Women's participation in national-level politics and government: The case of Costa Rica

It has often been assumed that women in politics in Latin America approach their public responsibilities in a manner consistent with their traditional domestic roles. This article analyzes women's roles in Costa Rican politics and government through an examination of both the positions they hold and the attitudes they maintain regarding these positions. We conducted interviews in Costa Rica with female political elites and gathered data from mail questionnaires. It appears that Costa Rican women in public life are most likely to hold traditionally “female” positions and maintain both a feminine image and traditional family values. However, women in Costa Rican politics and government do not view their participation in the public sphere as an extension of their traditional domestic roles.     

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.     

A child at any price?: An overview of issues in the use of the new reproductive technologies,and the threat to women

Since the advent of modern contraceptive techniques, sexuality and reproduction have been divided more than at any other time in human history. At first, this was seen as a liberating process for women, particularly for heterosexual women. Now, new reproductive technology has separated sexuality and the procreative process even further: a child can now be created without recourse to sexual intercourse. This too has been presented as a liberation for women. However, within this process men are gaining control of an experience uniquely female. The result of allowing this technological process to go unchecked could be the elimination of women and the development of artificial wombs.     

Trajectories of Perceived Parental Psychological Control across Adolescence and Implications for the Development of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Theory and research indicate considerable changes in parental control across adolescence (e.g., declining behavioral control), but the developmental course and...     

Growing up in the culture of slenderness: Girls'' experiences of body dissatisfaction

This paper reports two group-interviews of young women aged 8 and 13 years. These young women were dissatisfied with their bodies and described ideal figures that matched the slim adult ideal. The younger girls were not dieting but were involved in helping their parents to diet. Adolescents had avoided “fattening” foods and would be concerned if they put on half a stone in weight. Eating (particularly sweet food) was used as a means of comfort and to relieve boredom by young women in both age groups. Results are similar to those of Nickie Charles and Marion Kerr (1986) who interviewed adult women. It is concluded that children as young as 8 years give accounts of body dissatisfaction that are similar to those of adult women, and that suggest acceptance of the slim adult ideal. Implications are discussed in relation to cultural influences on young women that encourage objectification and criticism of the body.     

The prototypicality of gender: Contemporary notions of masculine and feminine

Femininity and masculinity, as abstract, nonbiological concepts, are very difficult to define. Culturally and socially induced, they are subject to drastic change over time. This article presents prototypical notions of feminine and masculine, as they appeared from a categorisation test performed by Dutch students. The interdisciplinary combination of feminist theory and cognitive linguistics enabled a consideration of various interrelated questions, and their implications for feminist criticism. Can we speak of possibly significant changes in contemporary views from the traditional, well-known views of masculine and feminine?     

Capturing women's lives: A discussion of time and methodological issues

Time is an important underlying concept in life course research and in the use of the “life-line method” an approach that has gained interest among researchers examining women's lives more processually. Notwithstanding, the author argues that time itself is not sufficiently problematised in this context. In the first part of the paper, the question is posed: What do we mean by time? It is argued that the Newtonian mechanical view of time, which is used in social science research and is the basis for the life-line method, limits our ability to capture the complexity of individuals' and especially women's everyday lives. A discussion of theories of time leads to an examination of methodological problems that are inherent in doing and presenting life histories.     

resistance at the limits: feminist activism and conscientious objection in Israel

This article investigates the relationship between feminism and conscientious objection in Israel, evaluating the efficacy of feminist resistance in the organised refusal movement. While recent feminist scholarship on peace, anti-occupation and anti-militarism activism in Israel largely highlights women's collective action, it does so at the risk of eliding the relations of power within these groups. Expanding the scope of consideration, I look to the experiences of individual feminist conscientious objectors who make visible significant tensions through their accounts of military refusal and participation in the organised conscientious objection movement. Drawing on original ethnographic research, this article problematises feminist activism in the organised Israeli refusal movement through three primary issues: political voice; privilege; and the realisation of gender agendas. Using Michel Foucault's conceptualisation of power as it has been critiqued and qualified by feminist scholars, I consider the ways in which resistance may be both multiple and a diagnostic of power, allowing activists and academics not only to envision new avenues for social change, but also to recognise their constraints. Critically, feminist theories of intersectionality enrich and complicate this Foucauldian approach to power, providing further modes of critique and strategy in the context of feminist activism in Israel. Ultimately, I argue not only for engagement with the limits of power, but also attention to their function, as in theory and praxis these boundaries critically inform our theorising on gender and resistance.     

diasporic governmentality: on the gendered limits of migrant wage-labour in Portugal

This essay explores the meaning of diasporic practice as it has been applied within the contemporary Black Atlantic context. The general focus of this topic has been visible or performative practices that have broad audiences, ranging from diasporic members to the sociopolitically included or the privileged citizen. Moreover, the objects or products of diasporic practice are largely understood to be aesthetic; the literature has highlighted music, dance, art, and religion, for instance. In this essay I argue that a taken-for-granted prerequisite of a hierarchized viewing audience misses passing moments of negotiation that occur in silence or within disciplined exchanges among persons who we identify as diasporic. These practices build community in very powerful ways but may not leave lasting traces or archives; they have to do with fleeting displays of affect such as rage, shame, joy, etc. The ethnographic focus is African immigrant women's constrained work schedules in Lisbon and the ways their labour-time textures the types of community - building practices in which they engage on a daily basis. I address how gendered configurations of migrant labour-time -a condition for governmentality – influence the diasporic process by which a form of racial identification is assumed in the context of Portugal.     

Eating out: The experience of eating in public for the “overweight” woman

This article focuses on the experience of eating in public for the “overweight” woman. It is concerned with the problems and anxieties associated with the prospect of eating in public for many “overweight” women. Public eating refers to eating in both formal and informal settings. Formal settings take the form of settings such as weddings and eating in restaurants, while informal settings include eating at work, with friends, and at home. Both are considered as they constitute “public eating” in that the women are not alone when they eat. The article is the result of ongoing research that involved correspondence and interviews with approximately 195 women who consider themselves to have “weight problems.”     

On being australian and muslim: Muslim women as defenders of islamic heritage

The identity of the Muslims in Australia, whether as Australians or as Muslims, hinges upon the role of Muslim women. The role and status of Australian Muslim women, in turn, can only be understood by considering the cumulative impact of the situation in which Muslims find themselves in Australia, religiopolitical developments in the Muslim world, and the recent developments in the international politics between the Islamic world and the West. Muslim women are caught in the middle. On the one hand, they feel it essential to demonstrate their loyalty, symbolized through veiling of an increasing number of Muslim women, to the world Islamic Ummah [community]. But by doing so they place themselves on the margin of the wider Australian community to whom Muslim women’s veiling symbolizes the “Other,” the peculiar and dangerous foreigners. This article deals with these dilemmas of Australian Muslim women and their role as defenders of Islamic heritage.     

义利观:当代青年的道德困惑与选择

义利观问题是人们的世界观、价值观中的根本问题 ,也是现实生活中人们必须面对的理论问题和实际问题。我国市场经济的建立和现代化建设事业的不断发展 ,引起了社会利益格局和利益关系的新变化。义利关系 ,不仅是个人私利与社会公共利益的关系 ,同时也是伦理道德与物质利益的关系。当代青年树立社会主义的利益观 ,有利于加强思想道德建设 ,促进社会主义物质文明和精神文明建设的协调发展。