprah Winkett, Canon Lucy Witchcraft: Worldwide Womanism Womanist Theology Women in Black Women Involved in Farm Economics Women Make Movies Women’s Cable Networks Women’s Colleges Women’s Cooperatives Women’s Environment and Development Organization Women’s Funding Network Women’s Health Clinics Women’s History Month Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Women’s Magazines Women’s National Basketball Association Women’s Ordination Conference Women’s Resource Centers Women’s Review of Books Women’s Studies Women’s Thrift Cooperatives Working Mothers Work/Life Balance World Health Organization X Xtreme Sports Y Yates, Andrea Yemen Yoga Z Zaimont, Judith Lang Zambia Zimbabwe
List of Contributors
Abatsis McHenry, Kristen University of Massachusetts, Boston Ackerman, Alissa University of California, Merced Adams, Jennifer DePauw University Adams, Tony Northeastern Illinois University Addison, Michelle Newcastle University Adney, Karley University of Wisconsin, Marathon County Agüera Cabo, Mercè University of Girona Alcalde, M. Cristina University of Kentucky Alexandre, Chandra Institute of Transpersonal Psychology Alexy, Allison Lafayette College Allison, Jill Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador Almond, Amanda Connecticut College Altinay, Rustem Ertug Bogazici University
Anderson, Kristin University of Houston, Downtown Anstey, Erica University of South Florida Anthony, Deborah University of Illinois at Springfield Anuik, Jonathan Lakehead University, Orillia Appelbaum, Jenna New York University Aseltine, Elyshia University of Texas at Austin Atay, Ahmet University of Louisville Avishai, Orit Fordham University Bagilhole, Barbara Loughborough University Bagwell, Dana Independent Scholar Baker, Carrie Berry College Baker, Nancy Sam Houston State University Baker, Vanessa Bowling Green State University xxxix
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Bakirci, Kadriye Istanbul Technical University Barlow, Constance University of Calgary Barnard, Sarah Loughborough University Barnes, Rebecca University of Derby Barr, Elissa University of North Florida Barrett, Hazel Coventry University Bassett, Deborah University of Washington Bassett, Molly H. Georgia State University Basu, Pratyusha University of South Florida Baxandall, Rosalyn State University of New York, Old Westbury Bello, Barbara University of Milano Bello y Villarino, José-Miguel Independent Scholar Bent, Emily National University of Ireland, Galway Berry, Bonnie Social Problems Research Group Bilous, Adriane Fordham University Bittarello, Maria John Cabot University Block, Marcelline Princeton University Bogstad, Janice University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire Bond, Cynthia Loyola Marymount University Borck, Cathy The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Boros, Claudine Touro College Bos, Angela College of Wooster Boslaugh, Sarah Washington University
Bouclin, Suzanne McGill University Bowles, Emily Lawrence University Bowles, Ryan University of California, Santa Barbara Boyers, Robert Skidmore College Brännlund, Emma National University of Ireland, Galway Braun, Yvonne University of Oregon Bray, Una Skidmore College Brigley Thompson, Zoe University of Northampton Brown, Carl East Tennessee State University Browne, Kath University of Brighton Brunson, Jan Bowdoin College Bueskens, Petra Deakin University Burkett, Jennifer University of Southern Mississippi Buscher, Austin Claremont Graduate University Buss, Candice University of North Carolina, Greensboro Calarco, Jr., Paul Hudson Valley Community College Canelo, Kayla California State University, Stanislaus Carter, Daryl East Tennessee State University Cermele, Jill Drew University Cerven, Christine University of California, San Diego Chen, Ya-chen Clark University Choubey, Asha M.J.P. Rohilkhand University Chrisler, Joan Connecticut College Churcher, Kalen Niagara University
Coelho, Maria University of Minho Cokely, Carrie Curry College Comerford, Lynn California State University, East Bay Cornelius Smith, Erika Purdue University Coulter, Myrl Independent Scholar Crain, Crystallee California Institute of Integral Studies Crutcher, Emily University of California, Santa Barbara Cruz, Gemma DePaul University Cunningham, Carolyn Boston College Currans, Elizabeth The College of William and Mary Cutts, Qiana Argosy University Atlanta Daprano, Corinne University of Dayton Dasgupta, Arundhati University of Lethbridge Davari, Dordaneh Rutgers University Davey, Gareth Hong Kong Shue Yan University Davidson, Cait Independent Scholar Davidson, Deborah York University Davis, Corrie Kennesaw State University de la Porte, Susan University of KwaZulu-Natal DeHaas, Jocelyn Eastern Washington University Del Moral Garrido, Marian Universidad de Granada DeLap, Alpha University of Washington Desnoyers-Colas, Elizabeth Armstrong Atlantic State University Dethloff, Heather Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
List of Contributors Deutsch, James Smithsonian Institution DeWan, Jennifer Independent Scholar Dewey, Susan Indiana University, Bloomington Dicken, Virginia Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Diduch, Amy McCormick Mary Baldwin College Doll, Yvonne U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Donohue, Stacey Central Oregon Community College Dowsett, Julie York University Drew, Patricia California State University, East Bay Duffy, Donna University of North Carolina, Greensboro Duprat-Kushtanina, Veronika École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Duquaine-Watson, Jillian University of Texas at Dallas Eagleman, Andrea Indiana University Edmonds, Regina Assumption College Edy, Carolyn University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Eileraas, Karina University of California, Los Angeles Elkind, Perrin University of California, Berkeley Enszer, Julie University of Maryland Etaugh, Claire Bradley University Fackler, Jennifer University of Houston Fahs, Breanne Arizona State University Fairclough, Kirsty University of Salford Farkas, Zita Independent Scholar Farrell, Annemarie Ithaca College
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Federer, Lisa University of California, Los Angeles Finn, Melissa York University Fischer, Clara Trinity College Dublin Fitzgerald, Monica Saint Mary’s College of California Fleetwood, Jennifer University of Kent Floyd, Nancy Georgia State University Flynn, Johnny P. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Ford, Elyssa Arizona State University Fornengo, Graziella University of Turin Foster, Stephenie Legacy Fountain, Kim Independent Scholar Fumia, Doreen Ryerson University Furia, Stacie Northland College Galman, Sally University of Massachusetts, Amherst Garner, Karen State University of New York, Empire State College Gatrell, Caroline Lancaster University Gillentine, Andy University of Miami Good, Deirdre The General Theological Seminary Gordon-Dseagu, Vanessa University College London Gosztyla, Shell State University of New York, Albany Gotlib, Anna State University of New York, Binghamton Gott, K. C. East Tennessee State University Grady, Marilyn University of Nebraska-Lincoln Graetz, Naomi Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Graney, Katherine Skidmore College Gregg, Elizabeth Jacksonville University Groeneveld, Elizabeth University of Guelph Gunnison, Elaine Seattle University Gustafson, Diana Memorial University Halasz, Judith State University of New York, New Paltz Hant, Myrna University of California, Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Women Hardy, Kate Queen Mary, University of London Harris, Sian Newcastle University Hayden, Sara University of Montana Hayes, Brittany City University of New York Heilbrunn, Sarah California Polytechnic State University Heitner, Keri University of Phoenix Helgren, Jennifer University of the Pacific Henderson, Heike Boise State University Hern, Warren University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Hernandez, Marcia University of the Pacific Herrera, Cristina California State University, Fresno Hidalgo, Danielle University of California, Santa Barbara Hilarides, Bridget Reed College Hill, Emily University of North Dakota Hinze, Susan Case Western Reserve University Hirani, Vasant Royal Free and University College London
Hixon, Amy University of KwaZulu-Natal Holcomb, Briavel Rutgers University Hopkins, Jason University of California, Santa Barbara Horn Sheeler, Kristina Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis Horsley, William Reed College Houlihan, Meggan A. Ball State University Huang, Yu-ling State University of New York, Binghamton Hung, Li-Ching Overseas Chinese University Huntoon, Alishia Oregon Institute of Technology Hurst, Rachel St. Francis Xavier University Husain, Jonelle Mississippi State University Ignagni, Sandra York University Jacobsen, Joyce Wesleyan University Jaffer, Jennifer Independent Scholar Jamal, Judy Columbia University Janssen, Diederik Independent Scholar Johnson, Phylis Southern Illinois University Johnson, Carolyn Columbia University Teachers College Johnson, Helen University of Queensland Jones, Meredith University of Technology, Sydney Jones, Rita Lehigh University Kaell, Hillary Harvard University Kahl, Mary State University of New York, New Paltz Kain, Edward Southwestern University
List of Contributors Kalmbach, Hilary University of Oxford Kane, Jennifer University of North Florida Kaptan, Senem Sabanci University Karakurt, Gunnur Texas Tech University Kaul, Nitasha University of Westminster Kaur, Mandeep University of Texas, Austin Kaur, Jasmeet Independent Scholar Keifer-Boyd, Karen Pennsylvania State University Keith, Tina Pathways Community Behavioral Healthcare Keller, Jessalynn University of Texas at Austin Keller, Mary University of Wyoming Kelley, Kate S. University of Missouri Kelly, Kimberly Mississippi State University Kermani, Zohreh Harvard University Khan, Farida University of Wisconsin, Parkside Khoja-Moolji, Shenila Harvard University Klein, Jessica Adelphi University Knight, Wanda Pennsylvania State University Koh, Adeline Richard Stockton College Kohlman, Marla Kenyon College Koncikowski, Jeanette State University of New York, Buffalo Koppelman, Constance State University of New York, Stonybrook Krehbiel Keefe, Susi Brown University Kreitler, Katy Nicole University of San Francisco
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Kretzschmar, Uta Chemnitz University of Technology Kronenfeld, Jennie Arizona State University Kuehl, Rebecca University of Minnesota Kwan, Samantha University of Houston La Monica, Nancy York University Lai, Suat Yan University of Malaya Lans, Alexander College of Wooster Lee, Jason University of North Florida Leitz, Lisa Hendrix College LeSavoy, Barbara State University of New York, Brockport Letherby, Gayle Plymouth University Leyser, Ophra Haskell Indian Nations University Liberman, Rachael University of Colorado at Boulder Little, Christopher University of Toronto Lizzio, Celene Harvard University Logsdon-Conradsen, Susan Berry College Love, Bettina Northern Kentucky University Lumsden, Rachel The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Lyons, Courtney Baylor University Maatita, Florence Southern Illinois University Edwardsville MacLean, Vicky Middle Tennessee State University Madonia, Heather College of Wooster Madsen, Susan Utah Valley University
Maetala, Ruth Ministry for Women Youth and Children Affairs Maina, Julie Roanoke College Malzac, Julien Université de Toulouse Mann, Carol University of London Manning, Jimmie Northern Kentucky University Mansfield, Katherine Cumings University of Texas at Austin Marsh, Patricia University of Central Missouri Mayhead, Molly Western Oregon University McCarthy, Ashling University of KwaZulu Natal McKelley, Ryan University of Wisconsin, La Crosse McIntosh, Heather Northern Illinois University Mendick, Heather Goldsmiths University of London Merriman, Katherine Harvard Divinity School Meyer, Doug The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Mignon, Sylvia University of Massachusetts, Boston Mills, Shirley University of Texas–Pan American Mizumura, Ayako University of Kansas Mlinarevic, Gorana University of Sarajevo Moghadam, Valentine Purdue University Morales Villena, Amalia Universidad de Granada More, Alison St. Bonaventure University Moreau, Marie-Pierre University of Bedfordshire Moreno, Gerardo Northeastern Illinois University
Mortenson, Joani University of British Columbia, Okanagan Movileanu, Angela University of Siena Mupotsa, Danai Monash University Murray, Dara Rutgers University Narasimhan, Vasantha Skidmore College Nario-Redmond, Michelle Hiram College Nash, Catherine Brock University Newman, Matthew Arizona State University Ní Mhórdha, Máire University of St. Andrews, Scotland Nichols, Tracy University of North Carolina at Greensboro Nix-Stevenson, Dara University of North Carolina at Greensboro Noyola, Sonia University of Texas at Austin O’Brien Hallstein, D. Lynn Boston University Ochoa Rodríguez, M. Delores Universidad de Granada Okopny, Cara University of Maryland O’Leary, Pamela Independent Scholar Oleson, Kathy Reed College Ortbals, Candice Pepperdine University Oxford, Connie State University of New York, Plattsburgh Pabón López, María Indiana University School of Law Pamonag, Febe Western Illinois University Pankake, Anita M. University of Texas–Pan American Pantea, Maria-Carmen Babes Bolyai University
List of Contributors Parenti, Brittany Northwestern University Parsons, Jacqueline St. Mary’s University Patel, Priti Southern Africa Litigation Centre Patterson, Natasha Simon Fraser University Pease-Hernandez, Christine Slippery Rock University Pfeiffer, Alice Independent Scholar Plant, Rebecca University of California, San Diego Plec, Emily Western Oregon University Polacek, Kelly Myer Independent Scholar Policek, Nicoletta University of Lincoln Poloni-Staudinger, Lori Northern Arizona University Poltera, Jacqui University of Western Sydney Predoi-Cross, Adriana University of Lethbridge Purdy, Elizabeth Rholetter Independent Scholar Raimist, Rachel University of Alabama Ramalho, Tania State University of New York, Oswego Rangil, Viviana Skidmore College Reed, Jennifer California State University, Long Beach Reger, Mark Limestone College Reid Boyd, Elizabeth Edith Cowan University Reviere, Rebecca Howard University Reynaga-Abiko, Geneva University of California, Merced Rholetter, Wylene Auburn University Richards, Judy Newcastle University
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Richman, Alice UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health Richter, Nicole Wright State University Ricordeau, Gwénola Université Lille 1 Riley, Jeannette University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Rittenhofer, Iris Århus University Rodgers, Julie National University of Ireland Maynooth Rodriguez, Jenny University of Strathclyde Rodriguez Medela, Juan University of Granada Röhner, Jessica TU Chemnitz Rose, Jennifer Connecticut College Roth-Johnson, Danielle University of Nevada, Las Vegas Rowley, Sarah Indiana University Royce, Tracy University of California, Santa Barbara Ruminski, Elesha Frostburg State University Ruspini, Elisabetta University of Milano, Bicocca Salina, Doreen Northwestern University Sanders, Sara University of California, San Diego Sanford, Kimberly University of Nevada, Las Vegas Sardadvar, Karin University of Vienna Sauer, Michelle University of North Dakota Scheckler, Rebecca Radford University Schuster, Paulette Hebrew University Schütz, Astrid Chemnitz University of Technology
Selen Artan, Zeynep The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Shankar, Janki University of Calgary Shearer, Christine University of California, Santa Barbara Shearman, Mary Simon Fraser University Shelton, Nicola University College of London Shouse Tourino, Christina Saint John’s University Siddique, Julie The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Simic, Olivera University of Melbourne, Australia Simpson, Roona University of Edinburgh Singh, Shweta Loyola University Chicago Singh, Parminder Independent Scholar Sippy, Jessica Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Smanick, Abbey College of Wooster Smith, Cary Mississippi State University Smith Koslowski, Alison University of Edinburgh Soliday, Elizabeth Washington State University, Vancouver Solovieva, Olga Union College Souder, Donna Colorado State University, Pueblo Stackman, Valerie Howard University Stange, Mary Zeiss Skidmore College Steegstra, Marijke Radboud University Nijmegen Steiner, Linda University of Maryland
Stephenson, Carolyn University of Hawaii at Manoa Stettner, Shannon York University Steyn, Petrus Stellenbosch University Stiles, Erin University of Nevada, Reno Strentzsch, Julie St. Mary’s University Struve, Jennifer Towson University Sulik, Gayle Texas Woman’s University Tallis, Vicci Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa Talukdar, Jaita Loyola University, New Orleans Tayeb, Lamia High Institute of Human Sciences in Tunis Taylor, Yvette Newcastle University Teetzel, Sarah University of Manitoba Thacker, Devon Colorado University, Boulder Thomas, Sue Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation Thomas, Valorie Pomona College Thompson, Phyllis East Tennessee State University Throop, Liz Georgia State University Thrower, Leesha Northern Kentucky University Thurston, Wilfreda University of Calgary Tolley-Stokes, Rebecca East Tennessee State University Tolstokrova, Alissa International School for Equal Opportunities Tosolt, Brandelyn Northern Kentucky University Treitler, Vilna City University of New York
List of Contributors Trevino, Marcella Bush Barry University Turner, Bryan The Graduate Center, The City University of New York Vallance, Denise York University van den Hoonaard, Deborah St. Thomas University van der Tuin, Iris Utrecht University Vancour, Michele Southern Connecticut State University Varnum, Charis Columbia University Versace, Jaimee Connecticut College Vieitez-Cerdeño, Soledad Universidad de Granada Vijeyarasa, Ramona University of New South Wales Wadhwa, Vandana Boston University Wall, Jessica Indiana University Bloomington Walters-Kramer, Lori Independent Scholar Wayne, Tiffany Independent Scholar Weaving, Charlene St. Francis Xavier University Weida, Stacy Indiana University Werhun, Cherie University of Winnipeg Whatley, Jonathan Independent Scholar White, Katie University of Maryland, College Park Whiteside, Erin Penn State University Wies, Jennifer Eastern Kentucky University Wilhelm, Brenda Mesa State College Williams, Hettie Monmouth University
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Williams, Joyce Middle Tennessee State University Wing, Adrien University of Iowa Law School Winter, M. Corrine St. Ambrose University Wolff, Kristina University of Maine, Farmington Wolford, Karen State University of New York, Oswego Wright Miller, Gill Denison University Wyatt-Nichol, Heather University of Baltimore
Yanus, Alixandra High Point University Young Barstow, Eliza Harvard University Zagura, Michelle State University of New York, Albany Zamir, Sara Ben-Gurion University, Eilat Zárecká, Petra Masaryk University Ziegler, Sianna Reed College Žnidaršic Žagar, Sabina University of Primorska, Koper
Chronology of Women in Today’s World
2000 The United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 1325, reaffirming the vulnerability of women and children in conflict areas around the world and calling for greater female participation in cease-fire and peace negotiations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the controversial RU 486 drug (mifepristone) known as the abortion pill, giving American women access to a noninvasive abortion that had been available in some countries for over a decade. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) becomes the first former First Lady in American history to serve in the United States Senate. Stanford professor Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African American female National Security Advisor in American history.
go far enough in addressing inherent gender inequities in Egyptian society. Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Interpreter of Maladies, the tale of an Indian American family vacationing in India while their marriage slowly crumbles. Writer Stacy Schiff wins the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography for Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), which follows the 52-year marriage of the Russian American novelist and his wife. Paying homage to When I Lived in Modern Times, the Orange Prize for the best English-language novel of the year written by a woman is awarded to British writer Linda Grant.
Tarja Halonen, a long-time member of the Finnish Parliament, is elected president of Finland.
American actress Julia Roberts wins the Best Actress Academy Award for playing the title role in Erin Brockovich, a film about a financially struggling mother and environmental activist challenging a polluting conglomerate in court.
By presidential decree, Egypt creates the National Council for Women. Many feminists claim it does not
American actress Marcia Gay Harden wins an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Pollock xlix
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in which she plays artist Lee Krasner, the wife who subsumes her career to what she sees as the greater talents of her husband, artist Jackson Pollock. Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel in space, begins spearheading NASA’s EarthKam, an Internet-based project that provides interactive access to space shots for middle schoolers. She subsequently founds Sally Ride Science, a program designed to support greater female involvement in science and mathematics. For the first time in the history of the Olympics, female athletes compete in as many events as males. Czech-American Martina Navratilova is in-ducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Marla Runyan, who is classified as legally blind, wins her first title at the USA Track and Field Championships. Australian track and field Olympian Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, who won every Australian event she entered between 1950 and 1954, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Chris Carver, four-time Olympic Coach of the Year, is honored for her career in coaching synchronized swimmers by being inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Rachel Carson, the author of the environment-themed The Silent Spring (1962), begins putting together a “good ol’ girls’ network” to improve the environment and empower women. The Guerilla Girls, a group of radical feminist artists, establish the Guerilla Girls BroadBand Website as a focal point for activists involved in issues of justice. In Stenberg v. Carhart, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Nebraska law banning intact dilation as a method of late-term abortion because it makes no exception for when maternal health is threatened. In U.S. v. Morrison, which involves the alleged rape of a female student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the U.S. Supreme Court determines that the Violence against Women Act of 1994 is unconstitutional because Congress cannot use powers granted them under the Interstate Commerce Clause or the enforcement clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to provide civil remedies for gender-related crimes. In Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that victims of gender discrimination are not always required to produce direct evidence of discrimination to prove their claims.
Three-time American Olympic synchronized swimmer Tracie Lehuanani Ruiz-Conforto is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Dora the Explorer is added to the Nick Jr. television schedule, chronicling the adventures of a young Latina whose quests to discover the world while helping others becomes a hit with both male and female preschoolers. In addition to serving as a role model for Hispanic girls, the series also teaches basic Spanish to young viewers.
Considered one of the greatest freestyle swimmers of all time, American Olympian Shirley Babashoff, the winner of eight gold medals in team events, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Former jockey Julie Krone becomes the first woman in American history to be inducted into the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame. Seven years earlier, Krone had made history by becoming the first female jockey to win the Triple Crown.
At the age of 55, Diana Hoff becomes the second woman and the oldest on record to row across the Atlantic Ocean.
At the age of 90, Doris “Granny D.” Haddock crosses America on foot to bring public attention to the need for campaign finance reform.
Under the leadership of Winsome McIntosh, the Founding Circle of Rachel’s Network, named after
Texas homemaker Andrea Yates is found guilty of drowning her five young children in a bathtub.
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2001 On September 11, four commercial jetliners are hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists to be used in two attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and one on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., causing nearly 3,000 deaths. The fourth attack is averted when passengers rush their attackers, resulting in the deaths of everyone on board when the plane crashes in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
In February during a 90-day 1,717-mile trip, American explorer Ann Bancroft and Norwegian explorer Liv Arnesen become the first women to cross Antarctica on skis. Bancroft had earned the distinction of being the first woman to cross the North Pole in 1986. After leading an all-female team across the South Pole in 1996, she became the first woman in history to have crossed both the North and South Poles.
In Ferguson v. City of Charleston, the U.S. Supreme Court decides that a South Carolina hospital’s actions in forcing pregnant women to undergo substance testing and reporting the results to the police violate constitutional protections against warrantless searches.
Halle Berry becomes the first African American woman in history to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Monster’s Ball, a dark drama about the romance between an African American woman and a racist prison guard.
In Pollard v. E.I. Dupont Nemours Company, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that “front pay,” which is awarded to victims of gender discrimination, who successfully challenge discriminatory behavior under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is not subject to the damage caps placed on compensatory awards. In Nguyen v. INS, the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the constitutionality of a law requiring children born out of wedlock to American fathers living abroad to prove paternity by the age of 18 to claim citizenship, even though such children born to American mothers living abroad become citizens automatically. Economics professor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is elected president of the Philippines. Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of President Sukarno, who led Indonesia into independence, becomes the first female president of Indonesia. Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, an Olympian in track and field, is elected Governor of South Australia. Rwanda passes minor women’s rights legislation in an effort to improve the lives of women and children. In the United States, Maine joins other states in providing legal protection for breastfeeding mothers.
American actress Jennifer Connelly wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind, which is based on the life of mathematician John Nash and his descent into madness after becoming a cryptologist. Australian writer Kate Grenville wins the prestigious Orange award for the best English-language novel written by a woman for The Idea of Perfection, the tale of Harley Savage, an awkward and eccentric quilter afraid to love after the unexpected death of her husband. Chinese-American skater Michelle Kwan wins her fourth straight U.S. Figure Skating Championship. Tennis players Venus and Serena Williams become the first sisters to face off against one another in the Grand Slam final of the U.S. Open. Five-time gold medalist for the United States, speed skater Bonnie Blair is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Blair, who is one of the most honored athletes in American Olympic history, also has one bronze medal. She held the record for most Olympic medals won by an American until 2010, when the record was broken by male speed skater Apolo Ohno. Hungarian gymnast Agnes Keleti-Biro, who has won 10 Olympic medals, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
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Four-time American gold medalist and swimmer Janet Evans, who is best remembered for her unorthodox windmill stroke, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Drama in homage to her play, Topdog/Underdog in which she chronicles the struggles of two brothers named after President Abraham Lincoln and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
Noted African American figure skater and coach Mabel Fairbanks is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in the coaching category. Because of segregation, Fairbanks was shut out of many ice shows in the 1940s and 1950s. She responded by forming her own ice shows and touring the world.
Writer Diane McWhorter wins the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.
Three-time American Olympic synchronized swimmer Tracie Lehuanni Ruiz-Conforto is named Synchronized Swimmer of the Century by the International Swimming Hall of Fame. American Venus Williams shuts out Justine Henin of Belgium in the women’s singles series at Wimbledon. 2002 Females 17 years of age and over are granted suffrage rights in Timor-Leste. In the United States, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is extended to provide coverage to unborn children who require medical procedures. The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), an international group committed to promoting women’s rights from a global perspective, celebrates its 20th anniversary. Olympians Jill Bakken and Vonetta Flowers become the first American women to win Gold Medals in bobsledding. Flowers is also the first Black athlete from any country to win a Gold Medal in a Winter Olympics competition. The two women are chosen to carry the flag into the Closing Ceremony. The first time the women’s skeleton competition is included in the Winter Olympics, Tristan Gale carries home the Gold Medal for the United States. Playwright Susan-Lori Parks becomes the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for
American writer Ann Patchett wins the Orange Award for best English-language novel written by a woman, for Bel Canto: A Novel, which follows the intricate relationships of a group of terrorists and their hostages. After placing fourth in the women’s short program, ice skater Sarah Hughes engineers an upset and wins the Gold Medal for Women’s Ice Skating by landing seven triple jumps in Salt Lake City, Utah. British ice dancer Jayne Torvill, who along with partner Christopher Dean became the highest-scoring ice dancers in Olympic history in 1984 after producing a routine based on Ravel’s Bolero, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Four-time Australian Olympian in track and field, Betty Cuthbert is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American Olympian Valerie Brisco is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1984, she became the first Olympian to win gold in both the 200- and 400-meter track and field events and won an additional gold medal in 1988. Temple University fencing coach, Nikki Tomlinson Franke, an African American, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American tennis player Venus Williams beats fellow American Lindsay Davenport to claim victory in the women’s singles at Wimbledon. Australian actress Nicole Kidman wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of British feminist writer Virginia Woolf in The Hours.
In Athens, Greece, the Deste Center for Contemporary Arts honors the work of contemporary female artists with the Fusion Cuisine International Exhibit. 2003 In Oman, women 21 years of age and over win the right to vote. California Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Democratic Minority Leader in the history of the United States House of Representatives. Career politician Micheline Calmy-Rey of Switzerland becomes the Swiss head of state by virtue of her position on the Federal Council. She subsequently heads the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Valeria Ciavatta of the Popular Alliance of Democrats becomes one of two Captain Regents of San Marino. Nino Burjanadze, an international law professor, becomes the Acting President of Georgia, a former Soviet republic. Fiji passes the Family Leave Bill, recognizing the fact that women contribute to households in non-financial ways and stating that divorced women have property rights based on those contributions. The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the cost of partner violence in the United States exceeds more than $5.8 billion annually. Female literacy surpasses that of males for the first time in the United Arab Emirates, and women now are the student majority at the university level. A female is elected to the national legislature in Qatar, becoming the first woman to win election through universal suffrage in the Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights works, which focuses par-
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ticularly on protecting the rights of women, children, and refugees. The United States Congress passes the Partial-Birth Ban Abortion Act, banning late-terms abortions performed by intact dilation, without including an exception for protecting maternal health. In a Nevada state law case, Department of Human Resources v. Hobbs, the Supreme Court holds that Americans are allowed to use the federal courts to bring suit for violations of the federal Family Leave Medical Act of 1993, which provides for unpaid parental leave when families are having or adopting a child or when employees or family members are experiencing serious illnesses. Egypt enacts a restrictive law that makes it more difficult for all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including those that support women’s rights, to obtain official recognition. The law is later deemed unconstitutional. The Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority reinstates Shari`a family laws and reestablishes religious courts but reverses itself the following year. The African Union adopts the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, calling for all member countries to cease discriminating against women and guarantee the protection of their rights. South Africa–born actress Charlize Theron wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Daytona Beach prostitute and serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the film Monster. Actress Renée Zellweger wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Ruby Thewes in the Civil War drama Cold Mountain. American writer Valerie Martin wins the Orange Award for best English-language fiction written by a female for Property: A Novel, which takes place in New Orleans in the 1830s. After 58 years of males-only competition, Swedish golfer Annika Sörenstam joins the PGA tour.
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African American track and field athlete Jackie JoynerKersee is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She won gold for the United States in both 1988 and 1992, becoming one of the most celebrated female athletes in American history. Australian Heather McKay, who is often cited as the greatest female squash player of all time, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Chinese diver Min Gao who won gold medals in 1988 and 1992 is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Golfing coach Linda Vollstedt is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Financial reports reveal that British author J.K. Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter novels about a boy attending a school of witchcraft and wizardry, is now richer than the Queen of England. Rowling is the only author in the history of the world to become a billionaire from the proceeds of her writing. When the Williams sisters face off in the women’s singles championship series at Wimbledon, Serena claims victory over her elder sister Venus. 2004 Educator and activist Gertrude Ibengwe Mongella of Tanzania is named President of the Parliament of the African Union. Luisa Diogo becomes Prime Minister of Mozambique. Former exile Baleka Mbete becomes Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa. In Pennsylvania State Police v. Suders, the U.S. Supreme Court determines that employers may not defend charges of gender discrimination filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by claiming they have taken action to prevent further misbehavior in cases where plaintiffs have been forced to vacate their jobs to avoid hostile environment sexual harassment. Noted primatologist Jane Goodall wins the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest for
her work with chimpanzees and her dedication to improving the lives of animals. She is also invested as a Dame in her native Britain. The Turkish-centered Women’s Human Rights group holds a regional conference in Malta to address the violation of the sexual and bodily rights of women. American biologist Linda B. Buck wins the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for her work on the olfactory system. Austrian playwright and novelist Elfriede Jelinek wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. One of her best known works is The Piano Teacher (1988). Jamaican British writer Andrea Levy wins the Orange Award for best English-language fiction written by a female for Small Island, which is set in World War II London and Jamaica. Kenyan activist and parliamentarian Wangari Muta Maathai wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the environment and women’s rights. She is the first African woman to win this prize. Writer Anne Applebaum wins the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Gulag: A History, a chronicling of Soviet labor camps under Joseph Stalin. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act holds convicted murders liable for the deaths of both a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Women participate in the first democratic elections in the history of Afghanistan. In Morocco, the national legislature enacts major reforms to Islamic family codes, expanding the rights of wives and mothers. In the United States, opponents defeat the Freedom of Choice Act, which would have provided additional protection for abortion rights. Italian-born Sonia Gandhi stuns her adopted home of India when she brings the Gandhi dynasty to an end by refusing to become Prime Minister several years
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after the death of her husband, Rajiv Gandhi, a member of the Gandhi family that had ruled India since the 1940s.
are stranded at the Superdome, where they have fled for safety, without food, water, medicine, and other basic necessities.
The most destructive tsunami in the history of the world occurs in the Indian Ocean in December, creating massive waves with energy levels equal to 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. In its wake, 150,000 people are dead or missing and millions are left without homes. For years afterward, women and children were disproportionately affected by the aftermath.
Kuwait finally grants female suffrage, but because of existing suffrage laws, it is limited to those who have been citizens for 20 years.
American actress Hilary Swank wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Maggie Fitzgerald, a female boxer. Australian actress Cate Blanchett wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role as Hollywood film legend Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, which is based on the life of notorious recluse Howard Hughes. University of Texas women’s track and field coach Beverly Kearney is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Brazilian tennis player Maria Esther Bueno is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Her record includes 19 Grand Slam titles, 11 women’s doubles titles, and one mixed double title. American swimmer Nancy Hogshead Makar, who won three gold medals and one silver medal in freestyle swimming in 1984, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Maria Sharapova of Russia holds off American Serena Williams to win the women’s singles title at Wimbledon. 2005 Hurricane Katrina strikes the Gulf Coast of the United States in August, causing structurally unsound levees to flood 80 percent of New Orleans. The flooding results in major destruction to the people, property, and infrastructure of the city. Many of the poorest residents, who are predominately African American,
Social activist Michaëlle Jean, who was born in Haiti, becomes the first black Governor General of Canada. In this capacity, she serves as a representative of the Queen of England, who appoints the Governor General in consultation with the Canadian Prime Minister. In Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, the Supreme Court upholds rights guaranteed under Title IX of the Education Amendments that ban disciplinary action against anyone bringing charges of sex discrimination, including those not being directly discriminated against. Angela Merkel becomes the first woman in the history of Germany to be elected as Chancellor. That same year, Forbes names her as the most powerful woman in the world for the fourth time. Maria do Carmo Trovoada Silveira becomes Prime Minister of the island nation of São Tomé and Principe. After serving as National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African American female to serve as Secretary of State. Her nomination is controversial because of her association with the George W. Bush administration’s preemptive actions in Iraq. Feminists in Afghanistan hold demonstrations demanding that the constitutional rights of women be expanded. Turkish officials launch a media campaign designed to combat honor killings. Iraq passes a new constitution guaranteeing equal rights, but in practice women continue to face discrimination in the public and private realms.
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Algeria reforms its Family Code leading to a major spike in divorce rates. Feminists claim the reforms serve to impoverish women and children. While males in Saudi Arabia are allowed to vote in local elections for the first time, women continue to be denied the right of suffrage. Officials claim it is because segregated voting booths, which are required by religious law, are unavailable. South Africa limits the practice of “virginity testing” of young girls, which has resurfaced in response to rising rates of HIV/AIDS. American writer Marilynne Robinson wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Gilead, the story of a dying minister writing letters to his young son to provide him with a written memory in lieu of being a physical presence in his life. British author J. K. Rowling and illustrator Mary GrandPré win the Quill Award for Book of the Year for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the phenomenally successful series about the boy wizard and his friends. They also win in the Children’s Chapter Book/Middle Grade category. Elizabeth Kostova wins the Debut Author of the Year prize at the Quill Awards for The Historian, which blends history, folklore, and fiction. Ann Brashares wins the Quill Award for best Young Adult/Teen book of the year for Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood, which follows the hugely successful Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2001) and Second Summer of the Sisterhood (2003). Sue Monk Kidd wins the Quill Award for Best Fiction book of the year for The Mermaid Chair, which tells the story of a woman in her 40s falling in love with a Benedictine monk while facing a life crisis. Debbie Macomber wins the Quill Award for Best Romance of the year for 44 Cranberry Point, a contemporary romantic mystery. Television chef Rachael Ray wins the Quill Award for Best Cookbook of the year for Rachael Ray’s 30-Min-
ute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes. The Division for the Advancement of Women and the Commission on the Status of Women conduct an assessment of the 10-year impact of the Beijing Platform for Action. American actress Reese Witherspoon wins the Academy Award for her portrayal of country music legend June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. British actress Rachel Weisz wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for the role of Tessa Quayle in The Constant Gardner, the tale of a man seeking answers in the brutal murder of his wife. American writer Lionel (née Margaret Ann) Shriver wins the Orange Award for best English-language novel for We Need to Talk About Kevin, which is written from the perspective of the mother of a boy who perpetrates a fictional school shooting. With a record of 880 wins, University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt becomes the coach with the most wins in the history of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur breaks a world record for solo circumnavigation of the globe, traveling more than 27,000 miles in less than 72 days. Ice skater Katarina Witt, who won gold medals for East Germany in 1984 and 1988, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Cleveland Cavaliers basketball coach Lusia HarrisStewart is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1976, she became the first female to ever score in a game of women’s Olympic basketball. Softball coach Marjorie Wright is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. When two Americans face off in the women’s singles showdown at Wimbledon, Venus Williams wins over Lindsay Davenport.
The Danica Phelps’ Wake exhibit opens at New York’s Zach Feuer Gallery, depicting daily female routines that include a morning shower. 2006 The women of the United Arab Emirates are granted nominal suffrage, but because the national legislature is appointed rather than elected, women essentially remain disenfranchised. According to the rotation on the Federal Council, Doris Leuthard becomes President of Switzerland. Michelle Bachelet, a moderate Socialist, becomes Chile’s first female president and brings the number of current female heads of state to 11. As President of Liberia, economist Ellen JohnsonSirleaf becomes the first woman to be elected head of state in any African country. Fatoumata Jahumpa-Ceesay becomes the Speaker of the Gambian National Assembly. Republican Sarah Palin becomes the first female governor of the State of Alaska. Katie Couric becomes the first solo female anchor of a broadcast network evening news show. Attorney Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain is selected as the first Muslim woman to serve as President of the United Nations General Assembly. The Pakistani national legislature approves the Protection of Women’s Rights Bill, which is designed to overturn the Hudood Ordinance of 1979 that had been enacted under military rule, resulting in an epidemic of rape and other crimes against women.
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American singer/actress Jennifer Hudson wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Effie White in Dreamgirls, becoming the third African American actress to win in this category. Previous female African American winners were Hattie McDaniel for Gone With the Wind (1939) and Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost (1990). Native American novelist Louise Erdrich wins the Scott O’Dell Award in historical fiction for The Game of Silence about the life of young Omakayas of the Chippewa tribe. American poet Claudia Emerson wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Late Wife, a series of poems about a woman’s journey through divorce, recovery, and remarriage. Australian American writer Geraldine Brooks wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel March, which tells the story of Louisa May Alcott’s March family from the perspective of the father of the four girls featured in Little Women and its sequels, Little Men and Jo’s Boys. Historian Caroline Elkins wins the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, which examines the truth behind Britain’s colonization of Kenya and the ethnic cleansing that took place as the British sought to subdue the Mau Mau. British writer Zadie Smith wins the Orange Award for best English-language fiction written by a woman for On Beauty, which deals with ethnic and cultural differences in the United States and Great Britain. One reviewer remarks that it is “a transatlantic comic saga.”
Effa Manley, who co-owned the Negro League team, the Newark Eagles, with her husband in the 1930s and 1940s, becomes the first woman elected to the American Baseball Hall of Fame.
Julie Powell wins the Quill Award’s Debut Author of the Year recognition for Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. It is made into the movie Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in 2009.
British actress Helen Mirren wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen.
Laura Joffe Numeroff wins the award for Best Children’s Illustrated Book for If You Give a Pig a Party at this year’s Quill Awards.
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Best-selling author Janet Evanovich wins the Quill Award for Best Mystery/Suspense/Thriller of the year for Twelve Sharp, the 12th book in the series about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. African American poet Maya Angelou wins the Quill Award for Best Poetry of the Year for Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem. Diana Gabaldon wins the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror book of the year at the Quill Awards for A Breath of Snow and Ashes, which features time travelers of the American Revolution era. Television chef Rachael Ray wins the Quill Award for Best Cookbook of the Year for Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats: A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners. Charmed, a television show about three sister witches living in San Francisco, becomes the longest-running television show in American history with all female leads. It debuted in 1998. At the age of 16, high school student Michelle Wie ranks second among female golf players. American swimmer Diana Nyad is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Almost three decades earlier Nyad broke the record for the longest swim by either sex, swimming 102.5 miles from the Bahamas to the Florida coast. Basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Australian swimmer Shane Gould is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She was the first swimmer in Olympic history to win three gold medals in world record time, and she is the only person of either sex to have simultaneously held every freestyle record from 100 meters to 1,500 meters.
drowning her five young children in a bathtub by reason of insanity. 2007 Democrat Nancy Pelosi, a congresswoman from California, becomes the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in the history of the United States. Philanthropist Pratibha Patil is elected the first female president of Indonesia. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the wife of former president Néstor Kirchner, is elected President of Argentina. Educator Dalia Itzik becomes Acting President of Israel. Jurist Nino Burjanadze becomes Acting President of Georgia, a former part of the Soviet Union. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Ban Abortion Act, dismissing arguments from some critics that it is vague and places an undue burden on a woman’s constitutional access to abortion. In its 371st year as an American institution of higher learning, Harvard University finally chooses a female president, Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust. She is the fifth woman in American history to lead an Ivy League school. After steadily dropping in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the number of women in the Russian Parliament begins to rise, surpassing the number of seats held during the Communist era. In Kuwait, the national legislature opens debate on the expansion of women’s rights.
Amélie Mauresmo of France defeats Justine Henin of Belgium to claim victory at the women’s singles at Wimbledon.
Biochemist and astronaut Peggy Whitson becomes the first woman in history to serve as commander for the International Space Station.
Following an appeal that led to a second trial, Texas homemaker Andrea Yates is found not guilty of
Iranian British writer Doris May Lessing becomes the oldest person in history to win the Nobel Prize for
Literature. Her best-known works include The Grass Is Singing and The Golden Notebook. American poet Natasha Trethewey wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Native Guard, a series of poems that connect the author’s own multiracial history to the broader history of the American South. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngoz Adichie, who divides her time between her native country and the United States, wins the prestigious Orange Award for best English-language novel written by a female for Half of a Yellow Sun, which follows the travails of two couples caught up in attempts to create an independent nation amid ongoing strife between Christians and Muslims. French actress Marion Cotillard becomes the second actress in history to win the Best Actress Academy Award for a non-English-speaking role, playing legendary French singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, roughly translated as “The Beautiful Life.” British actress Tilda Swinton wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Karen Crowder in Michael Clayton, a George Clooney vehicle about business corruption, Wimbledon officials announce that henceforth prize money for female athletes will equal that of males. Moroccan Olympian Nawal El Moutawakel, a member of the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame, is named Minister of Sports in the Prime Minister’s cabinet. Moroccan hurdler Nawal El Moutawakel, who in 1984 became the first African-born Muslim female Olympian, is named to the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American tennis player Venus Williams defeats Marion Bartoli of France to win the women’s singles at Wimbledon. Romance writer Nora Roberts carries home the award for Book of the Year for Angels Fall at the Quill Awards, voted on by the public via the Internet.
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Diane Settterfield is honored as the Debut Author of the Year by the Quill Awards for The Thirteenth Tale, a gothic suspense novel. Actress Sissy Spacek is honored for Best Audio Book by the Quill Awards for her reading of the Harper Lee classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. The Quill Award for Best Adult/Teen book goes to Patricia McCormick for Sold, a novel about a young girl tricked and sold into prostitution in Nepal. Laura Lippman wins the Quill Award for Best Mystery/Suspense Thriller for What the Dead Know in which one of two sisters kidnapped as children returns as an adult to reclaim her identity. 2008 The United Nations Development Fund for Women launches the Say No to Violence Against Women initiative to combat violence worldwide. New York senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) becomes the first woman in the history of the United States to win a presidential primary when she claims victory in the New Hampshire primary and becomes the first female to be considered a viable candidate for the office of President of the United States. Attorney Evaline Widmer-Schlumpf becomes a member of the Federal Council, which serves as Switzerland’s head of state. Baleka Mbete is passed over as a presidential successor when the current president is forced to resign. She becomes Deputy President instead of becoming South Africa’s first female president. Guatemala passes new legislation designed to prohibit the practice of femicide, gender-related murders. A new Nicaraguan abortion law criminalizes abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or dangers to maternal health and bans physicians from treating pregnant women with cancer, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/ AIDS), malaria, and cardiac diseases.
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French virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which she shares with her colleague, Luc Montaginier, for their discovery that HIV produces AIDS. The United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 1820, reaffirming its commitment to ending violence against women of the world. The Internet site Women on the Web (wowo wow. com), a daily mixture of conversation and advice, is launched by Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Liz Smith, Joni Evans, Mary Wells, Sheila Nevins, Joan Juliet Buck, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Reed, Joan Ganz Cooney, Judith Martin, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner, Cynthia McFadden, and Marlo Thomas. Responsibility for the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is transferred to the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. The committee is responsible for overseeing compliance with the United Nations program implemented in 1981. Narrated by Morgan Freeman and produced by the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), Where the Water Meets the Sky is released, chronicling the true stories of 23 Zambian women who have benefitted from CAMFED’s efforts to use education as a tool for breaking the cycle of poverty. The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., launches Clara®, an interactive database of more than 18,000 female visual artists. British actress Kate Winslet wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader, a drama set in post–World War II Germany. Spanish actress Penélope Cruz wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a romantic drama about two women traveling in Spain. British writer Rose Tremain wins the Orange Award for best English-language novel written by a woman for The Road Home about a poor Russian immigrant
trying to eke out a living in London while sending money home. Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston wins the National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Japanese professional golfer Hisako “Chako” Higuchi, who was the first Asian-born golfer of either sex to win a major championship, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Hassiba Boulmerka, a runner and the first Algerian to win an Olympic medal, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. University of Southern California at Los Angeles softball coach Sue Enquist is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. American gymnast Shannon Miller, who has seven Olympic medals, is inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Evelin Stermitz founds artfem.tv, an Internet television site, dedicated to showcasing women artists from around the world. Traveling on board Soyuz TMA-12 as a guest of the Russian government, South Korean astronaut Yi SoYeon becomes the third woman in the world to be her country’s first space traveler. Running for Vice President of the United States, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin becomes the first woman to represent the Republican ticket. When tennis-playing sisters Venus and Serena Williams face off in the women’s singles event at Wimbledon, Venus wins her fifth Wimbledon title. American race car driver Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 and becomes the first woman in history to win an Indy Car race. 2009 Barack Obama, the newly inaugurated Democratic President of the United States, revokes the Republi-
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can-initiated global gag rule, which withheld funding to any NGO that provided or advocated abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries, and restores American support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Nepal liberalizes its abortion laws, making the procedure more accessible.
President Barack Obama signs the Fair Pay Restoration Act into law. The law, which is named after Lily Ledbetter, who brought wage-discrimination charges against Goodyear, changes the time an employee is allowed to bring suit against an employer from 180 days after the first discriminatory paycheck was received to 180 days from the date on which the last paycheck from that employer was received.
Bahrain enacts Sunni Family Law, which is intended to improve the legal status of women. Feminists point out that the reforms do not apply to non-Sunni women.
Michelle Obama becomes the first African American First Lady in American history. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) becomes the first former First Lady to become a member of a presidential cabinet when she is selected as Secretary of State. Sonya Sotomayor becomes the first Hispanic American and the third female to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the prime minister of Iceland, becomes the first openly lesbian head of state in modern times. Career politician Dalia Grybauskaité is elected President of Lithuania. Rose Francine Rogombé, a former secretary of state for the Advancement of Women and Human Rights, becomes Acting President of Gabon. Forbes magazine names German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the World’s Most Powerful Woman for the fourth year running. The Falkland Islands, a British territory also claimed by Argentina, grants female suffrage. The Mexican national legislature decriminalizes firsttrimester abortions. In response, several states pass new antiabortion laws.
Indonesia passes new legislation making adultery punishable by stoning to death.
The world is outraged when Afghanistan passes a restrictive law that allows husbands to withhold food and sustenance from wives who refuse to comply with sexual demands. The law also grants full guardianship of children to fathers and grandfathers and requires that wives obtain permission from husbands to work. Taliban gunmen kill Afghani feminist Sitara Achakzai outside her own home in response to her fight for women’s rights. In the Congo, women launch a campaign to achieve justice for rape victims. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights holds the Mexican government responsible for the deaths of three women killed in 2001, stating that the government had failed to go far enough in eradicating the practice of “femicide,” murders motivated by gender hatred. American political scientist Elinor Ostrom wins the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her work on economic governance. Romanian German writer and humanitarian Herta Müller wins the Nobel Prize for Literature for producing novels such as Everything I Possess I Carry With Me, a tale of life under a repressive Communist regime. Australian American biologist and biochemist Elizabeth H. Blackburn wins the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, which she shares with Carol Greider and Jack W. Szostak, for her work on DNA and cell division. Her work has enormous implications for the study of fungal infections and cancer.
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American molecular biologist Carolyn (Carol) Widney Greider wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing the award with her former boss, Elizabeth Blackmurn, for work on chromosomes. After grossing more than $4.47 billion, Warner Brothers announces that the Harry Potter film series, based on the novels about a boy wizard by British author J. K. Rowling, have become the highest grossing series in the history of film. Israeli crystallographer Ada E. Yonath wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for her work on the structure of the ribosome. She is the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first Middle Eastern woman to win a Nobel Prize in the science fields. The Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the Affordable Health Care for American Act passes the House of Representatives but falters in the Senate. The amendment would have placed major restrictions on public and private insurance coverage of abortions. Actress Sandra Bullock wins the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy, a White mother who adopts African American future professional football player Michael Oher. American comedienne Mo’Nique wins the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of an abusive mother in Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Mo’Nique is the fourth African American female to win in this category. University of Tennessee Women’s Basketball Coach Pat Summitt cements her place in women’s sports history by claiming her 1,000th win. 2010 On January 21, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The epicenter strikes 16 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince, leading to an estimated 200,000 deaths. On February 12, Amy Bishop Anderson, an assistant biology professor at the University of AlabamaHuntsville who had been denied tenure, opens fire
during a faculty meeting, killing three faculty members and wounding three others. On February 27, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Chile, leaving an estimated death toll of just under 500 and triggering tsunami warnings as far away as Hawaii and Japan. More than half a century after the end of World War II, female pilots are belatedly honored for their service to the United States when they receive Congressional Gold Medals. Running for election on a platform that promotes anti-crime measures and free trade, Laura Chinchilla is elected the first female president of Costa Rica. Ecuador passes major reforms, upholding gender equality and providing penalties and enforcement for gender discrimination. The Dominican Republic ratifies a new constitution that provides for gender equality and pledges support for eradicating all forms of gender discrimination. Bolivia’s newly ratified constitution mandates “equal conditions between men and women.” In Bolivia, President Evo Morales achieves parity in his cabinet, appointing 10 males and 10 females to ministerial positions. Director Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first American woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director. Her movie, The Hurt Locker, which is about an elite American bomb squad operating in Iraq, also beats out Avatar, directed by her ex-husband James Cameron of Titanic fame, for Best Picture. UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, announces that globally six out of every ten women are physically or sexually violated over the course of their lives. A study released by the World Health Organization reveals that partner violence is pervasive throughout the world, ranging from 15 percent in urban areas of Japan to 71 percent in rural Ethiopia.
Working under the auspices of UNICEF, the United Nations Adolescent Girls Task Force announces that it has accelerated its efforts to protect the human rights of adolescent girls in developing counties, particularly those between the ages of 10 and 14. Doris “Granny D.” Haddock, the nonagenarian who walked across the United States to arouse the public about the need for campaign finance reform in 2000, is dead at the age of 100. NBC’s Universal Sports chooses Olympian alpine skier Lindsay Vonn as its Female Athlete of the Decade.
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Canadian hockey players shut out the United States in gold medal battles between both male and female teams in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Upon winning her 12th Grand Slam Championship, Serena Williams ties tennis legend Billie Jean King for the most wins by a female athlete. Oprah Winfrey and Discovery Communications launch the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) designed to provide entertainment, information, and inspiration to the American public.
Yu-Na Kim of South Korea wins the Gold Medal in Women’s Figure Skating at the Winter Olympics.
Elena Kagan is sworn in as the 112th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She is fourth female justice, and eighth Jewish justice.
Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic wins the first Olympic gold medal in speed skating for her country.
Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
A Abortion, Access to In 1994, the United Nations Population Information Network (POPIN) issued guidelines for improving the health of women around the world. In Paragraph 8.25, POPIN proclaimed that, while ultimate goals should focus on preventing unwanted pregnancies through family planning, all nations should ensure that women dealing with such pregnancies be provided with “ready access to reliable information and compassionate counseling” as well as access to safe abortions and follow-up care whenever necessary. The following year, the Beijing Platform for Action, the product of the Fourth World Conference on Women, issued a challenge to world governments, calling on them to “recognize and deal with the health impact of unsafe abortion as a major public health concern,” particularly among the “poorest and youngest who take the highest risk.” By 2008, 70 countries, which contained more than 60 percent of the total world population, were providing unrestricted access to abortion. Over the previous 12 years, 17 countries had removed legal restrictions on abortion. The nations that liberalized abortion laws ranged from the highly developed Switzerland to the African nation of Togo, which is one of the poorest nations in the world. At the same time, other nations, including the United States, restricted access to abortion, and countries such as El Salvador and Nicaragua virtually abolished all access to legal abortions.
Since the 1990s, abortion reforms around the world have generally focused on increasing access without expanding reproductive rights generally. In France, legislators extended the period of unrestricted access to abortion from 12 to 14 weeks and allowed minors to be accompanied by an adult of their choosing instead of requiring them to obtain parental consent. Legislators in India focused on providing greater access to safe abortions by placing oversight authority in the hands of the district rather than the state, making it easier for new clinics to open and giving local authorities more power to prosecute individuals operating illegal clinics. Lawmakers in Thailand liberalized abortion laws to allow medical personnel to perform abortions in cases of rape, fetal impairment, or threats to the physical or maternal health of pregnant women without fear of prosecution. Legal Changes to Abortion Access Women in many former Soviet Republics saw reproductive rights erode along with communism. In Poland, for instance, a liberal abortion law was overhauled in 1993, and access to abortion was restricted to instances where a woman’s health or life were threatened, when fetuses were impaired, or when a pregnancy was the result of rape. A 1996 revision to the law provided for abortions on social and economic grounds, but this law was declared unconstitutional the following year on the grounds that it violated the rights of the unborn child. Albania, on the other 1
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hand, rejected previous restrictions that provided access only to women who had been raped or who faced threats to their physical or mental health and to girls under the age of 16. The new law stipulated unrestricted access to abortion for the first trimester. Liberalized Access to Abortion Ten of the 17 nations liberalizing abortion laws since 1986 are located in Africa, where poverty and disease are common, and where both infant and maternal mortality rates tend to be high. As a point of fact, 47 percent of all maternal deaths take place in Africa, where 60 percent of rural women have only limited access to skilled attendants during delivery and where postpartum care is rare. In 2003, Benin legislators overhauled the existing law, which provided for abortions only to save a mother’s life, to extend access to women who were victims of rape or incest and to those faced with threats to their health or with fetal impairment. Burkina Faso’s abortion laws offered access only to women whose lives were in danger; access to abortion had been extended in 1996 to include victims of rape and incest, those whose health was threatened, and to women carrying impaired fetuses. In 2002, legislators in Chad backed away from a restrictive law offering abortion access only to women whose lives were threatened to enact a reform that provided access in cases where women’s health or lives were at risk and in instances where fetuses had been declared impaired. Before 2004, Ethiopia allowed abortions only when a mother’s health or life were threatened or in incidences of rape. A new law enacted at that time included exceptions for incest and fetal impairment and extended access to females who had not reached the age of majority, and to those who were physically or mentally disabled. Four years earlier, Guinea had expanded exceptions beyond rape, incest, fetal impairment, and threatened maternal health to include instances where a woman’s life was threatened. Before 2002, Mali restricted abortion access to women whose life was endangered, but the new law provided access to those who were the victims of rape or incest. South Africa’s laws provided no specific exceptions to bans on abortions until a new law was passed in 1996, granting unrestricted access for the first trimester and in limited instances thereafter.
Swaziland’s abortion laws were likewise restrictive, but amendments to the constitution in 2005 provided for legal abortions in cases of rape and incest, fetal impairment, threats to maternal health, and when unlawful intercourse had resulted in the pregnancy of a disabled female. In Togo, previous laws ignored abortions, but custom had declared it virtually unobtainable. In 2007, new laws were enacted to provide for legal abortions in instances of rape, incest, severe fetal impairment, and threats to the health or life of a mother. In Asia, only Cambodia, Nepal, and Bhutan have liberalized abortions laws since the 1980s. While Cambodia’s existing law provided abortion access only when a woman’s life was at risk, a 1997 law legalized access during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Nepal’s abortions laws were even more restrictive, providing no access to abortion at all. In 2002, the law was changed to allow unrestricted access during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and afterward in limited circumstances. Before 2004, abortion law in Bhutan was generally interpreted as providing for access only when a mother’s life was threatened. The new law extended access to victims of rape and incest and to women whose mental state were deemed “unsound.” In Japan, legislators attempted to erase a history of support for eugenics with a 1996 law that banned abortions on the grounds of fetal impairment. However, Japanese women may still obtain abortions for medical or socioeconomic reasons. In the Russian Federation, early abortions are legal, but grounds for abortion during the period covering the 12th to the 22nd week of pregnancy were reduced from 12 to only four by a law passed in 2003. Among the nations of South and Central America, Colombia and Saint Lucia have been the only two to enact laws that liberalized access to abortion in the last several years. In 2006, Colombia’s Constitutional Court overturned laws that banned all abortions. Subsequently, exceptions were added in cases of rape, incest, fetal impairment, and endangered maternal health. On the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, abortion laws restricted abortions to women who required medical or surgical treatment that interfered with continuation of a pregnancy. A new law passed in 2004 extended access to victims of rape and incest and to women whose physical or mental health was threatened. Two countries in this area have gone in the
other direction, making it more difficult for women to obtain abortions: in 1998, El Salvador passed new legislation banning abortion entirely; Nicaragua followed suit in 2006. European nations have also been faced with extensive battles over access to abortion, particularly in countries such as Portugal, where nearly 85 percent of the population is Roman Catholic. Before 2007, the law allowed abortions only when women’s lives or health were threatened or in cases of rape or fetal impairment. Reforms provided for unrestricted access during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and on specific grounds thereafter. Switzerland’s laws were more liberal than some other European nations, offering considerable leeway in defining health reasons that called for a pregnancy to be aborted. In 2002, access to abortion was greatly expanded with reforms that provided for unrestricted access during the first trimester and on specific grounds in later stages of pregnancy. Giving in to antiabortionists in 2000, Hungary passed new legislation that required all women seeking abortions to undergo counseling that pro-choice advocates have labeled “onerous and biased.” The Hungarian government now funds abortions only in cases of rape and threats to a mother’s life or health. In some countries, abortion laws have been changed at the state rather than the national level. In Mexico, for instance, laws permitting unrestricted access to abortion during the first trimester and providing for free abortions at public health clinics were enacted in the Federal District in 2007. Several other Mexican states have also passed laws permitting abortions on specified grounds. In Australia, changes at the state level were more liberal. Western Australia removed requirements providing access to abortions only for specific reasons in 1998, and the Australian Capital Territory decriminalized abortions entirely. The United States and Individual State Laws Nowhere in the world has the battle over access to abortion been waged more strenuously than in the United States, where access to abortion varies along lines such as race, class, geographic location, age, and duration of gestation. Through the Hyde Amendment, the U.S. Congress curtailed the use of federal Medicaid funds to procure abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or the endangerment of the woman’s life if she were to carry the pregnancy
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to full term since 1977. Abortion remains legal, in some form, in all states. Abortion policy implemented state by state greatly affects the lives of those women seeking abortion. Major obstacles in U.S. women’s access to abortion include state control, the cost of abortion, the ever-shrinking pool of abortion providers, physical proximity to abortion providers, crisis pregnancy centers, and violence in and near reproductive health facilities. The 1992 Supreme Court decision Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 505 US 833 found that while Roe v. Wade remained safe due to stare decisis, states could place restrictions on abortions that did not place an “undue burden” upon women. In the majority opinion, the court found that while several of Pennsylvania’s abortion restrictions did not place undue burden, which is defined as placing significant difficulties into the abortion process for women carrying nonviable fetuses, the spousal notification requirement did, and was struck down by the court. This issue of viability also changed from the court’s previous stance that viability began in the 28th week of pregnancy to an earlier 22 or 23 weeks, due to technological advances made since the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions in 1973. However, the court held that many of Pennsylvania’s abortion restrictions, including informed consent about the abortion procedure and any possible health risks or complications, parental consent for minors seeking abortions, a mandatory 24-hour waiting period before an abortion could be performed, and the reporting of certain information by facilities that provide abortions, were constitutionally sound. While this case was decided in 1992, it laid the groundwork for many of the current issues women face when seeking access to abortion services. At this point, most states impose certain restrictions upon abortion seekers. Current policy, decided on a state-by-state basis, includes the following figures: 35 states have parental consent or notification laws for minors seeking abortions; 19 states require that abortions be performed in a hospital after a certain point in the pregnancy. Nineteen states also require a second physician for all abortions past a point. In 38 states, laws require abortions to be performed only by licensed physicians. An equal number of states outlaw abortions past a certain point in gestational development, usually fetal viability,
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except for those cases where the pregnant woman’s life is put into danger by continuing the pregnancy. Sixteen states prohibit so-called partial-birth abortions, with only four states’ legislation applying only to postviability for the fetus. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia will only use state funds to cover abortions mandated by the federal government, such as in cases where the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. South Dakota refuses to fund any abortions except when the woman’s life is in danger, even though this flies in the face of legal precedent. Seventeen states pay for most medically necessary abortions for state Medicaid enrollees. Four states restrict even private insurance companies’ abilities to pay for abortion unless the pregnant woman’s life is at risk if she were to carry the fetus to full term. Forty-six states allow individual healthcare providers to refuse to participate in an abortion; 43 states allow institutions to refuse to perform abortions, and of these states, 16 only allow religious or private institutions to refuse abortion services. Seventeen states require that women receive counseling before procuring an abortion that has negative connotations. In nine of these states, women must be told about the fetus’s ability to feel pain. Six of these states require that women be informed about any possible linkage between abortion and breast cancer. In seven of these states, women must be informed of the long-term mental health consequences of abortion. Eight of these states require that women be informed about ultrasounds. (The science behind these studies is highly contested.) Twenty-four states require a waiting period between counseling and the abortion procedure; within the majority of these states, 24 hours is the allotted time. Financial Cost of Abortion The average cost for a surgical abortion conducted in the first trimester is between $300 and $900. Medical abortions, available only in the first seven weeks of gestation, cost approximately the same as surgical abortions, due to the combination of pills and multiple clinic visits. In the second trimester, the cost of abortion increases steadily along with how far the pregnancy has progressed. The cost for a late second-trimester abortion can easily reach $3,000. The majority of women pay out of pocket for their abortions. Some health insurance policies cover abortion.
Because very few states cover abortions for lowincome women, their access to abortion is severely limited. Additional costs may accrue for women who live in nonmetropolitan areas to procure an abortion because of travel expenses, and with the cost growing in those states that require a 24-hour waiting period with the addition of housing costs. Lost wages are another factor to consider when discussing the cost of abortion. The low number of abortion providers who perform late-term abortions often makes travel necessary for those abortions. Doctor Shortage and Distance Factor The number of healthcare providers who perform abortions has been decreasing steadily for decades now. Between 1982 and 2001, there was a 37 percent drop in the number of abortion providers in the United States. If these numbers hold steady, there could be a crisis due to the shortage of healthcare practitioners who will provide abortions. One change since 2000 is that increasing numbers of family practitioner physicians have been prescribing RU 486 for their regular patients. If this trend holds true, this could be a way to counter the difficulties non-metropolitan women face in accessing abortion services. Early intervention through Plan B, or emergency contraceptives, could also be a way to decrease the need for abortion while also improving the reproductive health justice of women living in non-urban places. Geographical proximity to abortion providers remains a serious problem in accessing abortions for many women in the United States. A large majority, 87 percent, of all counties do not have an abortion provider; 35 percent of U.S. women live in those counties. For these women, the cost of abortion is much higher when factoring in travel and accommodations. These additional costs may help to explain why the abortion rate for women living outside of metropolitan areas is half that of women who live near abortion providers. In recent years, pro-life organizations have begun operating crisis pregnancy centers. These centers are misleading in their purpose. They often entice pregnant women with the promise of a free pregnancy test. While they do provide free pregnancy tests, they also provide information designed to make women choose to carry their fetus to term. These services include sonograms, fetal representations, and misinformation about the effects of abortion.
Women who have turned to such a crisis center are subjected to videos and pictures of aborted fetuses, and otherwise pushed to “choose life.” These centers prey on pregnant women’s fears and manipulate their situation, providing the minimum support needed during pregnancy but leaving these women alone to rear their child or place the child up for adoption. Clinic Violence and the FACE Act Healthcare providers who perform abortions are frequent targets of antiabortion protesters. Pregnancy crisis centers also have pro-choice protestors. Outright violence has decreased in recent years, largely due to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by former president Bill Clinton in May 1994. The FACE Act was prompted largely by two shootings of abortion providers in 1993: the murder of Dr. Gunn and the attempted murder of Dr. Tiller. The FACE Act not only applies to freedom of choice in reproductive health services, but also protects citizens’ (including those who either work in or use reproductive healthcare centers) right to exercise their religious freedoms. FACE makes it unlawful to use force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because (s)he is or has been either providing or receiving reproductive health services. These same criteria are illegal in exercising their right to worship. The FACE Act also makes it unlawful to intentionally damage or destroy a place of worship or a place that provides reproductive healthcare. The penalties range from fines for first time offenders to a life term for repeated and egregious offenders. The federal government is the only entity that can file criminal charges through the FACE Act. FACE also protects the civil liberties of protestors. They are free to peacefully protest, which includes carrying signs, making picket lines, putting forth antiabortion materials, and singing hymns. Shouting is also allowed, with the stipulations that no threats are made and the level of sound does not exceed the legal decibel limit. FACE had a demonstrable effect on the levels of violence outside of clinics; however, as the abortion debate has once again been gathering momentum, the violence has resumed. In 2009, Dr. Tiller, an abortion provider who did not refuse to provide late-term
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abortions for women carrying nonviable fetuses, was shot and killed in his place of worship. However, the violence is not only among pro-lifers. Jim Pouillon, a pro-life protestor, was killed in 2009 outside a high school by a man who claimed to be offended by the images displayed by Pouillon. These murders brought to the forefront the question of rhetoric within the pro-life movement and also the effects of the visual propaganda displayed by pro-lifers. While FACE has made it easier for those who need to cross the picket lines to work or to receive reproductive health treatments, the often-present pro-life protestors remain a barrier to abortion in the United States. Some states have adopted policies requiring protestors to stay a specified distance from reproductive health service centers. Abortion providers in the Midwest report the most demonstrators. The threat of protestors only in being there is an obstacle for women seeking abortion. Access to abortion in the United States is in flux. The introduction of RU 486 into the abortion equation has changed how doctors view their role in abortion. If this trend continues, access to abortion will improve across the country. However, this does require having a family physician who is familiar enough with a woman to not send her elsewhere when she needs an abortion. The current healthcare debates will also impact women’s access to abortion, although it is much too soon to know how or if these changes will occur. See Also: Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion Laws, International; Abortion Laws, United States; Feminists for Life; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality; Pregnancy; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; RU 486. Further Readings Blasdell, Jennifer and Kate Goss. “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.” Washington, DC: National Abortion Federation, 2006. http://www .prochoice.org/pubs_research/publications/downloads/ about_abortion/face_act.pdf (accessed July 2010). Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Center for Reproductive Rights. Abortion Worldwide: Twelve Years of Reform. August 13, 2008. http://www .isiswomen.org/index.php?option=com_content&task =view&id=1080&Itemid=200 (accessed July 2010).
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Faúndes, Anibal and José Barzelatto. The Human Drama of Abortion: A Global Search for Consensus. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006. Finer, Lawrence B. and Stanley K. Henshaw. “The Accessibility of Abortion Services in the United States, 2001.” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health,, v.35/1 (January–February 2003). Fourth World Conference on Women. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. September 15, 1995. http:// www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/e5dplw.htm (accessed July 2010). Guttmacher Institute. “Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States.” http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb _induced_abortion.html (accessed July 2010). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status of Women in Over 140 Countries, 1997, 1998. New York: Random House, 1997. United Nations Population Information Network. “Conference 171/13: Report of the ICPD.” http://www .un.org/popin/icpd/conference/offeng/poa.html (accessed July 2010). U.S. Department of Justice: Civil Rights Division. “Freedom of Access to Clinics Act.” http://www.justice. gov/crt/crim/248fin.php (accessed November 2009). Jessica Wall Indiana University, Bloomington
Abortion, Ethical Issues of In both ethical and public debates, heated discussions occur about whether and under what circumstances abortion can be morally justified. Answers to this question are typically categorized as to whether individuals or governments are “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” Pro-life theorists defend the conservative view that abortion is morally unjustifiable, unless the woman’s life is in danger. Conversely, pro-choice theorists ascribe to a more liberal view that abortion is morally justifiable, particularly in the earlier stages of pregnancy. The ethical issues that arise when making decisions about whether to have an abortion or not include the status of the fetus, the right to life, autonomy, moral responsibility, motherhood, and the rights of an individual concerning their body. The ethics of abortion is
a particularly complex moral problem as it intersects with questions of biology, religion, the mother’s mental and physical health, the law, sociocultural norms, and the nature of women’s lives in contemporary society. Historically, discussions concerning whether abortion is morally justified have been connected to considerations of the biological development of the fetus. From a biological perspective, it is more common to justify abortions within the first six to eight weeks of pregnancy, before the embryo develops into a fetus. Further, in some contemporary societies, it is regarded as morally acceptable for a woman to take the “morning after” pill or “emergency contraceptive” within a few days of having unprotected sex. Nonetheless, some pro-life proponents and certain religious groups, in particular, think that a zygote or an embryo is a potential human being that has a right to life, and that any method terminating the pregnancy is morally unjustified. Questions concerning whether an abortion is morally justified tend to arise later in the pregnancy. If, for example, the fetus has reached viability and could survive outside the womb, to the morality of abortion becomes subject to dispute, although it is sometimes considered acceptable if carrying the fetus to term could result in the mother’s death. Although some pro-choice proponents believe that having an abortion in the first trimester has little moral difference than removing any other group of cells, once the fetus starts to develop, it becomes more human than when it is in the embryonic stages. The biological development of the fetus intersects with people’s position on the moral status of the fetus, and whether they think the fetus’s right to life trumps the mother’s right to life or vice versa. On one hand, pro-life theorists claim that abortion involves killing an innocent life and that the fetus has a basic right to life. On the other hand, some pro-choice theorists argue that it makes little sense to talk in terms of the right to life of the fetus (particularly in the early stages of the pregnancy) as it is first and foremost part of the mother’s body: it does not automatically have independent rights. Pro-life and pro-choice theorists are generally divided by whether and at what point in the pregnancy they think that a fetus is a potential human being. In 1973 the Roe v. Wade case ruled that a fetus should not be attributed the status of personhood. Rather, the ruling states that woman’s right to privacy
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Pro-life proponents and certain religious groups believe that a zygote or an embryo is a potential human being that has a right to life, and that any method terminating the pregnancy is morally unjustified.
and right to choose whether to have children or not overrides claims concerning the fetus’s right to life. Responsibility and Legal Considerations The ethical aspects of abortion connect to questions of consent and moral responsibility. For example, although a man is in part (at least causally) responsible for the fetus when he impregnates a woman, insofar as the woman has to carry the fetus to term at some risk to herself, she is often considered more morally responsible for the fetus than the man is. In cases where women have not consented to intercourse (e.g., when rape or incest has occurred), they cannot be held responsible for the pregnancy and abortion may be seen as morally justifiable. Some pro-choice theorists, like Catriona Mac kenzie, argue that choosing to have an abortion can sometimes be more morally responsible than carrying the child to term. For example, if the woman knows or suspects that she cannot provide sufficient
economic, social, and psychological support for the child; if she suffers from severe mental or physical illness; if she suffers from a serious illness like human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS); or if she has a history of addiction and substance abuse, then abortion can be morally justifiable. Questions of responsibility and consent also intersect with legal considerations. For example, in many states and countries, abortion is legal if the woman has been raped. This is significant given the prevalence of rape in many countries, and the increase in women becoming victims of the use of “date rape” drugs. Proponents and opponents of abortion largely generally agree that in extreme cases like rape or incest, it is ethical and justifiable for the woman to choose to abort. However, some pro-life theorists argue that even in extreme cases, the woman should opt for adoption rather than abortion, as the former does not involve ending a potential life while the latter does.
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Conversely, pro-choice theorists have argued that it can be less morally responsible to put the child up for adoption than to abort, as the child may suffer physical and emotional trauma from the adoption process. In general, the woman’s mental and physical health, as well as the nature of her social situation, is central to deciding whether abortion is morally justified. Questions concerning the mother’s psychological well being are complicated and similarly subject to dispute. Opponents of abortion claim that it causes psychological trauma and emotional suffering to the mother, and suggest that pro-choice theorists tend to underemphasize the maternal bond between mother and fetus. Proponents of abortion argue that having an unwanted pregnancy has similar potential to cause psychological trauma and suffering to both mother and child. Similarly, some pro-choice theorists have argued that there is significant psychological trauma associated with having an unwanted pregnancy and/ or finding oneself in a situation where legal, safe abortions are not available. In countries where abortion is illegal, there is often a greatly increased risk of harm and death from the illegally performed procedures. Decisions about the ethics of abortion are framed by social, religious, and ethnical norms. For example, in countries where unwanted pregnancies are frowned upon by the community, or where sex selection is promoted, women can be forced to abort whether they want to or not. Conversely, in countries or communities where abortion is illegal or opposed, women can be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Thus, questions of abortion are irreducible from questions of women’s autonomy.
potential person) lacks the relevant interest in its own future existence to be attributed the same moral status as the woman. Some hold the opintion that if a woman is denied the right to choose to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, it undermines her autonomy. Soran Reader goes so far as to claim that calling the abortion debate “a debate” reinforces the patriarchal norms that have historically framed discussions about abortion. The idea here is that because pregnancy is intimately connected to an individual woman’s situation and decision-making process, to debate it at all implicitly undermines her capacity as a competent, rational adult to make decisions about her body and her life. The relationship between women’s autonomy and abortion is less clear in cases of teen pregnancy, as teenagers may yet lack the capacities to make fully autonomous, rational choices. Proponents of abortion also argue that a woman has a right to bodily integrity: to decide what happens to her body and whether she wants to carry a fetus to term. Some pro-choice theorists have argued that the fetus’s moral significance is in part contingent on the women’s relationship to the fetus, and on whether she chooses to be a mother. In such accounts, the decision to abort or not cannot be reduced to decisions about the nine month gestation period. Rather, choosing to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy amounts to choosing not to be a mother where motherhood involves a life-changing decision and a commitment to provide long-term care and support for a child. In contemporary society, mothers are not just the primary caretaker, but are often in the workforce, and are sometimes the sole provider for the family.
Autonomy, Motherhood, and Bodily Integrity A woman’s autonomy—and her right to bodily autonomy—is central to discussions concerning the ethics of abortion. Pregnancy and childbirth are gender specific, and thus women’s rights to choose whether to abort or not generally supersede men’s rights. Autonomy is most commonly associated with an individual’s capacity for reflexive self-evaluation, and her ability to freely choose how to act and lead her life. The relevant capacities for autonomy are also connected to future self-concern, moral reasoning, and self-determination. Some pro-choice theorists argue that unlike a fully autonomous woman, a fetus (who is at best only a
Abortion in Contemporary Society Women often have to juggle their career with the demands of motherhood and caretaking. When deciding whether or not to have an abortion, women in contemporary society often need to take into account whether they will be able to provide for the child financially, socially, and emotionally; raise the child as a single parent; and protect the child from domestic violence and/or other threats. They may also have to factor in considerations like whether they are vulnerable to social injustice, war, environmental disaster, or economic recession, each of which may mean that if the woman has the option to abort the fetus safely, she is morally justified in choosing to do so.
Abortion, Late
Contemporary discussions of abortion also intersect with recent developments in embryonic stem cell research (where an embryo is cultivated in a laboratory to be used for medical research). There are heated debates concerning the similarities between the ethical issues raised by abortion and those raised by embryonic stem cell research. Some feminist ethicists argue that if the moral status of the fetus is tied to the nature of its relationship to the mother, then embryonic stem cell research is morally different from questions of abortion. Opponents of abortion, however, argue that stem cell research is unethical precisely because it shares moral features with abortion: just as abortion is considered immoral in this faction, so too is stem cell research. Pro-life theorists have also argued that stem cell research and the practice of screening for fetal abnormalities could increase abortions, as it increases the likelihood of sex selection and eugenics; however, this is widely disputed. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, International; Addiction and Substance Abuse; Rape and HIV; Roe v. Wade. Further Readings Bennett, Belinda, ed. Abortion. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004. Harman, Elizabeth. “How Is the Ethics of Stem Cell Research Different From the Ethics of Abortion?” Metaphilosophy, v.38/2–3 (2007). Olen, Jeffrey, Julie C. Van Camp, and Vincent E. Barry, eds. Applying Ethics: A Text With Readings, 9th Ed. Belmont, CA: Thompson Learning, 2007. Overall, Christine. Ethics and Human Reproduction. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987. Reader, Soran. “Abortion, Killing, and Maternal Moral Authority.” Hypatia, v.23/1 (2008). Satz, Debra. “Feminist Perspectives on Reproduction and the Family.” In Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). http:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/feminism -family/ (accessed May 2010). Tooley, Michael, et al., eds. Abortion: Three Perspectives. New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009. Jacqui Poltera University of Western Sydney
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Abortion, Late There is no agreement in the medical community about the definition of a “late abortion.” The great majority of abortions are performed during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, and most of the rest occur before the 21st week. For this discussion, therefore, “late” abortion is defined as any abortion performed after the 20th week of pregnancy. Abortions performed at this stage of pregnancy are more difficult and more potentially hazardous than those performed early in pregnancy. In the first trimester of pregnancy, the embryo is quite small—between the size of a thimble or a finger. In the early second trimester (from 13 to 20 weeks), the fetus is larger, but the uterus is still small enough that a woman may not be aware that she is pregnant. This is especially true for a woman with irregular menses, a woman who thinks she is menopausal, or a young adolescent unfamiliar with the signs and symptoms of pregnancy. By the time the pregnancy has advanced to 21 or 22 weeks, however, it is much more likely that she will be aware of the pregnancy. Terminating a pregnancy at 21 to 24 weeks is quite different than performing an abortion during the first six to eight weeks of pregnancy. The fetus is much larger in relation to the size of the uterine opening (the cervix) and it is surrounded by amniotic fluid. A critical complication in late abortion is being able to sufficiently open the cervix to permit expulsion or removal of the fetus without damaging the uterus. Another critical issue is preventing the amniotic fluid from entering the woman’s circulatory system. If this occurs, it could kill the mother. The second trimester is when some of the most dangerous, life-threatening conditions can arise during the course of the pregnancy. An example is preeclampsia, which, if untreated, can lead to eclampsia, a fatal combination of high blood pressure, kidney failure, liver failure, bleeding disorder, blindness, seizures, and stroke. Other complications appearing in the second trimester can include pregnancy-induced diabetes and hyperemesis gravidarum, the “uncontrollable vomiting of pregnancy,” which can be fatal. Serious fetal abnormalities or genetic disorders are most likely to be identified and diagnosed in the second trimester. These medical complications or fetal
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abnormalities account for a large proportion of decisions to have late abortions. Late Abortion Methods Techniques for performing late abortions have changed over the past 40 years, and late abortion has become progressively safer. One early technique required the introduction of a balloon (Foley) catheter into the uterus under sterile conditions. The balloon was inflated, and the distal end of the catheter (the part farthest from the woman’s body) was attached to a cord, at the end of which was a weight. The weight was suspended over the end of the bed in which the woman was lying, and the pressure of the balloon within the woman’s uterus was allowed to dilate (open) and efface (thin out) her uterus until the fetus could be expelled. The woman was immobilized during this treatment, which could last for many hours or days. Aside from the woman’s severe discomfort from pressure, traction, and immobility, there was also a high complication rate associated with this method of late abortion. Another method used at this time was a hysterotomy (a mini-C-section), in which incisions were made in the woman’s abdominal and uterine walls to remove the developing fetus. The vertical uterine incision usually associated with this operation put the woman at high risk of uterine rupture in subsequent pregnancies, and the operation itself had a high risk of death. From 1965 through 1990, various substances were injected into the pregnant second-trimester uterus to kill the fetus and cause the woman to go into labor. These included concentrated glucose solution, concentrated saline solution, concentrated urea solution, and various synthetic prostaglandin preparations. All of these methods were associated with a variety of serious and even fatal complications. At the present time, the method with the lowest complication rate in late abortion includes the following steps: an intrafetal injection of digoxin into the fetus; treating the cervix over two or three days with hygroscopic (water-absorbing) dilators to allow the cervix to open; introducing misoprostol (another synthetic prostaglandin) into the uterus; releasing amniotic fluid to reduce the risk of amniotic fluid embolism; gently inducing labor, causing the uterus to contract so that the fetus and placenta are expelled; and removing the fetus in some cir-
cumstances. However, as of 2010, there is no agreement in the medical community on the safest way to perform late abortions. See Also: Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion Laws, International; Abortion Methods; Roe v. Wade. Further Readings Hern, Warren M. Abortion Practice. Boulder, CO: Alpenglo Graphics, 1990. Hern, Warren M. “Second Trimester Surgical Abortion.” The Global Library of Women’s Medicine. http://www .drhern.com/secondsurg.htm (accessed May 2010). Paul, Maureen, Steve Lichtenberg, Lynn Borgatta, and David A. Grimes. Management of Unintended and Abnormal Pregnancy: Comprehensive Abortion Care. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Schoen, Johanna. Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Gender and American Culture). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Warren M. Hern University of Colorado
Abortion Laws, International Although it is considered a medical procedure, most countries in the world deal with abortion through the law, whether to restrict access to abortion or provide full access to abortion services. However, legal regulation of abortion, referred to in some countries as termination of pregnancy, varies widely throughout the world. The domestic legal regulation of abortion can be found in a variety of legal authorities, including the penal code, domestic constitutions, and case law. For example, in Swaziland the Constitution specifically provides women the right to abortion in cases where there is a serious threat to the mental and physical health of the pregnant woman, fetal impairment, or rape or incest. In contrast, in the United States, one of the primary sources of legal regulation of abortion is found in case law, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions. In general, legal regulation falls under two main categories: countries that provide for at-will abortion
and those that permit abortion in specific circumstances. The primary circumstances in which countries do permit abortions are to save the life of the pregnant woman, in cases of fetal impairment, to preserve the mental and physical health of the pregnant woman, in cases of rape and incest, and when needed for socioeconomic reasons. In addition, international and regional treaties provide specific legal rights to individuals within countries that have ratified the respective treaties that are relevant to abortion. Though these treaties may have limited applicability within domestic legal spheres, they remain critical to understanding the international legal context around abortion. It is hard to generalize the laws in such diverse parts of the world, but it is clear that most of South America, Africa, and the Middle East (with a few exceptions, such as South Africa, which provides for at-will abortion) permit abortions in specific circumstances. In contrast, much of Europe and North America, with a number of exceptions, does provide for abortion at will. However, throughout the world significant hurdles remain to accessing medical abortions, even in countries where the law permits at-will abortions. At-Will Abortion A number of countries legally provide pregnant women access to abortions without requiring them to provide a reason why they are seeking the abortion. These are often called at-will abortions, or abortion on request. In these nations, women only need to find a doctor who is willing to perform the abortion. In some countries, such as Albania, Belgium, and France, pregnant women are legally required to formally state that the abortion is necessary because she is in crisis. Practically, however, the requirement is a formality as long as the woman can find a doctor who is willing to perform the abortion. There is no country in the world that provides for complete, unrestricted abortion. Even in countries where at-will abortions are legally permitted, in general there are restrictions in place for pregnant women seeking abortions after the first trimester. After the first trimester, most countries require that a pregnant woman present a valid reason for the abortion. As of 2007, only three countries in Africa (Cape Verde, South Africa, and Tunisia) and two countries
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in Latin America and the Caribbean (Guyana and Cuba) permit abortion on request. A handful of countries provide for abortion on request in Asia. Most countries in Europe permit abortion on request. Abortion Under Specific Circumstances Most countries in the world permit abortions in specific circumstances. In some cases, countries will permit abortions in a range of circumstances; other countries have a limited number of grounds on which abortions can be performed. For example, in Zambia the law provides exceptions for a woman’s mental and physical health, fetal impairment, and socioeconomic reasons. In contrast, Malawi permits abortions only when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. Restrictions to accessing abortion even in cases where the exception is clearly provided for under the law can be limited because of rules requiring medical approval and other such hurdles. To Save the Life of the Pregnant Woman The most common ground on which countries permit abortions is when an abortion is needed to save the life of the pregnant woman. More than 60 countries in the world have a wholesale prohibition on abortion or permit it only when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. Many of these countries are in Africa and Latin America; Ireland remains one of the few countries in Europe that permits abortions only when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. The specific requirements for determining when a pregnant woman’s life is considered to be at serious risk vary from country to country, with a handful of countries providing a detailed list of conditions considered life threatening. In most countries with this exception, the decision whether to perform an abortion is left up to the treating physician. There are few countries that do not provide for an exception in a case where the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. In those countries that do fully restrict abortion, such as Chile, Malta, and El Salvador, an argument that the abortion was legitimate under the legal defense of necessity may be a possibility. Many countries where abortions are heavily restricted do, however, provide for abortions in cases where there is fetal impairment. The precise nature of the impairment needed to fall under this category is often specified under the law.
