women's agency

While existing literature recognises mentorship as an important strategy for leadership development, there is limited empirical understanding of how women experience and negotiate mentorship as they advance into school leadership in the South African context. Despite policy efforts to promote gender equity, women remain underrepresented in school leadership, and the role of mentorship in addressing this disparity remains insufficiently understood. This study explores mentorship as a relational mechanism through which women negotiate access, leadership identity, and social capital in their advancement into school leadership. An interpretive qualitative design, underpinned by a narrative phenomenological approach and informed by Social Capital Theory, was used to explore the experiences of six purposively selected women leaders from township schools in a single district in KwaZulu-Natal. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews and were analysed thematically. Participants reported that supportive mentoring relationships provided them with confidence, professional visibility, networking opportunities, leadership guidance, and encouragement to pursue leadership positions. Participants with limited access to mentorship described feelings of isolation, reduced access to leadership guidance, and fewer opportunities for professional development. They also reported seeking mentorship through external professional networks and women-centered spaces when support within their immediate school environments was limited. Some participants described mentoring relationships characterised by unequal power dynamics, limited trust, or inappropriate behaviour. Based on these accounts, the researchers interpret mentorship as an uneven, relational, and context-dependent mechanism through which women negotiate access to professional resources, leadership identity, and social capital. The findings suggest that mentorship can facilitate women's leadership development when relationships are supportive and trusting, but may also constrain agency when mentoring relationships reproduce hierarchical and gendered power relations. The study, therefore, extends understanding of mentorship by shifting attention from the mere availability of mentors to the relational, institutional, and power conditions that shape how mentorship is experienced and mobilised. Although limited by its small, context-specific sample, the study provides contextually grounded insights into mentorship and women's advancement into school leadership. It highlights the need for structured, responsive, and gender-sensitive mentoring opportunities.

Introduction Climate change impacts are not gender-neutral, yet standard reporting relies on aggregate household indicators that obscure intra-household power dynamics and diverse individual vulnerabilities. This review assesses gender-differentiated climate resilience in rural farming households and evaluates the extent to which empirical evidence aligns with the gender-responsive, participatory and transparent mandates of the Paris Agreement. Methods Peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2025 were retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, AJOL and Google Scholar following PRISMA guidelines. A total of 117 eligible studies were screened and analysed thematically using a hybrid inductive–deductive approach in R. Methodological quality was appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT), and evidence coverage was characterised using GRADE-CERQual adequacy criteria. Policy alignment was mapped against Articles 2.1b, 7.1, 7.5, 11 and 13. Results Eight interrelated resilience domains were identified: livelihood, water, food, ecological, social, community, agricultural and economic. The review reveals a significant implementation gap between the Paris Agreement and ground-level reality. While Articles 7.5, 11 and 13 emphasise equity and participation, resilience is often achieved through paradoxes of depletion. We propose the Gendered Resilience Paradox Framework (GRPF), a novel theoretical model encompassing resilience as a distributive process rather than a neutral capacity. The framework identifies five interlocking mechanisms—workload-resilience, biological buffer, mobility-stability, restoration-marginalisation and hydrological time-poverty—through which household resilience is achieved via the systematic transfer of adaptation costs onto women’s bodies, time and agency. These paradoxes form a self-reinforcing Depletion Cycle, creating a resilience debt that may compound intergenerationally. A co-occurrence network (n = 117) shows that workload-resilience is the most frequently documented paradox (53.0%) and reveals that embodied paradoxes remain the least studied. Articles 2.1b and 7.1 show partial alignment; Articles 7.5, 11 and 13 show misalignment. Men also face climate-related hardships, including psychosocial stress, migration-induced vulnerabilities and systemic exclusion from aid. Discussion Resilience achieved through depletion is not resilience but a debt. Closing the implementation gap requires distributional indicators, time-releasing infrastructure, secure land tenure, and bundled interventions that address multiple paradoxes simultaneously. Systematic review registration Open Science Framework (OSF https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/WFR7Q ).

