Jan Thomas

“EVERYTHING ABOUT US IS FEMINIST” The Significance of Ideology in Organizational Change

This study explores the role feminist ideology played in long-term structural changes in feminist organizations. The vehicle for this exploration was a comparative case study of 14 feminist womens health centers that were started in the 1970s and were still in existence in the early 1990s. Drawing on interviews and site visits, the author describes the early collectivist structures, highlights some of the crises these organizations faced, and describes three structural ideal types that emerged in the 1990s. The analysis suggests three ideological issues that directed structural change: the importance of maintaining a system for the equitable distribution of power, the importance of growth versus autonomy, and the importance of feminism as an organizational outcome or internal process.

Who's Bathing the Baby?: The Division of Domestic Labour in Sweden

Abstract In Sweden the government has enacted specific policies, such as generous parental leave, to encourage couples to share in both economic and domestic labour. Using data from a national survey of Swedish women 1 year after childbirth, we assess whether the division of labour varies depending on women’s parental leave status, education or number of children. We move beyond the most common measures of domestic labour (housework) and include several measures of daily child-care tasks. Our findings indicate that men share fairly equally only if their partner has returned to work full-time. This pattern remained regardless of women’s level of education and number of children. We suggest that parental leave policies are necessary but not sufficient tools for encouraging gender equity at home.

Parental stress in mothers and fathers one year after birth

Objective: The aim was to compare prenatal feelings and parental stress in parents one year after birth. An additional aim was to study associations between parental stress and several explanatory factors in mothers and fathers. Background: The birth of a baby brings many changes to the lives of parents and families. Existing research on gender differences in parental stress levels is somewhat inconclusive. Method: A longitudinal Swedish survey of a one-year cohort of 783 women and 671 male partners recruited in mid pregnancy and followed up one year after birth. Data were collected using three questionnaires where different aspects of stress arising from the parenting role measured by the Swedish Parental Stress Questionnaire (SPSQ) were investigated. Results: Women and men differed in age and level of education. Women had more negative feelings towards pregnancy, birth and the early parenthood compared to men. Women reported higher levels of parental stress than men in three out of five subscales in the SPSQ (Role Restriction, Social Isolation and Spouse Relationship). The subscales were moderately correlated with background variables but strongly correlated with prenatal feelings. Prenatal negative feelings about the pregnancy, the upcoming birth and the first weeks with a newborn baby were strongly correlated with parental stress for both mothers and fathers. Conclusion: Assessing parents’ feelings and prenatal attitudes is important for understanding parental stress one year after birth. Health care providers should discuss these issues with both parents during pregnancy in order to help them cope with the normal stresses of parenting.

Feminism and Profit in American Hospitals The Corporate Construction of Women's Health Centers

This article provides a critical analysis of the evolution and impact of hospital-sponsored womens health centers. Using original data gathered from interviews, participant observation, and content analysis of documents and brochures, the authors describe the development of four models of hospital-sponsored womens health centers and illustrate three specific mechanisms of the co-optation process. They show how many elements of feminist health care were used for the purpose of marketing and revenue production rather than for empowering women and transforming the delivery of care. Following Stratigakis notion of negative countereffect, the authors show how the key feminist concepts of women-centered care and empowerment ended up contradicting their original meaning and purpose. Rather than being the subject of care, women became the object of treatment and revenue production.

Perinatal Outcomes and Satisfaction with Care in Women with High Body Mass Index

INTRODUCTION The majority of studies on pregnant women with high body mass index (BMI) have focused on medical complications and birth outcome, rather than these womens encounters with health care providers. The aims were to identify the proportion of pregnant women with high BMIs (≥30); compare maternal characteristics and pregnancy and birth outcomes; and assess the experiences of prenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care in women with high (≥30) and lower (<30) BMIs. METHODS Data were collected through questionnaires and antenatal records from 919 women recruited in mid-pregnancy at 3 hospitals in the north of Sweden, with a follow-up questionnaire 2 months after birth. RESULTS The prevalence of obesity was 15.2%. Women with high BMIs were more often aged 35 years or older and less likely to have a university education. They had more negative attitudes regarding being pregnant and reported more childbirth fear compared to women with lower BMIs, but they did not differ in regard to their feelings about the approaching birth or the first weeks with the newborn. They reported more pregnancy complications and had less continuity of caregiver. High BMI was associated with labor induction and emergency cesarean birth. No differences were found in birth complications; birth experience; or satisfaction with prenatal, intrapartum, or postnatal care. DISCUSSION The findings reveal that women who are obese have more complicated pregnancies and births but are generally satisfied with the care they receive. There are some differences in the way they experience care. Health care providers have a delicate task to provide sufficient information about health risks while still offering respect, encouragement, and support.

“Why Don't I Know About These Women?”: The Integration of Early Women Sociologists in Classical Theory Courses

In recent years, early women sociologists such as Harriet Martineau, Ida B. Wells, and Jane Addams have begun to appear in some introductory textbooks and theory books. Usually, they appear in a box, as a sidebar, or as selected “others.” So why do we not know more about these women? Our research seeks to answer this question. Given the availability of books by and about these women, we hypothesized that one explanation might lie in the training of theory instructors. If graduate students were not exposed to the work of early women sociologists, then it seemed unlikely they would incorporate them into their own teaching, research, and analyses. To assess this theory, we collected theory syllabi from 40 graduate schools. Since we were most interested in early women sociologists, we focused our analysis on “classical” theory syllabi. Our findings indicate that Marx, Weber, and Durkheim still dominate classical theory syllabi. The writings of women were assigned on 17 percent of the syllabi in our sample. We believe this indicates a weak but visible indication that the diffusion of their work has begun.