bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pornography, Feminist Legal and Political Debates on
Authors: Saikin Anna Dodson
Published: April 2016

Feminist scholars and activists have not come to a consensus on the harmful or beneficial effects of pornography on women's sexuality. Over a century of legislative rulings on obscenity protections culminated in the feminist sex debates of the 1980s that ultimately did not slow the proliferation of pornography but have led to increased measures protecting consent and have fostered a conversation about sexual health in the porn industry.
Curriculum Transformation
Authors: Bloom Leslie Rebecca
Published: April 2016

There is a global educational transformation movement to foster gender and sexuality curricula to improve the academic and schooling experiences of girls and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. This rights‐based movement seeks to transform school climates and academic content to eradicate discrimination, bullying, gender‐based violence, and sexism. To ensure equity for girls and LGBTQ youth, changes are needed in educational ideologies that frame all aspects of education, in curriculum processes that influence school climate, and in school documents that shape learning. Capitalist and patriarchal approaches to education inhibit advancement of gender and sexuality curricula although research and resources for use in educational settings are widely available from non‐governmental organizations, community organizations, and university researchers.
Fashion
Authors: Harris Denishia
Published: April 2016

Mechanisms of bodily dress facilitate the experiences that individuals have through their individual bodies. Body dressing and self‐fashioning take on a number of forms and functions in the public lives of individuals. This entry explores the relationship between the individual, bodily dressing, and social forces in order to illustrate the ways in which the process and practice of self‐fashioning shape social positions. Although self‐fashioning and body dressing are a part of our everyday lives, these practices are imagined as being either frivolous or menial. This entry seeks to highlight the ways in which these performances can be essential elements for socialization into public life.
TearoomTrade
Authors: Ashford Chris
Published: April 2016

Tearoom Tradeby Laud Humphreys offers a detailed examination of the phenomenon of men who have sex with other men in public lavatories, or “tearooms” as they are known in the United States. The same phenomenon can be found throughout the world with the terms “cottage,” “bog,” and “box” being used in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Africa, respectively. The book, published in 1970, shone a light on what has been seen as a homosexual subculture, but remains a controversial study owing to the research ethics deployed. As such, the book remains a key reference point for sociologists and those interested in research ethics. The text also remains a key reference point for those studying the phenomenon of public sex.
Breastfeeding in Historical and Comparative Perspective
Authors: Livingston Taylor
Published: April 2016

Breastfeeding, like all infant feeding practices, varies across time and cultures. Many factors influence breastfeeding decisions and practices including cultural norms, social support, socioeconomic factors, mother's health, and advice from kin and other sources of authoritative knowledge. The decision whether or not to breastfeed is not just about nutrition but is imbued with cultural meaning, situated in a matrix of history, society, politics, and economics. Today and historically, most women across the globe breastfeed their infants. In most societies, women view breastfeeding as essential to child health and growth. The main differences in breastfeeding worldwide are related to views of colostrum, length of time breastfeeding, and if infants are exclusively fed breast milk.
Sex Tourism
Authors: Tolson Michelle
Published: April 2016

Sex tourism at its most basic definition is travel for the purpose of engaging in sexual relations. Tourism researchers note that pleasure and the possibility of sex are part of the overall marketing of tourism, and that it can be hard to separate “sex in tourism” from sex tourism. Attention to the study of sex tourism to address sexual health and HIV prevention became important in the 1990s after the emergence of the disease in the 1970s and 1980s. Destinations with an erotic tourism image, such as Las Vegas, Amsterdam, the Caribbean, Brazil, Africa, and Southeast Asia, also have thriving entertainment and hospitality industries in which sex tourism is embedded. This includes nightclubs, bars, hotels, and resorts supported by a growing alcohol industry that provide a jumping‐off point for sex tourism. Most of the literature on sex tourism frames the issue within the context of commercial sex, with purchasers primarily being white, middle‐aged, or older heterosexual males from the Global North traveling to the South, but research has also explored female sex tourism, gay sex tourism, and the perspective of migrant workers.
Yin‐Yang
Authors: Kin‐Yuen Wong
Published: April 2016

The two characters
yin

and
yang

first appear in
Shijing

(
Book of Poetry
), meaning simply “shade” and “sunshine.”
Yin
and
yang
are then adopted as
kun

and
qian

, respectively, as the first two primary
qua
(s)

in
Yijing

(
Book of Change
). As the first
qua
in
Zhouyi

,
qian
etymologically is made up of a sun giving life to the plantation world, hence symbolizing
tien

