An Indo-British Comparison

Gender segregation in science, engineering, construction, technology (SECT) is a common persistent feature, both in India and U.K. Even though culturally the two countries differ in various ways, under-representation of women in SECT is widespread and a cause for general apprehension and in recent years this has attracted centre stage in the study of gender, work and family. In this chapter we discuss our research findings of a comparative study undertaken between India and Britain in the ICT sector. With twenty seven interviews with ICT professionals in the two countries, we discuss their views on ICT education, recruitment and employment practices, work-life balance, changing gender relations, opportunities for progression and retention in the two countries taking into consideration women’s role in power and politics in the both countries; how ‘public’ and ‘private’ patriarchy shapes women’s position in the labour market, with an essential backdrop of ‘patrifocality’ in the Indian context.

A Trination Analysis of Social Exchange Relationships in E-Dating

More than half a billion users across the globe have availed themselves of e-dating services. This chapter looks at the marketing and cross-cultural aspects of mate-seeking behavior in e-dating. We content analyzed 238 advertisements from online matrimonial sites in three countries: India (n=79), Hong Kong (n=80), and Australia (n=79). Frequencies of mention of the following ten attribute categories in the advertiser’s self-description were established using post hoc quantitative analysis: love, physical status, educational status, intellectual status, occupational status, entertainment services, money, demographic information, ethnic information, and personality traits. Past research on mate selection using personal ads and the three countries’ positions on Hofstede’s dimensions of culture were used in hypotheses generation. The results support several culture-based differences in people’s self-description in online personal ads; however, some anticipated differences were not realized, suggesting that some cultural differences may not be as strong as Hofstede (2001) suggests.

Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Blog?

This study examines the role of women political bloggers and how they use their blogs for purposes related to politics, public policy, and current events. Based on a combined purposive-snowball sample, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 women political bloggers in October 2006. Findings show respondents blog about a range of topics, not necessarily unique to women. Generally, women use their blogs to inform their readers, check the media, engage in advocacy efforts, and solicit charitable contributions from their readers and more specifically, women ask their readers to vote and contact elected officials. Data show women deal with a range of challenges blogging most notably discrimination. Though a majority of women political bloggers reported they did not face discrimination, interviewees qualified their responses saying they witnessed discrimination and discriminatory attitudes, suggesting the political blogosphere is somewhat inhospitable to women.

Online Matrimonial Sites and the Transformation of Arranged Marriage in India

Online personals have been a remarkably successful in the Western World and have been emulated in other cultural contexts. The introduction of the Internet can have vastly different implications on traditional societies and practices such as arranged marriages in India. This chapter seeks to investigate using an ethnographic approach the role of matrimonial Web sites in the process of arranging marriages in India. It seeks to explore how these Web sites have been appropriated by key stakeholders in arranging marriage and how such appropriation is changing the process and traditions associated with arranged marriage. The key contributions of this study are in that it is an investigation of complex social processes in a societal context different from traditional western research contexts and an exploration of how modern technologies confront societal traditions and long standing ways of doing things. Our investigation suggests that the use of matrimonial Web sites have implications for family disintermediation, cultural convergence, continuous information flows, ease of disengagement, virtual dating and reduced stigma in arranged marriages in India.

How E-Daters Behave Online

Following a review of the literature on e-dating, this chapter introduces the e-dating development model and discusses a number of hypotheses that can be derived from it. Also presented in the chapter are some findings from a preliminary empirical research that explored the hypotheses. The findings supported all the hypotheses, indicating that: (1) male and female e-daters follow different stages in their e-dating evolvement; (2) the behaviors that males and females exhibit as e-daters are different; and (3) the feedback that male and female e-daters receive from the environment is different too. The chapter is concluded with a discussion of the implications from this research to e-dating theory development and empirical research.

E-Dating

Online dating continues to grow in popularity as a way for individuals to locate a potential romantic partner. Researchers have examined how people present themselves on these sites, which presentations are more likely to lead to success, the effectiveness of the matchmaking tools that some companies employ, the stigma attached to using these sites and the types of people who are drawn to online dating. However, there is an absence of scholarly work on how these relationships progress compared to traditional models of courtship. This chapter sets out a model for the phases of online dating and compares this model with Givens’ (1979) work on a traditional model of courtship. It is argued here the phases of online dating are very different to other courtship models. These differences pose new challenges and create new benefits to those who elect to find a partner via one of these sites.

Gender and E-Marketing

The increasingly widespread use of the Internet and the increasing participation of females in business have been significant changes leading to society today. As females have begun to have a more important role in business life, in addition to their crucial role within the family in the decision-making process of making purchases, they have had more financial independence. Additionally, the gap in Internet use in favor of males has also begun to narrow. This makes it necessary for e-marketers that carry out some or all of their transactions online to be fully aware of the effects of gender differences in online purchasing behaviors. This chapter consists of a literature review on the subject of Internet usage and online purchasing behaviors with a focus on gender-based differences. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to explore gender-based differences in Internet usage and online purchasing behavior and to suggest some e-marketing strategies for e-marketers. Additionally, this chapter provides a foundation on which to build future studies.