Leading While Female: A Personal Journey

Growth in the administrative function of universities along with the fragility of academic culture creates challenges for academic leaders invested in change. In my own case, these challenges were compounded by my gender: my status as an immigrant woman in a leadership role. In this chapter I outline the basic requirements of a democratic culture—allowing individuals to preserve their identity while positively contributing to the community in which they're embedded—and question the gender stereotypes that see men but not women as “naturally” suited to leadership. This prejudice can translate into implicit or even explicit bias and discrimination when women attempt to fill roles that historically have been reserved for men, and thereby violate gender expectations. As a consequence, women leaders may be marginalized and their authority resisted or unrecognized. This chapter is a personal journey detailing my own experiences of “leading while female.”

The Return of Typhoid Mary? Immigrant Workers in Nursing Homes

Nursing homes are dependent on immigrant, female labor as nursing aides, yet these workers are provided with minimal employment benefits, which has led to devastating consequences for vulnerable, older residents during COVID-19. Emerging research suggests that aides are contributors to the increase in coronavirus outbreaks due to working in multiple long-term care facilities and refer to these individuals as “superspreaders.” Specifically, aides have been tied to unwittingly passing on the virus as they may be asymptomatic or pressured to work by employers while symptomatic with limited access to paid sick leave. The plight of these women harkens back to “Typhoid Mary”—also a poor, immigrant woman who was accused of spreading typhoid fever a century ago. This article applies lessons learned from Mary’s shocking and tragic trajectory, then employs critical race theory and feminist jurisprudence to highlight examples of structural and institutional disparities that exist in current paid sick leave laws. Recommendations call for improved oversight in delivery of quality and safety in long-term care by addressing racial, gender, and economic inequalities through paid sick leave laws coupled with strong enforcement.

Insights on the glass ceiling for immigrant women entrepreneurs in the technology sector

PurposeTechnology sector is the pivotal element for innovation and economic development of any country. Hence, the present article explores past researches looking into challenges faced by immigrant women entrepreneurs in technology sector and their corresponding response strategies.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a systematic literature review (SLR) technique to collate all the relevant literature looking into the challenges and strategies from immigrant women entrepreneur's perspective and provide a comprehensive picture. Overall, 49 research articles are included in this SLR.FindingsFindings indicate that immigrant status further escalates the human, financial and network disadvantages faced by women who want to start a technology-based venture.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature by categorizing the barriers and strategies on a 3 × 2 matrix reflecting the origins of the barrier or strategy (taking place at the individual, firm or institutional level) versus the type of the barrier or strategy (arising from being an immigrant woman and being a woman in the technology sector). After underlining the dearth of studies in the literature about the complex phenomenon of immigrant WEs in the technology sector, the paper points out several neglected themes for future research.

Immigration, Disability and Healthcare Access in Brazil

Immigration and refugee status protection are growing phenomena in Brazil and the city of São Paulo is one of the largest hubs in the country for this heterogeneous population. Various studies reveal barriers faced by immigrants and refugees in Brazil to receive quality public healthcare services including linguistic issues, cultural differences, socioeconomic barriers, xenophobia and racism. People with disabilities are another heterogeneous group that encounters barriers in healthcare services in Brazil. Studies reveal that people with disabilities face physical, architectural and ableist attitudinal barriers in healthcare services in the country. This text seeks to highlight the necessity for qualitative research at the intersection of disability, immigration and healthcare in Brazil using international and domestic studies and ethnographic observations of the healthcare experiences of a Bolivian immigrant woman with temporary disabilities and the mother and caregiver of a Bolivian immigrant woman with disabilities in São Paulo, Brazil.

Intersections of violence : the role of immigration status in women's experiences of and responses to domestic violence in Canada

Domestic violence is a serious problem affecting women in Canada. Immigrant women in particular may be more vulnerable to abuse and face more barriers in seeking help. This paper will examine the experiences of abused immigrant woman through a critical review of the literature. Domestic abuse does not operate in a vacuum; it is shaped and compounded by other interlinking forms of oppression. In particular, gendered immigration policies and reduced access to social services exacerbate experiences of violence. Responses to violence against immigrant women thus must be holistic and long term, challenging societal inequalities and underlying structures of power.

