Search results for: women entrepreneurs

Authors: Amna Khaliq

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In this article, the phenomena of common stereotypes and glass ceiling barriers in women’s career advancement in men dominating society are explored. A brief background is provided on the misconception for women as soft, delicate, polite and compassionate at a workplace in the place of strong head and go-getter. Then, the literature review supports that stereotypes and glass ceiling barriers are still in existence for young women’s leadership. Increased encouragement, emotional intelligence, and better communication skills are recommended to parents, educators, and employers to prepare young women for senior leadership roles. Young women need mentorship from other women with no competition.

Keywords: Gender inequality, Glass ceiling, Stereotypes, Leadership

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Authors: Sonal H. Singh, Bhaskar Bhowmick

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The research hypothesis formulated in this paper examines the importance of microfinance provision for entrepreneurship development by engendering a high level of entrepreneurial orientation among the grassroots entrepreneurs. A theoretically well supported empirical framework is proposed to identify the influence of financial services and non-financial services provided by microfinance institutes in strengthening the impact of grassroots innovation on entrepreneurial orientation under resource constraints. In this paper, Grassroots innovation is perceived in three dimensions: new learning practice, localized solution, and network development. The study analyzes the moderating effect of microfinance provision on the relationship between grassroots innovation and entrepreneurial orientation. The paper employed structural equation modelling on 400 data entries from the grassroots entrepreneurs in India. The research intends to help policymakers, entrepreneurs and microfinance providers to promote the innovative design of microfinance services for the well-being of grassroots entrepreneurs and to foster sustainable entrepreneurship development.

Keywords: entrepreneurship development, grassroots innovation, India, structural equation model

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Authors: Abubakar Salisu Garba

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The objective of the paper is to highlight the nature of entrepreneurial activities in the Sub Sahara Africa. Five countries in the Sub Sahara African that are participating in Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research have been studied to understand the types of entrepreneurial activities and their socio-economic implications in the region. The importance of entrepreneurial activities in boosting socio-economic development has been recognized not only in developing countries, but across the entire global economies. Some people believe that the wealth and poverty of developing countries is associated with nature and type of entrepreneurial activity. Policy makers are not only concern about the rate of business start up, but the growth and development of those starts up is of paramount importance to the development of the country’s economy. Although, the supply of entrepreneurs is essential, sometimes it does not really matters in boosting economic performance. What is more important is having high impact entrepreneurs who could make meaningful contribution to the economy. High growth oriented entrepreneurs are more stable and contribute greatly in enhancing the economic performance. When entrepreneurs are facing difficulties in sustaining and growing their businesses, it may be unlikely for entrepreneurship to reduce unemployment and poverty. Inadequate financial supports, insufficient infrastructure, lack of enforcing laws protecting the right of entrepreneurs are some of the problems making business environment difficult in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial activity, job creation, poverty reduction, Sub-Saharan Africa

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Authors: Bennabhaktula Lavanya

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The study of women, their societal roles, and their importance has been a subject of intense discussion and scholarly inquiry. Researchers have diligently endeavoured to understand the influence of women in the domains of society, economy, culture, and politics, as well as the broader ramifications for society. Women's history aims to improve existing historical accounts by analyzing political institutions, economic events, social frameworks, cultural trends, and primary sources that have historically underprivileged women. The extensive research undertaken has resulted in the formation and recognition of women's history as a valid and unique subject of study within history. The Present paper analyses the academic discipline of Women's History and investigates its changing patterns. Tries to address the challenge of transforming the prevailing historical tradition by using innovative methods and frameworks and analyses the interests, experiences, and achievements of women in order to recreate their perceptions and priorities. The paper also examines the principles of Women's History, Gender Studies, and Feminist History and varying perspectives on women.

Keywords: history, perspectives, research, women

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Authors: Minjeoung Kim

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Since women obtained the right to vote in 1893 for the first time in New Zealand, they have tried to participate actively into politics but still the world has a few women in political leadership. The article asks which factors might influence the appearance of women leadership in politics. The article investigates two factors such as political context, personal factors. Countries where economic development is stable and political democracy is consolidated have a tendency of appearance of women political leadership but in less developed and politically unstable countries, women politicians can be in power with their own reasons. For the personal factor, their feminist propensity is studied but there is no relationship between the appearance of women leaders and their feminist propensity.

