The series commenced in July 2006, and is intended both to target
papers for the journal 'Women's Studies International Forum' and to
inform the UB community about current research into gender-related
issues.
Dr Lorene Gottschalk and Dr Janice Newton, the Australasian co-editors
of the interdisciplinary journal 'Women's Studies International
Forum', are the convenors of the Gender Studies Seminar Series held at
UB.
Presentations will be held on the third Wednesday of every month from
March to June, and from August to November. They will be held from
12.30 to 1.30 in the School of Business, Mt Helen Campus, in lecture
theatre B902. Presentations will consist of 30 to 40 minutes of
presentation time, followed by 20 minutes for questions.
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Gender, Place and Home: Responding to Domestic Violence
Dr Suellen Murray, Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University
In Australia, a response to domestic violence has been to assist women and children to leave their home. From the 1970s, women’s refuges were established and, in the 1980s, public policy reinforced this position of attempting to provide protection by removing women and children from the place of violence. However, in doing so, women’s (and their children’s) lives and their relationship to this place - their home, and everything that it entails - were disrupted. Indeed, discourses about domestic violence assumed that women’s lives would be disrupted. More recently, public policy reforms have allowed for the greater possibility of a woman remaining safely in her own home (and her violent partner being removed). In this paper I will explore these changes concerning domestic violence and place and consider their implications for understandings of gender.
Can a MTF (male to female) transgender be a woman?
Dr Lorene Gottschalk, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, University of Ballarat
MTF believe themselves to be women, a belief that is nurtured and
reinforced by the medical profession and the transgender industry. MTF
seek recognition as women in all spheres, in the law in relation to
marriage, in equal opportunity in the workplace in access to all
spaces that women can enter including health centres, refuges, sports
and festivals.
In 2006 in Australia a group of older women decided to hold what they
described a private party open to women born and raised as females.
This criteria intended to exclude male to female transgenders (MTF)
from attending. The reasoning of the organisers was that the event was
organised as an opportunity for women to share experiences that are
unique to women and experiences with which a man, because of his
different life experiences, would not be able to identify. Furthermore
they argued that a MTF, though possible legally recognised as a woman
also had totally different life experiences and thus would not be in a
position to join in the sharing of experiences with women born and
raised female.
The methods MTF use to gain access varies and includes surreptitious
means and legal challenges. This paper discusses the strategies used
by MTF to claim entry to such space as their right. It then asks the
question of whether an MTF can be a woman by exploring the unique
socialisation of girls and boys and the unique experiences of MTF from
childhood, through adolescence and early adulthood to the point of
diagnosis of GID to their formal/legal identification as a woman.
Understanding the ways women lead in Australian sport
Sue Brown, School of Human Movement and Sports Sciences, University of Ballarat
Very little is known of the style of leadership women adopt in sport in Australia. My PhD research has found that women view the concept of leadership as a way of influencing change by taking a consultative approach to decision-making. They use open, informed and meaningful communication with their followers, and their actions reflect their core values of fairness, respect and integrity. At club and regional levels, women tend to be action-orientated and lack confidence to delegate tasks. Women in leadership positions of more responsibility demonstrate more sophisticated capabilities to lead. They are more strategic and political in their approach; more confident to delegate; prepared to make difficult and unpopular decisions in the best interest of the organisation; and cultivate a collaborative working environment.
The findings of this study provide a clearer understanding of how women view themselves as leaders and how they lead in a sporting environment. This knowledge challenges existing recruitment and leadership development practices currently used by the sport industry in Australia.
Associate Professor Sheila Jeffreys, Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne
As the sex industry has grown and become normalised in many countries,
close links have been developed with other businesses. Strip clubs and
brothels in Australia offer corporate membership and gold cards, for
instance. Strip clubs offer their venues for product launches and the
entertainment of clients. Big corporations set up funds to provide
prostituted women to their executives. Escort agencies in Australia
supply escorts to corporations so that they can offer inducements to
visiting businessmen. All of this creates problems for the equal
opportunity of women in business and the professions. Women may not be
able to network with colleagues and clients, or secure contracts.
Already there have been major court cases in the US over this issue in
relation to women workers in finance houses. This talk will consider
the practice of doing business in sex industry venues, and through the
sharing of prostituted women, and its implications for women in
business.
Female Employees in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises - China
Kewei Lin, Post Graduate student, School of Business, University of Ballarat
In this seminar I will discuss career opportunities for Chinese female employees in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, China. By means of a case study of an electronic manufacturing company in Shenzhen, I will consider the barriers women face to equal employment. The primary data suggests that although opportunities for Chinese female employees increased during the economic reform era, women at both worker and management level need to expend more effort than their male counterparts in order to reach the same level of employment. The barriers facing women in Shenzhen are due to gender bias, the impact of Chinese traditional ideas about the role and status of women, limited access to education, and specific Chinese cultural issues such as the Guanxi factor.
Dr Fadi J Charchar - Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science, University of Ballarat
There are substantial gender differences in the pattern, severity and treatment of heart disease independent of environmental risk factor exposure. However this leads to the common misperception that heart disease is not a real problem for women. Recently, there has been considerable interest in the potential role of sex hormones in heart disease, particularly the potential protective effects of oestrogen. However, the failure of the recent clinical randomised trials to show a cardioprotective effect for hormone replacement therapy has refocused interest on the role of genes in cardiovascular biology and disease. Over the last decade, compelling evidence has emerged that sex differences in our vessels are not only determined by gender-related differences in sex hormone levels but also by genetic, gender-specific characteristics at the cellular level. This gender-dependent regulation may have important implications for understanding the basis of the gender gap in heart disease and may eventually lead to the development of sex-specific treatments. This lecture will attempt to summarise the current thinking for the role of hormones and genes in gender differences in heart disease and what it all means to women.
If you are interested in presenting a paper as part of the Women's Studies Seminar Series, the convenors are currently calling for theoretical and empirical papers from students and staff related to women and gender on topics such as:
Work and Organisations
Media and Culture
Law and Politics
Science and Engineering
Leisure and Sport
Education and Knowledge
Health
Spirituality
Any other topic related to women
If you have any questions related to this seminar series, please contact Anne Doggett at a.doggett@ballarat.edu.au or on 03 5327 9197.
Women's Studies International Forum (formerly Women's Studies International Quarterly, established in 1978) is a bimonthly journal to aid the distribution and exchange of feminist research in the multidisciplinary, international area of women's studies and in feminist research in other disciplines. The policy of the journal is to establish a feminist forum for discussion and debate.
The journal seeks to critique and reconceptualize existing knowledge, to examine and re-evaluate the manner in which knowledge is produced and distributed, and to assess the implications this has for women's lives.
We seek contributions from people, individually or collectively, from different countries and different backgrounds, who are engaged in feminist research inside or outside formal educational institutions. We welcome a variety of approaches and resources through the whole range of disciplines: papers geared toward action-oriented research as well as those which address theoretical methodological issues; and we encourage historical reassessments of the lives and works of women. We urge all contributors both to acknowledge the cultural and social specifics of their particular approach, and to draw out these issues in their articles.
We also invite conference reports and announcements, calls for papers, notices of new publications and reports, contacts, etc., sent in by individuals or groups in the international feminist community.