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Abortion Laws, International
Another common ground for permitting abortion is in the case of rape or incest. This is reflected legally in countries in a variety of ways. In some countries, abortion-related legislation specifically makes exceptions for cases of rape and incest; in other countries, abortions are permitted under the arguably broader provision of pregnancy as a result of a criminal offense. This latter provision could arguably include statutory consensual rape. Preservation of Physical and Mental Health In many countries, abortions are permitted when needed to preserve the physical health of the pregnant woman. What constitutes physical health varies among the countries. Countries that are part of the British Commonwealth, including those in Africa, are more likely to have a broader definition of health within the abortion context than civil law countries in Africa and Latin America. Some countries specifically provide for abortions when necessary to preserve the mental health of the pregnant woman. In many Commonwealth countries, mental health is defined as emotional distress caused to the pregnant woman or the other children in the family. In other countries, there is no specified definition of what constitutes mental health. In countries where exceptions are provided because of a woman’s mental health, abortion on this basis generally requires the approval of a medical professional. Furthermore, some countries do not explicitly define whether health includes mental health in addition to physical health. Arguably, this lack of clarity could mean that mental health is included as part of the broader definition of health, though it is not specifically mentioned. Socioeconomic Grounds A number of countries permit abortions for socioeconomic reasons, though the specifics of the socioeconomic grounds are rarely detailed in the law. The permission of abortion on socioeconomic grounds is provided for under the law in a variety of ways. In some countries, the law requires doctors to assess the health of the pregnant woman, including taking into account her social and economic environment, as in Barbados and New South Wales, Australia. In other countries, the need to take into account a pregnant woman’s socioeconomic circumstances is implied, as in Belize, where the law requires that a pregnant woman’s actual and rea-
sonably foreseeable environment be taken into account when assessing whether an abortion is needed for her health. Finally, in a few countries, such as Burundi and Ethiopia, a pregnant woman’s socioeconomic situation can be taken into consideration in sentencing. In some countries, abortions permitted for socioeconomic reasons in practical terms function as at-will abortions. However, in countries such as Zambia, which permit abortions for socioeconomic reasons, procedural and other access hurdles translate into very few woman obtaining abortions for socioeconomic reasons. International Law There is no specific international law regulating abortion. However, there are various international treaties that provide rights relevant to abortion. These treaties are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The relevant rights included in these treaties are the right to health and healthcare; right to equality; right to security of person; right to liberty; right to privacy; right to decide the number and spacing of children; right to be free from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; and right to life. At the regional level, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa requires all member states to take appropriate measures to protect the reproductive rights of women by providing medical abortions in cases of rape, incest, and sexual assault and where continued pregnancy puts the pregnant woman’s mental and physical health or life at risk. Though the legal regulation of abortion varies from country to country, it is clear that all countries regulate abortion through their laws, either choosing to provide for at-will abortion or specifying the circumstances under which abortions can legally be performed. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion Laws, United States; Maternal Mortality; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Roe v. Wade; Women’s Health Clinics. Further Readings Boland, Reed and Laura Katzvie. “Developments in Laws on Induced Abortion: 1998–2007.” International Family Planning Perspectives, v.34/3 (2008).
Abortion Laws, United States
Eser, Albin, et al. Abortion and the Law: From International Comparison to Legal Policy. The Hague, the Netherlands: TMC Asser, 2005. Rahman, Anika, et al. “A Global Review of Laws on Induced Abortion, 1985-1997.” International Family Planning Perspectives, v.24/2 (1998). United Nations Population Division. “Abortion Policies: A Global Review.” http://www.un.org/esa/population/ publications/abortion (accessed June 2010). Priti Patel Southern Africa Litigation Centre
Abortion Laws, United States The foundation of current abortion law in the United States is the 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, which held that a Texas criminal ban on abortion violated a woman’s constitutional right to privacy guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Under Roe, states had limited ability to restrict or regulate abortion during the first six months of pregnancy. In the last trimester, states could ban abortion, except when necessary to preserve the life or health of the woman. Federal and State Funding In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which excluded abortion from Medicaid coverage, except when necessary to save a woman’s life. This law was upheld in a series of Supreme Court cases. Over time, the U.S. Congress made some exceptions to the funding ban. At present, the federal Medicaid program mandates abortion funding in cases of rape or incest, as well as when a pregnant woman’s life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury. These restrictions also apply to federal employees, women in the military, and Native Americans using government provided health facilities. Currently, 32 states and the District of Columbia follow the federal standard, whereas 17 states use state funds to provide all or most medically necessary abortions, and one state provides abortions only in cases of life endangerment, in violation of the federal standard.
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Subsequent court decisions have allowed further funding restrictions. In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court held that a state may prohibit all use of public facilities and publicly employed staff for abortions. In Rust v. Sullivan (1991), the court held that the government may, as a condition of funding family-planning clinics, insist that recipients not recommend abortion, refer clinic patients to an abortion provider, or even mention abortion as a possible method of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. Another significant funding restriction is the Mexico City Policy, known by critics as the global “gag rule,” first adopted by Ronald Reagan in 1984. This policy required all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) receiving federal funds to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services, including providing advice, counseling, or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make abortion available. This policy has been consistently rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republican presidents. Restrictions for Minors States have also passed laws restricting minors’ access to abortion by requiring parental notification or consent to their daughter’s abortion procedure. The Supreme Court has upheld these laws if states also provide a judicial bypass procedure, by which minors can obtain court authorization for abortion without parental involvement if a minor can show that she is mature enough to make the abortion decision herself or that the desired abortion would be in her best interests. Currently, 35 states require some type of parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion. The Supreme Court opened the door to expanded state regulation of abortion in decision of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), which held that states may restrict abortion before viability, as long as they do not place an “undue burden” on the woman’s right to choose, which the court defined as a law that has the “purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” Under this standard, the court allowed several new restrictions on abortion, including an informed consent law requiring doctors to give state-scripted counseling to patients to discourage abortion, a 24-hour waiting period after
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Abortion Laws, United States
counseling, a requirement that minors must obtain informed consent of one parent by an in-person visit to the facility, and a requirement that abortion facilities must meet detailed reporting requirements. The only restriction struck down in Casey was spousal notification. Since Casey, many states have adopted these types of restrictions, including waiting periods and informed consent laws. New Laws and Restrictions Casey also opened the door to new restrictions, including bans on certain types of abortion procedures and expanded regulation of abortion. In the case of Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), the Court relied on Casey to strike down a Nebraska law banning the intact dilation and extraction abortion procedure because it did not have an exception in cases where the procedure was necessary to preserve women’s health. However, in 2003, Congress passed a similar ban, without a maternal health exception, and the law was upheld in the 2007 Supreme Court case of Gonzalez v. Carhart. Sixteen states have laws in effect that prohibit the dilation and extraction abortion procedure, four of which apply only to postviability abortions and 12 of which do not have a health exception. Eighteen states have targeted regulation of abortion laws, requiring facilities where abortions are performed to adhere to particular standards. Thirty-eight states require an abortion to be performed by a licensed physician, 19 states require an abortion to be performed in a hospital after a specified point in the pregnancy, and 19 states require the involvement of a second physician after a specified point. In addition, 38 states prohibit abortions after a specified point in pregnancy, most often fetal viability, except when necessary to protect the woman’s life or health. If Roe were to be overturned, 13 states have unenforced pre-Roe abortion bans, four states have passed “trigger laws” that would immediately ban abortion if Roe is overturned, and seven states have laws that express their intent to restrict the right to legal abortion to the maximum extent permitted by the Supreme Court in the absence of Roe. Abortion opponents have sought to pass abortion bans in several states. In 2006, South Dakota passed an outright abortion ban, with only a life endangerment exception, but voters repealed the ban by referendum. Other laws restricting abortion access include laws allowing healthcare
providers to refuse treatment (46 states) and restricting coverage of abortion in private insurance plans (four states). Twenty-one states allow the production of “choose life” license plates, 11 of which donate a portion of the proceeds raised to antiabortion organizations. Significant federal funds have been given to crisis pregnancy centers (of which there are over 2,500 in the United States today), which attempt to discourage women from having abortions. Several legal initiatives have focused on creating independent legal status for fetuses. In the fall of 2002, the United States government instituted a new rule to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), allowing “unborn children” to qualify for health benefits. In 2004, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act became federal law, allowing two charges to be brought against someone who kills a pregnant woman, one for the woman and one for the fetus. Bills defining life to begin at conception or granting rights to fertilized eggs have been introduced in several state legislatures recently. Protecting the Right to Choose There have been some legal initiatives to protect and expand women’s access to abortion. Seven states have laws that protect the right to choose abortion prior to viability or when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman. In 2004, members of Congress introduced the Freedom of Choice Act, which protects the right to abortion, but the act has never passed. In September 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved Mifepristone, or RU 486, also known as the “abortion pill,” an approval that antiabortion activists have sought to rescind. Protecting abortion clinics has been the focus of several legal initiatives. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act prohibits the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person who is obtaining or providing reproductive services. Fifteen states have passed similar laws. In the case of National Organization for Women v. Scheidler (1994), the Supreme Court allowed the use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against abortion clinic blockaders on the basis that they formed a national conspiracy to eliminate access to abortion clinics through the use of extortion and harassment, with the goal of driving clinics out of business.
Abortion Methods
The most recent abortion controversy arose in connection with the debate about national healthcare legislation. The Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House version of the national healthcare reform bill sought to prohibit coverage of abortion in a public option or in any private insurance plan that would have been part of the national healthcare exchange. The amendment was withdrawn in exchange for a presidential executive order placing federal funding restrictions on abortion consistent with the Hyde Amendment. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Freedom of Choice Act; Global “Gag Rule”; Roe v. Wade; RU 486. Further Readings Garrow, David. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Guttmacher Institute. “State Policies in Brief.” http://www .guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/index.html (accessed November 2009). Hull, N. E. H., William James Hoffer, and Peter Charles Hoffer, eds. The Abortion Rights Controversy in America: A Legal Reader. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Carrie N. Baker Berry College
Abortion Methods Methods of abortion have always been available to women, even in the earliest societies, but the methods that are now available are much safer. During the first three months of pregnancy, the abortion is performed by dilating the cervix (the opening of the uterus) with metal rods or other methods, then removing the embryo or fetus and placenta by vacuum aspiration (suction) through a plastic cannula. Later abortions are performed with a variety of techniques. Most of these techniques involve the use of medications that cause the uterus to contract and expel the fetus and placenta or control bleeding after the uterus is empty. The fetus is also removed by the use of instruments (“dilation and evacuation,” or “D & E”) following adequate opening, or dilation, of the cervix.
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History of Abortion Methods Although it cannot be known with certainty, women have probably been having abortions in some manner from the time of the earliest tribal societies. Anthropologist George Devereux’s classic study of abortion in traditional societies showed that women in most of the tribal societies he studied used abortion to control fertility. In classical times, women used various herbal concoctions to induce abortion, and in medieval times, women were known to use “slippery elm” sticks which, inserted into the uterus, would swell up and cause contractions resulting in abortion. In the Middle Ages, a mold on rye produced ergot, a powerful alkaloid that caused uterine contractions. Ergot was used by women in small doses to cause uterine contractions, especially to control hemorrhage after childbirth. In larger doses, women used it in hope of causing an abortion. In many tribal societies, abortions are caused by striking or jumping on the lower abdomen of a woman who is pregnant. Whether or not the woman requests this action to end a pregnancy, the violence can cause uterine rupture and immediate death. During the 19th and early 20th centuries in America, women famously used coat hangers, knitting needles, and other instruments to disrupt a pregnancy and cause an abortion. Other procedures by lay midwives included the placement of a balloon catheter through the uterine cervix and into the uterus. This was allowed to stay in place long enough to cause an abortion. All these techniques were and are inherently dangerous, especially when done under unsterile conditions. Perforation of the uterus by such an instrument could result in rapid death due to hemorrhage. Other traumatic methods of self-abortion have included putting lye or other caustic substance in the vagina, throwing one’s self down a flight of stairs, and taking toxic amounts of alcohol or other drugs. In Denver, in the late 1960s, a woman who was six months pregnant shot herself in the uterus to kill the fetus and then drove herself to the Denver General Hospital emergency room. Modern Abortion Methods With the advent of antibiotics and blood transfusion, it became possible to save the lives of women who had sought an unsafe illegal abortion or had attempted self-abortion. Physicians and lay practitioners alike learned to perform early abortions by dilation and
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Abortion Methods
curettage using modern surgical instruments. In a dilation and curettage (D & C), the cervix is dilated with a series of gradually larger metal rods that are tapered. Once the cervix is opened sufficiently to admit a curette, a spoon-shaped instrument whose tip is shaped like a loop, the sharp edge of the curette is brought along the wall of the uterus from the top (fundus) to the bottom (lower uterine segment just above the cervix). This stroke is repeated around the entire inner lining (endometrium) of the uterus until contents and lining of the uterus are removed. Mid-20th-Century Developments In the mid-20th century, the concept of using a vacuum aspiration procedure to remove the uterine contents in early abortion was introduced in the United States by a Yugoslav obstetrician-gynecologist, Franc Novak, and this became the procedure of choice in early abortion by the early 1970s. At about this time, physicians performing early abortions began using the stalk of a seaweed, Laminaria japonicum, to dilate the cervix instead of forcing the cervix open with steel rods. Laminaria had been used by the Japanese for this purpose for a long time, and the successful treatment of the Laminaria to make it sterile made it safe to use without a high risk of infection. The advantage of the Laminaria was that, after leaving it placed in the cervix for a time, it absorbs water from the woman’s body and produces a gentle dilation adequate for early abortion with less risk of perforation of the uterus or other damage to the cervix. The disadvantage is that it took hours, or even overnight, to produce a good effect. The disadvantages in time and expense have meant that few physicians or clinics use Laminaria at this time for cervical dilation. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the method used for second-trimester abortion was principally that of the injection of a hypertonic (concentrated) saline solution into the fluid surrounding the fetus in the uterus. This hypertonic saline method had the advantage of being highly effective since it killed the fetus and irritated the uterus, causing contractions and expulsion of the fetus. Injection of the saline solution was also accompanied by induction of labor using oxytocin, a naturally-occurring hormone that causes the uterus to contract. The principal disadvantage of the hypertonic saline was that it could kill the woman if it entered her circulatory system.
This meant that the injection would have to be accurately placed in the amniotic fluid and not in the placenta or uterine wall, but this was difficult since it was a “blind” procedure. Another disadvantage was that it didn’t always work. The fetus might be born alive, or with agonal movements, and sometimes the woman didn’t go into labor. If the placenta obstructed the opening of the uterus as it does in a placenta previa, catastrophic hemorrhage could occur while also preventing expulsion of the fetus. Another problem was that saline abortion could not be done until the 16th or later week of pregnancy when the amount of amniotic fluid was sufficient. There was a gap of three to four weeks between the 12th week and the 16th week when no abortion could be performed. Performing a D & C or vacuum aspiration abortion during this interval was considered too dangerous. In 1970, a synthetic prostaglandin was introduced for use in abortion. Prostaglandin is a naturally occurring hormone which assists in causing the cervix of the uterus to soften and open at the time of term delivery. Physicians discovered that injecting the synthetic prostaglandin into the amniotic fluid, giving it by mouth, or placing it in the vagina could cause an abortion in the early second trimester (after 13 weeks) of pregnancy. The use of prostaglandin appeared to be safer and more effective than saline abortion, and it soon supplanted saline abortion as the method of choice in terminating more advanced pregnancies. Unfortunately, numerous problems and complications associated with the use of prostaglandins in more advanced pregnancies appeared. Some women with asthma or other respiratory conditions were adversely affected by prostaglandins, and prostaglandins were associated with a higher risk of uterine rupture. In the mid-1970s, a study by Dr. Christopher Tietze showed that performing abortion with instruments by “dilation and evacuation” (D & E) during the interval between 13 and 16 weeks was safer than previously thought and was safer than requiring the patient to wait until a saline (or prostaglandin) abortion could be performed after 15 weeks. Soon after this, clinical studies were published that confirmed Dr. Tietze’s analysis. The innovation was accompanied by the use of a “serial multiple laminaria” dilation of the cervix using repeated treatments in which one set of Laminaria were removed and replaced by another set over
Abu Ghraib
a period of two or three days. This method, in which larger specialized instruments were used, made it possible to perform abortions on patients with much more advanced pregnancies with great safety. At the current time, this method of D & E abortion has supplanted both saline and prostaglandin techniques in second-trimester and later abortions. With the discovery of mifepristone (RU-486), it has been possible to initiate an early abortion during the first few weeks of pregnancy without the use of instruments or vacuum aspiration. Medical abortion now accounts for about 10 percent of all abortions performed in the United States. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Abortion, Ethical Issues of; Abortion, Late; Abortion Laws, United States; Roe v. Wade; RU 486; Women’s Health. Further Readings Devereux, George. A Study of Abortion in Primitive Societies. New York: The Julian Press, 1955. Hern, Warren M. Abortion Practice. Boulder, CO: Alpenglo Graphics, 1990. Joffe, Carole. “Abortion in Historical Perspective.” In Paul, M., E. S. Lichtenberg, L. Borgatta, D. A. Grimes, and P. G. Stubblefield, eds., A Clinician’s Guide to Medical and Surgical Abortion. Philadelphia, PA: Churchill Livingstone, 1999. Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion From the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Sciarra, John J. The Global Library of Women’s Medicine. http://www.glowm.com (accessed March 2010). Warren M. Hern University of Colorado
Abu Ghraib Abu Ghraib is one of nine districts surrounding Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. It is recognized for its prison, where prisoners were abused under Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, and later, by members of the U.S. military. Several U.S. military personnel, including four women, have been identified as responsible for the abuse of Abu Ghraib detainees and three of the four
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women have been tried and punished for their participation. The United States returned control of the prison to Iraq in 2006. It was reopened as Baghdad Central Prison in 2009. Designed by American architect Edmund Whiting, the prison was built by British contractors in the 1960s. The prison occupies 280 acres and contains five compounds surrounded by a brick wall topped with barbed wire and 24 guard towers. The prison was under Iraqi control from 1970 until the end of Hussein’s reign in April 2003. Under Hussein, the prison housed individuals accused of crimes as well as those suspected of being political dissidents. Hussein’s political opponents were housed in the “special sentences” section of the prison and denied any outside contact. Prison overcrowding was a constant issue; the prison may have held as many as 60,000 prisoners at its peak. Torture was routine and thousands of prisoners were executed in Abu Ghraib’s gallows. In October 2002, Hussein declared amnesty for the majority of Iraqi prisoners; all but Abu Ghraib’s political prisoners were freed. Scandal and Scrutiny From 2003 to September 2006, the U.S. military managed the prison. Concerns about prisoner abuse emerged soon after U.S. takeover from groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, who visited the prison 29 times from mid- to late 2003. Worldwide attention to Abu Ghraib was garnered in late April 2004 when photographic evidence of detainee abuse first surfaced on the CBS 60 Minutes II television show, followed by the publication of the photographs in The New Yorker. The photographs, turned over to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command by Specialist Joseph Darby, depict U.S. military personnel participating in various forms of abuse. The pictures, and subsequent sworn statements given by detainees, reveal a range of abusive practices: “hooding” (putting a bag over the head of the detainee to disorient them and prevent them from breathing freely); prolonged exposure to loud music and extreme temperatures; forcing detainees to remain in uncomfortable positions for extended periods; intimidation by unmuzzled dogs; physical beatings; and denial of food, water, and sleep. Evidence also highlights sexualized forms of abuse of male detainees: being forced to parade nude, sometimes
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Action Heroes, Female
with women’s underwear over their heads; forced to simulate masturbation; and forced to simulate anal or oral sex with other detainees. Though the majority of detainees were male, reports also indicate abuse of the handful of female detainees. Suspected to be among the photographs not released by the U.S. government are pictures of a female detainee being sexually assaulted, and a female detainee forced to expose her breasts to male guards. Investigations of Abuse It is likely the remaining photographs of Abu Ghraib and other U.S. military prisons will not be seen by the public. In May 2009, U.S. President Obama reversed his decision to support the public release of the remaining photographs. In October, Congress passed legislation granting the Defense Secretary authority to deny their release. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court set aside the decision of the lower appeals courts to reveal the photos, citing the new legislation. Concern from the White House is that releasing the photographs would further inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger American troops. Multiple investigations of abuse at Abu Ghraib have been conducted. The first investigation, conducted by General Antonio Taguba, identifies several military personnel as bearing responsibility for detainee abuse, including four women: Specialist Megan Ambuhl, Specialist Sabrina Harman, Private First Class Lynndie England, and Brigadier General Janis Karpinski. Of the four, Harman and England appeared in multiple photographs and Ambuhl appeared in one. Ambuhl, Harman, and England were found guilty by military tribunals for their participation in the abuse (Ambuhl was found guilty for her failure to report or prevent the abuse). Harman and England were sentenced to six months and 3 years, respectively. Karpinski, the commanding officer charged with overseeing Iraq’s prisons in 2003, maintains she was unaware of the abuse. Karpinski was demoted from brigadier general to colonel on an unrelated charge. There are competing explanations of women’s participation in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. One explanation emphasizes the psychological problems of individual participants. Other explanations focus on Specialist Charles Graner as the ringleader and emphasize his use of his romantic involvement with both Ambuhl and England to pressure them to participate in the
abuse. Graner was sentenced to 10 years. Additional explanations include broader criticisms of military training that socializes recruits, male and female, to an aggressive and hypermasculine culture conducive to abuse. Finally, other explanations suggest that such abuse was condoned, if not encouraged, by members high in the military hierarchy. Abu Ghraib remains significant because it brought public attention to abuses suspected of occurring in U.S. military prisons operating throughout the world, including Guantánamo Bay, as a result of the U.S. Global War on Terror. In late 2006, the U.S. military closed Abu Ghraib and transferred its prisoners to other sites in Iraq. The Iraqi government began $1 million worth of renovations of Abu Ghraib in late 2008 and reopened the prison as Baghdad Central Prison in February 2009. The renovations include a museum dedicated to documenting Saddam’s crimes (but not those of its U.S. guards). At full capacity, the facility will house 15,000 inmates. See Also: England, Lynndie; Karpinski, Janis; Military, Women in the; Sex Offenders, Female; Sex Offenders, Male; Sexual Harassment. Further Readings Greenberg, Karen and Joshua L. Dratel. The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Karpinski, Janis. One Woman’s Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story. New York: Miramax Books, 2005. McAllester, Matthew. Blinded by the Sunlight: Emerging From the Prison of Saddam’s Iraq. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Elyshia Aseltine University of Texas, Austin
Action Heroes, Female Scholars have long debated if female action heroes— represented in comics, genre literature, cinema, television series, cartoons, and videogames as strong women, expert fighters, muscular, and independent,
but often emotionally fragile—are empowering for women or not. “Tough girls,” inspired by the classical portrayal of the Amazons, were already part of the imagination of modern culture when, in 1941, Wonder Woman, the Amazon super-heroine, made her appearance in comics strips. The introduction of this female action hero, as Mitra C. Emad has pointed out, was related to the social situation created by World War II, when U.S. women took jobs outside of the home and held responsibilities traditionally reserved for men. Subsequent shifts in the representation of action heroines have also been produced or influenced by economic, social and cultural changes. Films in the popular action genre proposed action heroines in the 1970s (such as those played by Pam Grier). Nonetheless, the most famous female action heros are those portrayed in Hollywood’s science fiction action blockbusters produced from the 1980s, as if, as some have noted, characters such as Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien (1979), Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in Terminator 2 (1991), or Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) in the Matrix (1999) could only exist in imaginary settings. American cartoon films have also presented outstanding female action heroes, who also act in fantasy settings, such as Mulan (1998), inspired by a traditional Chinese story, or the independent princess Fiona in Shrek (2001). Female heroines have long been present in Asian popular action films, especially in Hong Kong, but also in films such as the House of Flying Daggers (2004) by Ang Lee, where actress Zhang Ziyi plays a blind, skillful swordswoman. Japanese cartoon television series also introduced several female characters who fight as hard as men, for example, in The Rose of Versailles (1979–80). Many recent TV series have centered on female action heroes. These characters support, rather than challenge, the established structures of society, as they are often police women, as in Cagney and Lacey (1982–88), private investigators (the Charlie’s Angels trio in the late 1970s), or members of governmental agencies, as in The Bionic Woman (1976–78), Dana Scully in The X-Files (1993–2002), or Sidney Bristow in Alias (2001–06). Female Action Heroes and Patriarcy The main question that underlies the academic debate on female action heroes is if they are examples
Action Heroes, Female
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of resistance to patriarchy or, rather, if they instead perpetuate and reinforce patriarchal domination. Are characters such as GI Jane (1997), played by Demi Moore, or Nikita (1990) in the French film by Luc Besson, examples of empowered and self-directed women? Some scholars, such as Sherry Inness or Jeffrey A. Brown, tend to read positively the gender roles’ transgression that female action heroes perform by using violence and weapons. Several scholars have instead criticized the action heroine’s use of violence, as the stylized violence of her performance appears to be offered to the (male) viewer’s gaze, rather than aimed at empowering women. Yvonne Tasker, among others, has noted the sexualization of the action heroine’s body and translate the muscular bodies of heroines, an element with roots in the comic strip tradition, as a response to feminism and a way to contain women within patriarchal boundaries. Rikke Schubart draws on psychoanalysis in stating that the action heroine performs a masquerade, constructed to tell two different stories to male and female audiences. Carol Clover, instead, considers certain heroines as “men in disguise,” or “phallic women,” who do not represent, and are therefore not empowering, for women. Action heroines are indeed shown in male disguise and are often ascribed sexual ambiguity, especially in Asian films. Other scholars have noted the relative scarcity of nonwhite heroines, though, as Mary Beltrán has highlighted, Latina heroines, presented as “masculine” are now often represented in fantasy settings. Popular television series such as Xena: Princess Warrior (1995–2001), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), or La Femme Nikita also send mixed messages to viewers, as Mary Magoulick has pointed out, since all such characters present male fantasies, and move in a world controlled by masculine powers that determine their destiny. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Beltrán, Mary. “Más Macha: The New Latina Action Hero.” In Yvonne Tasker, ed., Action and Adventure Cinema. London: Routledge, 2004. Brown, Jeffrey A. “Gender and the Action Heroine: Hardbodies and the Point of No Return.” Cinema Journal, v.35/3 (1996).
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Addiction and Substance Abuse
Clover, Carol. Men, Women and Chain Saws. London: BFI, 1992. Emad, Mitra C. “Reading Wonder Woman’s Body: Mythologies of Gender and Nation.” The Journal of Popular Culture, v.39/6 (2006). Giukin, Lenuta. “Boy-Girls: Gender, Body, and Popular Culture In Hong Kong Action Movies.” In Murray Pomerance, ed., Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. Gender in Film at the End of the Twentieth Century. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Inness, Sherrie A., ed. Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Inness, Sherry A. Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Magoulick, Mary. “Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy.” The Journal of Popular Culture, v.39/5 (2006). McCoughey, Martha and Neal King, eds. Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Schubart, Rikke. Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970–2006. McFarland & Co., 2007. Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1993.
in Bulgaria, Poland, and Turkey (52 percent); Brazil and Mexico (53 percent); Canada, United States, and Cuba (58 percent); Bolivia and Peru (60 percent); Australia and Japan (77 percent); and Germany, France, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, and Ukraine (81 percent). Countries with the highest consumption also had the smallest differences between men and women; gender gap of 10 percent or less in Russian Federation, Ukraine, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. In another WHO report of developing nations, female consumers of alcohol reported drinking problems highest in India, Nigeria (an average of 8 percent of problems), and Uganda (14 percent). The lowest were in Costa Rica (4 percent), Brazil (3 percent), Sri Lanka (2 percent), and Argentina (1 percent). Most
Maria Beatrice Bittarello Independent Scholar
Addiction and Substance Abuse The number of women using and abusing substances has been gradually increasing since the 1990s, in some cases matching the rates of men (e.g., alcoholism among young adults) or surpassing them (e.g., higher drug use among women). The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) publish studies that evaluate substance abuse across nations; however, few provide a breakdown by gender. Worldwide, men consume and abuse more alcohol than women, but the differences vary within each country. In a WHO alcohol study of 14 subregions, the percentages of female drinkers were above 50 percent
Once women develop a drug problem, they are at greater risk for adverse effects, such as a faster rate of dependence.
of the drinking problems across countries are more prevalent before age 30. If gender patterns of alcohol use/abuse are applied, then countries with higher substance prevalence rates probably have higher percentages of women abusing these substances. In a UN report covering other substances (opiates, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines, and ecstasy), North American populations tended to abuse opiates, cannabis, and cocaine (listed in order of lower to higher percentages). African populations abused opiates, cannabis, and amphetamines. Central and South American populations abused cocaine, cannabis, and amphetamine. In the Caribbean, they abused cocaine and cannabis. Asia populations abused amphetamines and European populations abused ecstasy more than other substances. The increase of women’s substance abuse is primarily seen among younger women with the first onset of use occurring due to the desires to fit in with peers, impulse control problems during adolescence, escape from traumatic early life events, or introduction by a romantic/sexual partner who is currently using. Intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships, gender role expectations, physical and mental health status, and their physiology all are important components of women’s substance abuse. Women also have more incidents of comorbidity (co-occurring addiction with psychological disorders) as compared with men. These factors continue to be overlooked, minimized, or ignored by society, and in some cases by professional staff. Risk Factors Several studies indicate that being a woman buffers against developing alcohol/drug dependency (i.e., rates are still generally higher for men), but once women develop a problem they are at greater risk for adverse effects. These effects include a quicker time from the first use to the start of dependence, becoming more impaired compared to men with the same amount consumed, and reaching advanced stages of disease of the liver, heart, and brain at faster rates than men. Even when body weight is accounted for in the consumption of alcohol, women still have higher risks than men do. These differences are thought to be due to a woman’s body structure (i.e., alcohol becomes more concentrated). Also women’s different hormone activation in the body affects the
Addiction and Substance Abuse
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metabolism rate, making women become intoxicated more quickly. In addition to greater physiological vulnerability, women tend to internalize their stressors and problems (higher rates of depression and anxiety) and use more coping strategies to avoid rather than manage their emotional symptoms, compared to men. Women often have emotional issues related to distress from physical and sexual abuse that may have begun early in life and often continues throughout their addiction. Women may use sex to trade for various resources, such as drugs and/or alcohol, which can contribute to being in unhealthy relationships and in situations that give their partners more opportunities to physically or sexually abuse them. Another set of risk factors associated with women’s substance abuse is being part of an underrepresented group. Several national and international studies define these groups as ethnic minorities within society, including the economically disadvantaged, such as homeless or working-class women, and nonheterosexual women. Women from ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic status share similar challenges, such as less access to resources, including healthcare (particularly in areas without a government-funded healthcare system), stereotypical reactions to their status within the society, and higher incidents of chronic life stressors (e.g., victimization and unstable forms of shelter). The few studies that have examined acculturation (adjustment to a new culture) patterns in the United States have shown a correlation to substance abuse. As one increases, so does the other, which might impact the successful treatment of ethnic (non-native) women. Examining the role of sexual orientation in substance abuse among women is an emerging focus in the 21st century. Lesbian and bisexual women are thought to be at greater risk for using and abusing substances because of their multiple minority statuses (e.g., being a lesbian Hispanic working-class woman) and the higher incidents of overt discrimination (e.g., homophobia and hate crimes). The type of substance used/abused varies in the different minority groups, but women in general lean more toward drugs than alcohol. Treatment Treatment formats have traditionally been modeled for and created by men, which has emphasized a confrontational style within a highly structured inpatient
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Addiction and Substance Abuse
setting; the addict is physically separated from everyone except for the professional staff and their addiction is directly challenged within a coed group format. This style can be viewed as threatening and nonsupportive by women addicts who may need to maintain some outside social networks (e.g., supportive family members and their children) and they may be uncomfortable addressing sexual behaviors or relationship issues in front of male staff members or clients. There are conflicting findings regarding whether women-only programs are equal to or more effective than mixedgender programs, especially because women typically start treatment with more problems and greater severity of addiction than men. However, given these challenges, several studies have shown that women can obtain positive outcomes from mixed-gender treatment programs. Alternative structures are needed that address the risk factors and barriers experienced by women addicts or alcoholics to help rebuild their lives without substances. Some alternative approaches involve a holistic set of procedures where the woman and her multiple roles are treated in an integrated fashion, instead of piecemeal, which separates her addiction from other aspects of her sense of self. These can be achieved through a program involving only women, or be embedded within mixed-gender programs where gender-specific and gender-sensitive techniques are intentionally incorporated. Gender-specific treatments for women involve programs that provide training on assertiveness, healthy relationships and family systems, parenting, nutrition, housing and employment opportunities, and referral for physical and mental health issues. Gender-sensitive treatment typically involves separating women in some manner (e.g., separate groups for women only or those who experience physical/sexual abuse; matching client with staff member; or having an all-female staff ). Barriers to Treatment Treatment centers are underutilized and often have few openings for women. The exceptions seem to exist where there are government mandates or incentives (e.g., funding for pregnant women). Other barriers for women include her own views on treatment, family members’ actions to protect women from outsiders, past experiences with professionals’ distain or stigmatization, lack of support from a using
spouse/partner, the appeal of the treatment program itself (e.g., cost, health insurance requirements, and absence of an all-female staff ), and the practicality of attending treatment (e.g., childcare arrangement and transportation). In a variety of U.S. and international studies, women’s substance abuse is associated with legal (similar to rates of men) and child custody issues (e.g., family services–related agencies requiring treatment). Women who voluntarily consider treatment on their own face comparable fears to those associated with law enforcement referrals. Studies have consistently shown that women experience lower self-esteem and self-efficacy, more shame and guilt about their use, are stigmatized and alienated more by their usage, receive less support from nonusing/using friends, more prejudice and discrimination from members of society, and suffer from fears of losing custody of their children. Each of these contribute to women remaining addicted. Although successful outcomes for women have been demonstrated across different types of programs, getting women into treatment seems to be one of the largest hurdles. Some researchers have proposed that women-only, gendersensitive, and gender-specific programs may address several of these concerns and thus attract more women into treatment. Feminist researchers argue that a woman’s substance use is viewed as a violation of her gender role. This violation results in a narrowing of her social network, such as reduced interaction with nonusing family and friends, and increased interaction with her romantic/sexual partner’s friends and other users. When women contemplate not abusing substances, they may lose all or a majority of their support network, and thus are at greater risk of being socially isolated compared with men in similar situations. When a woman addict or alcoholic becomes isolated, her thought processes may deteriorate, and she may become suicidal with continued thoughts of hopelessness. These factors becomes additional barriers when women wish to seek help and remain sober. Medical coverage continues to be a growing concern, especially in countries without a national healthcare system. In some states within the United States, if a person has a felony drug charge, that person is excluded from state health benefits due to their drug charge. Residential treatment programs tend to
Administrative Assistants/Office Managers
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be more expensive, and therefore more exclusive to wealthier patients or those with medical insurance, thus economically disadvantaged women may be limited in their treatment options (e.g., community/ government versus private/hospital programs). An interesting finding from research is that women from wealthier backgrounds are less likely to seek treatment, which may be due to factors mentioned earlier (e.g., higher expectations placed on them to maintain gender roles). Age is a consistent barrier for women. The younger a woman is, the more likely she will receive a diagnosis of substance use or abuse. However, several studies have shown that older women encounter mental and medical professionals who are reluctant to ask about substance abuse. This pattern is ironic because most studies show that women will seek out medical or mental health professionals first before considering specific substance recovery programs. When women do seek treatment, they may face the challenge of professional staff identifying their problems as primarily psychological (mental illness) and not substance abuse, or vice versa. This separation denies that a woman is a complex person who fills multiple roles and responsibilities; she is more dynamic than simply a substance user/abuser or someone with a mental illness. This continued compartmentalizing contributes to the revolving door phenomenon where multiple professionals are visited and referrals keep patients moving in a perpetual circle.
ing previous relationships and cultural environments without relying on avoidant strategies (e.g., slipping back into using alcohol or drugs).
Successful Treatment Support throughout treatment can incorporate three levels: emotional, instrumental, and cognitive (thought processes). Emotional support involves having someone to listen to a woman’s problems, believe in her, and help her to have the confidence that she can change and create a new life for herself (and her children). Support is needed to learn how to form new social networks with professional staff, role models within self-help groups, and reconnecting with family members. Instrumental support includes resources on housing, finding work, education, parenting, and healthy relationship skills, and providing vital services, such as transportation and childcare, to help women attend their treatment sessions. Cognitive support involves looking at a woman’s coping and problem solving skills in preparation for re-enter-
Patricia A. Marsh University of Central Missouri Tina M. Keith Independent Scholar
See Also: Crime Victims, Female; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Health, Mental and Physical. Further Readings Green, Carla A. “Gender and Use of Substance Abuse Treatment Services.” Alcohol Research & Health, v.29 (2006). Hecksher, Dorte and Morten Hesse. “Women and Substance Use Disorders.” Mens Sana Monographs, v.7/1 (2009). Kaskutas, Lee Ann, Lixia Zhang, Michael T. French, and Jane Witbrodt. “Women’s Programs Versus MixedGender Day Treatment: Results From a Randomized Study.” Addiction, v.100 (2005). The Office on Drugs and Crime. Global Illicit Drug Trends. United Nations Website. http://www.unodc .org/pdf/trends2003_www_E.pdf (accessed June 2010). Trulsson, Karin and Ulla C. Hedin. “The Role of Social Support When Giving Up Drug Abuse: A Female Perspective.” International Journal of Social Welfare, v.13 (2004). Walter, Henriette, K. Gutierrez, K. Ramskogler, I. Hertling, A. Dvorak, and O. Lesch. “Gender-Specific Differences in Alcoholism: Implications for Treatment.” Archives of Women’s Mental Health, v.6 (2003).
Administrative Assistants/ Office Managers Today’s administrative assistants, a position largely held by women (97 percent), may be the most important support position in the business world. This worker often serves as “office wife,” confidante, guard dog, and facilitator in addition to performing routine office tasks. Christopher W. Felt, author of What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up
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Administrative Assistants/Office Managers
the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook, contends that the administrative assistant to the alpha male, which he defines as “the great white shark of the ocean of business,” is the most powerful woman in a company because she knows more about the boss than anyone else in that environment. If she is loyal and efficient, she will keep his secrets and prevent his mistakes from becoming known to others. The power that an administrative assistant has may vary greatly according to the size of a company and length of an individual’s service. From the time women entered the business world, administrative assistants were known as secretaries; the women’s movement led to a re-examination of women’s roles and to a newly awakened recognition of the contributions of support staff to a company’s success. Thus, secretaries became known as administrative assistants. In 2008, there were 4.2 million jobs in the United States for secretaries and administrative assistants. Some 90 percent of those jobs were in the service industries. The United States Labor Department has predicted that between 2008 and 2018, the number of administrative assistants will increase by 11 percent. The median annual wage of these workers, excluding administrative assistants in legal, medical and executive positions who earn higher wages, was $29,050 in 2008. Workers at the higher end of the scale earned as much as $43,240, while employees at the lower end of the scale averaged $18,440. Unlike the administrative assistant who tends to work closely with a single boss, the office manager is generally responsible for a group of support people. She is likely to work closely with management, performing such tasks as hiring and firing staff, preparing payrolls and maintaining financial records. Average salaries range from $27,676 for office managers with less than a year’s experience to $54,914 for managers with more than 20 years experience. There is a high turnover rate among office managers, the result of firings, job hopping, and retirements. Office managers often become scapegoats when problems arise within companies, and they may take the blame if their employers make major mistakes. In the 21st century, many office managers are required to have college degrees, and potential employers look for individuals who have taken courses in organizational behavior, psychology, sociology, finance, and English. Accounting capabilities may be essential for office managers in
small companies. A large number of office managers use their positions as a stepping stone to careers as bookkeepers, bank assistants, or purchasing agents. Qualifications for administrative assistants tend to be less stringent than those for office managers. In the past, typing and shorthand were the chief qualifications. No longer. Today’s modern office requires what the U.S. Labor Department calls “extensive knowledge of computer software applications.” Job applicants must know a variety of programs including word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation design as well as have the ability to prepare reports and newsletters. Knowledge of basic computer skills is a given. Training may be achieved in high school, vocational and trade schools, or through employersubsidized classes, community colleges and even over the Internet. Many administrative assistants now have college degrees related to a specific field. The shift in job requirements was directly related to the redefinition of job responsibilities, and many administrative assistants now assume tasks once reserved for predominately male managerial and professional staff. At the same time, many administrative assistants continue to be responsible for scheduling, controlling access to a boss’s time, storing information, and performing general office tasks such as filing, answering phones, and opening mail. Some administrative assistants, such as those in the medical and legal professions, may perform and analyze highly specialized research. In large offices, a team of administrative assistants often work together to provide executive support. New technologies also have produced what is known as the “virtual assistant,” a person who works from home via the Internet, e-mail, and/or fax to perform tasks such as scheduling, data entry, writing letters and reports, bookkeeping, and desktop publishing. In the 21st century, the vast majority of administrative assistants and office managers continue to work 40 hours per week on a five-day schedule, but many companies have begun working with women who have families to provide more flexible work schedules through flex time, job sharing and telecommuting. About 18 percent of all administrative assistants/ office managers now work part time. See Also: Business, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Working Mothers.
Adolescence
Further Readings Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Secretaries and Administrative Assistants.” http://www.bls.gov/oco /ocos151.htm (accessed April 2010). Felt, Christopher V. What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. “Office Manager.” The Princeton Review. http://www .princetonreview.com/Careers.aspx?cid=103 (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
Adolescence Adolescence commonly occurs between 12 and 18 years of age. However, for girls, it may begin before age 12, whereas for boys it may extend beyond 18. It is associated with rapid physical growth, body transformations (menstrual periods, growth of under-arm, body, and pubic hair) and intense emotional changes. Physically, today adolescent girls are maturating and enter puberty earlier than the previous female generations. Socially, they detach from parental models while the importance of social life increases. Bigger parent– child conflicts may occur in immigrant families, when adolescents adapt faster than parents and when the new values are incompatible with the native culture. The first theorization of adolescence as a life stage was Stanley Hall’s book, Adolescence (1904), where, following the German Sturm und Drang art movement, he linked adolescence with “storm and stress.” Subsequently, Margaret Mead argued, based on her (controversial) research in Samoa, that culture and upbringing, and not the very nature of adolescence, are responsible for adolescent’s distress and anxiety. Later, Jean Piaget provided cognitive and not cultural explanations. Today, many religious and secular coming-of-age rituals are preserved. Examples of religious rites of passage are Confirmation in Roman Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, and Anglican Churches; Gwallye in Confucianist societies (Korea); Bat Mitzvah in Judaism. Among the secular ceremonies, are the Quinceañera (in Latin American culture), “Sweet 16” parties (United States and Canada), Baile de Debutantes (Bra-
25
zil), Debut (Philippines), débutante balls (Australia and many countries). In Mexico, Panama, and Paraguay, the coming-of-age celebrations are rather a middleupper-class practice. In Japan, all 20th birthdays are celebrated during a January national holiday. In Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and areas of Transylvania, particular ceremonies are held at the end of high school. Other school-related ceremonies are in Vanhojen tanssit (Finland), Galas (France), and many more. “Adolescence” and “youth” are often used interchangeably, although they are rooted in different scholarly traditions. Adolescence is a concept drawn from developmental psychology. It is based on the assumption of common age-related characteristics. It uncritically links the social being with physical traits, assumed to be identical to an age group. Such views reproduce a normative and stereotypical image and are criticized for incorporating Western middle-class and gender biases. Youth is a concept used in sociology. It tends to allow consideration of other characteristics than age (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, social class, etc.). Sociology of youth tends to focus on young people’s relations with adults, institutions, and with the cultures they develop. Yet, age tends to remain a major category. For this reason, the approaches of youth as a life stage or age group have been challenged as adultocratic. Besides, according to Lynne Chisholm (1997), youth tends to be socially constructed as masculine and associated with disturbancy and ephebiphobia, or the fear of youth. Adolescence does not follow a linear trajectory, or a uniform rhythm. In developed societies, there is a tendency toward the prolongation of youth together with a destandardization or deregulation of youth transitions, according to Syka Kovacheva, Andreas Walther, and Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. The concept of “yo-yo-ization” of transitions between youth and adulthood has been proposed by Andreas Walther in order to capture the flexible movement between various social roles that are less age related (e.g., education, work, and the starting of family life). Different societies understand adolescence differently. Agrarian communities view it as a (short) transition between childhood and adulthood, whereas in industrialized societies adolescence is a socially recognized life stage in its own right. Yet, although at present, 86 percent of the largest-ever generation of young people, aged 10 to 24, are living in developing
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Adolescence
world, still, the attention is drawn to the adolescents living in Western developed countries. Adolescence in Western Societies One phenomenon largely associated to Western countries is eating disorders. Medical evidence shows that disordered eating usually begins during early adolescence and a main risk factor is an experience of physical or sexual abuse. In the United States, bulimia has a higher prevalence among girls from low-income families, more likely to be African American. Despite being associated with Western societies, increased evidences of eating disorders in the developing world may be attributed to the globalized media, but also to less studied local factors (e.g., urbanization, new cultural constructions of female body image). Adolescence is a precious market niche for age and gender-segregated markets of goods and media. Consumption is simultaneously an expression of identity and a factor that shape identity formation. Teen media is contributing to constructions of femininity that value body image, appearance and consumption. Today, youth cultures proliferated immensely and cannot be explained by previous theories on the rejection of the social system. They are maintained by leisure industries and contribute to adolescents’ self-definition. The increased use of Internet social networking sites generated debates on its value and benefits for adolescent girls. On the one hand, it appears that the Internet allows girls to claim power and assume more authority in the construction of a heterosexual relationship, according to Lynn Schofield Clark. On the other hand, there are recent concerns on the sexual advances, Internet-initiated sex crimes, and dating violence. Gender-based roles, stressors, poor body self-concept and negative life events are reported as responsible for the overrepresentation of depressive symptoms and anxiety among adolescent girls. Generally, there is a higher level of parental control exerted upon girls than upon boys and a relative gender bias in documenting girls’ risk-taking behaviors. In developing countries, pregnancy and childbirth related complications are the principal cause of death in girls aged 15 to 19, whereas in Unites States, 10 percent of adolescents of the same age became pregnant, followed by birth, abortion or miscarriage. Criminalization of abortion in many African countries endangers the health of many adolescents. The recent intro-
duction of the human papilloma-virus (HPV) vaccine for cancer prevention raised various reactions: from immediate vaccination to skepticism on its side effects, or misapprehensions of its role for fertility control. School-based immunization programs may be problematic in areas where housework or work is a serious deterrent to girls’ attendance. Issues in Conflict Zones Teen prostitution is a surviving strategy for some adolescents living on streets or in areas of conflict. Girl combatants are a severely under-researched group. Extreme poverty, malnutrition, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) orphanhood may push adolescent girls into prostitution in the context of increasing tourism and demand, (e.g., Tanzania, Kenya, Thailand and the Philippines). Abduction or trading of girls during armed combat involves forced prostitution or war rape (e.g., Angola, Burundi, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, the former Yugoslavia, and Turkey). At present, a cohort of “war babies” born following war rape of Muslim women during the mid-1990s Bosnian war is reaching adolescence in a context of social stigmatization. Adolescent girls may be trafficked for forced prostitution, bonded labor, domestic servitude, forced marriage, or begging. Trafficking increases the vulnerability to abuse (e.g., intimidation, isolation, physical force, and debt bondage, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including HIV, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions). At highest risk of being trafficked are adolescent and young women from minority ethnic groups who are disempowered and face economic exclusion and violence at home. Worldwide, there are several rendered cultural practices that endanger the health and autonomy of adolescent girls. Breast ironing (Cameron) is an induced form of breast reduction, performed by mothers with a heated item, for protecting adolescents from the risks of sexual attractiveness. Female circumcision (or female genital mutilation/cutting) is performed on girls until preadolescence in large African Muslim areas. Bride kidnapping is a practice in central Asia, the Caucasus region, and partially Africa. Besides, in several former Soviet countries, it has been reinforced recently as an expression of cultural identity and main-
Adoption
tained for economic reasons. Honor killing and, more recently, honor suicides in several Muslim cultures are ultimate forms of violence. Opinions on adolescents’ political activism vary: from a large perception on adolescents’ apathy, to claims that the very forms of political activism have changed (including now boycott campaigns and cyber-activism/ protests). Recent examples of youth activism are student-led protests in 2007 Burma, the so called “Twitter Revolution” in Iran in 2009, and in Republic of Moldavia in 2008, the demonstrations of Tibetan youth (2008), of French young people (2006) or the 2002 feminist movement “Ni Putes Ni Soumises” initiated by young French Muslim women against the suburbs’ gender-based violence. Despite the fact that most young girls and boys have positive social experiences and are striving to succeed in school or work, adolescence received a bad press. In recent years, society ceased to see young people as “the future” out of the concern for various socially constructed problems like teen pregnancy, adolescent crime, substance abuse, premature and unsafe sexuality, etc. The “fear of youth” informed legal decisions on reducing the age of criminal responsibility and various methods of surveillance and control (e.g., security systems, mobile phones, computer surveillance, metal detectors, and surveillance cameras). See Also: Child Labor; Children’s Rights; Eating Disorders; Internet Dating; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Arnett, J. J. Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006. Chisholm, Lynne. “From Unequal Opportunities to Equal Lack of Opportunities? Gendered Dimensions of Social Change and Youth in Europe.” Young, v.5 (1997). Clark, L. S. “Dating on the Net: Teens and the Rise of ‘Pure’ Relationships.” In Jones G. Steven, ed., Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998. Kovacheva, Syka. “Flexibilization of Youth Transition in Central and Eastern Europe.” Young, v.9 (2001). Walther, Andreas. “Regimes of Youth Transitions.” Young, v.14 (2006). Maria-Carmen Pantea Babeş Bolyai University
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Adoption Adoption is a form of fictive kinship in which an individual or a couple assumes the parental status of a child who is frequently not biologically related. In legal adoption, the biological parents relinquish all legal rights to the child; these rights are transferred to the adoptive parents. Because of the permanent and legally binding nature of adoption, the child is socially recognized as “belonging” to the newly constituted family unit and theoretically acquires the same status as the other family members, regardless of whether ties are established on the basis of biological reproduction or not. Formal adoption differs significantly from other forms of childcare in which the child is raised outside of the biological parent–child dyad, such as guardianship and crisis and voluntary fostering, as such lessformal care systems allow children to inherit from the biological parents, and the biological parents retrain the right to veto decisions taken by the foster parents. In fostering, a child may at any time be removed from the foster care parents, whereas removal from adoptive parents is improbable because of the legalities surrounding adoptive kin. The History of Adoption The history of adoption is a long one, dating back to the Roman Empire. In Roman antiquity, adoption was the mainstay of the aristocracy and served the primary purposes of strengthening political ties between wealthy kin groupings and providing a readily available pool of potential male heirs where no biological children existed who were able to assist in running estates. Although the emphasis on adoption during the Roman Empire was clearly founded on the expansion of the family, with strictly political motives, adoption recorded in other parts of the world during this period, such as in India and China, served the purpose of the continuation of religious and cultural rites that required male intervention; for example, ancestral veneration. The process of adoption, which was so prevalent in the Roman Empire, saw a stark decline during the medieval era. In the medieval period, strong emphasis was placed on biological genealogies, and ruling families who were unable to provide suitable evidence of a biological heir were frequently replaced. The move
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Adoption
A trend in contemporary adoption featured prominently in public debate is the adoption of children by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, and is only legal in certain countries.
toward the prominence of the biological child–parent dyad saw many children abandoned during medieval times; these children were frequently absorbed by churches, resulting in the establishment of the orphanage system. The increasing numbers of children in institutionalized care lead to the revival of the family as the “best-fit” model of care for destitute children. However, although adopted children increased familial status during the Roman Empire by providing oft-needed sons, children integrated into families during medieval times were most often absorbed for financial reasons; most notably, the provision of cheap labor. Despite the blatantly financial motives for adoption at this time, the reabsorption of children into families led to what is commonly heralded as the rise of the modern system of adoption. In the 19th century, activists concerned with child rights rallied around the notion that children should be integrated into families for reasons of sentiment,
rather than as a mechanism for providing cheap labor. This idea was increasingly accepted in the United States and was ratified in 1909, when the U.S. president of the time, Theodore Roosevelt, declared the nuclear family to be the most suitable institution for rearing orphaned and abandoned children. However, although familial adoption was accepted in the uppermost echelons of society, the sentiment of adoption did not gain widespread precedence until after World War II, when it became a natural option for unmarried mothers and couples who were unable to conceive. In modern adoption, in America, as in other parts of the world that have followed America’s lead, the best interests of the child are considered to be of paramount importance, and as a result, the process of adoption became shrouded in secrecy in the 1900s. The secrecy surrounding adoption served the purpose of protecting the rights of the child by making the adoptee a fully fledged, legally recognized member of a new family
once ties with the biological parents had been severed. This model of adoption has become the global norm. Modern Adoption In the contemporary era, placing a child for adoption occurs for a number of reasons, such as the death of the biological parents, the lack of financial wherewithal for the biological parents to raise a child, and parental pressure exerted on young biological parents to relinquish rights to the child. Adoptions in the present day occur between both related and unrelated kin. The primary reasons for biological kin adoption include parental death; the inability to care for a child because of age, medical conditions, and alcohol and drug abuse; and a child being formally adopted by a parent’s new spouse, which is commonly referred to as stepparent adoption. The most common reasons for choosing to adopt a child include the inability to conceive, maternal yearning, and the desire to provide a safe home to a child in need. Adoption today is divided into what are termed “open” and “closed” adoptions. Open adoption permits free-flowing communication between the child and the biological parents, which may include access to information about the child’s well-being and visitation rights. In open adoption, the adoptive parents retain sole responsibility for the child and are able to terminate communication as they deem fit. In the case of closed adoption, the adoptive parents may be given information that does not reveal the identity of the biological parents, such as ethnicity, medical history, and religious denomination, and the adoptive parents are in turn given limited information that does not specifically identify the biological parents. Withholding personal information stems from the ideal of secrecy surrounding adoption that arose with modern adoption. Although adoption has historically been limited to taking place within the borders of a country, a global trend has emerged that entails transnational adoption. Transnational adoption may occur through either a private or public agency, and the laws regulating international adoption vary significantly from one country to another. Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), war, and poverty have resulted in an increase in cross-border adoption, in which adoptive parents opt to adopt pri-
Adoption
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marily to provide a safe haven to a child in need. International adoption is also undertaken to secure access to a child who is of a similar ethnic origin, to speed up the adoption process by avoiding internal waiting lists, or to fulfill maternal desire by providing ready access to a child. Despite the fact that adoption is closely monitored and regulated in much of the Western world, adoption for financial gain is a growing trend, especially in the international adoption arena. Contentious Issues in Modern Adoption An issue that has been hotly debated in the modern era of adoption is that of transracial adoption. In America, as in many African countries such as South Africa, adoption experts have stated their preferences for placing a child in a family that shares the same racial background as the child. Reasons for this preference include culture, language, identity formation, and the issue of exceptionality. Informal fostering is a childcare practice that has been common across the African continent, and this culturally sanctioned practice has historically allowed for economic resources to be extended throughout the lineage, skills to be acquired, labor to be offered, companionship to be given, education opportunities to be exploited, and kin ties to be strengthened. Despite the growing number of children in need of care, permanent legally binding adoption is still not as common as informal fostering, and transracial adoption is regarded as a last resort only. A new trend that has emerged in adoption is embryo adoption, a process that allows women who are either unable to conceive or unable to carry to term the ability to form a bond with a child from the embryonic stage. Although embryos may be implanted in a woman who is unable to conceive, allowing her to experience pregnancy, women who are able to conceive but unable to carry to term may gain access to an embryo and, through a surrogate mother implanted with the embryo, experience the maturation of the fetus and the subsequent birth process. Embryo adoption is a contentious issue that has garnered both support, being regarded as an act of kindness and goodwill, and criticism, being viewed as interfering with the natural order. Another trend in contemporary adoption that has also featured prominently in public debate is the adoption of children by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. In certain countries or
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Advertising, Aimed at Women
states within countries, same-sex adoption is legal, whereas in other parts of the world, legislation has been introduced in an attempt to stop same-sex adoption. In Uruguay, for example, same-sex couples are legally permitted to jointly adopt a child, whereas in the United States, the legislation varies across states, with Arkansas having the most stringent laws in place to prevent LGBT adoption. Differing global and interstate adoption laws have led to numerous unresolved adoption cases. The highly publicized case of Baby Emma spotlights how differing state laws can determine legal parentage from varying perspectives. The biological parents of Baby Emma were unmarried at the time of her birth, and Emma was placed for adoption in Utah without the consent of her biological father. The case is one that places diverging state laws in conflict with each other and brings into question the rights of unwed fathers in gaining custody of their children. In this particular case, diverging state laws recognize different parties as having parental rights over the child, resulting in differing legal perspectives on who should rightfully raise Emma. Similarly, the Hansen case highlights the unresolved legalities surrounding international adoption. In the Hansen case, a Russian child was adopted by an American woman who later decided to return the child to Russia. The case caused a global furor regarding the binding rights and legal framework of both adoptive parents and adopted children. See Also: Abortion Laws, International; Childlessness as Choice; Convention of the Rights of the Child; Foster Mothers; HIV/AIDS: Africa; Pregnancy. Further Readings Chemezie, A. “Transracial Adoption of Black Children.” Social Work, v.20 (1975). Hollingsworth, Leslie. “Symbolic Interactionism, African American Families, and the Transracial Adoption Controversy.” National Association of Social Workers, 1999. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6467/ is_5_44/ai_n28741272 (accessed June 2010). Madhavan, S. “Fosterage Patterns in the Age of AIDS: Continuity and Change.” Social Science and Medicine, v.58/7 (2004). Melosh, Barbara. Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Rayside, David M. Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions: Public Recognition of Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Susan de la Porte University of KwaZulu-Natal
Advertising, Aimed at Women The goal of advertising aimed at women is to generate women’s interest in and action on a particular product, service, or cause. In the 21st century, women have emerged as the major consumer market for advertisers in terms of size and importance. Advertising targets women according to their demographic characteristics and psychographics—their lifestyles and values. Evidence from research, knowledge about popular culture, and consumer typologies help marketers hone their message. Focus and communication strategies engage women consumers. More companies are tailoring the message to women without identifying the product as being for women. They use multiple strategies to reach women consumers, such as the Internet and other technologies, product placement, giveaways, and cause marketing. The average American is exposed to about 5,000 messages per day. Advertising is everywhere—in print and broadcast media, on billboards, shopping and luggage carts, on Websites, and on public transportation. Advertising works by first exposing women to the message, getting women to consider the message, and influencing women’s attitudes and opinions toward whatever is being sold. Advertising is big business. Marketers spent an estimated $280 billion in advertising in the United States in 2005, about 48 percent of the $581 billion spent globally. More and more advertising dollars are being spent targeting women. A Major Market In the 21st century, women have emerged as the major advertising target in terms of size and importance. Growth in women’s economic and spending power is driving advertisers’ increasing recognition
of women as consumers. Women earn more than half the combined household income in most U.S. households. As women’s educational attainment increases, so do their earnings. U.S. women’s mean income grew about 63 percent from 1970 to the early 2000s, while men’s income was stagnant. Growing numbers of women are out earning their husbands. The majority of women manage their family finances. U.S. women make about two-thirds of all household purchasing decisions, including big-ticket items such as home furnishings, cars, and trucks. Important Perceptual Differences Companies are using findings from research and knowledge about popular culture to guide advertising aimed at women. Research has revealed significant gender differences in terms of how women think, how they decide what to buy, and how they respond to advertising messages. Research shows that men and women perceive things differently. Men excel at honing in on an image, whereas women have superior peripheral vision. Women are more sensitive to loud sounds. Women’s sense of smell is more acute. The most dramatic gender differences pertain to women’s greater sensitivity to touch. Differences in how women process and retain information and respond to verbal and social cues combine to influence their attraction to and purchase of products and services. Brain research indicates women read more into advertising messages than men do and think more emotionally about the message. When women listen, they use both sides of the brain, making them more susceptible to advertising messages. Survey research shows most women perceive products and marketing more holistically than men do. Women are also better at picking up on nuances and details. Combining the results of brain research and biochemistry with social research about gender, generational, cultural, and communication differences allows advertisers to tailor their messages specifically for women and to segment the women’s market even further. Segmenting the Market Marketers target advertising aimed at women to various segments or audiences based on demographic and psychographic factors. Demographic factors include characteristics such as gender, generational member-
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ship, socioeconomic status, geographic location, and culture. Psychographic factors are values and beliefs held by women in the target audience. Marketers use typologies—classification systems based on demographic and psychographic factors— to guide their advertising. These typologies reflect gender stereotypes about women and their values, motivations, and interests at different life stages. They also reflect gender stereotypes about women within the major cultural categories across the globe. Gender stereotypes are generalizations about the roles, characteristics, and attitudes of women. Typologies based on gender stereotypes reflect societal and cultural assumptions about women. By creating and using typologies, marketers can hone their message to the stereotypical female consumer within each typology. Roper Starch Worldwide, using the results of thousands of interviews focused on fundamental values and motivators of consumers in 35 countries, created six basic categories representing the adult global consumer, and by extension, the global female consumer. Strivers (estimated at 23 percent of the world’s population) live mostly in developing and developed countries. Typically middle age, their values include wealth, power, and status. Devouts (22 percent) live mostly in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. They hold traditional values, such as faith, obedience, duty, and respect. Altruists (18 percent) are generally older and well educated. Their motivators stem from their interest in social causes and political issues. Altruists live primarily in Latin America and Russia. Intimates (15 percent) are motivated by interpersonal relationships and are media-oriented. They live primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hungary. Fun Seekers (12 percent) are young and driven by adventure, excitement, and pleasure. They place value on appearance and spend their leisure time at clubs, bars, and restaurants. Creatives (10 percent) value knowledge and technology. They tend to be early adopters and avid consumers of media. Cultural and ethnic identity is another driver for segmenting the women’s market. Important cultural differences exist in terms of belief systems and values and brand loyalty and consumer tastes. Successful global campaigns aimed at women are aligned with the beliefs and values of women in the target country.
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The women’s market is segmented even further by generational values, life transitions and milestones, and culture. Marketers develop advertising approaches toward women in recognition of different core generational values. Women in Generation Y are sophisticated consumers skeptical of and skilled at ignoring traditional advertising content. They value collaboration and are open to trying new products and services. Generation X women value self-reliance and cynicism, and are hostile toward advertising hype. In contrast, baby boomer women value idealism, individualism, and empowerment. The conception of aging is changing in the 2000s, thanks to baby boomers who embrace technology, change brands, and love to consume goods and products. Advertisers are rethinking the upper age limits of the conventional adult consumer market of 18 to 49. The sheer number and purchasing power of baby boomer women will spur new advertising approaches to capture their dollars. Within generation segments, marketers hone in on the varied values and interests of working women, stay-at-home mothers, retired women, etc. The attitudes and behaviors of women within the same generation or socioeconomic background vary widely, thus marketers also targeting women in terms of social maturity. For example, marketers may segment the women’s market based on psychosocial stages of adult development. Women’s life transitions provide marketers with opportunities to establish new brand relationships. Further segmentation occurs based on product categories and consumer labels. Capturing Her Attention Research shows that women deliberate longer than men before making a purchase. Thus, marketers often create multiple opportunities for repeated messaging about a product or service. By cultivating the woman consumer, they win her loyalty and commitment. They focus on her values, such as community and connection, by using real-life stories and appealing to women’s sense of group affiliation. The reward is a consumer referral rate that is twice that of men’s. Advertising grabs women’s attention by focusing on important aspects of female gender culture, such as social values. By designing ads that focus on people rather than product, similarity rather than superiority, and community rather than competition, advertisers
capitalize on the importance most women place on community and connection. Advertising approaches focus on building a bond with the woman consumer by using actors that are attractive but not unrealistically so, and by portraying realistic situations that resonate with women. Advertising focuses on life and time factors, such as milestones, transitions, and women’s roles in the home and the workplace. Advertisers use focus strategies to convey the big picture about the product, using details to differentiate their brand or product. Communication strategies help to make the advertising message more personal and meaningful. Successful advertising strategies involve communications designed to motivate the consumer. Indulgence often serves as a marketing tool to motivate women to make purchases as rewards they’ve earned. Conveying the Message Approaches geared toward women consumers include visible marketing, transparent marketing, and hybrid campaigns. Visible marketing is designed for women only; the advertising message contains language and imagery that are unmistakably targeted toward women. Transparent marketing involves tailoring the message to the needs of the woman consumer, but not identifying the service or product as being for women. Hybrid campaigns involve visibly marketing certain products or aspects of products toward women within an overall transparent marketing campaign. The use of transparent marketing toward women is growing, and may represent the dominant approach in the future. Transparent marketing works best when the campaign has a narrow focus and reflects intimate understanding of the particular consumer group. Successful ads focus on the products context, define the brand, and are authentic. The growth and popularity of the Internet necessitated a shift from traditional print, television, and radio advertising. Companies use the Internet and other new technologies to get their message across to women and to tailor the message. Companies build brand loyalty by making sure their Website is easy to navigate. They make the Website appealing to women by emphasizing human images and stories. They give women choices in how they share and receive information. They place banners and spot ads on blogs
and Websites popular with women or the targeted segment of the women’s market. They use electronic marketing to observe the popularity of sites. Companies use self-discovery quizzes and polls, online advisory boards, and peer reviews as a way to connect to the customer and gain an edge in understanding the female consumer. Companies also create noncorporate Websites to create an international community of women. These Websites provide specific content geared to pique the interest of the target consumer, building brand loyalty in the process. Companies place targeted ads on online social networking sites such as Facebook and on portable devices, such as cell phone ringtones associated with products. As use of new technologies becomes widespread, advertisers create targeted messaging displayed on cell phones, iPods, and other mobile devices. Marketers also get their message to women through viral videos, which are funny, outrageous, or bizarre video clips that get broad exposure on the Internet by women who gladly share them with others through e-mail or instant messaging. Advertisers place short commercials on news and entertainment Websites, often requiring that the viewer watch the ad before accessing the desired content. Companies use new approaches to reach women, particularly younger women who have developed sophisticated marketing filters that screen out conventional advertising. They use more subtle approaches such as public relations campaigns, product placement and giveaways, and strategies to promote wordof-mouth referrals to reach advertising-savvy women. Companies get around negative perceptions of mass corporate brands by getting their products in the hands of pop culture icons who young women consider cool. They use product giveaways in bars and on city streets where young women congregate. Such word of mouth advertising works because women who are enthusiastic about new products will talk about them to others in their social networks. Companies target female early adopters through invitations to special events, discounts, samples, and coupons, all designed to create a buzz about the product. Cause marketing is a way for companies to promote their good deeds and enhance their image through advertising. Many companies partner with charitable causes that resonate with women to attract women consumers. Cause marketing grew 23 per-
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cent from 2005 to 2007, representing more than $1 billion. Breast cancer is a cause dear to women that many companies embrace. Research shows that older consumers appreciate socially responsible companies. Members of Generation Y, expecting companies to be socially responsible, often vote with their purchasing decisions. As research reveals new motivators for women consumers around the globe, and new technologies emerge to reach and engage the different segments of women’s market, advertising aimed at women will adapt and evolve. See Also: Advertising, Female Professionals in; Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Gender, Defined; Internet; Pink, Advertising and. Further Readings Barletta, Marti. Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market Segment, 2nd ed. Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2006. Gardner, Andrea. The 30 Second Seduction: How Advertisers Lure Women Through Flattery, Flirtation, and Manipulation. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2008. Johnson, Linda and Andrea Learned. Don’t Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy—and How to Increase Your Share of This Crucial Market. New York: American Management Association, 2004. Witter, Lisa and Lisa Chen. The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World—and How to Reach Them. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008. Keri L. Heitner University of Phoenix
Advertising, Female Professionals in When modern advertising developed in the United States in the late-19th century, the industry was open to a variety of enterprising individuals, including females. Since then, women have distinguished themselves in all facets of the business, creating original and profitable campaigns, and even heading important
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advertising agencies. By 2008, women comprised half of all employees in advertising and related professions. Nevertheless, agencies in the United States, England, and elsewhere remain bastions of gender inequality, particularly in creative departments, where men outnumber women more than two to one. Ironically, many of the females who have achieved career success in the field have done so through exploiting sexist stereotypes. Advertisements are among the most pervasive transmitters of cultural messages in modern societies, and limitations on women’s input into advertising may play a crucial role in perpetuating sexism. Social changes and repeated calls for industry reform may gradually bring equal opportunity to the field. Helen Woodward is emblematic of women’s early involvement in the field during advertising’s “progressive” era—moving up from stenographer at the Merill and Baker Agency around 1902 to becoming a copywriter, freelancer, and then in 1924, leaving the industry to write scathing critiques of it. Advertising Women of New York was founded in 1912 because advertising women at that time were barred from attending other ad clubs. The group has continuously supported the professional growth and advancement of women in communications, and, since 1997, have issued The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Awards to celebrate and embarrass advertisers’ depictions of women. By 1918, the J. Walter Thompson Agency had a separate department of female copywriters headed by Helen Landsdowne. Staffed predominantly by graduates of prestigious colleges, these women created ads for Pond’s, Crisco, and other women-oriented accounts that proved enormously profitable. Advertisers understood that females were making 85 percent of household purchasing decisions, and women creatives were able to communicate with this important audience. Ad women during this “progressive” period made use of stereotypes about feminine intuition to gain employment in creative positions. By exploiting this stereotype, women gained the freedom to escape the formulaic approaches that were prescribed to their male counterparts. Women early in the 20th century created new ad forms, including advertisements that imitated the look of editorial matter, and ads featuring endorsements by aristocrats and society women.
Even though significant agency revenue was attributed to women, they were often barred from positions of power such as deal-making or client contact roles. By the 1930s, many agencies limited top jobs to business school graduates, at a time when business programs excluded women. Women’s contributions were underplayed or even hidden from clients and the public. A pioneer, Landsdowne was rarely photographed, almost never gave speeches or wrote articles, and was generally kept out of the limelight until three years after her death, in 1970, when she was placed in the Advertising Hall of Fame. By the 1960s, some ad women were well known, including the glamorous Mary Wells, who entered the field as a fashion-advertising manager, worked as a copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach on the company’s breakthrough campaigns for Volkswagen and Avis Rent A Car, and went on to establish Wells Rich and Green in 1966, where she updated Braniff Airlines’ image. Wells, along with Mary Fillius, Jane Trahey, and Jo Foxworth helped bring the advertising industry into its golden age. Second Wave of Feminism Betty Friedan’s influential 1963 book The Feminine Mystique accused advertisers of promoting the role of women as servile and helpless to make them feel more dependent on advertised products. By the 1970s, a second wave of feminists attacked what they viewed as insulting depictions of women in American advertising. Many of them held sit-ins and threatened to boycott goods advertised in ways they saw as demeaning to women. Ironically, some of these campaigns had been created by women—such as the Clairol hair dye ads from Shirley Polykoff, which declared, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure,” and “If I have only one life to live, let me live it as a blonde.” The jury is still out on whether Polykoff ’s hugely successful hair dye ads empowered women to choose their hair color, or disempowered them by creating artificial beauty standards that linked women’s happiness to their attractiveness. This controversy is an example of advertising’s complex and intractable role in consumer culture. Polykoff ’s professional success did not conform to most feminist ideals, but it did open doors to more female creatives. When advertisers of the 1970s moderated their advertising approaches, it was partly
due to women within agencies working against both exploitive portrayals of females in ads and discrimination in hiring and promotion within the industry. Despite the industry’s claims to using scientific approaches to marketing, it has always depended on creative professionals’ subjective judgment to develop advertising concepts and to give form to these ideas. Then, as now, agency heads saw their businesses as largely subjective enterprises, and promoted associates whom they felt best about instinctively—men—rather than relying on objective criteria such as degrees or years of experience. Discrimination against women in advertising is consistent with a well-documented discriminatory culture in which racial minorities and workers over 40 years old are underemployed in copywriting and art directing. Creative departments are generally exempt from regular dress codes and business conduct, and a harddrinking “boys’ club” atmosphere is standard within top firms, where basketball hoops and foosball tablesare standard fare. Many female creatives find difficulty fitting into this culture, which is even more pervasive outside the United States. In top agencies, as few as one in 10 campaign proposals are chosen for presentation to clients. Female creatives cite intense competition as well as long hours, frequent night and weekend responsibilities, and lack of accommodation for childcare, as major impediments to promotion. Long-standing cultural prejudices against women as true creative geniuses—seen as egotistical, eccentric or petulant— may persist within advertising agencies. Agency heads also may be averse to promoting women into positions in which they routinely criticize and reject the work of male creatives. Some women have moved into creative director roles, though many of these have remained childless, or else raised families with help from fulltime nannies or stay-at-home husbands. Top roles for women have gradually expanded in advertising and other fields. By 1992, Charlotte Beers had become head of Olgilvy & Mather Worldwide. Beers became head of J. Walter Thompson by 1999, and then Under Secretary of State under George W. Bush. By 2000, women still had complaints about how few of them were promoted in creative departments in France, Brazil, and Hong Kong. Some women in the United States were bringing racial as well as gender diversity to the field, with African Americans Ann Fudge becoming head of Young and Rubicam in 2003,
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and Vida Cornelius moving from vice president and creative director at Doyle Dane Bernbach Chicago to become vice president and group creative director of GlobalHue in 2009. Nevertheless, inequities remain pronounced. So far, there is no concrete proof that the underrepresentation of women in creative departments is the main cause of sexual stereotyping and objectification in ads. However, this relationship is of great interest to feminists, media theorists, and psychologists. They continue to review recent findings on the effects of sexist advertising, which include damage to girls’ cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, and to women’s healthy sexual development. Other causes of sexism in advertising include sexist ads, which gain reader attention even among readers who find the material offensive. Additionally, since the aim of most ads is to persuade people that they are powerless without the advertised product, there may be limitations on how empowering ads will ever be. Even though females have created many ad considered sexist, the hope remains that when women reach positions of power in significant numbers, the tenor of adverting will change. More and more women are distinguishing themselves within the field. Susan Credle of Leo Burnett, Kerry Keenan of Young & Rubicam, Karen Kaplan of Hill Holiday, and Kris Kiger of R/GA are just a few examples of advertising women who are proving that, despite discrimination, there is room for women at the top. See Also: Advertising: Aimed at Women; Advertising, Portrayal of Women in; Business, Women in; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Glass Ceiling; Management, Women in; Management Styles, Gender Theories; Media Chief Executive Officers, Female; Professions by Gender; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women; Working Mothers. Further Readings Mallia, Karen. “Creativity Knows No Gender But Agency Creative Departments Sure Do.” Advertising Age (August 21, 2009). Nixon, Sean. Advertising Cultures: Gender, Commerce, Creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage, 2003. Sivulka, Juliann. Ad Women: How They Impact What We Need, Want, and Buy. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009.
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Sutton, Denise H. Globalizing Ideal Beauty: How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Liz C. Throop Associate Professor, Georgia State University
Advertising, Portrayal of Women in The advertising industry can be viewed as a culture industry that engages a network of ideological and dominant institutions. This culture industry produces and reproduces mass culture, effectively homogenizing cultural products and audience identities. Advertisements are the material products of the advertising industry; more important, though, the advertising industry creates ideologies about gender, race, and class, thus reinforcing stereotypes about minority (or subordinate) groups in relation to the dominant social group. The messages in advertisements socialize people and mediate their reality; the advertising industry’s function thus carries economic, political, cultural, and social effects. Advertisements can be in many forms, such as print (in magazines or newspapers), television, radio, Internet pop-ups, and out of home (like billboards). The characterization of the advertising industry as a culture industry is reflected in its texts, whose central goal is to stimulate audience consumption of products and, thus, a capitalist lifestyle. The advertising industry produces and disseminates narrow ideals of femininity and gender roles, thereby communicating powerful messages about female behavior and appearance for members of Western culture. Use of Stereotypes Advertising employs stereotypes about individuals and groups so that its dominant ideas will be accepted as social norms by audiences. In her book Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, feminist Judith Williamson discusses the social role played by advertisements that seek to identify audiences with the ideological position connoted in the advertisement. Advertising presents
signs that are invested with meaning, these include words, images, and sounds, among others. The goal of signs in advertisements, Williamson argues, is to create a perceived difference between one product and another. The structure of advertisements is ideological, as it aims to attach meaning (especially desire) to attainable objects. Contemporary advertisements code meanings about female gender identity and beauty through representations of the body. Beginning in the 1920s, advertisements presented enticing portrayals of modernity. Historian Roland Marchand called them “social tableaux advertisements.” He noted that advertisers, as observers of popular culture, believed that consumers would prefer to see advertisements that reflected a higher social status than their own. Thus, the social tableaux reflected people’s social aspirations—not realities—and
Beginning in the 1920s, advertisements depicted an idealized life that could distort consumers’ views of reality.
employed pictorial images in which individuals could insert themselves. The advertisements created a depiction of modern life that distorted consumers’ views of reality and their aspirations. The representation of women in these social tableaux in the 1920s and 1930s portrayed them as adapting to modernity in two ways: through their power to purchase goods and through their power to shape and dress their bodies. The exercise of these powers became entwined with the representation of the female American dream. As Marchand notes, however, modernity was an ambiguous concept that did not afford for women to subvert their subordinate roles. Advertisers acknowledged women in this time period as America’s primary consumers, and the social tableaux characterized women as the “family G.P.A.” (general purchasing agent) or “Mrs. Consumer.” Yet, despite showing socially valued male executive talents (such as decision making through purchasing choices), women were not accorded equal power in relationships with men or a changed social role. Thus, the female power granted by the woman’s positioning as a consumer did not alter her subordinate role to her husband. In Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, historian William Leach offers a denigrating portrayal of the power of the modern woman in popular culture: the equation of a woman’s purchasing power with items purchased predominantly for the home (the archaic space of women), a portrayal that further reinforced the woman’s traditional role as a housewife. Focus on an Unattainable Appearance In addition, the social tableaux tied women’s leisure time to the modern pursuits of female self-expression (i.e., her appearance) that would make her an admirable partner for her modern husband. A modern lifestyle thus meant that her newfound time, courtesy of better home management, could be devoted to working on an appearance that would be valued by and cater to men. Along these lines, the advertisements prescribed the modern look, complete with advice on physical stance and fashion. They represented a female body that was distinct from the older, rounder generation of women. These bodies had fantastical and imposing proportions; more important, these physical depictions were associated with women of high social status. Although the modern female
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body originated in the realm of fantasy, the young, slim image signified that women were free in reality. However, this representation of a fashionably attired, young, and elongated body maintained the patriarchal relationship of domination-subordination. The post–World War II period was characterized by an economic boom. Women were no longer regarded by advertisers as the sole purchasing agent for the home, and market researchers identified that women’s buying decisions were motivated by their senses of smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing and by their personality traits such as intuition and irrationality. In Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture, media historian Stuart Ewen describes the home during this time as a place of corporate control over Americans’ daily life. The home supported a homogenization of female identity, offering women promises of happiness through passive ideological and material consumption of messaging in advertisements. Arising out of this cultural context was the influential feminist text, The Feminine Mystique, in which activist Betty Friedan exposed the social conditions that plagued 1950s American women (particularly the housewife). Friedan argued that advertisers/the patriarchy equated the power of women with their purchasing power, and she linked women’s struggle for identity to a consumer culture whose advertisements of housewives presented an empty sense of self. Friedan argued that consumer culture used women’s affluence to trap them in a false, unsatisfying selfimage that rendered them passive and situated them as caretakers of their family and homes. Since the 1960s, feminist social theorist Jean Kilbourne has been creating awareness about the objectification of women in advertisements. In Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, she argues that the images of women’s bodies that circulate in popular culture shape women’s subjectivities and the way that women are viewed in society. She argues that the role of women in advertising texts is only in relation to, and thus subordinate to, the desires of men. This viewpoint aligns with the notion of the “male gaze,” a concept put forth by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey who suggests that the female role in media texts is negative and involuntary. Action is reserved for the owner of the gaze (who is inherently male), while inaction is reserved for the
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object of the gaze (who is inherently female). Along these lines, Kilbourne argues that the objectification of women in advertisements connects to the use of sexual imagery, and this representation of women adversely affects women’s attitudes toward pleasure and desire. As Kilbourne notes, such imagery trivializes sex and relationships and promotes narcissism and consumption. A result of increasingly damaging media images of women is that they negatively impact women’s identity development: women feel less safe in their bodies, and women may feel a sense of disconnection from oneself and others. Negative Impact on Female Self-Esteem The important work of feminist cultural theorist Susan Bordo focuses on the influence of advertising on women’s body images (see Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body and Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images From Plato to O.J.). She argues that contemporary culture is characterized by the power of advertising images or “cultural images.” For Bordo, the intention that underlies the construction of advertising images, reminiscent of the social tableaux, blends fantasy and reality—that is, the images produce desire in audiences for fantasy and the desire to achieve that fantasy in reality. For her, the problem inherent in contemporary advertising is that its images serve as a blueprint for young girls’ views of their bodies. Bordo contends that women have absorbed these cultural ideologies and learned how to monitor their bodies to achieve the dominant ideology of female beauty. Because these powerful images constitute a desirable cultural norm, Bordo theorizes they have influenced girls’ self-esteem and may be attributable to the cultural crisis of eating disorders and body-image issues. There are conflicting meanings of agency (generally acknowledged as individual resistance to structural ideologies) regarding women’s current engagement with advertising and media messages. In Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, journalist Ariel Levy characterized the recent “raunch culture” as women’s embrace of hypersexualized representations of women as well as women’s self-presentations of female sexuality. Levy contends that these alleged sites of empowerment paradoxically support the patriarchal conceptualization of women as subordinate to men. Feminist media scholar Rosalind Gill
further cautions about the dangers of this attitude of female empowerment and sexual self-display in media images and in everyday life and how the portrayals of women in advertising have gone beyond notions of objectification to subjectification. The representation of women as hypersexual and desiring objectification, images that circulate in mainstream popular culture, are similar to pornographic images of women. For over half a century, manufactured advertising images of an unattainable female body have negatively impact the self esteem of girls and women, which is reflected in a sense of inadequacy in fulfilling their gender role. These images present a female body that has been constructed in the realm of fantasy ( by the advertising industry), and implies that women can achieve these bodies in reality. Actively challenging and educating women about how these advertising images exploit insecurities about female imperfection and the promise of fulfillment through the consumption of products is an important feminist project. See Also: Advertising: Aimed at Women; Body Image; Eating Disorders; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Pink, Advertising and; Pornography, Portrayal of Women in; Representation of Women. Further Readings Bordo, Susan. Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images From Plato to O. J. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Dell Publishing, 1983. Gill, Rosalind C. “Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising.” Feminism & Psychology, v.18/1 (2008). Gill, Rosalind C. Gender and the Media. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor Adorno. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, eds., Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity
Kilbourne, Jean. Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel. New York: Touchstone, 1999. Leach, William. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free Press, 2005. Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In Meenakshi G. Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, eds., Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. Williamson, Judith. Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. New York: Marion Boyars, 1984. Dara Persis Murray Rutgers University
Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity This entry outlines the history of affirmative action policy in the United States and discusses its current institutional design and enforcement, as well as its interaction with U.S. antidiscrimination policy. While some such policies have also been implemented in other countries, the United States has the earliest and most extensive version, particularly with regard to women as opposed to ethnic and racial minorities, and as such provides an important case study of how such policies might affect women’s relative standing to men. In the United States, equal opportunity implies equal treatment under a selection mechanism, and also implies attempts to equalize qualifications relevant to selection prior to entering the selection process. Thus, antidiscrimination policies can be seen as ways to ensure equal treatment. Affirmative action is a step beyond ensuring equal treatment through antidiscrimination policy measures. It is an activist approach to trying to increase the representation of historically underrepresented groups, whether in the workforce, in particular occu-
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pations, in higher paid, more prestigious positions, in the political system, or in higher education. As such, it is a more controversial policy than antidiscrimination policy, but it also holds the promise of enacting more radical change in society toward the ultimate goal of equalizing both opportunity and outcome for members of different groups. History Starting in June 1941 with Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802, a series of executive orders barred discrimination by federal contractors on the bases of race, creed, color, and national origin. In March 1961, John Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925 required federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” It specified further: “Such action shall include, but not be limited to, the following: employment, upgrading, demotion or transfer; recruitment or recruitment advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and selection for training, including apprenticeship.” It created the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and granted it the authority to impose sanctions, including contract termination, on noncompliers. This order is the foundation for affirmative action as we understand it through the present, and is also the origin of the term. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 established the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC), which enforces the federal laws prohibiting job discrimination. These include the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 of September 1965 strengthened enforcement by outlining in greater detail the procedures for determining compliance, the sanctions for noncompliance, and by establishing that the Department of Labor and the EEOC would coordinate in sharing relevant data and in enforcement of these laws. Johnson’s Executive Order 11375 in 1967 took the key step of extending affirmative action on the basis of sex. However, effective regulations enforcing this expansion did not reach full stride until after the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which
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strengthened enforcement of Title VII, giving the EEOC authority to litigate, and expanded its reach to educational institutions and government bodies (federal, state, and local) as well as to employers with as few as 15 employees (before it had been 25). In October 1978, Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order 12086 consolidated into the Department of Labor all of the different federal agencies’ contract monitoring functions related to equal employment opportunity provision. This expanded the purview of the Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance, originally established by the Secretary of Labor following Executive Order 11246. The renamed Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) collects relevant data and enforces the order and subsequent related orders and legislation. As women’s participation in higher education and in the workforce expanded in the late 1970s, politicians began to take a broader view of women’s participation in employment and how it might be assisted by government actions. Carter’s 1979 Executive Order 12138 created a National Women’s Business Enterprise Policy, which required each executive branch department and agency to “take affirmative action in support of women’s business enterprise in appropriate programs and activities,” including but not limited to “management, technical, financial and procurement assistance . . . business-related education, training, counseling information dissemination,” and “procurement.” Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 called for establishment of a federal Glass Ceiling Commission, to study “the manner in which business fills management and decisionmaking positions” and to prepare recommendations concerning “eliminating artificial barriers to the advancement of women and minorities” and “increasing the opportunities and developmental experiences of women and minorities to foster advancement of women and minorities to management and decisionmaking positions in business.” In March 1995, Bill Clinton called for a review of affirmative action, which was completed by two of his aides by July 1995, at which point he reaffirmed his administration’s support for affirmative action. The Glass Ceiling Commission’s report appeared in November 1995, bringing more attention to the issue of women and minorities’ progress up corporate career ladders, but not leading to additional legislation.