(sky), while
kun
figures a procreative line across the land or earth, giving rise to all life forms. Here
yin‐yang
is bodied forth in a kind of “nomad” thinking which is meant to crack open any binary structure, equating the “one” with “continuity,” which entails the necessity of “two” to become creative difference. Difference as embodiment of
yin‐yang
would have to be followed by “three” as “plurality” which delves into the realm of virtuality and intensity. This is to reinvent the kind of
yin‐yang
dualism – if we still wish to keep this word – which, with its concomitantly projecting and reciprocating vicissitudes, defines what it cuts into as a dynamic continuity and difference.
Sex Trafficking
Authors: Crawford Mary
Published: April 2016

Sex trafficking – buying and selling human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation – is an egregious violation of human rights and a form of gender‐linked violence that has affected millions of people, primarily girls and women. Survivors experience severe physical and mental health consequences, sometimes exacerbated by stigmatization and criminalization as prostitutes. The most common mode of trafficking is deceptive and fraudulent job offers. Patterns of prevalence show that source countries are poor, less developed or economically unstable. Destination countries are relatively more affluent and desirable to migrant workers. Some nations or regions are hubs, centers of trafficking where victims are bought, sold, and put in transit. These include countries that have large commercial sex industries or organized crime syndicates. Overall, South Asian countries report the highest rates of trafficking. Solving the global problem of sex trafficking requires interventions directed at prevention, protection and services for survivors, and prosecution of traffickers.
Surrogacy
Authors: Pande Amrita
Published: April 2016

Surrogacy is a term commonly used for the practice of assisted reproduction in which a woman gestates and gives birth to a child for others to raise. The practice of using another woman to bear a child is not new. Historically women in socially subservient positions have served as surrogates. With development in technology, conception could be delinked from sexual intercourse and the genetic mother (the woman who provided the eggs) could be separated from the gestational (surrogate) mother. This also allowed the practice of cross‐border gestational surrogacy to flourish. Surrogacy has been generating feminist, ethical, legal, and social debates for over three decades. This scholarship can be loosely classified into three frames: works that debate on the ethics of this practice, those that focus on the multiple systems of stratification that are potentially reinforced by such arrangements, and more recent scholarship on the impact of surrogacy on the cultural meanings of motherhood and kinship.
Gender Equity in Education in the
U
nited
S
tates
Authors: Proweller Amira
Published: April 2016

Gender equity in K‐12 and higher education addresses attitudes and behaviors related to the provision of fair and comparable resources and outcomes for all students in the educational process, independent of gender. Gender disparities are pervasive in both implicit and explicit forms across primary, secondary, and post‐secondary education. Achieving gender equity depends on moving away from more limited understandings of gender as a set of normative behaviors and identities toward a more complex understanding of gender as a set of socially constructed and ideological practices. Holistic and inclusive approaches to research, policy, and practice are necessary for achieving more complete equity in and through the educational process for girls and women.
Gynocriticism
Authors: Plate Liedeke
Published: April 2016

Gynocriticism is the study of women's writing. The term gynocritics was coined by Elaine Showalter in 1979 to refer to a form of feminist literary criticism that is concerned with women as writers. Gynocriticism established the historical study of women writers as a legitimate field of academic inquiry and developed to encompass a broad range of methodologies of reading women's writing.
Parenting in Prison
Authors: Aiello Brittnie
Published: April 2016

Parental incarceration has increased dramatically over the past three decades with the War on Drugs and the rise of mass incarceration. In the United States, more than 1.5 million minor children have a parent in state or federal prison. While 90 percent of inmates are men, mothers' incarceration presents particular challenges for families and children, as women are more likely to be custodial caregivers prior to their arrest and imprisonment. Children of the incarcerated experience economic hardship, developmental disadvantages, and behavioral problems at rates higher than children whose parents have not been incarcerated. Visitation can mediate the negative effects of parental incarceration, but long distances between prisons and inmates' homes can make visitation difficult and rare. Some jurisdictions are utilizing prison nurseries and alternative‐to‐incarceration facilities to enable mothers and children to live together during mothers' incarceration.
Gender Bender
Authors: Prosser Rosslyn
Published: April 2016

Gender bender describes a performance of gender that seeks to emulate, copy, or disrupt expectations of gender through the use of costume, hairstyle, pose, gesture, and performance. Gender bending is found in the social and cultural spheres of literature, film, advertising, anime, and online interactive games.
Orlando
,
The Left Hand of Darkness
, actor Marlene Dietrich, photographer Helmut Newton, 80s popular music, online games, and anime are examples of gender bending.
Menstrual Activism
Authors: Fahs Breanne
Published: April 2016

Because menstruation has a long history of rendering the menstruating body shameful, taboo, silent, and even pathological, menstrual activists have combatted this in numerous ways: by helping women to feel more open and accepting toward their menstrual cycles and by focusing on changing institutions that either promote harmful products or encourage women to see their menstrual cycles as a source of mental illness, psychological distress, or physical pain. Menstrual activists also promote anti‐consumerism via alternative menstrual products, critiques of commercials and advertising about menstrual products, and by encouraging collective resistance to the corporate interests connected to menstrual management.
Archaeology and Genealogy
Authors: Tamboukou Maria
Published: April 2016

