Divining Psychoanalysis: Melancholia,Dostoevsky and Kristeva

Julia Kristeva has recently depicted Melanie Klein as a female genius in divining and bringing to life her analytic patients' psyche, by identifying with them and projecting her fantasies into them, as Kristeva says mothers do in transforming the proto-fantasies constituted by their infants' object-oriented bodily drives into semiotic and symbolic meaning. In explaining how Kristeva arrives at this account of psychoanalysis Sayers discusses her previous work on melancholia, and the accounts by Freud and particularly by women psychoanalysts--notably Joan Riviere, Melanie Klein and Hanna Segal--of melancholia as a defence against loss and guilt over the hateful destruction of others through thing-like self-division of hate and love. She also explores the religious and psychoanalytic theories of William James and Wilfred Bion. Most of all, however, she illustrates Kristeva's approach to melancholia, as Kristeva does herself, by using the example of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment , in which Sonia identifies with the arguably melancholic Raskolnikov and thereby resurrects him to psychological life. Sonia, however, is a fiction. Kristeva, by contrast, in describing Melanie Klein as a female genius in transforming psychoanalysis into a species of divination, presents such ideals and fictions about women and femininity as fact.     

A Nurse and a Soldier: Gender,Class and National Identity in the First World War Adventures of Grace McDougall and Flora Sandes

In this article the author explores the ways Grace McDougall, Commandant of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and Flora Sandes, Captain and combatant in the Serbian Army, negotiated gender, class and national identity and enhanced women’s claim to personal and collective power during their work at the Front during the First World War. The author analyses Sandes and McDougall’s writings and their accounts of personal heroism and focuses on two aspects: first, their participation in the physical dangers of war and the creation of audacious stories of physical bravery that aligned them with male combatants; and second, their performance of ingenuity, intellect and action that gave them power, status and credibility, and consolidated their leadership and authority. In their different ways, both women modelled resistance to female subordination and made the case for women’s participation in war.     

“A Defeat not to Be Ultra-Fit”: Expectations and Experiences Related to Pregnancy and Employment in Contemporary Norway

Managing work while pregnant has long been a challenge for women in both paid and unpaid work. With Norway as the case in point, the aim of this study was to explore expectations and experiences among women relating to work-life and pregnancy health. Employing the constant comparison method, we drew on interviews, Internet discussions, newspapers, and health information booklets. The findings revealed strong discourses on pregnancy as health, and high expectations among pregnant women to be healthy, fit, and maintain their working capacity throughout pregnancy. Women who needed to slow down failed to fulfil these normative expectations and commonly experienced this as a personal defeat. Despite policies and regulations protecting women's pregnancy-related needs vis-à-vis their employer, some women hesitated to claim their eligibility to special rights. Many pregnant women overstretched, compromising their own health. This, we argue, reflects the ambiguity in policy and in the public debate. Ideas about pregnant women as a vulnerable group needing special protection on the one hand, and the expectations to perform as usual throughout pregnancy on the other, are discussed here in view of a gender-difference versus a gender-neutral discourse, the latter being foundational to the public debate on gender in contemporary Norway.     

Being There Matters—Redefining the Model Public Servant: Viola O. Baskerville in Profile

A descendent of slaves and a woman of proud but humble origins, Viola Osborne Baskerville has ascended to prominence in Virginia public life. As only the second African American woman to serve as secretary of administration, her appointment to the cabinet of Governor Tim Kaine has afforded her the opportunity to affect the policy areas that have long been her passion. Baskerville is known as a leader with integrity, as a dedicated public servant, and as a tireless advocate for policies that affect the promise and well‐being of women and children, families, and minorities, particularly those who have suffered from poverty and discrimination. Baskerville, a trailblazing African American woman, embodies a new model of the public servant.     

Alliteration in Mate Selection: Does Barbara Still Marry Barry?

More than 30 years ago research found that alliteration is a factor in assortative mating (i.e., marriages). Alliterative matches were even more frequent when using nicknames than when using given names. Subsequently, researchers have confirmed the higher than chance occurrence of alliterative matches for given names. But nicknames have not been examined over the past 30 years. The present research finds support for three hypotheses. As predicted, nicknames are more associated with alliterative matches than are given names. Implications for practice are discussed.