scholarly journals Mission (Im)possible? Determining Organizational Ideology by Examining Mission Statements

Author(s):  
Agnes Meinhard ◽  
Stephanie Schwartz ◽  
Femida Handy

This paper is part of a larger project investigating the relative roles of ideology and gender composition in determining organizational structure and behavior. The project’s genesis arose from a study by Meinhard and Foster (2003) that found that Canadian women’s voluntary organizations (WVOs) differed from gender-neutral and men’s organizations on many different measures. Women’s organizations were less likely to adopt a business orientation or pursue new revenue strategies, but were more likely to collaborate with other organizations and more likely to downsize. They also tended to be more pessimistic in their outlook and engaged in more advocacy and political action. Meinhard and Foster (2003) also found that among women’s organizations, those that were members of the Canadian National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), an umbrella organization for feminist groups, were more extreme in their differences. In other words, although both NAC and non-NAC organizations differed significantly from gender-neutral organizations, NAC organizations differed the most. Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series,TRSM, Ted Rogers School of Management Citation:

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes G. Meinhard ◽  
Mary K. Foster

[Paragraph 1 of Introduction]: Although women make up more then half of Canada’s volunteers, and a large number of voluntary organizations are exclusively female, there has been little research focussing on women’s voluntary organizations. The purpose of this study is to correct this neglect by surveying 351 women’s voluntary organizations (as defined in the Methods section), and comparing them to 294 voluntary organizations that do not fall into the category of women’s organizations. Specifically, we investigate the responses of these voluntary organizations to the changes wrought by the neo-conservative political philosophy that has replaced the social democratic liberalism of the post-war era (see McBride and Shields, 1997). Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series,TRSM, Ted Rogers School of Management Citation:


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-142
Author(s):  
Tatyana E. Lomova ◽  

The article analyses women’s organizations of modern Russia as a component of civil society. The study is based on the gender approach and materials analyzed include statistical data, results of opinion polls, websites of women’s organizations, interviews and other documents. The women’s movement is considered as one of the social practices in the context of the theory of practices proposed by Pierre Bourdie, Robert Connell and others. The author notes that the peak of women’s activity in Russia was in the 1990s, when women were uniting to solve social problems, such as women’s unemployment, human trafficking, etc. During that time, the women’s movement in Russia was developing with the support of international women’s organizations and foreign charity funds, but after the adoption of the so-called law on “foreign agents” many funds suspended or limited their activities in Russia. As a result, nowadays, many Russian NGOs including women’s organizations are facing financial problems. NGOs recognized as a “foreign agent” experience the most difficulties while organizations with the status of socially oriented NGOs can receive government’s support and funding. Using the method of content analysis, the author revealed that names of Russian women’s organizations often include such words as “family”, “childhood”, and “motherhood”, whereas the words “woman”/“women” and ‘women’s’ are rarely used. This is due to the fact that in Russian society there are still widespread views that the range of women’s interests should be limited to the private sphere. At the same time, the gender theory and feminism are often presented as attempts to undermine national traditions. As a result, a woman is considered as an object of social policy rather than a subject of social processes. The majority of Russian women’s organizations focus on charity work, but specific women’s interests and problems are often ignored or undervalued. However, domestic violence, labour market discrimination, and other gender problems can be solved only through the close interaction of the “third sector”, business, and government.


2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 291-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances B. Henderson

After an exhausting 22-hour trip from St. Louis, I landed in Maputo, Mozambique, alone, for the first time in July 2003 to begin my dissertation research on women and women's organizations in Mozambique since democratization. I spent an hour talking to a young man who was returning home (to Maputo) from Brazil. Seeing it as an opportunity to practice my Portuguese with someone who spoke English, I did not realize that an hour had passed and my “welcoming party” still had not arrived. The young man and I switched from Portuguese to English as he began telling me the “cool places to hang out and get a drink” in Maputo. I had no idea who was coming to pick me up as I was armed only with the information that it was my in-country advisor's brother who would be there. As this young man and I were talking someone came up to me and asked, “Are you Frances?” With a sigh of relief, I said yes, and he replied, “I was here all of the time and I did not realize that you were here until I heard you speaking English with this young man. I did not recognize you; we thought you would be white.”