Keywords: women political leadership, political context, slow track, transitory countries, feminist propensity

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Authors: Elmira Fotoohi

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Representation of women in commercials and the place of sex in advertising is a part of communication studies and all of them are subset of advertising sociology. In this context, a lot of national and international studies have been done from different aspects. But in the meantime, and in connection with women issues, researchers in Communication Science and Sociology are interested in two topics “use of pornographic images of women” and “repeated representations of women in traditional roles and gender stereotypes by emphasizing the differences between men and women”, more than any other topics. Considering a number of changes that have occurred in social institutions and at different levels, the main research question currently are, what is the role of women in our TV ads and how are they represented in them? Do the local television ads represent women in the same issues as the researchers on this topic has proposed or new changes have occurred? Many scholars and thinkers in the field of media outlet that, today, media not just focus on women as gender issues or sex objects, but also seeks to strengthen the gender division of labor in the family and emphasize on the traditional muliebrity and masculinity stereotype.

Keywords: women, representation, tv commercials, advertising sociology, gender stereotypes

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Authors: Somsak Assavasirisilp

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The purposes of this research were to study the level of participation in the politic activities of Thai women, to study the factors influencing the Thai women’s entry into national politics, and to study the problems and obstacles to prevent women from enter national politics. This was a mixed research method of both qualitative and quantitative technique. The findings revealed that there were many problems and obstacles, especially culture and social norm, to prevent women from enter national politics and did not have many factors to support Thai women to become successful women politician.

Keywords: culture, social norm, national politics, Thai women

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Authors: Abdellatif Amouri, Sami Boudabbous

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The current study provides insights on the importance of entrepreneurial coaching as a source of developing entrepreneurial intentions among entrepreneurs and a determinant factor of business creation process and growth. Coaching, which implies exchange of adequate information and a mutual understanding between entrepreneurs and their partners, requires a better mutual knowledge of the representations and the perceptions of ideas which are widely present in their dealings and transactions. Therefore, to analyze entrepreneurs’ perceptions of business creation, we addressed a survey questionnaire to a group of Tunisian entrepreneurs and experts in business creation to indicate their level of approval concerning the prominence of coaching. The factor analysis indicates that more than 60% of the respondents believe that each statement reflects an aspect of coaching, with no bias to its position in the entrepreneurial process. Therefore, the image drawn from our respondents’ perceptions is that an entrepreneur is rather "constructed" and "shaped" by multiple apprenticeships both before and during the entrepreneurial act, through an accompaniment process and within interactions with trainers, consultants or professionals in starting a business. Similarly, the results indicate that the poor support structures and lack of accompaniment procedures stand as an obstacle impeding the development of entrepreneurial intention among business creators.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Behavior, Entrepreneurial Coaching, Entrepreneurial Intention, Perceptions, Venture Creation

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Authors: Bashir Ahmad, Daneji, Hamidu Aminu, Ahmad, Aliyu Mukhtar, Daneji, Haruna Mohammed

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It has been established and universally agreed that vibrant Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) play significant roles in economic growth and development. In Nigeria, MSMEs are not playing the expected roles. Notable among the plethora of reasons is lack of prompt and sufficient finance. Government and other stakeholders attempted in several ways at different times to provide the required finance to MSMEs but the results were not encouraging and consequently, many failed. In recent past, Islamic financing emerged world over as promising alternative source of financing. However, its awareness among MSMEs entrepreneurs in north east region of Nigeria stands to be questioned. This study explored the 'Demographic Factors Influence on Awareness of Islamic Financing among MSMEs entrepreneurs in the North East Region of Nigeria'. The primary data used in this study were collected through questionnaire. In analyzing the collected data, the study used frequency, percentages, Pearson correlation, ANOVA and test of homogeneity test (Levene’s test) parameters generated from SPSS (version 15). The findings of the study revealed that entrepreneurs’ age, state of origin, religion and educational level influence their MSMEs awareness of Islamic Financing in the north east region of Nigeria. The study recommended that Islamic Financing institutions, government and relevant agencies should do more to enhance the awareness of Islamic financing among MSMEs entrepreneurs in the north east region of Nigeria.

