Social Production and Reproduction at the Interfaces of Public and Private Spheres

Abstract

Social Production and Reproduction at the Interfaces of Public and Private Spheres Editors: Marcia Texler Segal, Esther Ngan-Ling Chow, and Vasilike Demos Emerald: Bingley, West Yorkshire, 2012, 302 pp. ISBN 978-1-78052-874-8Social Production and Reproduction at the Interfaces of Public and Private Spheres is the 16th volume of the series of books dealing with new developments in the study of gender within a variety of feminist frameworks and methodologies under the title "Advances in Gender Research" reuniting authors from all over the world.In the age of globalization, the edge between the public and private spaces, whether it is about people, media, social and legal policies, relationships or behavior is dim, each of them having undergone a redefinition process under the light of modern gender issues.The volume gathers papers that explore the topic of production and reproduction at the crossroad of public and private social life in its greater depth following the natural reproduction steps as matching or making relationships, motherhood, family life and work, analyzing the issues from the perspective of gendered attitude towards different modern social policies in countries like Spain, Indonesia, Pakistan, Canada, USA, China, Taiwan, and England, exploring both rural and urban spaces.Authors address the relationship among families from different perspectives: stereotypical image of families with marriage migrants and the role of the Unification Church in constructing and normalizing heterosexuality in modern social context (Minjeong Kim, "Gendered Desire and Heteronorpolitics mativity in the Transnational Matchmaking Process"), the model of Chinese motherhood and its impact on the development of families enterprises in Spain underlining the destination country labor conditions that open to transnational families, households with multi-located members, thus putting in place new strategies for family balance (Amelia Saiz Lopez, "Transnationalism, Motherhood, and Entrepreneur ship: Chinese Women in Spain"), the role of local culture in the social reproduction of women's lives within the family and the way it relates their understanding of motherhood and sexuality to the capacity of challenging family culture bound expectations (Marilyn Porter and Kristi Poerwandari, "Living Culture and Making Relationships: Mothers and Daughters Negotiate Sexuality in Indonesia and Canada"). They examine the single motherhood among low-income Black women or residents of impoverished regions in Southwest China, reassessing previous quasijudgmental approaches based on stereotypes faced by mothers in poverty and discovering the cultural resources that enabled Black women to handle the burden of poverty in raising their children (Bette J. Dickerson, Wanda Parham-Payne and Tekisha Dwan Everette, "Single Mothering in Poverty: Black Feminist Considerations") and investigate the interplay between Chinese patriarchal values and neoliberal ideas through introduction of techniques, by official means, to improve the godmother image and reinforce gender stereotype through market activity (Lihua Wang, "Neoliberalism and the Feminization of Family Survival: the Happiness Project in Four Chinese Villages").The workplace climate is analyzed both from the perspective of the impact of China's economic transition on women's construction of their work and family roles, stressing the women's effort to cope with excessive market forces to protect family well-being rather than leaning on domestic role as a result of traditional gender values (Jiping Zuo and Yongping Jiang, "Work-to-Family Conflict and Women's Construction of Work/ Family Roles in Post-Mao China") and from the high-powered occupations such as college faculty perspective, where women struggle facing the persistence of male breadwinner stereotype, seek to achieve a balance between a full-time homemaker and family life (Catherine White Berheide and Cay Anderson-Hanley, "Doing It All: The Effects of Gender, Rank, and Department Climate on Work-Family Conflict for Faculty at Liberal Arts Colleges"). …