One of the final proaffirmative action moves during the Clinton administration took place in 2000, when the Department of Labor began an Equal Opportunity Survey. Surveyed federal contractors were asked to report not only employment data, but also compensation data by gender and minority status. This data was meant to be used to improve the OFCCP’s compliance audit procedures (i.e., deciding which contractors to audit). However, under the George W. Bush administration, the department first reduced the number of surveys (from 50,000 down to 10,000) and then, in September 2006, eliminated the survey altogether. While the Bush administration did not dismantle affirmative action, it did not expand its mandate either. Current Institutional Design and Enforcement Commentators often refer to the whole set of antidiscrimination laws and executive orders mentioned above as affirmative action. Using that broad definition, almost all employers and employees, save for those in the smallest firms, would be subject to affirmative action. A narrower view of affirmative action’s coverage would be to consider only Executive Order 11246 (as amended) and the related parts of the 1972 Equal Opportunity Act as embodying affirmative action (as opposed to antidiscrimination), and thus to consider only federal employees and those employers monitored by the OFCCP, namely federal contractors, as subject to its requirements. However, this would be inappropriately narrow in thinking about which firms have stated that they are following affirmative action principles in their employment practices. Many organizations that are not required to have an affirmative action plan nonetheless have them, to varying degrees of formality. In addition, government employees, who make up a large percentage of the workforce, are covered by these principles. Also, some states, counties, and cities have affirmative action statutes, with which contractors with those governments’ agencies are required to comply. Thus, out of the total U.S. workforce, a sizable proportion (about 28 to 40 percent) is in workplaces that are covered by either a required or voluntary affirmative action plan. Even if only private sector employers under OFCCP’s jurisdiction are considered as being subject to affirmative action, this covers a large number of
employers and employees—over 20 percent of the civilian workforce (about 29 million workers). These contractors need to have a written affirmative action plan detailing the “good faith” efforts they are undertaking to recruit, retain, and provide advancement opportunities for the covered groups. They are supposed to collect applicant flow data, keep applicant files/applications for a two-year period, use recruiting services and pipelines that will given them access to the covered groups, keep copies of all job advertisements, and indicate in all such advertisements that they are an “equal employment opportunity employer.” The OFCCP selects federal contractors for audit, partly at random but also currently focusing enforcement on firms practicing what it calls “systemic” discrimination. This approach is conducive to supporting the affirmative action part of OFCCP’s purview, as the pattern could include underrepresentation of women and minorities in the firm’s workforce as well as apparent low promotion rates of these groups to higher levels in the firm. A rough guideline for firms to consider regarding compliancy is the “four-fifths rule,” where a selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than 80 percent of the rate for the group with the highest rate can be regarded by the federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact on that group of the firm’s employment procedures. The majority of audited firms are found to be noncompliant. In addition, private employers with 100 or more employees and all federal contractors with 50 or more employees are required to file an annual report with the EEOC. About 50,000 employers, representing more than 55 million employees, file this report. The EEOC can investigate employers for violations of Title VII and the other antidiscrimination laws. Thus the price of not following affirmative action is the threat of a company’s having to undergo a compliance review, and the costs, trouble, and potentially unpleasant publicity that this entails. There is also the possibility of additional financial penalty relating to patterns uncovered during the audit, including back pay awards to applicants denied hiring or promotion. Studies support the view that affirmative action has had positive effects in expanding employment for women and minorities. There is also a fair amount of evidence in support of the view that affirmative action has had positive effects on earnings for women and
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minorities. These gains appear to have come with little ill effect in terms of measurable drops in quality of output or other indicators that would suggest a loss of efficiency in the economy from implementing affirmative action. In part this may be because the extent of, and thus the effect of, affirmative action compliance has not been that high. Or it could be that affirmative action actually improves efficiency if it overrides discriminatory impulses that were efficiency reducing. But it indicates that any dire concerns about constraints on competitive behavior appear unfounded. Outlook Assuming that we would like to expand further the representation of women (and minorities) in the workforce and in the better-paying, more secure jobs, there are a number of reasons to be optimistic regarding the continued role of affirmative action as an agent in effecting change. The main way in which affirmative action plan violations are identified is through looking to see if a particular firm’s workforce is out of line with the supposed availability of workers in the relevant labor market. If a firm’s workforce is not in line with the expected proportion of, say, women, then the only way that the firm can make up for this is by increasing the proportion of women, whether through increased hiring or increased retention of women (which may often involve promoting them more rapidly than men). Thus the firm is forced to practice affirmative action in order to reach parity with the overall labor market. This implies that affirmative action has a natural limiting range in how long it can be generally applicable. If all firms had workforces that were in line with the overall market availability of women, it would no longer be necessary to practice affirmative action in hiring (except to the extent that women and men might have different turnover rates). Indeed, the U.S. legal system, with the relative ease by which plaintiffs can bring discrimination suits in which one basis is disparate impact and another is disparate treatment, supports affirmative action even in firms not directly subject to OFCCP or other regulations. Therefore the fear of discrimination suits, which often range widely in topic from pay differentials to hiring differences to promotion differences, support the relatively weak direct suasion that OFCCP
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can bring by making firms not only accountable to the EEOC as well, but to private suits that can be brought under Title VII. The conditions in the United States provide a strong basis for optimism. The more interesting question is how affirmative action/equal opportunity will be expanded in other parts of the world under vastly different legal systems and social structures. This will be a challenge for the current century. In particular, some countries have taken the more forceful approach of imposing strict quotas, particularly regarding candidates for political office. The tension between the use of quotas and the use of more flexible programs will be one of the most important issues for resolution as equal opportunity approaches spread to more countries and situations. See Also: Business, Women in; Equal Pay; Glass Ceiling; Representation of Women. Further Readings Bergmann, Barbara. “The Continuing Need for Affirmative Action.” Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, v.39/5 (1999). Holzer, Harry and David Neumark. “Affirmative Action: What Do We Know?” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, v.25/2 (2006). Holzer, Harry and David Neumark. “Assessing Affirmative Action.” Journal of Economic Literature, v.38/3 (2000). Jacobsen, Joyce. The Economics of Gender, 3rd Ed. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell/Wiley, 2007. U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. http://www.dol.gov/OFCCP (accessed May 2010). U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. http:// www.eeoc.gov (accessed May 2010). Joyce Jacobsen Wesleyan University
Afghanistan Afghanistan is currently home to 33 million inhabitants, 99 percent of whom are Muslim (approximately 80 percent are Sunni Muslim while 19 percent are Shi’a Muslim). It is an ethnically diverse
country; major ethnic groups are Pashtun and Tajik with smaller portions of the population comprised of Usbek, Hazara, and other groups. Located in southern Asia, Afghanistan is known as the crossroads of central Asia. It consists primarily of rugged mountain and hillside terrain with smaller portions comprised of arid and semiarid plains. Major sources of revenue include agriculture and opium production. Democratic elections were held in both 2004 and 2009, yet the political system of Afghanistan remains unstable. The reconstruction process has been painfully slow and, consequently, women and girls continue to face significant challenges in relation to security/violence, poverty alleviation, education, and healthcare. Recent History For the past three decades, Afghanistan has been ravaged by conflict and war. A 1978 military coup by a communist group known as the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan was followed in 1979 by Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Various opposition groups, known as mujahideens, combined forces to combat Soviet troops. After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, in 1989, the mujahideen groups fought one another in a period of anarchy and civil war that lasted from 1989 to 1996. The most infamous mujahideen group, known as the Taliban (from the Pashto word for “student”), a devout group consisting of Sunni Pashtuns, emerged in 1994. By 1996, the Taliban took control of the country and instituted various restrictions that reflected a strict interpretation of Shari`a, (Islamic law). Although such restrictions affected all Afghanis, the Taliban was particularly harsh in its treatment of women. In 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United States launched a military campaign in Afghanistan, helping to oust the Taliban from power. In 2004, Afghanistan held its first national democratic election and adopted a new constitution. Since then, the Taliban has regained control of many rural areas. Security/Violence Security remains elusive in Afghanistan and violence is part of daily life. Armed conflict is a constant threat, torture persists, the country is littered with landmines, and the opium trade perpetuates a system of corruption and crime. Dangerous conditions
have forced many to abandon their homes and flee to neighboring countries. Despite constitutional guarantees against gender discrimination, tribal custom continues to dictate the role of women in Afghan society. Females are typically restricted to the private sphere and their basic human rights continue to be denied. Rape and other forms of sexual violence are widespread and women may be attacked in their homes, communities, or even in institutions such as detention facilities. Furthermore, Afghan law allows marriages to take place without a woman’s consent. Thus, females may be handed over to resolve tribal or family disputes, a practice known as baad. Furthermore, women who are victims of rape and sexual assault may be prosecuted for the offense of zina (adultery) under the Penal code of 1976. Because family honor is so closely bound to
A woman who leaves the house without a male relative to supervise her may be punished under Afghan law.
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the conduct of female family members, a female who leaves the house without a male relative (mahram) to supervise her or otherwise disgraces the family may be punished. Poverty Facing enormous external debt and with more than 50 percent of its population currently living in poverty, Afghanistan is one of the poorest and most economically unstable countries in the world. Jobs are scarce and nearly two-thirds of the population suffers from food shortages. The economic situation has been exacerbated by the global recession. Furthermore, recent droughts and hard winters have negatively impacted agricultural production. Women are economically reliant upon men. Women are legally entitled to work for wages, yet custom often prohibits them from doing so, particularly in rural areas. Widows are especially vulnerable to poverty because of limited opportunities to earn income and support their children. Female children are often regarded as an economic burden. Thus, fewer family resources are invested in daughters than sons. Despite laws that prohibit child marriage, a daughter may be married off at a young age so her parents may receive a dowry payment and so the girl will no longer be their economic responsibility. Some families sell their daughters into the global sex trade (human trafficking) in order to pay debts and survive. Education Boys and girls are educated separately in Afghanistan. The constitution guarantees access to education for all Afghan citizens, but many families refuse to send their daughters to school for fear that they will be attacked or kidnapped. Literacy rates remain among the lowest in the world and less than 15 percent of Afghani women can read and write. Less than half of young girls are enrolled in primary school (compared to approximately 75 percent of boys) and the education gap increases as students move on to secondary school and again in tertiary school (university). Lacking adequate facilities, many classes take place outdoors. Lack of supplies, lack of funding, and lack of female teachers all remain as ongoing challenges, as does the destruction of girls’ schools by members of extremist groups. Providing education to refugee populations has proven particularly challenging.
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Healthcare The average life expectancy for women in Afghanistan is 44 years. Cultural restrictions on birth control contribute to a birth rate of 6.7 live births per woman, the highest in the region, and many pregnancies end in miscarriage. Health concerns are aggravated by malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, and poor sanitation. Many parts of the country—especially rural areas—do not have even basic healthcare services. At present, Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world; approximately 50 Afghani women die each day from pregnancy-related causes. Few women have access to prenatal care and most births take place at home. Access to emergency obstetric care is limited, particularly for women in rural regions who must often travel for days to reach a medical center, clinic, or hospital. Existing facilities are plagued by unsanitary conditions, lack of trained personnel, and inadequate supplies. Many women do not seek care because of social customs that prohibit women from being treated by a male physician. The number of licensed midwives in Afghanistan has tripled since 2001, but affordable, accessible, and effective healthcare remains elusive for most women and girls in Afghanistan. See Also: Contraception, Religious Approaches to; Educational Opportunities/Access; Infant Mortality; Islam; Maternal Mortality; Rape in Conflict Zones; Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights; Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan; Taliban; Veil. Further Readings Ahmed-Gosh, Huma. “A History of Women in Afghanistan.” Journal of International Women’s Studies, v.4/3 (2003). Ayub, Fatima, Sari Kouvo, and Yasmin Sooka. Addressing Gender-Specific Violations in Afghanistan. New York: The International Center for Transitional Justice, 2009. http://www.ictj.org/static/Asia/Afghanistan/ICTJA yub_AFG_AdressingGenderSpecificViolations_pa2009 .pdf (accessed March 2010). Brodsky, Anne E. With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: Routledge, 2004. Mojadidi, Sedika. Motherland Afghanistan. New York: Icarus Films, 2006. Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. http://www.rawa.org (accessed March 2010).
Skaine, Rosemarie. Women of Afghanistan in the PostTaliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan. http://www.rawa.org/temp/ runews/2009/08/12/silence-is-violence-end-the -abuse-of-women-in-afghanistan.html (accessed March 2010). United Nations Development Fund for Women. “Afghanistan.” http://afghanistan.unifem.org (accessed March 2010). Jillian Duquaine-Watson University of Texas, Dallas
African American Muslims Estimates place African American Muslims within the range of 30 percent to 40 percent of American Muslims, with African Americans accounting for the vast majority of Islamic conversions within America. The American Muslim presence can be traced to the transatlantic slave trade; however, evidence suggests that many Muslim slaves eventually assimilated into Christianity. It was not until the 20th century that African Americans began affiliating with Islam in larger numbers. African Americans belonging to mainstream Sunni and Shia communities are accompanied by participants in an array of heterodox Muslim groups and also in Sufi orders. The first African American proto-Muslim organization is thought to be the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), founded in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey, by Noble Drew Ali (1886–1929). Participants in the temple’s National Sisters Auxiliary, founded in 1928, commonly adopt a last name of Bey or El. The temple continues to attract participants, although in smaller numbers. In the 1920s, in Chicago, Illinois, a mission was established to preach Ahmadiyya theology, thought to be heretical by significant Muslim blocks. Ahmadiyyas forged alliances with urban African Americans around issues of racial oppression and poverty. Ahmadiyya Quran translations were widespread among African American Muslims; Ahmadiyya organizational
networks stressing worship, education, and service, became a model for other American Muslim groups. North America Ahmadiyyas remain linked to the organization’s transnational network, headquartered in Qadian, India. The Nation of Islam (NOI), founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1930 by W. D. Fard Muhammad (disappeared 1943), gradually became the largest of early African American Muslim institutions. Under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975), the nation gained national visibility, in particular through publishing and contributions to civil rights discourse. In the 1940s, they began prison ministry. And through a paramilitary wing and rhetoric of black separatism, Nation leaders including Louis Farrakhan (1933– ) came under heavy public scrutiny. The nation also included the popular figures of Malcolm X (1925–65) and Muhammad Ali (1942– ). Before his assassination, the former contributed to pushing nation affiliates toward mainstream Sunni Islam. Within the transnational context of Islamic revivalism, and amidst an influx of Muslim immigrants to the United States, a fraction of the nation shifted orientation toward mainstream Muslim theology and practice. Following the 1975 death of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, nation leadership was taken over by Elijah’s son, the respected Warith (Wallace) Deen Mohammad, (1933–2008). Imam Warith D. Mohammad founded the World Community of Islam in the West (1976), bringing his followers fully into the fold of Sunni Islam. The organization later became the American Muslim Mission (1978) and finally the American Society of Muslims (2002). It is the largest predominately African American Muslim group in the United States, commonly referred to as the Community of Imam W.D. Muhammad. The NOI continues on a smaller scale under the leadership of Minister Farrakhan. Active in public relations for the nation are Tynetta Muhammad, widow of Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and Khadijah Farrakhan, wife of Minister Farrakhan. Recently, Ava Muhammad (1951– ) and Donna Farrakhan Muhammad became recognized leading nation ministers at a time when the majority of Muslim groups in America do not yet recognize the formal leadership of women in mixed-gender congregations. “Mother” Clara Muhammad (1898–1972), wife of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was the brainchild of what is
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at present more than 30 Clara Muhammad Schools and affiliated programs nationwide that teach Islamic curriculum to youth. Offshoots of the Nation of Islam One of several NOI offshoots are the Five Percenters, also known as The Nation of Gods and Earths or Allah’s Nation. Originating in the 1960s in Harlem, New York, this loose association of individuals is represented by artists of notoriety within American hip-hop culture. This new generation is reminiscent of the handful of 20th-century prominent jazz musicians who affiliated with Islam. Also notable, Dar ul-Islam (House of Islam, founded in 1967), began as an African American offshoot of the Brooklyn, New York-based immigrant–run State Street Mosque and Islamic Mission of America. The original Dar ul-Islam, and others that followed, contributed to the spread of Sunni Islamic learning among African American Muslims. The Dar ul-Islam movement was disbanded in the 1980s, with many former members finding their way into Sufism, Shiism, and sectarian groups. African American Muslims have made vital contributions to the academic study of Islam. At present, scholars include Ihsan Bagby, Sherman Jackson, Aminah Beverly McCloud, and Amina Wadud. Prominent female community leaders include Aisha H. L. al-Adawiya, Salemah Abd al-Ghafur, al-Hajjah Khalilah Karim-Rushdan, Ayesha Mustapha, Margaret Sabir-Gillette, and Guendolyn Zohara Simmons. The first national Muslim-oriented sorority, Gamma Gamma Chi, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, was founded in 2005 by Althia Collins. In recent ethnographic accounts, Carolyn Moxley Rouse and Jamillah Karim note concerns for African American Muslim women, including feelings of estrangement from the larger Muslim community and from non-Muslim African Americans. Relations between the sexes are also discussed on levels ranging from the romantic to the theological. Anahita Rashidi and Shireen S. Rajaram together discuss African American Muslim women’s contemporary healthcare needs. Continuing to change American Muslim demographics are influxes of African immigrant Muslims from countries including Somalia, Senegal, and Ethiopia. See Also: Islam; Islam in America; United States; Wadud, Amina; Women in Religion.
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Further Readings Comez, Michael. Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. McCloud, Aminah Beverly. “African American Muslim Women.” In Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, eds., The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Mubashir Majeed, Debra. “Clara Evans Muhammad: Pioneering Social Activism in the Original Nation of Islam.” In Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, eds., The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Smith, Jane I. “Women’s Issues in American Islam.” In Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, eds., The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Celene Lizzio Harvard Divinity School
Aging, Attitudes Toward In 2005, the number of people over age 65 was 13 percent of the population of the United States. According to the Census Bureau, this number will soar to 72 million by 2030 and constitute 20 percent of the population. The U.S. Census Bureau also reports that worldwide the 65-and-older population is projected to triple by 2050 from 516 million in 2009 to 1.53 billion in 2050, constituting approximately 16 percent of the world’s population. Germany, Italy, Japan, and Monaco have the greatest percent of 65 and over in their populations. In these countries, this age cohort makes up 20 percent of the population and by 2050 it is likely that Europe will be the oldest region in the world with 29 percent over 65. In the United States, there were 78 million “boomers” born between 1946 and 1964 and similar to any other stage that this bubble has experienced they are profoundly affecting attitudes and actions toward aging not only in the United States but particularly around the world in developed and developing
nations as well. Boomers are on the run from aging, particularly trying to negate the blatant stereotypes that have haunted older men and women for more than 100 years in the United States. Because so many of the stereotypes still exist and because they are basically negative, the boomer cohort is conscientiously trying to deny that they are aging. Some of this denial works and some is a fantasy that camouflages the reality of getting older. Undeniably, though, there are changes in what mature people think of themselves, what they will need, and what services must be available. Stereotypes The entrenchment of ageism, particularly directed at women, has a long history in the United States. Ageism, a term originally defined by Robert Butler in 1975 is discrimination against older people merely because they are old, similar to racism because of skin color and sexism because of gender. Ageism is so pervasive in U.S. society that we hardly notice anymore the ridiculous way older men and specifically older women are portrayed in advertisements, greeting cards, and frequently on television and in the movies. Ageism also exists in nations that have experienced industrial and technological advances. Even in Asian cultures that have typically held older people in high regard, dramatic changes are occurring that marginalize older adults. As families become increasingly nuclear rather than extended, they become less supportive of the emotional and physical needs of their elders. In some instances, it is not due to a lack of respect for older people but rather an economic and structural framework (such as massive rural to urban population shifts or smaller family sizes) that negates focusing on the older individual and promotes the proliferation of negative stereotypes. The tainting of the image of older people already begins to appear in the United States in popular literature at the end of the 19th century creating and reinforcing the views that an older person should be portrayed as declining, feeble, and certainly not mentally alert. Adding further to the denigration of older people is the loosening of beliefs that the elderly are somehow more closely connected to the eternal. No longer do people fear some kind of retribution or revenge from their elders in the afterlife. Increasingly, developed societies depend more and more on
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Kingdom reports that older people are underrepresented on prime time television (particularly older women) and when older people are portrayed they are depicted by the use of negative stereotypes. Even in such formerly traditional cultures of Asia, it has become challenging to thwart negative stereotypes of the elderly and particularly the effects of poor selfimages adopted by the older population themselves. Repeatedly, older women are targeted as invisible, or “incapable of being seen.” To be invisible is to be either the recipient of a totally stereotypical view or actually not be seen at all. People, particularly men, frequently ignore older women because they are not young, not sex objects, and not capable of fulfilling their major function of reproducing. Often older women are invisible because women’s magazines deny their existence, airbrushing even mature women to make them look 15 to 20 years younger. In many instances, the older woman can only be visible if she is fulfilling a socially prescribed role as a grandmother.
As people live longer in cultures throughout the world, they will have a greater need for services, activities, and involvement.
science and technology and less and less on ancient beliefs channeled through the elderly. In Western countries, stereotypes of older people have continued unabated in print media and with the advent of movies and television. Even more pernicious views are promulgated. With such shows as Bewitched, All in the Family, Rhoda, and more recently Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, and The Sopranos, older women, especially, are portrayed as interfering and usually burdensome and a nuisance. They live in the past and are old fashioned, always lamenting about how much better it used to be. They are often frail, vulnerable, and isolated. Because they appear as foolish and childish, they are risible characters rather than ones to be respected. Commonly, we see older women (and men) as metaphors for disease, worthlessness, and dissatisfaction. The United
Denial of Aging It is not surprising that the boomer cohort in the United States is trying desperately to deny that they are aging because not only don’t they want to internalize the largely negative stereotypes of getting older but research indicates that positive self-views enhance longevity. There is both good news and bad news about their tenacious efforts to remain young. Unquestionably, people are living longer than ever. Thirty years have been added to the average American life span since 1900. After 65, a man can now expect to live 16.5 years longer and a woman can expect 19.5 years. On average, men and women now have 14 disability-free years after 65. Life expectancy for females is even higher than the United States in Japan (86.1 years), Hong Kong (85.1), Switzerland (84.2), Spain (84.2), Australia (83.6), and Sweden (83.0). There are widely used medicines for cholesterol and high blood pressure that help to prevent heart attacks and strokes until later years. In developed nations, deaths from heart attacks and strokes are occurring more in people’s 80s than in their 60s or 70s. There are disease-modifying drugs for ailments such as osteoporosis and interventions for colon and lung cancer. Not only can people feel healthier longer but they also have more money than their parents did at the same age. In the United States, they are also more
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highly educated than the previous generation with 25 percent of boomers holding a college degree. However, along with the good news are some warning signs that may alter a person’s ability to remain young. One area of concern is the growing obesity problem in the United States, with onethird obese and two-thirds of the population overweight. Obesity is increasingly becoming a problem in nations that have adopted American food choices such as fast foods. All the diseases associated with obesity as well as greater hearing loss from Walkmans, iPods (one in six boomers), dementia, arthritis, and drug-resistant bacteria may work against the eternal search for youth. Because there is no real elixir of youth yet (a 60-year-old body is still 60 years old), people turn to the external possibilities to remain forever young. Numerous media stars such as Sharon Stone and Michelle Pfeiffer in the United States promulgate the notion that if you maintain the right regimen you can hide aging. Consequently, there are billion-dollar businesses in plastic surgery, skin treatments, and exercise techniques mainly directed toward women. It becomes the woman’s fault if she is unwilling to look youthful. Television is replete with advertisements giving advice about how to stay young and vigorous. Any problems of aging can be medicalized, such as by taking estrogen. Adventure travel organizations promote active seniors who are hiking and skiing. The Over the Hill Gang, an organization for age 55-and-older skiers in the United States, has as its motto, “When you’re over the hill you pick up speed.” In 2009, Elderhostel, an educational travel program for seniors, renamed itself Exploritas. Thus, the new paradigm for aging becomes never to be old or especially never to act old. And yet, women and men as they age do have less stamina. Or if they want to work and/or need to work they may not be able to find a job because they’re competing with the young who are much more technologically adept than they are. All the conflicting messages may make older people feel worse about themselves because they blame themselves for not transforming their bodies to stop the aging process. Positive Developments Despite all the complexities, though, aging is and will be different in the 21st century. Countries around
the world will have to cope with an aging population that is more urban based. What will be their needs, their contributions, and their issues? Society, at this point, doesn’t quite know what do with older people and what role they should play. As people live longer in cultures throughout the world and become a greater proportion of each country’s demographics, they will make more demands for services, activities, and involvement. In the United States, boomers want more stimulation and more involvement than their parents did and will be attaining this through programs such as Osher Institute in universities throughout the United States, catering to age 55 and older learners. Programs are developing that also require mature individuals to commit to community involvement such as Sherry Lansing’s PrimeTime, which links the Los Angeles Unified School District with seniors who can teach their expertise. Rosabeth Kanter has a new program at Harvard University for older people who develop theses to change the world. And President Barack Obama, as part of the Americorps Bill, has allotted $5.7 billion for education awards to seniors. There is no question countries will be experiencing transformative times due to the increase in their older populations. Undoubtedly, the attitudes toward mature adults will continue to change depending upon their demands on resources. Their sheer numbers will force policy adaptations around the world. See Also: Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Grandmothers; Representation of Women; Stereotypes of Women; Women’s Magazines. Further Readings Freedman, Marc. Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life. New York: Public Affairs, 2007. Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997. International Federation on Aging Conference. http:// www.ifa-fiv.org (accessed June 2010). Pearsall, Marilyn, ed. The Other Within Us: Feminist Explorations of Women and Aging. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997. Myrna A. Hant University of California, Los Angeles
Albania Formerly a member of the Soviet Union, the southeastern European nation of Albania has a long history of foreign alliances. Since becoming independent in the early 1990s, Albania has been plagued with high unemployment (12 percent), extensive corruption, organized crime, and outdated infrastructures. Albanians (95 percent) dominate ethnically, and those of Greek origin make up the largest minority group. Some diversity exists in religion, but 70 percent of the population are Muslim. Women’s Rights: An Uphill Struggle Albania remains a male-dominated society, and in northeastern Albania, many males endorse the traditional Kanun code, which mandates male superiority. Since the 1990s, there has been some progress in women’s rights, but major discrimination of Balkan Egyptians, Roma (gypsies), and homosexuals continues. Forced marriages are still an issue in Albania, and according to a 2004 United Nations report, 8 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are married, divorced, or widowed. Fathers are given custody of children in four out of every five divorce cases. According to inheritance laws, wives may inherit 50 percent of property, but male family members are usually granted ownership of family-owned land. As a result of religious and cultural dictates coupled with economic pressures, many women are reluctant to exercise their rights. However, nongovernmental organizations, including some international women’s rights groups, are proving to be a valuable resource for women needing assistance. Although women can seek divorces, some are forced to continue residing in their former husbands’ homes because they cannot afford to live on their own. Prostitution is illegal, but trafficking and abduction for sexual purposes was not against the law until 2001. Albania still leads southeastern Europe in female trafficking. Rape is now illegal, but it often goes unreported because of the perceived dishonor to victims’ families. In 2005, a survey conducted by the United States State Department revealed that 64 percent of respondents reported had been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused. The following year, under pressure from the Women’s Legal Rights Project, the government expanded laws against domestic violence. Abortions
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are free at public hospitals, and women now have the right to sue for sexual harassment on the job. Economic and Health Metrics In 2009, Albania’s per capita income was reported at $6,200. Although 47 percent of Albanians live in urban areas, 58 percent of the work force are still involved in agriculture, largely in near subsistence farming. Fifty-seven percent of rural residents are female, and 70 percent of women who work are employed in agriculture. In rural areas, four out of five people live in poverty. Women are also disproportionately affected by unemployment, and they generally earn 20 percent less than males. Only 18 percent of business managers are female. Albania ranks 107th in the world in infant mortality, with a rate of 18.62 deaths per 1,000 live births. Female infants (18.15) have an advantage over males (19.05). That survival rate widens in adulthood, and females have a life expectancy of 80.89 years as compared to 75.28 for males. The median age for females is 30.6 years. Albanian women have a fertility rate of 2.01 children. Males (99.2 percent) are more likely to be literate than females (98.3 percent), but all Albanians typically attend school for 11 years. However, educational levels are lower in rural areas. In 1999, the Albanian National Women’s Report stated that although gender discrimination was illegal in Albania, many women continued to face obstacles when seeking employment, business, credit, health, and social services. Despite ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and a promise to improve women’s lives, feminists insisted that not enough had been done to address gender inequities. Women’s political representation has declined since the 1970s, when females occupied 20 percent of national legislative seats. In 2008, women held only nine of 140 seats in the People’s Assembly, and two women sat on the Council of Ministers. Women are also poorly represented at local levels. The attention paid to women’s issues in the 1990s produced mixed results. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Divorce; Domestic Violence; Government, Women in; Marriages, Arranged; Property Rights; Rape, Legal Definitions of.
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Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “Albania.” The World Factbook. www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/al.html (accessed February 2010). Ciuli, Diana. “Women in Albania: Opportunities and Obstacles.” Mediterranean Review,. v.3/2 (1996). International Fund for Agricultural Development. “Albania Gender Profile.” www.ifad.org/english/gender /cen/profiles/alb.htm (accessed February 2010). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status Of Women in 140 Countries. New York: Random House, 1997. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Albania.” Social Institutions and Gender Index. http://genderindex.org/country/albania (accessed February 2010). Post, Susan E. Pritchett. Women in Modern Albania: Firsthand Accounts of Culture and Conditions From Over 200 Interviews. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1998. United States Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Albania.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/ hrrpt/2008/eur/119064.htm (accessed February 2010). Women’s World. “Albania: Gender and Women’s Human Rights Issues.” Women’s World, v.36/30 (2002).
practicing Episcopalian, she discovered in adulthood that she was of Jewish heritage and that many of her Jewish relatives had perished during the Holocaust. She lived in Belgrade, Switzerland, and London before her family moved to New York and then settled in Colorado. In 1959, she married Joseph Albright and they had three daughters. Twins Anna and Alice were born in 1961 and Katherine was born in 1967. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1982 and she continued to raise her daughters as a single mother. She earned a B.A. in political science from Wellesley College (1959). She went on to attend Columbia University and earned an M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1976) in public law and government. In 1976, Albright was a coordinator for Maine senator Edward Muskie’s unsuccessful presidential campaign. She became his chief legislative assistant after the campaign and was asked to be a legislative liaison for the National Security Council. Albright became a research professor of international affairs and the
Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
Albright, Madeleine Madeleine Albright is best known for her service as United States secretary of state. She was the first woman to hold this position. This was the highest federal government rank held by a woman at the time. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, she became a crucial figure in international relations, representing the interests of the United States. In the early 21st century, she continues to be involved in politics, education, and global economics. Born May 15, 1937, as Marie Jana Körbelova, she was the first child of father Josef Körbel and mother Anna. Her father, a Czech diplomat, sought political asylum for his family in the United States in 1948. Albright became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1957. Raised as a Roman Catholic but now a
As the U.S. secretary of state, Albright began a peace mission in the Middle East and worked on Israeli–Palestinian relations.
al-Faiz, Norah
director of women students in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1982, where she taught both undergraduate and graduate courses and worked to create programs that would provide women more opportunities in international affairs. She became the president of the Center for National Policy in 1989. In 1992, Albright was presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s senior foreign policy advisor before serving as the 20th U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997. President Clinton nominated her for secretary of state on December 5, 1996. The U.S. Senate unanimously voted to confirm the nomination. On January 23, 1997, she was sworn in as the 64th secretary of state and was the first female to hold this post. Her tenure as the U.S. secretary of state was held during the second Clinton cabinet from 1997 to 2001. As the secretary of state, Albright began a peace mission in the Middle East, including work on Israeli– Palestinian relations. She also supported the use of U.S. forces to prevent genocide in countries such as Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Rwanda, and supported the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. She was chair of the Council of Women World Leaders Women’s Ministerial Initiative until November 2007. In 2001, Albright created her own international consulting firm, Albright Group, LLC. She entered this venture in order to help establish a middle class in new markets and is involved in private fund management. Her expertise and international connections has allowed her to raise over $300 million to invest in emerging markets. During the Obama administration, Madeleine Albright would become a top informal advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and also a top advisor on national security for U.S. President Barack Obama. Albright would continue to serve on the Georgetown University faculty and on the board of several organizations, both educational and political. See Also: Economics, Women in; Government, Women in; Heads of State, Female; Representation of Women in Government, International; Representation of Women in Government, United States. Further Readings Albright, Madeleine. Madam Secretary: A Memoir. New York: Miramax Books, 2003.
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Albright, Madeleine. The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Albright, Madeleine. Read My Pins: Stories From a Diplomat’s Jewel Box. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Alishia Huntoon Oregon Institute of Technology
al-Faiz, Norah Norah al-Faiz is Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister for Women’s Education. She is the first woman to hold a cabinet ministry position in the country’s history. Her appointment was widely hailed as evidence of King Abdullah’s reformist goals, but some feminists, skeptical of how much power will actually be given to a woman, caution against seeing the appointment as the beginning of significant advances in women’s rights. al-Faiz also has been careful not to present herself as a challenger of Saudi conservatism. al-Faiz graduated from King Saud University in Riyadh in 1978 with a baccalaureate degree in sociology. She did graduate work in the United States, earning a master’s in education from Utah State University in 1982. She worked as a teacher in Saudi Arabia before moving into school administration. al-Faiz served as head principal of the girls’ section at Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Schools and as controller of education techniques at the Institute of Private Education under the Ministry of Education. Before her appointment to the new ministry position, al-Faiz was the director general of the women’s section at the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh, a position she had held since 2001. al-Faiz is married and has five children, two daughters and three sons. Reformers welcomed the appointment of al-Faiz to the highest position ever achieved by a woman in Saudi Arabia, but Wajeha al-Huwaider, writer and activist, suggested that al-Faiz’s appointment was a small step. Banned from publishing because of her championship of women’s rights, al-Huwaider noted that Saudi Arabia still maintains a guardianship system that requires women to have the permission of a male relative to work, travel, study, marry, or gain access to healthcare and other public services. In
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2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council urged the Saudi government to allow women these basic rights and not have agencies secure male permission on their behalf. al-Faiz’s early pronouncements signal that she expects to accommodate to the existing system. It was not until 2002 that female education was placed under the administration of the Ministry of Education, a move that sparked considerable protest from Islamic fundamentalists. Although al-Faiz said her position as deputy minister is an achievement for all Saudi women and expects women to have access to her office, she also has announced that she will wear a veil, use video technology to meet with male colleagues, and appear on television only with her minister’s permission. She refused to have a photograph taken for Time magazine when the publication named her among 2009’s most influential people in the world. She has said that her concern is with women’s education, and even within the parameters of that field, al-Faiz has refused to support the call for sports in girls schools. She has reiterated her belief in gradual reform and her unease with hasty action. See Also: Representation of Women; Representation of Women in Government, International; Saudi Arabia. Further Readings Cheney, Liz. “Norah al-Faiz: The 2009 Time 100.” http:// www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article /0,28804,1894410_1893847_1893841,00.html (accessed March 2010). Haque, Dr. Mozammel. “Education and Women in Saudi Arabia.” Islamic Monitor. http://islamicmonitor. blogspot.com/2009/04/education-and-women-in -saudi-arabia.html (accessed March 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University
Algeria After winning independence from France in 1962, the north African nation of Algeria was led by the National Liberation Front for three decades. The election of
1991 led to an insurgency that lasted until 1998, causing the deaths of more than 100,000 people. Since then, the Algerian government has been plagued with extensive unemployment (12.4 percent), a housing shortage, unstable infrastructures, and widespread corruption. Some 65 percent of the population is urbanized, and the economy is heavily dependent on industry (62.5 percent). With a per capita income of $7,100, almost a fourth of the population lives in poverty. There is neither ethnic nor religious diversity—99 percent of the population is Arab-Berber, and the state religion is Sunni Muslim (99 percent). The Algerian constitution stipulates that women are minors who need male protection, and wives are forbidden to venture outside the home without permission, thus restricting women’s abilities to work and travel. Despite this, the number of working women continues to rise. Men can divorce their wives at will, evicting their wives and children from the family home while retaining control over their children’s lives. Inheritance laws grant women only half as much as that given to men; however, some families circumvent the law by giving daughters money outright. In addition to inherent gender discrimination, Algeria has a major problem with domestic violence and trafficking. In 2008, women held only 30 of 389 seats in the national assembly, and there were just three women in the cabinet. Women continued to be active in party politics, however; for example, the Workers Party was led by a woman. Although nongovernmental organizations are required to register by law, unlicensed women’s groups continue to openly lobby for women’s rights. Extremist militants who have aligned themselves with al-Qaida have conducted an ongoing campaign of kidnapping and bombings. In response to political changes, Islamic influence has been steadily increasing in Algeria, and women are still bound by the 1984 Family Code, which is derived from Shari`a law. Because they are treated as minors, women rights are subjugated to those of male guardians. Technically, men can have up to four wives, but polygamy has become rare in actual practice. In 2003, some progress was made when the government agreed to expand women’s rights under an amended Family Code and appointed a Ministry of Women’s Affairs. However, women still need the consent of male guardians to marry, and they are forbidden to marry non-Algerian men.
Ali, Laila
Algeria has an infant mortality rate of 27.73 deaths per 1,000 live births. Female infants (24.45) have an advantage over boys (30.86) that continues throughout life, resulting in a life expectancy of 75.77 years for women and 72.35 years for men. The median age for women is 26.8 years. Algerians have a fertility rate of 1.79 children. With literacy, the advantage shifts to men, who have a literacy rate of 79.8 compared with 60.1 for women. Officially, all Algerians attend school for 13 years, but women now outnumber men in urban colleges and universities. Neither domestic violence nor spousal rape is illegal, and women who become victims of domestic violence receive little help from officials. Most cases are not reported because of social pressures and the need to provide a medical certificate before charges can be filed. Counseling is provided only by nongovernmental organization. Prostitution is a growing problem, and many young women have been kidnapped by militants and kept as sex slaves; the government has refused to cooperate with United Nations officials who have tried to intervene. Some progress has been made in the area of sexual harassment, however, which is now punishable by both imprisonment and fines. See Also: Domestic Violence; Shari`a Law; Trafficking. Further Readings Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Algeria.” www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/ag.html (accessed February 2010). Skaine, Rosemarie. Women Political Leaders in Africa. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Social Institutions and Gender Index. “Gender Equality and Social Institutions: Algeria.” http://genderindex .org/country/algeria (accessed February 2010). Tripp, Alili Mari, et al. African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. U.S. State Department. “2008 Human Rights Report: Algeria.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /nea/119112.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
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Ali, Laila Laila Ali is an accomplished and undefeated boxer who currently holds both the Women’s International Boxing Association and the International Women’s Boxing Federation belts. Aside from her accomplishments in the ring, 5-foot, 10-inch and 160-pound Ali is the youngest daughter of boxing legend Muhammad Ali. As a tribute to her boxing icon father, Laila Ali is known as Laila “She Bee Stingin’” Ali. Ali is the most recognized female boxer nationally and internationally. Currently, she is the second boxer to hold the International Women’s Boxing Federal Super Middleweight title, the second to hold the Women in Boxing Association World Super Middleweight title, and the first woman to hold the World Boxing Council Female World Super Middle title. In addition to being a boxing champion, Ali is a humanitarian, reality television star, wife, and mother. Born on December 30, 1977, in Miami Beach, Florida, to her celebrated boxing dad, Ali grew up around boxing but was not always headed to the ring. It wasn’t until she was 18 that she saw a women’s boxing match on television and found her calling. Three years later, at 21, Ali made her boxing debut against April Fowler at the Turning Stone Casino Convention Center on the Oneida Indian Nation in Verona, New York. She won that fight, easily knocking out Fowler in the first round. After winning her next eight matches, Ali stepped out of her father’s shadow and proved to boxing fans and the general public that she was a boxer in her own right. She won her first International Boxing Association title after knocking out Suzette Taylor in 2002. That match also named her Fighter of the Month by Women Boxing Archive Network. One of the most anticipated matches in recent boxing history came with Ali’s fight against Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, daughter of the renowned fighter Joe Frazier, who was a fierce rival of Muhammed Ali. Many in the boxing world remembered the fierce rivalry of the two champions and viewed a match between their daughters as a grudge match between two great fighting families. In fact, the fight was called Ali vs. Frazier IV, a reference to the three boxing matches between their fathers. On June 8, 2001, Ali beat Frazier in an eight-round majority decision, firmly cementing the younger Ali in boxing history. The match was the first time in pay-per-view history that a women’s boxing
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fight was not only the main event but was shown to a sold-out crowd with more than 8,000 people in attendance. Ali remains undefeated, with a 24-match record, 21 of them as knockouts. Ali is about more than boxing. At 18, she was the owner and operator of a nail salon, and later attended Santa Monica College and earned a degree in business management before purchasing a shop selling balloons and Halloween masks. In addition, Ali uses her name and celebrity status to call attention to her charity work and fund-raising efforts. She is involved with the Women’s Sports Foundation, which encourages girls and women to actively participate in sports and physical activities. Ali has been active in helping to raise money for the organization and was named to their board of trustees. Further, Ali has partnered with Uncle Ben’s rice to coordinate the Fighting Childhood Hunger campaign. She’s also helped organize and cook for children of the Boys and Girls Club in the San Fernando Valley Kids Café. Ali publicly supports the American Diabetes Association in their efforts to curb childhood obesity and diabetes as well as ONE, a grassroots campaign of more than 2 million people committed to end poverty across the world. Ali is pursuing various other media opportunities spanning TV shows, commercials, video, and even a documentary. She is currently the host of the new American Gladiators TV and game show with famed wrestler Hulk Hogan, and she recently joined the cast of CBS The Early Show as a contributing correspondent. In 2007, Ali was on the wildly popular reality television show Dancing With the Stars where she made it to the finals and came in third. She was an early host of The N’s Student Body, a reality TV show featuring teenagers on their quest to live a healthy lifestyle, and appeared on an episode of the children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba. Ali has been featured in numerous commercials and advertising campaigns for such high-profile companies as the Got Milk? campaign, Adidas and Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion. As a fitness expert, Ali has appeared in many magazine articles relating her experiences and knowledge about health and fitness. In addition, Ali created a cardio workout video with another well-known boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard, that showcases her fitness skills. Most recently, Ali starred with her famous father in the documentary Daddy’s Girl.
In August 2000, Ali married her former manager, Johnny McClain. That marriage ended in divorce and she later married former NFL player Curtis Conway. She is a stepmother to three children and mother to a son, Curtis Muhammad Conway. See Also: Boxing; Reality Television; Sports,Women in. Further Readings Ali, Laila. Reach! Finding Strength, Spirit and Personal Power. New York: Hyperion Books, 2003. Montoya, Delilah. Women Boxers: The New Warriors. Houston, TX: Arte Público Press, 2006. Picket, Lynn Snowden. Looking for a Fight: A Memoir. New York: Dial Press, 2000. Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University
Alternative Education Alternative education is founded on feminist strategies among other theoretical models. In the 1970s, feminists challenged traditional education both for the gender inequalities practiced there and for its more masculine-oriented hierarchal structure. Since then, education has been critiqued from multiple perspectives, so alternative education takes many forms. Feminist pedagogy tends to challenge traditional teaching models and posits further that education should be used as a vehicle for empowering those who are oppressed by building community and developing leadership abilities. Gender Equality in Education In 1992, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) made a media splash when it published the report How Schools Shortchange Girls. The AAUW argued that conventional math and science curriculum, biased standardized tests and typical school environments do not account for girls’ special concerns and deprive them of equal access to education. A number of books released in the 1990s documented the psychological and educational neglect girls suffered in schools. They documented lower self-esteem among girls as well as higher depression
and they noted that teachers tend to call on girls less often in class and tend to give girls less and lower quality feedback. Nationwide, there is some indication that some early feminist concerns are more tolerated. Girls are being called on more and getting better quality and frequent feedback from teachers. There has not been much change in the structure of most mainstream educational institutions, however. Families interested in alternative education models still need to go elsewhere to find those alternatives. Nonetheless, since the mid-1990s, some writers have asserted that boys rather than girls are at a disadvantage in mainstream education as a result of the contemporary focus on girls. Christina Hoff Sommers’ best-selling 2000 book, The War Against Boys, laments that statistically boys are worse off than girls in a number of critical areas. Boys are behind girls in college enrollment; they are more likely to be suspended or expelled and drop out of school; they also are more likely to be designated for special education placement and diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Sommers blames feminists for attributing pathological disorders associated with male behavior. Other books blame schools for not meeting boys’ needs; boys brains, they argue, are constructed differently than girls. These accusations are curious because little has changed in most educational institutions. In mainstream education, classes still tend to be teacher centered; students take exams and are assessed at the end of the term with grades; competition is used as a motivating force such that students compete for grades, in athletics, and for any distinction a given school might offer; and discipline and punishment are de rigueur— students need to ask if they can go to the bathroom, they are not permitted to leave the building without school passes and they are threatened with in- or outof-school suspensions or even expelled for committing school infractions. These types of hierarchal, competitive, and punitive practices are more often associated with masculine behaviors and values. Thus, George Lakoff ’s model of political metaphors provides a relevant framework for looking at mainstream and alternative education. Lakoff, a linguist, laid out a groundbreaking theory of the differences between conservative and liberal thought in the United States. Characterizing the state as a figurative “parent” and citizens as “children,”
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Lakoff argues that ideologies of the conservatives and liberals (mainstream and alternative, respectively) are founded on different models of morality as applied to raising families. He calls these approaches the “strict father” and the “nurturant parent.” The strict father model is based on the notion that children need to learn right from wrong by setting strict rules for their behavior and enforcing them through punishment. By contrast, the nurturant parent model is founded on cooperation and interdependence. Its values relating to caring and interaction are most closely associated with femininity. In keeping with a liberal framework, Lakoff adopted the genderneutral term nurturant parent for this model. Alternative Models Families interested in alternative education need still to look outside mainstream education for an “alternative” to the strict-father model of education prevalent in schools nationwide. Alternative education varies in emphasis but is often framed around values more commonly associated with being feminine including helping students bond with one another, fostering cooperation rather than competition, and creating community. Discipline tends to be less punishmentoriented—alternative schools more often prioritize social services and other counseling or creative conflict resolution programs. For instance, Bank Street College of Education in New York City, which is world renowned for training teachers in alternative models of education focuses on helping teachers and students work collaboratively. The Bank Street School for Children elementary school focuses on teaching students to read critically by introducing texts from social justice leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.; athletics are noncompetitive; and students work in small groups as they explore their own curiosities and interests while simultaneously connecting with other students, teachers, and the external urban environment. Exams and grades are deemphasized and discipline is generally handled informally. Punishment is relatively rare. Creating community and support among students, teachers, and parents are hallmarks of their program. Mainstream schools in Denmark tend to be deviate even more significantly from mainstream education in the United States than this country’s own alternative schools. Students there tend to stay with the same
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class and teacher for their first six grades to foster connections among students and with a particular teacher; they are not assessed by grades or exams; they work with one another collaboratively in groups; and punishment is not used to foster discipline. Instead the relationship between parents and the teacher and the teacher and the students address issues relating to assessment, achievement, and order. Analysis of Alternative Education Writers like Christina H. Sommers would likely consider these alternative environments antimale in that they do not support competition, authority, or conventional models of discipline. She, like similar writers concerned about the impact of contemporary education on males, believes there should be more competition not less in schools and that students should be forced to grapple with more stress. She criticized, for instance, circle games and other cooperative activities when she appeared on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in April 2005. Sommers also writes that the anti-bullying programs that try to create more empathic relationships among children are shielding them too much from the challenges they need to face to develop self-reliance. In fact however, most American schools rely more on the strict-father model to contend with bullying. Zero tolerance policies are ubiquitous in mainstream education whereby students are suspended for even minor infractions associated with violence. More community oriented alternative anti-bullying programs are more often found in European countries where Norway first unleashed the five-track method and later the Zero Programme at the turn of the century—both of which focus on helping all people involved in bullying incidents (bully, victim, bystanders, teachers, parents); programs across the Atlantic tend to work to create more supportive school environments overall. In contrast to Sommers’ perspective, other writers contend that boys and girls both are having difficulties in school precisely because of the more masculine-oriented expectations there. Michael Kimmel, for instance, writes that boys are gay-bashed or nerdbashed for achieving academically. Names associated with performing well in school—such as “geek” and “bookworm”—don’t tend to confer masculinity status, and this contributes to boys avoiding academic success in favor of demonstrating their burgeoning manhood. Girls often get the message in more tra-
ditional environments that being attractive to boys is more important than being academically sophisticated; and both boys and girls often underperform academically to improve their social status. Alternative education offers an alternative to the conventional social, academic, athletic, and learning environments found in conventional schools. Ideally, alternative education creates an environment that supports boys and girls alike and helps everyone collaboratively work together to build knowledge, critical thinking, authentic connections, healthy self-esteem, as well as a love and passion for learning. See Also: Children’s Rights; Denmark; Educational Opportunities/Access; Feminism, American; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural. Further Readings Gurian, M. Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Klein, J. “America Is From Mars, Europe Is From Venus: How the United States Can Learn From Europe’s Social Work Response to School Shootings.” School Social Work Journal, v.30/1 (2005). Lakoff, G. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don’t. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Pipher, M. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002. Sadker M. and Sadker, D. Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls. Princeton, NJ: Scribner, 1995. Sommers, C. H. The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men. Princeton, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Jessica Klein
Adelphi University
Amanpour, Christiane Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s former chief international correspondent and host of the news show Amanpour, is one of the highest-paid, most recognized women in television news worldwide, following her more than two decades at CNN, spent covering nearly every major conflict, disaster, and event of
global significance. She has produced many in-depth documentaries for CNN, including God’s Warriors, about the three largest monotheistic religions, and Where Have All the Parents Gone?, about children orphaned by AIDS. Amanpour also held a contract with CBS from 1996 to 2005, providing five stories each year to the news show 60 Minutes. Amanpour was born January 12, 1958, in London to a British, Catholic mother and a Muslim, Iranian father. Shortly afterward, the family moved to Tehran, where Amanpour’s father was an airline executive. Amanpour has said that she and her three younger sisters had a privileged childhood. She began attending Catholic boarding schools in England when she was 11 years old. Her worldview changed drastically, however, when in 1979, her family was forced to flee Iran and her uncle died during the Islamic Revolution. At the time, Amanpour had been struggling to choose a career path. Although she had hoped to become a physician, she did not have the grades. Her younger sister had withdrawn suddenly from a journalism program, and when the school refused to refund the tuition, Amanpour enrolled in her sister’s place. After completing the program, Amanpour moved to Providence to study journalism at the University of Rhode Island. During summer vacations in England, she worked for BBC Radio’s The World Tonight. In Providence, Amanpour held an internship, working as a reporter, anchor, and producer with WBRU-Radio and working briefly as an electronic graphics designer for NBC-affiliate WJAR-TV. Amanpour graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts from the University of Rhode Island in 1983 and applied for a job at an organization that was nearly as new to journalism as she was—CNN. She was hired as a desk assistant and arrived in Atlanta with a bicycle, about $100, and a plan to become a foreign correspondent. When Amanpour was told that she was not broadcast material—her hair was too dark, her name too hard to pronounce, and her accent too foreign—she replied, “Just you wait.” Today, she tells students and aspiring journalists to find their way around the many “nos” they are likely to encounter at the start of their own careers. In 1985, just two years after starting at CNN, Amanpour helped the network with its series, “Iran: In the Name of God,” which won CNN its first Dupont Award. In 1989, Amanpour applied for an
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opening at CNN’s bureau in Frankfurt, Germany, where she began as an international correspondent before volunteering to cover the Persian Gulf War. Amanpour quickly became known for her willingness to take physical and professional risks, continually placing herself and her sources in uncomfortable situations. Former president Bill Clinton did not hide his anger after Amanpour asked him, on camera, how he could “flip-flop” on the situation in Bosnia, and former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hung up during a live interview after she asked him a pointed question about suicide bombings. In 1998, Amanpour married James Rubin, then spokesman for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and they had a son, Darius John Rubin, in 2000. In September 2009, Amanpour began hosting Amanpour, based in New York. The 30-minute show was produced for about 240 million households worldwide, each day,
Amanpour has earned many awards, including four Peabody Awards, nine Emmys, and an Edward R. Murrow Award.
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on CNN International. A compilation from the best of that week’s shows was broadcast as one 60-minute program to U.S. audiences, airing on Sundays. In 2010, she left CNN to join ABC. Amanpour’s work has earned many awards, including four Peabody Awards, nine Emmy awards, two Polk Awards, three DuPont-Columbia Awards, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. Forbes has named Amanpour one of its 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2009, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II named Amanpour a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Amanpour also has received honorary degrees from the American University of Paris, Georgetown University, New York University, Smith University, Emory University, and the University of Michigan. The city of Sarajevo named Amanpour an honorary citizen. See Also: Film Production, Women in; Iran; Journalists, Broadcast Media; United Kingdom; Working Mothers. Further Readings Ferrari, Michelle. Reporting America at War: An Oral History. New York: Hyperion, 2003. Gutgold, Nichola. Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. Carolyn Edy University of North Carolina
AMBER Alert The AMBER Alert system is a method of informing the public about missing and abducted children used in the United States and Canada. The acronym AMBER stands for America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response. The more commonly recognized association is with Amber Hagerman, a 9-yearold girl who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas. The AMBER alert system began in the United States and spread to countries around the world where it’s known by other names, including Australia, France, Ireland, Malaysia, and the Netherlands. The system has been widely claimed to have saved lives, yet some believe that the information reporting the number of lives saved is skewed.
Children are taught to avoid strangers, but an abductor is often a relative or someone the child knows.
Amber Hagerman was riding her bike in a parking lot with her brother in Arlington, Texas, on January 13, 1996, when she was abducted. Eyewitness testimony reported seeing a man in a pickup truck drag Amber into his truck. The police were called and an investigation began immediately. The Arlington and neighboring communities searched for the missing girl for four days. Her body was found in a ditch, with her throat slit. Despite an arduous investigation and a $75,000 reward for information, Amber Hagerman’s abductor and killer has never been found. Her parents founded the People Against Sex Offenders organization (PASO) after their daughter’s death. The goal of PASO was to compel the Texas legislature into development tougher laws protecting children from sex offenders. The outcome of her parents’ efforts and congressional representation from their district was realized when then president Bill Clinton signed into law a bill the created the national sex offender registry list, which requires all sex offenders to register their address and give the community notice when sex offenders are moving into their area. Websites have also been developed to allow for a search by name, street, or within a particular zip code to locate registered sex offenders. An AMBER alert is essentially an electronic system that is activated when a child is believed to have been abducted. Pertinent information about the child and alleged abductor is distributed using various outlets. Examples of these
American Association of University Women
include LED billboards, highway and traffic condition signs, television and radio stations, satellite radio, and more recently e-mails and text messages on cell phones. There are also states that allow a display of the alert across the front of lottery terminals. To alleviate an abundance of false alarms, there have been activation criteria developed. The United States Department of Justice has established four conditions that should be met before issuing an AMBER alert. Those are that law enforcement officials have determined that abduction has occurred; the child in question should be under the age of 17; there should be risk of injury or death present; and there should be descriptive information of the alleged abductor and/ or their vehicle and the victim that would make it feasible that they could be located. While these guidelines have been put in place to maintain the integrity of the system, there remains some controversy over its actual effectiveness. Much of the controversy over the AMBER alert system stems from its reported success rate. Researchers have found that the alert system plays an insignificant role in the return of children. In fact, they claim that many of the cases where children were returned were usually a case of miscommunication between family members and custody disputes. Some claim that there can be no true statement of whether or not a life was actually saved in these cases as there is no way to know what might have happened. Proponents for a notification system for abducted children take issue with the number of false alarms or cases when the guidelines set forth by the U.S. Department of Justice were not adhered to. They are rightfully concerned that the public and surrounding community may become desensitized to the alerts if they are sent out too frequently, particularly via text and e-mail messages, thereby decreasing their effectiveness altogether. Still others worry that highway and street traffic boards may cause congestion and possibly vehicular accidents as drivers may become overly distracted. While some call for the AMBER alerts to be used sparingly, others believe that the guidelines are sometimes followed too strictly and may potentially lead to the death of a child. For instance, law enforcement officials not being able to confirm that the child is in immediate danger may result in those officials not issuing an AMBER alert, which may result in the injury or death to a minor.
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While there remains issues with the alert system that need to be addressed, there is evidence that the earlier law enforcement agencies and the community are aware of a missing child, the greater the likelihood that the child will be returned home and the less likely they will be hurt or murdered. This is but one tool of many to return abducted children home safely. See Also: Canada; Child Abuse, Victims of: Trafficking, Women and Children; United States. Further Readings Code Amber News Service. “The Web’s AMBER Alert System.” http://www.codeamber.org (accessed April 2010). Snow, Robert L. Child Abduction: Prevention, Investigation, and Recovery. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. “AMBER Alert. America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response.” http://www.amberalert.gov (accessed April 2010). Leesha Thrower Northern Kentucky University
American Association of University Women The American Association of University Women (AAUW), a not-for-profit organization, operates at the national, state, and local levels, with 100,000 members,1,000 branches, and 500 college/university partners nationwide. AAUW was founded in 1881, initially incorporated as the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, and then was named AAUW in 1921. Since its early beginnings, AAUW has served as an influential lobbying body furthering gender equity causes. AAUW’s mission, “to advance equity for women and girls though advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research,” captures the organization’s overreaching purpose and its historical roots. AAUW’s origins can be traced to skepticism common in the 1880s among America’s founding colleges regarding women’s place in the academy. Women’s early 1880s collegiate clubs, working to debunk a myth that higher education harmed women’s health, served
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as a precursor to AAUW’s charting. Operationalized among a small group of women who defied the odds by earning college degrees, AAUW has since extended a strategic platform to secure women’s and girl’s academic and civic rights AAUW’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C., ground its political footprint and its educational outreach work. Early AAUW initiatives included promoting the appointment of women to foreign service and advocating for women’s reproductive freedoms. In 1938, AAUW issued The Living Wage for College Women, a seminal document exposing sex discrimination in higher education. AAUW continues to publish important research on gender equity concerns influential to educational policy. The 1992 AAUW report, “How Schools Shortchange Girls,” exposed how girls in grades K–12 receive an inferior education to boys. Although its methodology and findings were subsequently challenged, the report nonetheless advanced concrete strategies to overcome these alleged shortcomings. More recently, Where the Girls Are (published in 2008), scrutinizes 35 years of educational practices, indicating socioeconomic climate as fundamental to children’s school success. Globally, AAUW holds permanent observer status with the United Nations, partners with CARE in fighting worldwide poverty, and assists AAUW branches in advocating the ratification of CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. AAUW transitioned to 501c3 tax-exempt status in 2009, enabling it to function as a charitable and educational corporation. Under its current governance structure, AAUW oversees the Educational Fund, Legal Advocacy Fund, and Leadership and Training Institute. The Educational Fund administers fellowship, grant, and research projects and sponsors educational symposia and conferences; the Legal Advocacy Fund provides financial assistance to persons litigating sexual discrimination in higher education; and the Leadership and Training Institute promotes campus action projects and gender equity initiatives to support AAUW’s philanthropic and educational purposes. AAUW asks all branches to donate funds to build Educational Fund and Legal Advocacy Fund awards, which they do willingly. In 2009, the Educational Fund granted women over $3 million in support.
AAUW membership is open to college/university partners and college students/graduates at or beyond associate level. AAUW’s Website-linked Dialog Blog and Facebook page mark some of AAUW’s progression in championing women’s still-pressing gender equity goals. See Also: College and University Faculty; Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, College and University; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Equal Pay; Professions, by Gender; Science Education for Girls; Science, Women in; Title IX; Women’s Colleges; Women’s Studies. Further Readings American Association of University Women. http://www .aauw.org/ (accessed June 2010). Edward, H. Clark. Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for Girls. Boston, MA: James R. Osgood, 1874. Solomon, Barbara M. In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986. Barbara LeSavoy The College at Brockport, State University of New York
American Girl Dolls The first American Girl Dolls debuted in 1986 and are the creation of Pleasant T. Rowland and the Pleasant Company; 13 years later, the Pleasant Company was acquired by Mattel. Originally, there were three dolls, each representing a different historical period in American history; today, there are nine historical dolls, representing the mid-1700s and continuing through the 1970s. The dolls from the 1700s are colonial girls who struggle to reconcile ideas of American independence with loyalty to England during the Revolutionary War and a Nez Perce girl who learns about trustworthiness and loyalty from a hero in her culture. The 1800s, are represented by a New Mexican girl who preserves tradition after her mother dies, a pioneer girl living in a new land with a new language, and a girl who escapes slavery during the Civil War. The girls of the 1900s are one who lives through the Great Depression and
American Idol
sees her father lose his job, a girl whose father is fighting in World War II, and a girl from San Francisco in the 1970s who is moving to a new town. Each of these dolls is sold with a storybook that details the historical events of the time period and each story is told through the perspective of the 9-year-old heroine. Building upon the success of the historical characters, the American Girl company launched a new Girl of the Year series, in 2001, to represent issues that girls face today. Each of these dolls is available for a year and is sold with a storybook and accessories related to the issue the girl is facing. The issues have ranged from helping behaviors, family conflicts, personal responsibility and loyalty, to environmental preservation, ethnic diversity, and bullying. American Girl also has the Just Like You dolls and Bitty Baby dolls, both premiered in 1995. The Just Like You dolls allow girls to build an American Girl doll with features that are similar to their own. Girls can choose the hair, eye, and skin color of the doll, along with accessories, outfits, and pets to accompany the doll that they have created. The Bitty Baby dolls are designed for girls aged 3 and older. These dolls come with a variety of skin and hair colors along with a storybook that focuses on themes like dressing, eating, and play. The American Girl brand extends beyond just the dolls. The first American Girl Place store was opened in Chicago in 1998. This opening was followed by stores in New York and Los Angeles. American Girl Boutique and Bistro locations were opened beginning in 2007 in four cities—Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Natick, Massachusetts; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. The stores offer movies related to the American Girl dolls, restaurants, and even a hospital where American Girl dolls can go to be repaired. Additionally, American Girl magazine was launched in 1992 and in 2004 the first American Girl feature film was released and since this time four others have followed. See Also: Barbie Dolls; Bratz Dolls; Hello, Kitty; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings American Girl. “Company History.” http://www.american girl.com/corp/corporate.php?section=about&id=2 (accessed November 2009).
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Stone, Tanya Lee. The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll’s History and Her Impact on Us. New York: Viking, 2010. Carrie L. Cokely Curry College
American Idol American Idol is a competition-reality television show created by Simon Fuller to discover the next musical talent in the United States. Inspired by the British series Pop Idol, American Idol debuted in June 2002 and entered its ninth season in January 2010. American Idol boasts a global following and remains one of the most popular reality television shows in the United States. Since its debut, the series has successfully launched the musical careers of a number of young women including season winners Kelly Clarkson (season one), Fantasia Barrino (season three), Carrie Underwood (season four), and Jordin Sparks (season six), as well as finalist Jennifer Hudson (season three). The American Idol program identifies the musical talent through a series of nationwide talent searches. Each year, up to 100,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 28 audition for a spot in the competition. Competitors are then narrowed down to 12 finalists who sing weekly for the votes of the U.S. public. Hosted by television personality Ryan Seacrest, American Idol showcases the contestants’ talent with weekly themed competitions intended to highlight musical ability, personality, and marketability within the music industry. Idol judges Paula Abdul (seasons one to eight), Simon Cowell (seasons one to nine), Ellen DeGeneres (season nine), Kara DioGuardi (seasons eight and nine), Steven Tyler (season ten addition), and Randy Jackson act as music industry experts and provide various critiques of the contestants’ performances. The final decision, however, as to who stays and leaves the competition is left to the viewership. At the conclusion of each show, viewers are provided a voting window of two hours where they have the opportunity to cast their votes via phone or text message. Results are revealed the following evening and the contestant with the lowest number of votes leaves the competition. The winner of American Idol
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receives a $1 million recording contract with a major record label and is managed by 19 Management. American Idol’s female contestants have enjoyed great success in the music and film industries. Clarkson won the first competition and continues to dominate the musical charts. She and Underwood remain the only two American Idol winners to sweep all three of the major music awards in one season, respectively the American Music, Billboard, and Grammy Awards. To date, Underwood is one of the best-selling contestants to emerge from the show. She has sold more than 9.6 million albums in the United States. Barrino, likewise, maintains a successful music, acting, and writing career. She recently published her memoirs titled Life Is Not a Fairy Tale, and after her lead role as Celie in the Broadway musical, The Color Purple, she was cast in the film adaptation of the play. Sparks’s debut album went platinum in 2007, selling 2 million copies in the United States and she received an American Music Award in 2008. Finalist Hudson won an Academy Award for her role as Effie White in the film Dreamgirls. She has also starred in the Sex and the City film and The Secret Life of Bees. American Idol forever transformed popular culture in its nationwide search for musical talent and neither the music industry nor reality television will ever be the same. See Also: DeGeneres, Ellen; Reality Television; Rock Music, Women in. Further Readings American Idol. http://www.americanidol.com (accessed June 2009). Barrino, Fantasia. Life Is Not a Fairy Tale. Forest City, NC: Fireside, 2005. Bednar, Chuck. Insights Into American Idol. Broomall, PA: Mason Crest, 2009. Emily Bent National University of Ireland
American Samoa American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States, administered by the U.S. Office of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs, that includes
some of the islands in the Samoan chain in the South Pacific Ocean. The United States acquired possession of American Samoa in 1899 in a treaty with Germany. The total land mass of American Samoa (popularly called simply “Samoa”) is 199 square kilometers, slightly larger than Washington, D.C. Samoa has a high standard of living, due in part to support by the U.S. government, with life expectancy of 70.8 years for men and 76.8 years for women. Literacy is near-universal at 98 percent for men and 97 percent for women. Essentially, all births are attended by trained personnel, but the infant mortality rate is high at 10.18 per 1,000 live births, as compared to 6.22/1,000 in the United States, but nevertheless lower than in many Pacific nations.American Samoa conducts most of its commerce with the United States, with tuna fishing and processing providing most employment. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 was $8,000 and unemployment is high at 29.8 percent, but efforts to diversify the economy are hampered by the islands’ distant location and the frequency of hurricanes. The population growth rate is 1.2 percent; a high fertility rate of 3.29 children per woman and birth rate of 23.31 births per 1,000 population (the adolescent birth rate is 36.3 per 1,000 women) is offset by a negative migration rate of minue 6.99 migrants per 1,000 population (among the highest in the world). Factors promoting outmigration include high unemployment and the fact that Samoans are American nationals and have the right of entry to the United States. Most of the population (90.6 percent) are Samoan, with minorities of Asians (2.8 percent), whites (1.1 percent), mixed races (4.2 percent), and other races (0.3 percent). Christianity is the predominant religion, with 50 percent Christian Congregationalist and 20 percent Roman Catholic; most of the remainder belong to other Protestant churches. Historically, American Samoa has been a maledominated society, but this is changing somewhat with urbanization, and now women constitute 41.7 percent of the nonagricultural labor force. Most positions of authority are still held by men, although some women own businesses and hold government posts: examples of the latter include Le’ala Elisara, Director of the Arts Council; Dr. Claire Poumele, Director of Education; Evelyn Vaitautolu-Langford, Director of Human Resources; and Dr. Leuga Turner, Director of Youth and Women’s Affairs. Samoa has never had a
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Amish women must wear plain and neat dresses, aprons, capes, and bonnets, as directed by the Ordnung. Women must keep their heads covered out of respect to God and to their husbands, and all Amish members are prohibited from posing for photographs.
female governor. Traditional Polynesian customs are still influential in home and family life, even in urban areas: a young married couple most often settles in the household of the parents of either the husband or wife, households tend to be large and include collateral relatives as well as the nuclear family, and economic and social activities are directed by a matai or family chief who is responsible for the welfare of the extended family. Theoretically, either men or women can be matai, but most are male. Domestic violence is outlawed but remains a problem. See Also: Christianity; Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Government, Women in. Further Readings American Samoa Government. “Executive Branch.” http:// americansamoa.gov(accessed April 2010). United Nations Statistics Division. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer. aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine
Amish The modern Amish culture descended from the Anabaptists of the 16th century, and their name comes from Jakob Ammann, an elder who separated from the Mennonite religion in 1693. The Amish arrived in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the largest populations settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, as well as Ontario, Canada. Women are expected to fulfill their traditional gender roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers and to exhibit domesticity, piety, and submission. Although some women work outside the home, change is slow and often not welcomed by the Amish. All Amish are expected to submit to the church’s authority through adherence to community rules known as the Ordnung or order, a choice made through voluntary adult baptism. Homemaking and childrearing are considered essential to Amish culture, as the home is the center of life and children ensure the culture’s continuation. The husband is the head of household, main breadwinner, and conduit with the church and the outside world. Women, however, may share in decision making and discipline within individual households.
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Women are excluded from becoming church officials and from community leadership roles, but they can participate in the church council. Women may not use artificial birth control or abortion. Women’s daily activities are shaped by their prescribed gender roles. Domestic tasks include food preparation and serving, dishwashing, laundry, ironing, canning fruits and vegetables, making jams and jellies, and sewing clothes. Women also help with farm chores, gardening, and family businesses as well as care for aging parents. There are increasing numbers of women working outside the home, most of them single or married with older children. A small but growing percentage also own small businesses, some of which are home based. When women work outside the home, common employment includes factory positions, domestic work, and food and crafts preparation such as quilting. Women’s daily lives also are shaped by Ordnung. Appearance should be plain and neat with genderspecific clothing. Women wear dresses and aprons, capes, and bonnets. The Ordnung mandates separation from the outside world and sets limits on the use of modern technology. Old Order Amish are stricter in this regard than New Order Amish, who allow the use of electricity, telephones, and tractors. Deviation brings criticism and may result in church probation. If reconciliation attempts fail, the individual faces excommunication and shunning. Contact with the shunned is regulated and many become estranged from their families. They may return to the church at any time by repenting and confessing their sins. Parents instruct their children in the Ordning as well as household, farming, and vocational skills, considering these more important to Amish daily life than a formal education. Children attend school only through the eighth grade. Courtship is limited and private within Amish society and couples may not live together before marriage. Adolescents experience the outside world in a coming-of-age ritual known as rumspringa. They hold jobs, date, attend parties, experiment with alcohol and smoking, and wear current fashions. Rumspringa ends when they decide whether or not to undergo adult baptism and permanently adopt the Amish lifestyle. Most adolescents choose to remain Amish. Those who leave often desire more options for their future while those who stay cite the benefits of
community belonging, low expenses, and the desire to raise their children within the Amish value system. See Also: Christianity; Crafting Industry; Homemaking; Religion, Women in; Rural Women. Further Readings Kraybill, Donald. The Riddle of Amish Culture. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Kraybill, D. B. and M. A. Olshan, eds. The Amish Struggle With Modernity. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994. Olshan, M. A. and K. D. Schmidt. “Amish Women and the Feminist Conundrum.” In D. B. Kraybill and M. A. Olshan, eds.,The Amish Struggle With Modernity. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994. Schmidt, Kimberly D. and Diane Zimmerman Umble. Strangers at Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University
Andorra Andorra is a very small (468 square kilometers), mountainous, and highly urbanized country located between France and Spain in southwestern Europe. The primary industries are tourism (80 percent of gross domestic product [GDP]) and banking. Andorra is a prosperous country and in 2007 ranked 14th in the world with a per capita GDP of $42,500. Life expectancy in Andorra is among the highest in the world, at 80.3 years for men and 84.8 years for women. Male and female literacy are both reported as 100 percent, and about equal numbers of men and women enroll in tertiary education. Andorra’s high standard of living and lack of an income tax attract many immigrants and it has a high rate of net migration (6.89 migrants per 1,000 population, 13th highest in the world). This offsets Andorra’s low birth rate (10.35 per 1,000 population, 166th in the world) and total fertility rate (1.33 children/ woman, 205th in the world) and gave the country a moderate growth rate of 1.135 percent in 2009.
Anglican Communion
Andorra is a parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage at age 18; women gained the right to vote in 1970 and to serve in public office in 1973. Today, women hold 25 percent of seats in the national parliament. Since 1993, the constitution has guaranteed equal civil rights for women and many are employed: in 2007, women constituted 46.6 percent of employees in the nonagricultural sector. The predominant religion is Roman Catholic, with small populations of Protestants, Muslims, and Hindus. The influence of the Catholic Church may be seen in the fact that Andorra does not recognize divorce and that abortion is legal only to save the woman’s life. However, since 2005 Andorra has recognized civil unions between same-sex partners, although samesex marriage is not legal as of 2010. The legal age of marriage for both men and women is 16. Andorra has a high standard of healthcare, which is reflected in excellent maternal and child health. Childhood vaccination rates range from 84 percent for hepatitis B to 99 percent for DTP (a compound vaccine protecting against diphtheria, pertussis or whooping cough, and tetanus). The infant mortality rate is 3.68 per 1,000 live births, ranking 211th out of 225 reporting countries. See Also: Abortion Laws, International; Civil Unions; Divorce; France; Government, Women in; Roman Catholic Church; Spain. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Andorra.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/an.html (accessed February 2010). World Health Organization. “World Health Report Statistical Annex, Annexes by Country (a-f ).” http:// www.who.int/entity/whr/2005/annex/indicators_ country_a-f.pdf (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine
Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is an association of churches around the world that are in communion with the Church of England. The worldwide Angli-
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can Communion membership is approximately 77 million. Included within the communion are the Episcopal Church of the United States, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Nippon Sei Ko Kwai ( Japan), and more than 30 other ecclesiastical bodies. The late 20th century saw the communion’s greatest growth occur in Africa. Each of the “provinces,” as the national churches are called, is autonomous, determining such matters as who is eligible for ordination. The first decade of the 21st century was a time of increased tension within the communion, as schism was threatened over the ordination of openly gay clergy and the acceptance of women in the office of bishop. The Anglican Communion recognizes the ordination of deacons, priests, and bishops. Controversy has surrounded the ordination of women in each of these offices. In the 1960s, largely because of the effects of the feminist movement, women were ordained as deacons, although even this ordination created controversy. It was almost a decade later before the first female deacon was ordained at Canterbury Cathedral. In the 1970s, controversy centered on the ordination of women as priests: As early as 1971, the first women were ordained into the priesthood, but it was near the end of the decade before an official resolution advised churches that did not ordain women to do so. Some churches refused, and many believed female ordination would create a split within the communion. The debate next moved in the 1980s to the ordination of women as bishops. The worst fears of conservative members were realized in 1989, when the Anglican Church of New Zealand consecrated Penny Jamieson as the seventh Bishop of Dunedin. The ordination of Barbara Harris, an African American woman, as bishop by the Episcopal Church, USA, took place later the same year. Less than a decade later, more than 4,000 women priests and at least 10 women bishops were part of the communion. By the 1990s, with a majority of provinces ordaining women as priests and most accepting the ordination of women bishops in principle, if not in fact, the controversy seemed to have subsided. The storm broke again in 2003, however, when the election of a noncelibate gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire led four dioceses to break with the Episcopal Church and created dissension within the worldwide Anglican Communion. The 2006 election
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of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA—making her the only female primate in the communion—worsened tensions. Conservative bishops gathered in Jerusalem in June 2008 for the Global Anglican Future Conference, denying a break with the worldwide communion but calling for the formation of a new Anglican Church in North America and for relegating the Archbishop of Canterbury to history. Disaffected parishes in North America met the same month and formed the Anglican Church in North America. Two months later, Lambeth 2008, an assembly of bishops of the Anglican Communion, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was boycotted by approximately onethird of the bishops in the communion and ended with no resolutions and with growing fear of schism. The election of the Reverend Mary Glasspool, an openly lesbian priest, as a suffragan bishop in 2010 gave evidence that this fear was well grounded. Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, greeted the news that Reverend Glasspool would be consecrated by expressing regret and warning that the action carried implications for the place of the Episcopal Church within the Anglican Communion. See Also: Christianity; Religion, Women in; Schori, Katharine Jefferts. Further Readings “Covenant Aims to Mediate Disputes Within Anglican Communion.” Christian Century, v.127/2 (2010). Craston, Colin. “Women Bishops and the Anglican Communion Process.” http://www.fulcrum-anglican .org.uk/news/2005/20050709craston.cfm?doc=62 (accessed March 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University
Angola Although it is a state rich in oil and diamonds— Angola has one of the fastest growing economies in Africa and the world—reconstruction and conciliation are yet to be achieved after a long period of war (which ended in 2002). Poverty remains widespread,
and Angolan women bear the burden of the struggle for survival in the countryside, where the majority of people are. Thus, live births are 6.75 children per woman (2009), infant mortality is 117 per 1,000 births (205 for children younger than 5 years of age; 2005–10), and life expectancy at birth is low (43.3 for girls, 40.1 for boys; 2005–10). Development and gender equality remain a challenge, and the literacy rate for adults is 54.2 percent for women and 82.9 percent for men (2005–10). In 2007, 61 percent of Angolan women older than 15 years were human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive, which was the focus of much of female mobilization and political lobbying, in addition to opposition to violence against women. The Constitution of Angola (1992) grants equal rights for men and women in Article 18.1, and both penal and civil law offers provisions on gender equality (e.g., discrimination at work) and against domestic violence. In addition, the Código da Família (Family Law) is aimed at guaranteeing equality regarding marriage and offspring, as well as property ownership for both sexes. Angolan women have a relatively low level of legal protection in relation to family matters. The legal age of marriage is 18 years for both men and women; however, early marriage (age 15 years or younger for girls with parental consent) is prevalent, and young single motherhood is a relatively common occurrence—it is estimated that 36 percent of girls between 15 and 19 years of age are married, divorced, or widowed. Polygamy is banned, but such practice is widely accepted by society and seems to have increased considerably after 2002 as a result of almost three decades of war and the concurrent absence of men. Women’s workloads have increased enormously as a consequence, and so has violence against them. Several policies have been passed to protect family and children’s rights, to fight poverty and to grant gender equality as much as possible, such as the Plan of Action on Family Matters (2009), the Poverty Reduction National Strategy (2004 on), and the National Policy on Gender Equality (2002–05), among several others. As in many other African countries, women are granted equality before the law in many grounds; however, land distribution follows customary (traditional) law, which treats men more favorably. In addition, women’s rights to use land are more often than not overlooked, as in, for example,
Animal Rights
cases of displaced people being resettled, among many others. Women’s access to property other than land depends to a very large extent on their marriage status or regime. In a country in which more than 90 percent of farming is done at a family and subsistence level, and a majority of the population lives in rural areas, property access is quite relevant for women, as they are highly dependent on men and marriage to access land and to get job opportunities. The president and the Ministry of Family and Promotion of Women (Ministério da Família e Promoção da Mulher) have taken on the task of drafting the Law Against Domestic Violence, which had still to be passed in 2010. The draft of this law responds to local human rights and women’s organizations’ appeals, such as the Organization of Angolan Women. Although this organization has been a strong reference point in the women’s movement in Angola, many others have become quite visible in peace-building processes and gender equality lobbying in the 21st century. Some groups have been extremely important, such as Rede Mulher (Women’s Network), which is composed of more than 80 women’s associations and organizations working toward women in politics, education, and health. The initiative Mulheres Vivendo (Women Living) has created a platform of support for HIVpositive women and their families. At present, the Women’s Network also provides the Joint Gender Programme, promoted by the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Development Programme in conjunction with the Ministry of Family and Promotion of Women of Angola. See Also: Polygamy; Property Rights; United Nations Development Fund for Women. Further Readings Ducados, Henda. “Angolan Women in the Aftermath of Conflict, Conciliation Resources.” http://www.c-r.org /our-work/accord/angola/women-conflict.php (accessed June 2010). Martin, James W. Historical Dictionary of Angola. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2004. Oyebade, Adebayo O. Culture and Customs of Angola. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006. Soledad Vieitez-Cerdeño University of Granada
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Animal Rights The movement for animal rights is motivated by the belief that animals should be afforded the same rights as human beings. Historically, women have led the way on animal rights and they continue to be at the forefront of global movements for animal liberation. Early American feminists such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were connected to the animal-welfare movement and saw animal rights as the next step after women’s civil rights. When compared to men, rates indicate that women are more likely to be animal advocates. In congruence, more women are currently vegetarians and vegans than are men. Studies demonstrate that 68 to 80 percent of animal rights advocates are women. Animal rights encompass animal ethics, opposition to meat and dairy consumption, and opposition to animal use in the cosmetics, fashion, and science industries. Animal Ethics Alliances between advocates of feminism and animal rights have demonstrated the connection between sexism and speciesism or the belief that one’s own species is superior to other groups.They argue that to end violence against women, society must also end violence against animals. Ecofeminism, which is based on the belief that there is a relationship between the oppression of women and the domination of the environment, has demonstrated that women have historically been associated with animals. Society devalues animals and through a process of association women are devalued and treated as second-class citizens. Violence against animals has become normalized in society in the same way that violence against women is often ignored. Feminist animal rights activists also attack traditionally male social activities including hunting, fishing and grilling, arguing they rely on the subordination of animals and the glorification of violence against animals. Carol Adams and Ingrid Newkirk have led the way on animal rights activism. Newkirk cofounded the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980 and now serves as the organization’s president. She also is an author who has written numerous books and articles exposing the violent treatment of animals in laboratories and homes. PETA is the largest global
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animal rights organization with more than 2 million members and supporters. It creates ad campaigns that oppose the use of fur and leather in the fashion industry, the consumption of meat and dairy, hunting, bull fighting, and animal testing. PETA chose actress, comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as its Woman of the Year in 2009 for promoting her vegan lifestyle on her talk show and Website. Carol Adams has been at the forefront of feminist animal ethics. Her book, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, called attention to the important interconnections between animals and women. Adams developed the notion of the “absent referent” to explain why humans consume meat. For Adams, the absent referent describes how people are detached from the actual animal they consume by conceiving of it as meat, which allows them to continue to support the slaughter of animals. Therefore, if humans were connected to the animals they consume they would reduce their consumption of meat. Adam’s book traces the historical connections between meat consumption and the promotion of masculine identity. Her conclusion argues that vegetarianism and feminism go hand in hand. Some feminists have criticized rational and utilitarian approaches to animal rights, calling for the emphasis on care, compassion, and emotional bonding with animals to avoid the emotional distancing employed in a rational rights approach. Adams has argued for a feminist “ethic of care” regarding animal rights, which assumes that the ethical responsibility animals owe to humans is derived from the interconnectedness between life forms. Other animal rights theorists working in the feminist care tradition include Grace Clement, Lori Gruen, Cathryn Bailey, Josephine Donovan, and Catharine MacKinnon. Animal Consumption While some activists oppose the consumption of meat and dairy in all of its forms, others focus primarily on the horrors committed against animals at factory farms. Factory farms are environments where a high density of livestock is raised in a confined space, easily spreading disease. Animals are treated as commodities under this industrial system, which attempts to produce the most products from the animals at the lowest possible cost. Animals are generally kept indoors and confined to cages under this system and
fed large amounts of antibiotics to keep them healthy and to prevent the spread of disease from animal to human. Feminists compare the treatment of animals in factory farms to the exploitation of female labor throughout the international system, especially sweat shops. Women are the highest risk group for these health concerns because illnesses from tainted meat can be passed on to unborn children during pregnancy or to nursing babies. Factory farms have been the target of environmental justice movements for the large amount of waste produced, which can pollute the soil, waterways and local communities living nearby. Women lead environmental movements opposing these farms because they see protecting the community and the planet as vital to women’s liberation. Dairy and egg production also is a woman’s issue because of the abuse animals suffer under the factory-farming model. Reproducing female animals are particularly targeted under this model. Milk made by cows and eggs hatched from chickens are only produced by female animals. Feminists draw a connection between the control over reproduction of female animals in farming practices and the control over female human reproduction in politics. The females of the species suffer the most extreme forms of violence. Feminists argue that an egalitarian society will come about once all species are free from gendered violence. In the factory environment, dairy cows, bread specifically for their milk producing ability, are given hormones to increase milk production and overall reproduction. Recombinant Bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is a genetically engineered growth hormone that is used to increase milk production in animals. Concerns have been raised that these hormones pass into the human body when consumed and cause health issues for women such as an increased risk of developing breast cancer. Commercial Uses While women have led animal rights crusade, they also have participated in the oppression of animals. Industries that primarily market their products to women, specifically the fashion and cosmetics industry, rely on an array of exploitive practices toward animals to develop their products. Many cosmetic companies test their products on animals during research and development. The most common testing is done for eye shadows and soaps. Rabbits and guinea pigs
are used most often to test allergic reactions, toxicity and irritation levels in products. This testing can cause bleeding problems, pain and death. Cosmetic companies kill millions of animals every year testing their products. Animal products are used as ingredients in cosmetics, including carmine, collagen, elastin, keratin, tallow, and stearic acid. PETA has published a list of animal ingredients and their alternatives to help inform consumers about the ingredients in their cosmetic products. The fashion industry utilizes animal products in many of its products including the use of fur, leather and feathers. Millions of animals are killed every year in the service of producing clothing for women consumers. Criticism The animal rights movement has been accused of participating in misogyny, and PETA has been attacked for using sexist imagery in its ad campaigns promoting such rights. Some of the PETA ads have included naked women who claim they’d rather “go naked than wear fur.” Defenders of the campaigns maintain that the women freely participate in the commercials and demonstrate their commitment to the cause by going naked for the animals. However, PETA is still said to be promoting animal rights at the expense of women’s rights in many of their ads. Animal rights advocates also are opposed to animal testing which undermines the ability of science to pursue important developments in women’s healthcare. For example, Herceptin, a drug that has been shown to prolong life in breast cancer patients, was attacked by PETA for being developed through animal testing. Scientists argue that without the ability to test drugs on animals, treatments for breast cancer would be delayed and even undiscovered. Since breast cancer is a major health concern for women, opposing animal testing can harm women’s health. See Also: Cosmetics Industry; Nutrition; Reproductive Rights; Vegetarian Feminism. Further Readings Adams, Carol. The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum International Publishing, 2006. Donovan, Joesphine and Carol Adams. The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
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Newkirk, Ingrid. The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009. Nicole Richter Wright State University
Animal Trainers, Female In the 19th century, women were generally banned from circuses where most animal training took place, but by the turn of the 20th century, many women were engaged in training animals and pushing the gender boundaries of the day. Today, animal trainers are generally employed to teach riding, for security purposes, to entertain in public venues, teach animal obedience, or prepare animals to work with disabled individuals. In 2006, there were approximately 10,020 animal trainers working in the United States, and 70 percent of them were female. While some animal trainers may have only a high school diploma or an equivalency status, those who work with large animals are generally required to have bachelor’s degrees in fields such as biology, marine biology, or animal science. While the median average salary for trainers is $27,270, salaries run from $16,700 at the low end to $51,400 at the high end. One of the first female animal trainers was Mabel Stark, who joined the Al G. Barnes Circus in 1913 and began taming tigers. Over time, the notion that women could not handle animals dissipated, and women in clothing that was both scant and form-fitting graced circuses around the world. That practice continued into the 21st century, and females who train animals for entertainment often wear revealing clothing during performances. For instance, bikini-clad trainers regularly perform by swimming with baby tigers in a pool built specifically for that purpose at The Institute of Greatly Endangered Rare Species (TIGERS) in South Carolina. Job requirements are very different for females who work behind the scenes in jobs such as training zoo animals. Many of these women spend almost as much time educating the public as they do training animals. For instance, Cindy Hall, who is one of 14 women working for the Naples Zoo in Florida, spends her time training ocelots, feeding alligators, and conducting lectures and public education campaigns.