Keywords: awareness, demographic factors, entrepreneurs, Islamic financing

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Authors: Ali Mohammadi

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This study explored the root causes of women's lack of writing in literature by digging into Virginia Woolf's A Room of One’s Own. Virginia Woolf was the pioneer of feminist literary criticism in the 20th century. She was hugely preoccupied, throughout her writing life, with the role of women in history and with the relationship between women and fiction. Besides, she wrote continuously about the difficulties of women's writing and of writing as a woman. This research aims to mirror a number of key arguments concerning women’s issues: the social and economic conditions necessary for writing; the problem of a tradition of women's writing; the concept of a 'female sentence' articulating women's voices and values and the idea of the androgynous aesthetic in which an author would be able to write free from an awareness of their sex as male or female. Woolf was very wary of making any definitive assertions about women's writing, or at least in terms of its style or form. Indeed, much of the essay is taken up with her reflections on the lack of women's writing over the history of English literature. It was concluded that the reason for this absence of female writing does not just spring from the deficiency of genius, but of material circumstances and facilities. Additionally, the demands of the domestic household, the poverty of education available to women, and the laws that denied married women’s ownership of funds or property made it virtually impossible for women to take up writing as a profession.

Keywords: autonomy, facilities, genius, literature, women

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Authors: Saheed A. Gbadegeshin

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Lean Commercialization (LC) is a transformation of new technologies and knowledge to products and services through application of lean/agile principle. This principle focuses on how resources can be minimized on development, manufacturing, and marketing new products/services, which can be accepted by customers. To understand how the LC has been employed by the technology-based companies, a case study approach was employed by interviewing the founders, observing their high technologies, and interviewing the commercialization experts. Two serial entrepreneurs were interviewed in 2012, and their commercialized technologies were monitored from 2012 till 2016. Some results were collected, but to validate the commercialization strategies of these entrepreneurs, four commercialization experts were interviewed in 2017. Initial results, observation notes, and experts’ opinions were analyzed qualitatively. The final findings showed that the entrepreneurs applied the LC unknowingly, and the experts were aware of the LC. Similarly, the entrepreneurs used the LC due to the financial constraints, and their need for success. Additionally, their commercialization practices revealed that LC appeared to be one of their commercialization strategies. Thus, their practices were analyzed, and a framework was developed. Furthermore, the experts noted that LC is a new dawn, which technologists and scientists need to consider for their high technology commercialization. This article contributes to the theory and practice of commercialization. Theoretically, the framework adds value to the commercialization discussion. And, practically the framework can be used by the technology entrepreneurs (technologists and scientists), technology-based enterprises, and technology entrepreneurship educators as a guide in their commercialization adventures.

Keywords: lean commercialization, high technologies, lean start-up, technology-based companies

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Authors: Khairul Hasni

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A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the cessation of hostilities was signed by Aceh's longstanding adversaries (the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in August 2005. The Government of Indonesia has given the autonomy to Aceh Province of Indonesia, the Law Number 11 of 2006 the authority of the Aceh government to the implementation of the Islamic Sharia. The implementation of Islamic Sharia, Aceh can be a role model of Islam that glorifies women, the implementation of Islamic law in Aceh when enacted and got legality because it supported the socio-cultural and historical community. The value of the value of women's lives is shifted under the pressure of applying Islamic law, with this argument, the importance of justice and equality of policy enforcement in women's lives. Based on interviews conducted in 2016 and 2017 with women's activists, government officials, women non-governmental organizations in Aceh, this paper finds that there is lack of gender balance because of the many problems involving women in the enactment of regional regulations and control policies on women's bodies. The research points to ensure the implementation of Islamic Sharia practitioners have only directed to women and discrimination against women.

