Searching for Housing as a Battered Woman: Does Discrimination Affect Reported Availability of a Rental Unit?

Recent research on the practices of justice operators with women victims of intimate partner violence has evidenced the existence of gender stereotypes and gender-blind practices in the Spanish legal system (Albertín et al., 2020; García Jiménez et al., 2019, 2020), as well as the graves consequences that such practices imply for these women. In this context, the present study explored the existence of a battered woman stereotype and its variation when the victim defends herself from the abuser. An opportunity sample of 505 undergraduates of Law, Psychology and other studies from two Spanish universities assessed some personality characteristics of a woman after watching a 1-minute-long silent video. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three observation conditions (“control”, “victim” or “self-defense victim”), which differed in the previous information given about the target woman. The Principal Components Analysis reduced the information from the questionnaire to three dimensions: “brittleness” (α = .91), “positive” (α = .786), and “hostile” (α = .809). The MANOVA confirmed the battered woman stereotype and its modification when the victim reacts against the abuser in self-defense: in this case the attribution of brittleness decreases and the attribution of hostility increases. The type of academic training showed significant effects on the stereotype, this being more negative among Law students than among Psychology ones. Law students perceive the target woman in the “victim” condition more hostile and manipulator. As for the “self-defense” condition, Law students attribute less brittleness to the victim, and perceive her more manipulator and dangerous. The effect of the observer's gender on the stereotype is consistent with the previous literature. Implications for professional training and judicial practices are discussed.

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What Matters to University Students when Looking for a Rental House?

Insight Journal ◽

10.24191/ij.v8i0.118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 275-286

Author(s):

Nor Adila Kedin ◽

Izni Syamsina Saari ◽

Hamidah Muhd Irpan ◽

Ainon Syazana Ab Hamid ◽

Noor Ibtisam Abdul Karim

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

University Students ◽

Research Design ◽

Rapid Growth ◽

Quantitative Research ◽

Tertiary Education ◽

Descriptive Analysis ◽

Important Criterion ◽

Online Questionnaire ◽

Rental Unit

The rapid growth of higher education institutions in Malaysia is parallel with the growing demand of its population pursuing tertiary education. For such reason, universities and other tertiary education providers are constantly challenged in providing sufficient in-campus accommodation to help students living comfortably. Regardless of their continuous effort in improving their facilities, the issue of shortage of students’ accommodation persists; thus, boosting the demand for rental properties surrounding campus location. This opens the opportunity for homeowners who own rental units within proximity to a campus location to target students as their potential tenants. Therefore, it is worth the effort for homeowners to understand students’ preferences when searching for a rental unit. In line with the stipulated issue, this study aims to investigate university students’ perceived perception of five relevant criteria when searching for a rental house. This study employed a quantitative research design with a total of 150 respondents were successfully gathered via an online questionnaire. These respondents are off-campus students studying at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Melaka campus. The result of the descriptive analysis revealed that many of the respondentsplaced rental agreement as to the utmost important criterion when deciding to rent a property. It was followed by the location of the property, the surrounding security, rental price, and finally utilities and amenities. From this study, it was suggested that the homeowner should emphasize all the mentioned criteria as it was relatively perceived as significant by potential tenants. It is recommended for future researchers to expand this study at other geographic locations in addition to examine other criteria focused on by tenants when searching for a rental house.

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A Legitimate End to Illegitimate Beginning: A Critical Analysis of Mariam’s Character in A Thousand Splendid Suns

English Language and Literature Studies ◽

10.5539/ells.v7n1p113 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 113

Author(s):

Samina Akhtar ◽

Muhammad Rauf ◽

Saima Ikram ◽

Gulrukh Raees

Keyword(s):

Social Status ◽

Literary Criticism ◽

Personal Identity ◽

Research Methodology ◽

Critical Analysis ◽

Textual Analysis ◽

Battered Woman ◽

Feminist Literary Criticism ◽

Close Textual Analysis ◽

Societal Attitude

This paper is an attempt to portray the plight of Mariam that she undergoes due to her illegitimate social status. The study focuses on the critical societal attitude towards the illegitimate unfortunate women. Mariam begins her life with a “harami” status; continues her struggle for personal identity, suffer and endures as a battered woman and leave this world as a woman of consequences by digging herself out of the lower social status that society attached to her. The study analyzes Mariam’s endurance, struggles and resistance in her strenuous journey to attain legitimate ending. The researcher used feminist literary criticism to interpret the text as a research methodology and adopted close textual analysis of the text by Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

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