The Concept of "Women's Rights" and Constitutional Freedom of Labor: Terminology Clarifications and Implementation Problems

The publication is aimed at defining the essence of the concept of "women's rights". The article shows that the concept of “women's rights” is widely used in the system of normative legal acts in Russia. The domestic legislator, resolutely opposing gender asymmetry, understands the rights of women as a system of integral and inalienable rights, freedoms and obligations for every woman, girl, adolescent girl, regardless of her age, citizenship, race, ethnic or religious affiliation. Using hermeneutic tools, an attempt is made to show the content and problems of the implementation of the labor rights of females. The article emphasizes that horizontal segregation develops under the influence of many factors due to the mentality and preference of various types of activities for men and women. Ultimately, women in general end up with lower income jobs. The authors found that the problems in Russia are the separation of professions into "male" and "female", which entails different wages; the feminization of poverty and unemployment; horizontal professional mobility for women. The increasing number of appeals associated with the violation of the socio-economic rights of women and their making the most of their labor potential become the subject of justice, in particular of constitutional justice in the Russian Federation.

Culture, Gender and Inequality: Narratives from a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group in Odisha, India

This ethnographic paper explores gender inequality in tribal societies vis-à-vis customary practices and challenges the notion of egalitarianism of tribal society by taking Chuktia Bhunjia tribe of Odisha, India as an analytical category. In the light of a discussion on women specific taboos and restrictions, captured through formal interview, narrative and lived experience approach, the paper explicates the deeply embedded nature of the taboos in Chuktia Bhunjia society and unravels how prohibiting women from socio-economic and religious space, backed by purity-pollution philosophy, perpetuate the gender inequality among them. It was found that although economic division of labour is indistinct; women are perceived being portrayal of misfortunes during perceived pollution periods and are prohibited to enter into sacred places – kitchen room, cowshed, sacred groves and forest – and take part in community festivals and other auspicious occasions. The existing material culture, especially kitchen room, alongside economic structure, self-notion of ‘outsiders’ and apparently fixed customary laws have direct influence on the position of women in this society. It is found that the customary laws are not mere symbolic expressions in perpetuating the gender asymmetry, but have become a powerful tool to patriarchal controls not only over women’s education, health, properties and knowledge, but also over individual’s choice, freedom, decision-making and sexuality. However, internal challenges are reported against customary laws and taboos, the fear of social ostracism, the obligation to restore the purity of cultural entity and anxiety reinforce people to be always submissive to those practices. Therefore, unless there is transformation alongside their culture, it is fruitless to think of gender equality.

Mobile phones, non-human agents at the service of assisted reproduction: monitoring and gendered dual allegiance

For sub-Saharan women enrolled in a protocol for assisted reproductive technology (ART), the use of mobile phones entails dual allegiance: toward the services of reproductive medicine and toward their transnational family. Indispensable for medically monitoring women’s reproductive bodies, the mobile phone enters the process for producing female gametes and contributes to the gender asymmetry typical of biomedicalized procreation. It is also used to maintain contacts with transnational family members who, from a distance, obtrude in the woman’s reproductive life. The use of mobile phones extends biomedical power over the woman’s body into her everyday life and the normative power of her transnational family into reproduction. Paradoxically, the mobile telephone allows collateral relatives to support the woman seeking reproduction assistance while also “hypermedicalizing” the woman’s daily life. Also paradoxically, this everyday companion is conductive to individual autonomy while also being used for new forms of surveillance and control. The data come from fieldwork conducted in the greater Paris area between 2011 and 2013 within a network of ART professionals and their patients.