Keywords: women, policy, Islamic law, social

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Authors: Rokeshia Renné Ashley

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The purpose of this study is to understand the perception of historical figure Saartjie 'Sara/Sarah' Baartman from a cross cultural perspective of black women in the United States and black women in South Africa. Semi-structured interviews (n = 30) uncover that many women in both countries did not have an accurate representation, recollection, or have been exposed to the story of Baartman. Nonetheless, those who were familiar with Baartman’s story, those participants compared her to modern examples of black women who are showcased in a contemporary familiarity. The women are described by participants as women who reveal their bodies in a sexualized manner and have the curves that are similar to Baartman’s historic figure. This comparison emphasized a connection to popular images of black women who represent the curvaceous ideal. Findings contribute to social comparison theory by providing a lens for examining black women’s body image.

Keywords: black women, body modification, media, South Africa

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Authors: Rui Xing, Xiaowen Zhao, Hao Huang, Chang Liu

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Creativity is regarded as vital for new ventures' development since the whole process of entrepreneurship is rooted in the creation and exploration of new ideas. The entrepreneurial leader is central to the entrepreneurial team, who plays an especially important role in this process. However, few scholars have studied the impact entrepreneurs' leadership styles on the creativity of entrepreneurial teams. In this study, we integrate the historically disjointed literatures of leadership style and team creativity under entrepreneurship circumstance to understand why and when entrepreneurs' different leadership style relates to team creativity. Focus on answering the following questions: Is humility leadership necessarily better than narcissism leadership at increasing the creativity of entrepreneurial teams? Moreover, in which situations humility leadership or narcissism leadership is more conducive to the entrepreneurial team's creativity? Based on the componential theory of creativity and entrepreneurial cognition theory, we explore the relationship between entrepreneurs' leadership style and team creativity, treating team cognitive diversity and environmental uncertainty as moderators and psychological empowerment as mediators. We tested our hypotheses using data gathered from 64 teams and 256 individual members from 53 new firms in China's first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. We found that there was a significant positive relation between entrepreneurs' humble leadership and psychological empowerment, and the more significant the positive correlation was when the environmental uncertainty was high. In addition, there was a significant negative relation between entrepreneurs' narcissistic leadership and psychological empowerment, and the negative relation was weaker in teams with a high team cognitive diversity value. Furthermore, both entrepreneurs' humble leadership and team psychological empowerment were significantly positively related to team creativity. While entrepreneurs' narcissistic leadership was negatively related to team creativity, and the negative relationship was weaker in teams with a high team cognitive diversity or a high environmental uncertainty value. This study has some implications for both scholars and entrepreneurs. Firstly, our study enriches the understanding of the role of leadership in entrepreneurial team creativity. Different from previous team creativity literatures, focusing on TMT and R&D team, this study is a significant attempt to demonstrate that entrepreneurial leadership style is particularly relevant to the core requirements of team creativity. Secondly, this study introduces two moderating variables, cognitive diversity and environmental uncertainty, to explore the different boundary conditions under which the two leadership styles play their roles, which is helpful for entrepreneurs to understand how to leverage leadership to improve entrepreneurial team creativity, how to recruit cognitively diverse employees to moderate the effects of inappropriate leadership to the team. Finally, our findings showed that entrepreneurs' humble leadership makes a unique contribution to explaining team creativity through team psychological empowerment.

Keywords: entrepreneurs’ leadership style, entrepreneurial team creativity, team psychological empowerment, team cognitive diversity, environmental uncertainty

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Authors: Akanle Florence Foluso

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This paper examined briefly the patriarchy nature of gendered power system: a network of social, political and economic relationships through which men dominate and control female labour, as well as define women’s status, privileges and rights in the society. The paper discusses the historical perspective of “the academic experience of women. It takes a look at the plight of women in a academia in some Nigeria. Universities in at present to see if both men and women have equal opportunities. This paper focuses on women in Academics today, it examines the overall gender proportions of men and women by universities, women/men ratios by lecturers, women and men ratio of associate professors, women and men ratio of professors by universities. It also examines women and men ratio by Dean also executive heads (Vice Chancellors) Expofactor design was be used. The study population comprised of three selected universities from Ondo, Ekiti and Zanfara respectively. Involuntary and indept interview was used to collect data for the study data for the study was also collected from so purposively selected academic staff in the categories of Dean and senior staff who are familiar with gender issues. Findings souls that there is gender inequality academia.

