Pub Date : 2025-09-20DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103202
Anjni Pindolia , Elisabeth Julie Vargo
The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of 25–35-year-old second-generation Indian Gujarati women living in London with balancing two cultures, and whether they portrayed a divided “home self” and “social self”. Data was collected through virtual, semi-structured interviews with ten participants, and analysis was conducted using thematic analysis. Being the primary researcher a member of the Gujarati community, autoethnography was a precursor of the study. Three key themes emerged from the data: restrictions, gender inequality, and communication barriers. The themes portrayed experiences of struggle with balancing two cultural identities, and how acculturation can steer young women away from rigid Indian traditions to enable harmonious embodiment of both cultures. The concept of a divided “home self” and “social self” can aid in understanding the experiences of Gujarati women in the context of healthcare and social support settings.
{"title":"“There are different parts of me”: Acculturation of Gujarati women living in London and balancing two cultures","authors":"Anjni Pindolia , Elisabeth Julie Vargo","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103202","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103202","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of 25–35-year-old second-generation Indian Gujarati women living in London with balancing two cultures, and whether they portrayed a divided “home self” and “social self”. Data was collected through virtual, semi-structured interviews with ten participants, and analysis was conducted using thematic analysis. Being the primary researcher a member of the Gujarati community, autoethnography was a precursor of the study. Three key themes emerged from the data: restrictions, gender inequality, and communication barriers. The themes portrayed experiences of struggle with balancing two cultural identities, and how acculturation can steer young women away from rigid Indian traditions to enable harmonious embodiment of both cultures. The concept of a divided “home self” and “social self” can aid in understanding the experiences of Gujarati women in the context of healthcare and social support settings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 103202"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145097462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-19DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103205
Raquel Rojas
Care, a central concern of feminist thought and activism, has increasingly gained traction in national political agendas across Latin America. This article brings into dialogue diverse theoretical approaches to social reproduction and care, developed across distinct historical and geopolitical contexts, with a particular focus on Latin American contributions. Framing the discussion through the lens of rights, it examines how different conceptualizations of historically feminized activities – often grouped under terms such as domestic work, reproductive labor, or care – highlight different dimensions of these practices, giving rise to varied political demands and mobilizations. A key shift is explored: the move from advocating primarily for labor rights toward recognizing care as a right in itself. This shift, referred to here as the vital turn, foregrounds the relational nature of care and expands the range of its beneficiaries. Drawing on current debates surrounding care policy in Latin America, I argue that the region's approach – which centers life and emphasizes structural inequalities – offers a compelling synthesis of the materialist lens of social reproduction and the relational ethics and politics of care. This integrative perspective, while not without tensions, emerges as a productive and innovative framework for understanding and addressing care.
{"title":"From labor rights to the right to care: Contributions from the vital turn in Latin America","authors":"Raquel Rojas","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103205","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103205","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Care, a central concern of feminist thought and activism, has increasingly gained traction in national political agendas across Latin America. This article brings into dialogue diverse theoretical approaches to social reproduction and care, developed across distinct historical and geopolitical contexts, with a particular focus on Latin American contributions. Framing the discussion through the lens of rights, it examines how different conceptualizations of historically feminized activities – often grouped under terms such as domestic work, reproductive labor, or care – highlight different dimensions of these practices, giving rise to varied political demands and mobilizations. A key shift is explored: the move from advocating primarily for labor rights toward recognizing care as a right in itself. This shift, referred to here as the vital turn, foregrounds the relational nature of care and expands the range of its beneficiaries. Drawing on current debates surrounding care policy in Latin America, I argue that the region's approach – which centers life and emphasizes structural inequalities – offers a compelling synthesis of the materialist lens of social reproduction and the relational ethics and politics of care. This integrative perspective, while not without tensions, emerges as a productive and innovative framework for understanding and addressing care.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 103205"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145097461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-11DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103199
Zothanchhingi Khiangte , Dolikajyoti Sharma
The relationship between weaving, textiles and culture holds profound significance in many societies across the world. The woven material transmits much information about the culture that created it. Since weaving and knitting are activities considered to be the exclusive domain of women in most cultures across the world, women as weavers can be seen as agents of culture and identity. Literary representations have also treated weaving as a medium of women's self-expression. Weaving as a cultural tradition becomes a vital force that establishes women's contribution to the perpetuation of culture. In the context of the Northeast Indian cultures, weaving textiles is integral to the production of culture and the woven textile is a distinctive identity marker of each indigenous group of the region. The woven textiles of indigenous peoples of Northeast India (NEI) embody unique ideas of a culture and act as a means of connecting with the past. Rather than seeing women as passive agents, this paper tries to locate women as agents of cultures. While textiles can be read as sites of memory, which may translate into cultural meanings, the paper also examines how these meanings can be reinvented and shaped depending on the change in conceptual frameworks. The paper shall focus primarily on the textile weaving of indigenous women of Northeast India.
