Women’s empowerment and food consumption:Evidence from female-headed households in Tanzania

Despite the growing recognition of women’s increasing role in the household and corresponding empowerment programs in sub-Saharan Africa,intensive research on the relationship between women’s influence and household food consumption is minimal.Using the most recent(2017-2018)national household survey data from Tanzania,this study examined the influence of women’s empowerment on household food consumption.First,we compared the monthly consumption of eight food categories between female-headed households(FHHs)and male-headed households(MHHs)using both descriptive statistics and the propensity score matching(PSM)method.Furthermore,we adopted the two-stage Linear Expenditure System and Almost Ideal Demand System model(LES-AIDS)to estimate income and price elasticities for the two household types.The results show that FHHs consume bread and cereals,fish,oils and fats,vegetables,and confectionery(sugar,jam,honey,chocolate,etc.)more than MHHs.Moreover,FHHs have a significantly higher income elasticity of demand for all food groups than MHHs.They are also more price elastic than MHHs in meat,fish,oils,fats,sugar,jam,honey,chocolate,etc.

The Three Principles of Institutional Safeguards for Women's Participation in Legislation in China

The participation of women in legislation is an important aspect and means of safeguarding women’s rights.Feminist theory,based on criticism of both the“citizenship identity theory as rights”and the“citizenship identity theory as responsibilities,”proposes the“citizenship identity theory as subjectivity.”Observing the current practice of women’s participation in legislation in China,two institutional safeguard principles can be summarized:the“minimum proportion”and the“influence evaluation.”However,each of these principles has its inherent limitations.Therefore,it is necessary to supplement them with the principle of“subjective participation”in a reflective manner.This principle requires women to participate substantively in the legislative process as subjects,express women’s needs and demands,input women’s perspectives and experiences,and reconstruct the distribution of rights and responsibilities in the existing legislation.The three principles complement each other and work together to comprehensively constitute the institutional structure of women’s participation in legislation,thereby promoting the reproduction of corresponding action structures.

A Historical Review of the Development of Women’s Higher Education in China (1908-2020): Stages, Explanations, and Trends

The development of women’s higher education in China can be divided into four stages:emergence(1908-1948);foundation(1949-1976);accelerating development(1977-2008);and the qualitative leap(2009-2020).This work considers the principal institutional mechanisms that contributed to this development.First,flexibly planned parenthood gradually promoted gender equality and openness in society facilitated by systematic“awards,grants,and loans”initiatives to support women’s higher education economically.Second,compulsory education ensured that left-out and migrant children had access to higher education.Third,effective connectivity across different education types bridged education gaps between those with different levels of education.Fourth,China made great efforts to invite and integrate international experiences that promoted the development of women’s higher education.Looking beyond these achievements,we also discuss the future trends of women’s higher education in China.

Depression in Climacteric Women:Most Meaningful Symptoms

Background: With population aging occurring worldwide, promoting climacteric women’s health has become the object of important studies. Purpose: Observing the prevalence of depression in climacteric women and their self-evaluation of the depression factors is the main goal of this study. Design: This cross-sectional research is enquiry descriptive. Methods: The sample was composed of 48 climacteric women (between 45 and 65 years old) non-selected volunteers, served by the Centers for Psycho and Social Attention (CAPS) of Specialized Mental Medicine, in Sorocaba, via the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) questionnaire. Results: Checking the mean and frequency distribution, the climacteric women presented a prevalence of 37.5% of moderate depression (BDIindex = 24.39 ± 3.13), and 47.92% of severe depression (BDIindex = 38.13 ± 6.78). Concerning the symptoms, Spearman rank order correlation was found as the highest concerns, hierarchically: indecision (r = 0.72, p Conclusions: The prevalence of depression in these CAPS climacteric women was considered very high (86% ranking from moderate to severe) caused mostly by indecision, anhedonia, guilt, crying and self-esteem, followed by inutility, self-criticism and loss of concentration.

