“Everybody's looking at you!”: Girls negotiating the “femininity deficit” they incur in physical education

There is a growing awareness of the complex and largely negative attitudes many girls in the UK hold towards physical activity in general and Physical Education (PE) in particular. This research in the UK involves a qualitative study of six Year 9 girls' experiences and motivations in PE.Reflexive interpretation and biographical analysis of in-depth interviews are utilized to explore the themes of the relationship between “sportiness” and heterosexual desirability; and the polarized images of “tomboy” and “girlie.” Work by Connell [Connell, R.W. (1987). Gender and power. Cambridge: Polity Press.] on the gender order, and theories arising from the cultural analysis tradition on teenage girls' subcultures and identity formation are drawn on in order to make sense of the girls' narratives.The findings of this research reveal that images of teenage girls and young women being physically active are non-congruous with the traditional ideologies of acceptable femininity. This paper describes how these girls negotiate the contradictions and the tensions caused by the “femininity deficit” incurred in PE by creating “double identities” and living “split lives.”     

Book Review: Work,children and gender equality

The motivating concern behind this article is that women, in the diversity of their ages, life situations, cultural traditions of gender and actual sexual connections to men, are still marginalized by prevailing approaches to HIV and AIDS. Safe sexual practices for women, within social contexts and actual sexual relations with men, are not being approached in ways that engage women's (or their male partners') active involvement. Conventional heterosexual distinctions between women's and men's sexuality disables prevention processes. Categories and perspectives which prevail in ''interpreting'' the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, inhibitions and assumptions framing sexual safety information, and cultural narratives of gendered love/desire/sex, converge into two highly problematic outcomes: a dissociation of heterosexually-defined men who have sex with women from central responsibility for HIV prevention, and marginalization of women who have sex with men from concern about women's sexual safety.     

“She's not really a woman, she's half a man”: Gendered discourses of embodiment in a French farming community

This paper is about constructions of embodiment in farming families in a community of the Aveyron region in Southern France. More particularly, it explores how the discursive representation of women's bodies both reproduces and legitimates unequal gender relations between women and men on the farm and in the local community. It is argued here that gender is constituted through the ways in which individuals live and construct their bodies within a particular social, cultural, and economic context. But because what is constructed as masculine is valued over what is constructed as feminine, women's bodies and abilities are inferiorised and devalued. In the farming context discussed in this paper, farm women are never seen as having bodies which enable them to farm in the same terms as men. Women's work on the farm is seen as only secondary and complementary to that of farmers in the same way that women's bodies are seen to be lacking in masculine attributes which are defined as central to farming. So that even when women show that they can run farms by themselves and do work which is usually defined as masculine, they are either represented as only being able to do so because they have male help, or because their bodies and attributes do not conform to culturally constructed heterosexual norms of femininity.     

On Drugs: The Production Of Queer Filipino America Through Intimate Acts Of Belonging

With the highest recorded cases of HIV/AIDS among Asian/Pacific Islanders in the United States, queer Filipino Americans register as “toxic subjects” within epidemiological discourse. Yet, at what point do state-sanctioned norms of “abstinence only” and intimacy fail to deal with queer communities' lived practices? In this article, I address the tensions between public health discourse's framing of HIV/AIDS transmission within queer Filipino America and the actual experiences of this community on recreational drugs. Though the severity of HIV/AIDS experience within the queer Filipino American community is not to be underplayed, a reparative reading of these drug trips provide us with a productive notion of toxicity and alternative configurations of belonging, intimacy, and community-building. Through anecdotes and interviews, this article gestures towards how we can begin to think of queer Filipino American drug trips as community productions.     

All Het up! Rescuing Heterosexuality on the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oprah Winfrey Show</Emphasis>

The Oprah Winfrey Show provides an interesting set of contradictions. On the one hand, it appears to challenge common-sense assumptions about relationships, specifically heterosexual relationships (for example, by consistently raising issues of sexual violence within a heterosexual context). Yet, at the same time, Oprah's presentation often works to reinforce precisely the norms she seeks to challenge. Through a close analysis of a selection of programme clips from one particular programme among many about relationships, sexuality and families, this article will consider the ways in which the Oprah Winfrey Show both problematizes and yet normalizes the boundaries of heterosexuality. Here we shall discuss both the resolute exposure and exploration of what could be termed the casualities of normative (and compulsory) heterosexuality and, paradoxically, its recuperation as a ‘rational’ ideal. In exploring the ways in which this recuperation takes place, we shall begin with a brief consideration of two of the key discourses which shape the show: the discourse of therapy and that of kinship. Our analysis of the sexual politics of the Oprah Winfrey Show in these terms will focus on the programme, ‘How to Make Love Last’ (18 January 1993). Like so many other programmes, ‘How to Make Love Last’ intends to highlight and deal with problems within heterosexual relationships as distressing but solvable (through the medium of therapeutic self-help). At another level, however, the programme also (unwittingly) reveals a different order of problems which, ironically, can only be reinforced by the mode of rescue proposed and staged.     

