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Many women report experiences of street harassment during their lifetime. Previous quantitative survey research has shown the variety of ways in which this type of harassment can impact upon a victim’s life, including restricting their freedom of movement and fear of further victimisation. The purpose of this study is understand the immediate and enduring psychological impact of street harassment on female victim-survivors.

The present study aims to explore, qualitatively, women’s experiences of street harassment through thematic analysis of on 35 online blog posts. Data were collected from the “Stop Street Harassment” website, where women are invited to share their experiences anonymously.

Three main themes were generated from the data. First was the age at which women began to experience street harassment, with recurring early incidents during formative childhood years. Second was the impact that experiences had on their mental health and psychological well-being with feelings of shame, fear, self-loathing, as well as decreased self-esteem and confidence experienced in the immediate aftermath – though the longer-term negative emotions reported were enduring feelings of anger alongside a constant state of anxiety from feelings of vulnerability to further victimisation. The final theme was the modification of behaviour after experiencing street harassment where women choose to avoid walking alone on the streets or consciously changed their clothing choices, to avoid being harassed.

This study offers a further qualitative insight into the real-life experience and psychological consequences of street harassment upon survivors’ mental health.

Although wearable health-monitoring technology (WHMT) has become a stimulus for public health, women’s acceptance rate of this technology appears to be low. Thus, this study intends to investigate the factors affecting women’s adoption of WHMT.

The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology–2 model has been used in this study as a research framework that has been extended to include lifestyle and attitude. The proposed extended framework is validated using primary data (n = 314) collected from female respondents using a structured questionnaire; the partial least square-based structural equation modeling technique is subsequently used to test the proposed hypothesis.

The results show that effort expectancy, social influence, price value, habit, attitude and lifestyle have significant positive effects on women’s behavioral intention to use WHMT and accelerate actual usage behavior. Notably, effort expectancy and habit exhibit the largest impact on behavioral intention. However, performance expectancy, facilitating conditions and hedonic motivation are not significantly associated with behavioral intentions.

The findings of this study are important for healthcare practitioners and service providers to comprehensively understand the factors that affect women’s behavioral intentions in line with their actual usage behavior. This insight will help policymakers design viable strategies regarding WHMT to promote its sustainable usage in least developed countries.

This study contributes novelty by using an extended model that links women’s attitudes and lifestyles to their adoption of WHMT. This study also fills the gaps in the existing literature on women’s behavioral intentions in the context of WHMT by showing novel associations in the domain of WHMT uptake.

This paper offers a unique perspective on the urbanisation process in developing cities, with a particular focus on the region of the Gulf States. Beyond economic considerations, the analysis sheds light on the complex interplay of socio-cultural factors, gender dynamics and urban development. Based on the calls for human-centred approaches to rethinking urban design and management of cities require the integration of these cities’ inhabitants’ lived experiences, that impact residents’ daily lives. The focus is on the importance of women’s perspectives in the development process.

The paper uses a systematic literature review that builds on existing knowledge relating to urbanisation, modernisation, sustainable cities, gender and the Arabian Gulf. It uses Lefebvre’s 'right to the city' theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities which is a novel approach. This adaptation offers a unique perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face. Furthermore, it offers a firm foundation for developing advanced knowledge on the interdisciplinary nature of the topic discussed and assists in integrating empirical findings and perspectives from different resources.

The extreme levels of transformation in urbanisation in the Gulf States built cities that are no longer solely places for settlement, production and services but operate as significant influencers on the social, economic and political relations that produced design and cultural challenges. These cities became epicentres of power and politics that shaped the national visions and influenced policy. The process of inclusive and considerate urban development that the Arabian Gulf region is aiming to embark on is not a new exclusive strategy. But a process that has been implemented and tested in other urbanised areas globally.

Very little historical urban research on the Arabian Gulf countries exists, hence, the difficulty in researching the Gulf urbanisation process or providing historical encounters of the change.

This paper delves into the gendered aspects of urban planning, an aspect that is frequently overlooked. It contributes to the discourse on gender inclusivity in urban spaces by focussing on Khaleeji women’s experiences, offering insights that go beyond economic considerations. The use of Lefebvre’s “right to the city” theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities is a unique approach. It investigates the interaction of various factors such as economic, cultural and political influences on Gulf urban development. This adaptation offers a distinctive perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face.

This article tackles the intersection of mothering and labor through the author's own experience as a feminist mother/manager from Istanbul, Turkey. It aims to revisit the first years of motherhood, exploring the struggle to invent a peculiar maternal subjectivity in opposition and negotiation with the patriarchal institution of motherhood, the new definition of maternal labor in a highly digital, neoliberal context and the issue of marital fairness in a dual-income heterosexual marriage.