Archaeology and genealogy are two interrelated strands in Michel Foucault's work shaping its methodological and theoretical directions, but they have often been conflated or misunderstood as two separate phases in early and late Foucault. This entry presents the continuity and interrelation of these two notions through a short overview of Foucault's work as well as his 1983 seminars at the University of California, Berkeley.
Asylum and Gender
Authors: Raj Senthorun
Published: April 2016

This entry provides an overview of the ways in which gender has informed legal and policy responses when it comes to granting asylum to those fleeing persecution. Exploring the gendered dimensions of international refugee law requires an analysis of: sex as a “particular social group”; the shifting public/private distinctions of persecution; the problems with identifying a nexus between gendered identity and gendered persecution; and the limits of state protection. In order to illustrate these points, this entry focuses on the experiences of women, sexual minorities, and gender non‐conforming asylum seekers.
Employment Discrimination
Authors: Weichselbaumer Doris
Published: April 2016

This entry discusses the economic theory of discrimination. Furthermore, an empirical overview is given on how women as well as gays and lesbians are affected by discrimination in their wages and employment.
Gendered Time
Authors: Fraser Heather
Published: April 2016

Gendered time refers to the historical and contemporary conceptualization and valuing of time in men and women's actual and symbolic lives.
Self‐Esteem
Authors: Flynn Heather Kohler
Published: April 2016

For over a century, researchers have studied self‐esteem, an individual's perception of their value or worth. The Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale is the most commonly used measurement instrument, although research finds response disparities based upon cultural and gender differences. As a result, several other inventories have been introduced to measure self‐esteem. The definition of self‐esteem is generally conceptualized and measured as an internal, individual characteristic; however, this has been shown to be problematic when researching across cultures. Recent findings suggest that self‐esteem is more of an implicit, collaborative task based on the dominant values of the culture, rather than an individual, personal undertaking. The development of self‐esteem is a lifelong process beginning in early childhood. Socialization and demographic factors influence self‐esteem. The importance of parental socialization, the media, age, class, race/ethnicity, cultural differences, and gender are addressed in this entry.
Virginity
Authors: Blank Hanne
Published: April 2016

Virginity may be nominally defined as the sexual status of an individual (particularly a female) who has never experienced sexual activity with another person. The precise parameters of virginity in any specific social or historical context, however, are inevitably both more specific and entirely culturally constructed. Historically, virginity has been defined in the terms of three primary interpretive structures: the religio‐moral, legal, and biomedical. These interpretive structures rarely exist independently, and are typically combined and even conflated to form internally self‐consistent models and ideologies of virginity that answer to the social and political needs of given times and places.
Polyamory
Authors: Antalffy Nikó , Houston Lola D.
Published: April 2016

This entry proceeds with sections in the following order: definition, differentiation from other forms of non‐monogamy, sexual and social monogamy, history, differentiation from polygamy/polygyny, geographical spread, overlap with other sexualities and sexual practices, philosophy and values, relationship structures, rules and agreements, relationship anarchy, scheduling and jealousy, foundational texts, reasons and trajectories, and current debates in light of same‐sex marriage debates.
Neuroscience, Brain Research, and Gender
Authors: Bluhm Robyn
Published: April 2016

Neuroscientists use a variety of methods to look for sex/gender differences in the brain. These neural differences are thought to explain sex/gender differences in behaviors, traits, and abilities. Currently, there are no well‐established neural differences between women and men. Critics of this research have also argued that there are serious problems with much of the research that examines sex/gender differences in the brain.
Xenophobia and Gender
Authors: Rippl Susanne , Boehnke Klaus
Published: April 2016

This entry reports the state of the art in research on gender differences in xenophobia. It points out that there is no gender main effect in xenophobia, but that the size of gender differences is moderated by the behavioral domain, suggesting greater gender differences as xenophobia becomes more aggressive. In conclusion, the entry points out an obvious blind spot in research in the sphere of gender‐aware xenophobia victimology: very little is known about who becomes a victim of xenophobia and under which circumstances.
Depression
Authors: Lafrance Michelle N.
Published: April 2016

Sadness and distress are expectable aspects of the human experience and these have been understood and managed in various ways across culture, time, and place. Currently in the West, intense and sustained periods of sadness are typically labeled as “depression,” understood in terms of biomedical illness, and managed with antidepressant medication and/or psychotherapy. Depression is regarded as one of the most common mental illnesses, with prevalence rates particularly high among women, members of some racial minority groups, and individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer. While mainstream formulations focus on individual pathology such as neurochemical imbalance, feminist and critical scholars have highlighted the social and political contexts of people's lives, particularly the ways in which social injustice reliably predicts depressive experiences.
Lesbian and Womyn's Separatism
Authors: Browne Kath
Published: April 2016