Women's power in heterosexual sex

The ‘male sexual drive’ discourse sees men as sexually insatiable and male sexuality as naturally an uncontrollable drive. Feminist analysis denies its ‘naturalness’ and its constitution as a ‘drive’, seeing it instead in terms of the power conferred on men in patriarchy. However, seeing the penis/male power as monolithic still ends up casting women as victims. Instead this paper looks at actual heterosexual relationships and examines ‘power’ as a more complex process of negotiation. Heterosexual women often fail to recognize that men need relationships; and that women have sources of power in relationships with them; and the paper argues that this occurs through gender-differentiated positions in discourses such as the ‘have/hold’ discourse as well as the ‘male sexual drive’ discourse.     

Off-island hawaiians “making” ourselves at “home” : A [gendered] contradiction in terms?

This article explores some of the recent developments in movements to reassert Hawaiian sovereignty that occur in Hawai‘i, but with special reference to displaced nationalisms and political formations in Hawaiian communities off-island. I examine the gendered nature of the terms in which activists in the Hawaiian Islands describe and invoke diasporic Hawaiians, particularly in the calls they send out for diasporas to “return home” to Hawai‘i. I call attention to Hawaiian women’s prominence in some areas of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and the symbolic bases on which they draw in the process of forging such a position. The very process of making and remaking oneself, whether at home or not, is, among other things, always gendered. I argue for the difference that the infusion of a diasporic feminist sensibility could make to Hawaiian nationalist projects, pushing them further in the direction of specifically gendered possibilities of decolonization.     

Verifying the myth: olympic sex testing and the category “woman”

This paper interrogates the myth of a binary sex–gender system and its application to women through the practice of sex testing in international athletics. Sex testing—in which women athletes are evaluated to determine their suitability for competition as women—is premised upon the assumption that there are, and should be, two and only two forms of the human body—male and female. On the surface, it would appear that testing the sex of women competitors verifies the need for segregation and stratification of sex in athletic competition. Closer examination, however, reveals that the practice of sex testing actually makes visible both the constructedness of sex categories and the oppressiveness of their application.     

Sex workers’ responses to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

This article engages with the voices of women sex workers during the peak of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in New Zealand. The late-1980s saw the formation of the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective, a sex worker led organisation that contracted with the government to provide a community-based national response to HIV and AIDS. The article explores the challenges sex workers faced to sustain and implement the use of condoms in their daily professional and personal lives. These included pressure from clients to forego the use of condoms, the risk of carrying condoms amidst the threat of arrest, and the struggle to manage the use of condoms in their personal sex lives. The paper traces both the widespread support for safe sex and the fractures and tensions that emerged as many sex workers mobilised to establish a community-based response to one of the most devastating health crises of the late-twentieth century.     

Women negotiating heterosex: Implications for AIDS prevention

The AIDS epidemic has made it imperative that sexual behaviour be changed. This paper examines heterosexual negotiation, which will form the focus for behaviour change. The processes involved in such negotiation are little understood.Research was carried out using the method memory work, which generated and theorised data relating to women's past experiences in sexual encounters. The method, originated by Haug, provides a way to examine how sexuality is produced and reproduced through reflection and reconstruction of past experiences. Memories are analysed by examining gaps and absences, cliches and metaphors, in the search for the common understandings and taken-for-granted assumptions which set the boundaries within which encounters take place.The memories obtained can be partly understood in terms of three discourses documented by Hollway. These are the male sex drive discourse, the have/hold discourse, and the permissive discourse. The data may also be understood in relation to three permissible figures for women identified in Irigaray's analysis, namely virgin, wife-mother, and whore. The paper acknowledges that these theoretical perspectives are quite distinct, even contradictory, but nevertheless finds that each in its own way illuminates the data. It is shown that some common understandings underlying sexual encounters render negotiation not only impossible but largely unintelligible. The permissive discourse may possibly provide space for some negotiation, but the paper concludes that it is essential to develop a truly woman-centered discourse of sexuality out of which male sexuality can be problematised.     

Performing Social Reparation: “Comfort Women” And The Path To Political Forgiveness

During WWII, 200,000 girls and young women from across Asia were sexually enslaved by Japan—a tragic history unearthed less than 20 years ago and still inadequately addressed by the Japanese government. This paper examines, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the legacy of this “comfort women” history, problematizing its attendant rituals of apology, “political forgiveness,” and reparation. The author analyzes the meaning of apology and forgiveness, and develops a typology of “reparation,“ concluding that what surviving “comfort women” have articulated is a model of “social reparation,” or a holistic goal of mending the past and restoring an international human community.     

