Women Worldwide: Interplay between Church and Society and the Gender Paradox

This article analyzes the findings of women and gender issues presented in the recently published World Christian Encyclopedia, 3rd edition (2019). In addition to a brief illustration and discussion, I address two complex issues regarding women inspired by WCE-3, namely, the interplay between church and society and the gender paradox in World Christianity.

The Pentecostal Gender Paradox: Pentecostalism and Intimate Partner Violence in Ghana

Pentecostalism is large, influential, and growing quickly in Ghana. This growth has been argued to benefit women due to the religion’s teachings on individualism and use of female leaders. However, the religion’s focus on female submissiveness may also present a challenge to women. Whilst this theoretical paradox has been largely untested, Gundersen (Gundersen, S (2018). Will god make me rich? An investigation into the relationship between membership in Charismatic churches, wealth, and women’s empowerment in Ghana. Religions, 9(6), 195) finds that women who identify as Pentecostal exhibit less decision-making power than other Christians when it comes to big household purchases and their own health care. Using the 2008 and 2014 Demographic Health Surveys, this study examines the relationship between Pentecostalism and intimate partner violence in Ghana. Women who identify as Pentecostal are more likely to have experienced physical violence than other women, but this effect may disappear for women in the highest wealth quintiles. Higher wealth Pentecostal women are also less likely to believe a husband is justified in hitting his wife. Thus, it seems wealth may have a protective effect for Pentecostal women in Ghana.

COVID-19 Vaccine's Gender Paradox

Women die less than men of COVID-19, but have been more concerned about its health consequences and more compliant with the public health rules imposed during the pandemic. Since return to normal life depends on vaccination, but delays in acceptance or outright refusals of vaccination are already evident, we investigate gender differences in attitudes and expected behaviors regarding COVID-19 vaccination. Using original data from a survey conducted in December 2020 in ten developed countries (N=13,326), we discover a COVID-19 Vaccine gender paradox. Being more concerned about COVID-19 and more likely to believe to be infected and consequently to become seriously ill, women could be expected to be more supportive of vaccination than men. Instead, our findings show that women agree less than men to be vaccinated and to make vaccination compulsory. Our evidence suggests that their vaccine hesitance is partly due skepticism, since women are less likely to believe that vaccination is the only solution to COVID-19 and more likely to believe that COVID-19 was created by large corporations. Using a survey experiment performed in these ten countries, we show that information provision on the role of vaccination to become immune to COVID-19 is effective in reducing vaccine hesitance.

Gender Paradox and Women’s Spatiality: A Case Study of “Mothers Accompanying Children in Education” at the Chiang Mai Chinese Christian Church

This article explores a group of new Chinese migrant “peidu mamas” or “mothers accompanying children in education” in the Chiang Mai city, Thailand. By using ethnography as the research methodology, this article examines the gender role and women’s spatiality issues that exist between the church and the community. After interviewing informants and doing participation observation at Chiang Mai Huaren Jidu Church for several months, the researchers unravel how the “peidu mamas” in the church have faced an extreme level of gender paradox and gender hierarchy while participating in the church activities. These “peidu mamas” strategically utilize Christian interpretation by deploying the traditional Chinese concept with regards to “obedience” and “reserved patriarchal bargaining.” It is an attempt to reduce the inferior status encountered by the female Chinese Christian “peidu mamas” and to negotiate the paradoxical Confucianism beliefs regarding gender hierarchy and family values. Keywords: Gender paradox, Patriarchal bargain, Spatiality

Characteristics of suicidal male and female soldiers in various military forces

The gender paradox in suicidality is a documented phenomenon, the existence of which has been established by many studies in recent decades. However, despite being repeatedly shown to exist in civilian populations, it has not been researched much in military settings. This paper aims to explore the existence of the gender paradox in various military forces around the world, as reflected in the published literature and to assess the need for further investigation of the subject.