International mobility of women in science and technology careers: shaping plans for personal and professional purposes

International mobility has become a key requirement in science and technology (S&T) professional career progression. On the one hand, the increasing mobility of women suggests that this may be a way for them to avoid or get away from women-unfriendly working environments. On the other hand, international mobility can present problems for women as they, particularly, have to plan their lives around their professional goals and personal lives. This article addresses the international mobility strategies of women regarding their personal and professional choices. We analyse their motivations to move, the way they manage their lives abroad and the effects of mobility on their lives. The analysis is based on 24 in-depth interviews of highly skilled women working in Spanish S&T sectors. Our main findings show that mobility is a new challenge which may improve women's family lives and professional careers. However, they have to plan carefully their lives on a long-term as well as a daily basis. In this sense, they need strong personal determination and the ability to balance their professional and personal goals. Moreover, their personal decisions depend not only on them as individuals, but also on their partners and families, on wider social values, on the institutional support they enjoy, and on the general public policies which they are affected by.     

The Company Owns the Mine but They Don't Own Us: Feminist Critiques of Capitalism in the Coalfields of Kentucky in the 1970s

This article examines women's involvement in the Brookside Mine strike of 1974, which captivated US audiences and provided women with an unprecedented public platform to challenge the class and gender system undergirding coalfield capitalism. During the strike, female kin of miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, started a club to support striking miners and their families and to organise picket lines; they were joined by women from across the region and country. With the strike as their foundation these women generated a women's movement that revealed the specific ways class and gender inequality shaped their lives, defined by the heavy‐duty care work characteristic of the coalfields. This article argues that the Brookside women's support of striking miners was fundamentally about gendered class inequality: the denigration of working‐class, female caregivers alongside the devaluing of men's labour. Using collective memory and individual experience as their interpretive devices, the Brookside women forged a class‐conscious feminism. In it they exposed the traumas of coalfield capitalism, shone a light on women's unpaid care work (one of the foundations of corporate capitalism) and destabilised the gender and class hierarchies that defined coalfield communities.     

Of Other Spaces: Women's colleges at the turn of the nineteenth century in the UK

This article explores the first British university-associated women's colleges at the turn of the nineteenth century. Drawing on Foucault, the article looks into the dualistic opposition between private and public, as well as women's attempts to transcend this dichotomy. In theorising women's colleges as Foucauldian heterotopias, spaces in the interstices of power relations and dominant social structures, the author focuses on the interplay of contradicting discourses and strong power relations within these women's colleges. In this light, the author considers the ways women resisted, negotiated, but also compromised in their attempt to shape their lives and invent new ways of being in the world.     

In the Valley of the Sweet Mother: Gendered metaphors,domestic lives and reproduction under a Brazilian state mining company

Metaphors have been studied by feminist geographers as examples of both power over and empowerment by women. In this article, the author takes three gendered metaphors used by people in the Brazilian mining town of Itabira as starting points to enlarge a discussion of the mining economy's effects on women's lives. One, the 'sweet mother,' describes the company's reskilling and cultural education of male workers from the 1940s to the early 1980s. Second, women react to these strategies with a contending image of the company as 'the rival.' Finally, the phase of company downsizing has created a new metaphor: 'the stepmother.' These metaphors elucidate ways that public and private spaces become intertwined in three moments of the state mining company's life: its arrival in the region in the mid-1940s; its expansion from the 1960s to the 1980s; and its restructuring in the last 10 years. The author suggests that women's ironic rewriting of the foundational metaphor of 'sweet mother' is central to their reconceptualization of economic change under the company. The alternative metaphors also reflect women's changing views on motherhood, sexuality and family partnership.     

Constructions of Rural Women's Voluntary Work

This article examines the nature and circumstances of women's voluntary work in rural communities. Drawing on original research conducted in two villages in Avon, England, it focuses on three main themes. Firstly, it considers theoretical debates on the conceptualisation of rural women's labour, arguing that traditional divisions between public and private forms of work provide an inadequate basis for understanding either women's labour participation or their domestic lives. The notion of voluntary work as a third sphere is discussed as it relates specifically to the rural labour market and community. Secondly, the article examines voluntary work in terms of the empowerment of women. It addresses issues of women's role and status in the rural community, questioning whether the state's use or reliance on voluntary work in rural areas represents an exploitation of women's position or an opportunity for women to gain influence and power. Thirdly the article evaluates the contribution of women's voluntary work to the conceptualisation and representation of rurality. The focus here is on the way in which voluntary activity supports a particular form and image of the rural community and, in turn, the implications this has for gender divisions and women's identity in contemporary rural England.     

