More than a Woman? Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Medical Law

This article examines law’s representation of embodied female identity in the context of two medical law cases, R. v. Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, ex parte Blood andB v. Croydon Health Authority. Through an examination of contemporary critiques of female embodiment, in particular the work of Judith Butler, two discursive strategies are suggested for their potential to reconfigure the sexed subject within legal discourse. Firstly, the act of transgression – the flight from purportedly fixed subject positions – can be read in the case of Bloodand calls into question law’s ability to contain and sustain sexed identity as prediscursive and immutable. Secondly, the exposure of the historical formation of the female subjects of legal discourse, demonstrated through a genealogical reading of B v. Croydon Health Authority, contributes to the feminist theoretical project to destabilise traditional gender categories and enables us to think beyond the category of ‘Woman’. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Involving Youth in Program Decision-Making: How Common and What Might it Do for Youth?

The strategy of sharing program decision-making with youth in youth programs, a specific form of youth-adult partnership, is widely recommended in practitioner literature; however, empirical study is relatively limited. We investigated the prevalence and correlates of youth program decision-making practices (e.g., asking youth to help decide what activities are offered), using single-level and multilevel methods with a cross-sectional dataset of 979 youth attending 63 multipurpose after-school programs (average age of youth = 11.4, 53 % female). The prevalence of such practices was relatively high, particularly for forms that involved low power sharing such as involving youth in selecting the activities a program offers. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed positive associations between youth program decision-making practices and youth motivation to attend programs. We also found positive correlations between decision-making practices and youth problem-solving efficacy, expression efficacy, and empathy. Significant interactions with age suggest that correlations with problem solving and empathy are more pronounced for older youth. Overall, the findings suggest that involving youth in program decision-making is a promising strategy for promoting youth motivation and skill building, and in some cases this is particularly the case for older (high school-age) youth.     

Are Women Peaceful? Reflections on the Role of Women in Peace-Building

This paper examines the way that women’s relationship to peace is constructed in international institutions and international law. It identifies a set of claims about women and peace that are typically made and considers these in light of women’s experience in the conflicts in Bougainville, East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

What is a Fair Trial? Rape Prosecutions, Disclosure and the Human Rights Act

This article engages with the vogue for predicting the effects of the Human Rights Act 1998 by focusing on the rape prosecution and trial. The specific interest is feminist scrutiny of the right to a fair trial, particularly the concept of ‘fairness’, in light of the increasing use of disclosure rules (in Canada and England) to gain access to medical and counseling records. Transcending the two contemporary narratives of ‘victims’/women’s rights and defendants’ rights in the criminal justice system, the authors argue for the infusion of the legal debate on disclosure with feminist understandings of wider cultural debates. They suggest that an increased reflexivity about intimacy, publicity and power, leading perhaps to the development of a concept of ‘democratic publicity’ (Fraser, 1997, p. 100), might help to revision the meaning of ‘relevant’ evidence in the rape trial. They also suggest that the wide-ranging cultural debate about memory, truth and history, and the emerging commitment to experimentation in responding to massive, institutionalised human rights violations (including apartheid, war crimes and child abuse) might be of use in deepening current thinking about the rape trial and listening to the ‘voice’ of the complainant. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Reimagining Gender Through Equality Law: What Legal Thoughtways Do Religion and Disability Offer?

Feminist Legal Studies - British equality law protections for sex and gender reassignment have grown fraught as activists tussle over legal and social categories of gender, gender transitioning,...     

Life Events and Depressive Symptoms in African American Adolescents: Do Ecological Domains and Timing of Life Events Matter?

Considerable research has documented associations between adverse life events and internalizing symptoms in adolescents, but much of this research has focused on the number of events experienced, with less attention to the ecological context or timing of events. This study examined life events in three ecological domains relevant to adolescents (i.e., family, peers, themselves) as predictors of the course of depressive symptoms among a community epidemiologically defined sample of 419 (47.2% females) urban African American adolescents. Given that youth depressive symptoms change over time, grade level was examined as a moderator. For males, the strength of associations between life events happening to participants, family life events, and peer life events and depressive symptoms did not change from grades 6–9. For females, the strength of the association between peer life events and depressive symptoms did not change over time, but the strength of associations between life events happening to participants and family life events and females’ depressive symptoms decreased over time. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

‘A Woman’s Place …’: Male Representations of University Women in the Student Press of the University of Liverpool, 1944–1979