Lesbian and women's separatism is adopting a way of life where womyn seek to be practically, emotionally, and sexually separated from men. This includes living apart from men, for example not relying on men for food, services, or any products, not listening to music by men, not reading literature by men, and not engaging with men's artistic productions. Lesbian and women's separatism is both a critique and reaction to heterosexisms and patriarchy and is built on the ideal that the personal is political.
Discourse and Gender
Authors: Weatherall Ann
Published: April 2016

Discursive approaches typically draw upon constructionist and poststructural theories of meaning. Poststructural theories of meaning highlight the pervasive relationships between knowledge and power. According to poststructuralist theories, knowledge about sex and gender is part and parcel of the ways sexualized and gendered identities are normalized and regulated. For example, gender discourses produce a binary classification of sex as male and female – a system that ignores or marginalizes people who are intersex such as hermaphrodites. Biological discourses such as the male sex drive are used to justify and legitimate the sexual exploitation of women through rape and prostitution. Multiple meanings are highlighted through studies of discourse. For example, research has shown that many versions of masculinity exist and that they are changing. Nowadays traditional gender stereotypes persist alongside new ones such as metrosexual men.
Visual Culture and Gender
Authors: Brown Bell Erin
Published: April 2016

Though visual culture is present in numerous aspects of contemporary culture, feminist and gender theorists are especially interested in how visual culture represents, constructs, and perpetuates gender roles and stereotypes. Privileging vision over the other senses is often described as ocularcentrism, and understanding the scope and breadth of ocularcentrism within the world is important in exploring why feminists and other theorists consider certain visual representations of gender problematic. Certainly human vision is not always reliable, but mediated representations (like a photograph in a fashion magazine or the digital portrait of a celebrity on a website) cannot always be considered accurate either. Though these mediated images are typically considered to be “true to life,” a photographic, filmic, or digital representation is just that – a re‐presentation of an object and not its actuality. Print publications for both men and women can arguably create unrealistic standards for viewers to emulate through the production and presentation of digitally altered images. Fashion and fitness magazines, for example, distort images of women and men by using digital software to edit and enhance the images in numerous ways. Photo editors use computer programs to edit the images of models.
Breast Cancer
Authors: Froude Cameron Kiely
Published: April 2016

Breast cancer is a worldwide public health problem; however, an absence of comprehensive worldwide cancer registries makes it difficult to predict incidence, distribution, and control of breast cancer. In the last decade, global recognition of the prevalence of breast cancer and the importance of early detection has influenced legislative policy and clinical treatment.
Gender Variance
Authors: Roen Katrina
Published: April 2016

Gender variance refers to a wide spectrum of gendered possibilities, with the understanding that the usual binaries (woman/man and girl/boy) provide only a partial picture. The term gender variance may be used in preference to alternative terms (such as transgender or gender dysphoric) in an attempt to avoid politicized or pathologizing frames of reference. Gender variance is sometimes used in research seeking to work across diverse cultures, but has more often been taken up within literature on children, youth, and the possibility for intervention by health professionals. Publications in previous decades more consistently referred to childhood gender variance as though this may be a problem needing correction, and some health professionals continue to take this approach despite criticism. There are now an increasing number of researchers and health professionals formulating reasons for, and approaches to, supporting gender‐variant children and youth in ways that are underpinned by a respectful appreciation for gender nonconformity.
Cyber Intimacies
Authors: Farvid Panteá
Published: April 2016

This entry examines cyber intimacies by outlining the nature of computer‐mediated communication (CMC) between newly met strangers and individuals with preexisting relationships. It covers the use of CMC in already established relationships, in meeting new people (in particular online dating), and for cybersex, and outlines the positives as well as the potential risks of such practices.
Feminist Publishing
Authors: Hawthorne Susan
Published: April 2016

This entry focuses on twentieth‐ and twenty‐first‐century activist and independent feminist publishing in the international realm. Activist publishing represents the small presses whose work has been inspired by collectives and by feminist resistance to mainstream publishing. Independent publishing means the publishing work that occurred outside of university presses and multinational imprints (though a few are mentioned). The entry examines the forces acting on feminist publishing, including the advent of superstores, globalization, and postmodernism, and considers the parallel events such as writers' festivals, reviews, bookstores, book fairs, and prizes that have grown out of the feminist publishing movement.
Dowry Prohibition Act
Authors: Sajid Nida
Published: April 2016