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Training animals is often a dangerous profession. In 2006, a Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo reached through the bars of her cage and grabbed her experienced trainer after an afternoon feeding. The female trainer suffered major injuries to both arms. In 2010, a killer whale at Sea World in Orlando, Florida, made international news after killing his trainer, 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau. Officials suggested that the incident was the result of the trainer’s accidentally falling into the tank. A witness disagreed, stating that the whale intentionally jumped up and grabbed Brancheau before shaking her violently. She was then dragged into the water, where she drowned. One of the most successful female animal trainers in the United States in the early 21st century was Ameera Diamond, who became known as the first African American animal trainer in the world. Working with the UniverSoul Circus, Diamond regularly performs a three-hour show with eight partly Siberian white tigers weighing approximately 600 pounds each. Her days are spent working with the tigers and honing her performance skills. She has trained the tigers to jump over one another, jump through fire hoops, and complete a complicated zigzag walk known as the bottlewalk. Diamond even spends her vacations with the tigers. Domestic animal training is heavily dominated by females; and a number of women have won international acclaim for training dogs and horses. Babbette Haggerty-Brennan, for instance, was involved in training the first Australian shepherd used in guide dog work. Haggerty-Brennan, who is the author of Women’s Best Friend: Choosing the Dog That’s Right for You, also has also trained dogs for work on several daytime drama shows on TV. Many trainers insist that women are aptly suited for the work because animals perceive them as less threatening than males. In horse training, both Jenine Sahadi and Alexis Berba have held their own against male trainers. Sahadi, who is married to trainer Ben Ceil, maintains that she has been accused of receiving help from male trainers by people who believe females are incapable of succeeding in the field. Despite these claims, Sahadi became the first female trainer to win the Santa Anita Derby in 2000 when the horse The Deputy won. Sahadi is now the highest paid female horse trainer in the United States. Barba became the first female trainer to have a horse place in a Triple Crown race as a result of a fourth place finish by Make Music for Me at the
Kentucky Derby in 2009. Barba’s horse was considered a potential contender for the 2010 Belmont Stakes, but ultimately Make Music for Me placed 10th. Female animal trainers have forged paths to individual and collective victory. They have proven that they will not be restricted by gender or discouraged by sexism. See Also: Animal Rights; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Horse Racing, Women in; Science, Women in. Further Readings Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), 2010–11 Edition. www.bls.gov/oco/ ocos168.htm (accessed April 2010). CNN. “SeaWorld Trainer Killed by Killer Whale.” http:// www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/24/killer.whale.trainer .death/index.html (accessed April 2010). Davis, Janet M. “Bearded Ladies, Dainty Amazons, Hindoo Fakirs, and Lady Savages.” http://www.circus inamerica.org/docs/janetdavislecture_rev.pdf (accessed April 2010). Spinski, Tristan. “Girrrrrrl Power Helps Tame Wild Beasts at Naples Zoo.” http://www.naplesnews.com /news/2010/apr/12/girrrrrrl-power-helps-tame-wild -beasts-naples-zoo/?partner_RSS (accessed April 2010). Strickland, L. N’zinga. “Ameera the Great and Her Big Cats!” New York Amsterdam News, v.94 (June 2003). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
Anime Anime (pronounced ah-knee-may) is the Japanese word for “animation” but can refer to filmed cartoons produced in any country that mirror styles typically labeled Japanese, including narrative structures, character design, and aesthetics. Both historically and in the present day, anime has substantial ties to printed comic books, called manga (mah-n-ga) in Japanese. Contrary to most American assumptions, neither anime nor manga are genres exclusively for children; unlike in the United States, in Japanese cultural contexts, these forms might be used to tell stories for children, but they also might represent
Antifeminism
adult themes such as violence, sexuality, social discrimination, or historical events. In recent decades, there has been an increase in both popular interest in anime released in the United States—either legally through production companies or as unauthorized fan-subs—and in academic attention to the topic. Anime is a topic of particular interest in analyses of popular culture, gender, media studies, transnationalism, and Japanese studies. Anime is a topic of interest in women’s or gender studies because the style and content of the genre can be read as either reinforcing gender norms or fundamentally challenging them. Like other popular cultural formats, such as romance novels or pornography, anime relies heavily on gender norms but recent work on the topic casts ambivalence on the totality of power and control constructed through these representations. Some scholars have argued that representations of femininity within anime tend to construct women as other, desirable but not entirely human, or less agentive than male protagonists. Other scholars find anime to provide space for creative exploration, substantial social critique, and agency. Stylistically, anime are likely to represent female characters as tall, thin, big-breasted, wideeyed figures who might or might not be innocent to their own power and desirability. Many female characters can be seen to become more desirable precisely because they appear unaware of their desirability or sexuality, as seen in Sailor Moon, for example. Anime, and related manga, can be categorized into many subgenres, including mecha (mechanical), apocalyptic, romantic, adventure or sports stories. Of these subgenres, in gender studies literature, the category of “ladies comics” has received attention because it deals so directly with gender, and gendered norms in society. Also labeled “boy’s love” or “yaoi” comics, these stories center on deep love between two male protagonists. Although the characters are in love with each other the labels “gay” or “queer” rarely appear, and the figures are usually drawn with delicate features, fine bones, and flowing hair. Despite the male central protagonists, these stories are marketed toward and popularly consumed mostly by women. Many scholars have constructed theories to explain this pattern, and suggest that some (straight) female fans find particular romantic possibilities available only in same-sex partnering.
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Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away (2001) are examples of anime produced for children that became extremely popular in Japan and abroad. Akira (1988), a postapocalyptic story of genetic mutation and technology, remains one of the most popular manga and anime series. Evangelion (1997) and The Ghost in the Shell (1995) are more recent examples of the sub-genre. Representative examples of gender-bending in anime include The Rose of Versailles (1979), Fake (1996), and Loveless (2005). See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Hello Kitty; Japan; Manga. Further Readings Kinsella, Sharon. Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2000. Napier, Susan. Anime From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2005. Allison Alexy Lafayette College
Antifeminism In the early part of the 21st century, there are three central elements of antifeminism. These elements consist of (1) the idea that the feminist movement is over and has achieved its goals; (2) the assumption that the United States is in a “postfeminist” era that emphasizes individualism, not collective action; and (3) a push toward traditional gender roles immediately after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. These three interrelated aspects of antifeminism make feminism as a political movement seem passé and irrelevant and make feminists appear to be out of touch and complaining. The expression of each of these elements, as well as their cultural and political implications, is discussed below. Feminist Victory First, there is in American culture an assumption of feminist victory. The goals of the second wave feminist movement, from the late 1960s through the 1970s,
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have largely been achieved. The claim of this argument is that there has been sufficient progress toward equality, for instance in women’s paid employment, the recognition of sexual harassment in the workplace, and Title IX for girls’ education. Christina Hoff Sommers is one of the main purveyors of this point of view. She valorizes first wave feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony but regards presentday feminists as chronic complainers. She argues that there is no need for modern feminism because discrimination against women is largely in the past. In fact, according to this view, the real victims of gender discrimination today are boys and men. One of Sommers’ targets is the supposed “war against boys.” The war-against-boys rhetoric says that feminism brought attention to girls’ and women’s needs in education but in doing so feminists subordinated boys’ needs to the point that girls and women got ahead of boys and men. These authors’ argument is essentially (1) that girls have no need for any special attention because resources have already been spent on them and feminism has done what it has set out to do; and (2) the real victims are not girls and women but boys and men who are victims of feminist critique. Because the goals of feminism have been met, this argument goes, those women who continue to call themselves feminists or insist on a feminist movement, are judged either as innocuously passé, or, more harshly, as trying to get ahead of men—and thus as anti-male. It is in this element of antifeminism where one finds allegations of feminist “man-hating.” Because there is nothing left for women to complain about, feminists must have it out for men. Only isolated cases of overt gender discrimination against women are recognized. Today’s feminists who talk about gender inequality as a system face allegations of man-hating. To find a pattern of discrimination, as a systemic analysis of inequality would do, is to express hatred of men. Some scholars distinguish the backlash against second wave feminism from the current backlash of the early 21st century. In the old backlash, feminism was vilified as a false ideology to which women sacrificed their personal happiness (in marriage and motherhood) for the sake of abstract ideals of independence. In the new backlash, women’s equality is treated as a fact that no sensible person would deny, but feminism is made to seem ridiculous and passé in its insistence
on still talking about gender discrimination. The new backlash compromises feminism’s ability to critique economic and other gender divisions that still disadvantage women, and it reduces political consciousness and gender questions to personal stories, refusing to acknowledge structural problems. Why is the feminist victory discourse troubling? First, the claim of feminist victory denies the reality of many women’s and girls’ lives. Second, this discourse encourages young women to believe that they were born into a free society, so if they experience discrimination, it is an individual, isolated problem that may even be their own fault. This belief prevents any solidarity between women that was a feature of the second wave feminist movement. Individualism Antiactivism The second element of antifeminism is postfeminism. Postfeminism marks the depoliticization of feminist goals and an opposition to collective feminist action. There is an emphasis on individualism and consumerism as sites for women’s empowerment. Thus empowerment in the marketplace and in lifestyle choice has replaced the earlier political and intellectual work of feminism. Postfeminism coincides with the discourse of neoliberal capitalism that encourages women to concentrate on their private lives and consumer capacities as means of self-expression and agency. Mass media play a key role in all three components of anti-feminism discussed here. In terms of the emphasis on individualism and antiactivism, media undermine feminist objectives by placing the focus of women’s empowerment on self-transformation rather than social transformation. Postfeminist rhetoric acknowledges feminism in that feminism has been incorporated into political and institutional life. Drawing on a vocabulary that includes words like “empowerment” and “choice,” these elements are then converted into an individualistic discourse, and they are deployed in a new guise, not only in media and popular culture, but also by agencies of the state, as a kind of substitute for feminism. What is absent from these presentations is an understanding of dominant-group privilege and the old feminist requirement that men be prepared to relinquish some of their privileges and advantages in work and in the home, in order to achieve equality in the domestic sphere. Popular films such as Bridget
Jones’s Diary (2001), and later, The Ugly Truth (2009) and The Proposal (2009), reflect this antifeminist trend. The backlash against 1970s feminism attempted to frighten women into accepting traditional gender roles and identifying such roles as the only source of personal happiness. These films reflect a new backlash that recognizes that it is unlikely that women en mass will be forced back into the home, yet still tries to distance women from feminism and convince them that their lives should be focused around the heterosexual family, even if greater independence and outside work are expected. Like the first element of antifeminism, feminist victory, this process also says feminism is no longer needed. As Angela McRobbie notes, popular culture dismisses much of the feminist past, while also retrieving and reinstating some palatable elements of women’s liberation, such as sexual freedom, the right to consume alcohol, and economic independence (think of the popular television series and film, Sex and the City). This trend is seen in the increased popularity of pole dancing among suburban middle-class women as exercise and at-home entertainment for their male partners. The popularity of the Pussycat Dolls in the United States, the franchise dance troupe with a rotating cast made up of young women with sexually explicit dance routines, reflects this diversion from the politics of feminism. Feminism is evoked and claimed regarding sexual freedom, but then is quickly dismissed with relief— thank goodness it is permissible to once again enjoy looking at the bodies of women. How is feminism undermined using this element of antifeminism? According to Angela McRobbie this process occurs on one level through active vilification and negation at the cultural level that makes feminism unpalatable and repellent. The abandonment of feminism by women is amply rewarded with the promise of freedom and independence, most apparent through wage earning capacity which functions symbolically as a mark of respectability, empowerment, and entitlement. There is a kind of exchange, and a process of displacement and substitution: The young woman is offered a nominal form of equality, concretized in education and employment, and through participation in consumer culture and civil society, in place of what a reinvented feminist politics might have to offer. Indeed, recent empirical work on attitudes about feminism mirrors this anticollectivist
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trend. Young adults are less likely than other generations to believe that collective action is necessary to improve women’s status in society. Also, young adults fail to identify with feminism due to a definition of feminists as individuals who are active in the feminist social movement. A key feature of the neoliberal discourse that underpins postfeminism is the implanting of market cultures across everyday life (e.g., healthcare, incarceration, education), and the encouragement of forms of consumer citizenship that are beneficial only to those who are already privileged. Undoing the antihierarchical struggles of social movements is also a priority within the discourses of neoliberalism. An attack on disadvantaged social groups is masked by the prevailing and ostensibly nonracist and nonsexist language of self-esteem, empowerment, and personal responsibility. Postfeminism abandons the structural analysis of patriarchal power. It denies any system or structural forces that continue to oppress women and therefore undercuts any strategic weight of politicized feminist activism. Post–September 11 Retreat to Traditional Values It is difficult to minimize the effect that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, had on every aspect of American culture. Just as baby boomers recall where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, the present generation will remember where they were when they heard of the September 11 attacks. The third element of current antifeminism comes in the form of a push to retreat to traditional gender roles in reaction to the September 11 attacks. Susan Faludi, a journalist who wrote about antifeminism in her 1992 best seller Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women, has also written about the effect of September 11 on the retrenchment of feminism. Her book, The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America (2008) describes the many ways in which feminism was rolled back in the days, weeks, and months after September 11, 2001. For instance, shortly after the attacks, pundits, journalists, and celebrities who were critical of U.S. policies toward Arab and Muslim countries were shunned in the national press (recall the case of Bill Maher losing his television show Politically Incorrect). However, according to Faludi, a particular kind
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of fury was directed at women commentators such as writers Susan Sontag, Katha Pollitt, and Fran Lebowitz, who dared question U.S. policy. They were labeled traitorous, idiotic, and haughty. The presence of women op-ed writers and broadcast pundits decreased shortly after September 11. Women who did appear were conservative, antifeminist women such as Camille Paglia, Kate O’Beirne, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Peggy Noonan. The iconic images of September 11 provided by media were men as rescue workers, women as victims. Rescue workers who were women and victims who were men were missing from media images because they did not fit the traditional frame of male hero and damsel in distress. In the wake of the attacks New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush were represented as toughguy superheroes as were New York firefighters. In the weeks and months after September 11, the media wrote about the return to traditional values, with articles about single women who had placed careers ahead of matrimony but now were said to be looking for husbands. The widows of September 11 were shown in the media, while widowed men were invisible. Those women directly affected by September 11 were celebrated as grieving wives and mothers but only as long as they adhered to that prescribed role. When a group of September 11 widows known as the Jersey Girls began to question the script—by asking questions critical of the Bush administration and its handling of the aftermath of the attacks— they were marginalized in the press in favor of more easily digestible traditional women. Likewise, the documentary Women of Ground Zero, about women rescue workers, was criticized as antiman and antiAmerican because it did not follow the script of men as rescuers, women as victims. Media reported on the post–September 11 “nesting” tendancy by which people stayed home and avoided travel. There was even a post–September 11 trend in American cooking: “comfort food”—traditional white middle-class food characteristic of the 1950s such as macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes. By the 2004 presidential campaign, “security moms,” women who identified as mothers concerned about the safety of their children and the country, were constructed as a serious contingent for presidential candidates to court.
These post–September 11 trends, according to Faludi, illustrate the quickness with which progress toward civil rights and equality reverts to traditional patriarchal patterns of men as breadwinners/saviors and women as homemakers/moms. It is almost as if in the amount of time it took the twin towers to fall, much of the progress from the second-wave women’s movement was pushed aside for “old-fashioned” patriarchal values. When the country is under siege, at war progressive politics and civil rights are rendered capricious luxuries that distract from the constructed core values of masculine protection and female victim. These three elements of antifeminism in the early 21st century attempt to silence and marginalize feminists, making feminism seem unpalatable, and any kind of feminism movement invisible and irrelevant. Consequently, the transfer of feminist power to younger activists coming into consciousness is discouraged. See Also: Feminism; American; Gender, Defined; Gender Dysphoria; Political Ideologies. Further Readings Anderson, K. J. Benign Bigotry: The Psychology of Subtle Prejudice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Anderson, K. J. and C. Accomando. “‘Real’ Boys? Manufacturing Masculinity and Erasing Privilege in Popular Books on Raising Boys.” Feminism & Psychology, v.12 (2002). Bloom, L. R. “A Feminist Reading of Men’s Health: Or, When Paglia Speaks, the Media Listens.” Journal of Medical Humanities, v.18 (1997). Digby, T. “Do Feminists Hate Men?: Feminism, Antifeminism, and Gender Oppositionality.” Journal of Social Philosophy, v.29 (1998). Faludi, S. The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America. New York: Metropolitan, 2007. Genz, S. “Third Way/ve: The Politics of Postfeminism.” Feminist Theory, v.7 (2006). Houvouras, S. and S. Carter. “The F Word: College Students’ Definitions of a Feminist.” Sociological Forum, v.23 (2008). McRobbie. A. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: Sage, 2009. Sommers, C. H. Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Touchstone, 1994.
Antigua and Barbuda
Stillion Southard, B. A. “Beyond the Backlash: Sex and the City and Three Feminist Struggles.” Communication Quarterly, v.56 (2008). Vint, S. “The New Backlash: Popular Culture’s ‘Marriage’ With Feminism, or Love Is All You Need.” Journal of Popular Film & Television, v.34 (2007). Kristin J. Anderson University of Houston
Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda is located in the eastern Caribbean. Most of the population resides on Antigua. Over 90 percent of the population are black, the predominant culture is Creole, and Christianity is the predominant religion. Both cultural tradition and modern economic circumstances leave many women socioeconomically dependent on men. The increased public and political roles of women were exemplified in the 2007 election of the nation’s first female head of state; however, problems such as violence against women and sex trafficking are common. Marriages are both legal and common law. Another common form is the visiting union, in which an exclusive couple live separately. The 2004 fertility rate was 2.27 births per woman. The infant mortality rate is 16.25 per 1,000 live births. Many children are born out of wedlock. The law recognizes such children and prevents discrimination against them. Traditional socialization emphasizes male power and virility and both genders become sexually active at a young age. Domestic violence is common and many women do not utilize the national anti-domestic violence legislation out of an unwillingness to testify against their husbands. Living Conditions Parents and other relatives care for children at equal rates due to family situations or finances. Fathers do not aid in care for children born out of wedlock. There is a general lack of reliable childcare. Primary and secondary education is compulsory for all children from age 5 to 16. Preschool is also available. The school system suffers from a shortage of adequate supplies, facilities, and qualified teachers. The literacy rate is
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high at 89 percent. Internationally renowned female author Jamaica Kincaid, who was born in Antigua and Barbuda but now resides in the United States, has produced acclaimed novels, essays, and short stories on the islands’ lifestyle and history. The class structure still reflects the historical legacy of a racial hierarchy with blacks predominating the middle and lower classes. The population is mostly rural, close to 40 percent living in urban areas. Antigua and Barbuda has a national system of social insurance. Most people have adequate living conditions despite an overall shortage of housing, but issues include poor sanitation, lack of clean drinking water, and a poor healthcare system. There are state institutions for the elderly and infirm, and the nation has one private hospital. Life expectancy is 76.81 for women and 72.81 for men. Social problems faced by women in the islands as well as the rest of the Caribbean include widespread sexual violence such as rape, the sex trafficking, and commercial sex industries, and rising rates of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) among both women and girls. Many females remain socioeconomically dependent on males, although there has been slow progress in developing programs to improve economic opportunities for women. Creole women have traditionally worked outside the home in limited roles and women make up approximately half of the nation’s workforce. Key employers include government and public service, agriculture, industry, tourism, and related services. Over 80 percent of the workforce are employed in the service sector. Urban women are generally more economically and politically active than their rural counterparts. Most women work in the tourist and service industries, which are seasonal and consist of mostly unskilled, low-wage jobs. Women also work as artisans producing pottery, woodcarvings, baskets, and hand-woven cloth. There are no legal restrictions on women’s rights. Universal suffrage has been in place since 1940. Louise Lake-Tack was the first woman to be elected Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda in 2007. The state Directorate of Women’s Affairs was created to monitor the status of women. There is an increasing presence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that advocate for improved social services and women’s rights.
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See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Heads of State, Female; HIV/AIDS: South America; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Hausman, R., L. D. Tyson, and S. Zahidi. The Global Gender Gap Report 2009. Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2009. www.weforum.org /en/Communities/Women%20Leaders%20and%20 Gender%20Parity/GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010). Knight, F. W. and T. M. Vergne. Contemporary Caribbean Cultures and Societies in a Global Context. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Lewis, L. The Culture of Gender and Sexuality in the Caribbean. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). Marcella Bush Trevino Independent Scholar
Anxiety Disorders Anxiety disorder is a blanket term used to describe states of irrational fear and/or dread. Although anxiety can be a normal reaction to stress, when an individual’s mood is impacted negatively affecting one physical and emotional being, an anxiety disorder is thought to exist. Anxiety is the result of the body’s fight-or-flight reaction, which is the automatic response from perceived harm or attack. Anxiety disorders are often comorbid with other mental or physical disorders and are subject to flare-ups with stress and are typically diagnosed after six months of being present. Clinical depression has been thought to occur with anxiety disorders 60 percent of the time. Anxiety disorders also are believed to have a genetic component, thus running in families. The various types of anxiety disorders are believed to be the most frequently occurring of mental disorders. Anxiety disorders are detrimental to a person’s emotional and physiological being. Emotional symp-
toms of anxiety can include irritability, feelings of catastrophe, trouble concentrating, apprehensiveness, and restlessness. Accompanying physical symptoms often include heart pounding, shortness of breath, insomnia, sweating, diarrhea, and muscle tension. Six types of anxiety disorders are generally recognized: generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobias, specific phobias, post traumatic stress disorder, and panic disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) classifies anxiety disorders somewhat differently, using the following categories: panic attack, panic disorder (with and without a history of agoraphobia)—fear of a situation or place where escape may be difficult— agoraphobia (with and without a history of panic disorder), specific phobia, social phobia, obsessivecompulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, anxiety disorder due to a general medical condition, substance induced anxiety disorder, and anxiety disorder not otherwise specified. Generalized Anxiety Disorder Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is chronic anxiety (fear) that impacts a person’s ability to function as well as their happiness. This fear should be excessive—according to the patient—and should be disproportional to the actual danger or stress of the situation. GAD is a chronic disease. Symptoms may include nausea, worry, irritability, low energy, feelings of doom, sweating, and hypervigilance. GAD can be caused in part by genes, stress, and learned behaviors. It is slightly more common in women and tends to persist for many years. In fact, the DSM-IV-TR stipulates that at least six months of excessive anxiety and worry must elapse for diagnosis. Diagnosis usually includes a physical exam to rule out physical causes, such as hypothyroidism, heart disease, or menopause. A prescription review rules out pharmaceutical causes, called substanceinduced anxiety disorder by the DSM. Finally, a psychological exam must be conducted to determine pathology. This can be difficult because GAD often occurs with other psychological disorders. Treatment may include medications such as antidepressants, benzodiazepines and buspirone. Psychotherapy techniques such as behavioral cognitive therapy (BCT)
Anxiety Disorders may be used. Lifestyle changes also can prove effective. These may include exercise, nutrition, better sleep habits, and avoidance of alcohol.
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) consists of obsessions or compulsions, which reoccur and have a significant impact on an individual’s ability to function normally. Symptoms may include anxiety (fear), obsession (frequently repeated thoughts or feelings), and compulsion (desire to act inappropriately or without forethought). Sufferers may be observed repeating the same ritualistic behavior over and over, and they may report feelings of dread if they fail to continue the behavior. Little is known about the causes of OCD. Various scientists have postulated that OCD may be caused by head injury, genetics, learned behaviors, infections (specifically strep
throat). It is sometimes associated with Tourette’s syndrome or low serotonin levels. Diagnosis usually relies on psychological interviewing after physical and chemical causes have been ruled out. For diagnosis, the DSM-IV-TR requires presence of either obsession or compulsion, recognized as abnormal by the patient, which significantly impairs life function. Treatment usually includes therapy and medication. Common therapy will include cognitive behavioral therapy techniques such as exposure and response prevention, in which the patient gradually learns to respond appropriately to a triggering stimulus. Pharmaceutical treatment often includes one of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class of antidepressants. Like other anxiety disorders, OCD may respond better if combined with support groups, meditation or relaxation techniques, and family support.
A phobia is defined as an inappropriate, intense and irrational fear of an object or situation that poses no actual danger.
Phobia Approximately 10 percent of all people suffer from phobia at some time in their lives. Phobia is defined as an inappropriate, intense, and irrational fear of an object or situation that poses no actual danger. It is important to differentiate between phobia and rational fear, which is an appropriate response to actual danger. Symptoms may include panic, sweating, shaking, racing heartbeat, and inability to focus. Scientists are undecided about whether phobias are caused by genetics, trauma, learned behavior, or some other source. Females are twice as likely to suffer from phobia as men, and onset occurs most commonly during the teenage years. Phobias are frequently associated with substance abuse, as the person tries to mitigate the fear through self-medication. As with other anxiety disorders, diagnosis begins with ruling out physical factors such as thyroid disease or the effects of drugs. A mental health examination is then used to determine if the patient meets the diagnosis criteria. There are no measurement instruments for phobias. Medical treatment may included beta-blockers, antidepressants or sedatives. Behavioral treatment protocols often involve repeated exposure to the stimulus to desensitize the patient. Many clinicians also report success with CBT. In some cases, irrational fears can be prevented or minimized during childhood. Phobias are usually categorized as either specific phobias or social phobias.
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A specific or simple phobia is an inappropriate, irrational fear of a specific object, place, or situation. This type of fear is usually focused on a single stimulus, such as flying, snakes, or cramped quarters. Simple phobias can be categorized as natural environment, animal, situational, blood/injection, or other. Social phobia or social anxiety disorder (SAD) is experienced by approximately 15 million Americans, and is characterized by extreme fear of social situations, such as public speaking, meeting people, or socializing. More than simple shyness, SAD patients expect to be ridiculed or embarrassed if they do or say the wrong thing, and fear of being judged by others in everyday social situations. The diagnosis requires that the fear is significant and irrational. The situation must provoke anxiety that interferes with daily functioning, and it must be recognized by the patient as excessive for the situation. For children, the symptoms must persist for at least six months. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be defined as an anxiety disorder that results from a stressful or traumatic event, witnessed or experienced, which involved either great fear or actual harm. Stress disorders are unique in that a stressful event is required for diagnosis. Lifetime morbidity—the chance of the disease occurring in one’s lifetime—for PTSD is 7 to 8 percent among Americans. The probability that an American has had PTSD in the last 12 months is 3.5 percent. Women are two to four times as likely as men to experience PTSD, which is caused by a varying mix of trauma (length, severity, frequency) and individual predisposition (genetics, resilience, support network). The National Institutte of Mental Health categorizes PTSD symptoms into three groups: re-experiencing or intrusive memories, avoidance or numbing, and hyper-arousal or anxiety. Re-experiencing symptoms may include flashbacks and nightmares. Avoidance symptoms can cause the sufferer to literally avoid places or events associated with the trauma, or may include blocking of memories, loss of interest and guilt. Hyper-arousal symptoms include tension, inability to sleep and irritability. Depression, substance abuse, and other anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with PTSD, as do several somatic illness, such as hypertension and chronic pain. Treatment often includes both medication and
psychotherapy. As with many other anxiety disorders, therapists frequently employ CBT techniques, such as cognitive restructuring, exposure therapy, and stress inoculation (prevention). Panic Disorders Panic disorders are a group of disorders whose central feature is the panic attack. The panic attack, which is an acute episode that usually lasts about 10 minutes, causes the patient to suffer intense horror, fear, and a sense of foreboding. Physical symptoms of a panic attack are very similar to symptoms for an individual in real danger. These may include increased heart rate or palpitations, profuse sweating, weakness, faintness, and dizziness. The prominent feature differentiating a panic attack from rational fear is the absence of actual danger. The American Psychological Association reports that one in 75 Americans or 6 million people experience panic attacks, usually during the late teens or early 20s. Often these attacks are associated with the stressful transitions common to this time of life. If a person experiences numerous attacks or extended periods of fear causing an attack, this person may have a panic disorder. The DSM divides these conditions based upon whether agoraphobia is present. Unlike phobias, panic disorders stem from the fear of another attack, not an object or situation. The sufferer may fear an object or situation but only because he or she believes that things may cause an attack. Panic disorders can have similar comorbidities to other anxiety disorders, such as substance abuse and depression, making them difficult to diagnose. Panic disorders also can also lead to phobias, making diagnosis even more complicated. Treatment often involves psychotherapy and medication. The behavioral component of the therapy may be similar to techniques used in other anxiety disorders, such as interoceptive (desensitizing) exposure, relaxation techniques, or group therapy. Medical therapy might include any class of antidepressants or possibly a sedative. Anxiety disorders are a very important class of mental illnesses that affect a significant portion of the population, and cause serious suffering and life disruption. Their diagnosis can be complex because of their many accompanying morbidities, so a patient approach to diagnosis is required. There are many
Arab Feminism
effective treatments available, and if properly applied, these therapies can markedly improve a patient’s life. See Also: Depression; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Health, Mental and Physical; Mental Health Treatment, Access to; Mental Health Treatment, Bias in; Mental Illness, Incidence Rates of; PostTraumatic Stress Disorder in Female Military; Postpartum Depression; Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. Further Readings American Psychiatric Association. “Answers to Your Questions About Panic Disorders.” http://www.apa .org/topics/anxiety/panic-disorder.aspx (accessed June 2010). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed,. Text Revision. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Publishing, 2000. The National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, National Institute for Mental Health. “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/ topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml (accessed June 2010). Jacqueline Parsons St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas
Arab Feminism Arab people are identified as such by their language, geography (Arab countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, and Yemen), and/or cultural identity. The term feminist, for the purposes of this article, refers to women who do something to change expectations for women, their roles, and their responsibilities. A term connoting feminism first appeared in the Arab world in 1909 with the publication of Al-Nisaiyat, a book collection whose title signifies something by or about women. By the 1990s, niswiyya, an unequivocal word in Arabic for feminism, began to circulate.
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Connection to Western Feminism The distinction between the East and the West has traditionally forced Arab women to choose between a cultural identity and a feminist self. The Western media tend to portray Arab women as oppressed by Islamic religious doctrine, calling specific attention to the veil and the harem, and some feminists argue that feminism is an import to the Arab world from the West and is not relevant for Arab women. However, Arab feminists’ understanding of niswiyya suggests that Arab feminism is quite important for Arab women. The veil (hijab in Arabic) means anything that hides, separates, and makes forbidden. In strict Islamic countries, the veil is sanctioned for women, whereas in other countries, women wear the veil for various political and personal reasons. Western feminists oftentimes claim that Arab women who veil, especially when not sanctioned to do so, cannot claim a feminist orientation; however, a more nuanced understanding of the situation reveals that Arab feminists sometimes veil because of their feminist orientation. Similarly, the term harem (hareem in Arabic) means “women”—the word is derived from the word haraam, which connotes something that is sacred, forbidden, and holy. Traditionally, Arab women have been secluded (or have secluded themselves) by living in harems, surrounded by other women. Western feminists worry that this female seclusion is another example of oppression and do not recognize the harem as a potential source of women’s strength and community-building. Major Contributors, Organizations, and Outlets Qasim Amin wrote The Liberation of Women in 1899 and was seen as the “father of Arab feminism” because of his claim that women needed education and liberation for Egypt to educate itself and liberate itself from British colonialism. Amin’s book sparked a feminist revolution that lasted until Gamal Abdel Nasser’s 1952 coup in Egypt. Huda Sha’rawi (1879–1900) is seen as the pioneer of Egypt’s women’s movement because of her creation of that nation’s first public protest for women when, on her return from a women’s conference in Rome in 1923, she threw off her veil at a Cairo train station and other women joined in. Sha’rawi’s public display allowed for many middle-class women in the Arab world to discontinue veiling. Today’s most noted Arab feminist (in the West) is Nawal al-Saadawi,
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a medical doctor and founder of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association. Her vocal opposition to female genital mutilation made her a target of Islamic fundamentalists. The threat from fundamentalists reached its peak in 1993, when al-Saadawi was put on a “death list” and fled to the United States. A number of feminist organizations have been created in the Arab world. The Egyptian Feminist Union was formed in 1923 by Sha’rawi and was the first explicit identification of Arab women’s feminism. Soon after, the Arab Women’s Union was formed in 1928, and since the 1970s (which was the United Nations’ Decade for Women), independent and quasi-independent women’s groups have formed in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Kuwait. Egypt, in particular, boasts several leading women’s organizations, including the New Woman’s Group, Arab Women’s Publishing House, the Alliance of Arab Women, the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women, Together, the Progressive Women’s Union, and the Society for the Daughter of the Earth. The 1980s and 1990s experienced a rapid increase in nongovernmental organizations in the Arab world. Women’s nongovernmental organizations addressed health, education, income generation, legal literacy, and gender-based violence. Feminist nongovernmental organizations have been lacking in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Between 1802 and 1940, Arab feminists produced and published poetry, fiction, nonfiction essays, and position papers that focused on women’s issues, women’s literature, and women’s rights. The Arabic press was a primary vehicle for discussing gender issues. In 1892, Hind Nawfal, a Syrian, created al-Fatat (“Young Girl”), and by 1940, more than 25 Arab feminist journals had been created, written, and owned by Arab women. These female-centered journals were produced in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, and even Baghdad. Feminist journalists later founded literary salons and women’s clubs to discuss issues important to them. In addition, the first pan-Arab television satellite station that targets Arab women audiences launched in 2002 to address women’s issues, and the numbers of women bloggers are increasing rapidly. There is little doubt that women’s effect on theater, music, dance, radio and television broadcasting, cinema, and blogs
have sparked new perceptions and understanding of Arab women throughout the world. Connection to Nationalism The connection between Arab feminism and Arab nationalism has been a recurring theme in Arab countries, including Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, and Palestine. In each of these countries, Arab women participated in the national independence struggle while also organizing feminist movements alongside the national movement. For example, Algerian women fought side by side with men against colonization before the independence struggle in 1954. Iranian feminists participated in the revolution of 1979 and in the Iran–Iraq war, which laid the foundation for the reformist movement and the 1997 election of President Khatami. Iranian feminists were perhaps most successful: Female reformists in the Iranian Parliament gained access to decision-making roles and promoted women’s activism. Similarly, in Iraq, women were able to legitimize their role in public life and demand education. Despite this connection between nationalism and feminism, in most Arab countries the priority was always on the liberation struggle. In many examples, after reformists gained independence, the nationalist discourse eliminated its “feminist” dimension. Pan-Arab Feminism In the Arab world, the 1860s to the 1920s was a period of “invisible feminism,” according to many scholars. When Arab women came together to help Palestinian women in their nationalist struggle, they began a significant form of pan-Arab feminism, although the roots of pan-Arab feminism date back to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq before 1938. In fact, the Egyptian Feminist Union played an important role in the institutionalization of pan-Arab feminism that was distinct from feminisms in individual countries. The 1980s centered on the heterogeneity of Arab women’s experiences and forced women to examine sexuality, socioeconomics, colonialism, and nationalism as important factors shaping Arab women’s lives. More recently, in 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development met in Cairo, where women discussed sexuality and female genital mutilation. Pan-Arab feminism remains an important agent of change for women throughout the Arab world.
Archery
Incumbent and Emerging Feminisms Egypt has maintained feminism for more than a century and has had a significant effect on pan-Arab feminism. Many early Egyptian feminists were middle- and upper-class women asserting their rights, but after the 1952 Egyptian revolution, all women gained the right to vote and receive an education. As Egyptian feminism increased throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the wearing of the veil steadily declined. Women started more sustained organizing in 1977 by creating small discussion groups that eventually became formal committees. In the early 1940s, the Palestinian women’s movement became more institutionalized, coordinated, and organized. The new woman construct was entirely class based, which helped a small, elite minority of Palestinian women but ignored the masses of peasant women, which was not uncommon. During the 1970s and beyond, Palestinian feminists formed classes to provide health education, home training, office skill development, and increasing literacy; they also formed work committees, organized marches, and established food cooperatives to produce food to ease the burden felt by the boycott on Israeli goods. Despite acceptance of Palestinian women by Palestinian men, the political representation of Palestinian women is behind their contributions to the national struggle for liberation. In Iraq, the first women’s organization, the Women’s Awakening Club, appeared after World War I and sought to expand and improve women’s education. The Iraqi Women’s Union was founded in 1945. In 1959, the Law of Personal Status was passed, which gave women uniform inheritance rights, equal divorce rights, and regulated child support. Iranian feminists were involved in the Iranian revolution, and 25 years after the Islamic Revolution, feminist readings and reinterpretations of sacred religious texts are now becoming popular, as are intellectual and cultural productions by women. There is a growing number of women’s organizations, institutes, and scholarship published in Iran, and these activities have helped to bridge the divide between Arab Islamic activists and Arab secular feminists. Although the reinstatement of the civil code based on the Islamic law limited women’s human rights following the Islamic revolution, women’s political rights remained intact. Not unlike other Arab countries, many women organizations in Iran are led by female kin of the ruling male
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elite, who are thus state connected and/or state controlled. Among the Gulf states, Kuwait has been the most successful in integrating women into public life, both through education and employment; however, women in Kuwait did not gain the right to vote and be elected until 2006. See Also: Egypt; Islam; Iran; Iraq; Kuwait; Lebanon; Palestine; Progressive Muslims (U.S.); Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan; Saudi Arabia; Syria; United Arab Emirates. Further Readings Badran, Margot and Miriam Cooke. Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Nouraie-Simone, Fereshteh. On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005. Jennifer Struve Towson University
Archery The first recorded association between women and archery concerns the Amazons. These symbolic images of strong women with bows and arrows cutting down their enemies can be traced to Greek mythology and to the historic chronicles of Herodotus (c. 495 b.c.e.–425 b.c.e.). One legend surrounding the Amazon warriors, which is particularly noteworthy, is that their archers would cut off their right breasts so that that would not interfere with the accuracy of their bow strings. They lived in all-female societies and spent their days in agriculture, hunting, and war making. In the mid-20th century, archaeologists uncovered what was viewed as proof of the existence of Amazons in the southern Ukraine through the discovery of female graves filled with swords, spears, daggers, arrowheads, and armor. The findings also indicated that these women had been habitual equestriennes and that many had been killed in battle. Since the late 20th century, American females have enjoyed archery and other sports due to the 1972 passage of Title IX of the Educational Amendments to
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the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title IX stipulates that federal funds would be withdrawn to any institution not granting female athletes opportunities commensurate with those of males. Archery became part of the Summer Olympic Games in 1900, and competitions continued to be held until 1920. Archery was reintroduced to the Olympics in 1972, and it was at that time that competitions were first held in the Women’s Individual category. The gold medal for that year was awarded to American Doreen Wilber. Team competitions were added in 1988. Unlike Amazonian archers, today’s female archers are well protected. They wear guards that protect their arms from abrasions and chest guards made of plastic or leather to prevent chest injury. American actress Geena Davis generated new interest in the sport in 1999 when she unsuccessfully attempted to win a berth on the 2000 U.S.Women’s Olympic team in Sydney, Australia. Of the 300 semifinalists, Davis came in 24th. Officials subsequently allowed Davis to participate as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Arrow Competition, a move that continued to focus public attention on women’s archery. After losing 160-120 in the 18-arrow alternate shot, Davis stated that she looked upon her participation as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. South Korea dominated women’s archery in every Olympics in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2000 in Sydney, Australia, Yun Mi-Jin won the gold, Kim Nam-Soon the silver, and Kim Soo-Nyung the bronze in the Women’s Individual competition. South Korea also won the team competition due to the combined efforts of Kim Soo-Nyung, Kim Nam-Soon, and Yun Mi-Jin. Four years later, South Korea again won gold (Park Sung-Hyun) and silver (Lee Sung-Jin), but Alison Williams of Great Britain carried home the bronze. South Korea did win the Women’s Team competition again with a team comprised of Lee Sung-Jin, Park Sung-Hyun, and Yun Mi-Jin. In 2008 in Beijing, China, the gold medal for Women’s Individual was awarded to Zhang Juanjuan of China, but South Korea managed to snag the silver and bronze, with medals going to Park SungHyun and Yun Ok-Hee, respectively. The two South Koreans teamed with Joo Hyun-Jung to win the gold medal for the Women’s Team competition. While American women have not won Olympic medals in archery this century, they have done
extremely well in other competitions. The top-ranked American female archer is Jennifer Nichols, who competed at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, and won first place in the United States National Indoor Championships in both 2007 and 2008. Janet Dykman, who is ranked second among American female archers, is one of the oldest competitors. She was 42 years old when she competed in her first Olympics in 1996, and competed in 2000. The United States Olympic Committee named Dykman Athlete of the Year in Archery each year between 1995 and 1998. See Also: Olympics, Summer; Sports, Women in; South Korea; Ukraine. Further Readings Eldred, Sheila. “The Secrets of Sports Science.” New Moon Network, v.5. (February 28, 1998). Gavora, Jessica. “A Field of Nightmares.” The Women’s Quarterly, v.31 (Spring 2002). 2008 Olympic Committee. “Archery.” http://en.beijing 2008.cn/sports/archery (accessed April 2010). Wilson, James. “Amazons.” Transitions, v.19 (June 30, 1999). Elizabeth Purdy Independent Scholar
Architecture, Women in In most countries, women constitute a small proportion of architects. Even in the United States and the United Kingdom, where women entered the profession over a century ago, they are still much underrepresented, especially at the upper levels. In both the United States and United Kingdom, in 2008, less than a fifth of licensed architects were female. Women now form larger proportions of students in architecture schools, with around 40 percent of all enrollments being female. However, the ratio of women falls steadily through the stages in the profession, from internships to licensing, and progressing to firm leadership. Women who do attain leadership of their firm typically do so either in small firms or as a sole practitioner. One early-21st-century estimate of the year when women in the United Kingdom will attain
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differences, with boys exhibiting tendencies for building and outdoor activity and girls decorating interiors. Others, such as Robert Stern, dean of Yale University’s Architecture School, argue that it is the difficulty of combining motherhood with a career that entails long hours and, often, international travel. Whatever the reasons for women’s low profiles, they are being overcome, and the number of women entering and succeeding in the profession is growing.
The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, was Zaha Hadid’s first design project in the United States.
parity in the profession of architecture if current rates prevail was 3000. The reasons for the relative paucity of women in the architectural profession are debatable. However, as Doris Cole pointed out, among Native Americans of the Great Plains, architecture was considered women’s work—it was they who built the tipis in which families lived. It was in the ensuing centuries that architecture became man’s work, and most cities in all parts of the world reflect men’s ideas of aesthetics, functionality, and economy. Various authors have noted that we live in a man-made environment, with consequences for both sexes, but particularly for women. The most commonly advanced reason for this gender imbalance is cultural conditioning—that women have been discouraged from entering professions such as architecture, engineering, and construction by societal expectations. Some argue that gender differences in spatial ability—males may have greater innate spatial understanding—have inhibited the entry of women into the profession. It also has been noted that even today, children’s play often shows stereotypic gender
Advancing Female Architects Various organizations in several countries seek to advance the status of women in architecture. In the United States, the Association of Women in Architecture was established in 1922, growing from a small group formed by women enrolled at the School of Architecture at Washington University (St. Louis), who were excluded from the men’s fraternity. During the 1960s, the association split into regional chapters. There are active groups today in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere. The associations provide educational programs, mentoring, mutual support, grants, and scholarships to women. A third of the associates of the American Institute of Architects are women, though only 14 percent of members of the American Institute of Architects who are licensed are female. In the United Kingdom, the Royal Institute of British Architects commissioned a study in 2002 to explore why women leave the profession. The report found working conditions that were not “family friendly,” paternalistic attitudes, tokenism, and difficulties in maintaining skills and professional networks during career breaks to be significant factors. The institute responded with various policy changes designed to support both women and men who have career breaks for family or recessionary reasons, for example. In 2009, the Royal Institute of British Architects elected its first female president, Ruth Reed. When asked whether she thought that her architecture was influenced by her gender she declined to agree, but she has noted that she had a private practice to facilitate childcare and would like to be seen as a role model for young female architects. Coincidentally, the same year, the Chartered Institute of Building (based in the United Kingdom, but working internationally) elected its first woman president, Li Shirong, who was educated partly in the United Kingdom but works in
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China. She felt that the implications of her appointment were more significant for reflecting China’s role in the global building industry than for her gender. Another ongoing controversy revolves around the question of whether buildings and cities would look different if designed by women rather than men. Some are convinced that there is such a thing as “male architecture,” with phallic towers and hard, block-like shapes, whereas “female architecture” tends toward flowing, rounded shapes and more decorative touches. Others dismiss these ideas, pointing to Frank Gehry’s “feminine” shapes and noting that award-winning female architects’ work is often indistinguishable from their male peers. Because most women architects have been trained in schools with a largely male professoriate and by male practitioners, however, it would perhaps be surprising if their designs were radically different from those of their male colleagues. The proportion of women in the faculty of architecture schools in the United States is currently around 25 percent, so this influence may change. It is, however, incontrovertible that in the early years of the profession, women architects were mainly confined to domestic designs, and it has been only relatively recently that major urban projects have been awarded to female architects. Efforts to increase the visibility of women in the profession date back more than a century. The Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 included an imposing Italian Renaissance Women’s Building designed by Sophie Hayden, who was trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This all-women project featured exhibits on women’s progress, including a library of 7,000 books written by women. The building was financed by Congress, and among the women who spoke during the exposition were Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone. Nearly a century later, a Women’s Building opened in Los Angeles to provide space for feminist artists, crafts, and theater. Among the artists working there was Judy Chicago. Renowned Women Architects Arguably the most renowned living woman architect is Zaha Hadid, who until 2010 was the only woman to have been awarded the Pritzker Prize—architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Hadid was born in Baghdad in 1950 and studied architecture in London before joining the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977. She has taught at
various universities in the United States, Germany, and Austria, and her 250-person firm (Zaha Hadid Architects) is in London. Hadid has won a number of international competitions, although some designs were never built. Among her completed projects are art galleries in Michigan and Ohio, a train station in Italy, and a science center in Germany. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in leading museums including the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Architectural Association in London. Her designs exhibit tectonic fluidity and dynamism, and in recent years they have been influenced by digital methods. She has designed at scales ranging from the urban, to interiors, to consumer products. Despite the fact that her base is, and has been, in London, she has received few commissions for buildings in the United Kingdom—a fact she attributes to not being part of the “brotherhood,” or the male-dominated architect’s network. However, her design for an aquatics center was chosen for construction in London for the 2012 Olympics. Denise Scott Brown, born in 1931 in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), has been an active architect for over four decades. Similar to Hadid, she received architectural training at the Architectural Association School in London before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, she studied at the University of Pennsylvania’s planning department and met and later married Robert Venturi, with whom she established the firm of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. Their influential book on Las Vegas accepted the rampant commercialism of that city’s laissez-faire capitalism and the car-dependence landscape of suburbia as it celebrated the innovative landscapes thus produced. Scott Brown has taught at the University of California–Berkeley, Yale University, and Harvard University and has led various urban design projects, as well as architectural projects in London; Toulouse, France; and Japan. Her book Having Words includes essays about being female in a male-dominated profession. She notes, for example, the impossibility of personal experience or probable consumer feedback by men designing public restrooms for women and describes some of the indignities she suffered from male colleagues even after her professional reputation was well established.
Argentina
Among the more overtly feminist women in the profession is Susanna Torre, who was born in Argentina, taught at Columbia University, and curated an exhibition titled “Women in American Architecture” in the Brooklyn Museum in 1977. Her book based on the exhibit provided an historical and contemporary survey of women in architecture. She was also a founding member of a valuable archive, the International Archive of Women In Architecture, which is based at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University but is also largely available online. A women architect who recently achieved global recognition is Kazuyo Sejima, who in 2010 won the Pritzker Prize with her professional partner, Ryne Nishizawa. Their work includes the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and the Christian Dior building in Tokyo. Sejima studied at Japan Women’s University and bases her work in Japan, as well as at Princeton University in the United States. In 2010, she served as the first female director of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Maya Lin, today best known for her minimalist sculptures and monuments, achieved wide recognition when, at only 21 years old and a student at Yale University, she won the design contest for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982. More recently, her designs have included the Museum of Chinese in America and a ground sculpture—Wavefield—at Storm King Art Center in New York. Sherry Ahrentzen, who has taught architecture at the universities of Wisconsin and Arizona, has focused much effort on including usually marginalized populations in design decisions, especially those related to housing. In 2009, she was given a career award by the Environmental Design Research Association for her lifetime achievements. She and other women architects are gradually changing both the profession of architecture and the appearance of the built environment. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Chicago, Judy; Landscape Architecture, Women in; Lin, Maya; Urban Planning, Women in. Further Readings Adams, Annemarie and Peta Tancred. “Designing Women”: Gender and the Architectural Profession. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.
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Cole, Doris. From Tipi to Skyscraper: A History of Women in Architecture. Boston: MIT Press, 1978. Scott Brown, Denise. Having Words. London: Architectural Association, 2009. Torre, Susanna. Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1977. Toy, Maggie, ed. The Architect: Women in Contemporary Architecture. New York: Images, 2001. Briavel Holcomb Rutgers University
Argentina Argentina is the second largest country in South America. The dominant population is of Spanish or Italian descent, and the dominant religion is Roman Catholic. There is also an indigenous presence. Women enjoy full equality under the law, are highly educated, and well represented in business and politics compared with the rest of Latin America. Women are negatively impacted by continued gaps in pay, limited representation at the highest levels of business and politics, and the impact of recent economic instability. Argentina was 24th of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. The 2009 fertility rate was 2.3 births per woman. Skilled healthcare workers attend almost all births. The 2009 infant mortality rate was 14 per 1,000 live births; the maternal mortality rate was 77 per 100,000 live births. Women receive 90 days of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of their wages, paid from a state and employer-contributed family allowance fund. Of married women, 65 percent use contraceptives; divorce is legal and increasingly common, despite the Roman Catholic Church’s objection to both practices. Most families are small and nuclear, although extended family members offer assistance and meet regularly for lunches or special occasions. Parents now both have legal authority over their children, although this was not the case in the past. Women perform most household chores and childcare. The use of nannies, babysitters, and daycare centers are also com-
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mon. Many large companies and trade unions provide daycare services for workers. Domestic abuse is a serious problem; however, the Argentinian government offers self-help groups for battered women that offer medical, legal, and psychological assistance. The population tends to be highly educated, with a literacy rate at 98 percent for both genders. There are both public and private schools, and both follow the standard, government-set curriculum. Education is compulsory for ages 6 to 14, with free preschool and higher education available as well. Adult education programs are common, with females making up the majority of students. Female school enrollment rates in 2009 stood at 98 percent for the primary level, 82 percent at the secondary level, and 76 percent at the tertiary level. Approximately 90 percent of the population is urban. The economic crisis of the early 2000s and subsequent slow recovery meant that many formerly middle-class women found their families among the so-called “new poor.” There is good access to healthcare, with most people utilizing a blend of Western and traditional medicine. Problems include a lack of skilled jobs, and growing rates of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), poverty, crime, and corruption. An increased emphasis on physical appearance has led to rising rates of dieting, plastic surgery, and eating disorders in women. The 2009 life expectancy was age 68 for women and age 62 for men. More than half, or 57 percent, of women participated in the labor force in 2009, with women comprising 45 percent of the paid nonagricultural labor force and 54 percent of professional and technical workers. Women are more likely to work at unskilled and low-paying jobs than their male counterparts. Gender gaps remain in average estimated earned income, which stood at $8,595 for women and $15,485 for men, and unemployment, which stood at 11.63 percent for women and 7.79 percent for men. Women still face discrimination and sexual harassment. Child labor is a problem despite legislation. Women have the right to vote and are constitutionally guaranteed equality. Women held 40 percent of parliamentary seats and 23 percent of ministerial positions in 2009. Argentina elected its first female president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in 2007. The National Council on Children and Families, as well
as nongovernmental organizations such as churches and trade unions, pursue women’s issues. See Also: Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Government, Women in; Heads of State, Female; Machismo/ Marianismo. Further Readings Dore, Elizabeth and Maxine Molyneux, eds. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Navarro, Marysa. “Argentina: The Long Road to Women’s Rights.” In Lynn Walter, ed., Women’s Rights: A Global View. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University
Armenia Armenia is a landlocked Eurasian country of almost 3 million people, sharing borders with Turkey, Iran, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. In the 4th century, Armenia became the first country to formally adopt Christianity, and today over 90 percent of the population identifies with the Armenian Apostolic Church. Women have played key roles in Armenian history; “Mother Armenia,” a statue symbolizing the Armenian people, occupies a place of honor in the capital city of Yerevan. The World Economic Forum rated Armenia relatively low in gender equality in 2009. On a scale from 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality) Armenia got an overall score of 0.662 (90th of 134 countries). Armenia ranked 29th on educational attainment (0.999) and 56th on economic participation (0.671), but 123rd on political empowerment (0.044) and 133rd on health and survival (0.933). Armenia’s literacy rate is over 99 percent for both men and women, and more women than men attend tertiary education. Employment is common for women, who constitute almost half the nonagricultural work force. Armenia has low birth and fertility rates (12.65 per 1,000 population and 1.36 children per woman, respectively) and this, coupled with high outmigration (minus 4.56 migrants per 1,000 population),
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A 1915 photo of Armenian widows and orphans in Turkey, after the destruction of the Armenian population by the Ottoman Empire. Armenia had been under Ottoman rule since the early 16th century.
results in a slightly negative population growth rate (minus 0.03 percent in 2009). Life expectancy at birth is 69.06 years for men and 76.81 for women. Only 22 percent of women use modern methods of contraception, but abortion is available on demand. Under-five mortality has decreased since 1990, and in 2003 was 4 per 1,000 live births, while maternal mortality was 55 per 100,000 live births and stillbirths were 16 per 1,000 live births. Most births take place in health facilities and are attended by skilled personnel. Childhood immunization rates were over 90 percent for most childhood diseases, and polio has been eradicated in Armenia. Human trafficking is a serious problem in Armenia; the country is on the Tier 2 Watch List, which indicates lack of compliance with the Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act. This signifies lack of compliance with minimum standards to prevent human trafficking, and lack of progress in combating trafficking. Adults (both men and women)
are trafficked to Turkey and Russia for forced labor, while women and children are trafficked to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for sexual purposes. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Orthodox Churches; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Armenia.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/am.html (accessed February 2010). Migliorino, Nicola. (Re)constructing Armenia in Lebanon and Syria: Ethno-Cultural Diversity and the State in the Aftermath of a Refugee Crisis. Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, 2007. Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine
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Art Criticism: Gender Issues
Art Criticism: Gender Issues In the 1970s and 1980s several feminist art historians questioned the methodology of the traditional art criticism that constructed an art history composed exclusively of male artists. In her 1971 essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Linda Nochlin called for a reconsideration of the artwork analysis methods to discover women’s artistic creations. This kind of feminist intervention in art history continued in the 1980s. In their 1981 book, Old Mistresses, Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock argued that throughout history art sustained male privilege through a gendered discourse in which Western masculine creativity was regarded as high art while female creativity expressed in decorative art, such as embroidery, was dismissed as mere craft. In a later essay, Pollock pointed out that the changes in art history should go beyond adding forgotten or excluded women artists to the existing male canon. For Pollock, the art critic reproduces the male-dominated art criticism that has excluded women artists and dismissed female creativity. Influenced by Marxist theory, Pollock suggested that there has to be a radical redefinition of the production and consumption of art. Besides the artist and the quality of art objects, the art critic should study the totality of social relations that form the conditions of the production and consumption of objects designated in that process of art. In this approach, the art is no longer just an object but a practice that is informed by gender and sexual difference issues. The interventions of feminist art critics such as Nochlin, Parker, and Pollock in the 1980s and even as early as the 1970s led to the formation of art criticism that is informed primarily by gender issues concerning the art. According to author and professor Gill Perry, gender art criticism can focus on several questions when analyzing a piece of work. These include authorship, the representation of gender difference mainly in case of nonabstract works, the reception of the work, and the gendering of the representation process. A gender sensitive approach can raise the question of whether the artist’s gender influences the interpretation of the work. If the work of art pictures different genders or sexualities, the critic can analyze the modes of representation. Perry has suggested that the
representation processes should be investigated by questioning whether particular painting techniques are more masculine or feminine. This question, however, can be part of a larger investigation on how the language of art and art criticism is gendered. The art critic also could take into consideration how her own gender influences her viewing of the art. The changes that occurred in art criticism circles from the early 1970s cannot be separated from the emergence of strong feminist art practice. The theoretical shifts that occurred throughout the 1980s and 1990s with the emergence of postmodernism and an increasing interest in Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, and queer theory also shaped the language of art criticism. One of the first important feminist art projects was Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, which was exhibited for the first time in 1979 at the San Francisco Museum of Art. The installation consisted of a triangular table covered with embroidered cloth and set with 39 places. Each place was dedicated to one important woman and included needlework design and ceramics decorated with images suggesting female genitalia. Perry wrote that the reception of this feminist art project exemplifies the debates of feminist art criticism. The questions remain: how can decorative arts and feminine art practices be reconceptualized to produce important aesthetic objects; and how can female artists reclaim the female body and their sexuality without reproducing imagery of male fantasies? Sexuality and the accompanying shift in feminine and masculine definitions popular in the 1980s and in the 1990s began a shift in the emphasis from equal rights and social gender constructions to sexual difference and the fluidity and instability of those relations. See also: Body Art; Chicago, Judy; Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago); Feminism, American; Gender, Defined; Queer Theory. Further Readings Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art and Society. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997. Deepwell, Katy and Pauline Barrie, eds. New Feminist Art Criticism: Critical Strategies. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995. Gornick, Vivian and Barbara K. Moran, eds. Woman in a Sexist Society, New York: Basic Books, 1971.
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Meskimmon, Marsha. Women Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics. London: Routledge, 2003. Nochlin, Linda. “Why There Have Been No Great Women Artists?” In Women, Art and Power and Other Essays. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988. Perry, Gillian. Gender and Art. London: Open University Press, 1999. Pollock, Griselda. Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and Histories of Art. London: Routledge, 2003. Pollock, Griselda and Victoria Turvey Sauron, eds. The Sacred and the Feminine: Imagination and Sexual Difference. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Zita Farkas Independent Scholar
Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview) In the current patriarchal system of hierarchies for capital gain, art by woman embodies their physical, social, political, environmental, psychological, and emotional state. The first decade of the 21st century for women artists is a culture of global interaction with much disparity among women’s circumstances. Some women artists assume a deliberate turn to selfdetermination, while others work to expose the economic, political, and social limits experienced in a particular time and place. War, poverty, illness, and the global warming have raged in the first decade in the new millennium. Globally, issues of significance to women visual artists include sexuality, domestic violence and rape, disenfranchisement, and poverty. Activist art by women in the 21st century take up these concerns and others. Cyberfeminist artists with a do-it-yourself (DIY) attitude use the participatory nature of Web applications to mobilize masses for social actions that disrupt business as usual. Contemporary examples include artist Coco Fusco, working with others in Operación Digna (2003), and the collective subRosa (1991–2010). Historically, social structures limiting women’s mobility, education, and networks with influential patrons, critics, and exclusion from influential exhibitions, events, and publications impeded women’s
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careers as visual artists. From the perspective of women visual artists, a niche opened since 2000 for their artwork, particularly if their art relates to women’s lives including sexuality, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, breast cancer, domestic violence/ abuse, rape, eating disorders, and aging. The feminist slogan, “The personal is political,” continues to be evident in visual art by women in their personal upclose views of their experiences. Examples of the personal politicized in artwork include Dánica Phelps’s 36 drawings of each step in taking a shower exhibited at the Zach Feuer Gallery in Chelsea in 2005. This series of drawings mock the male gaze epitomized in 20th-century paintings by men of women bathing that are exhibited at major museums. Another example is Hollis Sigler’s series of paintings in which her personal experiences are intended to raise political consciousness of breast cancer. She died of breast cancer in 2001, one month after receiving the distinguished artist award for lifetime achievement from the College Art Association. Today, art about gender aims to show the artificiality of hierarchical and binary constructions of man/woman (e.g., Catherine Opie’s photographs that disrupt conventional stereotypes in her 2003 series, Surfers; her 2004 series, Chicago; and her 2004–05 series, In and Around Home). Young women artists forging identities as artists in the 21st century confront conformity with a self-styling of femininity or participation in raunch culture (e.g., Nikki S. Lee’s photo/film projects of subcultures she enters, Amy Cutler’s narrative paintings of women working, Kate Gilmore’s video art, or the 2009 group show Goddess at the Under Minerva Gallery in Brooklyn). Artworks by women in the past decade often critique patriarchal political power structures from an intersectional perspective of gender, race, sexuality, and colonialism. For example, Sabba Saleem Syal’s mixed-media installation, A Contested Territory, continues the feminist strategy of the personal is political. Her work places her family’s history within the political history of Pakistan. Sight Unseen: Video From Afghanistan and Iran by Rahraw Omarzad and Seifollah Samadian, exhibited at the Asian Society Museum in Manhattan in 2009, explores spaces of contestation experienced in their lives. An art world tension between representation and abstraction is more conflated, or a confluence, rather
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than oppositional art world camps (e.g., Ingrid Calame’s tracings of stains and skid marks merge subjectivity of body movement and sensation as subject, process, and materiality). The confluence combines real-world experiences and the making of art with the world’s materials, technologies, and ideas. Sites of Women’s Art The Guerrilla Girls, a New York–based group of radical feminist artists, formed in 1985 in reaction to the art world’s exclusion of women artists from art history, major museum collections, influential exhibitions, and art careers. In 2000, some members formed Guerrilla Girls Broadband to use the Internet for feminist art activism. The Guerrilla Girls’ individual identity is protected through use of gorilla masks and pseudonyms of deceased women artists so they can raise awareness of inequitable practices in the art world without personal retaliation. Their 2005 book, The Guerrilla Girls’ Art Museum Activity Book, provides statistics that indicate that artworks by women continue to be underrepresented in museums. For example, 90 percent of solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art featured work by white male artists. Other New York museums have increased their inclusion of women artists such as the Whitney Museum of Art with 30 percent of its exhibitions featuring art by women. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), while still primarily a museum of art by men, has added art by women artists to its collections and programming, such as the 2006 midcareer retrospective of lesbian filmmaker Su Friedrich. The Guerrilla Girls were also invited to MoMA for the 2007 Feminist Future Symposium, which was sponsored as one of several of the Feminist Art Projects’ orchestration for a concerted presence of women artists in 2006 to 2007. Catherine Opie: American Photographer was a solo retrospective at the Guggenheim from September 26, 2008, to January 7, 2009, in the annex gallery rooms rather than along the spiral ramp, the exhibition space of featured artwork. Kitty Kraus (born 1976, Heidelberg, Germany) was invited to exhibit her experimental installations at the Guggenheim from October 9, 2009, to January 6, 2010. Kraus’s work visualizes entropy in that it literally shatters or dissolves during the exhibition. Jennifer Dalton’s 2006 installation, This Is Not News!, is a visualization with a room-sized bar graph
of lights of the ratio of men and women who have had solo gallery shows in Chelsea galleries in New York and in the Whitney Biennial in 2006. Clearly, the white lights, representing men, lit the room suggesting the continual gender disparity for women artists in receiving recognition in the most influential art world venues. In the 21st century, women artists are less disadvantaged than prior decades with entry-level recognition and inclusion in the cultural capital of art world politics, but the disparity in recognition is pronounced in the high-profile art world cultural capital exchange. Women artists have gained confidence in knowing their own success as artists regardless of adverse conditions for women in sustainable careers as artists, in part by creating sites for sharing their artwork outside influential art world gatekeepers. In 2002, Fusion Cuisine was an exhibition of international women artists at the Deste Center for Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece. Curator Rosa Martinez selected artworks representing a variety of strategies to radically reinvent the emotional, sexual, economical, and geopolitical distribution of power. The 2005 Venice Biennale was hailed as a feminist biennale. For the first time, since it began in 1895, two women, Mara de Corral and Rosa Martinez, were major curators directing the Venice Biennale that influences art and artists’ careers. They invited an unprecedented number of women artists who received more awards than the men who were invited to a venue that had been dominated by art and prizes by and for men. The Arsenale exhibition at the Biennale included art by Pilar Albarracin (Spain), Joana Vasconcelos (Portugal), Ghada Amer (Egypt), Louise Bourgeois (United States), Mona Hatoum (Lebanon), Semiha Berksoy (Turkey), Regina Jos Galindo (Guatemala), Emily Jacir (Palestine), Kimsooja (South Korea), Shazia Sikander (Pakistan), Paloma Varga Weisz (Germany), Valeska Scares (Brazil), and Mariko Mori (Japan). Other pavilions included art by Eya-Liisa Ahtila (Finland), Rebecca Belmore (Canada), Monica Bonvicini (Italy), Candice Breitz (Germany), Tania Bruguera (Cuba), Tacita Dean (United Kingdom), Marlene Dumas (Holland), Jenny Holzer (United States), Miyako Ishiuchi (Japan), Barbara Kruger (United States), Annette Messager (France), Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland), Kiki Smith (United States), Jelena Tomasevic (Serbia), and Rachel Whiteread (United Kingdom).
Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview)
Digital Multimedia Art Since 2008, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1987, provides Clara, an interactive database of 18,000 women visual artists. The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, established in 2007 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, is an exhibition and education facility dedicated to feminist art. It includes an ever-expanding online digital multimedia archive of feminist artist profiles from the 1960s to the present. Begun in 2008, artfem.tv is a cyberfeminist action to emphasize women’s feminist art on the international stage of the Internet. Performance, video art, sound art, and documentaries linked on artfem.tv deconstruct sex and gender in patriarchal systems. The Feminist Art Project (TFAP) intervenes in the erasure of women artists by stimulating public attention to feminist art by promoting diverse feminist art events, education, and publications, and by facilitating regional and international networks and programs. Significant exhibitions, which are part of the TFAP, include in 2006 and 2007 How American Women Artists Invented Postmodernism 1970 to 1975, curated by Judith K. Brodskey and Ferris Olin at Rutgers University; Global Feminisms, curated by Linda Nochlin and Maura Reilly at the Brooklyn Museum of Art; WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, curated by Connie Butler at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, One True Thing, curated by Dena Miller at A.I.R. Gallery in New York; From the Inside Out: Feminist Art Then and Now, curated by Claudia Sbrissa at the Yeh Art Gallery at St. John’s University in Queens; Re: Generation curated by Joan Synder and Molly Snyder-Fink shown at galleries in Brooklyn; and Women, Art, and Intellect, curated by Leslie King-Hammond at Ceres Gallery in New York. The Riot Grrrl feminist punk movement, which began in the 1990s, rejected ideals and sought to empower a DIY activist way of life and to hold an aggressively impassionate attitude toward self and others. Their self-published print-based zines of the 1990s and DIY activism is one of the forerunners of the issue-based DIY new media art by women that primarily uses the Internet as a medium, often as part of a collective, team, or group (e.g., Brainstormers, a New York City–based feminist collective, in their 2009 sound installation “May I Please
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Have a Sip of Your Power?,” which asks a repeating loop of questions in a computer-generated voice that address power inequities). Zines, and other print-based feminist publications and databases of women artists, have changed to online multimedia communications in the 21st century. For example, Visual Culture & Gender journal (Hyphen-UnPress) began in 2005, and M/E/A/N/I/N/G (Susan Bee and Mira Schor, editors) changed from print to online in 2000. Two international journals addressing the work of contemporary women artists and feminist theory were founded in the late 1990s: n.paradoxa, a biannual print-based journal founded in January 1998, and Feminist Art Journal, which was founded in December 1996. Using the Internet as art medium (i.e., Net art) has increased in the 21st century and is an area that women artists have contributed to in distinct ways from artistic roots in the 1970s women’s movement’s experiential installations and performance, a form of art in which the body is the medium. Net art involves new possibilities for participatory performance and co-creation of art (e.g., the 2003 cyberperformance Dress the Nation by Avatar Body Collision, a group of four women: Helen Varley Jamieson, Karla Ptacek, Vicki Smith, and Leena Saarinen). Net art has characteristics of intertextuality, nonlinearity, interactivity, and database aesthetics and is situated in communication and experience, not objects (e.g., Victoria Vesna’s Bodies INCorporated begun in 1996 and still continuing with people building virtual bodies). Careers in the visual arts include designers, filmmakers, cartoonists, animators, advertisers, architects, historians, curators, librarians, educators, therapists—and studio, fine, environmental, and craft artists. Some artists hold salaried jobs while others earn their livelihoods from selling art or from commissioned or sponsored art projects such as largescale environmental artworks (e.g., Lynne Hull’s 2008 Tres Artistas Ecoheroinas) or public artworks (e.g., Mary Beth Edelson, who creates small-scale public social spaces). Edelson collaboratively produced an International Artists Contract (Sweden, 2006) that can be downloaded from her Website and tailored as needed to provide equitable conditions for artists. Women are typically underrepresented and earn less than men in each of these visual art careers. For
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example, women cartoonists and animators are in fields dominated by men. Themes in Women’s Art in the 21st Century Since 2000, the themes that women are concerned with in their visual art are in part reflected in the titles of recent exhibitions. In 2009, A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art, curated by Martin Rosenberg and Susan Isaacs, includes 16 women artists whose work was organized into five themes: Image and Text (Superimpositions); Complex Geographies (Hybrids); the Female Body (Pushing the Boundaries); Childhood and Family (Relationships); and Accessories (Clothing and Related Objects). Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, has become an international hub for more than 5,000 professional artists. Open House: Working in Brooklyn, a 2004 exhibition of artworks by contemporary Brooklynbased artists include 87 women and 114 men artists from Aruba, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, Johannesburg, London, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palestine, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Trinidad, United States, and Venezuela. The ratio gap of women to men artists who are recognized as artists has begun to close. The themes that emerged for the curators in their survey conducted to select artworks created since 2000 for Open House include Fable, which critiques everyday situations through new narratives; Quest for Identity; Fear and Desire; Domesticity, which concerns societal inscriptions; Digital Metamorphosis regarding transformative experiences beyond physicality, Structured Environment, and Nature and Landscape. The popular tags for artworks of online databases of contemporary women artists provide insight into significant themes and how society labels the themes in looking at 21st-century art by women and in reading their artist statements. In November 2009, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Feminist Art Base included the following as the most popular labels of women’s art: abstract, activism, aging, AIDS, anonymity, appearance, appropriation, autobiographical, beauty, breastfeeding, body, childhood, China, collage, colonialism, craft, cross dressing, death, decoration, desire, drawing, embroidery, emotions, erotic, fabric, family, female, figurative, France, gaze, gender, global feminisms, goddess, history, humor, identity, imperialism, installation, interior space, internal
organs, Islam, Japan, landscape, language, Latina, Lesbian, life cycles, love, Mali, man, Marilyn Monroe, marriage, masculinity, memory, mixed media, motherhood, narrative, nature, New York, nude, painting, performance, photography, pink, political, pornography, portraiture, postcolonialism, power, pregnancy, printmaking, public art, queer, race, realism, red, relationships, religion, resistance, sculpture, self portrait, sexuality, social activist, Spain, spiritual, sports, stereotypes, still life, stitch, stories, strength, subversive, Sweden, tattoo, text, textile, thread, torso, toys, transformation, transgender, vessel, video, voyeurism, vulnerability, women’s work, and youth. As art historian Linda Nochlin summarized in her review of the 2005 Venice Biennale, “There is no style, theme, iconography, craft, or medium that can be identified as art by women in the 21st century. Yet self-referential themes of the body and social conditioning are gender revealing while difference is apparent in women’s art in the 21st century.” See Also: Chicago, Judy; Dinner Party, The (Judy Chicago); Ecofeminism; Guerrilla Girls; Holzer, Jenny; Lin, Maya; Manga; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Pink, Advertising and; Plumwood, Val; Studio Arts, Women in; Walker, Kara; Women in Black; Women Make Movies. Further Readings Butler, Cornelia and Lisa Gabrielle Mark. WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. Los Angeles: MOCA and MIT Press, 2007. Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society, 3rd ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. Collins, Lisa Gail. The Art of History: African American Women Artists Engage the Past. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Fortnum, Rebecca. Contemporary British Women Artists: In Their Own Words. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Ganz, Nicholas. Graffiti Women: Street Art From Five Continents. New York. Harry N. Abrams, 2006. Gómez-Quintero, A., E. Raysa, and M. Pérez Bustillo. The Female Body: Perspectives of Latin American Artists, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls’ Art Museum Activity Book. New York: Printed Matter, 2005. Hopper, Kippra D. and Laurie J. Churchill. Women Artists of West Texas: A Celebration. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2010.
Association for Women’s Rights in Development
Kotik, Charlotta and Tumelo Mosaka. Open House: Working in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 2004. Reilly, Maura and Linda Nochlin, eds. Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art. New York: Brooklyn Museum and Merrell Publishers, 2007. Sigler, Holly, Susan Love, and James Yood. Hollis Sigler’s Breast Cancer Journal. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1999. Wark, Jayne. Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art. Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006. Yoshimoto, Midori. Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Karen T. Keifer-Boyd Pennsylvania State University
Association for Women’s Rights in Development The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) is an international membership organization that aims to strengthen the effect and influence of women’s rights advocates, organizations, and movements internationally. AWID was founded in 1982. Its members include both men and women who are researchers, activists, students, academics, businesspeople, policy makers, development specialists, and more. AWID offers both individual and institutional memberships. The association is a multigenerational, creative, future-orientated feminist organization whose work aims to build knowledge and understanding of the trends and institutions undermining women’s rights and the appropriate strategies to address them; create capacity building measures for and with women’s rights advocates, organizations, and movements; build alliances across differences based on age, gender, sectors, social movements, regions, issues, and communities; and influence international institutions and actors to strengthen their approaches to advance the rights of women worldwide. AWID has divided its work into strategic programs and initiatives, including Challenging and
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Resisting Religious Fundamentalisms, Where Is the Money for Women’s Rights?, Building Feminist Movements and Organizations, Women’s Rights Information, Influencing Development Actors and Practice for Women’s Rights, the Young Feminist Activist Program, and the AWID Forum. The association is a global organization with offices in Toronto, Canada; Cape Town, South Africa; and Mexico City, Mexico. The staff and board of directors are international. Although its work is aimed at empowered women all over the world, the main efforts of AWID are targeted toward the rights of women in the global south and eastern and central Europe. AWID works are published in English, Spanish, and French, as well as Arabic to a lesser extent. Funding for AWID is provided by a number of foundations and government agencies, including ActionAID International, the Canadian International Development Agency, Cordaid, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Global Fund for Women, Hivos, Irish Aid, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Open Society Institute, Oxfam America, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Novib (Netherlands), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the United National Development Fund for Women. In the United States, AWID is registered as a 501(c)(3) organization and is classified as a public charity under section 509(a)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code. AWID produces an annual report. An electronic copy of the latest report is available on the association’s Website at http://www.awid.org. AWID also publishes and provides a wealth of information and resources regarding women’s rights on the site. Every three years, the association hosts an international forum at which women’s rights activists from around the world gather. The most recent forum—the association’s 11th—titled “The Power of Movements,” was held in Cape Town in 2008. See Also: Global Feminism; Mexico; Religious Fundamentalisms, Cross-Cultural Context of; Transnational Feminist Networks; South Africa. Further Readings Association for Women’s Rights in Development. “From WID to GAD to Women’s Rights: The First Twenty
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Years of AWID.” http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and -Analysis/Library/From-WID-to-GAD-to-Womens -Rights-The-First-Twenty-Years-of-AWID (accessed June 2010). Batliwala, Srilatha. Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements. Cape Town, South Africa: Association for Women’s Rights in Development, 2008. Wilson, Shamillah, et al. Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation. London: Zed Books, 2006. Danai S. Mupotsa Monash University
Astronauts, Female An astronaut is a person trained for spaceflight and may serve in a variety of technical positions as a pilot or crewmember. Most astronauts are trained in scientific or technical fields, through either military or civilian programs. Although several nations have space research organizations and agreements, only three countries have launched manned spaceflights: China, Russia (former Soviet Union), and the United States. Of these countries, only Russia and the United States have sent female astronauts into space, although both men and women from other nations (such as England, France, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, Iran, and others) have flown on Russian and U.S. space flights. The Chinese space program is the newest (sending its first astronaut only in 2009), and it is expected to train its first female astronauts sometime in the next decade. International space programs began in the mid20th century when both the United States and Russia established government-run space agencies. Partially in response to Russia launching the Sputnik satellite in 1957, the United States moved forward with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. Russia won this part of the Cold War “space race” by sending the first person, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1961. Two years later, in 1963, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. The space race continued through the 1960s, and in 1969, the United States scored a victory when astronaut Neil Arm-
strong became the first person to walk on the moon. The Russian Mir space station was launched in 1986 and, in the post–Cold War era, many missions have focused on construction and operations at the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian female cosmonauts were therefore in space 20 years before the first (and most famous) U.S. female astronaut, Sally Ride, flew in 1983. Russia has since sent two more women into space: Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982 (also the first woman to walk in space in 1984) and Yelena Kondakova in 1994. Most of the first generation of U.S. male astronauts were trained as military jet pilots, an occupation from which U.S. women were generally excluded. In the 1960s, some women who had served as Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II petitioned for admittance into the astronaut program, but were denied by the U.S. Congress. It was not until the 1970s, when NASA began recruiting research scientists and engineers for the astronaut-training program that women finally entered training. The first class of six women chosen for NASA’s astronaut program were physician Anna Fisher, biochemist Shannon Lucid, electrical engineer Judith Resnik (who died in the Challenger shuttle explosion in 1986), physicist Sally Ride, physician Margaret Rhea Seddon, and geologist Kathryn Sullivan. Women in Space Many more women have been through the astronauttraining program than have had the opportunity to fly and been able to log significant numbers of hours in space. Although Shannon Lucid set a record in 1996 for the longest single spaceflight for any astronaut (male or female) with 188 days at the Mir space station, her record was later surpassed by U.S. engineer Sunita Williams who now holds the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman with 195 days spent at the ISS between December 2006 and June 2007. Other NASA female firsts include Eileen Collins as the first woman to pilot a space shuttle on a Discovery mission in 1995 and Peggy Whitson who, in 2007, became the first female commander of the ISS. Whitson also holds two space records as the woman astronaut with most overall hours in space, having logged more than 376 days in space total from her combined trips to the ISS, and as the woman with the most spacewalks, a total of six to date. In 2008, the United States sent
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was a matter of individual women being allowed the opportunity to prove themselves capable that paved the way for other women to enter the field. In astronautics, the presence of more women astronauts, but also more women as medical researchers and bioengineers, has led to more research on and comparison of the effects of space travel on female and male bodies. Scientists working with NASA and other space agencies are actively researching the effects of gravity, weightlessness, radiation, isolation, and deprivation on muscle response, bone health, immune response, fertility, mental health, and aging, all of which may affect women and men differently. See Also: Mathematics, Women in; Physics, Women in; Ride, Sally; Science, Women in.
Astronaut Nicole Stott in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit fit check at the Johnson Space Center.
its 50th woman into space, mechanical engineer and astronaut Karen Nyberg. Other non-U.S. and nonRussian women who have flown on international or cooperative space missions, as the first female or sometimes first astronaut from their nations, include British engineer Helen Patricia Sharman (1991), Canadian neurologist Roberta Lynn Bondar (1992), Japanese Chiaki Mukai (1994), French engineer and biologist Claudie (André-Deshays) Haigneré (1996), Canadian Julie Payette (1999), Iranian-born U.S. citizen Anousheh Ansari, the first private or civilian space explorer (2006), and Korean Yi So-yeon (2008). Women have worked within the space program as astronauts and as support researchers and engineers, as computer scientists, mathematicians, physicians, biologists, environmental scientists, physicists, and astronomers. Early opponents to women’s participation in astronaut programs often cited women’s physical limitations, as the training and space travel required grueling tests of strength and stamina. As in other physically demanding occupations, however, such as firefighting or military combat service, it
Further Readings American Astronomical Society Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy. “STScI/CSWA Survey Results 1992–2003.” http://www.grammai.org/astro women/allstats.html (accessed November 2009). Kevles, Bettyann H. Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space. New York: Basic Books, 2003. Nolen, S. Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race. New York: Avalon, 2002. Marilyn L. Grady University of Nebraska
Astronomy, Women in Women have historically been excluded from astronomy as a subject of study and a field of employment, and this remains partly the case today. Worldwide, it is estimated that women represent about a quarter of all professional astronomers. However, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the worldwide professional organization for astronomers, found that, in 2008, only 15 percent of its members were women, although this figure is rising. In many countries, such as the United States, the proportion of women in astronomy is higher than their proportion in physics overall, both among students and faculty. The proportion of women in astronomy depends to a large extent on the national context. The proportion
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of women among members of the IAU in 2008 varied from none to over a third, although it is worth mentioning that, in many countries, numbers were too small for statistics to be significant. In the European Union, the proportion of women among IAU members was higher than the 15 percent world average in Italy (25 percent), Bulgaria (25 percent), France (24 percent), Hungary (21 percent), and Ireland (20 percent). On the contrary, their proportion was below the world average in Germany (9 percent), Denmark (10 percent), and the United Kingdom (12 percent). In the United States, women represented 12 percent of IAU members and in Australia, 15 percent. The level of representation of women among professional astronomers also varies according to the seniority of the job, with the proportion of women in senior positions tending to be disproportionately small. In the United States, data from the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy published in 2003 showed a sharp decrease as the level of seniority increases: women represented 30 percent of astronomy graduates, but only 22 percent of postdoctoral researchers, 20 percent of assistant professors, 21 percent of associate professors, and 9 percent of full professors. In a similar vein, the Astronomy Decadal Review Demographics Survey, published in 2005 and conducted by the Australian Academy of Science, showed that, in Australian astronomy, women represented 37 percent of postgraduates, but only 10 percent of tenured staff. Worldwide, it is also very unusual to find a woman at management level in research institutes of astronomy. In countries where such data is collected, the presence of women at that level is close to none. Women astronomers also tend to remain in the background and their works not acknowledged to the same extent as men’s works. Biographies of women astronomers have been produced to highlight their contribution to the field, although the likes of Hildegard von Bingen and Maria Cunitz are yet to become household names in an equivalent way to the likes of Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler. The attribution in 1974 of the physics Nobel Prize to the supervisor of Jocelyn Bell for her discovery of the first radio pulsars when she was a postgraduate student is commonly used to illustrate the lack of acknowledgement faced by women astronomers (and women in science, more generally).