Employment and the distribution of intra-household financial satisfaction

This study applies a methodology used by De Henau and Himmelweit (2013) to study resource allocation in Australian mixed-sex couple households. Using 18 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and by means of fixed effects estimations, the study identifies how men’s and women’s contributions via paid and unpaid work influences their satisfaction with the financial situation (SWFS) within households. Employment status is used to proxy each partner’s contribution to household resources. The results reveal that paid contributions through full-time employment have a strong role in determining SWFS. This is a source of gender difference because Australian men are much more likely to be engaged in full-time employment than women. Most often, for both men and women, unpaid contributions to household resources (proxied by less than full-time employment) has a detrimental effect on their own SWFS, but smaller effects on their partner’s SWFS. These results imply that gender asymmetry in paid and unpaid contributions to household resources contributes to the reproduction of gender inequalities within Australian households. The results add external validity to the relevance of De Henau and Himmelweit’s (2013) analysis of these issues. JEL codes: B54, I31, E24

Gender-Neutral Language in English and French Linguo-Cultures

Gender linguistics studies the gender-neutral aspect in detail that is usually manifested in a language. One of its provisions tells us that language not only possesses such qualities as anthropocentrism (human orientations) is, but it also implies androcentrism, that is, that it presents a picture of the world based on a masculine viewpoint, in the form of a man (as a personality). The manifestation of such gender asymmetry in the language leads to unequal representation of persons of different sexes and is considered to be intolerant, especially among the members of a foreign language culture.In our paper we deal with the peculiarities of gender-neutral language in English and French linguo-cultures, determine the similarities - the differences between gender-neutral lexis and try to show the cases in which they occur in the process of language interaction. It should be noted that the requirements of political correctness, which are due to non-linguistic reasons, play an important role in the language policy of any country.In conclusion, it should be admitted that in English and French linguistics, the priority to the designation of women in the professional field is given in different ways. Neutral forms are more common (and therefore more widespread) in English whereas in French, however, the forms with inflectional changes or analytical structures of generating nouns are more preferable. Anyway, in European society, language policy and the use of gender-neutral language are greatly influenced by political correctness requirements due to extralinguistic reasons.

GENDER PARITY IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN VALUES IN THE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The issue of gender parity in the management system plays an important role in the world. The problem is raised at all levels and its solutions are always on the agenda. The dominance of men in high management positions in the 20th century has led to the fact that now gender equality is a matter of many scientific works. At the same time, the state apparatus always stood aside and was practically not touched. But there are enough problems with gender inequality. Ignoring this problem, today, will lead to a return to the days when professionalism was determined by gender and not by knowledge. The main task is to characterize the state of gender parity in the public administration system. The main purpose of the article is to evaluate the available statistical data on the gender ratio of men and women in the state authorities of Ukraine, as well as to calculate the coefficient of gender asymmetry in the management system. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the essence of gender policy in the system of public administration and governance should not be aimed at «highlighting» a woman's status in front of men in a special way, but to ensure an optimal balancing of the participation of both the former and the latter in making any decisions. in the management system, thereby establishing appropriate equity. Women and men should not be «special» to stand out in the management system and in the field of public administration. Consideration should be given to professionalism, competence, honesty and conscience during the service. The article provides a detailed analysis of the distribution of representatives of both male and female sides in the system of public administration and management at all levels. It was found that today there is a certain inequality in the work of the management system towards men in the field of public administration. Keywords: gender, gender parity, public administration, governance, management system. JEL Classification J16, K38, L38 Formulas: 1; fig.: 0; tabl.: 4; bibl.: 17.

Sanitation and Marriage Markets in India: Evidence from the Total Sanitation Campaign

This paper analyses the marriage decisions of men and women, focusing on the added attractiveness of sanitation within the living arrangement, in rural India. We exploit district and time variation from the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) which increased sanitation by 6.6 percent among households with marriage eligible children and generated an exogenous increase in the composition of households with sanitation. Using data from the Indian Human Development household survey (IHDS) and district level census, we show that exposure to TSC increased the probability of marriage for men and women, from poorer households, by 3.8 pp and 6.5 pp respectively. The reduced form estimates incorporate both general equilibrium effects and heterogeneous program effects – two important components of equilibrium marital behavior. To decompose the overall policy impact on marriage market equilibrium we formulate a simple matching model where men and women match on observed and unobserved characteristics. Through model simulations, we show that cohorts within TSC exposed markets experienced a shift in marital gains both across matches but also within a given match. Specifically, the resultant sorting patterns display a marked gender asymmetry with an increase in marital surplus among matches where men are wealthier than their spouse, and a decrease in surplus where the wife is wealthier. Moreover, the increased access to sanitation for TSC exposed women implied a decline in their expected control over resources within the marriage.

