The Lantern, 2013-2014

• Strikes • Pietro di Venezia • To the Lover of Small Things • Jim\u27s Big Day • Akademiks • Redamancy • A Love Poem for Arctia Caja • Mother River • The Lyrics to Your Song • Nerves • Gemini Season • White Interface • The Last Time I Played with Dolls • The Mechanic • My Goldfish • Put Down Your Hammer • Strip • Hollywood • Identity • The Grey Zone • Sophia • When I Became a Poet • Unbroken • The Veteran Aeronaut • I Have Running Water but They had the Stars • Not A Nigga • Mother, Adam, Eve • From Fragile Seeds: A Palindrome • Conspiring, The Spires • Finally Working Out What Goes Where (God, For Example, is in His Kingdom) • Identity Crisis • Affection • Patience • An Enchanting Lost Cause • False Starts • Soggy Rice, Lukewarm Water • The Glow • Heat • 9-14 • Filigree • Diane Arbus • Touched • Dying Alive • Just Another Drunkard on the Train • Dinner • The French Legionnaire • Conspiracy and Theory • 1249am • Colored Pencils • Sea Glass • Roundtrip • The Muse Heard Music • Lacrimosa • The Allegory of the Maze • The Stars on Stuart Road • To Isabella • For Want of a Potato Chip • Termite Nests • Saving a Rose • Today and Yesterday • A Foggy New York • Cat; Wurtzburg • Embrace • Faces • Geisha • Pacis Leo • Patterns • Te-Whanganui-a-Tara (The Dock)https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1180/thumbnail.jp

In Crisis or Decline? Selecting Women to Lead Provincial Parties in Government

The majority of Canada's women premiers were selected to that office while their parties held government. This is uncommon, both in the comparative literature and among premiers who are men. What explains this gendered selection pattern to Canada's provincial premiers’ offices? This paper explores the most common explanation found in the comparative literature for women's emergence as leaders of electorally competitive parties and as chief political executives: women are more likely to be selected when that party is in crisis or decline. Using the population of women provincial premiers in Canada as case studies, evidence suggests three of eight women premiers were selected to lead parties in government that were in crisis or decline; a fourth was selected to lead a small, left-leaning party as predicted by the literature. However, for half of the women premiers, evidence of their party's decline is partial or inconclusive. As a result of this exploration, more research is required to draw generalizations about the gendered opportunity structures that shape how women enter (and exit) the premier's office in Canada

Gender and psychological orientations to politics

Since the 1950s, women's lives have changed dramatically in established democracies, but the gender gaps in political interest and subjective political competence have not. This is problematic, as psychological orientations to politics – political interest and subjective political competence – play a key role in democratic functioning. The conventional explanations found in the political science literature suggest that women's enhanced levels of socioeconomic resources, as well as changing gender roles and feminist socialization, should have narrowed and closed these gaps over time. And yet, throughout the post-industrial world, these gaps persist. Why is this the case? This dissertation tests two conventional explanations. The first is predicated on socioeconomic resources, the second on gender role change. Results demonstrate that these conventional explanations garner little to no empirical support. Levels of education, income, and occupational status cannot explain why women are less interested in politics, and less confident in their political abilities than are men. Similarly, gender role change and feminist socialization did not eliminate these gaps as predicted. Several alternative explanations for these gaps are also tested. Results show that in some cases, gender and time condition the effects of socioeconomic resources on political interest and subjective political competence. Thus, women derive fewer political benefits from some socioeconomic resources than do men, and the importance of these resources for women's psychological engagement with politics has diminished over time. These conditional effects offset the socioeconomic gains women have made over time. Surprisingly, the dual demands of motherhood and labour force participation rarely impair women's political interest and subjective political competence. Instead, religiosity consistently boosts political interest, suggesting that increasing secularization actually helps perpetuate this gap. Finally, results show that increasing the number of women in elected office helps significantly narrow the gender gap in political interest. However, comparable effects are not found for subjective political competence, nor are other effects found for social policies such as maternity and parental leave, childcare, or taxation. These findings carry important implications for future attempts to secure gender equality in the political sphere. Exciting, innovative avenues for future research also stem from these results. Both are discussed in the conclusion.Depuis les années 1950, la vie des femmes a dramatiquement changé dans les démocraties établies mais l'écart avec les hommes en matière d'intérêt politique et de compétence politique subjective est resté le même. Ceci est problématique puisque les orientations psychologiques envers la politique – intérêt politique et compétence politique subjective – jouent un rôle clé dans le fonctionnement des démocraties. La littérature en science politique a longtemps suggéré que l'amélioration du statut socioéconomique des femmes, en plus du bouleversement du rôle traditionnel des femmes et de la socialisation dans un contexte féministe auraient dû rétrécir sinon éliminer avec le temps l'écart observé entre les hommes et les femmes. Pourtant, à travers le monde postindustriel, cet écart persiste. Pourquoi? Cette thèse de doctorat met à l'épreuve deux explications fréquemment citées dans la littérature, de même que plusieurs explications alternatives qui toutes tentent d'expliquer pourquoi l'écart existe et s'est maintenu jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Les résultats tendent à démontrer que les femmes ne sont pas moins intéressées par la politique que les hommes ni moins confiantes en leurs aptitudes politiques pour des raisons liées à leur plus faible éducation, leur statut économique plus précaire, leur statut professionnel moins valorisé ou encore leurs fréquentes absences du milieu du travail. On assiste plutôt, dans certains cas, à des situations où les femmes retirent moins de bénéfices de leurs ressources socioéconomiques. De plus, l'importance de ces ressources pour l'engagement psychologique des femmes envers la politique a diminué dans le temps. Résultat surprenant, les demandes doubles de la maternité et du travail limitent rarement l'intérêt politique et la compétence politique subjective des femmes. C'est plutôt la religiosité de celles-ci qui semble jouer un rôle positif important. On peut donc penser que la sécularisation accélérée des sociétés postindustrielles pourrait contribuer à maintenir l'écart avec les hommes. Alors que les changements dans les rôles traditionnels et la socialisation féministe n'ont pas éliminé les écarts entre les femmes et les hommes tels que prédit par la littérature en science politique, augmenter le nombre de femmes dans les postes élus aide à diminuer de façon significative cet écart en matière d'intérêt politique. Par contre, on ne trouve pas d'effets comparables du côté de la compétence politique subjective, ni d'effets en matière de politiques sociales telles que les congés de maternité et parentaux, les services de garde, ou la taxation.Cette thèse de doctorat se termine par une discussion sur les implications de ces conclusions sur les recherches futures ainsi que sur les tentatives à venir pour obtenir une égalité entre hommes et femmes dans la sphère politique