Important changes in the 1970s and the subsequent establishment of a more egalitarian gender contract in most of the Western world have meant that events such as the one experienced by Jocelyn Bell may have become more unlikely. Since the 1990s, “women in science” is on the agenda of many governments and international organizations, such as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the European Commission. In astronomy in particular, the 1992 Baltimore Charter for Women in Astronomy and the 2003 Pasadena Recommendations for Gender Equality in Astronomy have raised issues of gender equality in astronomy, with the former recommending some major changes in organizational practices, endorsed in 2005 by the American Astronomical Society Committee. More recently, a resolution was passed at the 2009 IAU General Assembly, backing the need to support women astronomers at all levels of the career ladder (Resolution B4, On Supporting Women in Astronomy). As part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, the “She Is an Astronomer” cornerstone project, which has similar aims, was launched. Understanding Women’s Place in Astronomy There is a dearth of research on the barriers to women’s entry and progression specific to astronomy. However, the explanations given for women’s relative exclusion and marginalization in science in general also apply to astronomy. These explanations include the social construction of gender, with science, and especially the disciplines of physics, usually associated with masculinity. As a result of this, girls may be deterred from going into the branches of physics, for example because of stereotypical career advice, peer pressure, or teachers’ and parental expectations. Other explanations have focused on the marginalization of women within science and their difficulties in progressing through the ranks. Such approaches, which sometimes draw on a feminist theoretical framework, have explained the marginalization and exclusion patterns of women in astronomy as a matter of gender discrimination against women. This may be because of institutional policies and practices biased in favor of men, who may be given more access to support, mentoring and networks, or because organizational cultures ignore the fact that women are more likely than men to be the main carer
Attainment, College Degree
for dependents and do not consider their needs. As for scientific occupations in general, astronomy is a field that demands long working hours, regular attendance at conferences, and, for some particular areas of the subject, taking part in lengthy campaigns of observations, all of which may be difficult to balance with raising a family. Similarly, astronomy requires a high level of geographical and institutional mobility, with astronomers often taking several postdoctoral positions. As a result, astronomers often do not get a permanent position before being well in their thirties, that is in the usual child-breeding years. Career breaks are also problematic in terms of keeping up to date with scientific and technological developments in the field of expertise. With men, in most heterosexual partnerships, being perceived as the main breadwinner and women the main carer, all of these factors are more likely to have a negative impact on women’s careers. See Also: Mathematics, Women in; Physics, Women in; Science, Women in; STEM Coalition. Further Readings American Astronomical Society Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy. “STScI/CSWA Survey Results 1992-2003.” http://www.grammai.org/astro women/allstats.html (accessed November 2009). Australian Academy of Science. “A Demographic Study of Australian Astronomy.” http://www.atnf.csiro.au/nca /WG1.1%20Report.pdf (accessed November 2009). International Astronomical Union. “Geographical Distribution of Individual Members.” http://www .iau.org/administration/membership/individual/ distribution (accessed November 2009). Marie-Pierre Moreau University of Bedfordshire Julien Malzac Université de Toulouse, CNRS
Attainment, College Degree In order to acheive full participation in the global knowledge-based economy of the present and future and to ensure development of prosperous world enterprise, all women must be positioned to obtain degrees
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in higher education. This article reviews past and recent findings regarding the status of international women in terms of college degree attainment. Some additional information relevant to the educational background and skills necessary for successful college preparation includes literacy rates and primary and secondary education completion rates, as these are vital indicators in the process that prepares women for attainment of higher education degrees. Modern economies in both advanced and developing countries must have a highly educated workforce of women in all leading areas of science and technology in order to prosper and grow in cutting-edge fields like bioinformatics, nanotechnology, neuroscience, neuromedicine, genetic engineering, behavioral economics, and many others. Having a college degree has been associated with higher lifetime income, more secure retirement, career flexibility, and the ability to achieve middle-class status or better. Robert Barro and Jhong-Wha Lee report that the wage differential in income of a college-educated individual compared to income of a person with only a primary (elementary education) is 240 percent. A recent U.S. Central Intelligence Agency publication, the CIA World Factbook, reports that countries with a higher percentage of population with college degrees have lower unemployment rates than those countries with less educational attainment. This suggests that a college degree may help reduce the risk of unemployment for women during a global economic downturn because those women prepared with a college education may represent a better match to everevolving technical, medical, scientifically advanced, and highly skilled jobs of the future. This, however, was not the case in Poland, where the economic downturn may have affected the population more broadly. It appears that there are exceptions to how well an advanced education can protect degree holders from the risk of unemployment. A possible drawback associated with college degree attainment for females relates to the tendency for many women to postpone childbirth until after degree attainment, which, in some cases, has been associated with reduced fertility patterns due to increased maternal age. Participation Rates In “Higher Education and Society,” a report written in 2000 by participants in an international conference
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sponsored by the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), it was reported that countries with higher per capita incomes had more participation in higher education overall; countries like Canada, the United States, France, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Finland showed the majority (over 50 percent) of their respective populations involved in obtaining some form of higher education. The lowest participation rates in higher education were in parts of Africa and the Middle East, Afghanistan, Soviet Georgia, and Pakistan. Historically, many countries have shown a pattern of men reaching more educational attainment, particularly at the college level, than women. This trend has balanced out or reversed direction in recent years throughout many countries. Males are now less likely to graduate than women from the most predictable pipeline to college—secondary education—in almost all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with a few exceptions: Turkey, Korea, and Switzerland. Literacy Literacy is a first step and a vital one in preparing young women with the necessary skills for successful college degree attainment. According to OECD statistics from 2008, worldwide, the highest rates of literacy in females were in Finland, Georgia, Greenland, and Luxembourg, which were all tied for first place. The lowest literacy rates were in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Afghanistan, which all ranked near the bottom. Extensive research by Barro and Lee, who compiled and studied survey and census data reports from both OECD and non-OECD countries, suggests the greatest improvement in literacy rates has been in developed or advanced countries that now report an overall literacy rate of 92.9 percent for 15- to 24year-olds. Contrast this finding with the literacy rate of 52.9 percent for that same age group in those same countries back in 1950. This dramatically demonstrates the significant progress that has been made in this area over the past 60 years. Developing countries need to focus on literacy programs for their populations in order for women to be better positioned to pursue all levels of education in preparation for college degree attainment. Developed and advanced countries may be able to share
resources with developing countries to help promote literacy efforts in developing countries. International partnerships or exchange programs to develop literacy volunteer programs based on successful, established programs and resource sharing are among potential solutions that can help address this area. Gender Gap Continues Global rates of college participation of younger populations are increasing, which will help the younger generation’s prospects for participation in advancing fields that will lead the world economy. In 2003, a report by OECD showed that the proportion of 20-year-old students in higher education was highest for Greece at 56 percent, followed by Belgium at 46 percent, France at 42 percent, Spain and the United States at 38 percent, Canada at 37 percent, and Ireland at 35 percent. Population age demographics of some of these countries may account for some of the relative difference in trends. Barro and Lee’s 2010 report on education statistics in 146 countries shows that females continue to lag behind males in average years of education where the ratio of females to males in developed countries for average years of education is 85.9 percent. Their report also indicates that in developing countries, the female-to-male ratio for average years of education is lowest in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and south Asia, where it is only 70 percent. Recent Trends Women are now overrepresented in college participation and degree attainment in the United States, especially in the liberal arts and education areas. This is not the case in other degree fields in the United States or for women in other countries, especially those with lower female participation rates in higher education compared to males, such as the Middle East and subSaharan Africa and south Asia as mentioned above. For example, in countries where women are not allowed to regularly attend school at or beyond elementary levels, they fall out of the system for achievement of literacy, elementary education completion, and secondary education entrance and completion, all of which are necessary steps for successful early college preparation. Women in advanced countries, however, continue to remain underrepresented in several key highly skilled professional degree fields including science, engi-
neering, and computer science, which typically lead to traditionally higher paid occupations and higher lifetime earnings potential. New global women in the STEM (Science, Technology, and Engineering) program exchange efforts may represent one of the ways to address these deficits in participation in science and engineering by women and other underrepresented groups on an international level. Increased mentoring of young women by women established in these fields is essential to increase successful degree completion in the sciences, technology, and engineering fields. According to OECD statistics, beginning in 2000 and up to the present in 2010, the rate of graduation overall from college has been level in the United States, although there are gender differences noted in certain fields where women are underrepresented, including engineering and computer science. However, the college graduation rate has recently doubled in Austria, Finland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, and Switzerland. Moreover, over onethird of students in the two dozen countries tracked by OECD have completed a college education at the tertiary type A level. Tertiary type A–level education refers to theoretically based programs that require a minimum of three years of full-time-equivalent study. These programs of study are designed to prepare students to further their education in professional areas such as medicine, dentistry, and other advanced fields and/or for advanced study with a research focus. The U.S. equivalent of a tertiary type A degree would be a master’s degree. Value of Postsecondary Education A 2010 article by Anthony Carnevale, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl showed the increasing value of postsecondary education for advancing upward mobility and higher lifetime earnings. Based on a method of comparative generations’ analysis in the United States, their study illustrated a trend that shows 26 percent of the middle class had a college education four decades ago. This is in contrast to the present in which 61 percent of the middle class now have college educations. The most recent international data has been reported by Barro and Lee in the previously mentioned report that involved an extensive census-/survey-based, global multiyear (1950 to 2010) study using a five-year interval, multicohort, cross-sectional com-
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parison of the educational attainment outcomes of the populations of 146 countries from age 15 and up. From this report, in relation to determining the value of progressive educational attainment, the estimated rate of return for each additional year of schooling ranges from 5 percent to 12 percent, and increases toward the high end of that range at the secondary and tertiary educational levels. Associated Benefits of College Degree Attainment Several researchers have reported information related to data supporting the finding that there are other benefits of educational attainment at advanced levels including reduced rates of mortality. It stands to reason that women with advanced degrees will be better positioned to obtain employment and be able to access healthcare more readily than those women without advanced degrees. Access to medical care and resources to pay for that care may potentially increase overall health status and longevity. With continually rising healthcare costs, it will take sufficient resources for women to be able to afford those expenses. Additional benefits for college degree attainment for women that are generally known but nonetheless are especially salient and should be noted relate to the fact that women tend to outlive men by a number of years (at least five in the United States for all nationalities as of 2004) according a 2007 report from the National Center for Health Statistics Health, United States. Once black or white women in the United States, of all nationalities, live to age 65, the report shows that they can expect to live another 19 to 20 years, making sufficient lifetime earnings necessary for a lengthy retirement period. Another important concern is related to the fact that many working women will lose varying periods of time for earnings accrual during pregnancy and childbirth and/or childrearing periods. Loss of earnings accrual can limit retirement resources significantly. These two realities make it more important for women to obtain college degrees and be able to obtain higher earnings to ensure greater lifetime earnings potential. Higher lifetime earnings potential made possible by a college degree can help address the fact that, in many countries, women may start out as the sole provider of their children. Additionally, many women will become single parents whether
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through divorce or widowhood and may also become the sole providers for their children’s emotional and economic needs. More Women With Degrees in Some Countries and Certain Disciplines In terms of educational attainment at the college level, several Western countries have reported growing rates of women obtaining their degrees. In the United States, by 2005, three out of 10 working women had college degrees according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The majority of those degrees are in liberal arts/social science areas. Sixty-eight percent of women in Canada, aged 25 to 44, had completed a postsecondary education in 2007. Prolonged education has one final advantage in terms of lower infant mortality according to a National Center for Health Statistics report from 2007. In the United States, for all nationalities, the percentage of live births was 26 percent for women of all nationalities for those with 16 years of education or more, and only 22 percent for women of all nationalities with less than 12 years of schooling. See Also: Attainment, Elementary School Completion; Attainment, Graduate Degree; Attainment, High School Completion; Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; STEM Coalition. Further Readings Barro, Robert J. and Jong-Wha Lee. “A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World, 1950–2010.” Working Paper 15902, National Bureau of Economic of Research. http://www.nber.org/papers/w15902 (accessed June 2010). Carnevale, Anthony, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl. “Helped Wanted: Projections of Job and Educational Requirements Through 2018.” A Report From the Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 2010. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Education at a Glance, OECD Indicators. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2002. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Education at a Glance 2007, Population that Has Attained Tertiary Education. Paris: OECD Statistics, 2007.
Task Force on Higher Education and Society. Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. Geneva: World Bank and UNESCO, 2000. Karen M. Wolford State University of New York, Oswego
Attainment, Elementary School Completion The numbers of children overall and girls in particular enrolled in and completing elementary or primary education have increased since the 1960s, although progress has remained uneven between countries and regions and gender inequities remain. Poverty was the most significant determinant of nonattainment in elementary school completion, followed by rural residence. Gender and membership in socially excluded groups were lower but were still significant determinants. Governmental and nongovernmental organization (NGO)–sponsored programs, such as the School Fee Abolition Initiative, continue to reduce barriers to female elementary and primary school completion worldwide. Gender parity in education is a crucial component to the elimination of gender inequities beyond the classroom. Elementary or primary school enrollment and completion have become key goals of many governments and NGOs worldwide. International statistics gathered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have revealed a rapid decline in the number of schoolage children not enrolled in primary or elementary schools since 2000, with the percentage of girls not attending down 24 percent between 1999 and 2004. These trends mark the continuation of a pattern of improvement that began in the 1960s. The biggest gains in numbers of children enrolling during this same period were found in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, with gains of 19 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Progress has been greatest at the elementary or primary level, with the largest educational gender gaps found at the secondary and higher levels. Gains in female enrollment are also found when just low-income countries are considered. In these countries, the percentage of girls enrolled at the pri-
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mary level stood at 94 percent in 2004, up from 52 percent in the 1970s. In that same year, girls represented 48 percent of all elementary and primary school students, up from 38 percent in the 1970s. Statistics show that the countries with the highest rates of poverty have improved the primary level gender parity rate to 94 percent. Growth since the 1970s in Latin America and the Caribbean went from 82 to 99 percent, the Middle East and North Africa from 77 to 91 percent, south Asia from 62 to 80 percent, and subSaharan Africa from 51 to 60 percent. In certain parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, enrollment rates are actually higher for girls than boys. While overall elementary school enrollment rates have risen, uneven progress has left sizeable differences remaining among and within countries and between genders. The largest gender gaps were found in the regions of south Asia and north, west, and subSaharan Africa and countries such as Yemen, Iraq, India, and Benin. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, only 60 percent of girls were enrolled in school in 2004. Despite progress toward universal primary education, UNESCO estimated that there were still approximately 75 million children not enrolled in school worldwide in 2007, and girls still comprise just over half of these children. Hindrances to Enrollment and Completion Many girls in developing countries lack full access to elementary or primary school enrollment for a variety of reasons. Poverty is one of the largest single determinants of nonenrollment at the elementary and primary levels, with enrollment rates lower and gender inequities higher among the lowest income families. Many poor families cannot afford to pay school fees, or girls do not attend school due to the family’s financial need for children to work. The second largest and often related determinant is rural residency. Most schools are located in urban areas and rural children often must travel great distances to attend. Other hindrances to elementary school enrollment include rural residency and distance from schools, rising rates of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and the orphans it produces, endemic conflicts or natural disasters, and discrimination against socially disadvantaged groups based on class or caste, gender, religion, ethnicity, or physical disability. Those
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who belong to several disadvantaged groups experience even higher levels of nonenrollment. Many girls are not enrolled in school due to cultural or religious beliefs that women are less intelligent, should not be educated, or do not need an education to fulfill their traditional gender role. UNESCO 2007 figures showed that female members of socially excluded groups comprised close to 70 percent of all girls not attending school. Girls’ elementary and primary school completion rates have also improved, rising at a faster rate than boys’ completion rates. According to World Bank statistics, the universal primary education completion rate for girls stood at 70 percent in 2006, up from 57 percent in 1999. Female completion rates, however, are even lower than enrollment rates, as many girls who begin their education are forced to drop out before graduation. Many have to drop out if payment of school fees or distance becomes too great a burden on their families or the need to work arises. International Efforts Toward Universal Primary Education and Gender Equity Governments and NGOs have emphasized universal primary education, gender equity in education, and improved educational access and quality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The United Nations (UN) established a series of Millennium Development Goals, including gender parity in primary education and primary school completion for all children, in recognition of the importance of education to other aspects of development. Although many developing countries did not meet the initial 2005 deadline for gender parity, programs such as school fee abolition have resulted in steadily rising female enrollment, attendance, and completion rates. Governments and NGOs, such as the Forum for African Women Educationalists, have implemented a variety of local, national, and international educational programs such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Bank’s School Fee Abolition Initiative (SFAI), and the United Nation’s Education for All (EFA). These programs have increased global female elementary or primary enrollments and completion rates and demand for female education, especially within developing countries. Research studies in a variety of countries have positively linked female educational attainment at all levels with a variety
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of economic and social benefits. These studies have demonstrated that female education is among the most cost-effective and highest-yielding development efforts. Programs to increase access to elementary or primary education have utilized such methods as abolishing the school fees that many poor parents cannot afford or offering scholarships, providing stipends, conditional cash transfers, or using other fiscal incentives for increased female enrollment. Kenya was one of the first countries to abolish school fees under the SFAI program. Although Kenya’s SFAI experience resulted in initial problems, as schools were unprepared and ill equipped to handle the experienced enrollment surges, they adapted and now serve as a role model for other countries that seek to implement the initiative. Programs have also addressed other non-genderspecific constraints, such as conflicts, distance to schools, and health-related issues such as HIV/AIDS in addition to the gender inequities that prevent many girls from enrolling in or completing elementary or primary schooling. These inequities include social constraints based on the low priority traditionally given to female educational attainment due to lowered beliefs in the need for female education, lowered expectations for female intelligence or success, and religious or cultural beliefs that do not support female education. Programs have also emphasized the need to improve student retention, the overall quality of educational standards, systems, and instruction, to increase the relevance and value given to education, and to reduce gender inequities within the classroom. Goals have included the recruitment of more female teachers, better teacher training, and the use of gender-sensitive materials and methods of instruction. Programs have also sought to tailor female education to local needs, cultures, and religious beliefs through the development of country specific agendas in an attempt to gain more local community support for their efforts. Advocates for universal primary education and gender parity note that educational inequities result in and reinforce greater societal inequities once students leave the classroom. Female primary school attendance and completion has been a key goal of many government and NGO programs because of female educational attainment’s
positive impact on other development goals at the individual, family, and community levels. On the economic level, female educational attainment correlates to increased economic productivity, higher wages, family incomes, and savings rates, reduced poverty levels, increased female financial independence and decision making. Female educational attainment also results in increased female access to the labor, land, credit, expert assistance, and new technology needed to establish the female-owned micro-businesses that are rapidly arising in many developing countries. Gender-related social benefits include the increased value of women’s roles, increased female political participation and family decision-making responsibilities, and lowered rates of violence against women. Health-related social benefits include lowered fertility and child and maternal mortality rates, improved nutrition and health practices, increased knowledge and rates of protection against HIV/AIDS, and lowered rates of female genital mutilation. These benefits result spur development, improve individual, family, and community wellbeing, and help end the cycle of poverty and limited education, as children of mothers who completed their elementary or primary educations are much more likely to complete their own educations. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Opportunities/Access; Global Campaign for Education. Further Readings Biklen, Sari Knopp and Diane Pollard. Gender and Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Jejeebhoy, Shireen J. Women’s Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behavior: Experience From Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. King, Elizabeth M. and M. Anne Hill. Women’s Education in Developing Countries: Barriers, Benefits, and Policies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press (for the World Bank), 1993. Lewis, M. A. and M. E. Lockheed, eds. Exclusion, Gender and Education: Case Studies From the Developing World. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2007. Lewis, M. A. and M. E. Lockheed. Inexcusable Absence: Why 60 Million Girls Still Aren’t in School and What to Do About It. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2006.
Attainment, Graduate Degree
Tembon, Mercy and Lucia Fort. Girls’ Education in the 21st Century: Equality, Empowerment, and Growth. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University
Attainment, Graduate Degree In a majority of countries, a graduate degree is a program of study that continues past a bachelor’s program. An example of a graduate degree is a master’s degree and/or a doctoral degree, both of which can be considered terminal degrees. A terminal degree is usually, though not universally, considered the highest degree to be attained in a given field. Examples of less common degrees from the United States and other countries that may be considered terminal are Master of Fine Arts, Juris Doctor, habilitation, and higher doctorates. Although an increasing number of women are entering graduate institutions for terminal degrees, they continue to fight the “glass ceiling,” to complete their degrees and find employment. The glass ceiling refers to biases in the workforce or education that prevent women and minorities from achieving positions of responsibility. A number of reasons are theorized to explain the difference between the number of women who are accepted to graduate programs and those that complete graduate programs throughout the world. Though women in general continue to have difficulty completing graduate degrees, women of color in the United States and women outside the United States bear the greatest burden in their attempts to continue their education. History of Women in Education Women have and continue to work hard for equal consideration with men. Prior to the 1900s, women known to achieve graduate degrees are few in example. This time is highlighted by individual firsts for women. A number of women represent the first women to attain various graduate degrees in the United States. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to achieve a graduate degree in medicine
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in 1849. Fifteen years later, Rebecca Crumpler was the first black woman to achieve this same degree. Lucy Hobbs was the first female dentist. While Arabella Mansfield was the first woman to practice law in Iowa, Ada Kepley was the first to graduate from law school in 1869. While these examples of firsts for women are important, they did little at the time to create true change for women in the United States or the world. Real societal change for women, however, can be attributed to several key events of the 1900s: the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1921, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, World War II, and the equal rights movement. The Nineteenth Amendment gave women of the United States the right to vote. During the civil rights movement, minorities fought for the equality denied to them since the Civil War. World War II provided women with an opportunity to do their part in support of the war by going to work in jobs vacated by the soldiers and gave women the opportunity to see themselves in roles other than wife, mother, teacher, or nurse. The equal rights movement allowed women’s voices to be heard with regard to equal pay for equal work and also ensured that women were given equal opportunities for work as men. These events gave an increasing number of women an entrée into educational institutions and degree programs that were male dominated. While women in the United States were making some headway, it would be many years before women in many countries outside the United States began to make the same strides in their education goals as well as in employment. Recent Trends in Education The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that the number of women in graduate school has exceeded the number of men since 1984 for both full-time and part-time students. While NCES also reports increases in minority students since 1976, there are not clear demographics related to the numbers of female minorities attending graduate school. Additionally there is no cumulative international data that represent the number of women in graduate programs from countries outside the United States. However, a word search for women and graduate school in the academic databases Academic Search Premier, Psych Info, and ERIC find an increasing number of articles describing the role of women from interna-
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tional countries and their quest for academic equality with their male counterparts. Trends in many countries tell a story of women fighting for equality, much like the women of the late 1960s and early 1970s. For example, some countries continue to retain the traditional values regarding women remaining in the home. Prior to 1990, countries like Greece had few options for women continuing to live in their country of origin to obtain an advanced degree. However, with the recent incorporation of online learning graduate programs, women from countries with more traditional values for woman’s role are now able to consider working toward a graduate degree while in the home. While not a perfect solution, as the demands of online education can still be quite rigorous, it gives these women the flexibility to work on a degree while still maintaining their traditional lifestyle. Countries like Sweden are attempting to address the inequalities of women in graduate education. Here, equal opportunity legislation states that in areas where one sex is underrepresented, recruitment to address the issue will be implemented. While this represents the willingness of the dominant culture in Sweden to create change, this policy regarding change does not include the voices of the women it seeks to help. Problems With Graduate Degree Attainment A number of problems deter women from completing graduate work. Women traditionally lack the mentorship needed to complete graduate work. Many times, women are unable to find female mentors who understand the issues that female graduate students face. Female faculty find themselves in growing demand due to growing female student populations and larger student/faculty ratios. Women, regardless of color, face the same challenges that men face when deciding to pursue a graduate degree. Like men, they struggle with the challenges of paying for school, balancing the demands of school and family, and ultimately finding a professional job. Unlike men, women globally tend to be the main caregivers to children and/or aging parents along with managing the home and perhaps maintaining a job apart from graduate school as well as the home. Additionally, women in many countries experience problems attaining a job after graduation, or they are unable to find advancement after finding an entry-level position. Today, few women are represented as senior
faculty members or administrators in graduate institutions around the world. While the United States reports more women than men in educational institutions, these numbers are not the case outside the United States. The culture of many countries continues to value males over females. For example, parents of children in many African countries deprive the family of necessities in order to send their male children on to high school with the intention of these sons continuing school in order to have the possibility to attain a terminal degree. Few females in these same countries are given the opportunity to continue their schooling, despite their interest in doing so. Most often, the girls are encouraged to marry and have a family. Should these girls later decide to attend school, they must gain the support of their husbands to continue their educations. While they may have consent to attend school, this support does not generally lend itself to also providing physical support like helping with childcare or daily chores around the home. Women in graduate programs struggle with issues of confidence regarding their own abilities. Additionally, women are more likely than men to show the lack of confidence. Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule explain that girls and women have more difficulty asserting their authority, considering themselves authorities, expressing themselves in public, gaining respect for their minds and ideas, and fully utilizing their talents. A possible reason attributed to this lack of confidence is related to many graduate institutions’ decisions to increase the enrollment of women and minorities by favoring enrollment of these populations, thereby providing a reason for the female graduate women to doubt herself. Women of color may struggle to identify with the majority group. Patricia Collins reports that these women have their own interpretation of oppression; they report different life experiences than the majority group and view their reality differently. This presents a problem when the graduate student of color attempts to find her way within the majority group paradigm. These women report not feeling heard by their peers or the teachers. While many may begin graduate school with the intent of creating a paradigm change, if the student is not heard, she may withdraw from the program. Students who are able to
bridge the gap find that while they may not overcome the views of their professors or peers, they have found that they have overcome the white myth that minorities are unable to excel in education. Ultimately, these issues can work against women and minorities in the completion of a graduate degree. One theory regarding the completion of graduation school compares women and minorities pouring into the educational system like water in a pipeline. When the pipeline works, these women and minorities, in theory, should begin their education in primary school, continue on to a secondary education, and then move into graduate work. If the system is working effectively, these women will complete the pipeline by gaining employment in their chosen field. Problems in the pipeline occur when the system has “leaks.” When the pipeline has a leak, then a growing number of women can enter the pipeline but this will not result in a growing number of women and minorities completing their graduate degrees. This same analogy also applies to women and minorities entering institutions of higher learning. While growing numbers may obtain entry-level positions, nontenured positions, or adjunct positions, few are able to break the educational glass ceiling of tenure and of positions of academic administration. Therefore, policy decisions in academics remain elusive concepts to many women and minorities. While there are problems that interfere with women and minorities attaining a graduate degree, the future remains hopeful. As long as the number of women entering graduate school continues to increase and these women grow in understanding regarding the issues that prevent them from completing their degree, this should translate into greater graduate degree attainment for women throughout the world. As these women grow in numbers, opportunities to replace older academicians will also increase. As these same women become emerging leaders in their academic institutions, they will ultimately make the policy decisions that can lead to true social change. See Also: Education, Women in; Educational Administrators, College and University; Educational Opportunities/Access; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Mentoring; Women’s Colleges.
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Further Readings Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. Maton, Kenneth I., et al. “Minority Students of Color and the Psychology Student Pipeline: Disquieting and Encouraging Trends 1989–2003.” American Psychologist (February/March 2006). Puljak, Livia, Sanja K. Kojundzic, and Damir Sapunar. “Gender and Academic Medicine: A Good Pipeline of Women Graduates Is Not Advancing.” Teaching and Learning in Medicine, v.20/3 (2008). Vryonides, Marios and Chryssi Vitsilikas. “Widening Participation in Postgraduate Studies in Greece: Mature Working Women Attending an E-Learning Programme.” Journal of Education Policy, v.23/3 (2008). Williams, Meca R., et al. “Learning to Read Each Other: Black Female Graduate Students Share Their Experiences at a White Research I Institution.” Urban Review, v.37/3 (2005). Xu, Yonghong J. “Gender Disparity in STEM Disciplines: A Study in Faculty Attrition and Turnover Intentions.” Research in Higher Education, v.49 (2008). Julie Anne Strentzsch St. Mary’s University
Attainment, High School Completion Successful attainment of education helps predict whether women around the world will have overall well-being, and it is a strong predictor of economic success, not only for women but for their countries as well. Educational attainment is defined as the highest level of education completed, and includes primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. High school completion is a necessary step on the road to educational attainment and resultant economic success and is itself dependent on primary school success and literacy. However, completing a high school education does not hold the same guarantees or opportunities that it used to, in terms of finding future employment. Having a high school diploma is the norm in some countries. In the United States, for example, 85 percent of
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the population overall have a high school diploma, with women having higher rates than men. In other countries, high school completion rates are varied. In Australia, for example, compulsory education had been required through age 15 and is now age 16 (upper secondary level). As of 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) research shows that nearly 80 percent of the 25 to 34 age group have completed that level of educational attainment in Australia. In countries where high school completion attainment or equivalent vocational education has not been attained, there is a disadvantage in terms of being competitive in the labor market. This is most true in France, New Zealand, Ireland, and Australia (those without high school completion were 3.5 times more likely to be unemployed compared to those who had graduated from high school), whereas in Finland and Germany, there was no disadvantage, and in the United States, Spain, and Canada, unemployment was just as likely for those who had no high school degree as those who did. Statistics on High School Completion According to OECD statistics, the percentage of females who have completed at least upper secondary education in the 25-to-34-year-old age groups are Australia, 83 percent; Austria; 84 percent; Belgium, 83 percent; Canada, 93 percent; Czech Republic, 94 percent; Denmark, 86 percent; Finland, 92 percent; France, 84 percent; Germany, 84 percent; Greece, 80 percent; Hungary, 85 percent; Iceland, 72 percent; Ireland 87 percent; Italy, 72 percent; Korea, 98 percent; Luxembourg, 78 percent; Mexico, 38 percent; Netherlands, 84 percent; New Zealand, 82 percent; Norway, 86 percent; Poland, 93 percent; Portugal, 52 percent; Slovak Republic, 94 percent; Spain, 70 percent; Sweden, 92 percent; Switzerland, 88 percent; Turkey, 31 percent; United Kingdom, 75 percent; United States, 89 percent. The overall European Union (EU) female secondary education attainment rate was 83 percent compared to the OECD average, which was 80 percent for the 25-to-34-year-old age group. This trend is much higher than for the respective EU and OECD age group averages for women 55 to 64, whose grade 12 completion rates were 53 percent for EU and 52 percent for OECD countries. In the 25-to-34 age group,
educational attainment for females (grade 12 secondary completion rates) in partner countries was Brazil, 51 percent; Chile, 64 percent; Estonia, 90 percent; Israel, 88 percent; Russian Federation, 93 percent; and Slovenia, 94 percent. For the majority of these countries, public education provides the schools that are the primary place for women to obtain upper secondary education. The majority of women attend these schools full time. Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region countries believe that the right to education is important for women. For some countries, that education has been emphasized at the primary level, which has been said to be universal in this region. Educational quality can be a problem in terms of developing a competitive work force for the future. Gender gaps in secondary education are improving in terms of enrollment. Overall 2003 UNESCO statistics for the MENA region show the following: females in secondary enrollment are at 62 percent, and males are at 71 percent. For Jordan, females outnumber males in secondary enrollment at 89 percent, compared to 86 percent for males. The same is true in Palestine: females enrolled in secondary education are 86 percent, and males 80 percent; and in Qatar, the female rate is 92 percent, and 86 percent for males. In Iran, the rate is 75 percent for females, compared to 81 percent for females, and in Iraq, the female rate is 29 percent, and male rate is 47 percent. Countries that have invested in education more recently, such as Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria, have experienced improved economic development. The country with the lowest reported enrollment rate for women compared to men was Yemen, with 25 percent of women enrolled at the secondary level, and 69 percent of the men enrolled at this level. Actual educational attainment rates were difficult to find for this region, and may be higher than the 2003 data might suggest, as those statistics are now outdated. Access to education for females can still be deadly in some areas where more conservative elements reign. Competitive Job Market Just having a high school diploma may not be enough to succeed. Georgetown University estimated that by 2018, the number of jobs that will at least require two years of college will outpace supply. According to the report, “in 1970, for example, nearly 75 percent
Attorneys, Female
of those workers considered to be middle class had not gone beyond high school in their education; in 2007, that figure had dropped below 40 percent.” On the other hand, with the economic downturn, lower paying jobs due to the recession, women with degrees beyond high school may find themselves presently overqualified for some positions. This may not be true in countries like Australia, which has proven to be robust in the current recession, and has an overall unemployment rate of just over 5 percent. Having a high school education does help with first employment opportunities, but having only a high school degree may severely limit upward earning potential for most individuals. Women who have had to drop out of school for various reasons will go back and earn their GED or high school equivalent, which will allow them to go into a trade school or other nonprofessional jobs that require at least a high school education. With increasing international competition for jobs, and without at least some college education or a two-year college degree, women may find themselves in dead-end positions with limited employment prospects for the future. See Also: Attainment, College Degree; Attainment, Elementary School Completion; Attainment, Graduate Degree; Educational Opportunities/Access. Further Readings Steinberg, Jacques. “Employers Increasingly Expect Some Education After High School.” New York Times (June 15, 2010). http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15 /job-requirement (accessed August 2010). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Education at a Glance, 2009.” http:// www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/25/43636332.pdf (accessed August 2010). Roudi-Fahimi, Farzaneh and Valentine M. Moghadam. “Empowering Women, Developing Society: Female Education in the Middle East and North Africa.” Population Reference Bureau (November 2003). http://www.prb.org/Publications/PolicyBriefs /EmpoweringWomenDevelopingSocietyFemale EducationintheMiddleEastandNorthAfrica.aspx (accessed August 2010). Karen Wolford State University of New York, Oswego
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Attorneys, Female In contrast to nursing, social work, librarianship, or teaching, all of which have traditionally been viewed as female occupations, the legal profession in the United States has been considered nearly exclusively a male domain. The early practice of excluding women from the male-dominated legal profession continued well into the early to mid-20th century. Achieving Equality for Women in Law The last state to allow a woman to practice law was Alaska, which admitted Mildred Herman in 1950. From these beginnings, the present day achievements of women attorneys make it evident that women lawyers have made significant progress. Women in the legal profession have experienced dramatic growth to an apparent full integration into the practice of law. Just the sheer numbers would support this view, as 50 percent of law students are women, and one third of practicing lawyers are female. But the numbers of female law students and attorneys alone do not tell the complete story about how they fare in the legal profession. Women lawyers are not yet close to achieving equality in all aspects of the profession. Since the 1990s, women have comprised half of all law students, yet only 15 percent are partners at law firms. This situation has been termed the 50–15–15 problem, as it is has been over 15 years that women comprise 50 percent of all law students, but only 15 percent of law firm partners. As a response to this phenomenon and other data showing unequal achievement in the law, and to better understand and improve gender fairness in the legal system and the profession, the American Bar Association (ABA), as well as many states and the federal courts, have since established commissions to study the status of women in the profession. Thus, the legal profession has turned its gaze inward to analyze women’s performance and the obstacles they face in the practice of law. The ABA created the Commission for Women in the Profession to “to assess the status of women in the legal profession, identify barriers to advancement, and recommend to the ABA actions to address problems identified.” This commission has examined the status of women practicing law and “found persistent gender discrimination throughout the legal profession.”
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Women Lawyers in the United States Overall, women comprise 47.1 percent of all law school graduates, and 45.7 percent of law firm associates. According to the ABA, women account for 31 percent of the 1,180,386 attorneys licensed to practice law in the United States This means that there are over 343,000 women in the legal profession in the United States, but the number of women aged 29 to 34 who are practicing law has decreased considerably in the last 20 years. Female attorneys comprise 15 percent of Fortune 500 company chief executive officers and general counsels. Nationwide, women comprise 20 percent of all law school deans and 19.2 percent of all law firm partners. As of 2010, 26 percent of U.S. state judges and 22 percent of federal judges are women. Twenty state supreme courts are headed by female chief judges. However, two states (Indiana and Idaho), have no women on their highest state courts. The evidence that has been emerging indicates that although women are entering the practice of law at high rates, they are failing to reach the higher levels within the profession, for example, law firm partnerships, judicial appointments, and law school deanships. In particular, the “glass ceiling” phenomenon has impeded women’s progress in the legal field. An example of such a glass ceiling is evidenced in the low numbers of female partners at large law firms. This greater presence of women in the profession has led to what is characterized as the “no problem problem”—that the situation of women in the legal profession is improving or already has improved on its own. The “no problem problem” is based on the concept that the status of women in the legal profession will improve over time within the profession with no additional action or efforts. The statistics compiled below show there has been some improvement, but and that further action is needed, as the number of women reaching the highest levels in the legal profession has remained stagnant. Female Attorneys Globally Globally, the experiences and progress of women lawyers still vary considerably. For example, in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas chief justice ordered Palestinian women lawyers to wear headscarves and dark clothes to court. Following resistance by the Gazan Bar Association, the order was rescinded.
In the case of Saudi Arabian women lawyers, they are currently not able to appear in court. According to the Saudi Ministry of Justice, the Saudi judicial system will eventually have female lawyers representing women in court. When this happens, female attorneys will be issued a restrictive type of license that will only give them access to some areas of the court. Allowing female lawyers in the courtroom responds to the fact that many Saudi women would-be litigants give up their rights because they do not feel comfortable giving details of their case to a male attorney. When female lawyers are able to represent women, they will not have any contact with men, and will be placed in separate courtrooms. It remains to be seen if female lawyers will be able to appear before Saudi judges when representing women clients. In Iran, 65 percent of all higher education students are women, and women account for 30 percent of the workforce. Iranian women are allowed to be lawyers, but not judges. The most notable female attorney in Iran is Shirin Ebadi. She was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts for democracy and human rights, especially in the struggle for the rights of women and children. In other countries, such as Canada, the situation is similar to women lawyers in the United States. Historically, women were excluded from the legal profession and first won entry into the field in 1895. It was not until 1942 that all provinces removed the legal barriers that prevented women from practicing law. The contemporary patterns of inequality for Canadian women in the legal profession show that female attorneys make up between 22.9 to 36.4 percent of the labor force, depending on the province; and that they are underrepresented in the private practice of law. The barriers for female Canadian attorneys also include sexual discrimination and disadvantage in their applications for articles (apprenticeships) and initial jobs. Women lawyers also have decreased partnership prospects while in private law practice, and experience substantial gaps in salaries compared to their male counterparts. Finally, Canadian female lawyers report lack of accommodation in law practice for family matters, as well as lack of flexibility to obtain part time work and lack of adequate maternity leave arrangements. In the United Kingdom, women lawyers have progressed to increased representation in all areas of legal
Australia
practice, but there are still fields where women lawyers are underrepresented and marginalized. In particular, at all levels of the judiciary, there are very few women judges. However, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, created in October 2009, counts with one woman, Lady Brenda Hale, among its 12 members. Australian female lawyers still lag in their goal of higher status legal employment, even though women account for 50 percent of all law students. The proportion of female lawyers declines steeply when moving up the legal hierarchy from law clerk (63 percent female) to judges and magistrates (9 percent female) at the top. Similarly, in New Zealand, over half of all legal students (55 percent) are women, but they are very poorly represented in prestigious areas of law. Thus, they work more often as government employees that as attorneys in the private practice of law. Female attorney concerns such as work/life balance arise for German women lawyers, who if they are mothers, have to contend with derogatory terms such as rabenmutter. German female lawyers were expelled from all legal functions during the Nazi regime and while there has been improvement following educational reform in the 1970s, to the point that half the new entrants to the judiciary and civil service (including public prosecutors and advocates) are women, the German legal educational system is almost exclusively male. They comprise about a quarter of all practicing lawyers. The issues that affect female lawyers disproportionately include income differentials, lack of power and opportunities, the dual burdens of work and family. These issues as well as the question of whether the legal profession and legal education will change with the presence of women are still open questions that are being researched by scholars to this day. See Also: Glass Ceiling; Judges, Female; Law Enforcement, Women in; Management, Women in. Further Readings Berger Morello, Karen. The Invisible Bar: The Woman Lawyer in America: 1638 to the Present. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Harrington, Mona. Women Lawyers: Rewriting the Rules. New York: Penguin, 1993. Mossman, Mary Jane. The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law and the Legal Professions. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2006.
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Schultz, Ulrike, and Gisela Shaw. Women in the World’s Legal Professions. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2003. Stiller Rikleen, Lauren. Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Legalworks, 2006. María Pabón López Indiana University
Australia After centuries of habitation by Aboriginal settlers from southeast Asia, Australia, which lies between the Indian and South Pacific Oceans, was claimed by the British in 1770. The six states created over the following centuries formed the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. In the early 21st century, almost 90 percent of the population has become urbanized, and per capita income has reached $38,500. Three-fourths of the work force is engaged in service industries. Australia now ranks second in the world on the United Nations Development Programme’s list of countries with Very High Human Development. Ninety-two percent of Australia’s population is white, and 7 percent is Asian. One percent of the population is either Aborigine or belongs to another ethnic group. Most of the people are either Catholic or Protestant, but many religions are represented in Australia. Females in Australia experience a high rate of gender empowerment. Almost from the beginning of its history as a commonwealth, Australia granted the vote to white women. In the 1960s, suffrage was extended to Aboriginal women, along with Aboriginal men, through a constitutional amendment. In the 1980s, Australia began passing a series of legislative acts designed to improve the status of women, including the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984 and the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act of 1999. The infant mortality rate is 4.75 deaths per 1,000 live births, and Australia ranks 196th in the world in this area. Female infants (4.4) have an advantage over male infants (5.08). Australia ranks sixth in the world in life expectancy (81.63 years); and in this area also, females (84.14 years) maintain an edge over males (79.25 years). The median age for Australian women is now 38.1 years.
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On the average, women currently produce 1.78 children each. In general, Australian women are eligible for one year of unpaid maternity leave. As Australia’s population growth rate has continued to decline, the government began debating the advisability of paid maternity leave, with an eye toward encouraging Australians to expand their families. Conservatives bewailed the fact that women were too often choosing careers over families, and Liberals argued that more should be done to support working mothers. Since 2001, Australia has provided a Baby Bonus, which applies to all children under the age of five, to all individuals who have children either by birth or adoption or who have legal responsibility for eligible children. This bonus is claimed each year when taxes are filed. Ninety-nine percent of the population over the age of 15 is literate, and there are no differences in male and female literacy. Between 1993 and 2003, the percentage of females obtaining undergraduate degrees rose from 55.9 to 57.3 percent, and the percentage of females pursuing postgraduate degrees rose from 50 to 51.5 percent. During that same period, female participation in the labor force also continued to climb. In the 1990s, women averaged an 18 percent participation rate in the Australian Parliament. By 2003, women comprised 26.5 percent of Australia’s parliament and a third of positions on Commonwealth government boards. Five years later, women held 67 seats in the 226-member Parliament, and four of 20 Cabinet ministers were female. One state premier was female, and two women sat on Australia’s High Court. The first female to hold the position of governor-general also took office in 2008. The previous year, an Aboriginal female had become the highest-ranking Aboriginal of either sex in the national government. Reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that one in three women has been the target of physical violence at some point in their lives, and one in five has been the victim of sexual violence. With a rate 40 times higher than that of whites, violence against women was particularly evident among Aboriginals. After declaring domestic violence an issue of national concern, Australian governments at all levels joined in the Partnerships against Domestic Violence initiative to combat crimes against women. The Indigenous Family Violent Grants Programme was established to deal with issues specific to the
Aboriginal community. Another element of the program dealt with an extensive media campaign to call public attention to the issue. In 2001, Australia established the National Initiative to Combat Sexual Assault. Three years later, the government announced its Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons. Australian Women’s Issues Other Australian laws also deal with issues specific to women. Abortion is legal with some restrictions throughout Australia. Rape, including spousal rape is illegal, and rape laws are strictly enforced. Sexual harassment is illegal in Australia under the Sex Discrimination Act, and there has been a move in recent years to amend the act to protect nursing mothers from discrimination. On the other hand, prostitution is legal in some Australian states, and there are incidences of prostitution in other areas. Some states regularly dispatch healthcare workers to monitor the health and treatment of prostitutes. In addition to initiatives taken at the national level, various states and regions have also instituted programs and policies designed to promote gender equity. For instance, both the Office for Women in South Australia and the Women’s Policy Office in Western Australia are engaged in generating effective gender-inclusive policies. See Also: Domestic Violence; Government, Women in; Prostitution, Legal; Working Mothers. Further Readings Breneman, Anne R. and Rebecca A. Mbuh. Women in the New Millennium: The Global Revolution. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2006. Dever, Maryanne and Jennifer Curtin. “Bent Babies and Closed Borders: Paid Maternity Leave: Ideal Families and the Australian Population Project.” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, v.13/2 (2007). Government of South Australia, Office for Women. “Gender Analysis Project.” http://www.officefor women.sa.gov.au/index.php?section=1082 (accessed February 2010). U.S. Department of State. “2008 Human Rights Report: Australia.” http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008 /eap/119033.htm (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
Australian Aboriginal Artists Contemporary Australian aboriginal art is derived from a long aboriginal tradition of using nature and culture to produce artistic works. Aboriginal artists employ rock art, bark painting, leaf painting, sand painting, sand sculpture, wood sculpture, wood carving, and body decoration to convey their messages and depict their unique culture. Aboriginal handcrafts also provide an avenue for combining creativity with profitability, and artistic skills are used to create uniquely aboriginal clothing and items such as boomerangs, weapons, and tools. Some early aboriginal artists were successful at producing works that employed Western art styles, but by the late 19th century, most aboriginal artists were intent on reflecting Australian aboriginal culture in their productions. Australian aboriginal women have added distinct contributions to interpreting both contemporary and traditional culture in 21st-century art. Some of the more successful female Australian aboriginal artists have been Melissa Craig Jingalu, Sally Morgan, Joanne Currie Nalingu, Liddy Napanangka Walker, Emily Pwerle, and Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty. One of the most celebrated female Australian aboriginal artists is Melissa Craig Jingalu, a member of the Bunjalung Yaagal tribe, who spent her early years fighting racism. Her first step toward realizing her dream of becoming an artist was taken when she worked as a manager’s assistant at Mullumbimby Art Gallery. She graduated from high school in 1990 at age 15 years. A year later, she was accepted into the Fine Arts Department at Cairnes College of Tafe for Aboriginals and Islanders. By 1995, she had become a semifinalist for young Australian of the year. Known for her vibrant watercolors that use gouache on paper, Jingalu’s fame soon reached international proportions. She is celebrated for works such as Dancing Dolphin, Ant Mountain, My Home, and Nights Moonglow. Sally Morgan is an Australian aboriginal artist and a writer. Born in 1951, Morgan grew up believing that she was from India; she learned in 1966 that she was actually an aborigine. In 1987, she published My Place, which chronicled her search for an identity. Her work as an artist has earned her international fame, and her productions, which include Outback, are exhibited around the world. In addition to her work promoting human rights, Morgan serves as the
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director of the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Indigenous History and Arts. Joanne Currie Nalingu, who hails from the Maranoa region of South West Queensland, never studied to be an artist. She began painting on her own in 1988 and soon developed the unique style that allows her to create brilliant landscapes depicting Australian rivers and deserts. One of her most outstanding contributions has been the creation of an enormous glass wall for Coolangatta Tafe College. Liddy Napanangka Walker, who was born in 1925, spent her early years in Australia’s bush camps. As a young adult, she took on various service jobs to support herself and did not start painting until the 1980s, when she joined the newly established Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association. Her works depict the traditional Australian aboriginal art
Traditional bark paintings are made by Australian Indigenous artists on flattened bark from trees like the stringybark tree.
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form of Dreaming, in which artists attempt to portray their connections to aboriginal history and culture through their art. Walker contends that she paints the Dreaming of her father and grandfather. Her works have been exhibited in the United States, France, Germany, South Korea, and India, as well as Australia. Born in 1922, Emily Pwerle grew up near Alice Springs. She also has been celebrated for her use of Dreaming symbols in her artwork. Her Paintings of Awelye are depictions of women engaged in the act of being women as they conduct business and participate in aboriginal rituals such as painting one another’s bodies with ochers, charcoal, and ash in symbolic designs. Men are always banned from Awelye ceremonies. Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty is an award-winning artist who was born at Tennant Creek in 1972. Although she trained to be a teacher at Deakin University, she also began pursuing her dream of becoming an artist. Her first exhibition was held in Sydney in 2006. The following year, Grandpa Harry’s Canoe garnered honors at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Tyalmuty’s paintings have sold for up to $200,000. From October 9, 2009, to January 10, 2010, the National Museum of Women in the Arts demonstrated American fascination with Australian aboriginal art through the Lands of Enchantment, Australian Aboriginal Painting exhibition in Washington, D.C. Aboriginal artists with works included in the exhibition were Dorothy Napangardi, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Abie Loy, and Regina Wilson. See Also: Arts, Women in the (21st Century Overview); Australia; Indigenous Women’s Issues; Kngwarreye, Emily. Further Readings “Aboriginal Art Online.” http://www.aboriginalartonline .com/art/urban.php (accessed April 2010). Evans, Mike, ed. Defining Moments in Art: Over a Century of the Artists, Exhibitions, People, and Events That Rocked the World. London: Cassell, 2008. Ioannides, Annabelle. “Jingalu: A Personal Journey.” Colorado Woman, v.11/8 (1996). National Museum of Women in the Arts. Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters. London. Scala, 2006 Elizabeth Purdy Independent Scholar
Austria Austria is a federal republic and member of the European Union (EU) situated in central Europe. In 2009, Austria had 8,355,260 inhabitants, 4,287,213 (51.3 percent) of which were women. As in other EU countries, gender equality is provided on a legal level, while on a social level, inequalities persist. This entry presents facts and statistics on the situation of women in Austria, including education attainment, employment, health, and forces affecting women’s status in society. Differences in education levels between men and women have decreased in the past three decades. In 2007, education levels in the population aged 25 to 64 were distributed as follows: 13 percent of men and 24 percent of women had compulsory school level only; 74 percent of men and 62 percent of women had secondary education level; 13 percent of men and 14 percent of women had tertiary education level. Regarding recently attained education levels, women have been catching up. For example, the majority of people achieving school-living exams (Matura) have been women for the past 20 years. Since 2000/2001, the same is true for students graduating from university. However, women’s share in academic careers decreases after graduation: currently, there are more men than women finishing doctoral studies. Proceeding to the level of university professors, women’s share diminishes further to 14 percent. The employment rate for women aged 15 to 64 was 66 percent in 2008 (men: 79 percent). The Austrian labor market is highly segregated. Women in work are strongly concentrated to a small number of occupations, and they are overrepresented in parttime employment and low-qualified jobs. In 2008, 42 percent of employed women were working part time (men: 8 percent). Seventy percent of employees doing unskilled labor in the private sector were women, as opposed to only 41 percent of employees with highly qualified jobs and only 27 percent of managerial employees. The gender pay gap (the average difference between men’s and women’s hourly earnings within the economy as a whole) in Austria is higher than the EU average. Women’s gross full-time earnings per year amount to 79 percent of men’s. If part-time work earnings are included, women’s gross yearly earnings amount to only 59 percent of men’s.
Women in Austria currently have a life expectancy of 83 years (men: 77.6 years; data of 2008). Life expectancy is thus higher than the EU average for both sexes. Seventy-three percent of women independently of age classify their health status as good or very good (men: 78 percent). In all age groups, more women than men complain about health problems. Health problems most often reported by women are spinal conditions, followed by migraine/headache, arthritis, and allergies. Main causes of death among women are cardiovascular diseases, followed by cancer and diseases of the respiratory tract. Since World War II, Austria has experienced many years of political coalition between the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ) and the Conservative People’s Party (Österreichische Volkspartei, ÖVP), which has strongly influenced Austria’s social policy. The interplay of these two forces led to many compromises between traditional and progressive approaches within the fields of women’s policy and family policy. Attitudes on women’s roles are also influenced by the Catholic tradition, with 74 percent of people in Austria (including the population without Austrian citizenship) being Roman Catholics, and several large political parties explicitly supporting Christian values. Recent changes affecting women’s status include the implementation of civil partnership registration for homosexual couples in 2010, and changes in parental leave regulations aiming at facilitating returning to the labor market and raising men’s utilization of parental leave. See Also: Education, Women in; Equal Pay; Health, Mental and Physical; Parental Leave; Part-Time Work; Professions by Gender; Same-Sex Marriage. Further Readings Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Familie und Jugend (Federal Ministry for Economy, Family and Youth). http://www.en.bmwfj.gv.at/EN/default.htm (accessed January 2010). Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. “LMF1.5: Gender Pay Gaps for Full-Time Workers and Earnings Differentials by Educational Attainment.” http://www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/29/63/38752746.pdf (accessed January 2010). Statistik Austria. “Frauen und Männer in Österreich. Statistische Analysen zu Geschlechtsspezifischen
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Unterschieden.” (Women and Men in Austria. Statistical Analyses on Gender-Specific Differences.) Vienna: Bundeskanzleramt-Bundesministerin für Frauen, 2007. Karin Sardadvar University of Vienna, Austria
Auto Racing, Formula One Formula One racing consists of a series of automobile races held from March through November. Historically, the season included mostly European sites, but in the 21st century, the races have become more fully international. The 2010 season includes races in Bahrain, Australia, Malaysia, and Brazil. A Formula One race is the elite among automobile races, featuring cars that cost multiple millions of dollars that are built according to a formula determined by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, which limits engine size and determines overall body design. From car design to driving, Formula One racing is a man’s world. The women who have infiltrated this world are few in number, and their recognition has been minimal. The first Formula One race was held in 1947. It was more than a decade later that Maria Teresa De Filippis became the first woman to compete in a Formula One Championship race, finishing tenth in the Belgian Grand Prix. She entered six more races and qualified for three that counted toward the championship title. Seventeen years after De Filippis, Lella Lombardi entered racing history as the first woman to score a World Championship point (literally half a point) in a Formula One race. British Olympic skier Divina Galica and Aurora Formula One champion Desire Wilson entered but failed to qualify in Formula One races, as did Giovanni Amati in 1992. Amati, the last woman to race in Formula One, complained about the all-male environment; from drivers to journalists, she found they belonged to a closed club. It has been 18 years since a woman has entered a Formula One championship race. Speculation was rife that Danica Patrick, the highest-qualifying and highest-finishing female in Indianapolis 500 history, would end the drought in 2010, but the speculators
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were wrong. German Touring Car star Susie Stoddart has expressed a desire to drive in a Formula One race. Sarah Fisher, the youngest woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500, was also the first woman in the 21st century to drive a Formula One car, albeit in a test. Alice Powell, who at age 16 years was winning championships, has announced her ambition to be the first British woman to compete successfully for the Formula One title. The door may be closed, but a company of young women are poised to open it. Some women have earned a place in less public positions in the Formula One world. Diane Holl has been with the Ferrari Design and Development team since the 1980s. Other women in technical jobs include Elf technician Valerie Jorquera, Goodyear tire engineer Janet Melia, and electrical engineer Sharon Hopkins. However, women in technical positions are still the exception, and women in administrative positions are even rarer. Greater numbers of women can be found in Formula One jobs that are more traditionally female. Di Spires, who has worked in Formula One hospitality/catering since 1978, acknowledges that when she started, her field was the only way women could find a job in the rarified world. Public relations is another field in which Formula One employs women. Predictably the largest group of women involved with Formula One is composed of models. Some are employed by team sponsors to publicize the link between the racing team and the sponsor. Others, such as the “grid girls,” are merely decorations whose presence serves as a foil for Formula One’s masculine image. See Also: Patrick, Danica; Professions by Gender; Sports, Women in; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Formula 1. “FIA Establishes Women & Motor Sport Commission.” (April 2010). http://www.formula1 .com/news/headlines/2010/4/10703.html (accessed April 2010). Hobbs, Rebecca. “Women in Motorsport.” http://www .rh-pr.co.uk/34.html (accessed April 2010). Saward, Joe. “Girls in Formula 1.” http://www.grandprix .com/ft/ft00178.html (accessed April 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University
Auto Racing, NASCAR The emergence of women as an influential segment in sports can be found in all components of the sport industry. From a growing and influential portion of the fan base to top-level managerial positions in leading sport organizations, the impact of women is more evident than ever. Perhaps nowhere in the sport industry has the dramatic growth of a female presence been more evident than in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Although NASCAR is frequently viewed as a “male sport,” it has a lengthy history of openness and inclusion for women. As early as 1949, NASCAR recognized the potential benefits of including women, when legendary owner, the late Bill France, Sr., recruited Louise Smith as a driver. During her career, Smith won more than 38 NASCAR sponsored events and was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. Following Smith’s breaking of the gender line, other females have participated as NASCAR drivers. Notable female drivers were Janet Guthrie during the late 1970s and Erin Crocker during the early part of the past decade. Today several women are competing to drive full time in NASCAR. In 2009, Indy-car sensation Danica Patrick signed a two-year contract with JR Sports and drove in NASCAR’s National Series beginning in 2010. Patrick teamed with NASCAR legends Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Rick Hendrick, whose cars won the NASCAR Cup Series title from 2006-2009, as well as champion drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson. Chrissy Wallace, niece of NASCAR legend Rusty Wallace, also signed a contract to drive in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series in 2010. The ramifications of Wallace and Patrick decision to drive in the NASCAR circuit will undoubtedly bring additional attention and potential sponsorships to the popular sport. NASCAR’s promotion of female involvement has not focused solely on the development of female drivers. Research estimates indicate that between 35 percent and 42 percent of all NASCAR fans are females. These figures, approximately 30 million fans, represent a higher female fan base than the National Football League or Major League Baseball. Financial projections indicate that female fans will spend in excess of $250 million dollars annually on NASCAR licensed products.
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NASCAR is also frequently acknowledged as having the largest number of females in high-profile, decision-making positions ranging from team owners to track presidents. For example, Lesa France Kennedy, CEO of International Speedway, was named “The Most Powerful Woman in Sports” by Forbes magazine in 2009. Kennedy was named President of ISC in 2003 and promoted to CEO in 2009, directing an organization that generates over $750 million annually. NASCAR offers women a multilayered, multifaceted avenue for involvement. From emerging female drivers to its growing female fan base to sport management, the face and makeup of NASCAR is rapidly evolving. For a sport that has been traditionally viewed as a men’s only sport, it is now evident that NASCAR is for everyone. See Also: Auto Racing, Formula One; Patrick, Danica; Sports, Women in. Further Readings Mulhern, Mike. “Women in NASCAR: A Second Look.” Lynchburg News & Advance (April 22, 2008). http:// www2.newsadvance.com/lna/sports/motor_sports /article/women_in_nascar_a_second_look/4132 (accessed October 2009) Murphy, Emily. “NASCAR Not Just for Boys Anymore. USA Today (July 2, 2004). http://www.usatoday.com /sports/motor/nascar/2004-07-02-women_x.htm (accessed October 2009). Durrett, R. “The Women of NASCAR.” Dallas Morning News (November 4, 2007). http://www.dallasnews. com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/110407dnsponas carwomen.3afdcab.html (accessed October 2009). Andy Gillentine University of Miami
Aviation, Women in Women began breaking gender barriers in flight in 1910, when Bessica Raiche became the first female aviator. Eighteen years later, Amelia Earhart became the first woman in history to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. During World War II, female air pilots came into their own by filling in for male pilots
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(who were allowed to fly in combat). Recognition of those female pilots’ contributions to the American role in World War II was delayed until 2010, when they finally received the Congressional Gold Medal. Female pilots were still breaking records in the 21st century, and in 2001, Polly Vacher of the United Kingdom became the first woman in the world to fly around the world in a small plane. In 2007, there were some 7,100 registered female commercial pilots, 800 of whom were captains. Unlike the female pilots of World War II, female pilots serving in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 21st century are actively involved in fighting the enemy. Although they are barred from ground combat, these women serve as bomber pilots, navigators, tanker pilots, weapons officers, and support crew. By 2004, 519 women were serving as U.S. Air Force pilots, making up 3.8 percent of the total. More than 4 percent of navigators were female, and more than 600 women worked as crew members. In 2006, Major Nicole Malachowski of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) became the first female on the USAF Air Demonstration Squadron, more commonly known as the Thunderbirds. In February 2009, a flight crew of four African American women made history as the first allblack female flight crew in American history. Flying an ASA flight from Atlanta to Nashville, the team included Captain Rachelle Jones and flight attendants Diana Galloway and Robin Rogers. The event, which took place during Black History Month, occurred entirely by coincidence. First officer Stephanie Grant stepped in when the individual initially assigned to the crew became ill. It was only when the four women met up onboard that they realized the historic import of the flight. Recognizing Women in the Field Each year, Women in Aviation International recognizes the contributions of women to the field. These pioneers in women’s aviation history continue to inspire one another, as well as young girls and women who desire to take flight. In 2010, Women in Aviation International recognized Alice du Pont Mills, Trish Beckman, Vice Admiral Vivien Crea, Suzanna DarcyHennemann, and Kathy Sullivan. These women, who are representative of the many women in aviation in the 21st century, are having a direct effect on public opinion concerning the capabilities of female
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airline pilots. Mills was honored for her service during World War II, in which she taught instrument flight to Navy airmen and female ferry pilots. Beckman, who served 28 years in the U.S. Navy, testified before the Senate to argue for the advisability of allowing women to fly combat missions. Her credentials include becoming the first woman to qualify as a crewmember in the F-15E program. She now flies commercial planes for Boeing. Vice Admiral Vivien Crea has made history throughout her aviation career. As a member of the U.S. Coast Guard, she became the first female to ever serve as a military aide to the president. She was also the first female to command a U.S. Coast Guard station, the first female executive assistant to the commandant of the Coast Guard, and the first woman to become a rear admiral and a vice admiral. In addition, she was the first woman in U.S. history to become the second in command of the military force. In 2008, she became the first woman to ever receive the Ancient Albatross—an honor reserved for members of the Coast Guard who have been on active duty for the longest period. Similar to Beckman, Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann now works for the Boeing Company. She serves as the company’s chief training pilot, teaching some 700 instructor pilots, and has six other female pilots in her employ. She has also broken important ground for women in the field of aviation. She was the first woman to ever captain a 747-400, the first woman to captain a 777, and the first female test pilot to work on both production and experimental flight testing. On November 10, 2005, Darcy-Hennemann and her crew broke the distance record in the 661,000-pound weight class by flying a 777-200LR from Hong Kong to London. Kathy Sullivan is both a pilot and an astronaut. A member of the first space shuttle class for astronauts, she became the first American female to walk in space and has flown on three other missions, spending more than 520 hours in space. She is a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve and has served as the chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She is currently the director for the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs of Ohio State University. See Also: Astronauts, Female; Military, Women in the; Professions by Gender.
Further Readings Douglas, Deborah G. American Women and Flight since 1940. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 11 Alive (Atlanta, Georgia). “First All-Black Female Flight Crew Flies to Nashville.” http://www.11alive.com/life /story.aspx?storyid=127470&catid=37 (accessed April 2010). Russo, Carolyn and Dorothy Cochrane. Women and Flight: Portraits of Contemporary Women Pilots. New York: Little, Brown, 1997. Women in Aviation International. “WAI Hall of Fame.” http://www.wai.org/resources/pioneers.cfm (accessed April 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
Azerbaijan Located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, Azerbaijan is bordered by the Caspian Sea, Russia, Georgia, and Armenia. It is one of the oldest oil-producing countries in the world. The majority of its 8.2 million residents are Turkic and Shi’ite Muslim. Azerbaijan was the first secular republic in the Muslim world, and the first Muslim nation to grant women suffrage. Separating from the Soviet Union in 1991, after 80 years of Russian and Soviet rule, Azerbaijan established a constitution with separation of powers and a presidential system. As have many former Soviet republics, the newly independent country has suffered from economic and political crisis. From 1988 to 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia were at war over territory. As a result, 300,000 women and 185,000 men were displaced from Armenia and became refugees in Azerbaijan. War and political instability created poverty rates as high as 80 percent. Even though the government has established an election process, human rights organizations do not consider the country free and democratic because of the authoritarian rule and human rights abuses of its president. About 95 percent of its residents are Muslim, and many cultural and family traditions are influenced by Islam. While there are no legal restrictions on women’s rights, and they have equal access to education, patriarchal culture has limited women’s public roles and economic opportunities.
Traditional culture has discriminated against women. In rural areas, women can face public ridicule if they appear in public unaccompanied, or even drive. The tradition of “family voting” allows men to cast votes on behalf of their wives or other female members of their households. Chauvinistic stereotypes still dominate the culture. The shame of divorce could lead a woman to commit suicide or even excuse a man from murdering his wife rather than permitting a divorce. Sexism also prevents women from holding high-level positions in government and corporations, and there are no laws against sexual harassment. Women earn an average of 70 percent of what men make for similar jobs. While there was a woman appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, women comprise less than 10 percent of parliament. Most women work outside the home, but have no protection for equal wages and little advancement. Refugee women experience an especially harsh existence. Those who live in camps face hunger, disease, and lack of maternal and child healthcare. Twenty percent of refugee children cannot attend school because of lack of funds. The United Nations targeted Azerbaijan’s domestic violence as the number one problem for Azeri women, reporting that abuse was a common experience for women. Because it is culturally taboo to talk about, few women are even aware of their rights not to be physically abused. The Women’s Rights Monitoring Group estimated that 35 percent of Azeri women have been beaten by a male relative. Women would face public ridicule if they reported such abuse, and often the police frowned upon it as well. Spousal rape is considered a private family matter. Women in rural communities often do not even have police to turn to, and have no recourse when they are sexually violated. Bridal kidnappings still occur in rural areas, often in conjunction with rape.
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Rape is illegal, but few women report rapes because their communities often cast blame on the female victims. Rape victims are considered soiled or dishonored, and some turn to suicide rather than face societal scorn. The government also has no programs, shelters or outreach for victims of rape. In the culture, rape is a taboo subject, so women get little emotional, psychological, or financial support. Women’s rights activists such as Novella Jafarova have started women’s organizations to help Azeri women and pressure the government to enact gender equity and domestic violence laws. In order to enforce any laws, however, Azeri women need to address the patriarchal social customs that restrict women’s lives. See Also: Divorce; Domestic Violence; Islam; Rape, Cross-Culturally Defined; Suicide. Further Readings Griffin, Nicholas. Caucasus: A Journey to the Land Between Christianity and Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Nfa, Farideh H. Azeri Women in Transition: Women in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. London: Routledge, 2002. Ro’i, Yaacov. Islam and the Soviet Union. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Swietochowski, Tadeusz. Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Tohidi, Nayereh Esfahlani. “Soviet in Public, Azeri in Private: Gender, Islam, and Nationality in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan.” Women’s Studies International Forum, v.19/1,2 (1996). Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California
B Bachelet, Michelle In January 2006, Michelle Bachelet (1951– ) was elected as the first woman president of Chile. Her leadership immediately reformulated what government would look like under her administration, as she appointed 10 women and 10 men to her cabinet. Her previous post was as the Defense Minister, the first woman to fill that position, not only in Chile but in any Latin American country. Hailed in 2008 by Time magazine as number 15 on its list of most influential people, Michelle Bachelet had long been active politically with the Socialist Party. She endured a period of exile to return home, serve in the democratically elected administration of President Ricardo Lagos, and to be democratically elected to the presidency herself. Bachelet’s education includes studies in medicine and military strategy. She graduated as a medical doctor, planning to use her skill to improve the deplorable medical conditions in Chile as a result of neglect by the Augusto Pinochet regime. Bachelet’s father, General Alberto Bachelet, served in President Salvador Allende’s administration and was captured following the bombing of the La Moneda Palace by the coup which brought Pinochet into power in September 1973. Her father was imprisoned and tortured; he died in March 1974 of a heart attack while still in jail. Active in the Socialist Party, Michelle Bachelet worked against the Pinochet regime, aiding those
who spoke against it. Eventually, she and her mother were kidnapped and tortured by the secret police in January 1975, then released into exile, where they fled first to Australia and then East Germany. In 1979, Bachelet returned to Chile, continued her medical studies, and graduated in 1982. The Pinochet regime was still in power, making her employment difficult. However, she did receive a scholarship enabling her to specialize in pediatrics and she found work in a medical facility that treated children who were victims of torture. When democracy was restored in Chile in 1990, she continued to work as a medical professional. She was eventually encouraged to run as a city–county council member in Santiago and to join the Socialist Party’s Central Committee. She worked on Lagos’s successful presidential campaign in 1999, and was appointed to head his administration’s Ministry of Health in 2000. Bachelet’s efforts as Minister of Health significantly restructured Chile’s healthcare system. Thanks to her organizational skill and input from businesses, patients, healthcare professionals, and other stakeholders, she put forward the Rights and Responsibilities of all Persons in Healthcare bill, a National Commission on the Protection of the Rights of Mental Health Patients, a Friendly Hospital Plan, and new programs for women’s health issues, mental health issues, nutrition awareness, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) patients. She decreased 119
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The president of Chile, Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria, on Chile’s Independence Day: September 18, 2009.
wait time for appointments, increased access to healthcare, and created special facilities for children and seniors. In 2002, Bachelet was appointed as President Lagos’s Minister of Defense. Perhaps because of her success in modernizing healthcare, she was called upon to work with the military and police to similarly update those sectors. Her appointment surprised many, given that she was the first woman to lead a defense ministry in all of Latin America. She achieved success in strengthening the military. She developed equal opportunities for women. Her Ministry of Defense created relationships with other defense ministries throughout Latin America, and it worked on eliminating land mines and mine fields within Chile. Bachelet also worked to advance reconciliation efforts throughout the country, commemorating the 13th anniversary of the Pinochet ouster. In late 2004, Bachelet resigned her Defense Ministry post to run for president. In the first round of
elections, she received 46 percent of the vote, and stood for election in a second round with her nearest competitor. After the second round votes were counted, she received nearly 54 percent of the vote and was elected Chile’s first female president, who did not succeed her husband. Her term as president ran from March 11, 2006 to March 11, 2010. In the 2005 election, women in the lower house filled 15 percent of the seats, and 5 percent in the upper house. While Chile ranks in the lower half of all countries when it comes to women’s political representation, Bachelet’s leadership has done much to tip the balance, promising to lead Chile toward a more just, inclusive, and equitable future. As she declared in her victory speech: “Because I was the victim of hate, I’ve consecrated my life to turning hate into understanding, tolerance, and why not say it—love.” She explained the remark in an interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: “It’s the idea of how we’re able to build bases in our society where tolerance, understanding of diversity, integration, and not discrimination will be the main policies . . . . I’m speaking not only of reconciliation—even I don’t use that word—I use another word in Spanish, that’s called reencuentro—it’s not reconciliation.” The word means more like “recoming” and it forms the basis of her leadership as she has reformed healthcare to increase access, restructured the military to re-emphasize partnerships, and reconfigured leadership to value the contributions of all people. See Also: Chile; Heads of State, Female; HIV/AIDS: South America; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings PBS. Interview With Michelle Bachelet. Elizabeth Farnsworth. Online NewsHour With Jim Lehrer (January 25, 2006). http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb /latin_america/jan-june06/chile_1-25.html (accessed November 2009). “The World’s Most Influential People.” Time (April 30, 2009). http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007 /article/0,28804,1733748_1733757_1735593,00.html (accessed November 2009). Kristina Horn Sheeler Indiana University, Purdue University
Bahrain
Bahamas The Bahamas is an island nation in the Atlantic Ocean, north of Cuba and southwest of Florida. This prosperous country earns major income through tourism, banking, and financial management and provides basic social and health services to all its population. In 2009, per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated at $29,800, which is the second highest among Caribbean nations, and less than 10 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Most of the population (85 percent) is black, the remainder white (12 percent) and Asian or Hispanic (3 percent), and most Bahamians identify themselves as Christians. The World Economic Forum rated the Bahamas relatively high in gender equality in 2009. On a scale from 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality), the Bahamas got an overall score of 0.718, ranking 28th among the 134 countries rated. The Bahamas ranked highly on educational attainment (1.000, 1st), health and survival (0.980, 1st), and economic participation and opportunity (0.826, 2nd) but lower on political empowerment (0.066, 109th). Literacy is approximately equal for men (94.7 percent) and women (96.5 percent). Women constitute almost half of the labor force and a higher percent of females age 15 and older (87.4 percent) are employed than men in that age group (81.6 percent). Women hold 12 percent of the seats in the lower house of the Bahamian Parliament and 53 percent of the upper house and women have served as both president of the Senate and speaker of the House of Assembly. In 2002, Dame Ivy Leona Dumont became the first female governor-general of the Bahamas, serving until 2005. Because of a high fertility rate (2 children per woman) and moderate death rate (1.16 per 1,000 population), the population growth rate is just under 1 percent annually. Although expectancy at birth is 67.5 years for men and 72.4 years for women, because of the high birth rate the country has a young age structure, with almost 26 percent of the population age 14 or younger. The Bahamian government has promoted birth control because of the high fertility rate and an estimated 60 percent of women age 15 to 44 use some form of contraception. Almost all births take place with the assistance of skilled personnel. The infant mortality rate is 14.84 per 1,000 live births
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and maternal mortality is 60 per 100,000 live births. Save the Children ranked the Bahamas 10th on its Mothers’ and Women’s indexes in 2009 and 9th on its Children’s Index among 75 Tier II or Less Developed Countries. Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a serious problem in the Bahamas and an estimated 3 percent of adults are infected, the highest percentage in the Western Hemisphere. Women account for about one-quarter to one-half of the people infected with HIV, and in 2004, AIDS became the leading cause of death for Bahamians (male and female) age 20 to 44. See Also: Contraception Methods; HIV/AIDS: North America; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; Heads of State, Female; Trinidad and Tobago. Further Readings Craton, Michael and Gail Saunders. Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People: Volume Two: From the Ending of Slavery to the Twenty-First Century. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.save thechildren.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp _hd_pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine
Bahrain As an island country in the Persian Gulf with 1 million residents, Bahrain has played an important role in Middle East trade since ancient times. Bahrain is a constitutional monarchy, and has a strong middle class and a fast growing economy due to its oil resources. A 2001 census reported that 81.2 percent of the population were Muslim (Shia and Sunni) and 9 percent were Christian, with the remaining 9.8 percent practicing other religions. In 2009, Bahrain’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated at $38,800.
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The World Economic Forum rated Bahrain low in gender equality in 2010, ranking 110 out of 134 countries rated. Although human rights groups consider Bahrain a model for the region due to its civil rights, freedom of religion, press, and speech, as of 2008, the Kingdom of Bahrain did not have laws criminalizing violence against women, be it domestic violence, violence in the workplace, or in public places. In 2009, the government passed the Family Law, a national plan for advancing the status of women. While Bahrain already had comprehensive medical care, and Bahrain women have one of the highest life expectancies in the developing world at age 77, women had few opportunities outside the home. The Family Law seeks to increase the number of women in higher education and in the business world. Cultural traditions have been a big impediment to women’s progress, and the new plan also highlights the rights of women in the marriage contract. Bahrain has been impacted by the spread of fundamentalist Islam. In 1981, an Islamic group with ties to Iran staged a failed coup attempt. In 1994, a group called the Islamic Front organized an uprising, which included stoning female marathon runners for indecent attire. However, they were not able to gain control of the government and King Hamad was able to institute change that promoted women’s rights. Women’s groups in Bahrain continue to press for the advancement of women in politics, education, and employment opportunties. Women have become active in Bahrain politics. In 2002, women gained the right to vote and women entered high levels of government. In 2004, Dr. Nada Haffadh became the first female minister, as Minister of Health, and Lulwa Al Awadhi became head of the Supreme Council for Women. Bahrain’s Haya bint Rashid Al Khalifa, a woman’s right advocate in her own country, became the first women to become president of the United Nation’s General Assembly. She was only the third woman in the world to serve in this capacity, and the first woman from the Middle East. Other wellknown feminists include Ghada Jamsheer, who continues to pressure the government for women’s rights. Women activists want changes in several areas to ensure women’s equal status and protection. Currently, decisions on divorce and child custody are made in religious courts by Shari`a judges. Women want Bahrain to establish family laws that protect women, rather than
leaving it up to local Shari`a judges. Women also are demanding changes to the nationality laws. If a Bahrain woman marries a foreign man, she cannot pass down citizenship to her children. Activists also insist reforms to provide social security for women. Several women’s rights organizations exist in Bahrain, most notably is the Women’s Petition Committee which is working on all of these issues. Women’s groups have also been responsible for focusing attention on education and economic empowerment. Nongovernmental agencies have developed literacy campaigns, with a focus on educated women so they can gain employment to be selfsufficient. Microfinance loans have enabled women to start their own businesses. Lack of access to childcare has also been an impediment to economic opportunities, and women’s groups have helped develop daycare centers. Women are playing an increasingly vocal and prominent role in Bahrain public life and politics and continue to fight for gender equity. See Also: Divorce; Financial Independence of Women; Islam; Shari`a Law. Further Readings Alsharekh, Alanoud. The Gulf Family: Kinship Policies and Modernity (SOAS Middle East Issues Series). London: Saqi Books, 2007. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck and John L. Esposito, eds. Islam, Gender, and Social Change. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997. Lawson, Fred H. Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy (Nations of the Contemporary Middle East). New York: Westview Press, 1989. Zahlan, Rosemarie Said. The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Quatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1999. Monica D. Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California
Bangladesh One of the most populated countries in the world, the subject of women in Bangladesh has been a longstanding and contested. Among the poorest Asian countries, Bangladesh is situated in the Indian sub-
Among millions of others in Bangladesh, Shavala lives on $1 a day, struggling to feed her two children.
continent in a riverine terrain that serves as the floodplains for the Himalayas. Traditionally, people in this country engaged in agriculture but urbanization and outmigration has increased rapidly over the past three decades. The population is primarily Muslim, an estimated 12 percent of communities are Hindu and 3 percent are Christians, Buddhists, and others. The ratio of males to females in Bangladesh is 105.6 males per 100 females, in 2008. This low proportion of women reflects various setbacks in the status of women throughout south Asia. In recent years, gender related statistics have shown substantial improvements for women, but the condition of women remains problematic in many domains. Rural female literacy was 20 percent, half of that of males at the turn of the millennium. By 2004, it rose to 46 percent, the primary gain being made by females aged 15 to 24 whose literacy has reached 71 percent
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in 2008. Very few women continue their education up to the tertiary level. As a result, their prospects for work are not very good. More than three-quarters of women work as unpaid family labor in agriculture. Less than a tenth are self-employed and few are contract workers. In urban areas, women are better represented in the labor force with half the women who work being paid employees. However, only two out of five women work in the formal sector, primarily in ready made garments, while most women work in the informal sector, as vendors selling food and clothes or hiring themselves out as domestic help. Occupational segregation remains high, women working in the occupations mentioned as well as in nursing, teaching, and self-employment financed through microcredit. Girls are vulnerable to trafficking and often work as child laborers, and even as child prostitutes. Indicators such as fertility and the male–female infant mortality gap have improved vastly over the last four decades. However, health expenditures per capita reflect the low incomes in the country, with women getting far less access to healthcare than men. Bangladesh is one of the few countries where female life expectancies are lower than men’s. Families feed the male members better and first. The child marriage rate is one of the highest in the world. Many girls are married by the age of 15, and their families must pay a dowry. Maternal mortality rates remain very high at 440 per 100,000, with trained attendants present at only one-third of births. Improvements in education or health indicators are attributed to the activities of development organizations in the country. Bangladesh has seen a large amount of socioeconomic development experimentation, with a web of donor funded nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the country. In addition, women’s issues have become part of the larger national discourse of development. In 1978, Bangladesh was one of the first developing countries to establish a Ministry of Women’s Affairs. The two policies that were used heavily to influence the status of women are NGO-based microcredit programs and the government’s education policy of providing incentives to families to send girls to school. Microcredit has been used for entrepreneurial activities ranging from raising livestock to textiles; much of this credit is also used to meet family cash needs for consumption or children’s marriage costs.
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Women’s Rights Participation in the political process is fairly low, even though women have increased access to political representation and there are strong advocates for women at the national level. In 1997, women were given reserved seats to be elected to local government. Very recently, women have run for elections and become elected over and beyond the reserved seats. Rural justice is meted out by an informal court system consisting of village elders; women are rarely represented in these, and stories abound of gender discriminatory verdicts even at the present time. Women generally do not own or manage property. Muslim and antiquated Hindu inheritance laws favoring sons are still prevalent and most property decisions are made for women by male relatives. Women’s grooms are selected by their families, typically by their fathers. Even when they work, women’s earnings are 21 percent less than men’s earnings. Violence against women is quite high and has changed from more private forms of domestic violence to harassment, acid throwing, and rape as women’s participation in the public realm has increased. Dowries were not prevalent in the 1960s but have become more of a norm over time, with a likelihood of violence against the bride occurring when monetary demands have not been adequately met. There are widespread social movements directed against female violence and dowry, but their efforts have been unable dispel these problems. Bangladesh’s rich fabric of NGOs draws on an even wealthier tradition of women’s movements. Feminists such as Begum Rokeya Sultana have long sought women’s self-determination and Muslim female leaders have joined hands with Hindu and tribal communities during the anticolonial struggles. That particular tradition remains alive and there are many strong women’s groups that are committed to and actively work for women’s rights at many levels. See Also: Domestic Violence; Infant Mortality; Maternal Mortality; Nongovernmental Organizations Worldwide. Further Readings Asian Development Bank. Women in Bangladesh. Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2001. Feminist Theory. “Feminism in Bangladesh.” http://www .cddc.vt.edu/feminism/ban.html (accessed April 2010).
Women’s United Nations Report Network (WUNRN). “Bangladesh: Combating Impunity of Acid Attacks, Rape, Gender Violence.” http://www.wunrn.com /news/2008/02_08/02_04_08/020408_bangladesh.htm (accessed April 2010). Farida C. Khan University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Banks, Tyra Tyra Lynne Banks (1973– ) is an African American talk show host, actress, singer, writer, and former model. Banks was born in Inglewood, California. She began modeling at the age of 15, and soon she became an international supermodel. At a very young age, she started doing print and runway work for major brands in fashion, advertisement, and the food industry. Banks appeared on the covers of leading fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, and Vogue. She was also the first African American model to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Banks started her acting career in the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1993. Later, she appeared in a number of television series, movies, and music videos. In 1998, Banks published Tyra’s Beauty, Inside and Out, a book to advise young women on beauty and style. Although she was already a popular media personality, Banks’s first major television project was America’s Next Top Model, a reality television show launched in 2003. Tyra Banks is the creator, host, head judge, and executive producer of the show in which a number of young women compete to start a career in the modeling industry. After the immense success of the show, Banks retired from modeling in 2005 to focus on her television career. That year she launched The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime talk show that she hosted and produced. In 2008, Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for the show. As a young African American woman who has attained fame, wealth, and success and who supports other women, Banks become a role model for young girls in the United States and abroad. She is also popular among the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) community, particularly gay
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men. In 2009, she was given Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s Excellence in Media Award for her strong commitment to creating public awareness about the lives of gay and transgender people on her talk show. Banks’s popularity is also related to the approachable and endearing personality she portrays on the show. There are also controversial issues about Banks and her work. Although Banks founded her TZONE (Tyra Zone) foundation in 1999 to help girls deal with their insecurities, particularly about their bodies, and she speaks out against eating disorders on her shows, America’s Next Top Model has been criticized for promoting an unhealthy body image and for subjecting the contestants to forms of violence in front of the camera. See Also: Celebrity Women; Fashion Industry, Theoretical Controversies; Film Actors, Female; Reality Television; Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition; Supermodels; Winfrey, Oprah. Further Readings Blackstock, Claire M. C. “Entertaining the Gods, Appeasing Ourselves: René Girard’s Theories of Sacrifice and Reality TV’s America’s Next Top Model.” The Journal of Religion and Theatre, v.6/2 (2007). Hill, Anne E. Tyra Banks: From Supermodel to Role Model. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 1992. Rudy, Jessica. “When Worlds Collide: Tyra Banks and Spheres of Performance.” http://www.allacademic.com /meta/p261273_index.html (accessed July 2009). Silverman, Stephen M. “Ellen DeGeneres, Tyra Banks Win Daytime Emmys.” http://www.people.com/people /article/0,,20208186,00.html (accessed July 2009). Rustern Ertug Altinay Independent Scholar
Barbados The island nation of Barbados, located northeast of Venezuela in the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the world’s most densely populated nations, with blacks forming a substantial majority of the population. Christianity is the predominant religion. Increasing educational and employment opportunities have left women less
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economically dependent on their husbands and adult children. The predominant Creole culture is a synthesis of British and West African traditions. Barbados ranked 21st of 134 countries according to the World Economic Forum’s “2009 Global Gender Gap Report.” Common relationship unions include visiting unions, in which a couple lives apart, as well as common law and legal marriages, with common law marriages predominant. Traditional socialization emphasizes male power and virility and both genders tend to be sexually active at a young age. Childbearing was traditionally a woman’s investment in her future, as she relied on her children for future support but improved educational and employment opportunities have lowered birth rates. The 2009 fertility rate was 1.50 births per woman with an infant mortality rate of 11 per 1,000 live births and a maternal mortality rate of 16 per 100,000 live births. Skilled healthcare practitioners are present at almost all births and the national insurance system provides 12 weeks of paid maternity leave at 100 percent of wages. Domestic violence is a growing problem despite the passage of a Domestic Violence Law in 1992. Families range from nuclear to extended households with family responsibilities traditionally divided by gender. Many women run households as men emigrate overseas for employment opportunities. Education is free and compulsory for all students from age 5 to 14. Female attendance rates at the primary and secondary levels are above 90 percent and 73 percent at the tertiary level. The literacy rate for both genders is equally high at 99 percent. Despite overpopulation and overcrowding, Barbadians have one of the Caribbean’s highest standards of living and life expectancy is relatively high at 68 for women and 63 for men. There is a free national social security and healthcare system, but the high ratio of people per doctor means that many rely on home remedies. Problems include widespread sexual violence and human trafficking, substance abuse, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and the difficulty of caring for an aging population. Gender Gaps Many women work outside the home and women constitute 49 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce in 2009. Key employment sectors include
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industry, education, tourism, and service, with women making up just over half of professional and technical workers. Gender gaps still exist in terms of estimated earned income in U.S. dollars, which stands at $12,894 for women and $20,139 for men, and unemployment rates, which stand at 10.5 percent for women and 8.92 percent for men. Barbados has universal suffrage. Women hold 10 percent of parliamentary seats and 28 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. Nongovernmental organizations like the Caribbean Women’s Association monitor women’s rights. See Also: Domestic Violence; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Sex Workers; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Hausman, Ricardo, Laura D. Tyson, and Saadia Zahidi. “The Global Gender Gap Report 2009.” Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2009. http://www.weforum .org/en/Communities/Women%20Leaders%20and% 20Gender%20Parity/GenderGapNetwork/index.htm (accessed February 2010). Knight, F. W. and T. M. Vergne. Contemporary Caribbean Cultures and Societies in a Global Context. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Lewis, L. The Culture of Gender and Sexuality in the Caribbean. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University
Barbie Dolls Prior to Barbie’s debut, most toy dolls were made to look like babies or young children. Reportedly, Ruth Handler was inspired to create a new kind of doll after watching her daughter, Barbara, and her friends, playing with paper dolls. The girls gave their dolls adult clothing and roles, inspiring Handler to create a threedimensional adult-figured dolls for preteens to play with. During a trip to Europe in the mid-1950s, Han-
dler found a Lilli doll, shaped as a curvaceous adult. The Lilli doll was based on a working-class comic strip character that was not above using her beauty to attract men for material wealth. Lilli was originally marketed to adults, although children played with her as well. Handler believed that there was an opportunity in the toy market to create a similar doll for children to play with in the United States. Handler convinced the directors of Mattel, a company she cofounded, along with her husband Elliot, that an adult doll for children to play with would be profitable. The directors were not initially enthused about the idea. Handler’s vision was realized when Barbie was unveiled at the Toy Fair in New York City in 1959. After years of development, Handler redesigned the doll with the help of an engineer, Jack Ryan, who worked on the shape and production of the doll. She hired Charlotte Buettenback Johnson, a fashion designer, to create the detailed, lifelike wardrobe for Barbie. The doll was marketed as a teenage fashion model; in this role Barbie was cast as having a fun, upscale and glamorous life without being overtly sexy. Although some parents were critical of the doll’s adult body, a careful marketing campaign devised by Mattel appealed to both children and parents alike, making Barbie a top-selling toy within a few years of her debut. Mattel used focus group marketing techniques to hone in on the tastes and preferences of the doll’s target audience, preteen girls and their mothers. Barbie dolls were one of the first toys to be mass marketed on television, a successful strategy by Mattel that was soon adopted by other companies. Mattel has resisted providing a lot of information about Barbie’s history. Instead Mattel prefers to leave her back-story open, allowing children and adults to engage in imaginative play with her. This trend continues today, as the doll’s packaging includes information about the character she is portraying or the profession she is designed to represent, but little else. Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken, was introduced in the 1960s. The doll was named after the Handler’s son, Kenneth. Barbie and Ken have had a long relationship, but were never married. To keep Barbie’s image of a glamorous, carefree lifestyle part of the fantasy surrounding the doll, Mattel has not included marriage and children as part of her story. In 2004, Mattel announced at a press conference that Barbie and Ken had parted ways. Barbie celebrated her 50th anniversary in 2009
with great fanfare in the media and celebrations hosted by Mattel and devoted fans. Barbie remains one of the most popular toy items in the world, and can be purchased in over 150 countries. By the 1990s, Mattel estimated that three Barbie dolls were purchased every second somewhere in the world. Barbie and Popular Culture The Barbie doll has taken on a life of its own in popular culture. Since the doll’s introduction to consumers as a teenage fashion model, she has had more than 100 careers, ranging from a doctor, businesswoman, rock star, airline stewardess, fashion designer, nurse, race car driver and a solider. Mattel has created Barbie dolls commemorating characters from children’s fairy tales, television shows, cartoons, and films. Mattel also created an international collection, featuring dolls in native costumes from every corner of the world. Consumers can purchase pets, housing,
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furniture, cars, and of course clothes for every imaginable occasion for their Barbie dolls. Barbie’s franchise empire has expanded into licensed accessories and clothes for children to wear, and other toys, such as coloring books, films, novels, board games, and videos games. Academic studies of Barbie cross the boundaries of childhood and adult play, consumerism, beauty standards, sexual identity, and gender politics. Barbie presents an interesting case study in popular culture as one of the most beloved and demonized toy products ever created. The criticism extends to the fantasy play focused on materialism and appearance encouraged by Barbie products. Although Mattel has produced Barbie dolls dressed as doctors, astronauts, and even as the president of the United States, the most popular dolls and products revolve around shopping and fashion. Advocacy groups, parents, and scholars have criticized the doll for presenting
Barbie dolls are also marketed to adults who grew up playing with them. These 2005 Pink Label Collection Zodiac dolls were, according to Mattel, “inspired by the 12 astrological signs, representing the mystique and ongoing appeal of the zodiac.”
