A strong emphasis on individual choice is considered to represent a particular neoliberal culture, and choice is claimed to substitute feminism. This article argues that the vocabulary of choice should not be seen only as a representation of a double entanglement of neoliberalism and postfeminism, but rather as a site for entanglement, and further explored as a performative concept. The argument is developed though empirical analysis of media texts on women combining career and motherhood. The metaphor of work–life balance is argued to function as a gendering frame as the particular combination of motherhood and career commitment is construed as conflicting dimensions of a feminine subjectivity. Within the gendered work–life balance framing the vocabulary of choice is performative, producing dichotomies and differences by the looks of individual agency. Thus, choice is not merely ‘covering up power structures’: the vocabulary of choice performs structuring power.

Based on a review of the existing literature on gender and ICT, the authors argue that research on gender and ICT tends to focus on how hegemonic masculinity is symbolically reinforced through technology. In examining the stream of co-construction studies of gender and technology, Sørensen, Faulkner and Rommes argue that this research tends to focus more on changes in technology than changes in gender; thus gender is stabilized while technology is understood as continually changing. In order to capture potential changes in gender through the use of ICT or in meaning ascribed to ICT, the focus is on positive experiences, i.e., inclusion strategies with success in terms of reaching the digitally excluded. However, we are still far from a 'success story'. In the words of the authors (p 242): "…the picture we want to paint on the basis of our studies is not an epic image of progress but rather a struggle -struggle with the meaning of gender, of ICT and of the resulting socio-technical assemblages."Gender and ICT is in the book understood as a socio-technical assemblage. In gender studies there are many efforts to overcome the reproduction of the gender binary in research and writing. Thinking of gender as an assemblage, or gender and ICT as hybrid assemblages, provides an analytical strategy which avoids the reduction to the gender binary. It becomes possible to talk about gender and technology without getting trapped in classifications of technology being either feminine or masculine. Hence, the book provides insights and ideas relevant to a broader field of gender studies.Following the idea of a symmetrical, co-produced assemblage of gender and ICT, the gender divide is not portrayed as a binary of included/excluded, but rather as a continuum. Furthermore, inclusion is not understood as simply adaptation to existing practices.Instead, the analytical approach is sensitive to the ongoing changes of both gender and ICT taking place. This analytical sensitivity, across several empirical studies of different sites, is one of the main strengths of the book.In the book, digital inclusion is not understood as a goal in itself, but rather as an emergence of new socio-technical, ICT related practices and meanings attracting diverse groups of citizens. Hence, it challenges both the dominant narrative of inclusion based on the instrumental importance of ICT, and the mainstream idea of digital inclusion being something that can be measured by accounts of access, use, skills, formalized knowledge or work. Computers and the Internet constitute the main sites of study, covering a broad range of inclusion strategies. Both strategies aimed at women only, such as the use of gender quotas to educational programmes or initiatives to empower women in ICT use, and strategies aimed at including "everybody", for instance in practices of ICT design, are studied.Gender stereotypes, and the gender binary as such, are challenged throughout the book. One study of 'self inclusion' through online interactivity and socially embedded learning show...

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Abstract. Two studies carried out among Albanian public-sector employees examined the impact of different types of affirmative action policies (AAPs) on (counter)stereotypical perceptions of women in decision-making positions. Study 1 (N = 178) revealed that participants – especially women – perceived women in decision-making positions as more masculine (i.e., agentic) than feminine (i.e., communal). Study 2 (N = 239) showed that different types of AA had different effects on the attribution of gender stereotypes to AAP beneficiaries: Women benefiting from a quota policy were perceived as being more communal than agentic, while those benefiting from weak preferential treatment were perceived as being more agentic than communal. Furthermore, we examined how the belief that AAPs threaten men’s access to decision-making positions influenced the attribution of these traits to AAP beneficiaries. The results showed that men who reported high levels of perceived threat, as compared to men who reported low levels of perceived threat, attributed more communal than agentic traits to the beneficiaries of quotas. These findings suggest that AAPs may have created a backlash against its beneficiaries by emphasizing gender-stereotypical or counterstereotypical traits. Thus, the framing of AAPs, for instance, as a matter of enhancing organizational performance, in the process of policy making and implementation, may be a crucial tool to countering potential backlash.

Maltose O-acetyltransferase (Mac) is a member of the hexapeptide-repeat family of enzymes, which contains proteins with left-handed parallel beta-helix architecture forming homotrimers. Diffraction data for four well diffracting crystal forms were collected. Crystal form I diffracted beyond 1.53 A resolution but was perfectly merohedrally twinned with an apparent space group P622. Crystal forms II and III (space groups R3 and C2, respectively) could be obtained under very similar conditions by adjusting the buffer pH differently. Crystal forms II and III had several monomers in the asymmetric unit and were difficult to derivatize. However, during soaking with trimethyl lead acetate, the form III crystals dissolved and crystals with a different habit and space group grew in their place (form IV). In three of the crystal forms, a ladder of peaks was visible in the native Patterson maps along the c axis. These peaks were interpreted as corresponding to the vectors between the beta-strands in the turns of the beta-helix. Crystal form IV is suitable for structure determination of Mac exploiting the anomalous scattering of lead.