Does Sex Matter to Democracy?

In order to isolate, theoretically, the vital mechanisms that constrain women as citizens in Western, democratic societies, it is necessary to go beyond explanations in terms of work, into sexuality However, it is not the practice of sexual coercion which, though a serious wrong, is fundamental in subordinating women in the formally free society; it is rather the freely given—and taken—love. Furthermore, if scrutinizing pre-democratic, anti-feminist arguments can help to reveal the situation today, it is the utilitarian view of women's sexual resources, rather than arguments about sexually differentiated—and inferior female— nature , which is crucial. Secondly, the concept of 'difference', now so popular among feminist writers, is important, especially when used empirically to avoid oversimplifying unity thinking about each of the sex/gender groups. But it is not tit for conceiving the power transactions going on in the socio-sexual process Furthermore. I suppose that one of the most important tasks of feminism is to balance the weights of (different) individuality and collectivity to mutually developmental values. Thirdly, women want more than 'equal chances', something other than 'equal results', and the 'different but equally valuable' must, to be women-worthy, be defined by women themselves. In a democratic society, if women are to be full and equal members, as leaders and led, then women and men have to be openly accepted as two fundamental, interested parties in society Finally, women should not claim this citizen status first and foremost as mothers, but simply as women. i e. as female, social 'incarnate subjects'.     

“Sexual Assault” and Other Buzz Phrases that Need to Die

Academics nowadays have invented many phrases for which they demand widespread acceptance that do not accurately represent reality, or which make no sense when we consider them closely. Prime among these is the concept of “sexual assault,” which has made its way into state laws and the UCMJ since its coinage in the 1960s and 1970s and is now a mainstay of training on college campuses. This concept is flawed because it includes all sexual actions under the rubric of the noun “assault,” as if we spoke of “driving aggression” rather than “aggressive driving,” to color all driving with the possibility of aggression. It is simply not true that sexuality is nothing but one more form aggression, and that all sex is potentially aggression if it is perceived by one partner as such. Another false coinage we are asked to accept is the notion that men “objectivize” women. In fact few men want to sleep with or get an erotic charge from objects; if anything the issue seems to be focus on physical details. Then there is the widely repeated assertion that “gender is assigned at birth.” Rather than debating whether or not this is so we should ask whether the concept itself makes sense. Assigned? By what entity? Just at birth? These are examples of linguistic over-reach, the attempt to change the world with words rather than letting a change in the way we see the world (Kuhn’s paradigm shift) produce corresponding words in a more gradual way that most of us can accept. Just because we hear these phrases all the time from professional wordsmith academics with axes to grind, we need not feel constrained to accept them if they are not accurate representations of the world.     

The intersection of gender politics and religious beliefs

Traditional understanding has placed conservatism at the intersection of religion and politics and has assumed that this relationship is stronger for women than it is for men. Yet rarely has gender been a principal analytic category in such explorations, and the relationships have not been thoroughly documented. We analyze the 1980 and 1984 National Election Study data and find that religion is not a more conservatizing influence on voting behavior for women than it is for men. Reagan did best with the small group of women fundamentalist believers, and did rather well among highly religious Catholic women. In most other cases the gender gap actually widened with increasing religiosity. Although women are more religious than men, political observers are cautioned that this finding cannot be taken as evidence of women's greater support for conservative candidates.     

庚子退款前中国在美形象的演变

本从形象入手，考察1908年美国退还部分庚子赔款前中国人在美形象的变迁。当时美国对华印象普遍不佳，义和团运动时期中国形象更是降到了最低点。但是此后，美国对华印象有了转变，为美国政府决议退还部分庚子赔款、资助中国学生赴美学习创造了良好的外部环境。     

Sexing Citizenship,Privatizing Sex

This paper explores different stories of sexual citizenship found in gay and lesbian rights struggles. It uses two recent cultural productions, Kissing Jessica Stein and Queer as Folk , to analyze the stories of sexual citizenship found in two Supreme Court decisions, M. v. H. , and Little Sisters. The paper deploys these contrasting stories of sexual citizenship, of sameness and difference, assimilation and subversion, to animate a complex reading of the sexing of citizenship and the privatizing of sex. It argues that the modality of sexual citizenship produced by rights struggles has been one in which sexual subjects are privatized, de-eroticized and depoliticized. At the same time, it argues for a more disruptive reading, which unearths the public, the erotic and the politicized subject, as well as the normalizing effect of this more subversive subject.     