The article presents an autoethnographic, retrospective and introspective inquiry into the first seven years of the author's mothering experience in order to offer an in-depth exploration of the various aspects of contemporary maternal labor.

The article shows how maternal labor has shifted in nature and expanded in scope in a contemporary non-Western context. It investigates the dissolution of the spatial, temporal and sensorial boundaries between the managerial labor dedicated to the workplace, and to the family. Highlighting the similarities of the two forms of labor, the article manifests the materiality, tangibility and visibility of maternal labor.

Further intersectional studies shall be beneficial to redefine maternal labor in different contexts.

Departing and diverting from the terms “invisible labor” and “mental load”, the article suggests a shift in terminology to stress the multifaceted medley of managerial tasks mothers undertake today.

The article provides an original take on maternal labor through the first-hand experience of a middle-class, professional mother from Istanbul, Turkey.

COVID-19 has had various effects on women’s labour supply worldwide. This study investigates how women’s labour market outcomes in the MENA region have been affected by the stringency of governments’ COVID-19 responses and school closures. We examine whether women, particularly those with children at young age, reduced their labour supply to take care of their families during the pandemic.

To investigate whether having a family results in an extra penalty to women’s labour market outcomes, we compare single women to married women and mothers. Using the ERF COVID-19 MENA Monitor Household Surveys, we analyse the key conditions underlying women’s labour market outcomes: (1) wage earnings and labour market status including remaining formally employed, informally, unpaid or self-employed, unemployed or out of the labour force and (2) becoming permanently terminated, being suspended, seeing a reduction in the hours worked or wages, or seeing a delay in one’s wage payments because of COVID-19. Ordered probit and multinomial logit are employed in the case of categorical outcomes, and linear models for wage earnings.

Women, regardless of whether they have children or not, appear to join the labour market out of necessity to help their families in the times of crisis. Child-caring women who are economically inactive are also more likely to enter the labour market. There is little difference between the negative experiences of women with children and child-free women in regard to their monthly pay reduction or delay, or contract termination, but women with children were more likely to experience reduction in hours worked throughout the pandemic.

These findings may not have causal interpretation facilitating accurate inference. This is because of potential omitted variables such as endogenous motivation of women in different circumstances, latent changes in the division of domestic work between care-giving and other household members, or selective sample attrition.

Our analysis explores the multiple channels in which the pandemic has affected the labour outcomes of MENA-region women. Our findings highlight the challenges that hamper the labour market participation of women, and suggest that public policy should strive to balance the share of unpaid care work between men and women and increase men’s involvement, through measures that support child-bearing age women’s engagement in the private sector during crises, invest in childcare services and support decent job creation for all.

Health is a human right and a fundamental building block of sustainable development, economic prosperity and poverty reduction. To realize people’s right to health, evaluating the situation of the right and its determinants is necessary. This paper aims to analyze Iran’s conduct in realizing its population’s right to health.

A qualitative case study design involving a structured review of relevant laws, policy documents, reports and academic literature was undertaken. The data were collected from electronic databases and the official Web pages of the United Nations (UN) and Iran’s Government and analyzed by a framework suggested by the UN.

Iran’s law and policies intend to combat health inequalities and to provide an adequate standard of living for everyone, particularly disadvantaged groups and individuals. However, not all laws and policies protecting disadvantaged groups are adequately implemented. There are disparities in health status and access to health care among different socio-economic groups. International economic sanctions and government policies decreased people’s ability to access the necessities of life including health care. Moreover, social determinants of health, such as cultural beliefs regarding women’s rights have not been addressed sufficiently in the country’s laws.

This study includes a broad range of subjects and provides an overview of the health-care system of Iran. However, more detail is needed to describe every aspect of the right to health. It was not feasible to address them all in this paper and needs more research. In addition, as with the majority of qualitative studies, the design of the current study is subject to limitations. Firstly, the research quality of narrative reviews is dependent on the researcher’ skills and more easily can be influenced by his/her personal biases. Second, the rigor is more difficult to maintain, assess and demonstrate. Nevertheless, narrative studies often complement quantitative studies and are informative.

To fulfill the right to health, Iran should improve affordability and quality of care and the situation of the determinants of health. The gaps in people’s access to health care need to be identified, and all necessary means and scarce resources be allocated to remove access barriers and to improve the situation of disadvantaged people. The adoption of relatively low-cost targeted programs, the proper management of resources and the prevention of unnecessary costs are suggested.

This study aims to propose a model to elevate the financial empowerment of Muslim women by rejuvenating the practice of Mahr in society and facilitating the affordability of men to pay that Mahr amount.