ADVANCES OF EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH ON ACUPUNCTURE AND MOXIBUSTION FOR TREATMENT OF WOMEN'S CLIMACTERIC SYNDROME

To introduce the advances of experimental research on acupuncture and moxibustion for treatment of Women＇s Climacteric Syndrome.The recent years experimental research literature of acupuncture and moxibustion for treatment of Women＇s Climacteric Syndrome were reviewed.The research literatures on acupuncture treatment were major,focusing on the field of acupuncture and moxibustion regulating hypothalamic-pituitary-gonad axis and nerval-endocritic-immune net.Acupuncture and moxibustion could regulate the endocrine environment of menopausal women.Taking advantage of combination biomedicine with multi-sciences,to improve the acupuncture and moxibustion curative effct and probe the mechanism of menopausal pathology and acupuncture and moxibustion function to Women＇s Climacteric Syndrome,is the research direction afterward.

Women＇s speech in variation studies

It is demonstrated by sociolinguistic variation studies that women are more likely than men to use standard speech. This paper reviews the operational methods and analytical means of classic quantitative studies in this field, intending to provide guidance and enlightenment for relevant studies and verifications in the context of Chinese culture.

The Women Characters of the 1930s in the Chinese TV Serials

The women of the 1930s in the Chinese TV serials deduct inspiring stories.They play different roles in the big wealthy families such as mothers-in-law,daughters-in-law,and maidservants.There are unceasing conflicts between these women,because of their struggle for men's love,wealth or social position.The theme of their stories is always about fertility,love,kindness and evil,with the ending being either comic or tragic.The stories of various kinds of women of the 1930s in the Chinese TV serials decorate and enrich the lives of many of us latecomers and their names are passed on from generation to generation.

Patterns of medication use for the treatment of menopausal symptoms before and after the women’s health initiative;implications for decision-making practices of women and women’s health professionals

Background: The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) published findings in 2002 that changed the perception of the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for the reduction of cardiovascular risks. Menopausal women using HRT for the relief of vasomotor symptoms were advised to use the lowest possible dose of HRT over the shortest possible duration. Objective: This study sought to examine patterns of HRT use for the treatment of menopausal symptoms before and after the WHI among women at least 40 years of age. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on a total of 1367 women in the pre-WHI group and 6467 women in the post-WHI group using the U.S. General Electric (GE) Centricity electronic medical record database. Menopause diagnosis was assessed using ICD-9 codes. Clinical characteristics and medication use were assessed for women with at least 3 years of enrollment (1 year baseline, 2 years follow-up). Results: The proportion of women in the post-WHI group that initiated HRT was significantly less than that of women in the pre-WHI group (31.3% vs. 56.9%, respectively;p < 0.001). Combination HRT use declined significantly (21.9% pre-WHI cohort vs. 7.2% post- WHI cohort, p < 0.001) among increases in non-HRT use, namely SSRIs (15.2% pre-WHI cohort v. 22.3% post-WHI cohort, p < 0.001) and tranquilizers (9.5% pre-WHI cohort v. 15.8% post-WHI cohort, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The results of the WHI 2002 publication made an impression on the perception of HRT’s role in the relief of menopausal symptoms. Decision-making on the part of women seeking treatment for vasomotor symptoms and women’s health professionals demonstrates that despite HRT precautions, women continue to exhibit a need for HRT use. This study’s findings suggest that women seeking treatment for menopausal symptom relief and women’s health professionals continue to work together to find the appropriate balance between therapy use and adherence to therapy use guidelines.

Impact of the Changes in Women’s Characteristics over Time on Antenatal Health Care Utilization in Egypt (2000-2008)