{"title":"Weaving culture: Indigenous women of Northeast India as agents of tradition and identity","authors":"Zothanchhingi Khiangte , Dolikajyoti Sharma","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103199","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103199","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The relationship between weaving, textiles and culture holds profound significance in many societies across the world. The woven material transmits much information about the culture that created it. Since weaving and knitting are activities considered to be the exclusive domain of women in most cultures across the world, women as weavers can be seen as agents of culture and identity. Literary representations have also treated weaving as a medium of women's self-expression. Weaving as a cultural tradition becomes a vital force that establishes women's contribution to the perpetuation of culture. In the context of the Northeast Indian cultures, weaving textiles is integral to the production of culture and the woven textile is a distinctive identity marker of each indigenous group of the region. The woven textiles of indigenous peoples of Northeast India (NEI) embody unique ideas of a culture and act as a means of connecting with the past. Rather than seeing women as passive agents, this paper tries to locate women as agents of cultures. While textiles can be read as sites of memory, which may translate into cultural meanings, the paper also examines how these meanings can be reinvented and shaped depending on the change in conceptual frameworks. The paper shall focus primarily on the textile weaving of indigenous women of Northeast India.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 103199"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145050559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-08DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103200
Chuanhong Zhang, Heshui Huang
China's rural revitalization strategy drives transformative interventions in remote ethnic communities, yet its gendered consequences remain critically under-examined. Through longitudinal participatory observation and open-structured interviews (2021–2024) in a Miao village in Southwest China, this study interrogates how development reconfigures household and community gender dynamics. The intersecting forces of ethnicity, patrilineal norms, and modernity co-produce an empowerment paradox: while development projects provide economic resources, women's transformative agency remains unrealized due to systemic entrenchment of patriarchal structures, manifested in the intensification of reproductive labor, dilution of women's economic gains and other cultural-institutional backlashes. Development impacts diverge critically between dual-participant and female-only participant households. These results demonstrate that patriarchal backlash disrupts resource-to-agency conversion, showing that economic interventions alone are insufficient to dismantle structural inequities. Policy imperatives include redistributive care services, interventions through women's cooperatives, and digital asset governance. By centering ethnic minority women's experiences, this research advances an intersectional framework for feminist development praxis, revealing how modernity's promises are mediated by enduring hierarchies of gender and ethnicity.
{"title":"Entanglement of modernity, ethnicity, and contested empowerment: Gendered paradoxes in a Miao Village Development in China","authors":"Chuanhong Zhang, Heshui Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103200","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103200","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>China's rural revitalization strategy drives transformative interventions in remote ethnic communities, yet its gendered consequences remain critically under-examined. Through longitudinal participatory observation and open-structured interviews (2021–2024) in a Miao village in Southwest China, this study interrogates how development reconfigures household and community gender dynamics. The intersecting forces of ethnicity, patrilineal norms, and modernity co-produce an empowerment paradox: while development projects provide economic resources, women's transformative agency remains unrealized due to systemic entrenchment of patriarchal structures, manifested in the intensification of reproductive labor, dilution of women's economic gains and other cultural-institutional backlashes. Development impacts diverge critically between dual-participant and female-only participant households. These results demonstrate that patriarchal backlash disrupts resource-to-agency conversion, showing that economic interventions alone are insufficient to dismantle structural inequities. Policy imperatives include redistributive care services, interventions through women's cooperatives, and digital asset governance. By centering ethnic minority women's experiences, this research advances an intersectional framework for feminist development praxis, revealing how modernity's promises are mediated by enduring hierarchies of gender and ethnicity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 103200"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-05DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103198
Maria Tsouroufli , A. Tambe , O. Filippakou , S. Shankar
In this paper we focus on the Indian higher education context, where expansion of Gender and Women's Studies (GWS), as well as institutional and national gender equality policies have not resulted in unsettling intersectional injustices in educational participation and practice. We draw on qualitative data (interviews with staff and focus groups with students) from a mixed-methods study aiming to advance gender equality. Gender and Women's Studies pedagogies were imbued with professionalizing gender, depoliticising criticality and individualising gender equality. Gender sensitising rather than engaging with the affective dimensions of hegemonic power and knowledge, and silencing mechanisms against marginalized groups, implicated in classroom and institutional politics, affirmed privileged subjectivities and diverted from a pedagogical ethic of speaking, listening and participating responsibly in education and society. A shift to pedagogies of discomfort and for democratic citizenship might facilitate intellectual and political activism and alleviate some of the ‘irresponsibility’ of neo-liberalised Gender and Women's Studies in India.