This entry provides an overview of the Dowry Prohibition Act, which officially outlaws the practice of marriage dowry in India. Recognizing the prevalence of dowry and its violent consequences, the Indian parliament passed legislation explicitly banning this practice in the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. The Act prohibits the request, payment, or acceptance of a dowry “as consideration for the marriage,” where “dowry” is defined as a gift demanded or given as a precondition for marriage.
Sexual Addiction
Authors: Callander Denton
Published: April 2016

Sexual addiction describes out of control or excessive behaviors, thoughts, or desires relating to sex. Also known as hypersexuality, sexual addiction is a highly contested concept because it is thought to prescribe narrow and often heteronormative understandings of sex. Treatment programs commonly borrow from recovery processes of other addictions. Public awareness of and interest in sexual addiction continue to grow.
Oral Tradition
Authors: Greenhill Pauline
Published: April 2016

Oral tradition, the verbal lore of spoken or sung texts communicated face to face or via audio or audiovisual media, is often transmitted across generations and geography. Its implications for sexes, genders, and sexualities involve performers' social and cultural identities; scholars' identities and perspectives; and its content, which may implicate feminist ideas or patriarchal positions.
O
edipal Conflict
Authors: Foord Kate
Published: April 2016

Sigmund Freud gave the name Oedipus complex to the psychical effects of the conflictual feelings experienced during childhood toward parents. Freud posited outcomes of the dissolution of the Oedipus complex in relation to gender and sexuality, and, despite both his recognition of the constitutive bisexuality of the human being and his awareness that he constructed the Oedipal scenario from the boy's experience, he nevertheless produced a heteronormative theory. Whilst the Oedipus complex is still commonly perceived as a central tenet of psychoanalysis, its applicability both within the psychoanalytic clinic and in social and cultural analysis has been widely contested to great effect from within psychoanalysis as well as from queer theory, feminism, and philosophy.
Gender Stereotypes
Authors: Hastie Brianne
Published: April 2016

Gender stereotypes are generalized beliefs about members of each gender category that are socially shared. They consist of simplified images of what men, women, boys, and girls should do and be. Such stereotypes cover traits, behaviors, and interests. Stereotypes contribute to gender inequality through: (1) assuming limited, essentialized traits, behaviors, and interests of individuals, based on their gender; and (2) penalizing those individuals who fail to comply with these stereotypes, particularly women and those who identify neither as men nor women. The combination of the frequent association between differential items, activities, and behaviors for each gender reproduces stereotypes. Gender distinctions are so self‐evident in our everyday lives that beliefs in differences in men's and women's traits, interests, and behaviors will persist until these connections are disrupted.
Human Trafficking, Feminist Perspectives on
Authors: Piscitelli Adriana
Published: April 2016

This entry analyzes the contemporary definitions of human trafficking and the actions destined to fight against this crime, contextualizing the dominant and discursive regimes vis‐à‐vis this issue and exploring the differences between these and previous historical definitions of trafficking. Focusing on the main problems regarding the conceptualization of this subject and the effects of anti‐trafficking struggles, it examines the knowledge production about human trafficking, taking into account recent research and proposing future directions.
Activist Mothering
Authors: Conradsen Susan
Published: April 2016

This entry provides an overview of activist mothering, a type of activism that develops out of the mothering role. Despite the long history of mothers being active in social movements, and the rapid increase in mothering movements today, this type of activism has a history of being dismissed as just part of a mother's “job.” Recent research has challenged this and has instead established mother‐activism as a powerful and multifaceted type of activism that is launched from the mothering identity. Three frameworks often applied to activist mothering are discussed – liberal feminism, maternalism, and the feminist ethic of care – as well as a new framework, matricentric feminism, which combines these three frameworks. In addition, the manifestations of activist mothers at the local, regional, and global levels on a variety of social issues are described.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Authors: Tait Caroline L.
Published: April 2016

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is marked by pre‐ and/or postnatal growth deficiency (low birth weight and height), central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction, and facial malformations (short palpebral fissures, flat upper lip, smooth philtrum, and flat mid‐face). The syndrome is most commonly associated with maternal alcohol dependency and/or binge‐drinking patterns of alcohol consumption, however the threshold level at which prenatal alcohol exposure becomes dangerous to the developing fetus is unknown and is influenced by several maternal risk factors. Over recent decades the diagnosis FAS has generated much needed global attention to the problem of female addictions. However, while attention to prevention has resulted in some improvement to women‐centered treatment and aftercare supports, appropriate treatment and support is still lacking in most regions of the world. Public health messages aimed a preventing maternal alcohol exposure also focus primarily on a pregnant woman's choice to use or not use, despite the known complexities that contribute to maternal risk such as poverty, poor nutrition, and lifestyle factors. This has resulted in greater surveillance of maternal behavior and to widespread stigma and judgment of pregnant women who consume alcohol without addressing the complexity underlying maternal risk.
Nature–Nurture Debate
Authors: Holmberg Tora
Published: April 2016