Keywords: women, gender, inequality, academia

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Authors: Talha Sareshwala

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The purpose of this research paper is to revise the skills of an entrepreneur in the making and to guide future Entrepreneurs into a promising future. The study presents a broader review of entrepreneurship, starting from its definition and antecedents. A well-developed original set of guidelines can help budding entrepreneurs and practitioners seeking an answer to being successful as an entrepreneur. It is a journey full of excitement, experiences, rewards, and learning. Dedication, work ethics and a never-say-die attitude will largely contribute to the success as a businessman and an entrepreneur. This paper is sharing an experience of how an entrepreneur can act as a catalyst for young minds while ensuring them that ethics and principles do pay in business when followed in true spirit and action. It is very important for an entrepreneur to enhance his product or services, marketing skills, and market share, along with providing customer satisfaction and opportunities for teams to improve their leadership qualities. To have strong employee loyalty and job satisfaction among its employees. Based on Research objectives, primarily in-depth interviews and focused group interviews were conducted as a qualitative research method. And to support this survey, questionnaires were used as a qualitative research method to explore how Indian Entrepreneurs face the challenge of the changing, volatile socio-political environment in India.

Keywords: entrepreneur, business ethics, sales, marketing

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Authors: Arun Kumar

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For the present study a total of 219 women, from urban and rural areas of Sagar district of central India were selected. The mean age at menarche of rural women was found 13.89±1.17 years and for urban women, it was 13.78±1.12 years. The difference between the mean age at menarche of urban and rural women was statistically insignificant (t=0.580, p≤0.05). Mean age at menopause among rural women was (47.4±4.92). The difference between the mean of urban and rural women was statistically insignificant (t=0.739 and p≤0.05). These findings indicate that rural women experience menopause at a later age as compared to their urban counterparts.

Keywords: menarche, menopause, urban, rural, Bidi workers

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Authors: Miraç Savaş Turhan, Ali Danişman

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Recently scholars of new institutional theory have used institutional logics perspective to explain the contradictory practices in modern western societies. Accordingly, distinct institutional logics are embedded in central institutions such as the market, state, democracy, family, and religion. They guide individual and organizational actors and constraint their behaviors in a particular organizational field. Through this perspective, actors are assumed to have a situated, embedded, boundedly intentional, and adaptive role against the structure in social, cultural and political context. On the other hand, over a decade, there is an emerging attempt focusing on the role of actors on creating, maintaining, and changing the institutions. Such attempts brought out the concept of institutional entrepreneurs to explain the role of individual actors in relation to institutions. Institutional entrepreneurs are individuals, groups of individuals, organizations or groups of organizations that are able to initiate some actions to build, maintain or change institutions. While recent studies on institutional logics perspective have attempted to explain roles of entrepreneurial actors who have resources and skills, little is known about the effects of multiple institutional logics on the ability of institutional entrepreneurs. In this study, we aim to find out that how multiple institutional logics affect the ability of institutional entrepreneurs during the process of institutional change. We examine this issue in the Turkish Education Field. While institutional logics were identified based on the previous studies in the education field, the actions taken by Turkish National Education Ministry from 2003 to 2013 was examined through content analysis The early results indicate that there are remarkable shift and contradictions in the ability of institutional entrepreneur in taking actions to change the field in relationship to balance of power shift among the carriers of institutional logics.

Keywords: institutional theory, institutional logics, institutional entrepreneurs, Turkish national education

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Authors: Nesrine Bouguerra

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Entrepreneurship is seen as a necessary ingredient for stimulating economic growth and employment opportunities in all societies. SMEs account for a wide share of economic activity and development. they are the primary engine of job creation, income growth and poverty reduction. Indeed, government support for entrepreneurship is a strategic option to foster economic growth and females’ input in this regard, is of equal significance not only for employability and productivity but also to narrow the gender gap created by social attitudes and beliefs. This study investigates the impact of socio–cultural factors, among other barriers on female entrepreneurial intention in Algeria. Data will be collected using a mixed method approach (Questionnaires and Interviews) from women intending to become entrepreneurs and those already in the field. This study has conceptual, theoretical and empirical contributions to the field of entrepreneurship which will be unveiled throughout.