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an unrealistic body image for women and girls to imitate. Parents and critics bemoan the limited beauty standards represented by Barbie dolls. Although Mattel has created Barbie dolls to symbolize various ethnicities and nationalities, the doll’s shape, hair, and facial features remain virtually the same, although the skin tone, or rather tint of color in the plastic, change in the ethnically diverse models. The first black doll to be part of the Barbie doll line was Francie in 1966. Francie was replaced within a few years with Christie, who remained on the market until the mid-1980s. It was not until the 1980s that black dolls were named “Barbie.” These dolls were cast from the same pattern as the white Barbie doll. Mattel released the Shani dolls in 1991, with light, medium, and dark skin tones, designed to signify different shades of African American skin tone. Mattel has also been criticized for linking the Barbie doll with political and social trends for profit. For example, during the 1980s when sales of the doll were lagging, Mattel released a new advertising campaign for Barbie with the slogan “We Girls Can Do Anything.” The slogan provided a clear link to the newly won rights for women and girls from the second wave of the women’s movement, but packaged in a palatable manner for mainstream consumers, with Barbie as a spokesperson for women’s empowerment. Barbie fans are as devoted as critics are of the doll’s shortcomings. Collectors of Barbie dolls may spend thousands on a rare, mint-condition doll and accessories. Some Barbie devotees turn their admiration for the doll into reality by dressing like the dolls or undergoing cosmetic surgery to emulate her physical appearance. Barbie conventions are popular annual events across the world at which novice and seasoned collectors can purchase collectable items, preview new products, participate in fashion shows, and network with others. Barbie’s popularity can be seen in cyberspace. While Mattel’s holds the copyright to the official Barbie Website, fans have created hundreds of YouTube channels and Facebook pages dedicated to the doll. Although U.S. sales have either declined or rose moderately in the early 21st century, global sales rose 12 percent from 2009 to 2010. Barbie continues to be one of the most sought-after toys, coveted by young girls due to the open-ended, fantasy play allowed by the doll and her interchange-
able wardrobe. Although other dolls relatively new to the toy market, such as American Girl dolls and the Bratz Dolls have risen in popularity, for many, Barbie continues to be the queen of the toy aisle. See Also: American Girl Dolls; Body Image; Bratz Dolls; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings Bell, Mebbie. “There’s Something About Barbie.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, v.20/2 (2004). duCille, A. “Black Barbie and the Deep Play of Difference.” In Morag Shiach, ed., Feminism and Cultural Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pearson, Marlys and Paul R. Mullins. “Domesticating Barbie: An Archaeology of Barbie Material Culture and Domestic Ideology.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology, v.3/4 (1999). Rand, Erica. Barbie’s Queer Accessories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. Rogers, Mary. Barbie Culture. London: Sage, 1999. Marcia Hernandez University of the Pacific
Bariatric Surgery Bariatric surgery or weight loss surgery is one solution to obesity. This approach recognizes the limitations of diets and traditional weight loss programs. While the early use of bariatric surgery in the United States dates back to the 1950s, at that time, the surgery often resulted in complications. The procedure became more common in the 1970s with the development of gastroplastry (stomach stapling). Complications of this procedure also became known as it was used more frequently, and it was replaced by gastric bypass procedures and banding procedures as the two most common types of weight loss surgery today. Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) is the most commonly used surgical procedure to treat morbid obesity in Europe, Australia, and South America To undergo this surgery, the patient must be substantially overweight, often defined by a prospective patient’s body mass index (BMI), a measure that takes into account both height and weight. The BMI must
be above 40 for the surgery to be recommended if the patient does not have serious medical conditions that would be helped by the surgery. If the BMI of the patient is between 35 and 39 with associated severe medical problems such as diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol, surgery is also appropriate. Many health insurance plans also require proof of failed prior attempts at other weight loss approaches before they will pay for the surgery. Bypass procedures are designed to reduce food intake and are complex procedures generally performed under general anesthesia. There are two main types practiced today: Roux-en-Y-gastric bypass (traditional and laparoscopic) and biliopancreatic diversion bypass. Roux-en-Y is the more commonly performed procedure, with around 140,000 procedures completed in the United States in 2005. In both techniques, a small stomach pouch is created to curb food intake, by closing off a portion of the stomach. A part of the small intestine is attached to the stomach pouch so that food can bypass the duodenum. Most patients spend two to three days in the hospital for the main surgical procedure, and one to two for the laparoscopic procedure. Both bypass procedures restrict food intake and reduce hunger to promote healthy weight loss. Generally, two to five weeks of recovery are required. Most weight loss occurs within the first year. Gastric banding is a newer procedure and promotes weight loss through restriction in food uptake. A small silicone band filled with saline solution is placed around the upper portion of the stomach pouch, and stapled into place, reducing the capacity of the stomach. Surgery generally takes only an hour, and often requires either no hospital stay or a single night. Recovery is short, and often as little as a week of restriction from normal activies is required, with minimal discomfort from the surgery itself. As the band and stomach adjust, refills of saline solution become necessary for the band to maintain its effectiveness, resulting in frequent doctor office visits. While this procedure generally has a faster recovery time and is less expensive, it does not lead to the most rapid weight loss of the procedures, and is generally more successful in patients who have less weight to lose to obtain an ideal weight (such as 50 pounds), whereas gastric bypass surgery is more successful in patients who need to lose 100 pounds or more.
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A third, newer procedure is gastric sleeve restriction. This approach is recommended for people who are too overweight to have banding surgery and too overweight or sick to safely undergo gastric bypass surgery, since sleeve restriction is a faster, less invasive approach. A surgeon removes about 60 percent of the stomach, generally with a laparoscopic procedure. Gastric bypass surgery may then be performed after a patient has lost a determined amount of weight. All of these procedures require that a patient also be motivated to lose weight, because the patient is ultimately in control of his or her food intake and must follow a restricted diet. Exercise and nutrition counseling are required by most practices. While the surgery is successful for most patients, there are side effects. If patients do not monitor their food intake and take proper vitamin supplements, malnourishment is a possible concern. If patients eat too much or too rapidly, or eat the wrong types of foods, patients may become ill, with what is known as a “dumping” syndrome, in which patients may have to vomit, or become ill or shaky after eating. The rate of morbid obesity is higher in women than in men (7 percent versus 3 percent), and women are more likely to undergo bariatric surgery. Almost 80 percent of bariatric surgery patients are female, and 35 percent are under the age of 40. Currently, the surgery is more common among Caucasions. While appearance may be a motivating factor for some patients, quality of life is also important for many. Obesity can limit physical mobility, which would likely improve with weight loss. For others, chronic health problems such as hypertension and diabetes may improve to the point that medication for these problems may no longer be required. These health improvements have contributed to the fact that more health insurance companies are beginning to pay for weight loss surgery. In the United States, Medicare will now cover the surgery, as will Medicaid in some states. See Also: Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Health, Mental and Physical; Health Insurance Issues. Further Readings Meana, M. and L. Ricciardi. Obesity Surgery: Stories of Altered Lives. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2008. Miller, F. P., et al. Bariatric Surgery. Beau Bassin, Mauritius: Alphascript Publishing, 2009.
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Schauer, Phillip R., Bruce D. Schirmer, and Stacy Brethauer Minimally Invasive Bariatric Surgery. New York: Springer, 2007. Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld Arizona State University
Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is a French virologist, head of the Retroviral Infection Control Unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and a Nobel laureate. She, along with her colleague Luc Montagnier and the German researcher Harald zur Hausen, received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their part in the identification of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Some experts believe that Barré-Sinoussi’s role in the discovery of HIV, which is responsible for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), has been obscured by the controversy surrounding the competing claims of the better-known Montagnier and American virologist Robert C. Gallo. However, Barré-Sinoussi was the first scientist in the world to isolate the HIV virus, and her work continues to focus on the virology of HIV. Born on July 30, 1947, in Paris, France, to Roger and Jeanine (Fau) Sinoussi, young Françoise developed an interest in plants and animals from an early age. Once she began school, it was clear that the biological sciences were the subjects she found most compelling. Although no one in her family worked in medicine or research, she had determined by the time she entered university that she would pursue either science or medicine as a career. The death of a young cousin from leukemia awakened a particular interest in cancer research in her, and while still a student, she worked at the laboratory of Jean-Claude Chermann, researching the role of retroviruses in cancer. After earning a master’s degree in biochemistry from Paris’s University of Sciences in 1971 and a doctorate from the Pasteur Institute in 1975, she became a fellow of the National Science Foundation and performed research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where she worked on the genetic restriction of mouse retroviruses. She returned to the Pasteur Institute in the late 1970s, accepting a series of teaching and research posi-
tions. During the 1980s, she began collaborating with Montagnier, working to isolate a cause for AIDS. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognized AIDS in 1981, but it was Barré-Sinoussi and Montagnier and their team who discovered the virus responsible for the disease. Barré-Sinoussi was the first author of the publication that reported the discovery of the retrovirus, later named HIV. The discovery was fundamental to all the advances that followed in diagnosing, treating, and preventing the spread of AIDS. The Nobel Committee recognized this pivotal contribution when they awarded the Nobel Prize to Barré-Sinoussi and Montagnier in 2008, citing the role of their discovery in both the prevention and treatment of AIDS, the substantial decrease in the spread of the disease, and the increased life expectancy among patients with access to treatment. Barré-Sinoussi speaks with pride of the advances made in preventing mother-to-child transmission of AIDS, and her commitment to providing treatment access to people living with HIV in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia remains strong. She has coauthored over 200 scientific publications and participated in over 250 international conferences on AIDS. She has also worked as a consultant to the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Her work has been recognized by countless awards within her own country, including the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1996. International recognition, in addition to the Nobel Prize, includes the King Faisal International Prize of Medicine (Saudi Arabia) in 1993 and election to the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2007. See Also: France; HIV/AIDS: Europe; Science, Women in. Further Readings Pincock, Stephen. “Françoise Barré-Sinoussi Shares Nobel Prize for Discovery of HIV.” Lancet, v.372/9647 (2008). WITI Hall of Fame. “Francoise Barre-Sinoussi.” http:// www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/2006 /fbarre-sinoussi.php (accessed March 2010). Wylene Rholetter Auburn University
Basketball, College Women’s collegiate basketball has grown from its humble beginnings in the gymnasiums and physical education programs at women’s colleges to become the most visible and popular college team sport for women in the United States. With a rich history and vibrant future, it continues to inspire considerable spectator and participation interest. Although women’s college basketball was riding a wave of increased popularity as the 1990s ended and a new century began, similar battles continue to be fought in athletic departments. Prior to Title IX, nearly 90 percent of women’s collegiate teams were coached by women. Although the legislation was a boom for female participation, female coaches of women’s collegiate basketball teams steadily have been replaced by men. In 1990, 72.2 percent of women’s collegiate basketball teams at the Division I level were coached by women. A decade later, the number has dropped to 69 percent. In 2010, the number of female coaches dips to 47.5 percent at the Division II level and 54.8 percent in Division III basketball. Overall in college sports, only 42.6 percent of women’s programs are led by a female. Concerning salary, the average salary for a Division I men’s basketball coach was $409,600, more than double the $187,300 salary average for women’s basketball coaches. Regarding budget and scholarship money devoted to women’s sports, the numbers still lag behind their male counterparts. Overall, women athletes receive only 45 percent of scholarship dollars, nearly $166 million less than male athletes. This is compounded by the inequitable amount of resources dedicated to athlete recruitment, because only 33 percent of recruitment budgets are earmarked for women’s sports. Overall, women receive only 36 percent of athletic operating resources, a figure that amounts to $1.5 billion less than money spent on men’s athletics. While women athletes fight for visibility, media coverage still remains scarce on major networks. Studies have shown that major newspapers devote 11 percent of sports coverage to women’s sports. On ESPN’s premiere show, SportsCenter, in 1999 and 2004, only 2 percent of telecast time was devoted to women’s sports. In their 2003 “NCAA College Hoops Preview,” ESPN magazine featured 65 men’s teams and only eight women’s squads.
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A Decade to Remember At the end of the 20th century, women’s basketball was flying high. Guard Sue Bird led the University of Connecticut’s (UConn’s) Huskies as they ran through the regular season with only one loss on their way to a national championship. The 2000–01 season was dominated by the performance of Jackie Stiles of Southwest Missouri State. While her team lost in the semifinals to Purdue University, she ended her career with 3,393 points, becoming the all-time leading scorer in women’s college hoops. The University Notre Dame finished the season 34–2 on the way to the program’s first championship. On the heels of increased viewership following the championship tournament, the NCAA and ESPN brokered a new agreement to broadcast women’s college basketball beginning in 2003. The 11-year deal registered at $160 million including broadcast rights to other sports. UConn Rolls From 2002 to 2004, the center of the women’s basketball world was UConn, and its star was Diana Taurasi. The Huskies dominated to the tune of three straight titles, winning 139 games during Taurasi’s college career. The 2002 NCAA Championship game was a watershed moment for women’s college basketball. The clash between UConn and Oklahoma University was watched by 5.6 million viewers, at the time garnering the largest viewership for a college basketball game—men’s or women’s—in ESPN history. The 29,619 spectators in attendance also marked the largest crowd ever to watch a collegiate women’s game. The following year, UConn continued its dominance, becoming the only team to win a national championship without a senior on the roster. UConn’s clash with Tennessee in the 2003 final would be repeated the following year, with the Huskies once again beating the Lady Vols for their third straight title. The 2004 title game earned the highest ratings for any basketball game in ESPN history. New Stars Emerge as Records Fall The 2005 tournament saw the end to UConn’s three consecutive titles, as Baylor University edged Michigan State University (MSU) 84–62. Kim Mulkey-Robertson became the first women to win a championship as a player (Louisiana Tech, 1982) and as a head coach.
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The 2005–06 season saw Tennessee coach Pat Summitt pick up her 900th win, making her the first college basketball coach, male or female, to reach that milestone. The NCAA tournament began with much hype as the Oklahoma University freshman became the first college player, male or female, to record more than 700 points, 500 rebounds, and 100 blocks in a season, leading Oklahoma to a number two seed in the tournament. Later that year, she would be the first freshman named to the Associated Press All-American First Team. The 2006 tournament would be the first since 1999 without UConn or Tennessee reaching the Final Four. In a dramatic overtime game, University of Maryland captured the program’s first championship in a thrilling win over Duke University. Senior Seimone Augustus made history winning back-to-back Wade Trophies as the leader of Louisiana State University (LSU). Maggie Dixon: Triumph and Tragedy One story line that grabbed significant attention during the tournament was Army’s new head coach, Maggie Dixon. Hired just 11 days before the start of the 2005 season, Dixon guided the program to a 20–11 record, capturing the Patriot League championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Sadly, the story of Maggie Dixon would take a tragic turn. Less than a month after Army was eliminated from the tournament, Dixon collapsed and died of a heart condition at the age of 28. Conflict and Controversy The 2006-2007 season saw Tennessee return to its championship ways, claiming their first title in a decade with a 34–3 season. Candace Parker was named the tournament’s outstanding player, as the Lady Vols beat Rutgers 59–46. However, the biggest story of the season did not originate on the court. That year, Don Imus garnered condemnation for his comments concerning the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Labeling the women “nappy-headed hos,” Imus was fired and the comments brought to light the issues surrounding the challenges of African American women and athletes. The story transcended the sports page, becoming headline news across the United States. Moreover, LSU coach Pokey Chapman resigned after it was alleged that she had an inappropriate
relationship with a player. Chapman had led LSU to three consecutive Final Four appearances. Allegations became public as LSU was preparing for their championship run. While it must have been a distraction, the Tigers returned to the 2007 Final Four despite the controversy. As the decade drew to a close, the continual battle between the Lady Vols and UConn Huskies continued to play out. The 2008 Final Four saw Candice Wiggins lead Stanford University to an upset of Connecticut and a meeting with the Lady Vols. Tennessee ended Stanford’s season, cruising to a 63–48 victory in the tournament final. A year later, UConn would return to the Final Four following an undefeated 39–0 record on their way to their fifth championship of the decade. The Huskies won all 39 games by double digits, including the NCAA final against Louisville, 76–54. See Also: Coaches, Female; Sports, Women in; Women’s National Basketball Association. Further Readings Drape, Joe. “College Basketball: A More Grounded Women’s Game Is Gaining.” New York Times (March 18, 2004). Grundy, P. and S. Shackelford. Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Lannin, Joanne. A History of Basketball for Girls and Women: From Bloomers to Big Leagues. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing, 2000. Steen, Sandra and Susan Steen. Take It to the Hoop. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Press, 2003. Women’s Basketball Online. “Timeline.” http://womens basketballonline.com/history/wbbtimeline.html (accessed November 2009). Annemarie Farrell Ithaca College
Bat Shalom Bat Shalom (Daughter of Peace), the Jerusalem Women’s Action Center, is a grassroots Israeli feminist peace organization dedicated to social justice, equal-
ity, and sustainable peace. Bat Shalom was founded as part of the Jerusalem Link and functions within Israeli society to foster fundamental societal changes. Israeli and Palestinian women actively participated in a process of sociopolitical change within the context of peace, which brought about a transformation of the power structure regarding gender roles. These significant changes led to organizational efforts that culminated in dialogue at the first International Women’s Peace Conference, held in Brussels in 1989. Out of this conference evolved the concept for the Jerusalem Link, which was registered as a nongovernmental organization in 1993 and launched in 1994. The Jerusalem Link is composed of two women’s organizations, Bat Shalom on the Israeli side, and the Jerusalem Center for Women (JCW) on the Palestinian side. Bat Shalom is located in West Jerusalem, and the JCW in East Jerusalem. Bat Shalom also has a branch in the northern city of Afula. The Jerusalem Link is a centralized organization established as a peace link between Israeli and Palestinian women and not as a protest movement. As part of the Jerusalem Link, the organizations share a set of political principles and work together to carry out joint programs geared toward just and sustainable peace and human rights in the region, as well as the resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The Jerusalem Link serves as a base for cooperation, coordination, and mutual support, while independently, each center maintains its organizational and executive integrity. Each center strives for the advancement of women within their respective societies. The Jerusalem Link was established at a time when peace activism was connected to governmental policies and the women’s movement had already become part of national agenda. This phenomenon was a result of the efforts led by Women in Black and the Coalition of Women for Peace. Bat Shalom is composed of a wide gamut of women, ranging from activists to Knesset members, and works in coalition with more than 100 women’s peace and antioccupation initiatives around the world. Initially, all of Bat Shalom’s projects dealt with creating connections between Israeli and Palestinian women, promoting coexistence and equality. Recently, however, Bat Shalom has opposed Jewish settlements and called for their dismantling, has launched several appeals for international intervention, advocated a
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two-state solution, and together with the JCW, presented various joint declarations. See Also: Israel; Judaism; Palestine; Peace Movement; Women in Black. Further Readings Bat Shalom: Women With a Vision for a Just Peace. http:// www.batshalom.org (accessed December 2009). Cockburn, C. From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis. London: Zed Books, 2007. Fay Cashman, G. “Women Forge the Links for Peace at Pre/ Post Oslo Dialogue.” Jerusalem Post (January 13, 1995). Golan, Daphna. “Peace Is a Feminist Issue.” California: Stanford’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender Newsletter, v.23/2 (1998). Greenblatt, T. “Women Peace and the United Nations:” Speech at the UN Security Council on May 7, 2002. http://www.fire.or.cr/mayo02/batshalomeng.htm (accessed December 2009) Kamal, Z. “Give Peace a Chance: Women Speak Out.” Archives of the CCLJ. Brussels, Belgium. September 18–21, 1992. Paulette Schuster Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Beach Volleyball/Volleyball In 1895, American William G. Morgan, the physical director of the Holyoke, Massachusetts Y.M.C.A. invented the game of volleyball. By blending the elements of basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball, he sought to create a game for predominantly middleaged male business executives who desired to play a sport with less physical contact than basketball. Until the mid-1900s, volleyball was an activity primarily enjoyed by and reserved for males. During the 1920s, families in Santa Monica, California, participated in a modified version of volleyball while at the beach. Beach volleyball celebrated the “beach-surf lifestyle” as male surfers from Waikiki beaches in Hawaii played beach volleyball when surfing conditions were not optimal. The sex appeal and youthful image associated with beach volley-
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ball emerged in the 1960s when U.S. President John F. Kennedy and even the Beatles took notice and watched beach volleyball games in Los Angeles. By the 1970s, men’s and women’s professional volleyball leagues began to form. The Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) recognized beach volleyball as an official discipline in 1986. A year later, the first men’s world championships were held in Rio de Janeiro, and six years later in 1993, the first women’s championships occurred. Women beach volleyball athletes faced significantly more struggles than males in order for their sport to be viewed worthy of international play. Olympic Debut The popularity of beach volleyball increased when it appeared at the Olympics in Atlanta 1996 for the first time. The event remains one of the most popular spectacles at the Summer Olympics and epitomizes celebrating beach-centric culture. Olympic beach volleyball matches involve loud contemporary music and dancing female cheerleaders in bikinis to keep the spectators’ interest during breaks in match play. Prior to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, controversy arose over the uniform regulations for women athletes mandated by the FIVB and the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. The rules stated that women players were required to wear bikini bottoms (or a full piece high-cut bathing suit), while male players were required to wear knee length slightly baggy shorts. The president of the FIVB, Ruben Acosta, defended the bikini bottom decision as an attempt to make the game more appealing to spectators. Feminist scholars have questioned the rationality of such a uniform regulation and have argued that the rule perpetuates sexual objectification of elite women athletes. Because of the uniform regulations, women beach volleyball players are often photographed in mainstream media images in highly sexualized positions. Additionally, research indicates that many elite beach volleyball players have suffered injuries from overtraining their abdominal muscles and others have even had breast enhancements to ensure that they look appealing in their uniforms. Beach volleyball culture seems to be surrounded by sexualization, for instance, the Xbox video game—Extreme Beach. Players choose from a pool
Female beach volleyball athletes struggle with the perception that their sport is not worthy of international play.
of characters, all of whom sport bikinis; furthermore, gamers can enter a secret code in order to maneuver the characters to strip down and play naked. Despite these controversies, beach volleyball remains very popular at the Summer Olympics. See Also: Coaches, Female; Sports, Women in; Olympics, Summer; Stereotypes of Women. Further Readings Brooks, Christine. “Using Sex Appeal as a Sport Promotion Strategy.” Women Sport and Physical Activity Journal, v.10 (2001). Couvillon, Arthur R. Sands of Time: The History of Beach Volleyball. Hermosa Beach, CA: Information Guidelines, 2002.
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Fédération Internationale de Volleyball. “Athens 2004 Olympic Games Beach Volleyball Specific Competition Regulations.” http://www.fivb.org/EN:42 (accessed October 2009). Charlene Weaving St. Francis Xavier University
Beauty Pageants Beauty pageants or beauty contests are competitions where female contestants are judged primarily on their physical appearance. Although some pageants assess nonphysical characteristics such as personality, intelligence, and talent, the main criterion is physical attractiveness. A panel of judges typically selects the pageant winner who is then crowned as a “beauty queen.” The first American beauty pageant was held in 1854 by P. T. Barnum, an entertainer and circus founder. However, the pageant was likened to a side show and it quickly closed down due to public protest. In the late 19th century, newspapers began hosting photo-based beauty contests. Soon after, the first “bathing beauty pageants” took place and ultimately became a regular part of summer beach life in an effort to draw tourists to beaches across the country. Miss America, which continues to run today, was borne of these earlier beach-centered pageants. First held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1921, Miss America incorporated both physical and mental judging criteria and included both an evening gown showcase and a talent show. It was not until World War II, when beauty queens were recruited to sell bonds and to entertain troops, that mainstream America began to warm to the idea of beauty pageants. These changing sentiments led to the emergence of a number of smaller U.S. pageants in the 1950s. Contests flourished as a means of promoting local events and products. During this same time period, beauty pageants became popular on college campuses. In 1926, the first international beauty pageant was held in Galveston, Texas. The contest, known as the International Pageant of Pulchritude, attracted contestants from all over the world. The winner, crowned “Miss Universe,” earned publicity along with a $2,500 cash prize. The pageant was discontinued in 1932,
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largely due to the financial strain of the Great Depression, but also because several religious and women’s groups pressured organizers to stop the pageant because they considered it distasteful to women. Today, international competitions are held regularly including the Miss World competition (founded in 1951), Miss Universe (founded in 1952), Miss International (founded in 1960), and Miss Earth (founded in 2001). Estimates indicate that nearly 700,000 pageants occur globally each year. The newest form of beauty pageant is strikingly similar to the newspaper photo-based contests of the 19th century. Albeit Web-based, these new pageants allow a vast number of contestants to enter who are then judged by Website visitors who directly select winners. These modern beauty pageants permit nontraditional contestants to compete, including men, transgendered individuals, people with disabilities, and plus-size women. Controversies and Critiques Despite controversies surrounding beauty contests, beauty pageants have received minimal scholarly attention. Some feminists argue that beauty pageants objectify women, reinforce the idea that women should be valued primarily for their appearance, and perpetuate unrealistic and culturally specific notions of beauty. Modern critics contend that beauty pageants reinforce the idea that women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance. In pageants, women’s bodies are paraded as sex objects and their physical bodies are judged and assigned a numerical value in a variety of categories such as “swimsuit” and “evening gown.” Even when some pageants include measures not based entirely on appearance, unattractive contestants are very unlikely to win regardless of how intelligent, prepared, talented, or charismatic they are. As such, some feminists oppose beauty pageants on the grounds that they objectify women’s bodies and treat women’s bodies like commodities, primarily for heterosexual male viewing pleasure. Pageants also create and reinforce hegemonic beauty norms. As critical “race scholars” argue, cultural ideals utilized for judging are white middleclass standards of beauty that exclude racial or ethnic minorities. Beauty queens still largely fit Western ideals of beauty by conforming to narrow beauty scripts. Pageants perpetuate a thin white ideal and
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put tremendous pressure on women to pursue an unattainable “beauty myth” by spending immense amounts of time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling, and other aesthetic enhancements. Some women even succumb to eating disorders or voluntarily undergo risky cosmetic surgeries in an effort to achieve this beauty ideal. In this way, beauty queens become symbols and tools of female oppression because, as feminist Jo Freeman had wrote, “All women were made to believe they were inferior because they couldn’t measure up to Miss America beauty standards.” Thus, not surprisingly, some of the more visible pageants have been accompanied by protest and controversy. Perhaps the most well-known protest occurred at the 1968 Miss America pageant. Because of its wide publicity, this protest is often credited with putting the feminist movement on the map and marking the visible beginning of second wave feminism. The protest was organized by New York Radical Women, a women’s liberation group, and included hundreds of feminists from all over the country. These feminists came together to show how all women are hurt by pageants, arguing that the contests promoted the idea that the most important thing about a woman is how she looks. Protesters asserted that the pageant espoused male chauvinism, commercialization of beauty, racism, and the widespread oppression of women. They engaged in a wide variety of activities and demonstrations including crowning a live sheep Miss America, tossing objects of female oppression (such as highheeled shoes, bras, and curlers) into the garbage, releasing stink bombs, displaying large banners, and making noise with songs, shouts, and chants including “Ain’t she sweet? Making profits off her meat!” There have been other controversies. In fact, two women’s organizations threatened to send suicide squads to the 1996 Miss World contest in Bangalore, India and the 2002 Miss World competition was moved at the last minute from Nigeria to England due to anti-pageant rioting that killed hundreds. Opportunities, Choice, and Empowerment Some pragmatic feminists, however, support beauty pageants, noting that they provide some women with a means of livelihood, an opportunity for advancement, and an avenue of empowerment. (The Miss American pageant is the largest provider of college
scholarships for women in the world today.) These feminists downplay the objectification of women, arguing instead that pageants showcase women as men’s intellectual equals, capable of independent rational thought and independent moral deliberation. The Miss Earth pageant best lives up to these claims, selecting a winner based primarily on her ability to be an effective ambassador of the earth, her attitude, and her natural beauty. Notably, this contest excludes women who have undergone cosmetic surgery. Other feminists do not take issue with pageants because they claim that there is nothing wrong with a woman who wants to display her beauty. These feminists argue that beauty and femininity are assets, rather than liabilities, and claim that beauty contestants are proud women who are unafraid of the world and their own femininity. Additionally, some feminists denounce the general feminist critique of beauty pageants and their contestants. They point out that feminism should ideally promote equality and free choice. Subsequently, women should not be criticized or condemned for the choices they make, including the choice to participate in beauty pageants. Furthermore, there have been instances where beauty pageants have been beneficial to entire groups of women. For instance, one researcher profiled a group of black female garment workers in South Africa who transformed a seemingly banal beauty pageant into a cultural event for self-empowerment, solidarity, and trade union democratization. Despite disagreements among feminists about both the real and symbolic meanings of these pageants, many feminists view these contests as one small part of a larger system of oppression that emphasizes physical attractiveness. Cultural and social structures pressure women to conform to beauty norms, commodify women and their femininity, reinforce race and class divisions, and privilege Western ideals of beauty—all of which marginalize nonconforming bodies. See Also: Beauty Pageants (Babies/Young Children); Beauty Standards, Cross Cultural; Body Image; Diet and Weight Control; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Stereotypes of Women; Supermodels. Further Readings Alegi, Peter. “Rewriting Patriarchal Scripts: Women, Labor, and Popular Culture in South African Clothing
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Industry Beauty Contests, 1970s–2005.” Journal of Social History, v.42/1 (2008). Ballerino, Colleen, Richard Wilk and Beverly Steltie, eds. Beauty Queens on the Global Stage: Gender, Contests, and Power. London: Routledge, 1996. Craig, Maxine Leeds. Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Freeman, Jo. “No More Miss America!: 1968–1969.” http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/MissAm1969.html (accessed April 2010). Merino, Noel, ed. Beauty Pageants. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press. 2010. Tice, Karen W. “Queens of Academe: Campus Pageantry and Student Life.” Feminist Studies, v.31/2 (2005). Watson, Elwood and Darcy Martin. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” Journal of Popular Culture, v.34 (2004). Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Samantha Kwan Jennifer L. Fackler University of Houston
Beauty Pageants (Babies/ Young Children) In order to explain the effects of these contests, the history of beauty pageants will be addressed to give a cultural and social context. Second, the history of beauty pageants for babies and children will be discussed. Finally, some of the negative influences of these contests on younger children will be discussed using social learning and construction of reality theories. The History of Beauty Pageants The history of beauty pageants can be traced to 1920s, although some scholars believe they began in the 1850s, and some even argue that beauty pageants originated in ancient Greece. On a surface level, pageants were designed to celebrate women’s beauty and their place in society, they clearly objectified women’s bodies and created stereotypes about accepted beauty ideals. Including Miss America, Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss International, and Miss Earth, there
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are thousands of beauty pageants around the world. Although most of these pageants involve women, pageants judging male beauty, such as Mr. Universe, Mr. World, and Manhunt International have existed since the 1990s. It is important to recognize that these pageants are considered cultural and media events and are sponsored by dozens of organizations or commercial companies. Therefore, they occupy an important role in the entertainment industry (both socially and economically). It can also be argued that these pageants not only objectify human bodies, but capitalize on them by putting them on display. Pageants for Babies and Children Pageants for babies, toddlers, and children were created in the 1960s. Unlike other beauty pageants that are known internationally, baby or child beauty pageants are more common in the United States and the United Kingdom (UK); therefore, this new growing phenomenon remains limited to American or Anglo cultures. According to an article published by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), the American phenomenon of children’s beauty pageant has spread to the UK. The visibility or invisibility of these pageants elsewhere perhaps suggests the level of commoditization of youth or children cultures in other countries. Most of these pageants consist of a program of modeling swimwear, casual wear and other costumes, and a talent portion. More than 100,000 contestants between the ages of 2 and 12 participate in these contests each year. Most of these pageants are focused on female children, although boys and young men do compete as well. Typically, the children are judged based on their overall appearance, including hair styling, makeup, and attire, their capability in completing the regimented steps and methods of presenting themselves onstage, their talent in dance, singing, gymnastics, or other skills, and their poise and confidence. These are often referred as “the complete package” by the judges. There are no rules or regulations that prescribe how the pageants must be run; therefore, the rules are set by each contest promoter. It is important to address that these beauty pageants are exempt from U.S. federal child labor laws. Even though children are expected to “work” (learning their choreograpy, practicing their dance routines, and rehearsing for
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the show can be considered work), the organizers do not address these chores as work. Although, in traditional sense, these children do not receive any income from these pageants, they are often awarded prizes and gifts.Important questions arise concerning these pageants, including why they are so important to the parents (mainly mothers), what pageant involvement teaches children, and what type of realities are constructed through these pageants. Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen (2001) is a documentary on child beauty pageants that attempts to answer some of these questions. The documentary focuses on the lives of beauty pageant participants by showing the powerful and sometimes destructive web of ambitious mothers, determined and clueless children, and beauty pageant organizers. Obviously, parents play a paramount role in their children’s participation in these contests, however, they are not the only ones to blame for any negative consequences. Media outlets and pageant organizers share equal responsibility when it comes to constructing a reality to American children about beauty ideals and gender roles. One of the mothers filmed in the documentary believes that her 5-year-old daughter has what it takes to be a winner. She claims that she will do what it takes, including working three different jobs, to have enough money to enter her daughter into pageants across the country. She is by far not the only mother to share this belief. Because most of these pageants are focused on female children, it is often thought that they objectify their bodies by prematurely dressing them in sometimes sexualized clothing, teaching them sometimes suggestive and inappropriate routines, having them wear hairstyles, wigs, prosthetic teeth, and makeup that would be worn by women, and by putting them on display. It should be noted that mothers are willingly participating in the process of objectifying their children. Impacts of Pageants The murder of 6-year-old U.S. pageant participant Jon Benet Ramsey in 1996 brought children’s beauty pageants into a harsh spotlight. Jon Benet’s body was found in the basement of the family home after being taken from her bed on Christmas Eve. Reports from the time described the child as “a painted baby, a sexualized toddler beauty queen,” and implied that her
participation in these pageants had led to her murder. Suspects included her parents and friends of the family. The Ramsey family was cleared from suspicion in 2008, and the case has yet to be solved. Social learning theory suggests that children learn about who they are, their gendered identities, and their cultural practices by observing their parents and their immediate surroundings. By imitating what is around them, they start learning what to do, how to be, and what is acceptable. Therefore, the children who participate in these pageants learn to value beauty and the value of certain beauty ideals, embody these ideals, and perform assigned gender roles to make their families happy. Therefore, from an early age, children are brought up to value certain ideals, practice certain beliefs, and perform certain roles. By imitating others, female children often construct a sense of identity and reality about what it means to be a woman or young female in their culture. It can be argued that beauty pageants for children and babies contributes greatly to the construction of this reality, which gives a false, delusional, or distorted idea about the potential meanings, representations, and performances of gender identities and female sexualities. By encouraging their children to take part in these pageants, parents also negatively contribute to the construction of gender roles and performances of femininity. Therefore, the role and impact of these pageants and the role of parents in this process should be carefully examined to understand how young children construct a reality about themselves. The power of these experiences often leave long-lasting and irreparable damage on children. See Also: Beauty Pageants; Gender, Defined; Little League. Further Readings Anderson, Susan, Robert Greene, and Simon Doonan. High Glitz: The Extravagant World of Child Beauty Pageants. Brooklyn, NY: powerHouse Books, 2009. British Broadcasting Corporation. “Baby Beauty Queens.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvf60 (accessed September 2009). Cookson, Shari. Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen. HBO, DVD. May 13, 2001. Nusbaum, Kareen. “Children and Beauty Pageants.” http://www.minorcon.org/pageants.html (accessed September 2009).
Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural
Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Press, 2010. Ahmet Atay University of Louisville
Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural Cross-cultural beauty standards, mainly applied to women, and societal perspectives and behaviors attendant to women in today’s world affect gender equality along the important dimension of physical appearance. Members of a society are greatly influenced by social dictates, or social influences. Women (and sometimes men) are denied or afforded social opportunities, primarily economic opportunities, based on their physical appearance. Employment, marriage-ability, educational achievement, and social networks (such as club memberships) are dependent upon adhering to current beauty standards. Crossculturally, we are subject to the coercion of socially imposed beauty standards and these standards may be unachievable due to our native cultural makeup. This is not to say that nonwhites, for example, Africans, African Americans, or Asians cannot be successful (well-employed and well-connected) members of society. It is to say that if people are subjected to evaluation on their appearance for social opportunities, they are far better off if they have features that are not “too ethnic” or too visibly astray from the ideal westernized Caucasian appearance. So, there is cultural coercion to assimilate, or to deny “otherness.” The focus is as much on cultural issues as it is on gender. Men are subject to social appearance directives, but usually not as often or with the same degree of pressure. As one illustration, women, cross-culturally, engage in more numerous and more drastic attempts at appearance alteration, including surgery. Pressure on Women to Be Beautiful Women are exponentially more pressured than men to appear a certain way. This “certain way” means beautiful, of course and, globally, there is a lot of consensus on what constitutes “beauty” and what features define being beautiful. Subjectivity is much over-
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rated when discussing beauty standards. It has long been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; if so, then beholders agree on beauty. Cross-culturally, we favor small, narrow noses versus flat, wide noses; wide, open, and large eyes versus small eyes; high prominent cheekbones but not “big faces” (as they are known in Asia) with large, wide jaws; full but not too-full lips; long, thin limbs; tallness; northern European coloration (light hair, blue eyes, etc.); and full breasts perched atop a thin body. Almost universally, women are expected to have narrow hips and smallish, round buttocks rather than wide, fleshy hips and buttocks. And all women everywhere are subject to standards of youth versus agedness, healthful appearance (clear skin, abundant hair, white and plentiful and straight teeth) versus evidence of disability, old age, and weakness. These standards are standards regardless of genetic, national, socioeconomic, or ethnic traits. On the whole, symmetry of facial and bodily features and a healthy appearance are universal signs of physical attractiveness. One evolutionary reason for healthy and young looks being favored in women has to do with fecundity. This argument rests upon the ability of the woman to be sexually active and to produce viable offspring, presumably traits that would be appealing to men. However, this argument doesn’t hold up in present times so much as in less-advanced times since surgery and other medical practices can correct appearance problems (indicators of poor health and postfecundity). However, having a youthful, healthy, and “beautiful” appearance does prevail as a primary door opener to social opportunities in all societies. Moreover, cross-culturally, all women, regardless of genetic makeup, are somehow supposed to appear white. The lengths to which we go to achieve crosscultural beauty standards are surprising perhaps, and certainly dangerous and expensive. Culture Influences Beauty Ideals While there is a great deal of consensus on what constitutes female beauty, it is also true that there are cultural variances on the definition of beauty. In other words, the dominant culture in any society determines what good looks are and are not. Some cultures elongate the woman’s neck by encircling it with brass rings, insert lip plates, and paint the woman’s teeth as signs of beauty. Other cultures seek out women for
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Skin color is often used as a means of identifying us racially and is a significant part of how some people determine attractiveness, but skin color is a poor method of categorizing people by race.
features that those in the Western world would denigrate, such as droopy breasts. There are few but notable exceptions to the rule that thin is always preferable. Odd as it may seem since Brazil is the home to many supermodels, Brazilian culture has long (at least internally) valued a guitar-shaped woman’s body. Traditionally, the idealized feminine form in Brazil was a woman’s body with a slender bust and waist and ample buttocks. Women were and are encouraged to be fleshy. But Brazilian women who once valued (because Brazilian men and Brazilian culture broadly valued) large hips and buttocks are now reducing, naturally or not, their sizes, thus reflecting the mostly worldwide adoration of thin bodies for women. Other cultures have not followed the mostly global trend toward at least fretting about being fat, and these cultures instead revere fatness. In South Africa, a trim figure is regarded as a sign of illness, with women,
especially, who are encouraged to be fat. Many indeed are fat and are not in the least bit worried about it. A hefty girth has long been a sign of well-being among black South Africans, where a slim woman is the subject of unpleasant gossip. In South Africa, “a big woman is good and a bigger woman is better.” In a study of the aesthetic appeal of female fatness among the Islamic Azawagh Arabs of Niger, fatness is considered such a beautiful and desirable trait in women that young girls (age 5 and 6) are forcibly fattened by an appointed female authority figure in the family. Fatness in this Islamic culture is closely associated with womanliness. In becoming fat, Azawagh Arab women cultivate an aesthetic of softness, stillness, and seatedness, which is in direct opposition to the aesthetic of men that valorizes hardness, uprightness, and mobility. Female fatness among these Islamic Arabs, in total opposition to what most cultures think, provides women with power; their fat-
ness proves that they are in command of their own lives. An alternative interpretation is that because these women are fat, they are less mobile, with immobility being seen as a good thing in this culture. The woman will stay put if she is fat, and that may be the true reason why this male-dominated culture values fatness in women. Men of Greek, Italian, Eastern European, and African descent, influenced by their distinctive cultural heritages, may be more likely to find female voluptuousness appealing. If we look more globally and historically, many cultures have admired expansive women’s bodies and appetites. However, increasingly since the 1980s, the universality of slender ideals is equated with beauty and success, signaling a decline in cultural and sociopersonal aesthetic diversity. Globalization of Beauty Ideals The agreement about attractiveness has increased as time progressed, with the probable best explanation for this consensus being the globalization of visual images. Through television, movies, magazines, billboards, and other visual media, our (the world’s) standards of acceptable and unacceptable looks are homogenized because we, internationally, are presented with a restricted image of what is beautiful. Northern European standards of attractiveness apply across all societies, including African and Asian ones, such that tall, slender, white, blonde, light-eyed, and flowing hair features are the standards against which we are all judged. Consider the example of department store mannequins. It may be surprising to the untraveled reader to see white mannequins with Caucasian features in a Ginza (Tokyo) department store. There are very few whites in Japan, on the whole, or in department stores in particular, but Japanese standards for beauty are white northern European standards. It is not possible for Japanese women to “live up to” these unreachable expectations: no amount of skin whitening or eye rounding (the number one cosmetic surgery in Japan) will make them appear Caucasian. Yet Japanese women are encouraged to be white. As the world becomes smaller through globalization, we are not a global community with diverse standards. We remain a collection of highly distinct cultures but with a limited range of acceptable appearance standards. Our strictures on acceptable/
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unacceptable looks, perhaps always narrow and strict, have narrowed and become stricter. Those who are not or do not appear to be white, northern European are defined as the “Other,” and they are pressured to do all that they can to appear homogeneous and assimilated into a culture that is not naturally theirs. Cultural Markers of “Otherness” Skin color is one of the most obvious ways that people vary. It is also a false but primary way of classifying people into genetically distinct “races.” Skin color is a very poor method of categorizing people by race because skin pigmentation is environmentally adaptive to solar conditions and a product of evolution by natural selection. That is, skin color tells us about the past environments in which our ancestors lived, but skin color tells us nothing about racial identity. Nonetheless, skin color is used popularly as a means of identifying us racially, and it is also a significant part of what determines attractiveness. Blondes are preferred not necessarily because of their hair color but because of their light skin, which often corresponds to having blond hair. Light-skinned women are preferred universally by men in African, Japanese, and other societies. Light skin, for women, grants privileges, both romantically and professionally. Due to global marketing, the social desirability of white or lighter skin is being promulgated throughout more and poorer countries. This is an unhealthy trend because it includes people living in equatorial regions, where dark pigmentation provides important protection against high levels of ultraviolet radiation. Not only is skin lightening destructive healthwise, it is societally destructive because, in multicultural countries, aggressive marketing of skin-lightening products has also promoted the spread of colorism by promoting the ideal of lightness. Stratification by skin color, or “colorism,” is a longstanding legacy in European cultures. The preference for light-skinned people has existed among the peoples of Africa and Melanesia (generally dark-skinned people) long before contact with light-skinned Europeans. From this, we know that even without experience with white people, the equation of whites with social status was already present. Stratification by skin color has been evident as a predictor of educational attainment, occupational status, and income with this pattern of colorism occurring among dark-
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skinned people such as Mexicans, South Americans, and Asians as well as African Americans. In Latin American societies, for instance, Eurocentric favoritism is extended toward people of mixed indigenous Latin and European blood (mestizos) who, as expected, have a lighter complexion. Darker complexioned Mexican Americans with more indigenous First Nation (Native Indian) features are more socially disadvantaged. They earn less pay and attain less education. The same is true for Asian Indians. The preference for light skin within the African American community did not end with the civil rights movement and the “Black is Beautiful” sentiment, as they took place in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Skin tone among African Americans continues to effect social stratification. There was an interesting reversal taking place at the time, though, and it persists to a small degree contemporarily: during the U.S. racial awakening was a greater acceptance of, and even preference for, darker complexions among nonwhites. During the 1960s and 1970s, dark skin coloring served to unify nonwhite races, with some African Americans exhibiting intraracial colorism such that darker skin, as evidence of unmixed racial heritage was considered superior and light-skinned co-ethnics were considered inferior because of their mixed ancestry. As with interracial colorism, intraracial colorism is a form of discrimination. And the present though limited existence of intraracial colorism does little to explain the prominent practice of skin bleaching by African Americans and by Africans. The phenomenon of intraracial and interracial colorism is puzzling and complex. We can be too black or not black enough. We can be too Chicano or not Chicano enough. Colorism, in other words, proves the antithesis of the simplistic appearance-relevant arguments such as white skin is better than dark skin. Skin color is not the only dimension along which we are stratified. Other racially charged appearance features include hair texture, eye shape, lip thickness, eye color, nose shapes, and other phenotypical features. African Americans with straight or “good” hair, for instance, for centuries have placed higher in the social hierarchy than those African Americans with nappy, kinky, or “bad” hair. Among Asians, there is prejudice across the several cultures (Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese, for example) and this prejudice is often made visible by
judgments about physical appearance. The Japanese have long manifested an entrenched and hateful bias against the Chinese and Koreans and, judging from visual depictions of these despised groups as found in graphic novels, the Chinese and Koreans are not only unintelligent, depraved, and without substantial culture, they are physically far less attractive than the Japanese, who are phenotypically indistinguishable from Chinese and Koreans. The cartoon drawings of Japanese by Japanese are drawn to appear more Caucasian than they, in reality, appear. Globalization and Cross-Cultural Alterations Globalization has forced a homogenized sameness in beauty standards, such that we find Iranian women in large numbers getting Anglicized noses, and Asian women undergoing eyelid surgery to gain a more open and “American” look to their eyes. We are becoming more alike in terms of skin color, with the advent of skin lightening. These trends toward homogeneous beauty are worrisome due to the doubts that they bring up regarding identity and other sociopolitical issues. Nevertheless, health risks and economic issues also play a large role in cross-cultural physical appearance and neither are necessarily aimed at enhancing beauty. Instead, there is a trend toward global homogeneity but away from adhering to beauty standards, in an attempt to advance financial profits. To explain, the United States is exporting high-fat and obesityinducing foods to other cultures, many of them with the “thrifty gene” that disallows metabolizing highfat foods. The trend, then, is toward non-Americans becoming fat like Americans. This is a special problem for Mexicans, Asian Indians, Malaysians, and other Pacific Islanders who are exposed to U.S. highfat food exports. Usually, the intersection between economics and beauty go in the direction of advancing both economic stability and homogenized beauty. The desire on the part of Asians living in the United States to appear more Caucasian is directly shaped by the notion of fitting into a niche of an acceptable “American” physiognomy. Eyelid surgery on the epicanthal fold among Asians was and is performed for economic reasons, per the intersection between racial ideology and capitalist consumer culture. Indeed, economic conditions greatly affect appearance-changing
behaviors. In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), after the death of Mao Tse-tung and the commensurate social liberalization, there was a vast increase in cosmetic surgery, largely a consequence of the increased affluence of the Chinese population. In the 1990s in the PRC, eyelid surgery was and remains the most popular cosmetic surgery performed. We find that the major reason for westernizing surgery is the pursuit of power: economic power (the ability to increase one’s income) and social network power (for example, marriage-ability). In other homogenizing trends, cookie-cutter plastic surgery has made us look alike, with the same high cheekbones, full lips, open eyes, etc., that constitute “beauty.” With money and surgery, it seems, beauty is possible even as we become indistinguishable from each other. Regardless of the palette with which we begin, through surgery, cosmetics use, and other alterations, we are cross-culturally beginning to look more alike. Ethnic Surgery Ethnic surgery is not new. Since the turn of the 20th century, people in the United States and Europe have used cosmetic surgery to minimize or eradicate physical signs that they believe mark them as the “Other.” In the 19th century in central Europe, the “Other” was the Jew. At the end of the 19th century in the United States, cosmetic surgery became a widespread practice resulting from large-scale immigration. The Irish immigrants had their “pug noses” reshaped. Jews, Italians, and others of Mediterranean and eastern European descent likewise underwent rhinoplasty. After World War II, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and Asian Americans have had their eyelids altered to appear more Caucasian. In Rio de Janeiro, women had their pendulous breasts reduced because large breasts were associated with the lower classes, with lower class associated with being black. At the end of the 19th century, altering the African American nose became a chief concern of U.S. cosmetic surgeons, occurring along with other race-denying procedures such as hair straightening and lip thinning, as took place at the beginning of the 20th century. In Saudi Arabia, plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures have in recent years become prominent in a culture where religion covers every facet of life— even those body parts covered from head to toe. The
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Islamic religion, which usually forbids alterations to “God’s creation,” has not proved a barrier. Liposuction, breast implants, and rhinoplasty are the most popular procedures requested by women; men also want rhinoplasty and secondly hair implants. Both genders want noses that look less Arab, often hoping to emulate celebrities. An immediate question is why traditional Arab women would want these cosmetic changes when they are almost completely covered. Answers to this question are they travel outside their culture and want to look good, uncovered; they want to look good among women and at women’s gatherings; and they want to look good to their husbands. Leg-lengthening surgery, such as Chinese women (mostly) and men undergo, adds a few inches of height at the risk of permanently crippling the patient, and at a cost of about $6,000–$7,000. The procedure involves breaking the long bones in the legs, the legs are then places in braces, and the patient is required to turn plastic dials on the contraptions four times per day to winch their broken bones apart with the idea being that the bones will knit in an elongated form. It takes 15 days to grow one centimeter, or less than half an inch, of new bone. The legs and feet can become horribly warped and twisted, and the weakened bones can break. The purpose of this gruesome procedure, according to those who undergo it, is to get better jobs and to attract better marriage partners, since China, like much of the world, values height. In sum, if white northern European features are the standard against which we are all compared, regardless of our natural appearance, it is hardly surprising that individuals with features that mark them as the “Other” (nonwhite or non-northern European) would want to hide the visible clues that stigmatize them. Cosmetic changes permit us to become “ethnically anonymous.” According to one perspective, plastic surgery is undertaken by women and nonwhites as a means of equalization: it is not just a matter of vanity, even if the surgery is purely aesthetic rather than corrective. Instead, minorities who undergo plastic surgery are engaging in equality discourse, which celebrates individuality leading, presumably, to a kind of equality. That is, we may undergo plastic surgery in order to be socially acceptable, and this purpose (to be socially acceptable) is nothing to be ashamed of and has nothing to
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do with the frivolities usually associated with cosmetic surgery. If women and nonwhites are to gain or retain social power, surgery is a tool by which to do that, in the same manner that obtaining extra training and education is a tool for advancement. On the other hand, cosmetic surgery can also represent a capitulation to the cultural norms that victimize women and ethnics in the name of beauty. Social Resistance and Appearance Diversity There is the occasional, culturally and politically meaningful, backlash. We saw it in the Black is Beautiful movement. We saw it in the Vietnamese reaction to U.S. occupation during the Vietnam War, when assimilation was the order of the day, followed by backlash upon U.S. withdrawal. After 1975, following the U.S. removal from Vietnam, westernizing plastic surgery declined markedly, notably eyelid epicanthal fold surgery and breast augmentations, which were prominent procedures during the Vietnam War. Now, in contemporary Vietnam, the pendulum has swung again and plastic surgery is back to westernizing noses (increasing the size of noses to make them more European-looking), breast augmentations, and eye-rounding surgeries. How the future woman will deal with imposed beauty standards is unknown. Without a grand leap forward in social progress, there is no indication that women will be better able to resist socially imposed beauty standards. In everyday mainstream news, we read that women in all cultures continue to be subject to appearance bias in order to get or retain employment, such as has been the case with Chinese women who are subject to beauty-pageant ordeals hoping to gain jobs as flight attendants and teachers. We see signs in our everyday existence, such as visual advertisements messaging that tall, thin, northern Europeans are the ideal to which we must aspire. The barriers are understood (whole industries devoted to appearance competition as represented by fashion, cosmetics, weight-loss, surgery, and other looks-altering industries), but it has not been determined as to how we halt the bias against people based on their appearance. As long as we are punished and rewarded for possessing certain features, we will (most of us) do all in our power to respond to cross-cultural demands to be “beautiful” according to biased cross-cultural standards.
See Also: Breast Reduction/Enlargement Surgery; Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Cosmetics Industry; Diet and Weight Control. Further Readings Berry, Bonnie. Beauty Bias: Discrimination and Social Power. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Blum, Virginia L. Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Davis, Kathy. Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Etcoff, Nancy. Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty. New York: Anchor Books, 1999. Gilman, Sander L. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Herring, Cedric, Verna M. Keith, and Hayward Derrick Horton, eds. Skin/Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the “Color-Blind” Era. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004 Jablonski, Nina G. Skin: A Natural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Bonnie Berry Independent Scholar
Belarus Even after Belarus gained independence as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it maintained close political and social ties to Russia. Since 1994, Belarusians have lived under a strict authoritarian government that limits civil liberties. The Belarusian economy is described as “market socialism.” The per capita income is $11,600, and more than half of all workers are employed in services. According to official reports, 64 percent of all the unemployed are female. Because of this and the persistent wage gap, females are disproportionately represented in the 21 percent of the population that lives in poverty. Nearly threefourths of the population is urbanized. Ethnically, 81.2
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percent of the population is Belarusian, and 11.4 percent is Russian. There is little religious diversity, and 80 percent of Belarusians are Eastern Orthodox. According to their constitution, the Marriage and Family and Civil Codes of 1999, the Labor Code of 2000, and the Criminal Code of 2001, women have equal rights in Belarusian society. In reality, many women struggle for recognition economically, socially, and politically. Belarus ranks 177 in the world in infant mortality (6.43 deaths per 1,000 live births). Female infants (5.36) have a considerable advantage over males (7.45). This advantage continues throughout life, and women have a life expectancy of 76.67 years, compared to 65.95 years for males. The median age for women is 41.6 years. Women have a fertility rate of 1.24 children. Officially, males (99.8 percent) are slightly more literate than females (99.4 percent), but in fact rates of female illiteracy are high in some areas. Belarus ranks 39th in the world in educational spending, and the people are generally well educated, with females outranking males in pursuing higher education. However, the area does experience a problem of girls dropping out of school. The government signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and created the National Council on Gender Policy in 2000. However, women’s rights groups believe that subsequent legal forms have not adequately addressed gender inequities. They express concern about declines in the status of women’s health because of limited access to health services, the use of abortion rather than family planning, teenage pregnancies, declining maternal health, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including the human immunodefficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Belarusian women may marry at 18 years of age, although pregnant females as young as 15 may also marry. A 2004 report issued by the United Nations stated that 6 percent of females between the ages of 15 and 19 were married, divorced, or widowed. Despite laws against violence against women, rape, sexually motivated murder, sexual harassment, and trafficking remain major problems. In a 2002 CEDAWconducted survey, one-third of all Belarusian women admitted to having been victimized by domestic violence. Most rapes still go unreported because of fear of reprisals and social stigmatism. A National Action
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Plan adopted early in the 21st century created programs designed to assist victims of violence, and a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide similar services. Belarus’s Marriage Code gives parents equal rights and responsibilities in relation to children, and females have equal access to property and inheritance. Prostitution is considered an administrative rather than a criminal offense, and evidence suggests that prostitution rings operate in government-owned hotels. The number of women in politics has increased, in part because of a quota system used for representation in the National Assembly. In 2008, there were 35 women in the 110-member Chamber of Representatives, and 19 women on the 56-member Council of the Republic. Among the 39-member Council of Ministers, only one was female. See Also: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Belarus.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/bo.html (accessed February 2010). NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women. http:// www.niew.gov.my/niew/index.php?option=com_doc man&task=cat_view&gid=151&Itemid=60&lang=en (accessed February 2010). Neft, Naomi and Ann D. Levine. Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Stats of Women in 140 Countries. New York: Random House, 1997. Social Institutions & Gender Index (SIGI). “Gender Equality and Social Institutions: Belarus.” http:// genderindex.org/country/belarus (accessed February 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
Belgium Belgium is a technologically advanced country of over 10 million people in northern Europe. Belgian citizens enjoy a high standard of living, with a per capita Gross
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Domestic Product (GDP) of $36,900, and low inequality Gini index of 28, 120th among 134 countries reporting. Belgium is a secular country, although historically the Roman Catholic Church has been influential in Belgian society, and today about 75 percent of Belgians identify themselves as Roman Catholic. The World Economic Forum rated Belgium relatively high in gender equality in 2009. On a scale of 0 (inequality) to 1 (perfect equality), Belgium got an overall score of 0.717, 33rd among the 134 countries rated. Belgium ranked highly on political empowerment (0.243, 29th) but lower on health and survival (0.979, 55th), economic participation and opportunity (0.653, 64th) and educational attainment (0.991, 71st). Literacy is almost universal, at 99 percent for both men and women.Women constitute more than half of students enrolled in tertiary education. Women constituted over 45 percent of the nonagricultural work force in 2005. Great differences in employment exist according to a woman’s age: 57.8 percent of women aged 15 to 64 were employed in 2006, but only 29.2 percent in the 15 to 24 age category, versus 81.4 percent for ages 25 to 34 and 73.8 percent for ages 35 to 54. Mothers are entitled to 15 weeks of maternity leave, and receive 82 percent of their salary for the first 30 days, dropping to 75 percent after that. Fathers are entitled to 10 days of paternity leave. As of 2009, the retirement age for both men and women was 65 (it was previously 60 for women, and 65 for men). Suffrage is universal and compulsory at age 18. Women hold about 35 percent of the seats in parliament and 23 percent of ministerial positions. Abortion is available on demand in Belgium, and in 2003, the abortion rate was 7.5 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years. Over three-quarters of Belgian women aged 15 to 49 report using contraceptives. The birth rate (10.15 per 1,000 population) and fertility rates (1.65 children per woman) are typical for technologically advanced countries, and Belgium has a relative high net migration rate of 1.22 migrants per 1,000 population, giving it a slightly positive population growth. Belgian citizens enjoy a high standard of healthcare and social services. Life expectancy at birth is 75 for men and 82 for women. Childcare is subsidized and regulated, and accredited early education services are provided to over 80 percent of 4-year-olds. Child poverty is under 10 percent, and most children aged 3 to
4 years are enrolled in preschool. Nearly all births are attended by skilled personnel, and both the under-5 mortality and maternal mortality rates are low, at 2 per 1,000 live births and 10 per 100,000 live births respectively. In 2009, the international organization Save the Children ranked Belgium 13th on its Children’s Index, 17th on its Mother’s Index, and 22 on its Women’s Index. See Also: Abortion, Access to; Childcare; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Arblaster, Paul. A History of the Low Countries (Palgrave Essential Histories). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Belgium.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/be.html (accessed July 2010). Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years“ http://www.savethe children.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109_hp_hd _pub (accessed February 2009). United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine
Belize Belize is located on the Yucatán Peninsula and its residents are mainly of the Hispanic, Creole, Maya, and Garifuna cultures. Christianity is the predominant religion. Belize ranked 88th of 134 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Women enjoy legal equality but suffer from limited educational and employment opportunities and high rates of violence against women. Many also endure poverty and inadequate living conditions. Society places a high value on church marriages. Fertility rates are high and infant mortality rates have been declining, resulting in large family sizes. The 2009 fertility rate was 3 births per woman with an infant mortality rate of 14 per 1,000 live births and a
maternal mortality rate of 52 per 100,000 live births. Illegitimate births are not uncommon and high adolescent fertility rates are a concern. Women receive 12 weeks of paid maternity leave at 80 percent of their wages through either the state social security system or their employer. About 56 percent of married women use contraceptives. There are strict divorce requirements. Common family types include nuclear families, extended families, and single-parent families, with most of the latter being female-headed and urban. It is common for women to defer to their husbands. Domestic violence is a problem. Although education is compulsory through age 14, many children do not attend school beyond the primary grades. Female attendance rates are 98 percent at the primary level, 70 percent at the secondary level, and 4 percent at the tertiary level. The 2009 literacy rate stood at 77 percent for both genders. Life expectancy is 62 years for women and 58 years for men.
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Women in the Workforce Women’s lifestyles depend on their socioeconomic class. The population is approximately half urban and half rural. Class stratification in urban areas is based largely on skin color while class stratification in rural areas is based largely on ethnic group membership. Common problems include poor sanitary conditions, malnutrition, limited access to healthcare, cardiovascular disease, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, high urban crime and unemployment rates, and violence and discrimination against women. There is a social assistance program for women over age 65. Women constitute 38 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 50 percent of professional and technical workers. Women represent a large percentage of teachers at all levels of education. Other key employers include service, agriculture, and industry. Gender gaps still exist in terms of estimated earned
Pageant leaders at the Punta Gorda, Belize Garafuna Day celebration. Although education is compulsory in Belize through age 14, many children do not attend school beyond the primary grades.
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income in U.S. dollars, which stood at $3,817 for women and $9,476 for men, and unemployment rates, which stood at 18.6 percent for women and 8.4 percent for men. Minimum wage is not high enough to maintain an adequate standard of living. Women as well as men have emigrated in search of better employment opportunities. Although there are no legal barriers preventing gender equality, women in Belize are underrepresented in most spheres of public life, including politics and religion, and face discrimination. Women have the right to vote. Women hold no parliamentary seats and 18 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state. Government programs support women’s educational and economic empowerment. There is a Women’s Bureau of the Ministry of Labor and Social Services as well as a United Democratic Party National Organization of Women (UPNOW). See Also: Domestic Violence; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Gender Roles, Cross-Cultural; HIV/AIDS: South America; Poverty; Roman Catholic Church. Further Readings Hepburn, Stephanie and Rita J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. McClaurin, Irma. Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996. World Health Organization, “World Health Report Statistical Annex, Annexes by Country (A-F).” http:// www.who.int/entity/whr/2005/annex/indicators _country_a-f.pdf (accessed February 2010). Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University
Benin Benin is one of the smaller countries in West Africa and also one of the world’s poorest countries, qualifying for debt relief in 2000. Through its high dependency on agricultural export products and falling world market prices, Benin has difficulties escaping the poverty trap. Life in Benin remains mostly rural,
and traditions prevail. Many different ethnic groups live in the country, where they settled at different times and migrated from neighboring countries. With a population of almost 8,500,000 inhabitants, the growth in real output of around 5 percent in the past seven years has been offset by rapid population growth of around 3 percent per year. The economy of Benin remains underdeveloped and dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade. Extreme poverty remains endemic and continues to be concentrated in rural areas. On average, each woman gives birth to more than six children; Benin has one of the highest death rates for children younger than 5 years—estimated by the United Nations Human Development Report to be 98 deaths per 1,000 live births. Although the constitution provides for equality for women in the political, economic, and social spheres, women experience extensive societal discrimination, especially in rural areas, where they occupy a subordinate role and are responsible for much of the hard labor on subsistence farms. In urban areas, women dominate the trading sector in the open-air markets. Violence and abuse of women are considered a family matter, even though the government has put some measures into place to protect women against violence through legal sanctions and amendments to the penal code. There is also a great disparity between boys’ and girls’ school enrolment rates. One prominent reason is the custom of vidomegon, whereby poor, often rural families place a child, primarily daughters, in the home of a more wealthy family in the cities; in exchange, the child typically works for the family. Although the practice is ostensibly intended to give an education to the child, the situation frequently degenerates to forced servitude. Vidomegon children may be subjected to poor working and living conditions, may be denied education, and are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including trafficking. Toda,y the practice is one of the major reasons why only one in four school-age girls in Benin ever attends school. Nor is enrollment the whole story, because of the persistent challenge of girls dropping out of school. Another obstacle to girls’ education is early marriage: If girls do get to attend primary school, they are often withdrawn before they finish to work as unpaid laborers for their extended family, to be married off, or to have children.
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Girls are the most vulnerable segment of society and the most affected by gender-based violence. The global economic downturn will have particularly damaging consequences for girls worldwide because it will have a significant effect on the trade of domestic workers with neighboring countries, where thousands of young girls will face exploitation and abuse. See Also: Child Labor; Domestic Violence; Nigeria. Further Readings United Nations Development Programme. “Human Development Report 2009.” http://hdr.undp.org/en /media/HDR_2009_EN_Complete.pdf (accessed June 2010). United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. “Fifteen-Year Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in Africa.” http://www .uneca.org/acgd/beijingplus15/documents /implementation-BPOA.pdf (accessed June 2010). United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and African Union and African Development Bank Group. “Assessing Progress in Africa Toward the Millennium Development Goals, 2009.” http://www.uneca.org/acgd /Publications/MDGR2009.pdf (accessed June 2010). G. Fornengo University of Turin
Bhutan Bhutan is a small, Buddhist-majority country in the Eastern Himalayas which transitioned to being a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy in 2008, and whose leaders and thinkers have pioneered the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an alternative indicator of development. In 2006, 37.7 percent of the labor force was female, and the life expectancy of women at birth was 66.85 years. Women are almost half the population of under a million people. Most people live in rural areas, engaged in agriculture and related activities, with women participating equally. However, the significant trend of rural–urban migration has resulted in a more traditional gendered division of labor in the cities. Women in urban areas (as opposed to rural women) have
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higher levels of literacy and better health facilities but own less property. Compared to other countries in the region, women in Bhutan present a contrast: they don’t take their father’s name on birth or husband’s name upon marriage, they own and run businesses, rural land is often registered in women’s names, the inheritance systems are matrilineal (a man may have to work in the household of the prospective wife), and there is no dowry. There is some prevalence of polyandry, alongside the more common polygamy, but there is little social stigma associated with divorce and women have a significant degree of sexual freedom, a rarity in south Asia. No legal discrimination exists against women; there are some customary practices (such as wearing of the national dress—kira for women and gho for men—to government offices) which affect men and women equally. Nonetheless, there are traditional gender hierarchies that associate men and women with different social activities and reward them differently, for example, female weavers and male archers. Patriarchal norms controlling women are stronger in the south of the country due to the Hindu religious ethos there, while problems compounded by alcoholism and poverty are more predominant in the east. In the formal political arena, women are a minority, although addressing this issue is gaining momentum with ongoing discussions in the media (e.g., about the benefits of quotas for women in parliament). Also, debates over the Constitution resulted in amendments to use a gender-neutral language (he/she). In 2008, about 30 percent of 19,516 civil servants were women. There are no women ministers in the current government cabinet, four of 47 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the National Assembly (the lower house) are women, all belonging to the ruling party (DPT or Druk Phuensum Tshogpa). In the politically unaffiliated National Council (the upper house), the candidate (Pema Lhamo) who won with the largest vote margin was a woman. Bhutan is a signatory to two United Nations’ programmes, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). International Women’s Day is marked every year. Women play an active role in media, constitutional bodies, and civil society organizations: for example, novelist in English (Kunzang Choden), Managing Director of the national Bhutan Broadcasting
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Service (Pema Choden), head of the Anti-Corruption Commission (Neten Zangmo). There is a National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC). The royalty of Bhutan (such as wives and sisters of the monarchs) have been pro-active in social welfare organizations, including those concerned with women’s rights and empowerment, like the National Women’s Association of Bhutan (NWAB), set up in 1981, or Respect, Educate, Nurture, and Empower Women (RENEW), set up in 2004. This latter organization focuses on sexual assault and domestic violence victims, who may otherwise suffer in silence. 233 domestic violence cases were recorded in Thimphu hospital in 2007. Raising consciousness on gender issues is often linked to development partners (such as UN agencies) and there is a enlightened domestic trend of progressive change in direction and scope of laws. A wider collection of gender-segregated statistics is called for to enable more targeted policy on women’s issues. See Also: Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Government, Women in. Further Readings National Portal of Bhutan. http://www.bhutan.gov.bt/ government (accessed April 2010). Royal Government of Bhutan. “Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC).” http://www.gnhc.gov.bt (accessed April 2010). United Nations. “Bhutan Harmonizes Spectrum of Domestic Laws With Women’s Anti-Discrimination Convention. Creates First Ever Scheme for Gender Equality. Expert Body Hears.” http://www.un.org /News/Press/docs/2009/wom1741.doc.htm bt (accessed April 2010). Nitasha Kaul University of Westminster
Bhutto, Benazir Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) was a Pakistani politician and the country’s first female prime minister. She served as prime minister twice, between 1988 and 1990, and 1993 and 1996.
Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, speaks to the press during a 1989 state visit to the United States.
Bhutto was born into a wealthy landowning family and was the daughter of Pakistan’s first democratically elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. After attaining her primary education in Pakistan, she achieved a Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College at Harvard University. Thereafter she went on to study at Oxford University. In 1986, she married Asif Ali Zardari, with whom she had three children. After completing her education abroad, Bhutto returned to Pakistan in summer 1977 to gain experience working for her father’s government. Following the turbulence caused by the elections that year, in July, General Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and put him under house arrest. The former prime minister was charged for murder of a political opponent and during the years of the trial, Bhutto and her brothers became involved in the opposition movement. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed in April 1979 and after years in and out of house arrest and prison, in 1984, Bhutto went into exile in London. While living in exile Bhutto was sworn in as chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1984. She was chosen as a leader by the senior party staff,
as they considered her an appropriate symbol, who would lay no claims to power. In reality she proved to be a strong and ambitious leader campaigning zealously for the elections in 1988, while being pregnant with her first child. In these elections, which followed the accidental death of General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto’s PPP managed to win through coalition making and compromising with the military. In order to keep her hold of the power, Bhutto had to negotiate with the military leadership and the president. Another major obstacle resulting from the election was the opposition provincial government in Punjab, the most populous and wealthy province. The largest party in the province and its leader, Nawaz Sharif, challenged the government on all issues. Bhutto, on her part, endeavored to undermine and destabilize the opposition, as well as the president, a strategy which proved ill-fated for her future support. In October 1989, the government managed to defeat a motion of nonconfidence. This highlighted the problems the Bhutto administration faced internally, and which escalated during the subsequent year up to her dismissal on August 6, 1990. New elections were carried out and Nawaz Sharif took over as prime minister. During Sharif ’s government, Bhutto affiliated herself both with the president and the prime minister in order to destabilize the government. A power struggle between the president and Sharif resulted in the dismissal of both in 1993 and in October 1993 Bhutto was elected prime minister. This period in government was immersed in agitation and conflicts. The Bhutto family was split when Benazir Bhutto’s brother, Murtaza, returned from exile and proclaimed being the true heir of their father. Their mother, Nusrat Bhutto, supported him and thus both of them were expelled from the party. Also Sharif initiated a campaign to undermine the government; the government, on its side, reciprocated by harassing the opposition. In addition, sectarian violence blossomed around country. Consequently, many PPP workers turned disillusioned and withdrew their support. The Bhutto government was accused for corruption, misrule, and nepotism, which resulted in its dismissal; to avoid trials on corruption Bhutto went into exile abroad. The charges of corruption and money laundering against Bhutto and, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, were initiated by the Sharif government after Bhutto’s first term in office and the couple remained under scru-
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tiny after Bhutto’s second term. Bhutto and Zardari claimed it was a political setup and, even though Zardari has spent several years in prison, none of them had been proven guilty. In autumn 2007, President General Pervez Musharraf and Bhutto agreed that all charges against Bhutto and Zardari would be dropped as long as Bhutto would return from exile, participate in the national elections and support Musharraf’s cooperation with the U.S. government in the “war on terror.” Musharraf, then, would resign as army chief but remain as civilian president. Only a couple of months after her return to Pakistan, on December 27, 2007, she was assassinated at a PPP rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Bhutto stirred up fervent emotions inside and outside of Pakistan. Her supporters viewed her as a tormented and castigated daughter of a martyr. She was believed to bring hope and justice after a dark era of dictatorship. Others perceived her as power hungry and arrogant, especially considering the violent history of her family. At the time at her appointment in 1988 there were some grumbles about having a woman ruling an Islamic country. Just before the elections a Saudi sheikh had issued a fatwa announcing that a state with a female leader would not prosper. Moreover the Jurisprudence Committee of the Islamic Conference was planning to discuss whether it was compatible with Islamic law to have a woman leading an Islamic country. The Bhutto establishment, however, managed to avert this obstacle. Bhutto herself endeavored to project a pious Islamic image through wearing the headscarf and emphasizing her arranged marriage with Zardari. Internationally, she was often regarded favorably, mainly due to her vocal defense of democracy, human rights, and gender equality. Disregarding the questionable nature of Bhutto’s achievements in these areas while in power, many will remember her courage and persistence. See Also: Government, Women in; Islam; Pakistan. Further Readings Ahmed, Mushtaq. Benazir: Politics of Power. Karachi, Pakistan: Royal Book Company, 2005. Akhund, Iqbal. Trial and Error: The Advent and Eclipse of Benazir Bhutto. Dhaka, Bangladesh: The University Press, 2000. Bhutto, Benazir. Daughter of the East: An Autobiography. London: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
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Bhutto, Benazir. Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Emma Brännlund National University of Ireland, Galway
Biology, Women in The sciences, in general, are male-dominated fields, and biology is no exception. In 2002, only 34 percent of American students who earned undergraduate degrees in science were women. The percentage was even lower for women graduating with a doctorate in science: 22 percent. Over the years, women have struggled to be allowed to study and research in the biological sciences, and their efforts have met with occasional successes, often followed by years of frustration and exclusion. The history of women in biology is similar to the histories of women in many other fields. However, in biology, one particular woman’s talents were recognized as early as the 12th century. Biology’s Female Pioneers The first female biologist recognized in print was Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179). Von Bingen was an expert on the healing powers of plants, animals, trees, and stones. She also wrote extensively about natural history. Her prominence in the historical record is not just an indication of the significance of her contributions; women who achieved early fame were usually famous due to factors other than their scientific skills. Conversely, there must have been many brilliant women in earlier centuries whose work went completely unrecognized, often to be ascribed to a male scientist. Unfortunately, there is no record of another significant female biologist until the 14th century. Alessandra Giliani lived in Bologna, Italy, in the 14th century and helped pioneer anatomy sciences. She assisted Mondino de Luzzi, often credited with being the father of anatomy, in preparing dissections for study and writing the definitive anatomy text of the time. Giliani is credited with inventing the technique of injecting various liquids into the vessels of the body to reveal their structures, a technique that is still used in biology labs currently.
Two prominent women biologists were born in the late 1700s: Jeanne Villepreux in France, and Anna Atkins of Great Britain. Villepreux is recognized as the inventor of the aquarium, which she used for definitive studies of mollusks. Atkins, similarly, applied a new technology to the study of biology. She used photography, at that time little more than impressions on light-sensitive paper, to illustrate her exhaustive books on natural history. The 19th century saw a significant increase in the prominence of female biologists. Mary Lua Adelia Davis Treat (1830–1923) wrote 76 scientific articles and five books. She discovered numerous new insect and plant species, and collaborated with Charles Darwin in researching carnivorous plants. Julia Barlow Platt (1857–1935) of Vermont, United States, was a pioneering embryologist and neurobiologist. She received a master’s degree from Harvard University, then was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in biology in Germany, in 1899. Nettie Marie Stevens (1861–1912), another Vermont native, received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr in 1903, and became one of the leading geneticists of her time. Agnes Robertson Arber (1879–1960) was a famous British botanist, and was the first woman botanist elected as a fellow of the Royal Society. And finally, Roger Arliner Young (1899–1964) was the first African American woman to receive a doctorate in zoology. Young not only juggled research and teaching responsibilities, she also had the responsibility of caring for her mother, who had significant special needs. She received her master's in biology from the University of Chicago in 1926, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. She taught at several universities, and served several times as substitute chair of the Department of Biology at Howard University. Nobel Prizes The rise to prominence of female biologists in the 20th century can be fairly well described by examining the history of the Nobel Prize. Forty women have won the Nobel Prize since its inception in 1901, and 10 of those have won in Physiology or Medicine. Unfortunately, although Marie Curie had won her second Nobel by 1911, a woman biologist did not win the prize until 1947, when Gerti Cori (1896–1957) won the prize for her work in glycolysis. Then another
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A Centers for Disease Control microbiologist inserting a rack of boxes containing biological stocks into a liquid nitrogen freezer for storage to aid the study of highly infectious viruses, many of them causing hemorrhagic manifestations in humans.
30 years passed before four women won the prize over an 11-year period. In 1977, Rosalyn Yalow won for her work in radio-immunoassays. Then in 1983, Barbara McClintock won for her work with mobile genetic elements. McClintock's story is a classic; her work went unrecognized for decades, and when it was finally corroborated, she received the prize at age 82 for work she had done many years earlier. Similarly, the 1986 winner, Rita Montalcini, received the award at age 77, six years after her retirement. Gertrude Elion received the award at age 70, five years after her retirement; her pioneering work on cancer drugs was an astonishing achievement. In 1995, the Nobel went to Christiane NüssleinVolhard, a German woman working at the Max Planck Institute. Nüsslein-Volhard and her team were recognized for their pioneering work on the genetic control of early embryos. The 2004 Nobel
went to Linda Buck for her discovery of olfactory receptors, the basic units of the sense of smell. In 2008 the Nobel Prize–winning team included Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and made an astounding discovery, the human immunodeficiency virus. The next year, 2009, may have represented an even higher pinnacle for women and the Nobel; the prize was awarded to two women, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider. Interestingly, Blackburn, Buck, and Barré-Sinoussi were born within a year of each other, in 1947–48. Another premier researcher on the HIV virus (although not a Nobel winner) was Flossie Wong-Staal, the first scientist to clone the virus. She was also born in 1947. Clearly, the recognition (if not necessarily the actuality) of women's accomplishments has followed an ever-steepening curve, as evidenced by the chronology of the Nobel. Looking beyond the Nobel,
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the first half of the 20th century can probably best be represented by one woman; Rachel Carson, the universally recognized inventor of the modern-day science of ecology. It is hard to believe that Carson died in 1962; her work still carries a heavy influence. Carson's greatest gifts were her many books and articles, which brought numerous environmental issues to the forefront of public discussion. During the last half century, women have emerged to be leaders in biological research, writing, and teaching. Perhaps the woman who best exemplifies the successes for the last 50 years is Mary Leakey, who made her first major discovery in 1948 and continued to contribute to science until her death in 1996. Although she can be considered to be a paleontologist, Leakey has clearly made major contributions to our understanding of evolutionary biology, with her discoveries of the proto-human species Australopithecus, Homo Habilus, and others. Female Biology Studied Louann Brizendine, M.D., is a groundbreaking female neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the founder of the world's first Women's Mood and Hormonal Clinic and author of the book The Female Brain, published in 2006. In her book, Dr. Brizendine discusses how the female brain is wired differently than a male's brain and how hormones significantly impact the human female through her life span, from pregnancy to menopause. Dr. Brizendine has discussed how female biology was virtually ignored in laboratory research studies until recent years. Apparently, because females have significant fluctuation of hormones throughout the menstrual cycle, this was interfering with traditional scientific research. Dr. Brizendine has given equal time to both genders in her writings; she published The Male Brain in 2010. Barriers Remain in the Biological Sciences Despite the high-profile successes of many women in all the sciences, prejudices and barriers remain. In a 2010 study sponsored by the American Association of University Women, it was asserted that in order for a female academician to receive the same recognition as a man, she must publish on average three more papers in major journals, or up to 20 more papers in minor publications, than the
man. Currently, female college professors are 3 to 5 percent less likely to obtain tenure than their male counterparts, according to a National Science Foundation study in 2004. And finally, a 2010 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that exit rates for women from science and engineering fields are up to 60 percent higher than the loss rates for men. The study cites lower pay and fewer promotion opportunities as the primary reasons given by exiting women. Society continues to cheat itself out of a priceless resource as long as society fails to encourage women and girls to enter and stay in scientific fields. One can only imagine what discoveries or breakthroughs have already been missed when a woman decided not to enter science or left early because of discrimination. Hopefully, the stories of pioneering women of the past and present will serve as inspiration for tomorrow's girls, and they will refuse to give up on a scientific career. See Also: Barré-Sinoussi, Françoise; Education, Women in; Feminism on College Campuses; Medical Research, Gender Issues in; Physicians, Female; Professional Education; Professions by Gender; STEM Coalition. Further Readings Brizendine, Louanne. The Female Brain. New York: Broadway Publishers, 2007. Forsburg, S. L. Women in Biology Internet Launch Pages. 1997–2007. http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~forsburg/bio .html (accessed July 2010). Matyas, Marsha Lakes and Ann Haley-Oliphan. Women Life Scientists: Past, Present, and Future, Connecting Role Models to the Classroom Curriculum. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society, 1997. McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries. New York: Citadel Press, 1998. Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey. Women in Science: Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988. Rosser, Sue V. Women, Science, and Myth: Gender Beliefs From Antiquity to the Present. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Jacqueline Parsons St. Mary's University
Birth Defects, Environmental Factors and
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It is important to understand the connection between the environment and the creation of life, which is key to a healthy population.