Biologically based explanations of human behavior have been put forward by scientists throughout history, and have been fiercely contested by gender scholars. This entry explores the so‐called nature–nurture debate and its effects on current gender theory, in particular in the area of feminist science studies and feminist epistemology.
Women's and Feminist Activism in
E
ast
A
sia
Authors: Bullock Julia C.
Published: April 2016

This entry focuses primarily on women's and feminist organizations in the Chinese, Japanese, and (South) Korean cultures during the modern period (late 1800s to the present), with some attention to the transnational frameworks of feminist activity that have developed therein. It situates these movements in the context of emerging nationalism, imperialism, modernization, and industrialization that shaped women's relationships to the state, to family life, to education and employment, and to other activities in the public sphere. It also notes the persistence of cultural conservatism and patriarchal attitudes toward women's role in society in spite of this tumultuous process of political, economic, and social development.
NGOs
and Grassroots Organizing
Authors: Subramaniam Mangala
Published: April 2016

Non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) are voluntary organizations that vary in scope and size. They are active in mobilizing people, particularly by taking on development initiatives. While scholars in development studies have typically researched NGOs, more recently feminist and social movement scholars have become interested in the ways that NGOs engage in global forums or participate in transnational networks. NGOs mobilize ideas, not just people, particularly as producers and disseminators of feminist discourse. In so doing, NGOs engage in global forums such as United Nations world conferences and also facilitate grassroots organizing. Grassroots groups are community‐based and focus on feminist issues that directly impact members' lives. Grassroots organizing creates and expands spaces for women to articulate their experiences, listen to others, and consider individual and collective challenges to injustices. NGOs are recipients of development to facilitate feminist grassroots organizing which is largely used for capacity building. Capacity building can include training of members of feminist grassroots groups to seek formal power such as representation in formal political institutions and can contribute to the research skills of scholars and practitioners. However, initiatives directed towards capacity building inevitably reflect specific interests, particularly when donors predetermine activities to promote their own ideology.
Gender Justice
Authors: Svensson Eva‐Maria
Published: April 2016

Gender justice is a multifaceted concept, mostly related to the view on men and women as valued equally and the statement that men and women should be treated equally. Much of the rhetoric, policy, legislation, practical action, and theoretical perspective on gender justice is anchored in a human rights framework. Theoretical presumptions on both gender and justice impact the understanding of what gender justice is or should be, and how gender justice can or should be reached. Scholars within gender studies have analyzed and questioned these presumptions, as well as the political and legal manifestations of gender justice, and reflected on the many ways of understanding gender justice. The different ways of understanding gender justice can be structured around two main aspects, gender justice as a question of identity and recognition, and gender justice as a question of rights and responsibilities and of distribution of these between men and women.
Gyn/Ecology
Authors: Ruether Rosemary Radford
Published: April 2016

Mary Daly was a leading US radical feminist philosopher in the 1968–2000 period. She used the term “gyn/ecology” to sum up her critical and creative thought. This included both the overcoming of patriarchal ideas and envisioning a liberated feminist world behind it. This use of the word gyn/ecology is unique to Daly and has not been used in this way by other feminist thinkers.
Sex Reassignment Surgery
Authors: Sangganjanavanich Varunee Faii
Published: April 2016

Sex reassignment surgery is a recognized medical intervention as an appropriate treatment for individuals who experience gender dysphoria, both male‐to‐female (MtF) and female‐to‐male (FtM) transsexuals. Sex reassignment surgery has been used not only to refer to actual surgical procedures altering one's primary and secondary sex characteristics to match one's gender identity, but also to the overall gender transition process encompassing psychological, social, and legal aspects of one's life.
Sex Toys
Authors: Houston Lola D.
Published: April 2016

Sex toys are material objects that are used by one or more individuals as part of a solitary or shared sexual act. Sex toys may have been used in very ancient times; there is some evidence of their use in ancient texts and art. The increased focus on female sexuality in the mid‐nineteenth century by Western medicine led to the development of mechanical devices that later became popularized as vibrators. While accessible online and in stores in many parts of the West and Europe, there are both states and countries where the sale and distribution of sex toys are illegal. There are no regulations governing their manufacture.
Dieting
Authors: Matteucci Alyssa J. , Lowe Michael
Published: April 2016

An upsurge in dieting was spurred by a historical shift in the idealization of thinness and the emergence of the obesity epidemic that occurred in the last quarter of the twentieth century, especially in Western countries. Factors that are central to the development of dieting behavior include various sociocultural influences and developmental processes. These variables affect those of different gender and sexual orientations in diverse ways and these differences can be instrumental in the formation of dieting behavior.
Bisexuality
Authors: Houston Lola D.
Published: April 2016