Objectives: This study empirically assesses the impact of the changes in women’s characteristics, empowerment, availability and quality of health services on woman’s decision to use antenatal care (ANC) and the frequency of that use during the period 2000-2008. Study Design: The study is a cross-sectional analytical study using 2000 and 2008 Egypt Demographic and Health Surveys. Methods: The assessment of the studied impact is conducted using the Zero-inflated Negative Binomial Regression. In addition, Factor Analysis technique is used to construct some of the explanatory variables such as women’s empowerment, the availability and quality of health services indicators. Results: Utilization of antenatal health care services is greatly improved from 2000 to 2008. Availability of health services is one of the main determinants that affect the number of antenatal care visits in 2008. Wealth index and quality of health services play an important role in raising the level of antenatal care utilization in 2000 and 2008. However, the impact of the terminated pregnancy on receiving ANC increased over time. Conclusions: Further research of the determinants of antenatal health care utilization is needed, using more updated measures of women’s empowerment, availability and quality of health services. In order to improve the provision of antenatal health care services, it is important to understand barriers to antenatal health care utilization. Therefore, it is advisable to collect information from women about the reasons for not receiving antenatal care.

Women＇s Cooperatives Contributions to Local Region Economy： Seferihisar Agricultural Cooperative Development Model-Turkey

The cooperative movement has played a very important role in the social and economic development of all countries since 19th eentury＇s second half. Cooperatives provide health, housing, and banking services; they promote education and gender equality; they protect the environment and workers＇ rights. According to 2014＇s data, the total number of cooperatives is 79,486 in Turkey, while the total number of partners of cooperatives is approximately 7.8 million. The research＇s sample group ＂Hidirlik Agricultural Development Cooperative＂ was founded by the wife of the Seferihisar＇s mayor and six women. It has been a subject of curiousity that the contributions of the cooperative have developed the economy of the region since 2010. Therefore, various questions asked to the president and members of the cooperative, and significant results were obtained. In this research ＂Interview technique＂ was used. The fact that within the boundaries of local governments, the establishment of ＂women＇s cooperatives＂ and their active management can be supported with 10 basic criteria for the regional and national development can be predicted. These dimensions： ecological balance and sensitivity, the revival of the tourism sector, the mobility of logistics activities, new investments and increase of land value, the increase of women employment, the increase of healthy living standards, increase of competitiveness and trade earnings, the creation of new brands, widespread of the agricultural sector, and the increase of social and educational level of women. The similiar implementation of ＂Seferihisar Women＇s Cooperatives Model＂ in the research is considered form an important enterprenurship model not only in Turkey but also for all countries.

Influence of group B streptococcus and vaginal cleanliness on the vaginal microbiome of pregnant women

BACKGROUND The vaginal microbiome plays a critical role in the health of pregnant women and their newborns.Group B Streptococcus(GBS)and vaginal cleanliness significantly affect the vaginal microecosystem and are closely associated with vaginal diseases.AIM To explore the effects of GBS status and vaginal cleanliness on vaginal microecosystems.METHODS We collected 160 vaginal swabs from pregnant women and divided them into the following four groups based on GBS status and vaginal cleanliness:GBS-positive+vaginal cleanliness I–II degree,GBS-negative+vaginal cleanliness I–II degree,GBS-positive+vaginal cleanliness III–IV degree,and GBS-negative+vaginal cleanliness III–IV degree.Samples were subjected to 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.RESULTS Alpha diversity analysis showed that the Shannon index did not significantly differ between the four groups.We identified significant variation in taxa abundance between the GBS-positive and GBS-negative groups and between the vaginal cleanliness I–II degree and III–IV degree groups.Principal coordinate analysis and non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis further confirmed the microbial diversity of the four groups.Moreover,the linear discriminant analysis demonstrated that Lactobacillus jensenii and Actinobacteria were strongly associated with GBS-positive status,and Lactobacillus iners,Lactobacillaceae,Lactobacillus,Lactobacillales,Bacilli and Firmicutes were closely correlated with GBS-negative status.CONCLUSION GBS status and vaginal cleanliness significantly affect vaginal microbiome differences in pregnant women.Our findings provide instructional information for clinical antibiotic treatment in pregnant women with different GBS statuses and vaginal cleanliness degrees.