论社会中介组织对中国社会发展的影响

经过了20多年改革，中国社会的组织结构发生了深刻的变化，各类社会中介组织以前所未有的速度和规模发展起来，在数量和种类大大发展的同时，其组织独立性明显增强而合法性也日益得到确认，在中国社会中承担着越来越多的功能和职责，也成为人们在日常生活中越来越直接和频繁地与之接触或交往的对象。中国的社会中介组织将同政府部门和市场部门一起，直接决定着整个中国社会在新世纪里的发展。     

Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace Revisited: Influences on Sexual Harassment by Gender

Using data from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board's most recent survey on sexual harassment, this study examines influences on sexual harassment in the federal workplace. We investigate the effect of workers'sociodemographic characteristics, aspects of their daily work environment (the sex of the supervisor and female/male ratio of coworkers), and agency location. Drawing on a variety of theoretical models and addressing a limitation of a previous study, we assess whether and how influences on sexual harassment differ for men and women. Not only does the likelihood of sexual harassment differ for men and women, but the determinants of harassment differ as well. Women are more likely to indicate receipt of unwanted sexual attention as their ratio of male coworkers increases, and men are more likely to indicate its receipt as their ratio of female coworkers increases. We also find differential effects for sex of supervisor, age, education, and job type, among other variables. Our analyses highlight that gender conditions the influences on sexual harassment.     

Gay fathers,gay citizenship: on the power of reproductive futurism and assimilation

Edelman's new ethics of queer theory is focussed on the all-pervasive image of the child, which he argues provides the foundation for the hegemonic politics of ‘reproductive futurism’ (L. Edelman, 2004. No future: queer theory and the death drive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press). His searing criticism raises important questions for sexual citizenship, and particularly for the gay parent as citizen. Edelman's argument that queers should abandon accommodation and instead embrace their position as the figure of negativity offers a challenge to all those gay men that seek to be fathers. In this article, I critically engage with Edelman's arguments and explore the implications of a queer rejection of reproductive futurism and parental privilege through an empirical investigation of young gay men's stories about the possibility of becoming fathers. I argue that whilst Edelman's uncompromising stance serves to open a space for gay men embracing the jouissance that is increasingly being abandoned through an assimilationist desire for citizenship, it also, more problematically, closes down possibilities for gay men and thus further reinforces present inequalities in citizenship. Is negativity the only option in the face of the onslaught of reproductive futurism or might there be a dialectical solution that is at once radically queer but also reflective of the variety of claims for sexual citizenship?     

Bulging biceps and tender kisses: the sexualisation of fatherhood

This article explores recent developments in masculinity, focusing on the sexualisation of fatherhood in Anglophone media. As it becomes socially acceptable for men to engage with “hands-on” fatherhood roles that had previously been primarily associated with motherhood, the appeal lies not just in this shift in gendered performance, but the representation of this as an opportunity for men to reveal a desirably body image. Where previously the hands-on fatherhood role had been glossed as “nappy changing duties,” this more recent development focuses on men’s bodies and in particular the act of carrying a young child which affords the chance for biceps to be flexed in juxtaposition with the gentle act of holding a child. Colloquially, this has led to the emergence of the “DILF,” particularly on social media where sites are devoted to photos of such men.     

The politics of affective citizenship: from Blair to Obama

Politicians have long mobilised emotion in order to gain voters' support. However, this article argues that the politics of affect is also implicated in how citizens' identities, rights and entitlements are constructed. Examples are drawn from the positions of UK, US, Canadian and Australian politicians, including Tony Blair, David Cameron, Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama. Emotions analysed include love, fear, anxiety, empathy and hope. The article argues for the importance of a concept of ‘affective citizenship’ which explores (a) which intimate emotional relationships between citizens are endorsed and recognised by governments in personal life and (b) how citizens are also encouraged to feel about others and themselves in broader, more public domains. It focuses on issues of sexuality, gender, race and religion, and argues that the politics of affect has major implications for determining who has full citizenship rights. The Global Financial Crisis has also seen the development of an ‘emotional regime’ in which issues of economic security are increasingly influencing constructions of citizenship.     