Bisexuality is generally thought of as the sexual or romantic attraction to more than one sex. It is often considered a metric of sexual orientation, and it can and frequently does signify sexual identity. There is considerable confusion about the meaning of bisexuality, with some opinions attempting to connect the ancient past to a more modern understanding. Sex research has labored to develop a clear definition of bisexuality. Both Kinsey and Klein developed a grid approach to assessing research subject proclivities; both have been criticized for their shortcomings. As a social and political force, bisexuals seek recognition and support for who they are.
O
ccupy Movements
Authors: Maharawal Manissa M.
Published: April 2016

Starting in September 2011 the Occupy movement was an international protest movement that focused on issues of social and economic inequality. Local groups had differing foci based on their location and the particular issues that affected them, but a main concern of the movement was that large corporations, the global financial system, and colluding governments all work together in a way that gives a disproportionate amount of power to the few, creates an uneven distribution of wealth and resources, and undermines structures of representative democracy. The movement was characterized through the occupation of (mostly urban) public spaces; in these public spaces participants used direct democracy, assemblies, and consensus decision‐making to live and work together. The first Occupy protest that took place was Occupy Wall Street in New York City's Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011. By October 9, Occupy protests had appeared in 82 countries around the world, although the movement was most active in the United States. The movement was inspired by the occupations of Tahrir Square in Egypt, the Arab Spring more generally, the Indignado movement in Spain and Portugal, and the occupation of public spaces in Greece.
Gender Role Ideology
Authors: Somech Anit , Drach‐Zahavy Anat
Published: April 2016

Gender role ideology is defined as an individual's attitudes to how the roles of women and men are and should be shaped by sex. Accordingly, gender roles are social and psychological constructs, not biological. Gender role attitudes determine the distribution of males and females into social roles in society, and consequently impact individuals' occupational choice, type of role as a worker, spouse, or parent, and many other aspects in life; on the macro‐level they affect work–family relations and labor force patterns. Gender role ideology falls into three types: traditional, transitional, and egalitarian. The first reflects the expected differences in roles for men and women: men should be responsible for livelihood, therefore are more likely to be assigned work‐related roles; women should be responsible for the family, therefore are more likely to be assigned domestic roles. Egalitarian perceptions hold that roles should not be segregated by gender. Men and women might hold equal roles at work as well as at home. Transitional perceptions lie midway between traditional role segregation and egalitarian attitudes.
Occupational Segregation
Authors: Sierminska Eva
Published: April 2016

The term occupational segregation is defined and introduced. Horizontal and vertical occupational segregation is explained. Supply‐ and demand‐side factors explaining occupational segregation are discussed.
Psychology of Objectification
Authors: Morris Kasey Lynn , Goldenberg Jamie L.
Published: April 2016

In psychology, research derived from objectification theory provides evidence that the focus on women's appearance leads them to adopt a third‐person perspective, persistently monitoring their own appearance – that is, they self‐objectify – and as a result suffer emotional consequences (e.g., shame) and behavioral inhibition (e.g., restrained eating, inhibited movement). In addition to this body of research, more recently researchers have begun to examine objectification of women from the perspective of others. This research demonstrates that when others focus on a woman's appearance, she is denied a basic sense of humanness; objectified women are denied cognitive and emotional experiences and perceived as similar to actual objects. Together this work provides empirical backing for the ideas espoused by feminist scholars and philosophical discourse on objectification.
Phallocentrism and Phallogocentrism
Authors: Nithiyendran Ramesh Mario
Published: April 2016

This entry addresses constructions and implications of phallocentrism and phallogocentrism as framed within Western academic discourses. Proceeding from definitions of the formative elements of the terms (phallus and logocentrism in particular), themes surrounding masculinity, femininity, patriarchal hegemony, language, and meaning formation are addressed in the context of psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and feminism. Through these lenses, major critiques of phallocentrism and phallogocentrism as normative (white and male) positions are presented.
Gender Performance
Authors: Figueira Janaina
Published: April 2016

Gender performance is the idea that gender is something inscribed in daily practices, learned and performed based on cultural norms of femininity and masculinity. The idea of gender as performance was popularized by American poststructuralist philosopher Judith Butler. Such a concept goes against the predominant philosophical framework established since the 1970s which assumes a sex/gender divide, where gender would be a cultural construct built upon a biological sex. The main point of gender performance is that neither gender nor sex is completely natural, and both are performed and become naturalized over time: we act and walk and talk in ways that consolidate the idea of “being a man” or “being a woman.”
Riot grrrl
Authors: Taylor Malaena
Published: April 2016