The political disengagement of Canada's young women

Bibliography: p. 89-9

Gendered News Coverage and Women Heads of Government

Women politicians have long faced a gendered media environment, where their novelty, potential (in)competence, family, and appearance have been over-emphasized in comparison to men. Much of this literature has focused on politicians running for office and women who hold legislative office. Little research investigates gendered news media presentations of women as heads of government. While the literature predicts that women heads of government should experience gendered differences in news coverage, there is also good reason to expect that news about government operations should not vary based on the gender of the government leader. Using their first year of online news coverage (N=11,675), we build a series of dictionaries and use automated content analysis to assess how frequently heads of government’s uniqueness, gender, family, appearance, sexual orientation, character, and competence are presented. We also assess the tone of news about each head of government. Results show that gendered coverage exists for women heads of government in potentially surprising ways. Fewer new stories are written about them, on average, than men. Women’s coverage features more feminine and masculine gendered identifies, as well as more coverage about their clothing. We find little evidence for increased personalization, and women’s character and competence is presented more positively than men’s. Though blunt, this analysis shows that news about heads of government remains gendered.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC

Conditional representation : Gendered experiences of combining work and family among local politicians

This article focuses on working and living conditions among local politicians in Sweden, and on their experiences of combining political work and family life. Applying a sociological perspective on representation, we first map the working and living conditions represented among politicians, with a specific focus on gender and age. We then examine experiences of work-family conflict and subjective well-being, and investigate how these outcomes are related to gender, age, and working and living conditions. The main findings show significant gender differences in working and living conditions, and substantially higher levels of work-family conflict among young female politicians

In Crisis or Decline? Selecting Women to Lead Provincial Parties in Government

The majority of Canada's women premiers were selected to that office while their parties held government. This is uncommon, both in the comparative literature and among premiers who are men. What explains this gendered selection pattern to Canada's provincial premiers’ offices? This paper explores the most common explanation found in the comparative literature for women's emergence as leaders of electorally competitive parties and as chief political executives: women are more likely to be selected when that party is in crisis or decline. Using the population of women provincial premiers in Canada as case studies, evidence suggests three of eight women premiers were selected to lead parties in government that were in crisis or decline; a fourth was selected to lead a small, left-leaning party as predicted by the literature. However, for half of the women premiers, evidence of their party's decline is partial or inconclusive. As a result of this exploration, more research is required to draw generalizations about the gendered opportunity structures that shape how women enter (and exit) the premier's office in Canada