Citizenship across generations: struggles around heteronormativities

This article argues for the importance of attention to intergenerational relations in understanding the conditions for access to citizenship rights and recognition for non-heterosexual people. The case of Italy, where individual entitlements and responsibilities are largely structured around intergenerational dependence, underlines the salience of intergenerational relations in relation to sexual citizenship. Drawing on a study of the families of origin of self-identified young gay men and lesbians carried out in Italy, this article explores how access to citizenship rights and the construction of the identities that can claim recognition are mediated by processes of mutual disclosure and negotiation within families. Beyond a shared notion of family ties as defined by unconditional love, a diversity of narratives are detected, linked to differences in gender, class and family cultures. It is especially when family narratives are informed by the middle-class ideology of the democratic family as a space for the development of authentic selves that access to rights becomes conditional upon compliance with the obligations of a ‘good child’, and the conditions for the reproduction of heteronormative citizenship are set.     

No-Fly Zones: A New Model for Male Sexuality

The predominant paradigm nowadays for understanding male sexuality is derived from Kinsey's assumption that men can be classified as individuals with specific scores on a scale, scores that predict whether future partners will be male or female. Each man is defined by an essence, homo- or heterosexual or somewhere in between. However this is an incorrect view of male sexuality, because it makes us unable to say why a man is attracted to or has sex with a specific person: the same person can be attractive or unattrative depending on circumstances, and he can act or not act on his inclination depending on circumstances. The more correct view of male sexuality is thus of “fly” and “no-fly” zones, which understands male sexuality as defined by variable situations, not a score of the individual in all situations. This conception allows us to avoid the theoretical mistakes of the current assault on “sexual assault.”     

Soldiers and Wayward Women: Gendered Citizenship,and Migration Policy in Argentina,Italy and Spain since 1850

Policies that regulate peoples international movement and their state membership have historically made distinctions based on perceived sexual differences, but little is known about the process by which this has happened. This paper explores how and with what consequences migration and nationality policies have been gendered in two quintessential countries of emigration (Italy and Spain), and in a country of immigrants (Argentina) over a 150-year period. I argue that these migration and nationality policies have reflected the dynamics of the political fields in which they have been crafted. Especially before the Great War, laws and official practices that showed a disproportionate interest in men as soldiers and workers, and in women as mothers and as morally suspect subjects mirrored a dynamic of competition over migrants among these countries. A subsequent harmonization of policies reflected a dynamic of accommodation to the realities of a settled emigrant population and dual nationality. In addition, the administrative mechanisms coupled with these laws have operated differently with respect to men and women. The consequences of these laws and mechanisms have persisted even when the letter of the law has ostensibly become gender neutral.     

Songs of seduction: popular music and Serbian nationalism

In Serbia, culture is never far removed from politics. When writing about the relationship between politics and folklore, the Serbian ethnologist Ivan * olovi ' commented that Serbian politics is saturated with folklore and that, from the late 1980s, every political leader, without exception, every political programme and every political battle made reference to folkloric texts that resorted to a raft of traditional clichés. The main vehicle for carrying the imagery, values and antagonisms of these mythical tales has been the pesma , which may be translated as either 'poem' or 'song' since the words in Serbian are interchangeable. Indeed, the traditional song has long been embedded in Serbian cultural identity, and has been inspiring Serbian nationalism since the nineteenth century. In the 1990s the stimulation of nationalism by popular and traditional Serbian songs involved a process of ethnification--a cult of the folkloric--in which popular music contributed to the estrangement, alienation and distancing of the Other. This was both a process with roots long buried in the past, as well as one that continued to flourish at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Hudson explores the impact of culture on Serbian politics, especially from the perspective of the relationship between identity formation and ethnic conflict. He investigates the links between popular musical forms and nationalism in Serbia, through an analysis of the lyrics, language and meanings of a selection of songs in a variety of different musical genres that were popular between the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.     

LGBTQ “selves” in films from the Reel-Lives project as signifiers of political and social change,and of personal value

To accurately reflect the complexities of unusual sexual or gender identifications in non-stereotypical ways, film documentarians are challenged to represent people as both sexual/gender identities and as subjectivities engaged in personal experiences. This imperative is explored through a semiotic lens focused on films produced through the Reel Lives youth media training project, which aims to give voice to marginalised youth, and which presents their stories on the Reel Lives website through two consequent layers of signification that successfully represents LGBTQ people in complex ways. On the one hand, the search function reflects a typology of shared characteristics associated with identity categories that speaks to political change. On the other, the film grammar showcases shared circumstances within communities in ways that redirect focus from political change to a more durable and transformative socio-cultural change. The films in turn serve a third function: to reflect gender and sexual identification as a personal resource on which participants might subjectively call for the positive recognition and re-presentation of their value as individuals.     