Background The status of women and girls is a multidimensional construct involving social, economic, political, and cultural factors related to gender inequalities, empowerment, and well-being. However, differences in conceptual frameworks, indicators, and methodologies limit the comparability of existing assessments. This study aimed to identify the approaches, indicators, methodologies, analytical tools, and applications used in the scientific literature for assessing women’s status. Methods A systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Studies were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science without time restrictions. After applying eligibility criteria and completing the identification, screening, and selection processes, 39 studies were included. Data analysis was supported by Microsoft Excel, RStudio, and VOSviewer to identify patterns and synthesize evidence. Results The findings show considerable methodological diversity in multidimensional index construction. Social independence was the most frequently reported indicator category, followed by socioeconomic status, decision-making, and psychological agency. The SWPER methodology was the most commonly applied approach, followed by principal component analysis and factor analysis. The main evaluated dimensions were social independence, agency development, and decision-making, while multilevel modelling and regression analysis were the most frequently used analytical tools. Research was concentrated mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Bangladesh. Conclusions Multidimensional indices provide relevant frameworks for assessing women’s status and supporting evidence-based policies. Nevertheless, methodological heterogeneity highlights the need for standardized criteria for indicator selection, weighting, and validation. Future research should expand geographical coverage and incorporate advanced analytical approaches to strengthen gender equality monitoring.

زمینه: وضعیت زنان و دختران یک سازه چندبعدی است که عوامل اجتماعی، اقتصادی، سیاسی و فرهنگی مرتبط با نابرابری‌های جنسیتی، توانمندسازی و بهزیستی را دربرمی‌گیرد. با این حال، تفاوت‌ها در چارچوب‌های مفهومی، شاخص‌ها و روش‌شناسی‌ها، قابلیت مقایسه ارزیابی‌های موجود را محدود می‌کند. هدف این مطالعه شناسایی رویکردها، شاخص‌ها، روش‌شناسی‌ها، ابزارهای تحلیلی و کاربردهای مورد استفاده در ادبیات علمی برای ارزیابی وضعیت زنان بود. روش‌ها: مرور نظام‌مند ادبیات مطابق با دستورالعمل‌های PRISMA 2020 انجام شد. مطالعات از پایگاه‌های Scopus و Web of Science بدون محدودیت زمانی بازیابی شدند. پس از اعمال معیارهای شایستگی و تکمیل فرایندهای شناسایی، غربالگری و انتخاب، ۳۹ مطالعه وارد شدند. تحلیل داده‌ها با استفاده از Microsoft Excel، RStudio و VOSviewer برای شناسایی الگوها و سنتز شواهد انجام شد. نتایج: یافته‌ها تنوع روش‌شناختی قابل توجهی را در ساخت شاخص‌های چندبعدی نشان می‌دهد. استقلال اجتماعی بیشترین فراوانی را در میان دسته‌های شاخص‌ها داشت و پس از آن وضعیت اجتماعی‌اقتصادی، تصمیم‌گیری و عاملیت روان‌شناختی قرار گرفتند. روش‌شناسی SWPER رایج‌ترین رویکرد مورد استفاده بود و پس از آن تحلیل مؤلفه‌های اصلی و تحلیل عاملی قرار داشتند. ابعاد اصلی ارزیابی‌شده شامل استقلال اجتماعی، توسعه عاملیت و تصمیم‌گیری بودند، در حالی که مدل‌سازی چندسطحی و تحلیل رگرسیون بیشترین کاربرد را در ابزارهای تحلیلی داشتند. پژوهش‌ها عمدتاً در آفریقای جنوب صحرا و بنگلادش متمرکز بودند. نتیجه‌گیری: شاخص‌های چندبعدی چارچوب‌های مرتبطی برای ارزیابی وضعیت زنان و حمایت از سیاست‌های مبتنی بر شواهد فراهم می‌کنند. با این حال، ناهمگونی روش‌شناختی بر ضرورت وجود معیارهای استاندارد برای انتخاب، وزن‌دهی و اعتبارسنجی شاخص‌ها تأکید دارد. پژوهش‌های آتی باید پوشش جغرافیایی را گسترش داده و رویکردهای تحلیلی پیشرفته را برای تقویت پایش برابری جنسیتی به کار گیرند.