Birth defects affect everyone. Having a healthy baby is the reality for many parents while others face parenthood with a child born with a defect. According to the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program (CBDMP) one in 33 babies are born with birth defects. Some of the causes are linked to the mother’s actions (i.e., drinking, smoking), while others are caused by environmental factors unrelated to a mother’s behavior or habits. The role of environmental factors on birth defects has many implications for policy development, implementation, women’s rights, and advocacy—for more than just reproductive justice measures. This issue is important to help ensure the safety and security of life and birth of a child. Understanding the causes of birth defects will help women take care of their bodies and help them to deliver healthy babies. The March of Dimes reported that 120,000 children are born with birth defects each year. There are two types of birth defects: structural, which is related to the physical and salient defects like a missing body part or an altered limb; and functional, which means either the defect is sensory, degenerative, metabolic, or related to the nervous system, which includes brain issues.
Environmental Factors An environmental factor is defined as a contributor to a child being born with a birth defect. This contributing force could be a hazardous waste area existing located close to home, a partner who smokes, the inhalation of paint fumes, exposure to too much carbon dioxide, or the lack of access to clean air and water. The CBDMP conducted a study on environmental factors and birth defects. The study highlighted four air pollutants linked to ventricle septal defects, heart and pulmonary defects, and chromosome abnormalities. The pollutants are carbon dioxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter. Carbon dioxide comes out of cigarettes and car exhausts; ozone is a product of a variety of pollutants that have a chemical reaction to sun exposure; and nitrogen dioxide becomes a problem when emissions from automobiles and industrial areas combined with the air, which affects the lungs. Generally, chemicals and solvents are not thought of environmental factors or potential birth defects. The CBDMP has reported that pregnant women should be cautious about exposure to certain chemicals. Solvents can be found in gasoline, spray paint, nail polish remover, and cleaning products, while colorants can be found in metallic and organic dyes. Exposure also can occur during cosmetology, fabric dyeing, or painting. The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1974 by Congress to help prevent health conditions linked to contaminated water sources. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that there were 170,000 public water systems distributing clean water in the United States. The CBDMP reported that nitrates in the drinking water can affect the health of the fetus and the mother. For example, the CBDMP Website said that “women whose drinking water contained nitrate levels below Maximum Contaminant Levels or MCL had a higher risk for anencephaly”—the absence of a large part of the brain and skull. There are a number of communities around the country that are categorized as superfund sites. The superfund is a government program dedicated to
Importance of the Topic The successful birth of a child weighs heavily on the health, social, and environmental conditions the mother is exposed to before and during her pregnancy. Environmental factors could include air pollution, exposure to chemicals and solvents, drinking water, and proximity to hazardous waste sites as well as social and economic factors, among others. Overall, people are not fully aware of the consequences of their actions, disregarding the impact of the rising world population, war regions, extreme poverty—as defined by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals—and lack of education and awareness about environmental effects on health. Not to be overlooked is the direct impact of environmental issues on mothers that cause birth defects. This issue is at the heart of many debates, most notably reproductive justice, food justice, and environmental protection movements.
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cleaning up abandoned waste sites. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response implement the superfund and the cleaning of the sites. The CBDMP interviewed 2,000 mothers who lived near hazardous sites to determine the range of consequences that could occur from exposure. Their study found that women who resided near the superfund site during the first trimester of the pregnancy had a greater risk for birth defects, including heart abnormalities, neural tube defects, and cleft lip or palate. Neural tube defects alter the development of the brain and spine, which are commonly associated with spina bifida and anencephaly. In addition to physical and environmental factors, social and economic issues also can contribute to birth defects. Reproductive justice advocates argue that individuals from low-income backgrounds as well as women of color are at greater risk of birth defects because of their social conditions. For example, The Women’s Foundation of California reported in November 2009 that regulators failed to protect Californian’s from pesticides linked to cancer, reproductive harm and other illnesses in the central valley. In West Oakland, juvenile asthma has been associated with the area’s large port in Oakland as well as to the community’s proximity to industrial and manufacturing industries.
due to environmental factors will decrease only with increased community-based education targeted to atrisk populations—which will have the added benefit of increasing the number of healthy children.
Affecting Change In March 2010, Harvard University hosted a panel discussion that focused on the environmental consequences regarding maternal health. The panelists included Lani Blechman, operations assistant of Civil Liberties and Public Policy at Hampshire College, and Trina Jackson of Roxbury, Massachusetts– based Alternatives for Community and Environment. They stressed the importance of low-income groups speaking out and participating in community decisions about the construction of power plants in their neighborhoods. Low-income women and their families are disproportionately exposed to toxins in the environment due to their proximity to polluting industries located in their communities. Overall, women face health challenges during pregnancy and birth; and for women of color and residents of lowincome communities, the challenges are greater than they are for their wealthy counterparts. Birth defects
Crystallee Crain California Institute of Integral Studies
See Also: Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Issues, Women and; Health, Mental and Physical; Infant Mortality; Pregnancy; Water, as Women’s Issue. Further Readings California Department of Public Health. “California Birth Defects Monitoring Program.” http://www.cdph.ca.gov /programs/cbdmp/Pages/default.aspx (accessed April 2010). Cook, K. “Environmental Justice: Woman Is the First Environment. Reproductive Justice Briefing Book: A Primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change.” http://www.sistersong.net/documents (accessed April 2010). Kassuba, Sherree. “Environmental Causes of Birth Defects.” http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum /units/1982/7/82.07.07.x.html. (accessed April 2010). Underwood, A. “Panel Discusses Link Between Maternal Health and Environment.” The Harvard Crimson (March 11, 2010). http://www.thecrimson.com/article /2010/3/11/health-toxins-jackson-reproductive (accessed April 2010).
Bisexuality In a provocative New York Times article, published July 5, 2005, Benedict Carey reported on the results of a study disputing whether “true bisexuality exists” as a “distinct and stable sexual orientation.” Bisexuality, an identity constituted by sexual attraction to both sexes, has long been one of the most difficult to define sexual identities. In a binary system of sexual orientations, individuals can—in some ways—be defined as either homosexual or heterosexual, according to the person with whom they are currently in a relationship. Because bisexuality implies an individual’s sexuality is malleable and contingent, the category has been mar-
ginalized in both heterosexual and homosexual communities, often labeled by both groups as a phase. In the same Times article, the author describes some gay men as stating, “You’re either gay, straight, or lying.” Defining bisexuality and positioning it in a historical context demonstrates the crucial role that this sexual identity category has played—and continues to play—in conjunction with women in today’s world. Issues surrounding bisexual history and activism, bisexuality’s relationship to other sexual identity categories, the related problems of bi-phobia and bisexual erasure, and the relatively recent emergence of bisexual representations in popular culture demonstrate that bisexuality is tied to many issues surrounding women’s sexual, social, and ideological lives. Definition Like other marginalized sexualities, bisexuality is difficult to define and depends—in many ways—on broader issues surrounding the definitions of gender, sex, and sexuality, but on a most basic level, the term refers to sexual behavior and/or attraction to both sexes. Bisexuality has historically been thought of as a natural state that people repress because of heterosexism. Kate Millett famously stated that “Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality.” The etymology of bisexuality indeed proves Millett’s point. Since its entry into discourse in 1859 in Robert B. Todd’s The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, bisexuality has been invoked to describe something that is liminal and untenable: not a sexual orientation or a body with a particular anatomical structure but rather something that is both and neither at once, always already contingent to and reliant on fixities of the binary sex-gender system. In 1892, C. G. Chaddock first used bisexuality to designate sexual orientation, noting: “Careful investigation of the so-called acquired cases makes it probably that the predisposition also present here consists of a latent homosexuality, or, at least, bisexuality.” John Bancroft has more recently suggested a “weakening of the polarization of homo- and heterosexuality” that should mark bisexuality as “more a part of the human experience.” The word bisexual initially pointed to biological and anatomical structures. In 1824, Samuel Taylor Coleridge suggested that the “original man” was “bi-sexual,” a label that hearkens more toward what we now classify as an intersexed
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body than a bisexual identity. By 1914, bisexual had become a classificatory term for sexuality and sexual orientation. The American Medical Journal explains, “By nature all human beings are psychically bisexual, capable of loving a person of either sex.” This definition draws an explicit connection between psychic state, essentialism, and love that has typically been at the center of some of the controversy surrounding the definition of bisexuality as a sexual identity. Jennifer Baumgardner has drawn attention to the complexity and potential faultiness of current definitions of bisexuality, primarily on a practical level. She notes that “sexuality is not who you sleep with, it’s who you are. It doesn’t change according to who is standing next to you”. Bisexuality has been situated in the framework of a hetero/homo system of sexual orientations, in which bisexuality is always something that is slippery and changeable rather than fixed or clearly identifiable. Moreover, as Baumgardner implies, critics tend to think that sexuality ends when one picks a partner, suggesting that being in a relationship with either a man or a woman makes bisexuality, in effect, transform into either a heterosexual or homosexual bond. Of course, gender identities and sexual orientation that further vex the gay/straight dichotomy—such as genderqueer, genderfuck, asexuality, and gender fluidity—draw attention to the theoretical gaps between gender, sex, and sexuality, and the concept of sexual fluidity has in some ways shifted gender theory away from bisexuality, which does depend upon the acceptance of stable genders, sexes, and sexualities; however, bisexuality forms a major category of sexual identity. Alfred Kinsey’s surveys of sexuality in the 1940s and 1950s revealed that about 46 percent of the men and 12 percent of the women interviewed described sexual experiences with both sexes. More recently, a 2002 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 1.8 percent of men and 2.8 percent of women ages 18 to 44 identify as bisexual. The difference between these numbers suggests a clear distinction between experience and identity. That is, people might have sexual relationships with both sexes but still identify as straight or gay. History Behavioral scientists began noting bisexual attraction and considering the role that this attraction plays in
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the development of sexual identity during the 19th century. Research during the 19th and 20th centuries tended to suggest either that bisexuality does not exist or that everyone is truly bisexual. Enfolded in these contradictory descriptions is a shared—and central— problem in analyses of bisexuality, which is that bisexuality’s existence or lack thereof depends upon physical, psychological, moral, and ideological assumptions based on the heterosexist structures that regulate discourse about sexual orientation. Three major theorists of bisexuality whose work remains influential are Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and Fritz Klein. With his Three Essays on Sexuality (1910), Freud introduced the concept of innate bisexuality. He argued that humans are born bisexual but develop monosexual identities through the complicated interweaving of external and internal factors that engender psychological development and push bisexuality into latency. Based in large part on the fallacy that human beings all go through an intersexed period in the early stage of development, Freud’s theory suggests an anatomical predisposition to bisexuality that his radically countered by a push toward monosexuality. Despite many of the problems in Freud’s work caused by his now out-of-date information about anatomy as well as by his ideological context, he notably offers a version of sexuality in which bisexuality is identified as a normal part of sexual development—not as something that should be criminalized. Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) reported that 46 percent of men engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activity. Using the Kinsey Scale, he developed ways of describing individuals’ sexual histories or episodes in an individual’s sexual life at a specific time. This scale ranges from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual), with the variable “x” representing asexuality. Kinsey disliked the use of the term bisexual as a marker of sexual identity and typically used the word to note mixed-sex anatomies because the word implied a biological origin of bisexuality rather than a psychic one: “Until it is demonstrated [that] taste in a sexual relation is dependent upon the individual containing within his anatomy both male and female structures, or male and female physiological capacities, it is unfortunate to call such individuals bisexual.” Kinsey went further in his analysis to suggest that “Males do not represent two discrete populations,
heterosexual and homosexual.” As a publicly heteronormative man who engaged in sexual relationships with other men, Kinsey in some ways offered a new and visible model for bisexuality—but again, as Baumgardner’s comments above indicate, a tension existed for Kinsey in sexual self-presentation or identity and sexual practices. Fritz Klein contributed the pivotal study The Bisexual Option (1978) to sexuality studies, and he created the Bisexual Forum in New York; he founded the Bisexual Forum in San Diego in 1982, and later started and became the editor of The Journal of Bisexuality. In 1998, Klein founded the American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB) to support research and education on bisexuality. Klein’s multidimensional Klein Sexual Orientation Grid measures the complex fluidity of sexual orientation by expanding on Kinsey’s zero to six scale. Included on the grid are not only overt sexual experiences but also attractions, fantasies, emotional preferences, lifestyle, and identification in an individual’s past, present, and hypothetical ideal future. The scale drew crucial attention to the ways in which all of these interlocking variables can change over time for individuals and for groups. He drew the conclusion that sexuality defies rigid, well-defined categories; still, he worked throughout his life as a bisexual activist. Activism Klein’s presence in and support of bisexual activism proved a crucial part of bisexual inclusion in larger lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) activist movements. Notoriously problematic as a term of mobilization (see the issues surrounding bi-phobia and bisexual erasure below), bisexuality has been recognized as a significant component of LGBTQ activism for many years. In this brief overview of bisexual activism (and also, below, of bisexuality in the popular media), female bisexuality is foregrounded, despite the obvious importance of male bisexuals from Kinsey and Klein to Jonathan Ames, Patrick (formerly Pat) Califia, Michael Chabon, Andy Dick, and Stephen Donaldson. Robyn Ochs founded the Boston Bisexual Network in 1983 and the Bisexual Resource Center in 1985. She currently edits the Bisexual Resource Guide, and she edited an anthology Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World. Ochs specializes in coalition
building. Frequently headlining academic conferences but also appearing in the popular media on television shows like Donahue and in magazines including Seventeen and Newsweek, Ochs received the Susan J. Hyde Activism Award for Longevity in the Movement from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Sex educator and activist Loraine Hutchins coedited the anthology Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out (1991), which brought together the voices of 76 bisexuals. Hutchins cofounded BiNet USA and the Alliance of Multicultural Bisexuals. She has published articles on sexuality in essay collections and journals, including Beth Firestein’s Becoming Visible: Counseling Bisexuals Throughout the Lifespan (2008). Firestein, a psychologist who focuses on bisexual and transgender issues, has offered seminal research on the ways that bisexuals internalize social prohibitions and tension related to their choice of sexual partners. Her research suggests that many bisexuals force themselves to fit into either heterosexual or homosexual labels—an internal tension that replicates the external problems connected to bisexual identity (for example, issues of visibility, labeling, group inclusion/exclusion, biphobia, and bisexual erasure). Her research has engendered new therapy methods that address the unique issues bisexuals encounter. Noted as a “Third Wave” feminist activist and coauthor of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (2000) and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (2005), Jennifer Baumgardner drew attention to the intersections between bisexuality and feminism with her book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. Baumgardner, a former editor of Ms. magazine, created the I Had an Abortion project. Her prominence as a Third Wave feminist has been key to her activism about sexuality; Look Both Ways reconciles—and draws attention to tensions among—feminism and bisexuality as personal and political identities. Relationship to Other Sexual Identity Categories Because bisexuality simultaneously depends upon and disrupts the hetero/homosexual binary, its relationship to other groups interested in LGBTQ activism and to categories of gender and sexual identity more broadly is often complex. Because it originally denoted mixed-sex anatomy, the word bisexual has
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retained for some a confusing proximity to what is now referred to as intersexuality (formerly hermaphroditism). This association between mixed-sex anatomy and bisexual desire led to some of Freud’s theories, mentioned above, and also engendered Kinsey’s reluctance to embrace the term bisexuality. But bisexuality now marks a sexual orientation that is separate from biological anatomy. Bisexuality is often used interchangeably with ambisexuality, a term that demarcates a somewhat wider set of associations (clothing may be ambisexual, for example, but the term also denotes sexual attraction by or attractiveness to both sexes). The relatively recent introduction of the terms genderqueer, intergender, and genderfuck to demarcate gender identities that fall outside the gender binary problematize easy correlations between sex, gender, and sexuality, making a label of bisexuality much less tenable than it is for two persons who clearly identify as male or female. The concept of sexual fluidity, a trend in which women move freely from homosexual to heterosexual relationships, both allows for and complicates bisexuality as a sexual identity. Lisa M. Diamond’s book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire (2008) addressed the possibility that love and desire do not correspond to heterosexuality or homosexuality. Instead, desire is often gender blind; sexual orientation is not fixed or stable. Although the concept of sexual fluidity suggests that many women have bisexual desires, the concept also unworks the idea of a stable sexual identity in such a way that makes identification as a bisexual tricky. Bi-Phobia and Bisexual Erasure The term bi-phobia serves as an indicator of the fear, distrust, and aversion projected on bisexuality and bisexuals. Bi-phobia can target individuals or social groups. Bi-phobia is often the result of negative stereotypes that adhere to bisexuality and also to the related problem of bisexual erasure. Two of the most common negative stereotypes about bisexuality are (1) that it does not exist; and (2) that bisexuality implies and is even inseparable from promiscuity. The first of these stereotypes relates to the issue of bisexual erasure, a tendency to omit bisexuality from history, the media, and other discourses. Bisexual erasure can, in its extreme, manifest
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as a denial of the actual existence of bisexuality. For example, a historical description of a bisexual’s life might refute or challenge the individual’s bisexuality by arguing that the individual really loved either men or women (i.e., recuperating someone as either a gay or straight individual, not acknowledging the complexity and range of a subject’s sexuality but instead locating “true” sexuality at one point, in one relationship, or in one phase of the subject’s life). The problem of linking bisexuality with promiscuity directly correlates with popular culture. In pornography as well as in popular culture, bisexuals are frequently represented as sexually insatiable; their desire to have sex with men and women is implied to be the result of such insatiability. On an even more pragmatic level, because sexual orientation is (for many people) thought of as being defined by the person or people one sleeps with, bisexuality often wrongly implies promiscuity and defiance of monogamy. People assume that to be bisexual, one is always sleeping with both men and women—and if one is not, one has “chosen” either a heterosexual or homosexual life (hence the relationship between bi-phobia, stereotypes, and bisexual erasure). Bisexuals are also stereotyped as being sexually confused, incapable of settling on one person, and (for female bisexuals) really being either lesbian or straight. These stereotypes and tensions emerge in the relationship between bisexuality and straight culture, but bisexuals also occupy a liminal spot in relation to LGBTQ culture and to political movements like feminism. For example, Naomi Weisstein suggests that the early years of the women’s liberation movement, 98 percent of WLMers “were bi, at least in the sense that we all started out with the usual exclusively het behaviors. Only after 1970 did most of us ‘go gay.’ One’s former relationships with men continued in a whole lot of cases.” Individuals who might otherwise self-define as bisexual can feel compelled to take on a posture of homosexuality because it corresponds more directly to a larger set of political imperatives. Bisexuality in Popular Culture Despite the issues of bi-phobia and bisexual erasure, many authors, actors, and other celebrities have identified (or have been identified) as bisexual. Some include Billy Joe Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Djuna Barnes, Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bernhard, Leonard Bernstein, David Bowie, Marlon Brando, Nell Carter,
Margaret Cho, Joan Crawford, Kurt Cobain, Marlene Dietrich, Ani DiFranco, Eve Ensler, Greta Garbo, Alec Guinness, Marilyn Hacker, Lorraine Hansberry, H. D., Anne Heche, Angelina Jolie, Janis Joplin, June Jordan, Frida Kahlo, Florence King, Christian Lacroix, Courtney Love, Margaret Mead, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anaïs Nin, Cynthia Nixon, Joan Osborne, Camille Paglia, Edith Piaf, Cole Porter, Carol Queen, Ma Rainey, Lou Reed, Barbara Stanwyck, Michael Stipe, Gore Vidal, Alice Walker, and Rebecca Walker. The popular media most often succumbs to the stereotypes surrounding bisexuality, especially in terms of the myth of bisexual promiscuity. Films like Basic Instinct (1992) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) highlight a character’s bisexuality largely to suggest mental instability and a tendency to use sexuality rather than to develop healthy romantic relationships. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, television shows such as Friends, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sex in the City, and The O. C. have helped to normalize bisexuality and to represent it as a healthy option for sexual orientation and identity. The musician Ani DiFranco has been a beacon for bisexual women in particular: she has boldly and publicly described the difficulties of having her sexual identification theorized and judged. Singers like Jill Sobule and Katy Perry have, more playfully, suggested what is often termed bi-curiousness in their songs, both titled, I Kissed a Girl. Here as elsewhere in discourses of bisexuality, it remains clear that sexuality as a political stance is uncomfortably bound up—for bisexuals—in a context that also necessitates changeability, fluidity, and playfulness. Practical Aspects Homosexuality has become more socially acceptable in many countries, but bisexual individuals continue to be classified as unstable individuals who are unwilling to admit to their true social orientations. A 2008 Australian study of 60 bisexuals, 40 women and 20 men ranging in age from 21 to 66, revealed that many of them felt isolated from their communities, causing them to remain silent about their real sexual preferences. Many respondents felt that they had been rendered invisible because neither the heterosexual nor the homosexual community truly accepted them. They were often accused of being afraid to own up to their actual sexual orientations. Female bisexu-
als stated that assumptions about their sexual preferences were often situational. Heterosexuality was mistakenly assumed whenever they campaigned for women’s rights, but they were mislabeled as lesbians when they campaigned for gay and lesbian rights. A number of respondents felt pressured by lesbians to admit to their homosexuality, and they were accused of betraying their lesbian sisters if they chose to have sexual intercourse with the opposite sex. When reporting on the Australian Study of Health and Relationships, researchers concluded that bisexuals were more likely than heterosexual, lesbian, or gay respondents to suffer from depression and to admit to feeling suicidal. Studies involving bisexuals in the United Kingdom and the United States have also revealed that many bisexuals are faced with mental health problems because of this lack of social acceptance. Facing Discrimination Bisexuals in some countries continue to describe widespread incidences of official discrimination. For instance, in summer 2010, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on an unofficial LGBT street picket that took place in St. Petersburg, Russia. Both female and male participants carried LGBT flags and signs proclaiming such statements as “Peter the Great was bisexual.” The activists insisted their picket was the result of ingrained homophobia in Russia. Officials responded by arresting the picketers, charging five of them with staging an unsanctioned event and the rest with hooliganism. That same month, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) Europe announced that Russia and the Ukraine were at the bottom of their “Rainbow Europe Country Index.” Other nations receiving low rankings included Armenia, Belarus, Cyprus, Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, and Turkey. At the other end of the spectrum, Sweden was named as the European country that best demonstrated inclusiveness and respect for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals by passing laws banning discrimination, hate crimes, and hate speech and enacting laws that recognized equal ages of consent and same-sex partnerships and parenting rights. The other top-ranked countries were Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain. Discrimination against bisexuals may become lifethreatening in intolerant countries. However, some LGBT scholars, including Sean Rehaag, argue that
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many bisexuals seeking refugee status are met with rejection because officials fail to classify them as political refugees. According to international law, refugees eligible for political asylum include those who are in fear of being persecuted because of their religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinions. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees states in its “Guidelines on Gender Related Protection” that “political opinions” may include those concerning acceptable gender roles. Courts around the world have used Ward v. Canada (2 SCR 689, 1993) to determine the construction of “a particular social group.” In this Canadian Supreme Court decision, Justice Gérard La Forest held that such groups were defined according to their innate characteristics, participation in voluntary associations chosen for reasons fundamental to each individual’s basic human dignity, and the historical existence of said groups. La Forest specifically stated that groups defined according to particular sexual orientations were included in his classification of eligible groups. In 2000, a Mexican bisexual successfully sought asylum in Canada because of repeated beatings by the police. Studies have revealed that female bisexuals continue to be more successful than males in obtaining refugee status in Canada. In 2006, for instance, more than half of all of female bisexual applicants were successful, but only a third of male bisexuals obtained entry. Few refugee claims in the United States have involved bisexuals, but in Hernandez-Montiel v. Immigration and Naturalization Service (225 F.3d 1084, 2000) the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit posited that defining sexual minority refugee law only on the basis of heterosexuality and homosexuality was possibly too restrictive. In the United States in 2010, a cadre of strange bedfellows expressed their support for passage of the Uniting American Families Act, which is designed to reform immigration laws to pave the way for families to remain united, irrespective of such characteristics as sexual orientation. In addition to representatives of LGBT groups, supporters of the act included the Episcopal Church, the Family Equality Council, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, Union for Reform Judaism, and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Unlike the
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United States and Canada, Australia has a history of considering bisexuals eligible for political asylum, going back to a 1997 decision by the High Court of Australia. However, few bisexual claims have been filed in Australia. Because of society’s inability to transcend the belief that all individuals must be either exclusively heterosexual or homosexual, bisexuals continue to be mislabeled, misunderstood, and mistrusted. See Also: Gay and Lesbian Advocacy; Gender, Defined; Heterosexism; Homophobia; Lesbians; LGBTQ; Sexual Orientation; Sexual Orientation: Scientific Theories of Causation; Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Legal Discrimination: United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Social Discrimination: United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: Outside United States; Sexual Orientation–Based Violence: United States. Further Readings Baumgardner, Jennifer. Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Carey, Benedict. “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited.” New York Times (July 5, 2005). http://www .nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/05sex.html?_r=2& pagewanted=1(accessed August 2009). Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Basic, 2000. Kinsey, Alfred. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948. McLean, Kirsten. “Silences and Stereotypes: The Impact of (Mis) Constructions of Bisexuality on Australian Bisexual Men and Women.” Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review, v.4/3 (2008). Pitts, M. and M. Couch. “Bisexuality and Health Psychology—Strange Bedfellows?” Health Psychology Update, v.14/2 (2005). Rehaag, Sean. “Bisexuals Need Not Apply: A Comparative Appraisal of Refugee Law and Policy in Canada, the United States, and Australia.” International Journal of Human Rights, 13/2,3 (2009). Wockner, Rex. “Group: Sweden Is Europe’s Gay-Friendliest Country.” Between the Lines News, v.1822 (June 3, 2010). Emily Bowles Lawrence University
Black Churches The term black church refers to that which gave shape to the religious experiences of many blacks in America, originally combining African religious heritage with European Christianity. In the 18th century, many blacks converted to Christianity and developed their own style of “slave religion” Christian theology. As blacks have received political freedom, they have also formed a unique Christian identity of faith in God’s deliverance from oppression. As the black church engages social justice issues today, these theological foundations continue to shape the black church identity. History The black church, originating from the religious, cultural, and social past of blacks, gave structure and identity to millions of enslaved Africans in America. As 17th-century slave codes prohibited blacks from church membership, they incorporated their African religious heritage into European Christianity to create a slave religion. Based on several commonalities between slave religion and the Great Awakening, black conversion to Christianity skyrocketed, and blacks influenced mainstream Christianity through revival-style music, preaching, and total immersion baptism. Revivalists preached spiritual equality and fostered integration of churches. Methodist and Baptist missionaries heavily evangelized southern plantations. Slave owners feared that converted slaves would demand their freedom, so many white ministers preached the “Curse of Ham,” that whites were ordained as authorities over blacks. (The “Curse of Ham” refers to the story of Noah after the flood, in the book of Genesis, wherein Noah cursed his son Ham, and all of Ham’s lineage thus, “. . . a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”) Many slaves created an “invisible institution,” a secret black church that emphasized God’s deliverance and Christian freedom. Southern slaves resonated with the Baptist denomination because of its reduced requirements for ministry leadership, decentralized church government, and emphasis on individual conscience. Methodism attracted blacks nationwide, and its centralized structure widely promoted spiritual equality. Itinerant Methodist evangelists mobilized black men and women as preachers and preached Christian abolitionism.
In Philadelphia in 1794, Richard Allen formed the first independent black church, Bethel Church, and the first black denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). The more progressive African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ) split from the AME; both denominations flourished throughout the north. During the Second Great Awakening, black churches functioned as community centers providing education, meeting space, opportunities for benevolence and activism, and basic material needs. Since Emancipation, the black church refers to any primarily African American church or any church belonging to a black denomination (AME, AMEZ, Christian Methodist Episcopal, National Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention of America, National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Church of God in Christ, or Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellow-
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ship). Black churches have created unique worship and preaching styles. During the Great Migration to northern urban cities in the early 20th century, the Church helped millions of black migrants as they sought economic opportunity in the industrial boom. The black church has grown the most in the 20th century through the Holiness and Pentecostal Movement. Holiness churches believe in Spirit-anointed sanctification faith, which emotionally reaffirmed congregants of God’s grace. The Pentecostal Movement began in 1906 with the Los Angeles Azusa Street Revivals and grew rapidly and interracially. The Church of God in Christ (COGIC), founded by two Baptist-turned-Pentecostal black preachers, is currently the leading Pentecostal denomination, in part because of its rejection of social engagement. COGIC promotes biblical literalism, revival-style worship, sanctification, and speaking in tongues. The Holiness
Churches In black neighborhoods often create a sense of social belonging and unity. Black churches in the New York neighborhood of Harlem have renovated abandoned buildings to create housing for residents and have opened their own schools.
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and Pentecostal Movement is the only interracial black church movement. Civil Rights The black church provided an important emotional support for the dehumanizing effects of slavery and racial oppression. In the early 20th century, most black church pastors preached middle-class values and moral uplift, the idea that black moral excellence would achieve social equality, rather than condemnation of racism because of fear that such preaching would incite black retaliation against whites. However, some radical preachers boldly preached rebellion against white supremacy. AME Bishop Henry McNeal Turner condemned American imperialism and preached in support of women’s suffrage, women’s ordination, and the Back-to-Africa movement. The civil rights movement (1954–1968), largely led by black pastors, advocated for full equality and opportunity for blacks. After the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) U.S. Supreme Court decision, blacks began a massive nonviolent resistance campaign for desegregation. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to national prominence when he led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Montgomery Improvement Association, primarily made of black church members, launched a more than one year boycott of city buses, resulting in a Supreme Court decision against segregated buses. King created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 to mobilize black churches to support a nonviolent civil rights movement. SCLC orchestrated several marches and standoffs in segregated cities, the most famous of which occurred in Albany, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Selma, Alabama. In the early 1960s, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), primarily college students, staged sit-ins and voter registration drives. The SCLC mentored SNCC in its nonviolent approach, and in 1963, the SCLC and SNCC co-organized the March on Washington, in which King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Black ministers provided local and national leadership throughout the civil rights movements. These religious leaders voiced the experiences of blacks and led black church members to join their campaign for equality and justice. The charismatic style of black preaching proved a powerful medium for gaining support for the movement among blacks and whites.
These ministers mobilized hundreds of lay leaders and solidified racial equality as a central teaching of the black church. Black Liberation Theology and Megachurches Many black church leaders have condemned white churches for complacency in opposing racial injustice. Beginning in the late 1960s, James Cone expressed this religious discontent as Black Liberation Theology, which focused on specific passages of scripture, namely the Exodus narratives and the life of Jesus, to advocate black liberation from social, political, economic, and religious bondage. Cone compared America to Egypt and claimed that God was working for black liberation and was black. Jeremiah Wright has recently received intense criticism for preaching black liberation. In the late 20th century, black megachurches emerged, most of which are conservative, evangelical, and preach prosperity gospel, including T. D. Jakes’s The Potter’s House, and Tony Evans’ Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, and Creflo Dollar’s World Changers Church in Atlanta. Other black megachurches are famously progressive, including Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and Cecil Williams’s Glide United Methodist Church in San Francisco. While both types of black megachurches share a wide spectrum of ministries, emphasize spiritual fellowship, are largely suburbanized, and have an authoritative preaching and church administration, they are becoming increasingly divided between social justice theology and the prosperity gospel. Women in the Church African American women have played a critical role in the ministry and survival of the black church, yet the black church has been historically sexist. Richard Allen hesitantly supported the ministry of preacher Jarena Lee, though the AMEZ embraced women in ordained ministry beginning with Julia Foote in 1894. Baptists have likewise suppressed the ministry of women, though Nannie Helen Burroughs valiantly created Women’s Day, in which women lead the entire worship service. Women also pioneered much of today’s missions movement following the Second Great Awakening. Men have since assumed leadership of these women-driven institutions and have used them to raise capital rather than affirm the ministry of women.
During the civil rights movement, black church emphases on freedom, justice, and equality empowered women to find places of leadership in their churches and communities. Church auxiliaries, largely founded and operated by women, ministered to the poor, conducted public speaking, and managed their own money. Women networked with each other, and these auxiliaries nurtured women’s leadership abilities. The civil rights movement associated Christian practice with confronting social injustice, and this precedent paved the way for black women to move for their own freedom. Moreover, the movement inspired an entire generation to interpret the scriptures’ mandates to care for others as a call to activism for social justice. Civil rights workers Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer were two of many women whose leadership influenced such changes in the black church. A black branch of feminism, womanism, opposes the extreme prejudice against black women posed by racism, sexism, and classism both within the black church and within American society. Womanism promotes self-determination and community activism for social justice transcending race, gender, and economic class. Many black denominations continue to deny women ordination or the right to preach. However, in 2000, Vashti Murphy McKenzie was named a bishop of the AME Church. Many women pastors, including Renita Weems, Cheryl J. Sanders, and Suzan Johnson Cook, continue to press for women’s equality within the black church. See Also: Christian Identity; Christianity; Evangelical Protestantism; Ministry, Protestant; Religion, Women in; Womanism; Womanist Theology. Further Readings Floyd-Thomas, Stacey, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Carol B. Duncan, Stephen G. Ray, Jr., and Nancy Lynne Westfield. Black Church Studies: An Introduction. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007. Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Lincoln, C. Eric and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African-American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.
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Raboteau, A. J. Canaan Land: A Religious History of African-Americans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Courtney Lyons Baylor University
Blogs and the Blogosphere By 2000, the availability of blog host sites like Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress, and LiveJournal, made keeping a blog, short for weblog or web log—an online journal with dated entries—easy for people who do not possess Web coding skills. Women create and produce content with blogging tools, and many advance beyond online diaries to self-publish their platform to a broad audience as well as create communities. Women’s blogs range from the personal to the political. In 2003, there were 4.12 million blogs. Over 90 percent were maintained by people under the age of 30, with women having a slight edge over men in the practice. The highest rated blogs are male-dominated, yet scholars agree that there are more women bloggers overall. Ideally the blogosphere (the world of blogs and blogging) provides a positive democratic space, a public sphere, where everyone expresses themselves. Bloggers participate in communities and create conversations by commenting on posts and cross-linking or creating blogrolls. Gendered behavior online falls into traditional forms. Equality has not occurred in the blogosphere and a neutral space where women’s voices would have as much authority as men’s is an unrealized ideal. Differences in communication styles contribute to the inability of men and women to communicate well online and gender segregation is the norm. The absence of strong women’s voices in the blogosphere comes down to the perception that men write about politics and women write about the personal. The problem is that both arenas are defined too narrowly. Many political blog are filters and provide links to what the blogger found and do not contain original content. The majority of blogs are personal journals expressing the writer’s thoughts and daily activities. Fifty percent of journal bloggers are female. They offer greater levels of self-revelation than do men. Additionally,
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they tend to mix genres while male bloggers stick to one topic exclusively. The Blog as a Social Platform Several of the earliest women bloggers worked in information technology and were responsible for establishing blogging platforms, as well as advancing standards and guidelines in the burgeoning space. Meg Hourihan is a cofounder of Pyra Labs, the company that produced Blogger. She blogged on Megnut. com from 1999 until taking a hiatus when her son was born. The subject matter of her blog was general and then focused on food for many years. Upon her return to blogging, in 2009, her content returned to its original broadness with coverage of several lifestyle topics. Mena Benjamin Trott developed Moveable Type for her personal blogging while she was unemployed in 2001. Rebecca Blood’s blog, Rebecca’s Pocket covers “media literacy, sustainability, web culture, and domestic life.” She wrote one of the first books about weblogs, The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog (2002) and parlayed her blogging into publishing and speaking about blogs. “The first single-editor libraryoriented weblog” was created by Jessamyn West in 1999 and is regularly updated today. Other early bloggers are Mimi Smartypants, a quirky hypochondriac who displays great wit; Meredith L. Patterson; Virginia Postrel; and Listen Missy. The oldest blog directory on the Web was compiled and managed by Brigette Eaton. The events of September 11, 2001 spurred the creation of a vast number of blogs. It also marked the profusion of media and political sites which added to the diaries, techie tips, and news already in existence. The definition of weblog changed, too. Previously it meant a list of links that the blogger visited over the course of a day. After 9/11 the blog’s identity evolved into a Web journal commenting on news and current events that criticizes the media, politicians, etc. Megan McArdle started recording her thoughts in her blog Asymmetrical Information as a result of her location a few blocks from the World Trade Center. She was hired by the Economist to write for their print magazine and three years later became the magazine’s writer for its blog Free Exchange. Heather Armstrong coined a term for when blogging about your company gets you fired, “dooced.”
Dooce started in February 2001 and about a year later she was fired from her job because she included stories on her blog about people with whom she worked. Like other women bloggers, the focus of her blog changed as she aged and changed careers, married, and became a mother. The success of her blog supports her family and became a full-time job for Armstrong and her husband in 2005 when the ads she ran on her blog allowed him to quit his job. The blogosphere allows women to create projects around their interests. For example, in August 2002 Julie Powell embarked on the Julie/Julia Project, a weblog in which she cooked all the recipes in Julia Child’s book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. After the blog gained a large audience, Powell wrote a book based on her blog which was adapted into a movie Julie and Julia (2009) starring Meryl Streep. Maud Newton started blogging about books, culture, and politics in November 2002. Her eponymous blog garnered mention across major media like the New York Times, the Guardian, and the New Yorker. Jessa Crispin founded a litblog, Bookslut in 2002. Its eventual success let her support herself by writing and editing content at the site. Jeralyn Merritt, a criminal defense attorney, founded her blog TalkLeft the same year and her commentary provided criticism of the Bush administration during election years. In December 2002, Elizabeth Spiers founded Gawker.com a New York media gossip weblog. Blogging Topics In 2003, bloggers delved into topics like fashion, mothering, the gentle arts, but much attention focused on the role of sex and money in politics in Washington, D.C. Wonkette, founded by Ana Marie Cox commented on Capital Hill politics and policy matters but gained notoriety when she outed Jessica Cutler as “Washingtonienne,” a Washington, D.C., staffer who accepted money for sexual favors from Bush administration officials. She reportedly earned $250,000 for her satirical novel Dog Days, based on life in Washington, D.C. Cox also served as the token woman political blogger among predominantly male bloggers covering the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Meanwhile, Cutler sold a novel based on her blog and life, Washingtonienne: A Novel for a reported $300,000. Sexual innuendo plays an important role as
a topic for women bloggers. Cox’s Wonkettee was notable for it and Bitch Ph.D. uses sexual situations in her explorations of marriage, gender, and power. Craft, knitting, mommybloggers, and foodies joined the blogosphere in 2003. These topics represent the communities in which the majority of women post blogs and create communities. Food blogger Clotilde Dusoulier grew popular her writing about all things food-related in Chocolate and Zucchini. Pim Techamuanvivit quit her day job in the San Francisco Bay area to pursue a career in travel and food writing after Chez Pim gathered a large audience that launched her into writing for the New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, and Bon Appétit, as well as a stint as a judge on Iron Chef America. The Budget Fashionista, a fashion blog, earned Finney six figures, a lifestyle book about fashion, and media appearances on NBC and CNN. Another fashion and entertainment blog, Go Fug Yourself, was established by Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks. Other women who have gained prominence over the years in the blogosphere who started in 2003 are Ellen Simonetti, Jen Chung, and Aliza Sherman. Blogging grew more mainstream by 2004. Research showing that people high in openness to new experiences and/ or high in neuroticism were likely to blog, as well as adopters of new technology. That year women accounted for 4 percent of political blogs. The Presidential election brought the power of blogging to national attention and politicians, political consultants, candidates, and news media explored ways to use these tools for outreach and to affect public opinion. Political entrée to the practice lent blogging authority as part of the news media. Ann Althous, a law professor, blogged about in intersections of law, politics, and popular culture. Feminists like Susie Bright and Jessica Valenti, the founder of Feministing, joined the fray. In 2005, BlogHer was founded by a group of women who wanted to establish a conference for women who blog. Its mission grew to include creating opportunities for the more than 15 million women it reaches to “pursue exposure, education, community, and economic empowerment.” Clearly, blogging was recognized as a viable alternative to traditional career paths for women. The ability to run a business from home granted expanded opportunities to stay at home mothers and disabled women.
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Leslie Morgan Steiner wrote On Balance, a Washingtonpost.com blog about work–family balance between 2006 and 2008. Over two years time and 500 columns she grew into one of the most popular mommybloggers online. Parents, especially mothers, used blogs to connect with family and friends scattered across the nation. Grandparents at a geographic distance from their grandchildren had better insight into the daily life and milestones that they missed out on. Recognizing the need for contemporary topics written about, by, and for women, Slate.com launched XX Factor in fall 2007. Despite the increased numbers of women bloggers, the blogosphere can be unsafe. Kathy Sierra, who wrote the blog Head Rush, was insulted and criticized by readers. Those threats grew into promises of sexual and other kinds of violence. She stopped blogging as a result. A culture of abuse exists online targeting women journalists and bloggers. Sierra’s experience brought the issue to national attention, which spurred development of a Bloggers Code of Conduct. Time magazine inaugurated its Best Blogs list in 2008. Only three of 25 were created by women: The Huffington Post (1), Gawker (12), and Reverse Cowgirl (25). The Huffington Post was ranked the 28th most popular news site in 2008. Ironically, Arianna Huffington’s blog bylines are only 33 percent written by women. Women’s voices were historically silenced by corporate media, but there is hope that the blogosphere will open more opportunities for women, though tensions between old media and new bloggers ran high by 2009 when bloggers were blamed for the decline and precarious state of newspapers across the United States. See Also: Crafting Industry; Cyber-Stalking and Internet Harassment; Entrepreneurs; Fashion Industry; Huffington, Arianna; Internet, Nontraditional Careers, U.S.; Stay-at-Home Mothers; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Blood, Rebecca. The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Kline, David and Dan Burnstein. Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture. New York: CDS Books, 2005.
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Rosenberg, Scott. Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What it’s Becoming, and Why It Matters. New York: Crown Publishers, 2009. Rebecca Tolley-Stokes East Tennessee State University
Body Art To conform to norms of femininity, the female body has been adored, beautified, and customized to the ideal shape and look. Reclaiming the body from these oppressive regulatory methods was one of the most important agendas of feminism in the 1960s and the 1970s. Women started to use certain types of body art as a form of self-expression through which they could reclaim their bodies. Other body arts, however, are ways of adorning the body to conform to Western beauty ideas. Body art incorporates a versatile field of personal adornment procedures and modifications such as body painting, makeup, tattooing, scarification, branding, piercing, body sculpting, and gender transformation. These forms of body art can be divided into two groups: normative beauty expectations that eroticize the female body for the male gaze such as body painting, certain kinds of tattoos and piercing; and rebellion against social norms that includes such procedures as earlobe stretching, scarification, and branding. Normative Body Art Techniques The most used body painting method is makeup. The primary purpose of makeup is to make women feel that they look attractive by accentuating and shaping the lips, eyes, and cheekbones. However, when used by transvestites, gay men, male punks, New Romantics, and Goths, makeup no longer expresses social conformity but rather constructs a nonnormative sexual identity or an expression of rebellion. Body painting also can be used to paint pictures or whole paintings on the body. In this case, the skin is a surface for projecting fantasy. When applied to women’s bodies, the paintings eroticize certain body parts. If the work covers the whole body, the painting becomes a second skin. Lasting longer than regular body paint-
ing, mehndi design consists of a variety of symbols. Traditionally practiced in north Africa, southeast Asia and the Middle East, mehndi has been practiced in Western countries mostly for decorative purposes. Mehndi consists of symbolical designs and inscribes the body with meaning and offers the opportunity to embed the body with spirituality. Once considered to be outrageous, tattoos and piercings have been incorporated into the mainstream culture. Previously shocking, today tattoos have gained larger acceptance and become mere accessories. Some women use tattoos of butterflies, flowers, stars, or other beautiful drawings on their ankles, shoulders, or lower backs to boost their erotic side. Similar to tattooing, piercings of the eyebrow, navel, and the nose also have become acceptable techniques of self-adornment. These tattoos and piercings
Applying henna designs, known as Mehndi, is an ancient form of body art in the Asian subcontinent.
have gained sexual connotations conforming to heterosexual norms. Politicized Body Arts Certain types of tattoos and piercing still have a shocking effect on onlookers. Bodies covered with tattoos and radical piercings, such as of the nipple and genital areas, present bodies that express subcultural identities including homosexuality, cyberpunk, or sadomasochism (SM). Besides extreme forms of tattooing and piercing, scarification, earlobe stretching, branding, and subdermal implants are ways to altering one’s body. Many of these body alterations are rooted in indigenous cultures where they have symbolic meanings and are part of different rituals. For example, scarification is a practice used in Africa. It involves the cutting of the skin with a sharp tool to produce keloiding in different forms. In the case of branding, the design is created by burning the skin with a heated metal. Body modifiers also make use of the latest technologies as in subdermal implants in which a material is placed under the skin to create a three-dimensional effect. Body modifiers consider the alterations they produce in and on their bodies as symbolic acts through which they reclaim their own body. The body is freed from the Western regulatory beauty and sexual norms and it becomes a limitless field of experimentation and exploration. Besides its connections to indigenous rituals, body modification as a body art movement has its roots in the political activities of subcultural groups of the 1970s and the 1980s such as queer activism, punk, New Age spiritualism, pro-sex feminism, and performance art. These groups combated Western social and cultural norms. For example, queer activism made visible alternative sexualities while pro-sex feminism promulgated the idea that women should explore and take control of their sexualities. Punks expressed their disregard of society by their hairstyle, leather boots and jackets, and use of makeup. All considered the body a field of battleground and a tool through which they could express their personal values and approaches to life. Feminist performance artists such as Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke, Yayoi Kusama, and Annie Sprinkle exposed the sexuality of the female body in obscene and vulgar ways, upsetting and thus undermining the sexualizing male gaze. Others
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reclaimed the body by exploring the symbolic power of body alterations such as smearing, burning, and skin cutting. These performances resembled rituals of passage in which the woman’s body was freed from oppressive social norms. With body art, the physical body becomes a source of self-definition and selfexploration through which a new self is created. Self-Actualization The body politics involved in body modifications is well summarized by Cordelia, who appears in Ted Polhemus’s 1996 book, The Customized Body, illustrated by Housk Randall. For Cordelia, piercing was not a fashion accessory. For her it represents a symbolic act through which she regains ownership of her body. According to Cordelia, “My body wasn’t mine until I claimed it through piercing. I didn’t do it for fashion.” The character enjoys experimenting with her body: “I like modifying and re-creating my body in many ways; this is exciting.” Cordelia uses these experimentations to define herself as “somewhere between a man and a woman.” The same desire to own one’s body is expressed by the women interviewed by author Victoria Pitts-Taylor in 2003. The women who underwent the painful ritual of scarification claimed that through these rituals they asserted their authority over their own bodies. These rituals, often performed among supportive friends, are regarded as a rite of passage. Before the body modifications, their body was an object of abuse. After inscribing particularly those body parts that were abused such as breast, genitals, and lower abdomen, the self-body relationship is transformed. The body is returned to its rightful owner. One of the women, Elaine, described her body modification as a process through which she was “brought back” to her body. Some of the women interviewed by Pitts-Taylor were members of lesbian SM communities. Spectacular body marks are part of the practices used by several sexual subcultures, such as radical gays and lesbians, trans gender individuals and leather people. Queering the body is an exploration of erotic and sexual expression. At the same time, it “reflects a politicized aesthetics of deviance, where overt bodily display is seen as a powerful affront to essentializing norms,” wrote Pitts-Taylor. Body art incorporates diverse methods of presenting and marking the body. For women, some of the body
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arts are ways of accessorizing their physical selves by making their bodies desirable objects for men to appreciate. For others, such body arts as radical tattooing, piercing, scarification, and branding have strong personal and highly political meanings that allow women to reclaim control of their bodies and at the same time rebel against the patriarchal rules of society. For these women, body art is a vehicle for self-expression that also builds different subcultural communities. Body art is defined on a personal level by the individual who chooses to undergo the modifications, and is viewed by society in a larger context as either a conforming, fashionable accessory or a rebellion against social norms. See Also: Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Body Image; Feminism, American; Queer Theory. Further Readings Clinton, Sanders and Angus D. Vail. Customizing the Body: The Art and Culture of Tattooing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. Fabius, Carine. Mehndi: Art of Henna Body Painting. New York: Random House. 1998. Groning, K. and F. Anton. Decorated Skin: A World Survey of Body Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001. Hewitt, Kim. Mutilating the Body: Identity in Blood and Ink. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997. Hudson, Karen L., ed. Chink Ink: 40 Stories of Tattoos and the Women Who Wear Them. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2007. Jones, Amelia. Body Art: Performing the Subject. London: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Mifflin, Margot. Bodies of Subversion: The Secret History of Women and Tattoo. New York: Juno Publishing, 2001. Osterud, Amelia Klem. The Tattooed Lady: A History. Golden, CO: Speck Press, 2009. Pitts-Taylor, V. In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Polhemus, Ted. Hot Bodies, Cool Styles: New Techniques in Self-Adornment. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Polhemus, Ted and Housk Randall. The Customized Body. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1996. Vergine, Lea. Body Art: The Body as Language. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000. Zita Farkas Independent Scholar
Body Image The term body image refers to how people think and feel about their bodies. It can be healthy or unhealthy and will probably change a few times over the course of one’s life. Body image develops as a result of various influences, including personal experience, how individuals physically perceive themelves, and feedback one receives from their environment. Responses from the environment include how people are treated by others as well as socialization from the multiple cultures that influence every person such as family, ethnicity, religion, and social class. General societal influences like the media also impact how people perceive themselves. There have been varying images of the “ideal body” throughout history and across cultures. A healthy body image is marked by a realistic perception and acceptance of one’s size and shape. This type of person is comfortable with what she sees in the mirror, has a sound sense of self-worth, and generally likes herself. This also is a reflection of congruence between how one thinks of their body and sociocultural expectations about how one should look. An unhealthy body image typically includes shame and/or anxiety about how one looks. There may be comparison with others, or with the idealized cultural norm regarding how women should look. This person may or may not have a realistic understanding of her body size and shape. It is important to point out that one’s body image does not necessarily reflect how closely a person mirrors the idealized norm for size and appearance. Just because there are enormous pressures on women to look a certain way or face social rejection does not mean she sees herself as others do. Women who are considered physically attractive by others may still have an unhealthy and negative body image. This is a reflection of the complex relationship between cultural expectations, socialization, physical attributes, and personal experience in the formation of one’s body image. Origins of Body Image Ideals Throughout the world, women are socialized to believe in a cultural definition of female attributes. From the time a girl is born, she is told which clothes are appropriate for her to wear, what kind of hairstyle is fitting for a female; which toys to play with or
activities to undertake; how much to help the family with household duties and responsibilities; and many other specifically female messages. If the girl is privileged enough to be educated, she is expected to focus on certain types of studies rather than others. When the female enters the workforce, regardless of her age or education level, she is relegated to certain types of work and expected to engage in certain behaviors, but not others, while doing that work. Thus, women worldwide are considered subservient to men, expected to care for others throughout their lives, and when allowed to work outside of the home, tend to be relegated to professions that help others. The overarching force behind these phenomena is colonialism, which tends to bring with it patriarchy, heteronormativity and classism. Colonialism has affected most, if not all, of the world and, even though there are sometimes shifts in global powers, the idea that select, very rich and powerful nations control the rest of the world seems to stay the same. Colonialism has historically favored rich, heterosexual men with light skin. There are complex historical processes at work in each culture that has experienced colonization, but the fact remains that rich, light-skinned, presumably heterosexual men have been dominating the public and personal spaces of almost every culture around the world for hundreds of years. Patriarchy requires that men are separate from women so that privileged men may maintain control over everyone else (i.e., women and unprivileged males). Heteronormativity, or the assumption that everyone is or should be heterosexual, helps maintain patriarchy such that there are two distinct sexes, man and woman, and every woman needs to be paired with a man. The end result is that men with privilege remain powerful while women tend to be considered subservient to them and feel pressure to conform to societal standards to be accepted by men, affiliate with at least one male, and thereby acquire some measure of power in a system that would otherwise render a woman invisible. Almost universally around the world, women’s bodies are treated with less respect than a man’s. Whether the discussion is on pregnancy, contraception, abortion, or childbirth; rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, or sexual terrorism; how much women are paid relative to men for the same work; or even if women are allowed to work outside the home, vote, or hold
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office, the fact remains that women are objectified in patriarchal systems that reign worldwide. Some cultures want women to be unseen, so they must cover all or most of their body when in public. Other cultures think a woman should put her body on display for men, so skimpy and revealing clothes are considered attractive. Some cultures dictate women to have long hair while others demand that women have no body hair. Regardless of the details, for all of these socialization processes, women are forced into rigid, stereotypical categories and only considered socially acceptable if they conform. The Idealized Image The idealized image of a woman in the Western world is someone who is light-skinned, able-bodied, young, extremely thin, and presumably heterosexual. In the transgender community, where a person’s gender identity does not “match” the identity typically associated with their biological anatomy, there are still stereotypical rules about what kind of appearance and behavior can “pass” as female. In these circles, wearing wigs and makeup, as well as taking hormones to raise one’s voice or developing larger breasts are preferred; and Facial Feminization Surgery or Gender Reassignment Surgery are all options to help someone live and “pass” as a woman. Historically, each culture has their own idealized image of what a women is but the homogenizing force of colonialism has replaced local standards with Western preferences of beauty in almost every country worldwide. This is occurring in different ways around the world. In Asia, it means women should have larger breasts, thinner legs, and wider eyes. In Africa and Latin America, it means a thinner body with fewer curves and lighter skin. In the United States, Western Europe, and Australia, there is a continued focus on being thin with “white” skin. In all of these countries, a woman must be heterosexual and able-bodied to be fully accepted in society. The consequence of not living up to this image varies but usually includes some form of social rejection, from inability to make friends, form romantic partnerships or even find employment. Overall, the idealized image of how a woman should look remains untouched across age, social class, educational level, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and even nationality, no matter who is enacting these roles.
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Perpetrators of Body Image Ideals It used to be that the ideal body varied across culture around the world. Today, colonialism and globalization have resulted in the imposition of the colonizer’s preferences. Western images of the ideal woman, delivered worldwide through colonization, the Internet, and other types of media, has infiltrated most of the socalled industrialized world. This affects each country differently, but the fact remains that all women are told consistently and incessantly by the media and other socializing influences how to look if they want to be considered socially acceptable. In fact, there seems to be a direct relationship between the presence of Western media and a woman’s body image. In general, greater exposure to Western media leads to greater dissatisfaction with one’s body. This is happening worldwide as women try to look more Western. The medical community, including cosmetic surgery specialists and the diet-weight loss industry all contribute to the conforming pressures of Western culture. Constructs such as height-weight charts arbitrarily impose standards that the research community has consistently determined are incorrect because they do not account for muscle mass, bone structure or other important factors related to a person’s body shape. Still, they are widely used and health professionals often tell patients to change their behavior to conform to the chart’s numbers. Many people who are overweight experience discrimination by medical professionals, who spend less time with them overall and often assume they are unhealthy because of their weight or appearance. The diet and exercise industry is a multibillion dollar business in the United States alone that sells the idea that one should look a certain way to be healthy and happy. What they do not say is that most diet fads do not lead to increased health, and that one may lose weight but it may be muscle instead of body fat. Again, what ends up being sold to the consumer is the idea that their body needs to be changed in some way to be socially acceptable. Cosmetic surgery sells a similar message but with the added promise of a “quick fix” to physical imperfections. This industry continues to grow exponentially each year in many countries around the world. Body image may seem like a superficial phenomenon but it is consistently related to one’s sense of selfworth. From infancy, data show that people who are considered attractive get more positive attention from
their parents and other people in their environment. This means that they are interacted with more as children and are more likely to be considered intelligent, capable and successful academically and vocationally. As adolescents and adults, attractive people generally have more friends, engage in more dating and peer interactions, and tend to be hired more quickly, even in a job that is not based on one’s appearance. When one understands this, it is not hard to see why some people are willing to engage in risky or unhealthy behaviors in an attempt to be considered more attractive or socially acceptable. Consequences of an Unhealthy Body Image Dissatisfaction with one’s body is found among the majority of women in the West. It also is spreading around the globe as women are increasingly compared to the Western image of beauty and blame themselves if they don’t measure up. This is more pronounced in affluent areas where people live a more Western lifestyle (i.e., consumerist, individualistic). Affluent Asian females living in westernized areas like Hong Kong or Tokyo have the highest levels of body dissatisfaction in the world. Women in the United States and Australia are a close second followed by western Europe. Women in Latin and South American countries have body images in the mid-range, except for Argentina, which has a greater European influence. Women in the Middle East and Africa have the lowest dissatisfaction with their bodies but this is changing in nations like Israel and South Africa, as they adopt a more Western lifestyle. Results of Poor Body Image There are many consequences to dissatisfied body image. The almost universal consequence is a lowered sense of self-worth, which can negatively impact the pursuit of one’s goals, general sense of happiness in life, belief that they deserve to be treated well by others, and more. Many people do not feel worthy of attempting to make friend with others, which can lead to social isolation, depression, and decreased opportunities for realizing their academic, career or life goals. Others are so dissatisfied with their bodies that they are willing to go to extreme measures to achieve the so-called “ideal” body. Poor body image is the number one predictor of who develops an eating disorder. The growing num-
bers of eating disturbance seem to point to women who are unhappy with their bodies. Some women binge and purge (i.e., eat normal or large amounts of food and then get rid of the food by throwing up, using laxatives, or other means); others starve themselves; and a number engage in a combination of the two. Some women over exercise, causing physical harm to their bodies by overly taxing their system. Many women use substances, both legal or illegal, to affect their weight, either by curbing hunger, helping remove food from their bodies, or furnishing them with the energy to exercise without eating very much food. These behaviors are unhealthy and they can lead to nutritional deficiencies, electrolyte imbalances, physical problems, and even death. Eating disorders were once characterized as a Western problem that affected higher class, white females. Now it is a problem found in women of all classes across the world. In fact, Medellin, Colombia, is considered the world capital of eating disorders. While the United States still holds the record for annual number of deaths due to eating disorders, Japan currently is in second place with various European, Asian, and Latin American countries following. Both South Africa and Israel continue to record increases in eating disorders. While specific symptoms vary by culture, the entire world has seen a sharp increase in the number of people suffering from eating disorders in an attempt to conform to the Western image of beauty. The only areas that seem to be spared from this sweeping body image movement are Middle Eastern countries that do not allow Western influences into the culture. There also has been an increase in cosmetic surgery worldwide among women with the means to afford the procedures. A steadily increasing number of people choose to undergo cosmetic surgery to change their appearance so that they look more like a thin, light-skinned woman with long, thin legs, a long nose, and a curvaceous bust line. This suggests that many women are dissatisfied with their bodies; these facts also point to how much physical appearance is tied to a sense of self-satisfaction. The procedures requested tend to vary by nation. In Asian countries, where many women are already thin, the most common requests are eyelid restructuring and leg slimming procedures to look more Western. In the United States, Latin America, and Africa, women tend to
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request procedures that will make their breasts larger or firmer, and their skin look younger and thinner. Brazil is considered the cosmetic surgery capital of the world, though Thailand is the world leader in male-to-female sex changes. The United States has long been a leader in cosmetic surgery, but other countries that have historically denounced cosmetic surgery, such as Japan, China, and Korea, are quickly coming on board. The high price tag associated with these procedures leads many people to travel to other parts of the world where it is cheaper. This has led to an exponential increase in cosmetic surgery in places like South Africa, New Zealand, India, and Turkey, among other nations. It may be unfair to argue that increasing rates of eating disturbance, excessive dieting and exercise, drug use, and plastic surgery are directly tied to poor body image. Women have been altering their bodies throughout time to conform to the local standard of beauty. Chinese women bound their feet, Victorian ladies wore corsets, women removed ribs to have smaller waistlines, and other practices around the world demonstrate the impact of social expectations on women over the centuries, if not millennia. What seems to be increasing is the reach of colonialism and influence of a globalized media. With a global economy comes the transmission of idealized images. Society should consider this: what needs to happen for women to be accepted for who they are, rather than how well they fulfill the fantasies of men in power? Various feminist theories and, more recently, Queer Theory, have already started this discussion. What is clear is that if people have social support from people who care about and accept them for who they are, their body image is more likely to be healthy and there are decreased risks of developing negative consequences related to poor body image. See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward; Bariatric Surgery; Breast Reduction/Enlargement Surgery; Cosmetic Surgery; Diet Industry; Eating Disorders; Gender Reassignment Surgery. Further Readings Atkins, Dawn, ed. Looking Queer: Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities. London: Haworth, 1998.
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Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Grogan, Sarah. Body Image: Understanding Body Dissatisfaction in Men, Women and Children, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008. Martin, Courtney E. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body. New York: Free Press, 2007. Savacool, Julia. The World Has Curves: The Global Quest for the Perfect Body. New York: Rodale, 2009. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Geneva Reynaga-Abiko University of California, Merced
Bolivia Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America that shares borders with Peru, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil and shares control of Lake Titicaca with Peru. The population is split among two indigenous groups, Chechua (30 percent) and Aymara (25 percent); mestizo or mixed ancestry 30 percent; and white (15 percent). Over 90 percent of the population identify themselves as Roman Catholic, most of the remainder as Protestant. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, due in part to a history of political unrest. In 2009, the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $4,600 put Bolivia in the middle third of reporting countries, but inequality is extreme: Bolivia’s Gini Index of 59.2 is the 7th highest in the world and an estimated 60 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Bolivia is the world’s third-largest cultivator of coca (used to create cocaine and heroin) and is also a transit country for illegal drugs. In 2009, the population of Bolivia was almost 10 million. Despite a negative net migration index, a high birth rate (25.8 per 1,000 population) and fertility rate (3.2 children per woman) gave the country a growth rate of 1.8 percent. The population structure is typical of a developing country, with a low median age (21.9 years in 2009) and over 35 percent of the
population age 14 or younger. Life expectancy at birth is 64.2 years for males and 69.7 years for females. Status of Women Literacy is lower for women (80.7 percent) than for men (93.1 percent). Although an even number of boys and girls enroll in primary school, about 6 percent more boys attend secondary school. In 2007, women held about 17 percent of the seats in Bolivia’s lower house of parliament and 4 percent in the upper house. Almost 60 percent of Bolivian women age 15 and older are employed, as compared with over 80 percent of Bolivian men age 15 and older. Overall, the male/female ratio is almost even, but men and women are not distributed equally throughout the country. In 2001, there were 91.9 females for every 100 males in rural areas versus 106 females per 100 males in urban areas. Abortion is legal only to save a woman’s life or to preserve her mental and physical health. In 2004, almost 60 percent of Bolivian women reported using contraception, but only 34.9 percent used modern methods of birth control. Many people in Bolivia have limited access to healthcare, which is reflected in poor maternal and child health outcomes. For instance, in 2000 the maternal mortality rate was 420 per 100,000 live births and the infant mortality rate was 51 per 1,000 live births for females and 60 per 1,000 live births for males. The international organization Save the Children ranks Bolivia 44th among 75 Tier II or less developed countries on its Women’s Index, 44th on its Mothers’ Index, and 50th on its Children’s Index. See Also: Drug Trade; Educational Opportunities/ Access; Indigenous Women’s Rights, Bolivia; Poverty; Roman Catholic Church; Wars of National Liberation, Women in. Further Readings Dore, Elizabeth and Maxine Molyneux. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Hepburn, S. and R. J. Simon. Women’s Roles and Statuses the World Over. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Save the Children. “State of the World’s Mothers 2009: Investing in the Early Years.” http://www.save thechildren.org/publications/?WT.mc_id=1109 _hp_hd_pub (accessed February 2009).
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United Nations Statistics Divisions. “UNdata: A World of Information: Gender Info.” http://data.un.org/Explorer .aspx?d=GenderStat (accessed February 2010). World Health Organization. “World Health Report Statistical Annex, Annexes by Country (A-F).” http:// www.who.int/entity/whr/2005/annex/indicators _country_a-f.pdf (accessed February 2010). Sarah Boslaugh Washington University School of Medicine
Bollywood Generally agreed to have entered popular usage in the mid-1970s and often attributed to filmmaker Amit Khanna, the term Bollywood combines Hollywood with Bombay, the anglicized name for the western Indian city now known as Mumbai. Despite the protests of critics who prefer the term Indian film industry, Bollywood remains a popular term because it evokes the cultural particularities for which Hindi cinema is best known, including the Mumbai-based film industry, which features Indian actresses who have set the standards of beauty throughout south Asia for the past 50 years; the three-hour-length melodrama format, often featuring tales of forbidden love, and at least four music and dance interludes; and a visual aesthetic characterized by bright colors, elaborate costumes, idealized gender stereotypes of passive women and heroic men, and stylized gestures with roots in ancient south Asian styles of performance. Bollywood film production is dominated by men, but its actresses have a degree of fame and wealth far exceeding the vast majority of women in south Asia. Bollywood films draw many of these characteristics from nautanki—traveling shows that circulated throughout north India before the advent of cinema and television technologies. Based on reenactments of Hindu epic literature, particularly the Ramayana and Mahabharata, this style of performance featured many of the elements common to Bollywood films today, particularly in terms of highly stratified gender roles, themes of duty and obligation to family members, and, above all, the conversion of disorder into order through the almost-inevitable happy ending.
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Contemporary Bollywood films have their roots in the introduction of cinema technology to India during the British colonial period (c. 1858–1947). Regular showings of English-language films took place in Mumbai from the late 1890s, and by 1900, Parsi entrepreneurs F. B. Thanalwala and R. G. Phalke were among the first to begin making films with Indian content, including the first film about the city, Splendid New Views of Bombay (1900). India’s first story film, Pundalik (1912), followed the nautanki tradition of narrating the life of a Hindu religious figure as a form of secular entertainment, which remains a popular film format today. Movie theaters and film censors emerged in 1918 with the passage of the Indian Cinematograph Act, although the film industry continued to be a site of stigma for women because it involved public appearances in front of men outside the family. Early actresses often came from tawaif (hereditary courtesan) families who could no longer support themselves through patronage from wealthy families. Other actresses came from families that were from communities that were not Hindu or Muslim. For instance, the first major Hindi film production, Shakuntala (1919), told the story of a female heroine from the epic Mahabharata and starred American actress Dorothy Kingdom. Many other actresses were Anglo-Indian (of mixed English/Indian heritage) or Jewish, such as Sulochana, whose real name was Ruby Mayers. Sulochana starred in a number of films throughout the 1920s that dealt with the difficulties women faced in the workplace, such as Telephone Girl (1926), Typist Girl (1926), and Wild Cat of Bombay (1927). There were numerous other actresses like her, all of whom were either foreign or came from marginalized groups in India, such as Fearless Nadia, an Australian woman known for her stunt performances. By the early 1930s, several Hindi film production companies were vying with one another, and the Bollywood genre began to take more concrete shape. Films such as Daulat ka Nasha (Money Is a Drug, 1931) and Kisan Kanya (Village Maiden, 1937) set the precedent for numerous future films of a genre that superficially purported to “expose” an unfortunate (and usually sexualized) social condition, such as the plight of widows or low-caste women, while titillating their predominantly male audiences in the process.
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Bollywood films ranked as the eighth-highest earner among all Indian industries, employing over 40,000 people, with 1,496 theaters, including 500 touring cinemas by 1940. This burgeoning industry became institutionalized in the 1950s with the emergence of actors and performers who remain iconic figures today, such as Raj Kapoor, Nargis, and Lata Mangeshkar. Indian cinema first gained international acclaim with the release of Bengali-language filmmaker Satjajit Ray’s Pathar Panchali (The Song of the Road, 1955), which won six European film awards. By this time, the Indian film industry had largely become self-sufficient, with its own technicians, producers, and performers. One of the greatest markers in the history of Hindi cinema is the release of Mughal-e-Azam (The Emperor of the Mughals, 1960), which was 15 years in production and cost over $1 million to make. The film was the well-known story of Anarkali, a Mughal courtesan sentenced to death by entombment for flirtatiously glancing at the son of her patron. It combined poetry and history on an extravagant scale with an all-star cast and remains a classic and much-beloved film. A number of films produced throughout the 1960s used Mumbai itself as a central theme, and the city and its most famous industry remain inseparable for many south Asians. Examples of such films include Shahar aur Sapna (City and Dream, 1963), in which a poor young couple unsuccessfully searches for a home of their own, and Gumrah (Lost, 1964), in which Bombay is depicted as an immoral place where married women are led astray. Several rather selfreflective films also emerged in this period, including Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (Hero, 1966), which commented on the personal dilemmas created by fame, with reallife Bengali icon Uttam Kumar cast in the lead role. Many films in the late 1960s and early 1970s began to feature song-and-dance sequences set in prominent locations throughout western Europe. Although completely unrelated to the plot, these musical interludes added a sense of exotic glamour to familiar dilemmas that were by this point very familiar to Indian viewers, such as suitability for marriage and moral dilemmas surrounding courtship. A vibrant print media chronicled the lives of well-known Hindi film performers from the late 1960s onward in meticulous detail. Magazines such as Filmfare and Stardust emerged during this period and continue to be popular with south Asians and those in the diaspora.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, almost 800 Hindi films were being made each year in Mumbai, although the south Asian diaspora became an increasingly popular topic by the end of the decade. This stems in part from the vast socioeconomic changes India underwent beginning in 1991, when a balance-of-payments crisis spurred the implementation of the International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment policies that privileged foreign investment, and thus opened an enormous range of new consumer and lifestyle choices for urban Indians. By the late 1990s, Hindi films began to diversify substantially, catering to different markets with unique tastes and desires; this trend is likely to continue. Female filmmakers remain a small minority, yet many young women still highly covet roles as actresses in films and aspire to the adulation film stars receive in the world’s second most populous nation. See Also: Celebrity Women; Gender Roles, CrossCultural; Gandhi, Sonia; Hindu Female Gurus and Living Saints; India; International Monetary Fund; Pakistan. Further Readings Dwyer, R. Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Ganti, Tejaswini. Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Indian Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2004. Susan Dewey Indiana University, Bloomington
Bosnia and Herzegovina The statistical data for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is not reliable because there was no census after 1991. Nevertheless, the relevant United Nations agencies have some projected data. According to these data, there are approximately 3.8 million people living in BiH, half of which are women, out of which 35 percent are employed. Even though there are a greater number of educated women than educated men (20 percent of women compared to 17 percent men have attended higher educational institutions), they earn 20 to 50 percent less than men. In addition to these data, the situation of women in BiH can be best illustrated with the fact that women
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are disproportionately affected by at least two transitions that BiH has entered. The first transition started in the late 1980s and is understood as the political and economic transition (from the socialist system). The second transition is the transition from the war into the post–war society that started with the signing of Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995. These transitions have affected women in such way that previously secured social and economic rights and support systems were lost (health, pension, social security, and childcare systems are barely functional). The war between 1992 and 1995 enormously victimized women. Women who survived genocide may have lost their male family members or were survivors of sexual violence. In many places elderly, displaced, or refugee women were the only ones that returned to their empty villages. The post–war period marked a significant increase in trafficking of women. In respect to the legal framework, the Constitution of BiH prohibits gender discrimination; the Gender Equality Law was adopted in 2003 and as a consequence gender mechanisms were established (state Gender Equality Agency and two of this entity’s Gender Centers). Most of the forms of the violence against women, including domestic violence, have been criminalized, but this has not yet resulted in a decrease in violence against women. The political representation of women is very low. In 2010, in the Parliament of BiH only 5 women (11.9 percent) are delegates in the House of Representatives, while 13 percent of women are delegates in the House of Peoples. The Council of Ministers has no female ministers and only two women are deputy ministers. Women are trying to make their voices heard through their participation in nongovernmental organizations. Significant numbers of women activists are working in the academia and in the fields of cultural production trying to articulate the sociological, cultural and theoretical frameworks for gender equality in BiH. See Also: Domestic Violence; Rape in Conflict Zones; Trafficking, Women and Children. Further Readings Arsenijevi´c, Damir, et al. “Women Writing in Red Ink: Women’s Writing and Socio-Political Change in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.” In Elisaveta Blagojevi´c, et al., eds., Gender and Identity: Theories
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From and/or on Southeast Europe. Belgrade, Serbia: Women’s Studies and Gender Research Center, 2006. Dzumhur, Jasminka. “Bejining +15 Regional Review Meeting. Geneva, November 2009. UNDP Panel Discussion on Enhancing Women’s Political Participation.” http://europeandcis.undp.org/uploads /public1/files/Dzumhur.doc (accessed June 2010). Husanovic, Jasmina. “The Politics of Gender, Witnessing, Postcoloniality and Trauma: Bosnian Feminist Trajectories.” Feminist Theory, v.10/1 (2009). G. Mlinarevic University of Sarajevo
Botox Botox is a brand name for botulinum toxin type A (botulinum), a neurotoxic protein. The substance is commonly used for the reduction of facial wrinkles. In the United States, in 2008, botulinum was administered more than 5 million times—a quadrupling since 2000. Botulinum injections made up about half of the 10.4 million “minimally invasive” cosmetic surgery procedures reported by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in 2008. Worldwide, across various demographics and ethnicities, it is the most common cosmetic surgery treatment; women make up approximately 91 percent of its users. This entry traces the history of botulinum, its administration, side effects, and cultural implications. Botulinum toxin is a naturally occurring poison found in decomposing meat. While the contraction of botulism from contaminated food can be fatal, when highly diluted and purified the toxin has therapeutic uses. British scientist Arnold Burgen discovered in 1949 that botulinum blocks neuromuscular transmission and can be injected directly into muscles to cause temporary paralysis. He undertook experiments to test the substance’s efficacy in treating tics, spasms and other neuromuscular disorders. Botulinum was approved for therapeutic use in the United States or conditions of the eye, such as uncontrollable blinking, in 1984. It was later noted that the wrinkles of patients were lessened; in 2002 the drug was approved for use in treatment of facial lines. It has since been aggressively
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marketed as a wrinkle treatment by its U.S. manufacturer, Allergan Pharmaceuticals, under the trade name Botox. Botox has become a household name and is one of the most widely recognized prescription medicines in the world. Hence, botulinum is often conflated with Botox, although the product is also produced by other companies under the labels BTXA, Botutox, Estetox-A, Refinex, Novotox, Canitox, QuickStar, Linurase, Dysport, and Neuronox. Botulinum is part of a suite of nonsurgical cosmetic surgery procedures and is administered, usually without anesthetic, via a very fine needle into multiple points on the face. It takes about four days for the effects to be seen. Side effects can include temporary flu-like symptoms, headaches, hematoma, bruising, drooping eyelids, and double vision. Some scientists maintain that botulinum has not been used long enough to accurately determine its carcinogenic or long-term effects. Botulinum injections diminish the appearance of wrinkles on the face, especially those around the eyes, on the forehead and between the eyebrows. As with other cosmetic surgery, it is most often used by women aged 40 to 54. However, it is also marketed to the public as a means of avoiding the development of wrinkles in a preemptive manner. The product can cause a “frozen” or “plastic-” looking face, and is often criticized for the way it diminishes the range of facial expressions available, especially to actors. Botulinum’s effects last about 120 days. It is dispensed in glass vials that each hold enough liquid for several injections. In 2008, the average cost of a botulinum treatment in the United States was $500. The substance has a four-hour life once a vial is opened but not all recipients need an entire vial. To address this discrepancy some patients and surgeons host “Botox parties,” where the cost is shared between multiple recipients. These gatherings, held in clinics or in private homes, have become part of the popular mythology around Botox. A Botox party, for instance, was featured in the pilot of the Nip/Tuck television series. Botox parties are indication of how cosmetic surgery, once kept secret and hidden, is, in the early 21st century, far more acceptable: even a status symbol. The parties are controversial in part because of the likelihood of alcohol being imbibed while undergoing a medical procedure. In 2008, they were banned by the United Kingdom’s General Medical Council.
Botulinum’s effects are evident on the faces of many high-profile women, especially celebrities. However, as with other cosmetic surgery, it is still rare to publicly admit using the product. Along with all cosmetic surgery, botulinum is changing perceptions of how ageing is managed and of “acceptable” standards of femininity and beauty. See Also: Aging, Attitudes Toward; Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; Cosmetics Industry; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Our Bodies, Ourselves; Representation of Women. Further Readings Carruthers, A. and J. Carruthers. “BOTOX Treatment for Expressive Facial Lines and Wrinkles.” Current Opinion Otolaryngol Head Neck Surgery, v.8 (2000). Cooke, Grayson. “Effacing the Face: Botox and the Anarchivic Archive.” Body & Society, v.14 (2008). Gilman, Sander. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Haiken, Elizabeth. Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Jones, Meredith. Skintight: A Cultural Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2008. Misra, Peter. “The Changed Image of Botulinum Toxin.” British Medical Journal, v.325 (2002). Meredith Jones University of Technology, Sydney
Botswana The Republic of Botswana is often described as a flourishing multiparty democracy with a growing economy. However, women are still inadequately represented in high political and decision-making positions. In addition, despite the country’s economic growth, there has also been an increase in poverty and social inequality. The relatively small population of 1.84 million has both a high per capita income, estimated at $13,300 in 2008, and one of the world’s highest human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection rates. The national prevalence rate among adults
Botswana aged 15 to 29 years is 24 percent. Women have an increased risk for HIV infection, and men aged 15 to 24 years experience an HIV prevalence rate of 5.7 percent, whereas women of the same age group experience prevalence rates of 15.3 percent. Botswana has had a developed institutional framework to advance gender equality since the 1980s and has ratified several international and regional instruments regarding women’s civil, political, socioeconomic, and cultural rights; for example, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Although the Constitution entitles men and women to equal fundamental rights and freedoms, accessing those rights depends on the application of common or customary law. The state reserves the right to confine rights on the basis of sex on “reasonable grounds,” often meaning that customary laws that discriminate against women continue to be reinforced.
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The 2004 Abolition of Marital Power Act, which abolished the common-law principle of marital power, reducing women to minor status, is one measure that has been implemented to address gender inequality. However, this act, too, has its flaws. The act does not define marriage, and therefore lacks universal application, as it only applies to civil marriages. Most women are married customarily, effectively meaning that marital power still applies. Since the 1980s, Botswana has been the world’s principal producer of diamonds, and mining is its most important industry. Tourism is also significant to the economy, although agriculture provides a livelihood for the majority of people. Because the country has a dual legal system, women have limited ownership rights in relation to access to land and property, compromising women’s rights and economic opportunities. Social attitudes and legislative structures are conservative regarding nonheteronormative sexual practice. For instance, in 1998 the penal code further criminalized same-sex sexual activity by extending the law to criminalize same-sex activities between women. In 2002, Gender Links and the Media Institute of Southern Africa reported that women only accounted for 16 percent of known news sources. Bessie Head, one of Africa’s most prominent writers, moved to Botswana in 1964 as a refugee and was given citizenship in 1979. She died in Botswana in 1986. Her three major novels, When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power were written during her time in Botswana. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; Marriage; Property Rights; Sexual Orientation-Based Legal Discrimination: Outside United States.
Botswana confines rights based upon “reasonable grounds,” so that laws that discriminate against sex are still reinforced.
Further Readings Alexander, Elsie. Beyond Inequalities 2005: Women in Botswana. Harare, Zimbabwe/Gaborone, Botswana: Southern African Research and Documentation Centre, 2005. Griffiths, Anne. “Women’s Worlds, Siblings in Dispute Over Inheritance: A View From Botswana.” Africa Today, v.49/1 (2002). Leslie, Agnes Ngoma. Social Movements and Democracy in Africa: The Impact of Women’s Struggle for Equal Rights in Botswana. London: Routledge, 2006.
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Upton, Rebecca, L. “‘Women Have No Tribe’: Connecting Carework, Gender, and Migration in an Era of HIV/ AIDS in Botswana.” Gender and Society, v.17/2 (2003). Danai S. Mupotsa Monash University
Bowers, Marci Dr. Marci Bowers emerged in the first years of the 21st century as one of the premier surgeons performing sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) in the United States and the world. She performs SRS at Mount San Rafael Hospital in Trinidad, Colorado, continuing the practice in sex-change surgery begun there by Dr. Stanley Biber in 1969. Their work has made Trinidad a mecca for those men and women seeking to transition, that is, to align through surgery their sex and their gender identity. Born Mark Bowers in 1958, Dr. Marci Bowers had known from her childhood that her male genitalia did not align with her gender identity as a woman. She began transitioning about 1996. In 2003, at the invitation of Dr. Biber, she joined him in Trinidad and began working with him on sex reassignment surgeries. By the summer, she had succeeded him in the practice, becoming the first American transsexual surgeon to perform SRS in the United States. A Wisconsin native, Marci Bowers attended the University of Wisconsin before going on to receive her medical training at the University of Minnesota where she completed her studies in 1986. She did her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle where she initially practiced at The Polyclinic and, since 2002, at Seattle Reproductive Healthcare. Dr. Bowers worked solely in obstetrics and gynecology in Seattle until she joined Dr. Biber in Trinidad, Colorado. Since then, she has divided her career between her practices in Washington and Colorado. Dr. Biber was among the first surgeons, along with physicians at both the Johns Hopkins and Stanford university medical centers, to perform SRS in the United States. Using the penile inversion techniques originally developed by the French gynecologist, George Burou, at his clinic in Casablanca during the
1960s and 1970s, Biber passed his techniques on to Dr. Bowers who has continued to make innovations in the complex surgery of converting penis and scrotum into vagina and labia, in particular the use of the glans in clitoral construction. Dr. Bowers also performs her surgeries in line with the Standards of Care set forth by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly the Harry Benjamin Institute, of which she is a member. In 2009, Dr. Bowers began using her SRS expertise to perform innovative reparative gynoplasty for African and Middle Eastern women who have been subject to female circumcision, a severe mutilation of female genitalia. She began working in this area in France with Dr. Pierre Foldes, a urologist, supported by the Clitoraid Foundation. She brought her work back to the United States where she has initiated reparative gynoplasty in her clinic in Trinidad. In particular, she has worked to rebuild not only labia but the clitoris as well, restoring feelings of “wholeness” to women and the potential for sexual pleasure. The recipient of numerous awards, Dr. Bowers is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology. She is also on the board of the Ingersoll Gender Center and the advisory board for the Midwives’ Association of Washington State as well as a member of WPATH, the European Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. See Also: Female Genital Surgery; Gender, Defined; Gender Dysphoria; Gender Reassignment Surgery; Medical Research, Gender Issues; Physicians, Female; Transgender; Women’s Health Clinics. Further Readings Conant, Eve. “The Kindest Cut.” Newsweek (October 20, 2009). http://www.newsweek.com/id/218692 (accessed June 2010). Jackson, Chris. “The ‘Transational’ Dr. Marci Bowers.” Lavender Magazine: Minnesota’s GLBT Magazine. http://www.lavendermagazine.com/archives/issue-340 /the-%E2%80%9Ctransational%E2%80%9D-dr-marci -bowers (accessed October 2009). Marci L. Bowers, M.D. http://marcibowers.com (accessed September 2009). Mark Reger Limestone College
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Boxing Referred to as the “sweet science,” evidence suggests that the sport of boxing has existed since early civilization. Boxing was a sporting competition in the ancient Olympic games and continues to have a strong sport presence in modern times. Boxing is a dichotomous sport, as it has various facets of appeal and disdain. In its malign, the sport has been identified as being an excessively brutal activity with controversial connections to gambling and organized crime. Boxing displays gender differences and inequalities that have shaped its development in our culture. The sport has been directly linked with gender ideology, as scholars have denoted the intrinsically masculine nature of the activity. Boxing is an exciting and captivating sport. Along with the associated excitement, there are various trepidations associated with boxing; primary concerns include the inherent risk of injury or death. With such serious apprehensions, one may wonder why individuals, both participants and spectators, would choose to partake in a sport that has been described as “blood thirsty” and “barbaric.” Boxing is an anomaly in regard to socially accepted forms of athletic participation in the United States. The sport gained mainstream appeal when the U.S. government endorsed boxing as a means to develop self-discipline and to prepare soldiers for combat during the early 20th century. Throughout the course of modern history, however, the sport experienced various controversies and criticism that damaged its appeal and acceptance as a reputable form of competition. Inherently tied to masculinity and brutality, questions can be raised as to why women would want to participate in such a brutal, violent sport. Ironically, it was the threat of violence that motivated women to participate in boxing during the latter half of the 20th century. Boxing became a sport women could learn to protect themselves from the threat of male predators or abusive spouses. Furthermore, the women’s liberation movement and Title IX of the Educational Amendments allowed greater access to the sport of boxing. Following a series of lawsuits, the United States Amateur Boxing Federation and USA Boxing began sanctioning women’s matches in 1993. In 1997, USA Boxing hosted the first official Women’s National Championship, followed by the inaugural World Championships in 2001.
Boxing displays gender differences and inequalities that have shaped its development in modern society.