Riot grrrl is a feminist movement that emerged from the punk/indie rock subcultures of Olympia, Washington and Washington, DC in the early 1990s. The youth‐based movement revolved around DIY (do‐it‐yourself) politics, music, and zines (homemade, photocopied magazines about music and politics). The term “riot grrrl” was first used in 1991; by 1993 dozens of riot grrrl chapters had sprung up across the country, but riot grrrl as a movement in the United States was considered “dead” by the mid‐1990s. Original riot grrrl bands include Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and the United Kingdom's Huggy Bear.
Neuroscience, Brain Research, and Sexuality
Authors: Kaiser Anelis , Schmitz Sigrid
Published: April 2016

Since, in the 1990s, the brain became an object of significant social importance and neuroscience emerged as a leading, powerful, and culturally significant field of science, gender and queer studies, too, began to devote considerable attention to examining how neuroscience makes sexual performance, sexual behavior, and sexual desire a part of the brain. In this entry, we describe how and when exactly sex/gender and sexuality became involved in neuroscience.
Information Technology
Authors: Trauth Eileen M.
Published: April 2016

This entry discusses the interaction between the human identity characteristics of gender and sexuality, on the one hand, and the design, development, use, and management of information systems and information technology, on the other. Gender and sexuality as they relate to information technology are considered in one of two ways in this literature: studies of those who are information technology users, and studies of those who design, develop, and manage the technology – the information technology personnel.
Shinto
Authors: Kawahashi Noriko
Published: April 2016

Shinto is a religion that exhibits a relatively strong non‐tolerance and aversion to blood, and that places emphasis on blood pollution. This kind of belief exists in Japanese religious tradition in general, but is particularly conspicuous in Shinto. It shows how women's reproductive capability, which is not itself reasonably to be considered polluting, nevertheless comes to be construed as polluting and unclean when it is linked with religious ideology.
D
aoism
Authors: Cass Victoria
Published: April 2016

Daoism offered a mirroring of masculine and feminine identities and so provided equal sanction in the narratives of divinity for men and women. Within this symmetry, however, Daoism interpreted the sexual distinctness of men and women according to cosmic interconnections to yin and yang forces.
Aging, Ageism, and Gender
Authors: Torres Stacy
Published: April 2016

While awareness of age as a gendered dimension of inequality is not entirely new to feminist scholarship, old age in particular has been understudied and undertheorized. When age does make the list of interlocking oppressions under consideration, it tends to appear after the big three (race, class, and gender) and is treated more as an “etcetera” category than a site of analysis in its own right. This entry begins with a discussion of the parallels between social constructions of age and gender, takes up some ideas for incorporating age into intersectional frameworks, and later focuses on late‐life poverty and the body as two sites in which women face particular disadvantage and ageism as they grow older.
Gender Development, Feminist Psychoanalytic Perspectives on
Authors: Nielsen Harriet Bjerrum
Published: April 2016

This entry discusses the concept of gender development in relation to two strands of feminist psychoanalytic thinking: relational psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis. In the first case, the focus is on how processes of gender socialization also install gender in the inner psychological world; in the second case, sexual difference is seen as a necessary prerequisite for culture and for socialization to take place. Since the concept of development presupposes a connection between time and subject formation, it appears to be more relevant in the first than in the second line of theorizing. The two theoretical perspectives have, however, become more integrated in later years. The task is to ensure that gender is neither essentialized nor dematerialized.
Empowerment
Authors: Lamb Sharon , Brodt Madeline
Published: April 2016

The idea of empowering others to benefit them as well as the greater social good flourished in the field of social work and the discipline of community psychology. The path to empowerment for those who have been oppressed is said to contain elements of consciousness‐raising, education, and solidarity toward social action. Empowerment is a key concept in understanding women's development and freedom within the context of patriarchy. But today critics worry that the idea of empowerment has lost its political framing and connection to collective activism and instead has been reduced to a feeling of empowerment in a self‐improvement paradigm.
Berdache
Authors: Ryle Robyn
Published: April 2016

Berdache, or two‐spirit, is a gender‐variant category within some Native American tribal groups. The existence of two‐spirit demonstrates the socially constructed nature of sex/gender systems across different cultures, in that two‐spirit individuals are seen as neither male nor female, but an entirely different sex/gender category. The term berdache itself is now generally seen as offensive due to its origins as a label applied by early European explorers. Two‐spirit is preferred, though this term has its own limits, as well. The existence of multiple sex/gender systems varies across Native American groups, with male gender variants more common than female. Commonalities across the two‐spirit role include an emphasis on occupation as a determinant of gender variance and a weak link between sexual behavior and the gender‐variant role. For the two‐spirit role, sexual behavior was a result of gender variation rather than a cause for it. Individuals became two‐spirit because they wanted to live as another gender and not in order to be able to engage in sexual relations with someone of the same sex. The association of the two‐spirit role with sacred power was also prevalent across many different Native American groups.