Constructing Masculinity and Women's Fear in Public Space in Irvine,California

Fear in public spaces negatively impacts women's lives. Even when danger is low, the idea of women as endangered in public space endures—due, in part, to its centrality in the construction of gender identity for men and women. In this article, the author examines the construction of contemporary, masculine gender identities and men's perceptions of women as fearful and endangered in public space. Through interviews with 82 male students in Irvine, California, USA, the author examines how men's construction of masculine identities builds upon perceptions of women as fearful and endangered in Irvine public spaces. Though they regard Irvine as safe, men see women as vulnerable there. The author investigates this apparent inconsistency in light of men's performances of two masculine identities—the youthful 'badass' and the chivalrous man—which depend for their construction on opposition with women as fearful. Recommendations include suggestions for continued research on the spatial construction of masculine identities.     

Women's collective economic strategies and political transformation in rural South Africa

This article examines the economic processes and socio‐political institutions that shape women's involvement in community projects. Feminist materialism and postcolonial theory provide the framework to analyze these livelihood strategies as they are grounded in the material conditions of women's lives. The empirical study is based in a rural northern province of South Africa where colonialism and apartheid have contributed to extreme economic and social hardships. Fieldwork was conducted in Limpopo to analyze how community projects contribute to livelihood strategies. In an area where migrant remittances remain one of the main sources of income for rural households, women have increasingly engaged in collective economic strategies such as pottery making, sewing, and agricultural production. These strategies are embedded in a complex set of patriarchal institutions that reinforce unequal access to resources and have historically marginalized rural black women. Despite these barriers, findings from this study demonstrate that community projects provide the potential for economic and social empowerment, especially among rural women.     

A Feminine Atlas? Sacagewea,the Suffragettes and the Commemorative Landscape in the American West, 1904-1910

This article examines how American suffragettes sought to reinscribe women's lives and experiences into the canon of American historical narratives about the 'conquest' of the West as part of their wider campaign for an enhanced female role in public life in the early years of the twentieth century. The analysis focuses on the centenary of Lewis and Clark's early nineteenth-century explorations into the Pacific North-west. The renewed interest in the exploration of the West during this centenary gave women activists an opportunity to develop a modified, and more explicitly female, version of events in which the previously obscure figure of Sacagewea, the young Native American women who had guided Lewis and Clark, assumed a more central position. The idea of Sacagewea as a historical role model for modern American womanhood was assiduously cultivated in several historical and literary texts that have been explored in detail elsewhere. This article is primarily concerned with the hitherto unexamined, but closely related, campaign to commemorate Sacagewea's achievements by physically reinserting her image into the emerging cultural landscape of the West in a series of statues erected to her memory at various points on her epic journey. The article concludes by considering some of the ironies associated with this new emphasis on the female contribution to the Lewis and Clark narrative. Though a necessary corrective to earlier masculine accounts, the cultivation of Sacagewea by white, educated and well-to-do American women served only to underscore the persistence of other divisions within early twentieth-century American society, particularly surrounding the vexed question of 'race'.     

Suburban women and the ‘glocalisation’ of the everyday lives: gender and glocalities in underprivileged areas in Sweden

This article presents results from two case studies of marginalised housing areas on the outskirts of two major cities in Sweden. The areas have been analysed through the lens of glocalisation of the everyday lives. The aim is to illustrate and gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of, and relationship between, place, gender and transnationalism. The article contests the simplified image of migrant women in these marginalised areas as local-bound and isolated. It analyses their everyday lives as spaces of glocality, with a particular focus on local and global networks, local and global meeting places, and relationships to local authorities. The aim is to disseminate new knowledge about the complexities of these women's lives in a global–local context, which also has implications for the theoretical concept of glocality. Through the concept of glocality, the beneficial as well as the negative aspects of these women's lives in marginalised neighbourhoods are illustrated.     

‘Homes’ and being ‘at home’ in New Zealand: women's place-making in internationalised higher education

Research on students' experiences in internationalised higher education largely assumes students' autonomy and privileges their public selves. New Zealand research is no exception. Little attention has been paid to students' lives beyond classroom contexts; how national policy and institutional practices shape students' everyday experiences and ‘home’ lives similarly and differently. In addition, gender is afforded scant attention or considered only as a secondary concern, and people whose partners or family members are international students are invisible. This article endeavours to address the relative inattention to gender in international education research and the invisibility of women whose partners are international students. It draws on data from interviews with 17 women involved in a broader doctoral research project during 2005 and 2006. The women were either migrant or international students or had partners enrolled as international students. The article uses ‘home’ as a lens for examining women's situated and transnational place-making and factors that promoted or precluded a sense of belonging in New Zealand. It draws connections between women's accounts of ‘home’ and feeling ‘at home’, and broader politics, policies and institutional practices in New Zealand higher education.     

