Who is afraid of more women in politics, and why? An analysis of public opinion in 28 European countries

We study how individual and country-level variables interact in affecting political gender attitudes in Europe. Based on data from the 2017 Eurobarometer survey, we show that there are high levels of support for more women in politics and legal measures to achieve gender parity across the EU. In fact, more people, and women in particular, put higher trust in female compared to male political representatives than the other way round. We find that – at the individual level – gender, age and education have significant effects on political gender attitudes. Contrary to theory, however, the effect of gender is not mediated by beliefs about the proper role of women in politics and society. We also do not find support for the contextual effects of masculine culture and the religiosity of society, but we do uncover significant gaps in political gender attitudes between post-communist and other countries, especially for men. This gap is very significant in size and declines only marginally with the age of the respondent. Our study identifies men in post-communist countries as the group least likely to trust female politicians and support gender parity in politics in Europe. These attitudes are at least partly independent from stereotypes about gender roles.

Motivated and Capable but No Space for Error

This article presents the results of a research study about the experiences of women in Open Source Software communities. The lack of women in computing professions serves as a cause of social inequity and in this research we develop a nuanced understanding of the experiences of women participating in open-source software. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with eleven women representing multiple countries and a variety of open-source software projects. The theory of individual differences in gender and information technology (IT) laid the foundation for data analysis and interpretation. The results demonstrate varied experiences of women, the need for women-to-women mentoring, and the need for presence and enforcement of Codes of Conduct in the online communities. Women shared their experiences of working in a variety of roles and the importance of all the roles in product development and maintenance. The persistence of women in OSS communities despite the toxic masculine culture, and their interest in improving the environment for other women and marginalized newcomers, was evident from the interviews.

The Feminine Paradigm of Culture in Alice Voinescu’s Conception

"The Feminine Paradigm of Culture in Alice Voinescu’s Conception. Alice Voinescu, the first Romanian woman to obtain a PhD in Philosophy, proposed a female cultural paradigm in the conferences she held between 1933-1943, in the context of the women’s emancipation movement of the interwar period. In her view, the male model of knowledge, based on abstract thinking, must be permanently conjoined with the female one, based on intuition and affect, in a totalizing, modern perspective. The salvation of the “eternal human” through the “eternal feminine”, characterized by respect for tradition and continuity both in culture and in society, represents an alternative for materialistic civilization, which is the outcome of the male cognitive pattern. Keywords: Alice Voinescu, femininity, feminism, spirituality, masculine, culture, generation, new man "

Maintaining Male Exclusivity: Porcelain Privilege in the Military

Current debates about bathrooms and bathroom policy contribute to a long history of how space shapes norms and expectations about privacy and gender equity in the workplace. The military serves as a significant site of discussion, particularly as the Department of Defense moves forward with efforts to integrate women into combat positions. Relying on an analysis of 27 focus groups with a total of 198 participants we collected from Special Operations in the U.S. Army, we examine bathrooms as a site where male soldiers contest and resist female integration. Using Sasson-Levy and Katz’s concept of institutional de-gendering and re-gendering, we argue that men’s resistance to gender-neutral toilets is an effort to re-gender Special Forces and maintain the hegemonic masculine culture that acutely defines it.

“Soft” Factors in Pandemic Response: Comparative Intercountry Analysis

The article discusses the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic response that has engulfed most countries, highlights and analyses the response strategies adopted by governments. Using the example of the United States, Russia, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan and China, the authors have analysed the adopted restrictive regimes, models of enforcement to comply with them, schemes and tools to support the economy. According to open sources, the authors estimated the duration and severity of the restrictive regimes for economic and social activity, the severity of punishments for violations of restrictive regimes, the scale of assistance to the population and business, and compliance with restrictive regimes. The article pays a special attention to identifying the role of “soft” factors, such as trust and national culture, in the implementation of the pandemic response policy. The authors used the index of ethnic fractionalization to characterize the homogeneity of society. The article confirms that more collectivist, long-term and less masculine cultures tend to strictly comply with restrictive regimes, but the penalties imposed in countries with such a cultural code have been more severe. The analysis showed that in countries with a more individualized and masculine culture, large packages of support for the population and business were allocated with a moderate severity of punishment for non-compliance with restrictions. In these countries, the tension and discontent of the population, which had accumulated during the period of the restrictive regimes, became more pronounced. The results obtained give grounds to assert that “soft” factors play an important role in shaping the policy of responding to the threat of a pandemic; the strategies chosen by countries in an explicit or implicit form reflect national, cultural and institutional characteristics