The approach of this study is to offer a model through the interest-free savings-based finance concept. The model comprises four stages; each stage of the model is mathematically formulated and graphically explained to ensure clarity and coherence. To further investigate the issue, the authors use a convenient sampling method to ask a small sample size of respondents (women) from different countries about their financial contribution and empowerment in the family.

This model enables women to turn their exclusive financial right into a source of earning without borrowing from any source or paying interest on the principal amount. Besides, it encourages accelerating men’s obligation to pay the Mahr to the women immediately during the marriage ceremony by facilitating men’s affordability. Almost 45% of respondents state that a woman’s financial contribution exalts her decision-making power and strengthens her financial position in the family.

The authors attempt to revitalize Mahr practice in Muslim society to accelerate the process of receiving a woman’s exclusive financial right and empower a family as a whole through the Mahr model.

Considering the model’s uniqueness, the developed and proposed Mahr model in this research is novel; to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study has been conducted and developed such a model using the Mahr concept.

This paper argues that extractivist logic creates the environmental conditions that produce “natural” hazards and also the human conditions that produce vulnerability, which combined create disasters. Disaster Risk Creation is then built into the current global socio-economic system, as an integral component not accidental by-product.

As part of the movement to liberate disasters as discipline, practice and field of enquiry, this paper does not talk disasters per se, but rather its focus is on “extractivism” as a fundamental explanator for the anthropogenic disaster landscape that now confronts us.

Applying a gender lens to extractivism as it relates to disaster, further highlights that Disaster Risk Management rather than alleviating, creates the problems it seeks to solve, suggesting the need to liberate gender from Disaster Risk Management, and the need to liberate us all from the notion of managing disasters. Since to ‘manage’ disaster risk is to accept uncritically the structures and systems that create that risk, then if we truly want to address disasters, our focus needs to be on the extractive practices, not the disastrous outcomes.

The fundamental argument is that through privileging the notion of “disaster” we create it, bring it into existence, as something that exists in and of itself, apart from wider socio-economic structures and systems of extraction and exploitation, rather than recognising it for what it is, an outcome/end product of those wider structures and systems. Our focus on disaster is then misplaced, and perhaps what disaster studies needs to be liberated from, is itself.

This study aims to determine the effects of sexism and unfavourable job conditions on women's mental and physical wellbeing in construction operations. In addition, this study will establish the mediating role of work morale in the association between workplace challenges and wellbeing.

Data for this study were obtained from women working in office environments, onsite professionals and those in trades. A total of 65 participants responded to the survey. The partial least square structural equation modelling method was applied to validate the measurement model and test the hypotheses.

The findings demonstrate that benevolent and hostile sexism directly influences work morale and indirectly affects women's mental and physical wellbeing in the construction industry. Hostile sexism is the most significant challenge for female construction workers in New Zealand.

The finding is theory-building and challenges the assumptions that the nature of the construction industry has a bearing on the mental and physical health of women in construction. In addition, the finding is useful for creating positive work environments that are both inclusive and empathetic to the diverse needs of the modern-day construction workforce. Thus, reducing the challenges experienced by construction women's workforce.

The current study focuses on women and those who identified themselves as such. The conclusions show the relevance of work morale to their mental wellbeing. This exploratory quantitative study contributes to research by advancing understanding of the challenges women face in the industry and the consequences of those challenges on their physical and mental wellbeing.

This research aims to explore the role of banks in supporting women agriculture entrepreneurs (WAEs) to contribute towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It focusses on the experiences of women entrepreneurs in the agriculture sector, recognising their vital role in driving economic growth and achieving the SDGs.

The study utilises the role congruity theory and the feminist agri-food systems model as its theoretical framework. Qualitative data from 35 WAEs and 7 bank managers (BMs) responsible for agricultural financial services and business development are collected and thematically analysed to achieve the research objectives.

Although BMs claim they offer specialised financial products with dedicated support teams, WAEs express scepticism due to fears of unfavourable deals and excessive requirements. WAEs need more understanding of SDGs but recognise their substantial contributions. BMs acknowledge the need to enhance efforts, improve communication of offers and integrate SDGs across all business operations beyond agriculture and women-centric initiatives.

Banks must prioritise gender sensitivity and inclusivity for WAEs, offering tailored financial products and flexible loan structures. Microfinance and strategic marketing can enhance outreach. WAEs benefit from forming associations, accessing support networks, collaborating with banks, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and agricultural associations for mentoring and networking, and achieving the SDGs and sustainable agriculture.

The study connects WAEs and banks in achieving SDGs.