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (03) ◽  
pp. 572-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley English

AbstractThough the concept of intersectionality has been in circulation for nearly 30 years and women's organizations have long been criticized for failing to prioritize the concerns of women of color, poor women, and LGBTQ women, more research is needed to determine precisely why women's organizations do and do not discuss those intersectional identities during policy debates. This study analyzes 1,021 comments that women's organizations submitted to rulemakers to test a series of hypotheses about how women's organizations’ references to women's intersectional identities increase or decrease depending on the organization's primary constituency and ideology, the proposed rule's target population, and other features of the policy-making context. Using automated text analysis and a series of models, it shows that women's organizations do discuss intersectionally marginalized women in their comments. However, not all subgroups of women are equally represented during the process. Women's organizations focus on women's sexual orientations and gender identities more than their races, ethnicities, nationalities, or socioeconomic statuses. Intersectionally marginalized women also tend to receive the most attention when commenters are from organizations that are explicitly focused on representing intersectionally marginalized women and when bureaucrats include references to intersectionally marginalized women in their proposed rules.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 470-473
Author(s):  
Rosalyn Cooperman ◽  
Melody Crowder-Meyer

Although 2018 has been called another “Year of the Woman,” increases in women’s representation that year were party-specific. Historically, women’s organizations fought to expand women’s representation in both parties; however, the fruit of these efforts is currently concentrated among Democrats. Indeed, women contributed funds in record numbers in 2018, but the majority of women donors supported Democratic women candidates (Haley 2018), and liberal women’s political action committees (PACs) played a prominent role in raising those funds.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-182
Author(s):  
Kenneth Williamson,

This article focuses on changes in Black women’s activism, particularly in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, from 1995-2015, by comparing two national marches. Black organizations throughout the country came together to organize a national march in national’s capital Brasilia in November 1995.  Twenty years later in November 2015, Black women organized a national march to address the intersection of racism and sexism. During those twenty years, Black activists worked tirelessly against Black genocide, anti-Blackness and racial apartheid in Brazil, and Black women stood on the frontlines of these struggles. The intersectionality of race, class, and gender were and remain critical to the activism of Black women and to the production of research and knowledge. The paper examines the changes activism in the Black movement over twenty years that marked the growth on Black women’s organizations and networks.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Ferguson

This paper explores the failure of women’s organizations to effect the improvement of the status of Jordanian women during the Arab Spring. Through an examination of the regime’s political liberalization strategy, leadership failures within women’s organizations, and international donor influence on programmatic focus, the underlying explanation for this failure is found to be rooted in the historical depoliticization of women in Jordan. This is tested in the context of the Arab Spring through an analysis of the results of popular protests, proposed electoral law reforms, and efforts to amend the Jordanian constitution. The paper draws in part on a large collection of interviews and a focus group conducted in Jordan during the spring/summer of 2012, as well as analysis of primary documents from the government and a variety of women’s organizations in Jordan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (Extra-B) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Adelya Ilhamovna Sattarova ◽  
Flera Gabdulbarovna Mukhametzyanova ◽  
Irina Igorevna Lushpaeva ◽  
Marina Maratovna Imasheva

The paper considers the issues on the influence of ethno-confessional communications on the formation of the women’s social status in public women's organizations of the Republic of Tatarstan. For many, ethno-confessional identity has become defining. Women's organizations also emerged and co-opted more and more members every year. This social tendency eventually caused the need to study the phenomenon of "ethno-confessional communication" by the example of the culture of organization and the activities of women's public organizations. The issue requires a theoretical substantiation for the features of manifestation of ethno-confessional communication in the context of the socio-cultural phenomenon of women's public organizations in modern Russian society. The paper is intended for researchers of the problems concerning the culture of communications for researching ethno-confessional communications as a condition for the formation of a woman's social status by the example of modern public organizations of Muslim Tatar women in the Republic of Tatarstan.


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