Deciphering the manner in which women have been, and continue to be, represented in society is an integral element of a feminist critique. This article explores male representations of university women as presented in the student press of the University of Liverpool between 1944 and 1979. It is suggested that university women were represented as ‘other’ and stereotyped in a negative manner in the years 1944 to 1959. Furthermore, they were presented as unattractive, unwelcome, and in most cases at university to find a husband. The years 1960 to 1979 signified a shift with regard to the representation of university women; however, continuity with the earlier period was retained in the visual imagery of female students and the way in which ‘careers’ were presented as distinctly male. University women remained part of the ‘male gaze’ and were, ultimately judged on the basis of their sexual attractiveness to the derision of their intellectual abilities.     

The ‘Wrongs’ of Women: Sex and Sexuality in Irish American Women's Writing

A key trait distinguishing the writing of Irish American women from that of their male counterparts is a strong feminist bent often expressed in stories featuring sex and sexuality. In ignoring these characteristics, Irish studies scholars have disregarded a trait established by Irish women writers in oral traditions as early as 600 and in written English since 1685. Much of this material was categorized as the ‘Wrongs of Woman’, a phrase used to describe stories about physical and sexual abuse. These same themes can be traced in the writing of Irish American women since the late nineteenth century. By focusing on these ‘wrongs’, Irish American women have not only carried on the tradition begun by their foremothers; they have also battled patriarchal bonds on three fronts: religion, which created such bonds; society, which reinforced them; and politics, which tries to recreate and re-impose them. A complete understanding of Irish American writing therefore depends on recognizing and adding the contributions of these women to the definition of the literature. This essay defines that cohort, then provides a historically contextualized examination of their literary attempts to address the ‘wrongs’ of women inflicted by religion, society and politics from 1899 to the present. In so doing, this discussion demonstrates the role played by Irish American women writers in promoting, protecting and perpetuating the rights of women in the United States and around the world.     

Stories of life Stories of living: Women’ narratives and feminist biography

Narrative structure in biographical accounts is currently a much debated theme. This article brings together methodological debates in life story research and discussions within feminism about women's narratives and feminist biography. Connections between gendered conceptions of time and structures in narrative accounts are explored, and seen in relation to the context of interviewing. The latter is problematized as a setting that affects both the form and content of the biographical accounts given by informants. From this approach the opportunity arises for illuminating connections between “private troubles” in people's lives and “public issues” in society. An empirical discussion based on biographical interviews with white, Norwegian, middle‐class women, is carried out to illustrate the points made.     

What is your gender? Gender and participation in Attac-Italy

Since gender disparities do not appear to be confined within the political system, I assume a gender perspective within social movements. In order to better understand the relations between the social movements and gender issues, I analysed the case of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens (Attac) in Italy. Attac is an international network of sibling organizations. The Italian branch has been described as a political/cultural association which is based on previous cultural/political backgrounds of militants. Accordingly, I supposed that these cultural/political backgrounds have affected the present organization and its forms of participation. Structural information on participation in parties and trade unions proves that Attac has a strong linkage to the Italian left-wing, while the relations between gender, participation and power have been investigated in the fieldwork. Yet, certain dynamics of inequity and the risk of reproducing models learned elsewhere, which also replicate gender exclusion in those associations which lie halfway between civil society and political parties, have been discussed for gender and participation in the contradictory age of globalization.     

Rape Myths,Law, and Feminist Research: ‘Myths About Myths’?

In an article recently published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the legal scholar Helen Reece argues that the prevalence and effects of rape myths have been overstated and the designation of certain beliefs and attitudes as myths is simply wrong. Feminist researchers, she argues, are engaged ‘in a process of creating myths about myths’ in a way that serves to close down and limit productive debate in this ‘vexed’ area. In this article we argue that Reece’s analysis is methodologically flawed, crudely reductionist and rhetorically unyielding. We locate Reece’s analysis within the wider theoretical field to show how her failure to engage with feminist literature on rape other than in the narrowest, most exclusionary terms, yields an approach which impedes rather than advances public understanding and panders to a kind of simplistic thinking which cannot begin to grapple with the complexity of the phenomenon that is rape. We conclude by emphasizing the continuing commitment of feminist researchers carefully to theorize and (re)map the fraught field of progressive legal strategizing in order to identify and counter the kinds of risks and shortcomings of political activism with which Reece is rightly concerned.