Intersections of violence : the role of immigration status in women's experiences of and responses to domestic violence in Canada

Domestic violence is a serious problem affecting women in Canada. Immigrant women in particular may be more vulnerable to abuse and face more barriers in seeking help. This paper will examine the experiences of abused immigrant woman through a critical review of the literature. Domestic abuse does not operate in a vacuum; it is shaped and compounded by other interlinking forms of oppression. In particular, gendered immigration policies and reduced access to social services exacerbate experiences of violence. Responses to violence against immigrant women thus must be holistic and long term, challenging societal inequalities and underlying structures of power.

‘You betrayed us’: Ethnic celebrity gossip in diasporic women’s online communities

This article examines a relationship between ethnic celebrities and diasporic communities by focusing on one case of Korean diasporic women gossiping about Korean actress Seo Min-jung. After a 10-year hiatus following her sudden migration to the United States and marriage to a Korean American dentist in 2007, Seo made a successful comeback to show business by starring in Korean reality shows and opening her Instagram account. Seo’s struggles as a Korean immigrant woman/housewife/mother, portrayed in TV shows and on Instagram, positively resonated with diasporic Korean women’s online communities (DKWOC). This positive discourse around Seo, however, transformed into celebrity bashing when her Instagram scandal happened in 2019. We trace the change of gossip around Seo in DKWOC concerning Korean diasporic women’s identity and status. We argue that DKWOC members’ gossiping of Seo functions as a way of coping with their situation, as they come to recognise the class difference between themselves and Seo and feel disempowered by their dissatisfying circumstances as immigrants.

Uncensored

The second of two related poems in which an imaginary dialogue takes place between the Speaker and the Researcher where key issues are explored related to being a Black immigrant woman in the White and winter white Manitoba, where no one really cares about the culture clash experienced.

Having the Lower Hand—Investigating Interaction in the Life Course Narratives of Immigrant Women Exposed to Partner Abuse

Research has documented the considerable hardships immigrant women often face if they want to leave abusive relationships, but the cumulative impacts of such experiences have received insufficient scholarly attention. In response, this study investigates women’s difficulties leaving abusive relationships based on life story interviews with 35 immigrant women who experienced partner abuse. Almost all the women originated from “patriarchal belt” countries in, for example, the Middle East and all arrived in Denmark as adults. Using a model of gendered geographies of power, this study examines key interview passages in which the women use dramatized speech to tell about their younger selves’ interactions with significant others. These dramatized episodes of interactions emerge as crucial for the interviewees to communicate why they remained in abusive relationships for years and how most finally managed to leave their husbands. The narrated episodes reveal how the women’s frequent lack of success in various interactional situations can be attributed to women “having the lower hand”—holding disadvantaged positions in the familial, social, and national hierarchies of power. These hierarchies reinforce each other, for example, when insecure residency status limits immigrant women’s options to solicit help from Danish society. The analysis demonstrates that—in contrast to the stereotype of the abused immigrant woman as a passive victim—micro- and macro-level processes may work together to undermine immigrant women’s possibilities to act independently at important junctures in their lives. The results also stress the importance that frontline workers have sufficient understanding of immigrant women’s predicament and the ability to extend qualified and timely support. Such support can be crucial for abused immigrant women to become able to move away from their violent home environments.

Abducting Children Abroad: Gender, Power, and Transnational Mobility in Immigrant Family Conflicts

Utilizing life story interviews of immigrant women whose children were abducted by abusive (ex-)husbands, the article unpacks a three-part pattern of transnational mobility: first, husbands apply strategies of coercive control to dominate wives in Denmark; second, wives draw on Scandinavian “woman-friendly” state support to challenge men and seek divorce; and third, men try to regain control through abducting children to the Middle East, seeking to blackmail mothers into leaving Denmark and resubmitting themselves to male control. While some wives accede to their husband’s demands, others skillfully manage to “re-abduct” children back to Denmark, thereby belying the trope of the victimized immigrant woman.