{"title":"Voice, silence and privilege in the neoliberal university: The ‘irresponsibility’ of Gender and Women's Studies pedagogies in higher education in India","authors":"Maria Tsouroufli , A. Tambe , O. Filippakou , S. Shankar","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103198","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103198","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper we focus on the Indian higher education context, where expansion of Gender and Women's Studies (GWS), as well as institutional and national gender equality policies have not resulted in unsettling intersectional injustices in educational participation and practice. We draw on qualitative data (interviews with staff and focus groups with students) from a mixed-methods study aiming to advance gender equality. Gender and Women's Studies pedagogies were imbued with professionalizing gender, depoliticising criticality and individualising gender equality. Gender sensitising rather than engaging with the affective dimensions of hegemonic power and knowledge, and silencing mechanisms against marginalized groups, implicated in classroom and institutional politics, affirmed privileged subjectivities and diverted from a pedagogical ethic of speaking, listening and participating responsibly in education and society. A shift to pedagogies of discomfort and for democratic citizenship might facilitate intellectual and political activism and alleviate some of the ‘irresponsibility’ of neo-liberalised Gender and Women's Studies in India.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 103198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144996514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-05DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103154
Sai Madhurika Mamunuru
In rural India, where landed, upper-caste women traditionally did not perform wage work, female labor force non-participation signals social status. In this paper I explore the ways in which urban India may be different given that urban India has more industrial variety and a greater concentration of high-skilled jobs. I propose that the relationship between female labor force participation and familial social status depends on the kinds of jobs women can access. Indicators of social status – household wealth, education, and caste – are all positively correlated with female participation in well-paying, high-skilled occupations, and negatively correlated with female participation in low and medium-skilled occupations. I cite three separate but interrelated reasons for this. First, high wages and other favorable job characteristics might incentivize female labor force participation even with high or improving socio-economic status. Second, high-skilled jobs accrue social respect rather than signal financial need. Third, women of a high social status have greater access to well-paying jobs because of social networks and higher college graduation rates.
{"title":"Social status and women’s work in urban India: A closer look at occupations","authors":"Sai Madhurika Mamunuru","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103154","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103154","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In rural India, where landed, upper-caste women traditionally did not perform wage work, female labor force non-participation signals social status. In this paper I explore the ways in which urban India may be different given that urban India has more industrial variety and a greater concentration of high-skilled jobs. I propose that the relationship between female labor force participation and familial social status depends on the kinds of jobs women can access. Indicators of social status – household wealth, education, and caste – are all positively correlated with female participation in well-paying, high-skilled occupations, and negatively correlated with female participation in low and medium-skilled occupations. I cite three separate but interrelated reasons for this. First, high wages and other favorable job characteristics might incentivize female labor force participation even with high or improving socio-economic status. Second, high-skilled jobs accrue social respect rather than signal financial need. Third, women of a high social status have greater access to well-paying jobs because of social networks and higher college graduation rates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 103154"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144996513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103195
Lu Guo , Guobiao Li , Yaqian Zheng
This study focuses on the first group of female teachers in Xiong'an New Area of China and explores the phenomenon of career mobility, in which women in stable careers who meet gender expectations choose to leave their comfort zones and take on new challenges. The study finds that self-worth realization is the intrinsic motivation for female teachers to break out of their career comfort zones, and that the “Motherhood Penalty,” although posing obstacles, can be transformed into motivation for career development. On the one hand, career mobility stimulates women's intrinsic self-efficacy, makes them more confident in professional and family domains, and enhances women's family and professional power. On the other hand, the coupling of self-worth realization and social embeddedness stimulates women teachers' career mobility, which in turn realizes women's social empowerment. Structural support is also important for female career breakthroughs. This study constructs a multidimensional relational framework of female career mobility, emphasizing that female-dominated occupations should not be a compromise between women's internalization of traditional gender roles and their pursuit of socio-professional identities and that women's self-empowerment in mobility can reshape stereotyped gender roles. These findings provide new perspectives for understanding the complexity of female career mobility and policy implications for promoting female career development.