Women with overweight, mixed hyperlipidemia, intolerance to glucose and diastolic hypertension

Primarily healthy women who attended a practice of General Medicine were examined and coded data were evaluated using two statistical methods (n = 248, aged 36 ± 14 years). It was found that participants with LDL-related (mixed) hyperlipidemia showed higher blood pressure, a higher proportion of alcohol problems and/or smoking compared to normolipidemic women (p ≤ 0.05). These hyperlipidemic women who reported alcohol problems and/or smoking more often showed proteinuria and/or hematuria, rise of LDL/HDL, critical fasting blood glucose and lower HDL-cholesterol compared to hyperlipidemic women reporting healthy lifestyle (p ≤ 0.05). Likewise, high triglycerides were associated with rise of blood pressure and intolerance to glucose (p ≤ 0.05) and also with elevated total cholesterol. Alcohol-related hypertriglyceridemia overlapped with diastolic hypertension, rise of body weight and urine pathology, lowering of HDL-cholesterol and critical fasting blood glucose. The motivating message was that women with mixed hyperlipidemia and healthy lifestyle had functionally renal endothelium and healthy HDL-related baseline measures. Altogether, LDL-related hyperlipidemia and/or high triglycerides were correlated with diastolic hypertension whereby critical alcohol consumption declined renal endothelium and lowered HDL-cholesterol implicating baseline strategies to neutralize early risk factors.

Women’s Motivation and Associated Factors for Herbal Medicine Use during Pregnancy and Childbirth: A Systematic Review

Background: Herbal medicines use has prevailed over the past decades in both low-middle-income and high-income countries over the years. The use among women has increased with increased risks of ill-health. There is extensive literature on herbal medicine use among women in pre/pregnancy, labour, and the postpartum periods. Therefore, this study aimed to understand women’s purposes, experiences, and motivation for using herbal medicines during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, and the experiences associated with the use. Methods: Four critical databases were predetermined and searched: CINAHL, Medline, Web of Science, and EMBASE. These databases were chosen for their comprehensiveness and relevance to the review aims. We considered peer-reviewed published articles from January 2000 to December 2018. We chose these databases because we found that they are dominant in the medical and healthcare-related literature. All references were pooled to Endnote reference management software for screening. Quality appraisal of articles was conducted using the Mixed-Method Assessment Tool (MMAT). Content analysis approach was used to extra the data from the articles. Globally, twenty-one articles met the inclusion criteria, and thus, formed the dataset for this review. Results: Most articles (n = 10, 47.6%) reported solely HM uses on only pregnancy whiles the rest evaluated HM uses in labour, pre-pregnancy, and the postpartum periods. The results have shown that the majority of women received information about HM from friends, family, the “black markets,” and drug outlets. Overall, the results were presented in seven broad themes: 1) sociodemographic characteristics of HM users, 2) perceived threat of health problem, 3) sources and quality of the information received, 4) susceptibility to health complications, 5) potential limitations to the use of HM, 6) the motivation for HM utilization, 7) concerns on the combined use of herbal and allopathic medicines. Conclusion: The study recommends the further research into the toxicity of herbal products, to ensure that accurate information can be provided to women before use.

The Linguistic Means of Representing Women in the Doukhobor Russian Psalms

This paper analyzes the language employed in the representations of women in Doukhobor Russian ritual texts called ＂ncanMbf＇ （psalms） from the viewpoint of linguistic text analysis performed in the Russian tradition of folklore stylistics. While addressing the representations of Biblical female characters, such as the Holy Virgin Mary Magdalene, the Heavenly Bride, and the Whore of Babylon, along with the portrayals of Doukhobor and other women, the paper identifies stylistic features in their textual descriptions. The study establishes connections between Doukhobor texts and Russian folklore and liturgical tradition. The paper strives to identify the place of Doukhobor psalms as an integral part of the Russian literary and folklore heritage

The Changing Role of Chinese Women in History--From the Dream of Red Mansions to the Moment in Peking

In the history of feudal society,women were suffering from the oppression and inequality in their family and status,and also strict restriction from the society.Their freedom was limited and they could not make full use of their wisdom,and abili ty.But the role of women did not stay the same during the feudal society.It had changed though the fundamental role remained the same.Here in this essay,it mainly talked about the changing role of Chinese in history,from the beginning of the Qing Dy nasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty.It collected information,and evidences from two books which were of great value to inves tigate women's role.They were Cao Xueqin's the Dream of Red Mansions and Lin Yutang's Moment in Peking.A great por tion of these two book's main characters were women,no matter what their social statuses were,no matter what roles they were playing in the big feudal family.Based on the result of analysis,the study suggests that women have been making progress all the time in changing their situation.And the development of economy has given women immense chances to achieve their self-actu alization.