Keywords: female entrepreneurship, SMEs, women, socio –cultural values, barriers

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Authors: Jessica Ordoñez, Francisco Ochoa, Pascual García

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The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between return migration in Ecuador and economic growth. The improvement of macroeconomic conditions in Latin America, starting in 2012, makes the region a new migratory destination, in both senses in north-south and south-south flows. Current studies highlight only the role of the entrepreneurial migrant in generating employment and economic growth in the region. Nevertheless, it has not been considered that not all migrants are entrepreneurs and that not all entrepreneurs contribute to economic growth. This research compares the socioeconomic and labor characteristics of migrant returnees working as freelancers in Ecuador. The principal aim is to demystify the role of migrant entrepreneurs in regional growth and to identify socioeconomic characteristics that can enhance growth. A panel econometric model was used, which is part of the information from labor and macroeconomic surveys.

Keywords: economic growth, entrepreneur, migration, returned migration

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Authors: Rukhsana Kausar, Nida Zafar

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The present research investigated socio-demographic predictors of divorce adjustment in Pakistani women. The sample comprised of 80 divorced women from different areas of Lahore. Self developed Socio-Demographic predictor scale and Divorce Adjustment Scale by (Fisher, 2001) was used for assessment. Analyses showed that working divorced women living with joint family system are more adjusted as compared to non-working divorced women living with joint family system. Women having one child are more adjusted as compared to women having more than one child. Findings highlight importance of presence of father for healthy development of adolescents. Adjustment of divorcee women was positively associated with income, social support from the family, having favorable attitudes toward marital dissolution prior to divorce, and being the partner who initiated the divorce. In addition, older women showed some evidence of poorer adjustment than did younger women. Findings highlight importance of support for divorce adjustment.

Keywords: socio-demographic, adjustment, women, divorce

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Authors: Hagar Wahba

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In an attempt to bridge a literature gap, the study explores the different gendered consequences of economic globalization on Egyptian women in informal employment. Under the intersectionality theory, the study highlights issues related to equal economic opportunities among women in different segments of informal employment during Covid-19. Accordingly, this study explores the different vulnerabilities of women in lower segments of the informal sector in Egypt, which intersected with inequalities brought by the pandemic. Therefore, through collecting primary data, the study was able to gain a more intersectional understanding of women’s experiences in informal employment during Covid-19. In women in technology-based work in Egypt were proven to be in a more advantaged position than other women whose jobs depended on face-to-face interactions during the pandemic.

Keywords: economic globalisation, informal employment, women, egypt, intersectional feminism, decent work, Covid-19

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Authors: Ifeanyi Charles Otuokere, Victoria Nneoma Nnochiri

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Entrepreneurship generally and specifically within the rural communities in Nigeria is a fast means of bringing development within the communities. This is made possible by utmost maximization and management of available local resources to develop rural areas through good management of these local resources. This study anchors on the rural development paradigm and the integrated rural development theories to understudy the knowledge of rural entrepreneurs on rural economic development. The research study made use of surveys and descriptive analysis. The assessable population for the study, which was randomly selected, is 100 rural entrepreneurs from ten rural communities within the Ikwuano Local Government Area of Abia State. The study made use of both primary and secondary as a source of data collection with much emphasis on a primary source, although secondary data such as journals, textbooks electronic sources were also utilised. A carefully structured questionnaire drafted to extract raw data was administered to selected entrepreneurs. The findings of the study showed that developments within rural communities can only be achieved through rural entrepreneurship. This is evidenced in increased output, job creation, and most importantly, reduction of rural to urban migration, among other things. Recommendations were also made based on these findings; the researchers recommended that infrastructural developments should be made available in the rural communities and government policies should create enabling environments along with other assistance to help these rural entrepreneurs achieve their sole aim.