“One of the Boys”: Women at the Ontario Veterinary College in the Twentieth Century

For much of the twentieth century, veterinary medicine was a male-dominated profession. This dominance extended to the veterinary schools, which acted as professional gatekeepers. Gender, therefore, was a central organizing principle of the veterinary profession as well as of veterinary education. We argue that the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) was central to the process of professional gatekeeping and was a key site for the training of women veterinarians. Women applying to OVC faced admission practices that favoured male applicants. Those women who were accepted to OVC were met with the masculine culture of veterinary medicine. Despite these difficulties, women actively pursued veterinary training at OVC, including in areas for which they were widely believed to be unsuitable. However, while the number of women at OVC increased during the 1970s and 1980s, the view that women were not suited to veterinary medicine persisted among at least some faculty members.

“One of the Boys”: Women at the Ontario Veterinary College in the Twentieth Century

For much of the twentieth century, veterinary medicine was a male-dominated profession. This dominance extended to the veterinary schools, which acted as professional gatekeepers. Gender, therefore, was a central organizing principle of the veterinary profession as well as of veterinary education. We argue that the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) was central to the process of professional gatekeeping and was a key site for the training of women veterinarians. Women applying to OVC faced admission practices that favoured male applicants. Those women who were accepted to OVC were met with the masculine culture of veterinary medicine. Despite these difficulties, women actively pursued veterinary training at OVC, including in areas for which they were widely believed to be unsuitable. However, while the number of women at OVC increased during the 1970s and 1980s, the view that women were not suited to veterinary medicine persisted among at least some faculty members.

Identity Development of Female Adolescents Belonging to Illegal Armed Groups in Colombia

The article presents the results of the research on the identity of the female adolescent soldiers who, at the time of the study, were in the Colombian government’s rehabilitation programs. The life history interviews methodology was used, 20 adolescents and young women participated, with an average age of 18.9 years. When they entered the illegal armed groups, they had an average of 12.5 years and remained in the groups an average of 4.4 years. From the narratives of the participants, it was discovered that the development of their identity went through three key moments: the first is the product of family interactions, and it is expressed in the tension of assuming the traditional role of women and the decision to join to illegal groups; the second is the result of their permanence in the groups and is defined by the strong masculine culture of war; and the third moment is a consequence of the transit of these women through of the governmental rehabilitation programs, and it is characterized by assuming control of their lives from the exercise of citizenship.

VOICES EMPOWERED: IRANIAN WOMEN AND WEBLOGS

Access to the Internet in 1998 created a unique sphere encompassing both public and private characteristics while offering a new form of communication, identity, and political participation (Rheingold 2000). As a result, access to the Internet provided women with an alternative way of defying the traditional masculine culture through "connection and communication" and "identity transformation" (Nouraei-Simon 2005). The Internet ameliorated Iranian women's ability to contribute to the accelerating development of an online culture that offers a significant change to the definition of empowerment as it shifts the boundaries of the public and private realms, allowing Iranian women to seek self-determination despite Islamic ideology (Jones, 1997). This work shows how the weblog has become one of the key tools to challenge social barriers in the quest for Iranian women's rights (Sreberny & Khiabany, 2010). This paper will critically examine the use of weblogs by some Iranian women to break the gender oriented restrictive rules imposed upon them by the patriarchal elements in higher education by exploring how and in what ways women advocate for their own and others' rights and equality? This paper incorporates a critical textual analysis of primary and secondary academic sources. It integrates a critical feminist approach and have collected data from the work of female scholars, activists, bloggers, and filmmakers and have brought forth the unheard experiences of some Iranian women in higher education.

Gender and Technology Culture: Points of Contact in Tech Cities

This article considers several features of tech cities and masculine technology culture and their impact on the conditions of work and interactions of professionals working within them. It uses interdisciplinary perspectives of gender, technology culture, and professional identity and status to understand work in tech cities. Using focus groups involving 60 women and men across different professional backgrounds at three tech city sites in the UK and USA, the article examines the extent of change in work roles and status norms in a highly male-dominated sector and physical space. Professional life in tech cities is shaped by ‘points of contact’, characterised by heightened knowledge and awareness of masculine culture that restricts women’s progression. Three such points of contact are identified. As increased scholarly and policy attention is paid to the lack of diversity in tech, this study contributes to a much-needed shift in tech culture. Attitudes and professional identities built around work and social networking in tech cities reveal the importance of professional communities and networks in supporting women to manage rejection and career barriers.