PRIMARY ANALYSIS ON WOMEN'S STATUS OF RENHE TOWN, BAIYUN DISTRICT, GUANGZHOU

There are more women than men in Renhe Town, about 40% of women have jobs. Young women under 30 years old are mainly industrial workers.The average years of education for all women over 6 years old are 6.03, but for man they are 7. 64. The Women's Federation of Renhe Town is a vital organization.What it has done plays an active role in raising women/s social status and encouraging women to take part in the community life. In the past, women mainly participated in different collective agricultural labour assigned by their carders.Women had not much chance to show their intelligence and wisdom. Since the policy of 'reform and open door to the outside world' was carried out women have had more and more chance to bring their abilities into full play and many women become capable Persons of different trades and professions. Now, in Renhe, women are the main force of factories and dispensable part of all kinds of production work done in units of families.

The Social Statues of the Women in Austin's Day

Jane Austin(1775-1817),one of the greatest realistic novelists in English literature,wrote several classical and popular novels,which are the portrayal of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries,although with a certain limitation.This paper tries to reveal the social history,the economic realities as well as the women's social statues of Jane Austin's day through her fictions.

A Comparison between Two Tragic Women

Both Marguerite and Pan Jin-lian are famous tragical female images. Corrupt social system and the hypocrisy of the moral system are the roots of the two women'tragedy. Facing the fate of injustice, Marguerite sacrifices her own happiness to satisfy her lover's family. Her choice embodies the beauty of human nature. While Pan Jin lian loses herself in the dark society, and becomes not only sensual but jealous. At last, she is despised by people. What revealed from her is the evil of human nature.

Women's Language or Powerless Language:A Study of Couples' Talk

The purpose of this essay is to study whether the linguistic behaviour of adult women using hedging and tags as indicative of an intrinsically tentative gender identity or of the effects of male dominant position through analyzing daily conversations of the heterosexual couples.The small scale study employs the methodology,namely,recording spontaneous and natural spoken conversation from authentic interaction with the permission of the ten male-female couples.Digital record pen with an omnidirectional microphone are placed in the central living area of each couple's home.Then discourse analysis provides data making it possible to support Fishman's claim that women use tag questions and 'you know' not because women are not being really sure of themselves,or are looking to the addressee for confirmation,but because men in a dominant position often refuse to take responsibility for the smooth conduct of interpersonal relations,women use tag questions and 'you know' to elicit and maintain conversations.

Limitations and possibilities on health assessment to women in violence situation

The aim was to know how health assessment to women in violence situation is developed. Literature review on LILACS and MEDLINE databases was conducted in April 2013 with the descriptors: “domestic violence” and “women’s health”, on a 1994-2012 timeframe. Statistics characterization and content theme analysis of the scientific production were developed. Results showed that the assessment is permeated by institutional limitation and an approach strictly clinical that makes identification and diagnosis of violence difficult, reinforcing invisibility in health care. Professional assessment is influenced by socio-cultural and the naturalization of the phenomena, which is not considered a public health issue. Technical knowledge is insufficient, making the possibility of promoting violence cycle rupture difficult. However, we envisage reception as a possibility to assess female demands. We conclude the need to include the theme in health undergraduate courses and also the urgency of this learning experience to support a multidisciplinary and intersectoral work web. Thus, rethinking assessment as a way of (re)organizing how health care is structured in order to compose an assessment web to women and guarantee reception of their demands is needed. Else, constructing competence allied to coping public policy to the problem and guaranteeing a human and full assistance will stay only on the academic field, constituting itself as a limit on protecting life of these women and their families.