Boxing and Mainstream Culture The sport of boxing has made household names of noted pugilists such as Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, and Oscar De La Hoya. Although boxing has been a sport predominated by males, female boxing participation has grown in popularity in recent times. Women boxers have also found their way into mainstream media. Laila Ali has been the most recognizable face of professional women’s boxing over the past decade. She initially was known for being the daughter of legendary fighter and cultural icon Muhammad Ali. She went on to become a trailblazer in the ring who has brought the sport of women’s boxing to unprecedented heights. Ali has also managed to be a crossover star. In addition to boxing, Laila has been featured on Dancing With the Stars and hosting American Gladiators, which demonstrate her versatility as an entertainer and celebrity. Although Ali has been the sports brightest star, she has not had a professional fight since 2007. While she has taken time off from boxing to start a family and pursue other public ventures, her absence has left a major void in the women’s professional boxing scene. Other female boxers have been celebrated in the media for reasons related to their sporting skill. For example, Lucia Rijker gained notoriety due to her role
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as the final counterpart of Hillary Swank’s character, Maggie Fitzgerald, in the film Million Dollar Baby. Mia St. John, a successful boxer, is commonly referred to as the “Boxing Bunny” for her appearance in Playboy magazine. Christie Martin, another prominent boxer, became the first woman pugilist to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Million Dollar Baby One of the most visible portrayals of professional women’s boxing came in the form of the 2004 Academy Award–winning film Million Dollar Baby. This film starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Hilary Swank offered a spotlight to the world of women’s boxing; as well as some of the issues and challenges associated with the sport. In the film, the primary antagonist Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Swank) seeks to pursue a career in professional boxing. She seeks the tutelage of crotchety gym owner Frankie Dunn (played by Eastwood) who provides training for some promising young fighters. The film chronicles the relationship between the “old school” guiding force that reluctantly allows “a girl” to train in his gym. Ultimately, Maggie defies the odds to be the best female fighter in the world. Current Status In addition to the loss of the visibility and star power that Laila Ali’s presence brought the sport, women’s boxing has continued to be impacted by other impediments. The sport of boxing in general has had to contend with the emergence of mixed martial arts (MMA). The arrival of MMA has splintered viewer interest and taken away from the visibility of boxing and its revenue sources such as pay-per-view (PPV) dollars. MMA has also experienced the growth in female participation. In particular, in regard to women’s MMA involvement, the emergence of Gina Corano has positioned her with a well-built degree of celebrity, making her the face of the sport. Despite recent setbacks, women’s boxing shows signs of maturing as a legitimate sport. Throughout the world, approximately 120 countries sponsor women’s boxing programs. It is estimated that 3,000 women are registered boxers with USA Boxing annually and in August 2009, the International Olympic Committee announced women’s boxing would be included in the 2012 Summer Games. Approximately
2,500 U.S. women boxers are expected to compete for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team. See Also: Ali, Laila; Olympics, Summer; Sports, Women in; Stereotyping Women; Xtreme Sports. Further Readings Fields, Sarah K. Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sports in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Laila Ali. “History.” http://www.lailaali.com/history (accessed July 2010). USA Today. “Women Boxers Hope to Send Message to IOC.” http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/ summer/2009-08-11-womenbox_N.htm (accessed July 2010). USABoxing.org. “The Evolution of Women’s Boxing.” http://usaboxing.org/pages/1033 (accessed July 2010). Women Boxing Archive Network. “Chronological Events that Occurred in Women’s Boxing.” http://www.women boxing.com/historic.htm (accessed July 2010). Woodward, Keith. Boxing, Masculinity and Identity: The ‘I’ of the Tiger. London: Routledge, 2007. Jason W. Lee University of North Florida Elizabeth A. Gregg Jacksonville University
Brady, Sarah In March 1981, White House press secretary James S. Brady was seriously injured in the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. In the wake of her husband’s injury, Sarah Brady became a leading advocate of gun control in the United States and a fierce opponent of the powerful National Rifle Association. In 1985, she joined Handgun Control, Inc., the largest gun control lobbying organization in the United States. Four years later, she became chair of the group, lobbying members of Congress and campaigning actively for political candidates who supported gun control legislation, regardless of their political affiliation. In 1991, Brady took on the additional role of chair of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, an organization committed to reducing gun violence
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through education, research, and legal advocacy. Her years of activism culminated in President Bill Clinton’s signing into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required a five-day waiting period and background check upon the purchase of a handgun. In her determination to see more sweeping changes to the way guns are bought and sold in the United States, Sarah Brady has continued her advocacy. Not even a bout with lung cancer and semi-retirement have weakened her commitment to the cause of gun control. Born Sarah Jane Kemp on February 6, 1942, in Missouri, Brady grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, the daughter of a homemaker and an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After her graduation from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1964, Sarah taught school for four years but then left the classroom to work as an assistant to the campaign director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. While she was employed by the committee, she met James Brady, whom she married in 1973. Sarah Brady served as a congressional aide before accepting a position as director of administration and coordinator of field services for the Republican National Committee. By the time her husband was named Ronald Reagan’s White House press secretary, Sarah Brady had resigned from her work with the Republican National Committee to care for the couple’s only son, James Scott Brady Jr., who was born in 1979. Gun Control Advocate The Bradys were enjoying life among the Washington elite, but a bullet from a .22 caliber revolver in the hands of John W. Hinckley Jr. changed their lives forever. James Brady was left paralyzed. Sarah Brady encouraged her husband through his struggles to adapt to life in a wheelchair. The advocacy that made her the name the public most associated with gun control began three years after her husband was wounded when Congress was debating the repeal of provisions to the Gun Control Act of 1968. When she contacted Handgun Control Inc. to ask how she could help, she was given the task of writing letters to members of Congress. Later, she began lobbying on Capitol Hill and eventually became the organization’s most prominent speaker. It took seven hard-fought years from the time the Brady Bill was introduced to the 100th Congress in
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1987 until President Clinton signed the bill into law on November 30, 1993, in a ceremony attended by James and Sarah Brady. The battle made a political Independent of Sarah Brady for whom the issue of gun control had become far greater than partisan loyalties. She spoke at the National Democratic Convention in 1996, and she and her husband endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign. In December 2000, the boards of trustees for Handgun Control and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence renamed these organizations the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in tribute to James and Sarah Brady. Earlier that same year, Sarah Brady, a smoker for much of her life, had been diagnosed with stage III lung cancer. Her chances of surviving for five years were less than 30 percent. In her memoir, A Good Fight (2002), she recounts her battles to care for her husband, to reform the nation’s gun laws, and to beat the odds in her own fight against cancer. Brady, who still serves as chair of the Brady Campaign and the Brady Center as well as on the board of trustees, continues her fight on all three fronts. See Also: Cancer, Women and; Gun Control; Million Mom March; Political Ideologies. Further Readings Brady, Sarah with Merrill McLoughlin. A Good Fight. New York: Public Affairs, 2002. Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Biographies: Sarah Brady.” http://www.bradycenter.org/about/bio /sarah (accessed March 2010). Nisbet, Lee. The Gun Control Debate. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 1991. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University
Bratz Dolls MGA Entertainment, Inc. introduced the Bratz dolls in 1991. Initially the sales for the Bratz dolls were low, and parents were reportedly reluctant to purchase the dolls due to their provocative clothing and streetwise demeanor. However, within a couple years of
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their debut, Bratz were gaining popularity as Barbie sales slightly declined. Bratz gained popularity among 7- to 10-year-old girls quickly; although Barbie sales remained strong, this age group was once the mainstay of Barbie’s market. Departing from the sales model set by Mattel’s Barbie with one doll serving as the leading product, the original line of the Bratz consisted of four dolls, Chloe, Jade, Sasha, and Yasmin. Each was given equal status in the marketing campaigns. MGA Entertainment designed the Bratz dolls as multicultural and multiethnic friends, which proved to be a sound decision to market the doll to a wide range of groups. Like their counterparts in the toy market, the Bratz dolls have been scrutinized and analyzed by scholars, parents, and child advocate groups for being too mature and sexual. The dolls have large heads, long hair, with heavily made-up eyes and lips. Bratz dolls are clothed in tight fitting shirts, short skirts often with fishnet stockings and high heels. Some scholars have noted the sexualized look of the multiethnic and multicultural dolls as a dangerous way to sell diversity to young children. Compared to the relative wholesome look of Barbie and the American Girls dolls, Bratz dolls have been described as “hooker chic.” The Bratz share some similarities with their rivals in the toy market, including a wide variety of merchandise available for purchase such as clothing, pets and housing for the dolls. Bratz brand clothing is also available for children to wear. The merchandise for the dolls revolves around fashion and shopping prompting concerns that Bratz dolls promote the message of empowerment through consumerism to girls. A liveaction film inspired by the dolls, Bratz: The Movie, was released in 2007 to unfavorable reviews and poor box office sales; however, the popularity of the dolls remained high. With the rise in popularity of Bratz dolls and products, sales of other dolls, most notably Barbie, once the undisputed favorite among young girls and preteens, dropped. Mattel filed a lawsuit against MGA Entertainment, Inc. in 2004 citing copyright infringement and breach of contract. Mattel claimed that the Bratz doll sketches by Carter Bryant were developed while Bryant worked at Mattel, and therefore all Bratz products belonged to the company. The trial took several years, with Mattel ultimately winning a $100 million settlement for breach of contract and copyright infringement. A judge also
ordered MGA Entertainment to cease production of the Bratz dolls. The court battle continued after the jury’s verdict and judge’s decision as MGAEntertainment’s lawyers stated the other Bratz dolls developed after the original four should not be included in the court’s decision. The Bratz line continues to be produced by MGA, and the line has expanded to over 30 different models, including babies and boy dolls. Despite the legal battles and the criticism of the dolls as highly sexualized, Bratz dolls continue to be a favorite of young girls and preteens. See Also: American Girl Dolls; Barbie Dolls; Body Image; Toys, Gender-Stereotypic. Further Readings American Psychological Association. “Report on the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls,” http://www .apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx (accessed November 2009). Associated Press. “Barbie Beats Bratz Dolls in Legal Battle.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/04/ national/main4647827.shtml?source=RSSattr=World _4647827 (accessed November 2009). Duncum, Paul. “Aesthetics, Popular Visual Culture, and Designer Capitalism.” International Journal of Art & Design Education, v.26/3 (2007). MGA Entertainment, Inc. Website, http://www.mgae .com/default.asp (accessed November 2009). Marcia Hernandez University of the Pacific
Brazil The lives of women in Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world, have been marked by intersections of social class, ethnicity, geography, and gender. Added interplay between conservative and liberal forces enacting economic, political, social, and cultural changes has created a diversity of Brazilian women’s conditions and identities that demonstrates the rising power of the female against sexism and domination. The Portuguese first arrived in Brazil in the 1500s, with the intent of exploiting the country’s natural
resources. By mid-16th century, colonizers in Brazil had established the practice of trading in African slaves to supply labor to increasingly profitable industries such as sugar cane. Through three and a half centuries of slavery, those African women who survived worked in the fields; as marketers in the towns and cities; in domestic work as servants, nannies, cooks, cleaners, and washerwomen; and as sex workers and cheap providers of biological reproduction of the enslaved labor force. Widespread intercourse between European men and native women (and later African women) came to be perceived as sexual libertinage and a threat to the constitution of proper families to settle in the colony. A Jesuit priest wrote to the king of Portugal requesting that white women—orphans and even prostitutes and criminals—be sent to Brazil. The court complied. European women were regarded as valuable consorts of men of similar backgrounds and helped settle the country. White women in the casa grande (mansion) and African women in the senzala (slave quarters) both were subject to the rulings and desires of the patriarchs, often with the blessing and meddling of local priests. Such women developed strong connections and deep rivalries—often of a sexual nature—which made for a troubled mistress–slave relationship. In addition to members of the white/black caste system, nonpropertied whites and mestizos of all types, born from mixing between groups—mulatto (white and black), cafuzo (black and native), and caboclo (native and white)—made up Brazil’s growing population. Indigenous people—barely recognized as human—escaped by refusing assimilation or inhabiting inaccessible hinterlands. Until the 20th century, they were not integrated into the nation. Immigration and Health The increasingly economically inefficient slavery system was abolished in 1888 with the help of King Pedro II’s oldest daughter, Princess Isabel. In 1889, the Portuguese–Brazilian monarchy, which had been in power since Brazil’s independence in 1822, fell. The Empire of Brazil became the Republic of the United States of Brazil—a country in need of workers. From the mid-19th century through the 1920s, women and men immigrated from Europe (Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and most other countries);
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from the United States, as groups of disgruntled Southerners reopened for business in São Paulo State after the Civil War; from Asia (Japan, China); and from the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine). The Jews who had lived in Brazil from the start, fleeing persecution under the Spanish Inquisition, continued to immigrate in waves. From the nation’s beginning, peoples from many nations have never stopped seeking to establish themselves in Brazil. Immigration has changed the composition of Brazil’s population and its women, with continued interethnic intercourse and assimilation seen against the backdrop of the steady transformation of the capitalist economy from primarily agrarian to commercial, industrial, and service-based. In 2000, there were 86.2 million women, representing approximately 51 percent of the population. About 80 percent lived in urban areas. Almost 40 percent were girls and teenagers younger than 19 years, and 32 percent were aged between 20 and 40 years, for a total of 72 percent of women of child-bearing age, representing the nation’s youthful population. Almost 46 percent of Brazilian women consists of women of color—extrapolating from general population indicators, almost 54 percent considered themselves to be white, 39 percent pardas (brown), 6 percent black, and .5 percent yellow (Asian descent) or indigenous. Being of African descent puts a woman’s health at risk in a variety of ways. Discrimination affects her body image, self-concept, and self-esteem. She is subject to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and sickle-cell anemia, which affects pregnancy and delivery adversely. She is six times more likely to develop toxemia at delivery. As a result of poverty, she is likely to suffer from nutritional deficiencies and live in polluted environments. Her life expectancy is 66 years compared with a white woman’s 71 years. Women of means in Brazil have access to world-class doctors and facilities, but most Brazilian women have to do with poor clinics, where available. Despite these conditions, infant mortality has decreased from 47 to 19 per 1,000 from 1990 to 2007 as the Ministry of Health continues to address startling differences in services by social class and ethnic background in the different regions. Demographic, economic, and regional factors also affect women’s life conditions and cannot be ignored. There are fewer women (48 percent) than men in the northern region, Amazonia, which is scarcely
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populated and occupies almost half of Brazilian territory; it is a frontier of economic exploration. The stillpoorer northeast region has exported workers, mostly men; the 23 million women living here represent 53 percent of the population—the highest sex ratio imbalance (and the highest rate of infant mortality). The central-western region has slightly 2 percent more women, including the Federal District, where women make up a large share of public service workers in the capital, Brasília. In the more developed southeastern and southern areas, the sex ratio is balanced. Employment One of the most significant phenomena in Brazil at the turn of the 21st century has been the increased participation of women in the labor force, following a jump from 29 percent of the economically active population in 1976 to 43 percent in 2002. In 2007, the rate of employment is about the same, but the unemployment index for women was 12 percent—four points greater than that for men. Women’s greater activity rate does not mean an increase in formal employment (understood as jobs regulated by contracts that afford benefits such as social security and retirement). Most Brazilian women work in service occupations. The majority of service workers—between 82 percent (in the Federal District) to 94 percent (in Piaui State), and an average of 87 percent for Brazil as a whole—are employed in domestic service, often informally, under conditions not too far removed from slavery, despite regulation. Almost 60 percent of domestic workers are black or brown women from low-socioeconomic strata. In the southeast region, 38 percent of economically active women hold formal jobs—the highest percentage in Brazil. Of formally employed women, only 37 percent are black, with women of Asian descent and white women holding better jobs. This shows the familiar pattern of double discrimination by gender and ethnicity. The oppression triples when low-socioeconomic background is taken into account. In terms of compensation, Brazilian workers generally receive nonliving wages with regional variations. Brazilian women receive less still, commanding about 71 percent of men’s pay across all occupations. Only 18 percent of employed women make more than 10 times the minimum salary compared with 42 percent of men who do so.
Education Although work and pay are dismal for Brazilian women, and still worse for women of color, the conditions in education look brighter. Women have continually achieved higher levels of education than men. In 2002, women obtained 58 percent of high school and 63 percent of college degrees, though they concentrate more in social studies (education, arts and humanities, social services, and health) and less in the scientific fields (mathematics, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Higher levels of education for women have yet to be translated into employment and pay gains; less-schooled men may still get the job and better pay. In addition, the glass ceiling also limits women’s advancement to corporate and government higher-level management positions. Politics Women’s difficulties a primed to decrease in light of recent expansions in political power. In 2009, 10 of 81 Brazilian senators are women. Of 531 state representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, 46 are women from different parties, including five elected through the Brazilian Communist Party, which called its first national conference on the woman question in 2007. In the administration of the Worker’s Party President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dilma V. Rousseff holds the highest-ranking cabinet office as Chief of the Casa Civil. Women also head two ministries, Environment and Tourism and Special Secretaries, Promotion of Policies for Racial Equality and Women’s Policies. The latter oversees the National Council for Women’s Rights, serves as clearinghouse for research on women, and implements the National Plan for Women’s Policies and programs: Pro-Equity for Women; Women Against STDs and AIDS; Gender and Diversity in Schools; Women Building Autonomy in Civil Construction; and Work, Crafts, Tourism and Women’s Autonomy. The Special Secretary for Women’s Policies and state and local governments present issues that women in government are addressing, including improving living conditions, combating violence against women and children, and trafficking of women. On October 31, 2010, Brazilians elected their first female head of government, Dilma Rousseff from the ruling Workers’ Party. Rousseff has been a guerrilla, a torture victim, an economist, an energy minister, and the president’s chief of staff.
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See Also: Equal Pay; HIV/AIDS: South America; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Barman, Roderick J. Princess Isabel of Brazil: Gender and Power in the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Fundação Carlos Chagas. “Mulher. Séries Historicas.” http://www.fcc.org.br/mulher/series_historicas/ghgm .html (accessed January 2010) Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, “Página Inicial.” http://www.ibge.gov.br/english (accessed January 2010). Kellog, Susan. Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women From Prehispanic Period to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Saffioti, Heleieth. Women in Class Society. New York: Monthly Review, 1980. Secretaria Especial de Políticas para as Mulheres. “Página Inicial.” http://www.presidencia.gov.br/estrutura _presidencia/sepm/ (accessed January 2010). Simões, Solange and Marlise Matos. “Modern Ideas, Traditional Behaviors, and the Persistence of Gender Inequality in Brazil.” International Journal of Sociology, v.384 (2008). Wolf, Joel. Working Women, Working Men: São Paulo and the Rise of Brasil’s Industrial Working Class 1900–1955. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. Tania Ramalho State University of New York at Oswego
Breast Cancer Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. Survival rates are not uniform and vary by geographic location. The greatest number of breast cancer patients are in North America, northern and western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and in the South American countries of Uruguay and Argentina. Incidence rates in most southern and eastern European countries are low to intermediate, and throughout Africa, Asia, and most of Central and South America they are relatively low by comparison. Despite the lower incidence rates within low- and middle-income
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countries relative to their high-income counterparts, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that nearly 70 percent of all breast cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Incidence rates have been rising steadily around the globe in recent decades, increasing the cancer burden worldwide. The geographic distribution of breast cancer incidence and mortality illustrates important patterns related to wealth, culture and health infrastructures among developed and developing countries. High incidence rates strategically illustrate the importance of breast cancer as a women’s health epidemic and the need for public, scientific, and financial investment in the illness. As breast cancer has become more public, especially in the United States since the early 1990s, some statistics—particularly those that generate fear—have dominated the public imagination and furthered the common sense message that early detection vis-à-vis mammography screening saves lives. Incidence, Morality, and Risk Trends in breast cancer incidence and mortality reveal crucial geographic variations as well as an overall increase in breast cancer. Similar patterns exist, for example, in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In the United States, breast cancer rates have increased about 1 percent per year since the 1940s, and by more than 40 percent from 1973 to 1998. Similarly, Canadian incidence rates rose nearly 30 percent from 1969 to 1999. Annual increases of 1 to 3 percent were recorded in Finland and the Netherlands, and between 1971 and 1987 six former regions of the Soviet Union charted gains from 2 to 4 percent. In New South Wales, the incident rate for breast cancer rose steadily in the early to mid-1980s, and in 1995 were nearly 50 percent higher than they were in 1983. Mortality also increased in these regions from the 1950s through the 1980s but leveled off in several northern European countries, Australia, New Zealand and for white women in the United States and Canada. In general, women under age 50 saw greater declines in mortality than did older women. Although breast cancer has been relatively rare in many Asian countries, Japan has seen rising incidence rates and, to a lesser degree, growing mortality rates since the mid-1980s. Numerous studies point to increased
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risks associated with a Western lifestyle, although environmental exposures are increasingly linked to breast cancer. In general, there is considerably less cancer data in many developing countries. The data that is available shows lesser but increasing degrees of incidence and mortality. Most Latin American countries have intermediate rates of breast cancer and mortality, though these rates have been increasing at a pace double that of such nations as Cali, Colombia, and Puerto Rico from the 1970s to the 1990s. Mortality has risen substantially in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. Although incidence and mortality rates are low in most developing Asian countries, between 1968 and 1992 higher rates were recorded in India particularly among the Chinese in Singapore, with average increases of 3.6 percent per year. Mortality rates increased in China from 1987 to 1999 and nearly doubled in Taiwan and Hong Kong from the 1960s to the 1990s. For all of Africa, breast cancer ranks second to cervical cancer, but remains the most common cancer in North Africa and in urban sub-Saharan regions such as Abidjan. This also was the case in Zimbabwe until recently overtaken by the heightened health burden of AIDS. Incidence rates also doubled in Nigeria and Uganda from the 1960s to the 1990s. The differences in breast cancer incidence between developed and developing countries can be explained in part by exposure to lifestyle related risk factors, such as postmenopausal obesity from the Western diet coupled with limited exercise, alcohol consumption, and reproductive factors that prolong women’s exposure to naturally occurring estrogens. These reproductive factors contribute to the early onset of menstruation, late menopause, late age at first childbirth, and shorter breastfeeding schedules. As developing countries adopt these more Western behaviors, the risk of developing breast cancer may increase. In addition to these risk factors age, inherited genetic mutations, use of hormone replacement therapy, and a previous history of cancer of the endometrium, ovary, or colon may increase a woman’s overall risk for developing breast cancer. However, the known risk factors account for only 30 percent of breast cancer cases. Modifiable factors such as body mass, physical inactivity and alcohol consumption only explain a small fraction of breast cancer incidences. Similarly, only 5 to 10 percent of
women diagnosed with breast cancer have inherited a mutation in the known breast cancer genes. Seventy percent of breast cancer cases are not attributable to the known risk factors, few interventions reduce risk and none prevent breast cancer. New research focuses on the likelihood of environmental links to breast cancer to explain the majority of cases. While lifestyle factors may explain some of the increases in breast cancer in the developing world, the death toll in low- to middle-income countries is clearly attributable to a lack of healthcare infrastructure, the high costs of diagnosis and treatment, and the fact that many women do not know they have breast cancer until later stages of the disease when symptoms are visible. The WHO promotes cancer containment in terms of national programs that focus on a comprehensive system of prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. However, the organization does recognize limitations to prevention through modifiable health behaviors as well as barriers to early detection through widespread mammography screening of populations. Several scientific controversies must be taken into account to reduce the cancer burden. Data from the United States provide context to current debates about disease classification, mammography screening and the threat of over diagnosis and over treatment. The Disease Classification Controversy The term carcinoma refers to cancer, that is, malignant tumor. Cancer, broadly defined, is a disease of abnormal cell growth, which occurs in some organs or tissues of the body at different rates, and may either be contained in a single mass (tumor) or may spread to other locations in the body (malignancy). It is the combination of abnormal cell growth and the ability to spread (metastasis) that makes cancer dangerous. The assessment of just how dangerous a particular cancer may be is based on a disease classification system. There are critical differences in the classification of breast cancer based on whether abnormal cells appear in the ducts (tubes that carry milk to the nipple) or the lobules (glands that make milk), and more importantly, whether these abnormal cells have the capacity to metastasize. The specific constellation of these features helps to categorize nine different breast conditions, some of which are referred to as carcinomas or cancers. Because metastasis is what makes cancers
life-threatening, abnormal cells that lack the capacity to spread are not really cancers at all. This important distinction has caused confusion and controversy about how to diagnose and treat the collection of conditions commonly referred to as breast cancer. The most important characteristic among breast cancer types is whether they are “in situ” or “invasive.” The term in situ means “in place” and specifies a tumor that is confined to the immediate area where it began. If a cluster of abnormal cells is restricted to the ducts, it is called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). If the abnormal cells are restricted to the lobules, they are called lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS). Both conditions are asymptomatic and are nearly always nonpalpable (cannot be felt by hand). The abnormal cells do not invade surrounding breast tissue or spread to other parts of the body. About 23 percent of all breast cancer diagnoses among U.S. women are categorized as the in situ types. Of the 250,230 new cases of breast cancer in 2008, the National Cancer Institute estimated 67,770 in situ cases. Invasive or infiltrating breast cancer signifies abnormal cells that originate in the lining of the ducts and invade nearby breast tissue and are known as Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. The cancer that starts in the lobules and breaks into nearby breast tissue are Invasive Lobular Carcinoma and they have the capacity to invade blood and lymph vessels and spread to other parts of the body. These are the breast cancers that
A physician performs a needle biopsy to determine whether a breast lump is a fluid-filled cyst or a solid tumor.
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are life threatening. For at least one-third of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, the disease does eventually spread. While 75 percent of recurrences happen within five years, 25 percent occur after the five-year period. The invasive types represent the majority of breast cancers in the United States (77 percent), totaling about 182,460 cases in 2008. After disease classification, “staging” is used to determine cancer’s level of threat. Stages are based on the size of the original tumor, the amount of lymph node involvement, and whether the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. On average, 61 percent of invasive breast cancers are diagnosed as stage 1 (localized to the primary site); 31 percent are diagnosed at stage 2 or 3 (when the cancer has spread beyond the primary site or to regional lymph nodes, but not to other organs); and 6 percent are diagnosed as stage 4 (when the cancer has spread beyond the primary site to regional lymph nodes or to other organs of the body such as the lungs, liver, bones, or brain). The later the stage, the more life-threatening is the cancer. Only about 35 percent of patients who are metastatic at diagnosis (stage 3 or 4) tend to live five years or longer. The in situ cancers, however, are always classified at stage zero and have a five-year survival rate of about 100 percent. By definition, they are contained to the primary site, do not spread, and do not tend to become cancer. For the in situ types, the term carcinoma is a misnomer. There is strong consensus that LCIS is neither a cancer nor a pre-cancer. More accurately, it is referred to as lobular neoplasia, a collection of abnormal cells in the milk-producing lobules of the breast. It is a “marker” of increased risk. About 25 percent of patients diagnosed with LCIS develop breast cancer sometime in their lifetime. Since it is unknown which of these women may develop breast cancer, and which ones may not, the treatment for LCIS focuses on how to reduce future risk. This typically includes dietary changes, drug treatments such as hormone therapy, and/or increased medical surveillance for the duration of the person’s lifetime. Because LCIS is a marker of increased risk, the extreme measure of surgically removing both breasts may be considered a reasonable treatment option for some women. DCIS is not a cancer either, but it may be a precursor to breast cancer or a risk factor for developing breast cancer sometime in the future. The National
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Breast Cancer Coalition, an umbrella of more than 600 organizations in the United States, recommended changing the name to atypical hyperplasia to more accurately reflect this distinction. Studies suggest that only 20 to 25 percent of women with untreated DCIS would ever go on to develop breast cancer within the next 25 years. That is, 75 to 80 percent of women with DCIS would not. While DCIS does increase breast cancer risk, the risk is quite low—about the same as a woman without breast cancer who had a late first pregnancy. As with LCIS, it is unknown which women with the condition will ever get breast cancer. Even though DCIS is not a life-threatening cancer, most people diagnosed with DCIS tend to receive the same treatment as those diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer— surgery, radiation, and mastectomy. Age, Mammography Screening, and Mortality Reduction The inaccurate disease classification of the in situ breast cancers has fueled controversy about how to diagnose and treat breast cancer in general. Specifically, the stage-zero “cancers” have furthered the commonsense idea that finding breast cancer early is crucial for reducing mortality. This would make sense if the stage zero in situ types actually had the capacity to become a later stage breast cancer. But, this is not the case. Finding stage zero breast cancers has not translated to a reduction in late-stage disease. Instead, the rise in stage zero diagnoses has obfuscated critical evidence about the benefits of mammography screening. Breast cancer incidence in women age 40 and above has been increasing at a faster rate since 1982, yet the majority (80 percent) of diagnoses occur in women over age 50. Only 15 percent of cases occur in women age 40 to 50, and just 5 percent occur in women under age 40. Although they are not in the high-risk category (only 1.5 per every 1,000 women in their 40s) the American Cancer Society, many medical professionals, and most public service campaigns have been, since the 1970s, recommending annual mammograms for women beginning at age 40 (sometimes as early as age 35). The idea is that screening women who are younger would lead to early diagnosis when breast cancer is more treatable, thereby reducing mortality.
For decades, reports in medical journals have identified major problems with mammography screening, such as insufficient data about accuracy, benefit and long-term effects of radiation exposure. Though contested, these screening recommendations have become standard protocol. Interventions such as mammography have been studied in randomized controlled trials, which assess the benefits and risks of screening for specific groups of people. In randomized controlled trials, participants are randomly assigned to groups. The experimental groups receive a screening procedure with a predetermined frequency. The outcomes of the experimental groups are then compared to those of control groups that did not receive the procedure. Seven clinical trials conducted between 1963 and 1982 have analyzed the impact of screening mammography on mortality reduction. To evaluate the quality of the trials and the evidence they produced, there have been several systematic reviews (meta-analyses) of these trials, all of which have shown that reductions in mortality resulting from mammography screening are quite variable, and fairly modest. The Cochrane Review, first published in the Lancet in 2000 by Gøtzsche and Olsen, analyzed seven major randomized controlled trials on mammography screening that involved more than 500,000 women. After assessing the quality of the studies for agreed-upon standards for well-conducted and reliable research, the researchers concluded that there was no reliable evidence to justify mass screening. In fact, the two trials, which were used the most sound methods, did not find a reduction in breast cancer mortality compared to the poor-quality trials that did—25 percent mortality reduction after 13 years. In 2006, Gøtzsche and Nielsen updated the Cochrane analysis. Similar to the earlier findings, the trials that had the soundest methods provided no statistically significant reduction in breast cancer mortality; the trials that exhibited flawed methods showed a mortality reduction of 35 to 40 percent. The researchers concluded that screening, at best, decreased the risk of death by about 15 percent for women ages 50 to 69, while increasing the risk of over diagnosis and over treatment by about 30 percent. Corroborating the Cochrane conclusions, in 2002 the Humphrey Review concluded that the absolute benefit of mammography screening on mortality was
only 16 percent (similar to Gøtzsche and Nielson’s 15 percent). It also concluded that biases in the trial design could statistically eliminate or even produce that reduction, calling into question the reliability of the findings. In 2006, the Armstrong Review included 117 studies in addition to the original trials, and focused on the effects of screening for women ages 40 to 49. The researchers found a wide range of estimated mortality reduction, from 7 to 23 percent. They also determined that false positives (positive mammograms which, upon biopsy, did not show the presence of cancer) were 20 to 56 percent, leading to subsequent increases in unnecessary procedures. Given the uncertainty of mammography’s benefit in reducing breast cancer mortality, the risks associated with screening were an important consideration. Mammograms frequently provide insufficient information to reach clear conclusions about the presence of tumors, and suspicious areas on a mammogram may or may not indicate cancer. The risk of having a false positive during routine yearly screening is about 10 percent. By the time a woman has had 10 mammograms, she will have a 50 percent chance of being told her results are abnormal. The high rate of false positives means that the biopsies were not necessary for the majority of women who had them. In addition, mammograms miss 25 to 40 percent of tumors that actually are cancerous. These are called “false negatives.” Mammograms can be inaccurate for many reasons including the ability of the X-ray to clearly capture the image, uncertainty about how to interpret suspicious areas on the image, differences in the ability of radiologists to assess the images accurately, and the rate of tumor growth. Mammograms are better able to “see” through fatty tissue than through dense tissue. Since premenopausal women generally have denser breasts, mammograms are less accurate for these women than for postmenopausal women. This is why mammograms are far less accurate for women under age 50. On the other hand, mammograms are very good at seeing calcium deposits even in dense breasts. Calcium deposits (microcalcifications) are common in women, especially as they age; they are common in benign breast conditions, and also may form around dead cells in the stage zero breast cancers (DCIS and LCIS). Thus, the increase in mammography screening
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has led to a parallel increase in the diagnosis of in situ breast conditions. Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment The detection of abnormal tissue that will never become symptomatic (e.g., DCIS and LCIS) is referred to as “overdiagnosis.” The rates of DCIS have increased from 1 to 2 percent of all breast cancers 20 years ago to 17 percent in 1997, and 23 percent in 2005. The more than 23,000 cases diagnosed in 1992 were 200 percent higher than would be expected based on trends from 1973 to 1983. By 2008, that number more than doubled again to more than 57,000 cases. Until the 1980s, when mammography use expanded widely, DCIS was rarely found (because it is nonsymptomatic and nonpalpable). Screening mammography is largely responsible for the ever-increasing diagnoses of the stage zero breast cancers, the types that are not technically breast cancers at all. Overdiagnosis leads to overtreatment. Seventy percent of DCIS remains harmless for a lifetime, and the long-term survival rate is nearly 100 percent regardless of treatment. Yet, DCIS is diagnosed more frequently and treated more aggressively in the United States than anywhere else in the world. In 2002, 26 percent of DCIS patients were treated with mastectomy. Other treatments included lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy such as Tamoxifen. Because DCIS does not cause symptoms and is not likely to progress to invasive cancer, then the risks associated with surgery, radiation damage, anxiety about risk, side effects of systemic therapy, and increased medical costs, may outweigh the benefits of treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges the lifetime risk of developing cancer increases with radiation exposure from X-rays. A person who undergoes more X-ray exams has an accumulated radiation risk. A person who received X-rays at a younger age has a greater risk than those who are older. And women are at a higher lifetime risk than men for developing cancer from radiation after receiving the same exposures at the same ages. According to the FDA, a mammogram is comparable to three months of exposure to natural background radiation. An 80-year-old woman who had a mammogram every two years from the age of 40 will have been exposed to an additional five years of radiation in her lifetime.
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The environmental breast cancer movement has been instrumental in questioning why women are exposed to overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and increased radiation from mammography when the evidence of mortality reduction due to screening is sorely lacking. In November 2009, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force of the Department of Health and Human Services recommended against routine screening mammography in women 40 to 49 years, and biennial (instead of annual) screening mammography for women 50 to 74 years. It remains to be seen whether professional and advocacy groups, as well as the medical system will take the evidence-based protocol into account. See Also: Cancer, Environmental Factors; Cancer, Women and; Medical Research, Gender Issues; Pink, Advertising and. Further Readings American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts and Figures 2008. Atlanta, GA: American Cancer Society, 2008. Bray, Freddie, Peter McCarron, and Maxwell D. Parkin. “The Changing Global Patterns of Female Breast Cancer Incidence and Mortality.” Breast Cancer Research, v.6/6 (2004). Gray, Janet, ed. State of the Evidence 2008: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment. Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action. San Francisco, CA: Cooperative Printing, 2008. Ley, Barbara. From Pink to Green: Disease Prevention and the Environmental Breast Cancer Movement. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009. Love, Susan M. Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2005. National Breast Cancer Coalition. “Fact Sheets.” http:// www.stopbreastcancer.org/index.php?option=com _content&task=blogcategory&id=38&Itemid=178 (cited November 2009). Sulik, Gayle. Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women’s Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Welch, H. G. Should I Be Tested for Cancer?: Maybe Not and Here’s Why. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Gayle Sulik Independent Scholar
Breast Reduction/ Enlargement Surgery Breast enlargement and reduction surgeries are classified under the general category of mammoplasty within the field of cosmetic surgery. Breast enlargement surgery (more commonly referred to as breast augmentation) involves the insertion of an implant between the breast tissue and the chest muscles, or underneath the chest muscles, for the purposes of increasing the size of the breast. Breast reduction surgery (less commonly referred to as reduction mammoplasty) involves the removal of breast tissue and skin for the purposes of decreasing the size of the breast. Breast enlargement and reduction surgeries raise two significant issues within the field of cosmetic surgery concerning informed consent and the often arbitrary distinction between “cosmetic” surgeries and “reconstructive” surgeries. While breast enlargement and reduction surgeries are performed worldwide, statistical information about the prevalence of both is lacking about areas outside of North America (and the United States more specifically). This is primarily because surgeons who perform breast surgeries might not be plastic or cosmetic surgeons, and thus may not belong to a national cosmetic surgery association (or, alternatively, there may be no national cosmetic surgery association). Breast Enlargement Surgery Breast enlargement surgeries are very popular in North America, and in the United States, breast augmentation is currently the most commonly performed cosmetic surgery. Although the number of breast augmentations performed in the United States declined by 12 percent between 2007 and 2008 (due to an economic recession), the overall increase in breast augmentation procedures between 2000 and 2008 was 45 percent. Women choose to undergo breast enlargement surgeries for a variety of reasons, including dissatisfaction with breast shape and size, occupational purposes, loss of one or both breasts due to mastectomy, and sex reassignment surgery. Because there are no laws in North America that limit who can claim the title of plastic surgeon, and thus any person holding a medical degree can operate a plastic surgery practice, there are a range of economic options for women seeking breast
augmentation depending on the individual surgeon’s qualifications, prestige, and geographical location. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Western doctors unsuccessfully experimented with fat and liquid paraffin injections to augment body parts, including women’s breasts, although this was not a commercially viable project at that historical moment. Countless other substances have been unsuccessfully implanted in the breast to make it larger during the early to mid-20th century, from wool to ivory to glass and also several synthetic substances (most popularly Silastic rubber implants and liquid silicone). It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that surgeons began to experiment with saline and silicone implants, and that breast augmentation gained a wider public acknowledgment, although not acceptance. The implants that women receive today are most commonly silicone envelopes filled with either saline or silicone gel, and can be circular, teardrop-shaped, or shaped to fill in areas hollowed out by a lumpectomy. A recent breakthrough in silicone implant technology is the cohesive gel implant, or “gummy bear implant,” which is a solid but malleable piece of silicone that will not rupture. Surgeons make an incision most commonly in the fold underneath the breast, but sometimes in the armpit or around the nipple, and very rarely in the navel (this is a new technique that is not commonly performed), and insert the implant into a pocket created by the surgeon either above or underneath the chest wall. Silicone implants are manufactured pre-filled, and so they require a larger incision than saline implants, which are filled with sterile saline after they are inserted into the body. Potential risks and side effects of breast augmentation include severe reactions to general anesthesia and pain medication, excessive bleeding, loss of sensation in the breasts and nipples, formation of hard painful scar tissue around the implant that must be manually broken down (encapsulation), the rupture or migration of the implant, and excessive scarring. Silicone implants are particularly controversial due to their perceived effect on women’s body image in breast-obsessed American culture and their potential risks. Silicone implants are considered to look and feel more natural than saline implants, and are thus desired by many women considering breast implants. In 1992, the Food and Drug Administra-
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tion and Health Canada severely restricted the use of silicone implants due to a lack of information about their potential long-term risks and rising anecdotal accounts of systemic illness. Many of these women launched lawsuits against surgeons and manufacturers of silicone implants alleging that they were misled about the risks of silicone implants and did not give their full informed consent as a result. However, after conducting clinical trials that could not establish a link between silicone implants and systemic illness, in 2006 Allergan and Mentor were granted licenses in Canada and the United States to market their silicone implants. Breast Reduction Surgery Breast reduction surgeries are less popular than breast enlargement surgeries in North America, although the number of breast reduction procedures has increased by 5 percent in the United States between 2000 and 2008, and breast reduction surgery is the third most common reconstructive plastic surgery according to the American Society for Plastic Surgeons. Women undergo breast reduction surgery due to dissatisfaction with the size and appearance of their breasts, and pain in the neck, shoulders, and back. Because breast reduction surgery is commonly classified as a “reconstructive,” and thus medically necessary surgery, women are often able to receive some medical insurance coverage for this surgery. This means that in countries with public health insurance especially, breast reduction surgeries can be popular. Men obtain breast reduction surgery as well for gynecomastia as well as sex reassignment surgery, although men are more likely to receive medical insurance coverage for the former and self-finance the latter. Breast reduction surgeries were performed as early as the 16th century in Europe, but they were not a common part of surgical practice until the late 19th century. Techniques for breast reduction surgery have been relatively consistent in the 20th century. While surgeons occasionally perform liposuction to reduce breast size, most commonly they create a vertical or keyhole-shaped incision from the fold underneath the breast to the nipple. Surgeons remove the nipple to reposition it in a higher location on the breast, and also remove breast tissue and a small amount of skin from the lower breast, creating a lifting effect in addition to the reduction. Risks and side effects of breast
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reduction surgery include severe reactions from general anesthesia and pain medication, excessive bleeding and scarring, severe pain, and loss of sensation and ability to breastfeed. Furthermore, as women’s breast development can continue into their mid-20s, when younger women undergo breast reduction surgeries their breasts often return to their original size several years after their operation. Breast reduction surgeries are considered more socially acceptable than breast augmentation, as they are understood to be medically necessary and reconstructive, rather than cosmetic. However, there is evidence to suggest that many women strategically emphasize neck, back, and shoulder pain in their surgical consultations to obtain insurance coverage for the procedure. Interestingly, one of the most frequent comments women make about their breast reduction surgeries is that they are excited about purchasing clothing and lingerie that fits properly. While it is likely that there are some women who experience pain because of large breasts, the pain explanation supports the argument that breast reduction is reconstructive and thus entitled to insurance coverage. See Also: Beauty Standards, Cross-Cultural; Body Image; Cosmetic Surgery; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Pornography, Portrayal of Women in. Further Readings American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “2008 Quick Facts.” http://www.plasticsurgery.org/Media/stats/2008-quick -facts-cosmetic-surgery-minimally-invasive-statistics .pdf (accessed December 2009). American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “Cosmetic and Reconstructive Procedure Trends.” http://www.plastic surgery.org/Media/stats/2008-cosmetic-reconstructive -plastic-surgery-minimally-invasive-statistics.pdf (accessed December 2009). Gilman, Sander. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Haiken, E. Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Jones, Meredith. Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery. New York: Berg Publishers, 2008. Rachel Hurst St. Francis Xavier University
“Bridezillas” The term bridezilla is a combination of “bride” and Godzilla, describing a bride whose pursuit of a perfect wedding has no bounds. Bridezillas are commonly described as selfish, greedy, obnoxious, spoiled, and prone to spontaneous fits of rage. The Website Bridezilla.com’s definition, however, opts for words like “attractive,” “confident,” and “not mediocre,” suggesting that bridezillas simply demand nothing less than excellence. The first-known citation of the term was in the Boston Globe in 1995. Numerous stories on the subject have since been featured in various media. Television shows, including WEtv’s Bridezillas, portray what can happen to a woman somewhere between “will you marry me” and “I do.” According to their portrayal, bridezillas exhibit three typical qualities: having high standards and expectations, wanting to be a princess for the day, and being a “bitch.” As a concept, the term bridezilla allows women to perform multiple identities, pursuing traditional gender roles and expectations while simultaneously experiencing a status of power and control. Some argue that in showing little regard for the actual marriage and focusing instead on a single day, the bridezilla’s pursuit of perfection is meant to compensate women for a lifetime of potential boredom, misery, and neglect. The concept holds serious implications regarding the portrayal of women today. For instance, the pursuit of a perfect wedding day draws women into the enormous bridal industry. This has led to the view of bridezillas as possessing a “false consciousness”: they are obsessed with preoccupations of female beauty and romance, wishing to have them at any cost. The concept also appears to transcend class and financial status, although it must be noted that one’s ability to achieve wedding perfection is determined by their degree of agency as a consumer. Some perspectives suggest that bridezillas are in fact self-possessed and rational consumers and are not victims of their weddings. These perspectives view the consumer practices of brides as agentive, and even productive. Others pay attention to the hegemony of the media industry in constructing weddings as the ultimate life goal for women. This fantasy extols the images of the bride as a physical object, and a wedding as a venue
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in which women are expected to display their femininity to others and are granted the temporary status of a celebrity. As women are also expected to take on the major responsibilities of overseeing their weddings, they have to become “superbrides” to make all the necessary financial arrangements, run errands, and ensure that every detail is accounted for. This point highlights the split in labor, as the same expectations are not stereotypically placed on grooms. Grooms who do participate usually do so in a secondary capacity. Furthermore, although the wedding day lasts a day, its production takes months—a timeframe that highlights the ephemeral nature of women’s work in general. The bridezilla can therefore be viewed as the result of the social expectations of modern brides to play two contradictory roles: that of both a rational project manager and an emotional fantasizer. See Also: “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Marriage; Wedding Industry.
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While working as a file clerk for the law firm Masry & Vititoe, and with no previous legal experience, Brockovich found medical records that led to an investigation that eventually established that the health of numerous individuals who lived in the Hinkley area of California in the 1960s to 1980s had been severely compromised by exposure to the toxic chemical chromium 6, which had leaked into the groundwater and poisoned the local water supply. The case was centered on the Hinkley Compressor Station, which was part of a natural gas pipeline connecting the San Francisco Bay area, constructed in 1952. Between 1952 and 1966, the company used chromium 6 in the cooling tower, which led to some of the wastewater seeping into the groundwater, affecting a large area near the plant. Brockovich co-led the case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and in 1996, $333 million in damages to more than 600 residents of the Hinkley area was paid by the utility company—the largest toxic injury settlement in U.S. history. Brockovich
Further Readings Adrian, Bonnie. “Bridezilla Consciousness.” Journal of Women’s History, v.18/4 (2006). Engstrom, Erika. “Creation of a New ‘Empowered’ Female Identity in WEtv’s Bridezilla.” Media Report to Women, v.37/1 (2009). Otnes, Cele C. and Elizabeth H. Pleck. Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Spaemme, N. and J. Hamilton. Bridezilla: True Tales From Etiquette Hell. Salado, TX: Salado Press, 2002. Danai S. Mupotsa Monash University
Brockovich, Erin Erin Brockovich (born June 22, 1960) is an environmental activist and public speaker who was instrumental in constructing a groundbreaking legal case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California in 1993. Acclaimed Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh directed the film version of Brockovich’s story, Erin Brockovich, in 2000.
Erin Brockovich has received numerous awards and honors for her work in protecting the environment.
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continued her legal work and went on to participate in other antipollution cases, including a lawsuit that listed 1,200 plaintiffs and alleged contamination near Pacific Gas and Electric’s Kettleman Hills Compressor Station in Kings County, California, along the same pipeline as the Hinkley site. The Kettleman Hills suit settled the case in 2006 for $335 million. In 2000, Steven Soderbergh directed the film version of Brockovich’s legal battle with the Pacific Gas and Electrical Company, Erin Brockovich, which highlighted both Brockovich’s legal triumph and her personal challenges. Released in March 2000 by Universal Studios, the movie starred Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, and Aaron Eckhart. The release of the film, to great critical and commercial success, led to numerous awards and nominations, including five Academy Award nominations and one win for Roberts in the Best Actress category. Roberts also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for best actress for her portrayal of Brockovich. Soderbergh was nominated for an Academy Award for best director. The film’s central concern and the majority of discussion surrounding Brockovich and the Hinckley case was focused on the portrayal of Brockovich as a strong, independent, and feminine woman and single mother who, despite a lack of formal legal training, managed to succeed in winning such a groundbreaking case. The film also examines issues of class, gender, and the environment situated within the larger framework of Brockovich’s story. Since the release of the film, Brockovich became an initially reluctant public figure who has since hosted her own television shows including Challenge America With Erin Brockovich on ABC and Final Justice on Lifetime. In 2001, she published “Take It From Me!: Life’s a Struggle but You Can Win,” which became a best seller. In the book, ostensibly a self-help book, Brockovich provides readers with motivational strategies and tips that led her to discover certain aspects of her own personality that have allowed her to face both personal and professional challenges. Brockovich continues to work on environmental cases and assisted in the filing of a lawsuit against Prime Tanning Corporation of St. Joseph, Missouri, in April 2009. The lawsuit claims that waste from the production of leather, containing high levels of hexavalent chromium, was distributed to farmers in northwest Missouri to use as fertilizer on their fields.
The chemical is believed to be a potential cause of an abnormally high number of brain tumors around the town of Cameron, Missouri. Brockovich is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting and is currently working as a consultant for the New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos exposure. Brockovich is in demand for her lectures and talks across the United States and internationally. Erin Brockovich has received a number of awards and honors for her work with the environment. See Also: Attorneys, Female; Celebrity Women; Environmental Activism, Grassroots; Environmental Issues, Women and; Environmental Justice. Further Readings Brockovich, Erin and Marc Eliot. Take It From Me!: Life’s a Struggle but You Can Win. New York: McGrawHill, 2001. Brueckner, Martin, Dyann Ross, and Erin Brockovich. Under Corporate Skies: A Struggle Between People, Place, and Profit. North Fremantle, Australia: Fremantle Press, 2010. Zager, Norma. Erin Brockovich and the Beverly Hills: Greenscam. New York: Pelican, 2010. Kirsty Fairclough University of Salford
Brundtland, Gro Harlem Gro Harlem Brundtland is one of the former prime ministers of Norway, and has had a long career as a leader on public health and environmental issues. Brundtland began her career in medicine, earning a medical degree from the University of Oslo in 1963 and a Master’s of Public Health from Harvard University in 1965. After working as a public health physician in Norway, she went on to a position in Oslo’s Board of Health, where she focused on children’s issues, and then served as director of health services for the Norwegian public school system. She served as minister for environmental affairs for five years and, in 1981, was elected Norway’s first female prime minister (and its youngest, taking office at the age of 41).
Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway, and director-general of the World Health Organization until 2003.
Brundtland served as prime minister for more than 10 years, first during a brief term in 1981 and then returning for two subsequent terms from 1986 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1996. As prime minister, she upheld Norway’s Act on Gender Equality and had one of the highest percentages of female cabinet members during her tenure. Brundtland’s background in medicine and her years of work in Norway on the connections between public health and the environment led to an invitation in 1983 for her to chair the newly formed United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development. The Brundtland Commission, as it became known, focused on the role of the international political community in promoting sustainable development and published its report, Our Common Future, in 1987. The environmental issues raised by the report informed the later United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (or Earth Summit), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In May 1998, Brundtland was named director-general of the World Health Organization—a position she
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held until 2003. During her tenure at the organization, she focused on a broad platform of global public health issues, including violence, economic issues, natural disaster relief, tobacco addiction, human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), and maternal and infant health and mortality worldwide. She was recognized by Scientific American as the 2003 Policy Leader of the Year for her response to the sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. Brundtland has also been a recognized leader in global human and women’s rights, and in 1995 she attended and gave an address at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China. Brundtland is a member of several international leadership organizations focused on development, the environment, global politics, and human rights, including the Council of Women World Leaders, the Club of Madrid (an independent organization of political leaders and former leaders of democratic nations, founded in 2001), and the Elders (a group founded in 2007 by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and others that focuses on peace and human rights issues). Since 2007, Brundtland also has served as a special envoy for climate change for the United Nations. Brundtland has been the recipient of numerous international awards for her environmental leadership, including the Third World Prize (1988), Indira Gandhi Prize (1988), Onassis Foundation’s Delphi Prize (1992), Charlemagne Prize (1994), World Ecology Award (2001), Albert Medal of the Royal Society (2005), Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal (2008), and the very first Earth Hall of Fame Kyoto Award (2010). See Also: Heads of State, Female; Norway; Representation of Women in Government, International. Further Readings Brundtland, G. H. Madam Prime Minister: A Life in Power and Politics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Smith, M. H., et al. Foreword by G. H. Brundtland. Cents and Sustainability: Making Sense of How to Grow Economies, Build Communities and Revive the Environment in Our Lifetime. London: Earthscan, 2010. Tiffany K. Wayne Independent Scholar
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Brunei Darussalam The constitutional sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, which has been ruled over by the same family for six centuries, is located in southeast Asia along the South China Sea. After a period of regional influence between the 15th and 17th centuries, the country’s status in the area declined in response to infighting, European imperialism, and piracy. Between 1888 and 1984, Brunei was a British protectorate. After achieving independence, Brunei continued to amass wealth from petroleum and natural gas deposits and from extensive overseas interests. By 2009, per capita income reached an estimated $50,100, making Brunei the ninth richest country in the world. Brunei ranks 30th among the United Nation’s Development Programme’s list of countries with very high human development. Today, three-fourths of Bruneians live in urban areas. The majority ethnic group is Malay (66.3 percent), but 11.2 percent of Bruneians are Chinese. Brunei’s official religion is Muslim (67 percent), but Buddhists (13 percent) and Christians (10 percent) are also represented. In the highly traditional society of Brunei where divorce is generally unacceptable, women have historically had few rights. Under Qur’anic law, they lack rights of inheritance and child custody. According to the country’s Nationality Act, women are also denied rights of citizenship. Because Brunei is an absolute monarchy, neither males nor females have the right to vote except in village elections. While voting in village elections is required for males, it is optional for females. In the 21st century, many women continue to wear the tudong, the traditional Islamic head covering. The median age for females is 27.8 years. Despite its wealth, Brunei ranks 144th in the world in infant mortality, with a rate of 12.27 deaths per 1,000 live births. Female infants (9.75) have a considerable advantage over male infants (14.68). This health advantage continues throughout life, and female life expectancy is 78.07 years as compared to 73.52 for males. Overall, Bruneian women have a fertility rate of 1.91 children per woman. The fertility rate of females aged 15 to 19 is approximately 28 percent. The country ranks 145th in the world in fertility. More than 99 percent of all births are attended by skilled health professionals.
Brunei ranks 59th in the world in educational expenditures. Although males and females have an equal school life expectancy of 14 years, female literacy rates are lower (90.2 percent) than those of males (95.2 percent). Despite this, the number of women pursuing higher education is steadily growing. Bruneian women began to assert themselves in the late 20th century. In 1997, Princess Masna, the sister of the Sultan, became the second-ranking official in the Ministry of Affairs, and two other females were appointed to the Ministries of Education and Culture, Youth, and Sports. Between 1999 and 2005, 26 percent of legislators, senior officials, and managers and 44 percent of professional and technical workers were female. Although large numbers of women have entered the workforce, their salaries continue to lag far behind those of males. In 2005, for instance, estimated earned income for females was only $15,658 as compared to $37,506 for males. Many Bruneian women serve in noncombat positions in the military. Women have repeatedly been victims of minor domestic assault in Brunei, and the government has identified assault against female domestics as an area of major concern. The penalty for this offense is a jail term of one to two weeks. If the offense results in a serious injury, punishment may also include caning. However, female domestics, particularly foreigners are often reluctant to report abuse, which may also include being forbidden to leave their employers’ homes on their days off. A wife who is beaten by her husband may now use that action as grounds for divorce. See Also: Divorce; Domestic Violence; Military, Women in the; Pregnancy. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Brunei.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/bx.html (accessed February 2010). NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women. “Brunei.” http://www.niew.gov.my/niew/index .php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid =145&Itemid=60&lang=en (accessed February 2010). “Women and Human Rights: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997; Brunei.” WIN News, v.24/2 (Spring 1998).
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World Economic Forum. “Brunei.” http://www.weforum .org/pdf/gendergap/ggg08_brunei_darussalam.pdf (accessed June 2010). Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
Buddhism From its Indian context, Buddhism spread worldwide for over 2,500 years through trade, royal patronage, migration, scholarly study, and travel. Currently, about 350 million people or 6 percent of the world’s population identify themselves as Buddhist, with Mahayana the largest tradition. Besides Mahayana Buddhism, the other main schools are Theravada and Vajrayana. However, Vajrayana also is regarded as a form of Mahayana Buddhism and is said to provide a faster path to Buddhahood or enlightenment. In addition, there are organizations or individuals who identify themselves as nonsectarian Buddhists. While Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions each have their distinctive features the traditions also share commonalities such as the acceptance of the Four Noble Truths. These state that life is unsatisfactory, that suffering is due to desire and attachment, that there is a solution to this state, and that following the Noble Eightfold Path includes having the right understanding, action, and mindfulness that suffering can end. Buddhism also coexists with other local religious traditions. The monastic institution is an important feature in Buddhism, but it is marked by gender bias as the ecclesiastical authority in the Theravada and Vajrayana tradition is yet to recognize women’s ordination as bhikkhuni (the female counterpart of bhikkhu or monk). In contrast, there is a strong bhikkhuni presence in the monastic order in Mahayana Buddhism even as male dominance still exists. Schools of Buddhism and Local Culture Theravada is the main Buddhist tradition in southeast Asian countries of Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Sri Lanka. However, Mahayana is dominant in east Asia and Vajrayana in the Himalayas. The various schools of Buddhism also are found
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in the West. In Australia, the Mahayana tradition has the most Buddhist followers. Distinctively, Theravada means the Teaching of the Elders and is regarded by its adherents as being the pristine form of Buddhism. Its Pali Canon, “Tipitaka” (Three Baskets), is organized into three sections: Vinaya (monastic discipline), Sutta (discourses of the Buddha), and Abhidhamma (special teachings). The goal of a Theravada Buddhism is to be “arahat” or enlightened. The quickest way to achieve this state is by being a bhikkhu, who keeps 227 precepts or Buddhist ethical conduct. He also dedicates his life to Buddhist teachings. In Thailand, however, people generally aspire to make as much “merit” as possible so they can achieve a better rebirth. Merit can be gained by listening to the Buddha’s teachings and by making offerings to monks. The most meritorious gesture one can make is to become an ordained monk, which will ensure his parents’ rebirth in heaven. In Buddhist doctrine, the highest stage is not to be reborn or to achieve enlightenment. The practice of Buddhism in Thailand co-exists with the belief in animism. In the compound of Thai houses and monastery, spirit houses exist to protect its inhabitants. Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes the “bodhisattapath,” or the way to attain perfect Buddhahood or full enlightenment for one’s self and for countless beings. In addition to Maitreya or future Buddha—that is accepted by Theravada Buddhists as a bodhisattva or buddha—there are other bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism, for example, Avalokitesvara, Tara, Manjusri, and Ksitigarbha. In Buddhist history, the most venerated and popular bodhisatta is Avalokitesvara, which embodies compassion. In China, it is known as Kuan-yin and referred to as “Goddess of Mercy.” Women pray to Kuan-yin for children. From its initial representation in the male figure, the iconography of Kuan-yin gradually takes on the female form. Scholars have attributed one of the possible reasons due to the influence of the existence of female deities in Chinese folk religion and Taoism that have fused into the Kuan-yin bodhisatta. Together with Buddhism and Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese folk religion form Chinese religion. As a subset of Mahayana Buddhism, the Vajrayana tradition also venerates bodhisattas. However, Vajrayana presents the quickest path to enlightenment with its more powerful methods. The Vajrayana tradition
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also is referred to as Tantric Buddhism and is based on texts known as Tantras. It incorporates meditative practices, rituals, and mantras. The most well-known mantra is “Om mani padme hum,” or “O the Jewel in the Lotus,” which associated with Avalokitesvara. A mantra is chanted to aid in the visualization practice of a particular Buddha or bodhisatta to cultivate the spiritual qualities embodied by the figure. In this tradition, the spiritual master plays a very important role to initiate a disciple, provide guidance in the practices and to pass secret teachings. There are several ordination lineages with the Gelugpa being the most famous. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is from this order. The order also is known as Yellow Hat, derived from the hats worn by its members. Another order is the Karma-pa, which is divided into Red Hat Karma-pa and Black Hat Karma-pa. Similar to Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, the monastery is an important institution in Vajrayana Buddhism. In Asia, it is part of the cultural tradition to support monasticism. In the West, outside of the Asian community, the culture to support the monastic community does not exist. Consequently, these monastics will have to find a way to support their livelihood in addition to dedicating themselves full time to the spiritual path.
Women enter a temple in a traditional Buddhist ceremony in South Korea. There are about 350 million Buddhists worldwide.
Buddhism and Gender According to the Buddha, gender is irrelevant to gain enlightenment, as both women and men have the possibility to reach this state. In practice, gender discrimination exists in Buddhist institutions and countries. In Thailand, the Buddhist ecclesiastical authority does not recognize ordination of women from the lowest level as “samaneri” or novice to the highest as bhikkhuni. Nonetheless, since bhikkhuni ordination was restored in Sri Lanka in the late 20th century, Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, previously Chatsumarn Kabilsingh—an associate professor of philosophy and religion in Thammasat University—became the pioneering Thai woman to travel there for novice and full ordination early in this century. Another milestone was achieved in 2009 as temporary ordination for women was conducted for the first time in Thailand at Bhikkhuni Dhammananda’s monastery. Ordination for women challenges the social construction of “femininity” as only receivers of merit can reconstruct it to include fields or sources of merit. Mothers do not have to wait for their sons to get ordained to ensure their rebirth in heaven; daughters have this avenue open to them, too. This has the possibility of neutralizing the emphasis on the status of sons in the family because they can be ordained and their sisters cannot. Furthermore, in Thailand there is the belief that being born a female is a lower birth status due to an inadequate store of merit compared to natural position of being born a male. Because of this discrepancy, women diligently make offerings to monks to increase their store of merit. However, this notion is not accepted by all Thais and is challenged for having no basis in Buddhist teaching. Efforts to enable bhikkhuni ordination are ongoing in the Vajrayana tradition as well. Organizationally, the international Buddhist women’s association, Sakyaditha or “Daughters of the Buddha,” tirelessly persevere to restore or establish bhikkhuni ordination in tradition and in countries where it is not yet recognized. As advocates for gender equity in Buddhism, Sakyaditha’s work is similar to that of the Women’s Ordination Conference, which campaigns for women’s ordination as priests and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church. Similar efforts have effected change in Judaism’s reform movement that pioneered the ordination of female rabbis. Members
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of Sakyaditha cut across the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions and are from both Asia and the West. Their latest initiative is to hold the 12th Sakyaditha Conference in Singapore in June 2011, which will promote networking, cooperation, and empowerment among Buddhist women as well as highlight issues of concern. As for the Mahayana female monastic order, it continues to thrive. In Taiwan, the numbers of female monastic significantly outnumber men; they are well-educated with tertiary education as well as showing remarkable leadership as abbess of a monastery. Nonetheless, in her research on Taiwanese bhikkhunis, Wei-Yi Cheng noted that gender bias is still observable, for example, during public functions where male monastic sit in front and female monastic sit in the back. Furthermore, the extent to which a bhikkhuni would kneel to pay respect to a bhikkhu in observance of the first of the Eight Special Rules differs. For most it is only observed in temples and for some bhikkhuni it is only practiced in the Buddha Hall. This diversity in Buddhist practice is not exclusive to Taiwan because in Thailand, not all Thai consider women of inferior birth; also, everyone is not against the restoration of bhikkhuni ordination. See Also: Chinese Religions; “Femininity,” Social Construction of; Rabbis, Female; Religion, Women in; Women’s Ordination Conference. Further Readings Buddhist Studies. “Number of Buddhist Worldwide.” http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/bud _statwrld.htm (accessed April 2010). Cheng, Wei-Yi. Buddhist Nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka. London: Routledge, 2007. Ito, Tomomi. “Ordained Women in Yellow Robes: An Unfamiliar ‘Tradition’ in Contemporary Thailand.” In Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Out of the Shadows: Socially Engaged Buddhist Women. Delhi, India: Sri Satguru Publications, 2006. Tsomo, K. L. “Introduction.” In K. L. Tsomo, ed., Bridging World’s: Buddhist Women’s Voices Across Generations. Taipei, Taiwan: Yuan Chuan Press, 2004. Suat Yan Lai University of Malaya
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Bulgaria The nation of Bulgaria is situated in the southeastern part of Europe. It is a former Communist country and now a member state of European Union, since 2007. Bulgaria has a population of about 7.3 million, 71 percent of which live in urban areas. The average life expectancy for women is 76 years, and literacy rate is 98 percent. The realities that Bulgarian women have to face at the beginning of the 21st century are common to most of the women of the postcommunist countries which undertook the transition from a totalitarian regime and central planning to democracy and market economy. The entire political and economic setting of Bulgaria was shaken by these political and economic changes and as a result the roles and positions of women, both in the public and the private sphere, were challenged. Equal rights for men and women are guaranteed by national legislation. These legal provisions are reinforced by the compulsory compliance to the equality mechanisms of the European Union. The number of legal cases of gender discrimination had been small, but these had increased from 2008 through 2010 as a result of a growing awareness of women of their individual rights. A telling example in this sense is the suit against the Defense Ministry initiated by two women on the grounds that women have no right to serve in the National Guards. The healthcare system in Bulgaria is a mix of public and private funding, with a mandatory health insurance. The state expenditure on healthcare is about 7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Prophylactic health screenings for diseases that affect women are mandatory. Abortion is legal and the percentage of abortions per number of pregnancies has decreased from 45 percent in 2000 to 34 percent by 2006. The transition to a market economy has raised a critical issue of “feminization of poverty” all across the central and eastern European countries. This problem is still far from being solved in Bulgaria. Even if the pay gap has closed to the European Union average—of about 15 percent—the wages are still among the lowest in the European Union. There is a 10 percent employment gap between men and women and about 60 percent of those who seek a job are women. The sectors of the economy
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where women are mostly concentrated are textiles and clothing, leather and fur products, education, healthcare and social work, financial intermediation, and hotels and restaurants. Traditionally, Bulgarian women perpetuate the role of housekeeper carrying out housework on behalf of the entire family. This situation remained virtually unchanged during the 60 years of the Communist period. At present, women still face the double burden of the labor market and the unpaid family work, as policies for work–life balance are still to be implemented. The average age when women marry is 24 years, versus that of 28 years for men. There are low numbers of women in the upper layers of bureaucracy and the number of women in politics is far from being balanced. Still, in comparison with other countries of the region, Bulgaria has a relatively higher political mobilization of women’s interests and has a high number of visible women. It is worth noting that the Party of Bulgarian Women had an important electoral success in the 2001 elections. This party has ruled in a government coalition and contributed toward increasing descriptive representation of women in politics. Then two Bulgarian women were appointed as national representatives in the European Union Commission, in 2007 and in 2009. Not least, after a period of 130 years, Sofia, the capital city, has a women mayor again. See Also: Equal Pay; Health, Mental and Physical; Representation of Women in Government, International; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Daskalova, Nadezhda. “Women’s Participation in Labour Market Remains Unequal.” Institute for Social and Trade Union Research, 2002. http://www.eurofound .europa.eu/ewco/2008/05/BG0805049I.htm (accessed December 2009). United Nations Women Watch. http://www.un.org /womenwatch/directory/statistics_and_indicators _60&PageNo=2.htm (accessed December 2009). Yachkova, Mirolyuba. The Family in Bulgaria at the Turn of the Century: Prerequisites, Analyses and Forecasts. Sofia, Bulgaria: ASSA-M, 2002. Angela Movileanu University of Siena
Bullying in the Workplace Bullying behaviors in the workplace pose a significant threat to both individual livelihood and corporate profits. According to one study, each incident of bullying can cost an employer approximately $14,600. This cost is a direct result of absenteeism—up to 87 percent of victims miss workdays due to both illness and a presumed effort to avoid their tormentors. In addition to missing work, the victims of workplace bullying report greater incidence of a wide range of health complaints. Above and beyond the loss in productivity, employers face potential legal costs if the victims file formal complaints. This entry reviews research on the context and consequences of workplace bullying, and on effective strategies for reducing these behaviors. Harassment in the Workplace Bullying is typically defined as prolonged, repeated harassment directed against a less powerful target. In the workplace, these behaviors may include threats to professional status (e.g., public criticism), threats to personal status (e.g., physical threats), isolation (e.g., withholding information), work overload, excessive monitoring, or removing responsibilities. In some cases, bullying in the workplace can take the form of sexual harassment or even physical violence. According to one large-scale study, incidence rates of workplace bullying over a five-year period ranged from 17 percent in the hotel industry to 36 percent in the teaching industry. This variation between different industries suggests that bullying is heavily influenced by the work environment. In fact, researchers have argued persuasively that the power dynamics of “corporate culture” are largely to blame for the current epidemic of workplace bullying. This connection between power and bullying is also supported by studies examining the characteristics of workplace bullies. Males are more likely to bully their coworkers than women, and bullies tend to be older than their victims. However, both males and older employees tend to be higher up the office hierarchy, so these associations with bullying are likely to be artifacts of status differences. The evidence is mixed as to whether men or women are more likely to be the targets of bullying. One study found no gender difference in reports of bullying over a six-month period, but more reports of bullying by
women over a five-year period. This apparent contradiction might reflect a gender difference in the tendency to notice, remember, or report incidents of victimization. Taken as a whole, this literature suggests that power differences, rather than gender, best predict the targets of bullying. Workplace bullying appears to be a worldwide phenomenon. According to one review, prevalence rates appear to range from 2 percent among union members in Norway to 53 percent among part-time students in the United Kingdom. However, in practice, it is difficult to draw real conclusions from these differences in prevalence rates, because they usually reflect variations in methodology. While some researchers make use of the strict definition presented above, others allow for a broader—and thus more inclusive—definition of bullying. Likewise, researchers often differ in the time frames they present to their participants. In fact, the 2 percent prevalence rate in Norway reflects those bullied “weekly,” and the 53 percent prevalence in the United Kingdom reflects those “ever subjected to acts of bullying.” At the present time, more research is needed before comparisons can be drawn between countries. Lifelong Pattern of Victimization Although workplace bullying is a relatively new area of study, a large body of research has documented the consequences of being bullied during adolescence. These consequences suggest disruptions in stress and emotional processing, including increased depression, anxiety, suicide risk, and conduct disorders. Although bullying tends to decrease with age, research suggests that there is a subset of people who are chronically victimized throughout school and into college and adulthood. In fact, one study by Peter Smith and colleagues suggests that the victims of workplace bullying were also the targets of bullies during adolescence. Workplace bullying can add an additional layer to the stress of bullying, because it threatens both social connections and an individual’s source of livelihood. Research has linked workplace bullying to a range of both physical and psychological health problems, including cardiovascular disease, sleep problems, chronic fatigue, stomach problems, difficulty concentrating, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts. The common thread behind all of
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these problems is that all are commonly seen in individuals exposed to chronic stress. Some studies have reported that women experience more severe consequences as a result of workplace bullying. This may reflect differences in the work environments of men and women, and/or differences in the reporting of health complaints. In any case, it is also worth noting that this gender difference runs counter to the school bullying literature, which typically finds similar consequences in male and female victims. Options to Reduce Workplace Bullying Given the cost of workplace bullying to both individuals and organizations, it is natural to think about ways to reduce or eliminate the phenomenon. A recent book offers suggestions for both individuals and organizations. Individual targets should be aware that there is a range of options for dealing with the problem such as confronting the bully directly, filling complaints, or leaving the organization entirely. The choice of one strategy over another seems to depend on a mix of a target’s goals and his or her perception of procedural efficacy—as in, why bother filing a complaint if nothing will change? At the organizational level, the key is to implement policies that change the workplace climate. The guiding principles for organizations echo recommendations for reducing school bullying. First, organizational leaders must actively disapprove of bullying and actively support victims. This attitude helps to send the message that bullying is not tolerated. Second, leaders must send the message that supervisors are aware, watching, and ready to intervene, which also helps to create a climate of zero tolerance. See Also: Business, Women in; Health, Mental and Physical; Midlife Career Change; Professions by Gender; Sexual Harassment; Work/Life Balance. Further Readings Griffin, R. S. and A. M. Gross. “Childhood Bullying: Current Empirical Findings and Future Directions for Research.” Aggression and Violent Behavior, v.9/4 (2004). Olweus, D. Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1993. Rayner, C., H. Hoel, and C. L. Cooper. Workplace Bullying: What We Know, Who Is to Blame, and What Can We Do? London: Taylor & Francis, 2002.
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Salin, D. Explaining Workplace Bullying: A Review of Enabling, Motivating, and Triggering Factors in the Work Environment. Helsinki. Finland: Meddelanden Working Papers, 1999. Smith, P. K., M. Singer, and H. Hoel. “Bullying in the School and the Workplace: Are There Any Links?” British Journal of Psychology, v.94/2 (2003). Matthew L. Newman Arizona State University
Burkina Faso The landlocked, Sahelian country of Burkina Faso, with a population of 15.8 million, is one of the most densely populated countries in West Africa and one of the poorest in the world. A 2009 United Nations Human Development Report places Burkina Faso 177th of 182 countries ranked. The major religions are Islam, indigenous beliefs, and Christianity (approximately 50 percent, 40 percent, and 10 percent, respectively). Burkina Faso’s accession to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women came into effect in 1987. Since then, much of the country’s national legislation has been harmonized with that of the convention and other international agreements relating to the rights of women, and a wide range of legal instruments and bodies have been implemented to improve the position of women, including the Individual and Family Code and the Ministry for the Advancement of Women. The former espouses the principle of nondiscrimination and equal rights for men and women. However, positive changes in the institutional and legislative arena regarding the promotion and protection of women’s rights has generally not been followed by a similar positive change in popular attitudes. Particularly in rural areas, there is a large gap between legislation and the day-to-day lives of women in Burkina Faso. Most women are not aware of their rights, and the largely patriarchal dictates of traditional societies are the accepted morality for both men and women. For example, in matters of inheritance, although Burkinabe law stipulates that the surviving spouse is the absolute heir, in reality the widow’s inheritance right is usually ignored by
the deceased husband’s relatives, who may refuse to grant her legal custody of the children and access to the estate. Although overall literacy rates are very low in Burkina Faso, women’s disadvantaged status in society is further reflected in the extremely high rate of illiteracy among women (only 12.5 percent of adult women are literate compared with 29.4 percent of men) and in the perpetuation of many traditional practices harmful to women’s health and well-being. These include underage and forced marriage, levirate (the practice whereby a widow is obliged to marry a relative of her deceased husband), tolerance of domestic violence, and female genital surgery (FGS), a traditional practice involving the alteration or removal of the external female genitalia. Despite the 1996 ban on FGS and the establishment of a national committee to address the practice, the rate of FGS in Burkina Faso still stands at 73 percent. Women’s participation in public life and access to the labor market is hampered by the difficulties they face in gaining access to land, credit, and basic social services. Although there are a number of women’s associations working with the support of the state and development partners to develop income-generating activities for women (e.g., petty commerce and livestock farming), socioeconomic and cultural factors continue to result in a restriction of opportunities for Burkinabe women. See Also: Convention to End Discrimination Against Women; Domestic Violence; Female Genital Surgery, Types of. Further Readings Central Intelligence Agency. “The World Factbook: Burkina Faso.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/uv.html (accessed June 2010). Convention to End Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). “Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Combined Fourth and Fifth Reports of States Parties.” CEDAW. Burkina Faso, CEDAW /C/BFA/4-5, 2004. Máire Ní Mhórdha University of St Andrews
Burundi Burundi is a landlocked African country that is bordered by Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Burundi has been ruled by kings since the 16th century, even while under control by different European empires. Burundi officially declared its independence in July 1962 and established a constitutional monarchy. However, the nation also has been plagued by political and ethnic strife similar to its neighbor Rwanda. Insurgency and civil war have erupted since the nation’s founding, and although the new nation tried to balance rule between the rival ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsis, they never achieved a peaceful balance. In the 1960s, in response to the Hutu insurgency in Rwanda that killed many Tutsi, Burundi Tutsi seized control of the military and police. In 1972, Burundi experienced a genocide: In
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the city of Bururi, most of the civilian and military Tutsi were killed. When Tutsi gained control of the government, they killed 200,000 to 300,000 Hutu. In the 1990s, Burundi was deeply enmeshed in a civil war; the Rwanda genocide in 1994 added fire to the Burundi Hutu–Tutsi conflict. The decade of civil war that followed displaced over 50,000 people, and killed about 300,000. United Nations peacekeepers have had a presence in Burundi and negotiated a new transitional government and constitution. The generation of instability has greatly affected the status of women, who live in a culture of violence and fear. Women participated in the United Nations peace process, and the nation’s new constitution guarantees that 30 percent of Parliament be women, as well as 7 of the 20 ministers. However, having such political voice has not yet helped women’s status. The culture of war has created a violent society that uses rape as a form of
A woman in Burundi carries her baby on her back in the traditional African method. Burundi was involved in a decade long civil war, which greatly affected the status of women, who still live in a culture of violence and fear.
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intimidation and tool of combat. The threat of violence and rape has kept women from working in agriculture, which would help them rise out of poverty. Because of the nation’s civil unrest, 80 percent of households own firearms, and armed rape is common—women report that armed robberies often involve rape as well. Adding to the problem, it is culturally taboo for women to talk about rape, so little is done to keep women safe. As a result, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has become a significant problem in Burundi. Many families are headed by widows because of the country’s constant warfare. Because women cannot inherit property, most of these families live in extreme poverty, with few economic opportunities. Women have turned to prostitution to survive. Their daughters frequently drop out or never begin to attend school to help support their families. Because of the constant threat of sexual violence, many women think prostitution is safer than being on their own, where they are more vulnerable to rape. Mass rapes over the last several decades also have crippled many women, who now live in a constant state of fear. Warfare has also created a culture of violence in which men feel they have the right to beat their wives. There are many nongovernmental organizations attempting to address the status of women in Burundi, through education, economic opportunities, and AIDS awareness. Burundi women need protection and stability to lift themselves out of poverty and violence. See Also: HIV/AIDS: Africa; Rape, Incidence of; Rape in Conflict Zones. Further Readings Farr, Vanessa. “The Importance of a Gender Perspective to Successful Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Processes.” http://www.unidir.org/pdf /Gender/5 percent20Farr.pdf (accessed June 2010). Farr, Vanessa, et al. “Gender Perspectives on Small Arms and Light Weapons: Regional and International Concerns.” http://www.bicc.de/publications/briefs /brief24/content.php (accessed June 2010). Krueger, Robert, et al. From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi: Our Embassy Years During Genocide. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007. Lemarchand, Rene. Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Uvin, Peter. Life After Violence: A People’s Story of Burundi. London: Zed Books, 2009. Monica Fitzgerald Saint Mary’s College of California
Business, Women in In furtherance of all human rights of women and the achievement of sustainable economic development, the importance of empowering women is recognized. L. Mayoux defines empowerment as a process of change in power relations that is both multidimensional and interlinked. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) defines women’s (economic, social, and political) empowerment through five components: women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and determine choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; their ability to influence the direction of social change. These five components are particularly applicable in work, where women’s economic empowerment can be achieved by targeting initiatives to expand women’s economic opportunity; strengthen their legal status and rights; and ensure their voice, inclusion, and participation in economic decision making. Expanding women’s economic opportunities means more and better jobs for women across a wider range of sectors; a business climate that supports women in starting and growing businesses and building their management and entrepreneurial skills; a financial sector in which commercial banks and microfinance institutions provide women with effective access to a range of financial services and products tailored to their needs including especially credit and savings instruments; in times of high food and fuel prices, greater livelihood security for women, especially in rural areas and vulnerable environments. Micro and small enterprise (MSE) development for women is promoted as a key intervention for women’s economic empowerment by governments and by international and European development agencies since the 1990s. Although women take part in medium and large businesses,
MSEs mainly represent women entrepreneurs’ productive activities. Entrepreneurship development for women is also among the measures proposed in the Beijing Declaration, Beijing Platform for Action 1995, the Program of Action of the World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995, at the Millennium Summit held in 2000 (Millenium Development Goals), the 2005 World Summit (Resolution 60/1), and in Resolution 1558 (2007) on Feminization of Poverty by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1979 obliges signatories to undertake actions to ensure gender equality in both the private and public spheres and to eliminate traditional stereotyped ideas on the roles of the sexes. In the United States, European Union (EU) member countries, and the developing world, governments and the private sector have been actively promoting a greater role for women entrepreneurs in business and economic growth. The EU provides female entrepreneurs with specialized training and support through the European Social Fund. The EU Women’s Entrepreneurship Portal encourages Europe-wide networking among female entrepreneurs. As part of its ongoing strategy to increase the number of female entrepreneurs in the EU, the commission launched the European Network of Female Entrepreneurship Ambassadors in 2009. Members will share experiences, compare notes, and serve as role models to inspire women to become entrepreneurs across the 27-member EU. International organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), International Trade Center (ITC, Geneva), UN Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); financial institutions such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC); and donors such as Development Cooperation Ireland (DCI) are also paying significant attention to women’s entrepreneurship development. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the ILO’s International Training Center (ITC-ILO) in Turin, Italy, have been involved in promoting and assisting businesswomen for many years.
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A team dedicated to working on issues related to Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Gender Equality (WEDGE) was created within the ILO’s Small Enterprise Development Program (SEED) in 2001. It has been working closely with ITC-ILO on a number of training initiatives. Statistics on Women in Business There has been rapid expansion of women’s entrepreneurship since the 1980s. Statistics should be treated with caution, and the expansion of women-owned businesses or self-employment in itself says very little about the conditions of entrepreneurship, the reasons why it is occurring, and the benefits or costs for women. Most studies only consider women-owned businesses and do not include women co-entrepreneurs or women’s participation in family enterprise management. Many of the studies are undifferentiated by class and background apart from female-headed households, particularly the studies in Europe and the United States. There are few comparative studies of female and male businesses, and little information exists on business operation and levels of success over time. Also, women entrepreneurs are found in the informal or marginalized sector that is very active in developing and transitional economies. Informal economic activities and their related incomes and outlays often escape statistical reporting. In some countries, such as the United States, the growth in the number of women-owned businesses is far outpacing the overall growth of new businesses. The most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that between 1997 and 2006, businesses that are fully owned by women or in which women own a majority interest grew at nearly two times the rate of all U.S. firms. During this same time period, employment among women-owned firms grew 0.4 percent. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that womenowned (or majority-owned) firms consisted of an estimated 10.4 million privately held firms, which accounted for 40.2 percent of all businesses in the country. Furthermore, industry growth for womenowned businesses between 1997 and 2006 in the retail sector was 130 percent (1.1 million firms). On average, women make up 30 percent of the entrepreneurs in the EU. The entrepreneurial activities of women vary considerably across sectors. According to the overall summary of replies received,
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the large majority (87.4 percent) of women entrepreneurs across Europe have micro enterprises, with 1–9 employees; 10.1 percent have small companies (10–49 employees), 2 percent have medium-sized companies (50–249 employees), and 0.5 percent have large companies (over 250 employees). Female entrepreneurs are generally more represented in services than in manufacturing and construction. However, the European indicators on female entrepreneurs, divided by sector, sometimes rely on nonharmonized national data and must be interpreted carefully. Starting from a low base, the Arab region has witnessed a faster increase in women’s share of economic activity than all other regions of the world between 1990 and 2003—by 19 percent as opposed to 3 percent worldwide. It is estimated that women make up onequarter to one-third of the total business population worldwide. However, their presence in international markets is weak. In the agricultural sector, however, approximately 41 percent of women and 57 percent of men are self-employed. Diversification Among Women in Business Women entrepreneurs constitute a growing share of micro and small enterprise owners. They are, however, not a homogenous group. Women in business are often self-employed—full time or part time—with or without employees or are the partner/shareholder of a business. Self-employment—with a few employees or without employees— and micro and small businesses can be home based. Women’s self-employment has often been promoted and is often preferred by women themselves because of the possibility of working from home and thus combining income-earning activities with unpaid domestic work. For many women, particularly in south Asia, waged work outside the home in agricultural production has not been an option because of social status concerns. This situation does not apply to higher-status professional work or work in factories. The possibilities of telecommuting in Northern industrialized countries—made possible by advances in technology—is often the preferred work pattern. However, where working at home is forced on women because of mobility restrictions rather than part of a conscious lifestyle choice, incomes are likely to be very low. In Europe, the increasing focus on socially responsible growth, including a commitment to the welfare
state and the promotion of social forms of enterprise, promises to open up new opportunities for women entrepreneurs. Policies to stimulate micro and small enterprises, combined with equal opportunities policies, have helped to create a more favorable environment for women’s entrepreneurial development. In the United States and Europe, active women’s organizations and organized gender lobbies within the administration are able to ensure attention to at least the concerns of some women entrepreneurs, particularly at the level of legislation. The majority of women, particularly poor women in the South, begin their enterprises to cope with costs of household subsistence and inadequate male contributions to family survival. These women are locked into low-investment, low-growth, and lowprofit activities, not only because of limited markets and enterprise opportunities in poor economies, but also due to gender inequalities in accessing resources, skills, markets, and labor. These in turn are a result of gender discrimination in macro-level policies and institutions that reflect and reinforce gender inequalities in power at the household level. In the South, existing studies indicate that, particularly for poor women, constraints have been exacerbated rather than alleviated by neoliberal policies promoting export-led growth. What little social services and welfare provisions previously existed have been reduced. The benefits of micro and small enterprise development for women themselves in terms of economic empowerment, wellbeing, or social and political empowerment cannot be assumed. Obstacles to Women in Business Although gender inequality is extremely variable— both between and within cultures—women entrepreneurs face gender-based barriers to starting and growing their businesses including discriminatory property, matrimonial, and inheritance laws and/ or cultural practices, limited mobility, representation, and an unequal share of family and household responsibilities. These factors, combined with social exclusion based on gender, mean that women entrepreneurs are in a less favorable position compared to men when it comes to accessing, for example, commercial credit from formal financial service providers, more lucrative markets (rather than the tradi-
tional local markets), technology, and information to establish and grow their businesses. The importance of access to credit is identified as a major barrier to entry into self-employment throughout the world. Women setting up businesses encounter varying degrees of difficulty in obtaining capital, collateral, and fair lending terms. Microfinancing One of the most popular forms of economic empowerment for women is microfinance, which provides credit for impoverished women who are usually excluded from formal credit institutions. Mayoux highlights the three recognized models of microfinance programs: 1. Financial self-sustainability: This is the most popular model and used by donor agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, and the United Nations. It provides microfinance services to a large number of poor women, specifically targeting small entrepreneurs, by setting interest rates to cover costs, enabling separate accounting from other interventions, expanding programs to obtain economies of scale, and decreasing costs of delivery through the use of groups. 2. Poverty alleviation: This model focuses on small savings and loan provisions to aid consumption and production. 3. Feminist empowerment: This model is based on examples of some of the earliest microfinance programs in Bangladesh and India, focusing on gender equality and women’s human rights through microfinance, and empowering women economically and socially. Offering women a source of credit has been found to be a very successful strategy for alleviating poverty because it enhances the productivity of one’s own small enterprise and the income-generating activities in which one invests. The most successful of these schemes—the Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), and the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India—have served as models for other programs worldwide.
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But recently, many academics argue that these programs are not effective in fully empowering women. They believe that there is a lack of substantial training and support services and a need to provide women with greater ownership and control in the programs. Critics contend that microfinance programs only marginally increase access to income and that they have a limited impact on household decision making. They argue that many of these programs have not been able to move women i