“Girl talk”: gender, equity, and identity discourses in a school-based computer culture

This article describes how a feminist intervention project in Canada focused on girls' more equitable access to and use of computers created significant opportunities for girls to develop and experience new identities as technology ‘experts’ within their school. In addition to a significant increase in participants' own technological expertise, there was a marked shift in the ways in which they talked about and negotiated their own gender identities with teachers and other students. Most significantly, the participants in the project became increasingly vocal about what they saw as inequitable practices in the daily operation of the school as well as those they were subject to by their teachers. This created, within the otherwise resilient macro-culture of the school, a more supportive climate for the advancement of gender equity well beyond the confines of its computer labs. We suggest that while equity-oriented school-level change is notoriously difficult to sustain, its most enduring impact might rather be participants' initiation into a discourse to which they had not previously experienced school-sanctioned access: a discourse in which to give voice to gender-specific inequities too long quieted by complacent discourses of “equality for all.”     

Sexual Orientation, Partnership Formation, and Substance Use in the Transition to Adulthood

Evidence suggests that lesbian and gay young adults use substances more frequently than their heterosexual peers. Based on the life course perspective, we argue that this difference may be due to the unavailability of marriage as a turning point in the lives of lesbian/gay young adults. We use data from a nationally representative sample of youth (N = 13,581, 52.4% female, 68.6% white, ages 18—26) to examine sexual orientation differences in substance use and explore whether these differences vary by romantic partnership formation in young adulthood. We find that the formation of more serious partnerships (e.g., cohabitation, marriage) is associated with less frequent substance use among heterosexual young adults, though this pattern does not hold for lesbian and gay young adults. We conclude that the partnership options available to lesbians and gay men do not provide the same health-protective benefits that marriage does for heterosexuals.     

Passport to Parenthood: Reproductive Pathways In and Out of Denmark

Denmark has become a destination for single women, lesbians, and heterosexual couples wanting donated sperm. At the moment, women from Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, and the UK travel to Denmark. Simultaneously, waiting lists for donated eggs and age restrictions are prime motivations for infertile Danish women and heterosexual couples to leave Denmark and travel to Spain, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, and Greece for egg donation. Informed by Donna Haraway’s notion of “the apparatus of bodily production”, Marcia Inhorn’s development of “reproductive flows”, and the use of Adele Clarke’s “situational analysis”, this paper explores the question: How do global reproductive pathways in and out of Denmark emerge when fertility travellers narrate, negotiate, and cross national borders to go through fertility treatment? Methodologically, we use a multi-sited and multi-modal approach centring on interviews with fertility travellers moving to and from Denmark in combination with ethnographic observations carried out in Danish and Spanish fertility clinics and an analysis of legal regulations. The paper concludes by discussing how the concept of reproductive pathways helps to theorize transnational movements of bodies and contributes to feminist scholarship on transnational reproductive travel.     

moral ambivalence and irregular practices: contextualizing male-to-male sexualities in Calcutta/India

Male-to-male sexuality in India has been described as both heavily stigmatized and implicitly tolerated. This paper examines these apparently contradictory attitudes, arguing that they reflect broader moral ambivalence about homosexuality in Indian culture and society. While the effects of homophobia in India are very real, simultaneous social latitude allows for relatively un-scrutinized same-sex sexual contact. The paper explores this scenario as a post-colonial legacy and considers the consequences for contemporary sexual subjectivity, particularly in respect of irregular responses to emerging gay identities and socially ambiguous male-to-male sexualities. Conceiving of men who have sex with men as subject to both prejudice and tolerance raises complex questions for HIV/AIDS related policy, programming and activism. The paper argues that understanding male-to-male sexualities in India as practiced within a climate of ambiguous moral censure offers critical insights for the future promotion of health.     

Predicting the Onset of Sexual and Drug Risk Behaviors in HIV-Negative Youths with HIV-Positive Mothers: The Role of Contextual,Self-Regulation,and Social-Interaction Factors

