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Religion, culture and gender : a study of women's search for gender equality in SwazilandZigira, Christopher Amherst Byuma 11 1900 (has links)
Although Swazi women's contribution to national development has been phenomenal, they like
any other women in patriarchal societies confront an overbearing situation in which they have
been regarded and treated as minors, both in the family and most spheres of public life. This has
largely been due to the social construction of gender. Traditional gender-based attitudes, deeply
ingrained in the people's mind set, not infrequently, have limited women's access to and control
of various aspects of public life, and impinge on their rights, most especially the rights to selfdetermination
and equal participation in the decision making process. Coupled with religion
which influences "the deepest level of what it means to be human" (King, 1994:4) and zealous
cultural conservatism, the Swazi women, with a few notable exceptions, experience an asymmetry
of power due to the pervasive nature of gender. Nonetheless, the history of Swaziland bears testimony, however muted, to a legacy ofwomen's struggles to overcome gendered conditions
imposed upon them either by taking full advantage of their spiritual endowment and charisma to
overcome attitudinal barriers or by organising themselves into groups to work for the social
transformation of their conditions and status.
This study examines the Swazi women's search for gender equality. It discusses the social and
cultural context of gender in Swaziland, the various moments in the Swazi women's quest for
equality and its manifestations, and the push and pull effect of religion and culture. Particular
attention is given to four organisations, namely Lutsango lwakaNgwane (loosely referred to as
women's regiments), the Council of Swaziland Churches, the Women's Resource Centre (Umtapo
waBomake) and Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA). The study shows that
Swazi women have, across a passage of time, adopted different strategies, including ritual,
economic empowerment and creation of new knowledge through promotion of gender awareness
and social advocacy either in a womanist approach that accepts women's embeddedness in Swazi
culture or in the liberal feminist tradition that espouses women's individual rights. However, the
study shows that the women's movement has yet to reach the critical mass level so as to influence
public policy and come to terms with the deconstruction of the dominant gender ideology. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)
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Cognitive and task performance consequences for women who confront vs. fail to confront sexismGorski, Kimberly M. 31 July 2014 (has links)
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Women who fail to confront sexism can experience negative intrapersonal consequences, such as greater negative self-directed affect (negself) and greater obsessive thoughts, particularly if they are highly committed to challenging sexism. Female undergraduates (N = 392) were sampled to investigate whether failing to confront past sexism influences future task performance and whether any effects on performance occur through the depletion of cognitive resources. Participants were randomly assigned to recall either confronting or failing to confront past sexism, then completed measures of affect, obsessive thoughts, working memory, and performance. Women who recalled failing to confront were expected to have greater negself and obsessive thoughts related to the situation and lower working memory and performance, and desire to respond to the situation was expected to moderate these effects. As predicted, compared with women who recalled confronting, women who recalled failing to confront reported greater negself. Contrary to predictions, there was no significant effect of confrontation condition on obsessive thoughts, working memory, or performance. However, condition interacted with desire to confront, such that the more women who recalled failing to confront wanted to respond to the situation, the more negself they reported and the lower their working memory. In addition, for women who recalled confronting, greater desire to respond was associated with higher performance, while desire to respond was unrelated to performance for women who recalled failing to confront. In contrast to predictions, neither obsessive thoughts nor working memory mediated the failure to confront-performance relationship, and there was no evidence of moderated mediation. In sum, although the cognitive variables of obsessive thoughts and working memory did not mediate the effect of failing to confront on performance, the results nevertheless demonstrate the importance of confronting sexism, particularly when one wants to do so, and have important implications for settings like the workplace where women may face discrimination and have to decide whether or not to confront.
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