Slowly, over the past 12 years, the landmark book – critical of Islamic fundamentalism and its treatment of women – has become increasingly available in Muslim countries. A year after it first came out, Oxford University Press released it as part of its millennium series in Pakistan. Last year, it was translated for Korean audiences (see YFile, Oct. 6, 2010).

, which won the Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award in sociology in 2000, was translated and released in Indonesia by the Jakarta-based International Centre for Islam and Pluralism and publisher LKiS Yogyakarta.

Moghissi, who teaches  women’s and equity studies, couldn't be more pleased about her book's release in Indonesia, which has blossomed into democracy since the overthrow of President Suharto in 1998. “Indonesia is the largest Muslim country on Earth," she points out. “Obviously, the ideas remain current and of concern if publishers are making available a book that is critical of fundamentalism and of its treatment of women."

Neighbouring Malaysia long ago banned Moghissi’s book. “The fact that it is being published next door in Indonesia makes me even happier,” she says. No doubt copies will filter across the Strait of Malacca.

In her ongoing effort to illuminate the experience of Muslims in the West, Moghissi on the subject, .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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It is by far the best method to ensure food security, especially when women are the producers, said Mukherjee-Reed, who was here recently as part of the research project on farming activity by women's groups. The advantage is access to food in the hands of those who need it (are food insecure), she said.

Mukherjee-Reed, whose works include and series, said there is a lesson in here that the world can take to fight food crisis.

About 2.5 lakh women in the state in about 30,000 groups are engaged in collective farming. Together they cultivate over 27,000 hectares, growing paddy, tapioca, pineapple, plantain, vegetables and other items that are used to ensure that the growers get enough to eat and the surplus is sold in the open market.

“Most of the groups of women, who started with small areas for cultivation, have increased their production by taking up more fallow land, rejuvenating it and cultivating it,” said Mukherjee-Reed.

Her study involved 100 groups spread across the state. Among her major findings, Mukherjee-Reed said that land is the major constraint of the women engaged in collective farming. Women are unsure about retaining the leasing rights of the vacant, fallow land that they rejuvenate and prepare for cultivation.

About 21 per cent of women groups expressed their wish to become landowners. In fact, it is a major aim of some groups, who have managed to buy land.

In spite of the constraints, women are happy, said Prof. Mukherjee. Most of the women who have been able to leave wage labour are very happy. Organic farming is the aim of at least 45 per cent of the 100 groups she has studied. Some groups among them make organic manure for their cultivation. There are women who have had no previous exposure to go out of the house for any activity, now fully engaged in collective farming and also inspiring other women to follow an activity of economic independence, she said.

In Kudumbasree, she found a strong support system that provides a platform for women. The Mission has an elaborate structure and allows functioning as an institute.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“If you look at other cultural industries, they don’t have nearly the growth curve that games have had in the past few years,” says , professor of pedagogy & technology at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Education] and president of the Canadian Game Studies Association. “When almost 75 per cent of women work, to not have them somehow represented in this workforce is excluding them from something that has had massive investment from all these different countries.”

Jenson, who spent more than 10 years studying gender and gaming, found one of the reasons a girl might not break into gaming is access. “Girls don’t often have the context for play that necessarily includes other girls. They may play with their brothers, cousins or fathers.”

“Girls and boys – once they level up – [are] exactly the same,” says Jenson. “Because the game demands that you play a certain way in order to be successful. Once you get rid of the confounding variable of being novice in these environments, girls play very much like the boys.”

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The annual award, presented last month, is named for Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who has influenced modern research literature on work and family, and is a partnership of the and the , and is sponsored by the Alliance of Work-Life Progress.

Ezzedeen’s article, “The Man Behind the Woman: A Qualitative Study of the Spousal Support Received and Valued by Executive Women”, appeared in the Journal of Family Issues and was based on a study she co-authored that found female executives were backed by emotionally supportive husbands more often than previous research would suggest (see YFile, Aug. 13, 2008).