Keywords: economic developments, rural communities, rural development, rural entrepreneurship

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Authors: Ulemu Maseko

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This research is a critical assessment of the empowerment of Muslim women in Malawi. The study assessed, evaluated, and analyzed how the Muslim Women Organization (MWO) has influenced gender equality and women empowerment in different Islamic communities. In analyzing the data collected for this research, the study has examined the following topics: The way MWO has interpreted Islamic women’s rights, the various stereotypes Muslim women face, and lastly, the factors contributing to the limitation of Muslim women’s rights in Malawi. Towards this analysis, the study revealed that women groups such as MWO are crucial in understanding Muslim women and the different dynamics related to their empowerment. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how Muslim women comprehend various Islamic sources and how they link religion to their position and participation in society. To achieve the scope of this study, relevant works of literature that best described Islam in Malawi, Muslim women groups, and women empowerment in Malawi were used, coupled with a qualitative research approach that involved interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observations. In addition, phenomenology and feminist theoretical frameworks were used to examine and analyze the findings. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that MWO is a significant body for gender equality and women empowerment initiatives in the Malawian Islamic community. Since its establishment in 1985 till the time of this study, MWO has been an imperative driving force towards an Islamic women’s discourse that uses Islamic teachings, faith, policies, and practices to justify the role of the Muslim woman in society. This has been enlightening for their platform and has given them more confidence to justify the empowerment of Muslim women and support different initiatives towards social change.

Keywords: Islam, women, empowerment, Malawi

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Authors: Jay Neil Garciso Verano, Peter Rosales Bobiles

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This study tried to integrate RA 9262 in literature through the use of film. It identified RA 9262 provisions reflected in the students’ concepts in their oral participation and written outputs and pointed out different attitudes toward violence against women and respect to women as shaped by the film through their responses. Four Literature 121 (World Literature) classes with more or less similar characteristics participated in this study. The discussion of Paulette Kelly’s I Got Flowers Today took place during the first session while the viewing of the film Enough and discussion of the film followed to enrich and bolster students’ concepts and awareness on violence against women and to introduce RA 9262 provisions. The students’ attitudes toward violence against women and respect to women were lifted from the students’ oral and written responses. The film Enough presented eight provisions from RA 9262 reflected in students’ concepts which centered on the acts of violence against women tarnishing women’s rights and dignity. There were 25 attitudes toward violence against women and respect to women which surfaced, 11 of which are what initiate the acts, seven tell about the results from or effects of violence against women, and another seven exemplify respect to women. With the findings, it can be viewed that RA 9262 can be integrated in a literature course to awaken students’ minds on the prevalent issues on violating women’s rights and dignity. The discussion of Paulette Kelly’s I Got Flowers Today reinforced by the viewing of Enough deduced issues on the violation of women’s rights and dignity, attitudes toward violence against women, and students’ perception with regard respect to women.

Keywords: anti-violence against women, literature, film, enough, feminism

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Authors: Hatice Kahyaoglu Sut, Serap Unsar, Seda Kurt

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The aim of this study is to investigate sexual quality of life in women with gynecological cancer. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 37 women with gynecological cancer and 39 control women (in menopausal term) at the Gynecooncology and Menopause Clinics of Trakya University Medical Faculty between January and July 2015. Women who had sexual active and willing to participate in the study filled an information form inquiring socio-demographic characteristics and Sexual Quality of Life Questionnaire-Female (SQLQ-F). Data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney-U test and Kruskal-Wallis test. The average age of the women was 52.7 ± 7.6 (51.2 ± 8.7 in women with gynecological cancer, 54.3 ± 6.0 in controls). The SQOL-F scores in women with gynecologic cancer (60.8 ± 22.4) was lower than controls (63.5 ± 20.7), however, there was no statistically significant difference (p = 0.759). Women with gynecological cancer who had vaginal dryness and pain during sexual intercourse (45.7 ± 21.3) were lower SQOL-F total score than control group (66.0 ± 21.7) (p = 0.014). The SQOL-F scores in women who took chemotherapy treatment (55.7 ± 17.8) were lower than in women who had not chemotherapy treatment (86.8 ± 16.6) (p = 0.005). In conclusion, taking chemotherapy treatment and occurring vaginal dryness and pain complaints during sexual intercourse in women with gynecological cancer reduces sexual quality of life. Therefore, sexual quality of life in women with gynecological cancer should be evaluated, and they should be supported in order to improve their sexual quality of life.