Bridewealth1 and the Autonomy of Women in Melanesia

Considering bridewealth in Melanesia from the angle of women's autonomy, in this introduction we review and analyse the various elements of this marriage practice that reveal its place in the symbolic, social and economic worlds of women. With an accent on social transformation, we discuss women's autonomy and agency in relation to the constraints that bridewealth puts on their lives, and on how they engage with it. Knowing what bridewealth is, and how the rules of reciprocity that it indexes obligate married women, the focus is on women's ability to act within these constraints or to redefine their contours, particularly with regards to economic and reproductive agency. The article, which serves also as the introduction for the special issue on bridewealth in the journal Oceania, discusses themes analysed in the collection, such as the moral prospects of bridewealth today, its relation to ‘capital’ in twenty-first century Oceania, the triad value/valuables/valuers, and the empowerment of women. It concludes with thoughts on gender inequality.     

Young women and public leisure spaces in contemporary Beijing: recreating (with) gender,tradition, and place

Feminist geographers and leisure scholars have long argued that one critical way to understand gendered norms and expectations is through examining women's access to and experiences of leisure activities. Set in the context of the rapid economic, political, and social changes that have taken place in Beijing over the past half century, this article draws on in-depth interviews and extensive participant observation to explore the role of newly available public leisure spaces in the lives and leisure of young women in Beijing, in particular by examining the way that these spaces provide an opportunity for the negotiation of new gender norms and identities. Through an analysis of the interaction of gender norms and practices with women's use of and behavior in public leisure spaces, we argue that women's behavior in public leisure spaces in contemporary Beijing remains strongly circumscribed by gendered norms. Rather than their presence itself constituting a challenge to gender expectations, in many cases their leisure behavior and experiences serve to reinforce the social norms that masculinize public leisure spaces. In spite of this, however, the findings of this research suggest that public leisure spaces may, in some cases, provide women with a place from which to challenge gender norms.     

The Missing Rib: Mobilizing Church Women for Change in Papua New Guinea

This paper examines the particular shape taken by a modern instance of ‘Third World’ feminism. In Papua New Guinea, an emerging nexus between grassroots female activism and Christian churches is helping to liberate and empower some female citizens in a state which in practice has neglected women's interests and gender relations despite early national rhetoric about the importance of women to nation‐building. Tracing the origins of modern women's fellowship groups to the early work of female missionaries with indigenous women, the paper considers the increasing politicization of women's organizations during the last two decades as they expand their ‘traditional’ preoccupation with spiritual, domestic, and welfare matters to embrace wider social, political, and human rights issues. In the course of surveying church women's groupings in Papua New Guinea, the paper looks specifically at the National Council of Women, women's groups in East New Britain Province, the United Church Women's Fellowship, and women's involvements in the developing ecumenical movement. The paper concludes by contrasting the class dimensions of grassroots Christian women's activism to official denial of the existence of class differentiation or exploitation in this purportedly egalitarian Melanesian state.     

Autistic culture online: virtual communication and cultural expression on the spectrum

In this article, I examine cultural narratives about the lives and places of women with mental illness in the commercial Hollywood film: Girl Interrupted (1999). In contrast to most of the disability studies literature concerned with cultural representation, this article explicitly examines how the spatiality of ‘mad women's’ lives is constructed through film. Drawing on post-structuralist, and feminist perspectives on disability, and on conceptual ideas from the limited social geographic literature concerned with the lives of persons with mental illness, I explore the contradictory cultural narratives about the lives and places of women with mental illness constructed through this film. This approach recognizes that representations of ‘mad women’ and their places in society and space involve contradictory, tension-laden relationships between spectator and cultural product, complex discursive negotiations of meaning, and gendered processes of meaning-making, in some ways affirming mad women's lives and in others perpetuating negative stereotypes about women with mental illness and where they belong.     

‘To Women in the Year 2000’: Norwegian Historians of Women,c.1900–c.1960

The lives and writings of three women who during the first half of the twentieth century wrote books on women's history are the subject of this article. Ragna Nielsen, a teacher and an amateur historian, in 1904 published her account of women's lives during the first part of the nineteenth century, stressing the sad consequences of patriarchal attitudes, but also the importance of women's contribution to the maintenance of a national identity. Anna Caspari Agerholt and Mimi Sverdrup Lunden, both with masters' degrees in history, belonged to the next generation. Agerholt is mainly remembered for her impressive book of 1927 on the Norwegian women's movement, while Lunden's books of 1942 and 1948 on women's work were important contributions to social history. The writings of these three women's historians are related to dominant positions within Norwegian historiography of their times, highlighting how they helped change central concepts by adding gender to class analysis and to the process of constructing a national identity, stressing the importance of voluntary organisations to the formation of politics and widening the concept of work.     