The Politicization of Marriage in Contemporary American Public Policy: The Defense of Marriage Act and the Personal Responsibility Act

The sexuality politics terrain in the United States is currently marked by a complex and contradictory set of developments‐non-traditional family structures are becoming more common, popular opinion is moving in a more tolerant direction, and the lesbian and gay rights movement has enjoyed some victories, but conservative family values and patriarchal heterosexual marriage have been vigorously promoted by influential right-wing social movements and more deeply institutionalized through important public policy initiatives and court decisions. This article considers the theoretical implications of these developments with respect to the conceptual approaches to citizenship and sexuality. It then analyses two major pieces of federal legislation in depth: the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the Personal Responsibility Act (PRA). DOMA effectively encourages the states to ban same-sex marriages. The PRA is generally considered as a welfare 'reform' law that imposes compulsory 'workfare' schemes and time limits for benefit recipients. It nevertheless has a significant sexual regulation dimension. Both the religious right's campaign against same-sex marriage and the welfare reformers' attack on the rights of single mothers contribute to a reactionary politicization of marriage. In conclusion, the article contends that it is only insofar as lesbian and gay rights issues are understood more broadly as but one aspect of sexual regulation and citizenship rights struggles that we can develop more effective ways of advancing the sexual liberation movement as a whole.     

Immigrant sexual citizenship: intersectional templates among Mexican gay immigrants to the USA

Existing literature on sexual citizenship has emphasized the sexuality-related claims of de jure citizens of nation-states, generally ignoring immigrants. Conversely, the literature on immigration rarely attends to the salience of sexual issues in understanding the social incorporation of migrants. This article seeks to fill the gap by theorizing and analyzing immigrant sexual citizenship. While some scholars of sexual citizenship have focused on the rights and recognition granted formally by the nation-state and others have stressed more diffuse, cultural perceptions of community and local belonging, we argue that the lived experiences of immigrant sexual citizenship call for multiscalar scrutiny of templates and practices of citizenship that bridge national policies with local connections. Analysis of ethnographic data from a study of 76 Mexican gay and bisexual male immigrants to San Diego, California, reveals the specific citizenship templates that these men encounter as they negotiate their intersecting social statuses as gay/bisexual and as immigrants (legal or undocumented); these include an ‘asylum’ template, a ‘rights’ template, and a ‘local attachments’ template. However, the complications of their intersecting identities constrain their capacity to claim immigrant sexual citizenship. The study underscores the importance of both intersectional and multiscalar approaches in research on citizenship as social practice.     

Change and continuity in the ideological gender gap a longitudinal analysis of left-right self-placement in OECD countries

When asked to place themselves on a left-right scale, men and women tend to take different positions. Over time, however ideological gender differences have taken a different form. While women were traditionally more right-leaning than men, from around the mid-1990s onwards they have been found to take positions to the left of men. Using an originally constructed dataset that includes information on the left-right self-placement of more than 2.5 million respondents in 36 OECD countries between 1973 and 2018, I empirically verify how the ideological gender gap has evolved since. The results show, first, that while women have shifted to the left since the late 1970s, the pace of this change has strongly diminished since the late 1990s. Second, there is important between-country variation in the size of the reversal in the ideological gender gap. Third, with the exception of the Silent generation and the Baby-boomers, newer generations of women have not taken more left-leaning positions than generations before them.     

Exploitation dressed in a suit,shining shoes,and carrying a suitcase full of dollars: What does China want in Africa?

China has provided billions of dollars in loans to African countries with no strings attached compared with Western financial aid. Although the argument that China is exploiting Africa for its resources has often clouded Beijing's continued support for Africa, many African leaders have welcomed China's economic assistance and have begun to see China as a more reliable partner compared with the West. By strictly examining relevant literature on Sino–African relations, this study comprehensively explores the dynamics, implications, and benefits of Chinese investments in Africa. Whether China is indeed exploiting Africa, which will continue to be debated, it is clear that Chinese investments have contributed significantly to the development of Africa and will continue to do so as the West has been replaced by Beijing as Africa's biggest trading partner. African countries are therefore likely to continue strengthening their relationship with China further jeopardising the interests of West in the continent.