scholarly journals Sex Objects: How Self-Objectification Undermines Political Efficacy and Engagement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Gothreau
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Diverse Populations ◽  
Psychological Correlates ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Self Objectification

Women are significantly less politically engaged than men at both the mass and elite levels. More recent scholarship has found that structural factors and standard predictors of political behavior no longer sufficiently explain this persistent gap in engagement. In the present study, I take a novel approach to exploring the discrepancy in men and women’s political engagement and participation. I ask: Does self-objectification, the internalization of observer’s perspectives of our physical bodies, undermine political engagement and in part, drive the gender gap in engagement? I argue that the cognitive, motivational, and affective correlates of self-objectification work to decrease political engagement and participation. I conduct two separate survey studies on diverse populations. Overall, I find a negative association between trait self-objectification and political engagement. These findings highlight the relevance of objectification and its cognitive and psychological correlates to the study of political engagement.

Mind the Gender Gap: An Experiment on the Influence of Self-Efficacy on Political Interest

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 198-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Robinson Preece
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Family Obligations ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Relevant Role

In a healthy democracy, one would expect to see roughly equal levels of political participation among men and women. Yet—aside from voting—women are significantly less politically engaged than men at both the mass and elite levels (Atkeson 2003; Bennett and Bennett 1989; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Lawless and Fox 2010; Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997). The political engagement gender gap suggests that some form of “adverse selection” is at play in the system (Mansbridge 1999, 632). This takes many forms: women have traditionally had less access to resources, more burdensome family obligations, and fewer relevant role models. However, emerging research demonstrates that even when accounting for many of these factors, women remain less engaged with politics than similarly situated men. This suggests that changing these structural factors is not enough to close the gender gap in political engagement—we must address the “gendered psyche” that prevents many women from fully participating in civic life (Lawless and Fox 2010, 12).

A Trump Effect? Women and the 2018 Midterm Elections

The Forum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Lawless ◽  
Richard L. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Candidate Emergence ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Negative Feelings

Abstract From the moment Donald Trump took the oath of office, women’s political engagement skyrocketed. This groundswell of activism almost immediately led to widespread reporting that Trump’s victory was inspiring a large new crop of female candidates across the country. We rely on a May 2017 national survey of “potential candidates” and the 2018 midterm election results to assess whether this “Trump Effect” materialized. Our analysis uncovers some evidence for it. Democrats – especially women – held very negative feelings toward Trump, and those feelings generated heightened political interest and activity during the 2018 election cycle. That activism, however, was not accompanied by a broad scale surge in women’s interest in running for office. In fact, the overall gender gap in political ambition today is quite similar to the gap we’ve uncovered throughout the last 20 years. Notably, though, about one quarter of the Democratic women who expressed interest in running for office first started thinking about it only after Trump was elected. That relatively small group of newly interested candidates was sufficient to result in a record number of Democratic women seeking and winning election to Congress. With no commensurate increase in Republican women’s political engagement or candidate emergence, however, prospects for gender parity in US political institutions remain bleak.

scholarly journals AGE DIFFERENCES IN POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT: ROLE OF SELF-RELEVANCE

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S785-S785
Author(s):  
Tze Kiu Wong ◽  
Helene H Fung
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Older People ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Younger Adults

Abstract Previous studies usually found that older people are less politically engaged than younger adults, especially when considering political behavior other than voting. The current study extends the Selective Engagement hypothesis (Hess, 2014) to political engagement. 81 younger adults and 79 older adults rated 8 issues on self-relevance and their willingness to engage in political discussion, arguments and collective action on each issue. The predicted moderating effect of self-relevance was not found, but older people indeed are more willing to discuss (B = 0.07, p = 0.027) and argue with others on more self-relevant issues (B = 0.06, p = 0.031). Perceived cost of collective action was found to be a moderator, such that self-relevance was less important than other factors for high-cost actions (B = -0.016, p = 0.013). The current research sheds light on potential ways to increase older adults’ engagement in social issues.

From Street Protests to Facebook Campaigns

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-58
Author(s):  
Chamil Rathnayake
Keyword(s):  
Positive Impact ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
University Student ◽  
Student Movement ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Political Cynicism ◽  
Initial Analysis ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Facebook Use

This study examines effects of political cynicism and efficacy on online political engagement of Sri Lankan undergraduates. A survey was conducted among 155 Sri Lankan undergraduates that support the views of the Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF), an evidently anti-government student movement that claims to be dedicated to protecting free education in the country. Initial analysis showed that respondents were highly cynical (mean: 4.49 on a 1 to 5 scale). The study hypothesized that both political cynicism and efficacy exert a positive impact on online political engagement of respondents. The study also tested the effects of two moderators (extent of Facebook use, and the year of study). Results showed that political cynicism exerts a positive impact (standardized coefficient:.274, p:.000) on online political engagement, and this effect is positively moderated by the extent of Facebook use (standardized coefficient:.261, p:.000). Results also showed that internal political efficacy is not a significant predictor of the dependent variable.

