Suchergebnisse

"In the early twentieth century, women fought for the right to professional employment and political influence outside the home. Yet if liberation from household 'drudgery' meant employing another woman to do it, where did this leave domestic servants? Both inspired and frustrated by the growing feminist movement, servants began forming their own trade unions, demanding better conditions and rights at work. Feminism and the Servant Problem is the first ever history of how these militant maids and their mistresses joined forces in the struggle for the vote but also clashed over competing class interests. Laura Schwartz uncovers a forgotten history of domestic worker organising and early feminist thinking on reproductive labour, and offers a new perspective on the class politics of the suffrage movement, challenging traditional notions of who made up the British working-class"--

AbstractThis article focuses on the Domestic Workers' Union of Great Britain and Ireland (est. 1909–1910), a small, grassroots union organized by young female domestic servants in the years leading up to the First World War. This union emerged against a backdrop of labor unrest as well as an increasingly militant women's movement. The article looks at how the Domestic Workers' Union drew inspiration from the latter but also encountered hostility from some feminists unhappy with the idea of their own servants becoming organized. I argue that the uneven and ambivalent response of the women's movement toward the question of domestic worker organizing is significant not simply as an expression of the social divisions that undoubtedly characterized this movement, but also as reflecting a wider debate within early twentieth-century British feminism over what constituted useful and valuable work for women. Attitudes toward domestic worker organizing were therefore predicated upon feminists' interrogation of the very nature of domestic labor. Was it inherently inferior to masculine and/or professional forms of work? Was it intrinsically different from factory work, or could it be reorganized and rationalized to fit within the industrial paradigm? Under what conditions should domestic labor be performed, and, perhaps most importantly, who should do it?

According to Ms. Schwartz, adoption in the United States is currently in a state of disarray and confusion because it has not achieved a satisfactory balance between biological and psychological parent-child relationships. U.S. adoption law has never adequately evaluated the relative importance of both types of relationships to the process of family formation. In contrast, although French adoption faces many of the same challenges as U.S. adoption, the French adoption process is not riddled with the same inconsistency and indeterminacy. Instead, French adoption law and government family policy reflect a societal consensus on the central and intrinsic importance of biological relationships. The manner in which French law strives for balance and compromise between biological and psychological relationships in establishing legal parentage warrants examination. Accordingly, in this Article, Ms. Schwartz examines the relationship between contemporary French adoption and that nation's history, traditions, and values. By doing so, the author encourages consideration of such a relationship in the United States in connection with reforms in U.S. adoption law.

We conducted a review of research literature related to anxiety, depression, and mood problems in Indigenous women in Canada, the United States (including Hawaii), Australia, and New Zealand. Quantitative and qualitative research studies published between 1980 and March 2010 were reviewed. The initial search revealed 396 potential documents, and after being checked for relevance by two researchers, data were extracted from 16 quantitative studies, one qualitative research article, and one dissertation. Depression is a common problem in Indigenous pregnant and postpartum women; however, the prevalence and correlates of anxiety and mood disorders are understudied. The review identified four key areas where further research is needed: (a) longitudinal, population-based studies; (b) further validation and modification of appropriate screening tools; (c) exploration of cultural diversity and meaning of the lived experiences of antenatal and postpartum depression, anxiety, and mood disorders; and (d) development of evidence-informed practices for researchers and practitioners through collaborations with Aboriginal communities to better understand and improve mental health of women of childbearing age.