{"title":"There's always another way: A case of female teachers' career mobility in Xiong'an New Area, China","authors":"Lu Guo , Guobiao Li , Yaqian Zheng","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103195","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103195","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study focuses on the first group of female teachers in Xiong'an New Area of China and explores the phenomenon of career mobility, in which women in stable careers who meet gender expectations choose to leave their comfort zones and take on new challenges. The study finds that self-worth realization is the intrinsic motivation for female teachers to break out of their career comfort zones, and that the “Motherhood Penalty,” although posing obstacles, can be transformed into motivation for career development. On the one hand, career mobility stimulates women's intrinsic self-efficacy, makes them more confident in professional and family domains, and enhances women's family and professional power. On the other hand, the coupling of self-worth realization and social embeddedness stimulates women teachers' career mobility, which in turn realizes women's social empowerment. Structural support is also important for female career breakthroughs. This study constructs a multidimensional relational framework of female career mobility, emphasizing that female-dominated occupations should not be a compromise between women's internalization of traditional gender roles and their pursuit of socio-professional identities and that women's self-empowerment in mobility can reshape stereotyped gender roles. These findings provide new perspectives for understanding the complexity of female career mobility and policy implications for promoting female career development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 103195"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144925431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-28DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103194
Qin Li , Xiaohui Zhong
For a long period of time, caregiving has been erroneously perceived as a woman's “inherent responsibility,” thereby contributing to feminization of caregiving. Although the maternal penalty endured by female caregivers stands as a pivotal issue within the realm of gender inequality research, existing scholarly endeavors have largely overlooked the care penalty experienced by poor single mothers. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, this article provides a compelling portrayal of the living conditions faced by poor single mothers, offering a nuanced exploration of these challenges from the intersecting perspectives of gender and traditional Chinese culture. The findings reveal that poor single mothers endure a culturally embedded multifaceted “care penalty” that manifests in wage penalties and occupational restrictions, psychological stress and emotional disturbances, weak interpersonal relationships and identity crises, and societal discrimination and poor prospects for remarriage. It is essential to develop robust social support networks to better integrate gender considerations and caregiving responsibilities into family policy agendas. Furthermore, targeted social policies should be specifically formulated for poor single mothers to ensure that they are not left behind in the pursuit of social justice and equality.
{"title":"Care penalty and gender inequality: A qualitative study of poor single mothers in China","authors":"Qin Li , Xiaohui Zhong","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103194","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103194","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For a long period of time, caregiving has been erroneously perceived as a woman's “inherent responsibility,” thereby contributing to feminization of caregiving. Although the maternal penalty endured by female caregivers stands as a pivotal issue within the realm of gender inequality research, existing scholarly endeavors have largely overlooked the care penalty experienced by poor single mothers. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, this article provides a compelling portrayal of the living conditions faced by poor single mothers, offering a nuanced exploration of these challenges from the intersecting perspectives of gender and traditional Chinese culture. The findings reveal that poor single mothers endure a culturally embedded multifaceted “care penalty” that manifests in wage penalties and occupational restrictions, psychological stress and emotional disturbances, weak interpersonal relationships and identity crises, and societal discrimination and poor prospects for remarriage. It is essential to develop robust social support networks to better integrate gender considerations and caregiving responsibilities into family policy agendas. Furthermore, targeted social policies should be specifically formulated for poor single mothers to ensure that they are not left behind in the pursuit of social justice and equality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 103194"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144907632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-20DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103196
Pauline Hoebanx
How can researchers ethically study online communities whose values fundamentally oppose their own? This article addresses the ethical dilemmas of conducting digital fieldwork with antifeminist women's communities. Drawing from netnographic research in four women's manosphere communities, Red Pill Women, Femcels, the Honey Badger Brigade, and Mothers of Sons, I develop a reflexive, feminist framework for ethical decision-making in politically contentious digital spaces. Rather than offering fixed rules, the framework consists of three sets of guiding questions that help researchers navigate ethical tensions at different stages of their project: when entering the field, during data collection, and throughout analysis. These questions are grounded in feminist epistemology, which prioritizes situated knowledge over claims to universal objectivity. I argue that studying ideologically oppositional communities does not require emotional alignment or political solidarity. Instead, it demands critical self-awareness and ethical transparency. The article highlights how antifeminist women's communities raise distinct challenges for digital research: their ideological complexity, gendered expectations of privacy, and resistance to academic inquiry all complicate the ethics of observation, interpretation, and representation. The framework presented here speaks to broader challenges in internet research and feminist methodology, offering tools for scholars working in polarized political contexts, especially with subjects who do not welcome the feminist researcher's gaze.