Discourse of Gender Asymmetry in Social Media: methodology of research

The paper highlights the problem of gender stereotypes and gender stratification and provides the description of constructionism and discourse analysis as the methodological foundations of gender studies. Gender is viewed as both a social construct and discursive practice. The author proposes a specific methodology for discourse analysis that takes into account the specifics of social media. The methods of research include analysis of linguistic data, processed through the lens of constructionist analysis, discourse and content analysis. The author grounds the study on M. Foucault’s approach that influenced discursive and constructionist studies. The features of the articulation of the topic are shown based on materials of the social network VKontakte. The author reveals the discursive techniques, with the help of which indicates the position and role of the subject. In social networks, unlike other media discourses, the problem of gender relations is expressed exaggeratedly. With the traditional spectrum of plots for stereotyping, the network newspeak is prone to use language play and genre fusion. Hence, the polar features of gender discourse in the network space should be noted: the coexistence of aggressive orthodox patriarchal judgments with sarcastic rethinking of gender roles and the manifestation of egalitarianism in the interpretation of masculinity and femininity. Gender discourse is represented as an element of ideological discourse that the author designates as modern newspeak, which is characterized by the ability to politicize any aspect of culture and strive for domination.

Analysis of Russian legislation from the point of view of gender asymmetry

This article is devoted to the analysis of Russian legislation from the point of observance of gender symmetry and the identification of norms that infringe on the rights of one of the genders and thereby hinder the exercise of rights on equal footing. The starting point in the research methodology is the study of the concept of a gender-neutral norm, which should proceed from the position of ensuring equality of conditions and opportunities for men and women to the same extent. Also, a gender analysis of Russian legislation was used as a methodology, as a result of which it can be concluded that the Russian state, as an institution to which society has delegated power, is not fully consistent in the political measures and steps taken to resolve this issue. The final conclusion that was reached during the study, in a number of cases, seems advisable to revise the provisions of Russian legislation beforehand with sociological research, which makes it possible to reveal the real effectiveness and possible side negative consequences of the application of certain legal norms and thereby minimize the procedural problems that arise in this regard.

The Critique of Gender Linguistics from the Perspective of Feminist Linguistics

Introduction. The paper reviews features and main problems of feminist linguistics. The novelty of the study is an unparalleled take on feminist linguistics in contradistinction to gender linguistics; the identification of their fundamental differences as well as emphasizing arguments in favour of both scholarly importance and practical value of feminist linguistic studies. The relevance of the study is conditioned by the lack of academic papers concerning the subject; the growing interest in studying the language as an anthropocentric sociocultural phenomenon; and the increasing significance of the feminist movement world-wide.Methodology and data sources. The theoretical foundation of the study constitutes Russian and foreign gender studies (works of А. V. Kirilina, А. М. Kuznetsov), feminist sociological and sociolinguistic studies (L. N. Kaznin, R. Lakoff, M. Fuko) as well as feminist linguistic studies (N. A. Antropova, E. Gorshko, O. A. Voronina, E. Zdravomyslova, A. V. Tolstokorova). The methods of the study include both analysis and synthesis of theoretical material; polling research; the analysis of the collected data.Results and discussion. The latest results on feminist linguistics research are showing inadequacy of the attempts of proving the existence of either «women’s language», «men’s language», or genderlect. This is in fact entirely sociocultural phenomenon of the replicating women’s and men’s behavioral patterns in a particular culture, including the patterns of speech. Feminist linguistics uses a more in-depth approach in the studies and addresses the language system directly, identifying gender asymmetry that is evident in the androcentrism of a language; it also develops strategies against language sexism and suggests concrete ways of its elimination, such as the introduction of gender-neutral lexical units and feminine gender-specific job titles, the implementation of inclusive language. All of that is possible with feminist language reforms and appropriate feminist language planning.Conclusion. An overview of conventional gender linguistics findings draws to a conclusion that feminist linguistic studies introduce lots of new ideas of a special value to linguistics. Feminist language critique is a progressive course of modern linguistics that draws attention to the most vital language issues of the society and suggests effective means of addressing them.