Keywords: gynecological cancer, quality of life, sexuality, women

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Authors: Maryam Nakhaei, Hamid Reza Khankeh, Mitra Moodi, Leila Daddoust

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Although individuals (men and women) experience disasters in different ways, because of important women’s roles in the family, we aim to shed more light on their issues in doing family. In this report, we present an overview of the main qualitative and quantitative findings of different projects have been conducted in the regions affected by disaster in Iran. This paper explores women’s needs and experiences after disaster at the family level in 'disaster response behavior', 'personal health' including reproductive health and needs of pregnant women, 'livelihood responsibilities', and 'marital relationships'. This clarification can help not only to ensure that their needs are adequately addressed but also to plan family based strategies which consider their strengths.

Keywords: disaster, family, women, Iran

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Authors: Ana Sofia Torres Pereira

Abstract:

Till this day, women have been underrepresented and stereotyped both in TV and Cinema Screens all around the World. While women have been gaining a different status and finding their own voice in the work place and in society, what we see on-screen is still something different, something gender biased, something that does not show the multifaceted identities a woman might have. But why is this so? Why are we stuck on this shallow vision of women on-screen? According to several cinema industry studies, most film screenwriters in Hollywood are men. Women actually represent a very low percentage of screenwriters. So why is this relevant? Could the underrepresentation of women screenwriters in Hollywood be affecting the way women are written, and as a result, are depicted in film? Films are about stories, about people, and if these stories are continuously told through a man’s gaze, is that helping in the creation of a gender imbalance towards women? On the other hand, one of the reasons given for the low percentage of women screenwriters is: women are said to be better at writing specific genres, like dramas and comedies, and not as good writing thrillers and action films, so, as women seem to be limited in the genres they can write, they are undervalued and underrepresented as screenwriters. It seems the gender bias and stereotype isn’t saved exclusively for women on-screen, but also off-screen and behind the screen. So film appears to be a men’s world, on and off-screen, and since men seem to write the majority of scripts, it might be no wonder that women have been written in a specific way and depicted in a specific way on-screen. Also, since films are a mass communication medium, maybe this over-sexualization and stereotyping on-screen is indoctrinating our society into believing this bias is alive and well, and thus targeting women off-screen as well (ergo, screenwriters). What about at the very begging of film? In the Silent Movies and Early Talkies era, women dominated the screenwriting industry. They wrote every genre, and the majority of scripts were written by women, not men. So what about then? How were women depicted in films then? Did women screenwriters, in an era that was still very harsh on women, use their stories and their power to break stereotypes and show women in a different light, or did they carry on with the stereotype, did they continue it and standardize it? This papers aims to understand how important it is to have more working women screenwriters in order to break stereotypes regarding the image of women on and off-screen. How much can a screenwriter (male or female) influence our gaze on women (on and off-screen)?

Keywords: cinema, gender bias, stereotype, women on-screen, women screenwriters

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Authors: Muhammad Abu Sadah

Abstract:

This paper is focused on women engagement in peacebuilding efforts with Israeli counterparts. It defines ‘ the role of Palestinian women in peacebuilders’ in its general term. The necessity of this role, analyze the scope of peacebuilding efforts in the context of the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The paper examine the role of women on respond to conflict mitigation to accelerate peacebuilding. The study tend to examine the impact of women empowerment of the continuously changing circumstances and ongoing challenges.

Keywords: peacebuilding, palestinian, Israeli, women empowerment, conflict mitigation, counter extremism

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Authors: Josephine O. Okocha, Ifeanyi Adigwe

Abstract:

This research aims to examine the factors impacting women's retention in STEM in Nigeria and Georgia. In a bid to come up with strategies to enhance women’s participation in STEM, this study identifies and juxtaposes the factors impacting the retention of women in STEM and how they vary from one country to another are discussed. This study adopted the literature review method to perform the critical analysis. A total of 76 papers were retrieved from the Scopus database and were published between 2018 and 2023. Only 12 papers met the criteria for inclusion in the analysis. The findings reveal that the factors impacting women’s retention in STEM include funding (NGOs and government agencies), scholarship, specialized recruitment, mentoring, the establishment of women-only higher institutions, creating a balanced work and family environment, combating stereotypes, and enabling policies and laws. The paper highlights some key recommendations to help improve the retention of women in STEM in Africa and Nigeria in particular.

Keywords: STEM, women, retention, career, Nigeria, Georgia, women’s retention, women representation

Procedia PDF Downloads 46