A professor in the School of Human Resource Management in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Ezzedeen interviewed 20 senior and executive-level women in the United States. The study, which began at the University of Penn State Harrisburg, looked at spousal behaviours that impacted the women’s ability to juggle the demands of career and family life.

Out of the 20 best articles of 2009, four were selected as finalists for the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award, and from those, only one as the winner – a University of California, Irvine sociology professor’s article about career prioritizing and dual-earning couples.

Ezzedeen’s research interests focus on work-life balance and the advancement of women in organizations. She is a recipient of the George Washington University 2002-2003 Distinguished Teaching Assistant Award and the Harrisburg Chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma's 2006 Professor of the Year Award.

The purpose of the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award is to raise awareness of excellent work-family research, foster debate about quality research standards and identify the best of the best for future research.

For more information about the award, visit the Web site.

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91��ɫ film Professor Colleen Wagner’s current project, “Theatre of the Wounded”, places women at the centre of heroic myths, a space they have not traditionally occupied. Wagner's creative undertaking, which is funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, seeks to give women and girls a new role and voice, something that no longer characterizes them as diminished or victimized.

Right: Colleen Wagner

Often typecast as temptresses, stoic wives or the spoils of war, women have been overshadowed in myths by the male protagonist. Wagner's project, which includes the writing of a play, the film documentation of the research process and the preservation of oral traditions, will be developed in post-genocide Rwanda and post-apartheid, AIDS-plagued South Africa.

Wagner says she is interested in “how trauma and atrocity impacts upon the ways that women in particular come to understand their affiliations and notions of community, responsibility and citizenship and how these might give shape to a new female-centred mythology.”

She considers post-genocide Rwanda a site where women’s roles are changing, since their traditional ones are no longer sustainable in the post-traumatic climate. Wagner says that Rwanda offers an ideal setting for an exploration into how these changes may inform a new female-centred mythology.

Her multi-faceted and collaborative project will bring together artists, women’s organizations, the local community and other professionals. During the first phase of the project, Wagner will travel to Rwanda and South Africa to lead workshops with women’s organizations, students, teachers and artists. With the help of a cinematographer, she will capture the process and make it available as a documentary. She will also be travelling to various memorial sites, prisons and throughout the countryside to record traditional oral myths. This essential component of her project, she says, will ensure that the oral stories and discussions can be made available as archival records that will be submitted to various libraries and universities in both Canada and South Africa. Following the completion of this research, Wagner will mount an initial sketch in Rwanda, Cape Town and Johannesburg of a play that will bring her research and oral traditions together.

The final play will be performed in Toronto, Rwanda, South Africa and as a 91��ɫ student theatre production. Though the play itself will be a fictional narrative, Wagner places great importance on the research potion of the project “in order to let the women’s voices speak to their particular environment…and give the play a base in reality.”

The stories portrayed in the play will rise out of the actual experiences of women who survived horrific political events, coped with troubled realities and went on to rebuild their lives and the lives of their families. For Wagner, “A new female-centred myth, is timely” in light of the ongoing bloody civil wars, genocides and rapes.

Wagner is a professional playwright, film script and short fiction writer. Her first stage play, Sand, was shortlisted for best international play at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England, in 1989. She won the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama for her play The Monument, which was also nominated for a Dora Award. The Monument has been translated into French, German, Romanian and Mandarin, and has been produced across North America and in Australia, Europe and Beijing – the first commercial production of a Canadian play to be produced in China. In 2006, The Monument became the first production by a non-black writer to be presented by Toronto's Obsidian Theatre Company.

Wagner's other stage credits include Eclipsed and The Morning Bird, which premiered at the in Fredericton, NB in 2005. Her other current projects include a new play titled Home, a screenplay adaptation of The Monument, and the story-editing of a documentary film, Hallowed be thy Name.

Submitted to YFile by Vivian-Sofia Mora, a fourth-year visual arts student in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Fine Arts.

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