HIV-negative, inner-city adolescents with HIV-infected parents are considered to be at high risk for acquiring HIV themselves. Using a modified theory of health behavior, this study examined the effects of maternal HIV infection and psychosocial variables on the onset of sexual and drug risk behavior in 144 HIV-negative adolescents with and without HIV-positive mothers. Adolescents and their mothers were interviewed when the youths were 10–14 years old and again when they were 13–19 years old. By follow-up, 42% of youths reported the onset of vaginal sex (vs 5% at baseline). Marijuana and alcohol use increased from 6 and 38%, respectively, at baseline to 25 and 60% at follow-up. Among those reporting risk behaviors, 40--50% reported onset prior to 14 years. Youth and family psychosocial variables, but not maternal HIV status, were associated with risk behaviour outcomes. Claude A. Mellins research interests include mental health, psychosocial, and public effects of maternal and pediatric HIV; interventions for HIV-affected families; and adherence. Curtis Dolezal research interests include HIV-related sexual behavior in a variety of populations with a particular emphasis on methodology/measurement issues. Elizabeth Brackis-Cott research interests include impact of HIV/AIDS on the lives of children and families directly affected by the disease. Ouzama Nicholson research interests include international public health and pediatric HIV infection and operational issues in developing effective prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection and pediatric HIV care programs. Patricia Warne research interests include program development, structural interventions for HIV, and policy. Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg research interests include psychosexual assessment, the development and determinants of sexual risk behavior, and the effects of HIV disease on sexual functioning.     

‘Free from all uninvited touch of man’: Women's campaigns around sexuality, 1880–1914

The history of sex in the last 100 years has generally been represented as a triumphant march from Victorian prudery into the light of sexual freedom. From a feminist perspective the picture is different. During the last wave of feminism women, often represented as prudes and puritans by historians, waged a massive campaign to transform male sexual behaviour in the interests of women. They campaigned against the abuse of women in prostitution, the sexual abuse of children, and marital rape. This article describes the women's activities in the social purity movement, and the increasingly militant stance taken by some pre-war feminists who refused to relate sexually to men, in the context of the developing feminist analysis of sexuality. The main purpose of the paper is to show that in order to understand the significance of this aspect of the women's movement we must look at the area of sexuality not merely as a sphere of personal fulfilment but as an arena of struggle in which male dominance and women's subordination can be most powerfully reinforced and maintained or fundamentally challenged.     

Adolescents,young adults and AIDS: A study of actual knowledge vs. perceived need for additional information

Adolescents and young adults today are increasingly knowledgeable about AIDS and HIV transmission. However, in several studies substantial confusion is observed especially concerning how HIV is not transmitted and the prophylaxis against AIDS. Additional efforts to answer specific knowledge lacks are still useful. There is, however, no evidence that the actual knowledge level influences the interest in additional information. The aim of this study was to obtain a detailed investigation of the AIDS- and HIV-related knowledge level and the perceived need for additional information and to assess the (absence of an) association between both. Results of factor analysis and canonical correlation analysis confirmed the hypothesized incongruence between actual knowledge and need for additional information. Although respondents indicated that they had received sufficient information or that they were rather indifferent with regard to additional information, answers on knowledge questions showed important misconceptions. Moreover, associations between a specific knowledge scale and a specific information need factor were weak and not significant. The results contradict the importance of a detailed assessment of specific needs for additional information as an explanation for this incongruence and leave the possible role of an overestimation of one's own knowledge level. This study could not answer the question about the failure of traditional school-based sex education to provide youngsters with the information they need. However, a possible explanation for the overestimation of one's knowledge level could be the use of unreliable information sources—such as peers—in combination with a feeling of indifference towards traditional school-based sex education.Receiveddegree fromuniversity. Research interests: determinants of sexual risk (reduction) behaviors among adolescents and young adults. Current interest lies in interpersonal communication between adolescent lovers.     

White women as burden: On playing the role of feminist “experts” in china

This article explores the problems of international, collaborative feminist research by telling the story of two Canadian academics who embarked on a journey to do feminist research with a group of Chinese academics. The literature warns of the difficulties of collaboration and the dangers of power imbalances that are positional, procedural and representational. In this instance, the Canadians, despite their positional advantages, experienced little power in the planning of the research, feeling themselves as a burden rather than a boon at many points during the process. They analyze the reasons for this, and conclude that the content of their conversation mattered less than the form in which it was delivered. Despite a number of difficulties, the project was of value for the collaborators. For the Chinese, it was a chance for women faculty in less privileged universities to work together, with new resources, on a topic that needed validation. For the Canadians, it resulted in an increased appreciation for the specificity of North American feminism, varieties of Chinese feminism and the contextual nature of research methodologies. The article concludes with a discussion of the value and limits of universities' new emphasis on internationalism and its meaning for feminists with an emphasis on the value of such projects, if appropriately conceived and managed.     

Research partnerships : A discussion paper based on case studies from “The place of Alcohol in the lives of New Zealand women” project

Research partnerships between anthropologists and the individuals or groups with whom they work may take a variety of forms. This paper examines four partnerships which evolved during the research project, “The Place of Alcohol in the Lives of New Zealand Women.” These partnerships were between anthropologists and Samoan, Cook Islands, Maori, and Lesbian women living in New Zealand. The strengths and weaknesses of each relationship are evaluated in an attempt to evolve a range of successful models of research partnership.