scholarly journals Working-hour Trends in the Nordic Countries: Convergence or Divergence?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aart-Jan Riekhoff ◽  
Oxana Krutova ◽  
Jouko Nätti
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Annual Data ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Part Time Work ◽  
Working Hour

In this article, we investigate changes in usual working hours and part-time work in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in recent decades. We analyze whether convergence or divergence occurred between countries, between men and women, and between men and women in each country. We use annual data from the European Labor Force Survey to identify trends between 1996 and 2016 (N = 730,133), while controlling for a set of structural factors. The findings suggest a degree of divergence between countries: usual working hours and the incidence of part-time work were relatively stable in Finland and Sweden, while working hours decreased in Denmark and Norway. The latter is partly driven by a decline among the 15–29 age group. The gender gap in working hours and part-time work was closed somewhat, in particular due to a rise in part-time work among men and a decline among women in Norway and Sweden.

scholarly journals International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. e001938 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zakir Hossin
Keyword(s):  
International Migration ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Immigrant Health ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Structural Framework ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Wide Range

The large-scale international migration in the 21st century has emerged as a major threat to the global health equity movement. Not only has the volume of migration substantially increased but also the patterns of migration have become more complex. This paper began by focusing on the drivers of international migration and how health inequalities are linked to migration. Situating migration within the broader structural contexts, the paper calls for using the unharnessed potential of the intersectionality framework to advance immigrant health research. Despite coming from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds and facing disparities in the host society, the immigrants are often paradoxically shown to be healthier than the native population, although this health advantage diminishes over time. Studies on immigrant health, however, are traditionally informed by the acculturation framework which holds the assimilation of unhealthy lifestyles primarily responsible for immigrant health deterioration, diverting the attention away from the structural factors. Although the alternative structural framework came up with the promise to explore the structural factors, it is criticised for an overwhelming focus on access to healthcare and inadequate attention to institutional and societal contexts. However, the heterogeneity of the immigrant population across multiple dimensions of vulnerability demands a novel approach that can bring to the fore both premigratory and postmigratory contextual factors and adequately capture the picture of immigrant health. The paper concludes by questioning the acculturation perspective and pushing the structural paradigm to embrace the intersectionality framework which has the potential to address a wide range of vulnerabilities that intersect to produce health inequalities among the immigrants.

scholarly journals Using a natural experiment to estimate the electoral consequences of terrorist attacks

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (42) ◽  
pp. 10624-10629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laia Balcells ◽  
Gerard Torrats-Espinosa
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Democratic Election ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
The Military

This study investigates the consequences of terrorist attacks for political behavior by leveraging a natural experiment in Spain. We study eight attacks against civilians, members of the military, and police officers perpetrated between 1989 and 1997 by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), a Basque terrorist organization that was active between 1958 and 2011. We use nationally and regionally representative surveys that were being fielded when the attacks occurred to estimate the causal effect of terrorist violence on individuals’ intent to participate in democratic elections as well as on professed support for the incumbent party. We find that both lethal and nonlethal terrorist attacks significantly increase individuals’ intent to participate in a future democratic election. The magnitude of this impact is larger when attacks are directed against civilians than when directed against members of the military or the police. We find no evidence that the attacks change support for the incumbent party. These results suggest that terrorist attacks enhance political engagement of citizens.

Political Behavior of Religious Elites

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Oldmixon
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Opportunities To Learn ◽  
Civic Skills ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Political Milieu

Churches are at the fulcrum of religious politics, and as church leaders, religious elites have an important role to play in the political milieu. They possess many of the resources associated with potent activism, but more importantly their job is to provide guidance to participants in a vast voluntary network. They can engage in agenda setting, encourage the faithful to apply their religious values to political engagement, and create opportunities to learn civic skills. Even so, religious leaders are subject to influence even as they try to exercise influence. In the foreground, religious leaders have a predictable set of goals, the substance of which varies by race, ethnicity, gender, and social theology. In the background, religious leaders pursue their goals in different sociodemographic and institutional contexts. The political behavior of religious leaders, then, is the product of background and foreground balancing.

‘A sort of guerrilla’: Che at the opera

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT ADLINGTON
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Dual Commitment ◽  
Che Guevara

ABSTRACTThe undoubted cause célèbre of the 1969 Holland Festival was the large-scale music theatre piece Reconstructie, jointly authored by a team of five young composers and two librettists. The work, which took as its subject ‘the struggle against US imperialism in Latin America’, and revolved around the figure of Che Guevara, embodied the authors’ dual commitment to political engagement and artistic experiment. My account examines the work through the lens of recent scholarship that stresses the politically reactionary function of avant-garde experimentation within the cultural Cold War. In the process, attention is given to broader factors affecting the work’s production and reception: these include contemporaneous debates about cultural popularising and the Holland Festival; the complex motives of the work’s governmental patrons; and the influence upon the authors of Cuba, Castro and Guevara himself.

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