{"title":"Studying those we oppose: A reflexive ethical framework for researching antifeminist women online","authors":"Pauline Hoebanx","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103196","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103196","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How can researchers ethically study online communities whose values fundamentally oppose their own? This article addresses the ethical dilemmas of conducting digital fieldwork with antifeminist women's communities. Drawing from netnographic research in four women's manosphere communities, Red Pill Women, Femcels, the Honey Badger Brigade, and Mothers of Sons, I develop a reflexive, feminist framework for ethical decision-making in politically contentious digital spaces. Rather than offering fixed rules, the framework consists of three sets of guiding questions that help researchers navigate ethical tensions at different stages of their project: when entering the field, during data collection, and throughout analysis. These questions are grounded in feminist epistemology, which prioritizes situated knowledge over claims to universal objectivity. I argue that studying ideologically oppositional communities does not require emotional alignment or political solidarity. Instead, it demands critical self-awareness and ethical transparency. The article highlights how antifeminist women's communities raise distinct challenges for digital research: their ideological complexity, gendered expectations of privacy, and resistance to academic inquiry all complicate the ethics of observation, interpretation, and representation. The framework presented here speaks to broader challenges in internet research and feminist methodology, offering tools for scholars working in polarized political contexts, especially with subjects who do not welcome the feminist researcher's gaze.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 103196"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144866779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-19DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103192
Jialu Zhao , Christine Min Wotipka
Gender representations in school textbooks can perpetuate biases or promote equity, influencing students' academic engagement and career aspirations. This is particularly important in China, where gender disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education present a complex picture that evolves from primary school to higher education. This study investigates gender representation in 149 human images from 12 Chinese middle school science textbooks. Unlike traditional quantitative methods, it employs a novel approach that combines a social semiotics framework with a large language model, enabling a deeper exploration of implicit gender biases in textbook content. The findings suggest an underrepresentation of females compared with males, as well as distinct gender differences in the role distribution of males and females. Findings from the analyses of interactive and compositional meanings further reveal gender differences but not always as expected. These results underscore the impact of cultural and educational norms on textbook content, showing that Chinese textbooks align with both traditional and changing gender norms. This study contributes to the academic discourse on gender bias in educational materials by highlighting the intersection of visual and textual gender representations. The paper concludes by suggesting areas for future research and ways to develop textbook content that fosters gender equality, potentially influencing future science curricula and policies.
{"title":"Gender disparities in Chinese middle school science textbooks: A semiotic analysis","authors":"Jialu Zhao , Christine Min Wotipka","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103192","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103192","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Gender representations in school textbooks can perpetuate biases or promote equity, influencing students' academic engagement and career aspirations. This is particularly important in China, where gender disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education present a complex picture that evolves from primary school to higher education. This study investigates gender representation in 149 human images from 12 Chinese middle school science textbooks. Unlike traditional quantitative methods, it employs a novel approach that combines a social semiotics framework with a large language model, enabling a deeper exploration of implicit gender biases in textbook content. The findings suggest an underrepresentation of females compared with males, as well as distinct gender differences in the role distribution of males and females. Findings from the analyses of interactive and compositional meanings further reveal gender differences but not always as expected. These results underscore the impact of cultural and educational norms on textbook content, showing that Chinese textbooks align with both traditional and changing gender norms. This study contributes to the academic discourse on gender bias in educational materials by highlighting the intersection of visual and textual gender representations. The paper concludes by suggesting areas for future research and ways to develop textbook content that fosters gender equality, potentially influencing future science curricula and policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 103192"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144866780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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