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Drawing upon data from in-depth interviews with mothers and fathers as well as field observation, I illustrate how women engage in the practice of maternal gatekeeping due to strongly held notions of maternal identity. The central components of maternal identity can lead to a defense of gender imbalance in the home. These central components include dreams of motherhood as well as conceptions of women’s superior parenting knowledge and women’s sense of primary responsibility for their children. I explore how maternal identity can lead into maternal gatekeeping while exploring what it is about our gendered parenting roles that we cling to so tightly. I conclude with a call for an abandonment of notions of maternal identity which should be replaced by gender neutral parental identities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Informed by gendered organizational theory, I discuss “lone girls” in Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF), that is, women serving in bases where the majority of soldiers are men. I argue that the IDF’s military structure pushes these token women into traditional gendered behavior. Contrary to basic tenets of gendered organizational logic, many of these women find that doing gender in traditional ways is empowering. They manipulate gender and femininity to their advantage as IDF soldiers, as a means of attaining a sense of organizational belonging when other paths are blocked. Thus, lone girls benefit from their army experiences on an individual level. On a collective level, though, their presence on male-dominated bases does little to strengthen the position of women in the IDF and in Israeli society in general. Rather, it serves to reinforce traditional gender expectations for men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What can be learned from the process of community-engaged research (CER) on refugee resettlement? In the following, we share experiences, reflections, and lessons from implementing such a project. We begin with background on refugee resettlement and recent resettlement dynamics in the United States and Wisconsin, as well as literature on the study of refugees and this type of research more generally. Results and discussion are presented though our understanding of, and involvement with, the process via a framework of CER desired process outcomes, which we both propose and utilize to encourage effective efforts with marginalized populations going forward. CER is challenging and must be undertaken thoughtfully. One of the paper's primary contributions is to share successes and failures in a transparent and unvarnished fashion. In particular, researchers need to share power and listen deeply, actions that will reverberate throughout such a process. Doing so comes with certain risks, and may be tangled, but also has strong potential to produce useful data, deep learning for researchers and participants, as well as empowerment of marginalized populations and relationship building that can yield future collaboration towards resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]