Mapping women in Tehran's public spaces: a geo-visualization perspective

Functioning public spaces, as ‘public’ political, social, and cultural arenas of citizen discourse, affect not only the citizen's quality of life, but are also indispensable infrastructure in democratic societies. This article offers a nuanced understanding of Iranian women's usage, feelings, and preferences in public spaces in present-day Tehran by not simply importing Western theories that sustain distinctions between traditional and modern women, but instead by hearing women's stories. This article raises concerns related to the gender identities, the politics of space, and design of these places. Meidan-e-Tajrish, Sabz-e-Meidan, and Marvi Meidancheh in Tehran accommodate an ethnographic visualization of gendering space. The process by which Iranian women attach symbolic meanings to those public spaces offers insight into the mutual construction of gender identities and space politics. The contrasting urban locations, different design styles, and distinct social activities provide an excellent comparison between the selected public spaces. Findings suggest caution in using gender as an essential category in feminist geography research to better represent the diversity of experiences in public spaces. Binary categorization of modern versus traditional, secular versus religious, public versus private, and male versus female in urban studies should be carefully validated as Iranian women's lived experiences challenge the homogenizing Western theories, particularly the predominant critics of modern public spaces in North America. The research process also highlights the benefits of geo-visualization in understanding the complex interaction between gender identities and the built environment.     

Women's Employment in Urban Bangladesh: A Challenge to Gender Identity?

Drawing on survey and ethnographic data, this article presents empirical evidence regarding the impact of work participation on poor women's lives in urban Bangladesh. Working for pay is common among poor, married women in Dhaka and working women commonly make an important contribution to household income. There is evidence that working women are more likely to manage money, shop for household provisions and move about outside the home than non‐working women. Working women also appear better able to accumulate personal assets and take steps to secure their own well‐being. Despite such signs of challenge to ‘traditional’ gender identity, social and economic structures continue to be heavily weighted against women, limiting the impact of employment on other dimensions of their lives. In the acutely insecure urban setting, women (and men) are found to pursue multiple strategies aimed at both securing ‘centrality’ within their families, as well as protecting personal interests should familial entitlements prove unreliable.     

Spaces of Resistance,Spaces of Respite: Franchise housekeepers keeping house in the workplace and at home

As a contribution to a growing geography of domestic labour, I offer this micro-scale study as a glimpse into the lives of franchise housekeepers. This study sheds light on the ways women cope with their labour both in the workplace and at home. Scrutiny of the women's ordinary actions and reactions to their labour demonstrate how they devise coping strategies through mundane, common, everyday acts and forge spaces of resistance and respite. I discuss these strategies and spaces by drawing on in-depth interviews with 14 women employed in housekeeping services franchises.     

Women of the Sisters' Hall: religion and the making of women's alternative space in Taiwan's economic restructuring

Against the background of Taiwan's recent economic restructuring, this article investigates the lives of a group of working-class women who were believers of I-Kuan Tao, a sectarian religion, and who had by and large decided to remain single in order to better practice their religious teaching. They lived together in an I-Kuan Tao temple. This article situates singlehood in the literature of resistance and sees it as a strategy of these women seeking an alternative lifestyle from the culturally prescribed roles of wife, mother and daughter-in-law. Three interlocking factors are particularly important to an understanding of these women's experience: cultural (the Taiwanese patrilineal family), religious (I-Kuan Tao), and economic (Taiwan's post-World War II export-oriented industrialization and its recent economic restructuring). Paradoxically, while trying to establish an alternative social space, these women were also seeking cultural legitimacy for their choice. Marriage resistance, in this case, was an act of both transgression and conformity. Yet the different readings that these women and their families applied to their situations, as well as the ingenuous strategies they deployed to solve their predicaments, also added new elements to the cultural repertoire which, collectively considered, might broaden the range of options for future Taiwanese women who attempt a similar life trajectory. In this article, I therefore caution against a totalizing understanding of the concept of resistance based on its final result, but call for a more nuanced analysis focusing on the process.     

‘Questo cor che tuo si rese’: the private and the public in Italian women's love letters in the long nineteenth century

Love letters are attracting increasing scholarly attention, especially from historians of scribal culture and historians of emotions. This article brings these two strands together to explore the unpublished love letters of four Italian women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Their letters, spanning a period from the 1840s up to the First World War, provide insights into the genre, and into women's lives and emotions in this period. Three of them were from the bourgeoisie or piccola borghesia and one, in slightly contrasting mode, was a peasant. Women of the middle class lived a secluded life, and writing was essential to express themselves, to construct an identity and to become visible. Their love letters were anything but private: they were continually supervised and scrutinised by their families, so that their letters inevitably had a public quality and were sometimes multi-authored. Single young women needed to subvert social rules in order to establish their independence and claim private space for their love correspondence.