Ontario: people can now apply for forced HIV testing in certain situations

Ontario has finally issued a regulation to accompany its controversial "blood samples" legislation, passed in 2001. As a result, in certain circumstances, a person in Ontario can now seek an order to require another person to be tested for HIV, hepatitis B (HBV), and hepatitis C (HCV). However, the regulation contains a number of restrictions on the ability to apply for such an order.     

Spontaneous cerebellar hemorrhage in children

Spontaneous cerebellar hemorrhages are a rare but often fatal occurrence in children. Although there are several predisposing factors such as blood dyscrasias or astrocytomas, the most common cause of cerebellar hemorrhage in an otherwise healthy child is the rupture of a vascular malformation. We reviewed the files of the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York and found four such instances over a period of less than two years. We present these here and outline the approach the forensic pathologist should take in evaluating such deaths.     

The Jewish Mother turned monster: Representations of motherhood by Hebrew women novelists 1881–1993

The paper discusses the changes in the representation of motherhood in Hebrew novels written by women within the span of a century. The outline of the changes is found to be similar to the general trend discernible in women's writing in the West, despite the anomalous history of Hebrew literature. In most general terms, the history of the mother in these novels might be outlined in terms of a move from absence to presence, from silence to voice, from passivity to activity, from asexuality to overt promiscuity, from submission to aggression. Given the culturally ingrained model of the Jewish Mother that the novelists have to cope with, this move is shattering. The mother, who was neglected or even suppressed in the earlier novels, returns, with a vengeance, in more recent ones. The vengeance, though, may prove excessive.     

Silences: Irish Women and Abortion

This article considers the forces which act to prevent women in Ireland from speaking about their experiences of abortion. It considers the various forms such silencing can take and the complexity of feelings and circumstance which women who have had abortions are subject to. In so doing it raises important questions about the way public debate about abortion between pro-choice and pro-life arguments - couched in terms of rights - acts to further silence women. Finally, the article calls for the creation of a new public and intellectual space in which the complexities of the issues can be realized. A new public space such as this could then facilitate the enactment of permissive legislation which in turn could enable women to decide the best pregnancy option available for them at any particular moment in their lives.     

The interlingual interpreter — Cypher or intelligent participant?

Conclusion The final question that arises here is whether interpreters' behaviour—in adding a word here or deleting a word there, as in the examples given above — actually justifies the suspicion of legal participants that they are not being told literally what the witness is saying. Interpreters argue that a literal rendering may confuse or mislead. Legal figures accuse interpreters of using their own words.Legal etiquette frequently precludes interpreters from identifying cultural or linguistic factors that are generating miscommunication, such as in the example given above of designating a particular winter. The mechanical, non-participatory role ascribed to interpreters in the lega setting further leads the legal professionals to denigrate the standing of the individuals performing language-switching. Failure to treat interpreters as participants, e.g. by supplying them with all documentation, including photographic material, leads to inaccuracies. The mechanical view of interpreters frequently precludes them from participating at their own initiative, either to request clarification of unclear material or to provide clarification where speakers' referents are based on different worlds of knowledge. I suggest that it is high time that the legal profession re-examined its attitudes towards foreign-language interpreters, and towards their product — interlingual interpretation.     

Experts and evidence in deliberation: scrutinising the role of witnesses and evidence in mini-publics,a case study

Policy Sciences - Experts hold a prominent position in guiding and shaping policy-making; however, the nature of expert input to decision-making is a topic of public debate. A key aspect of...     

The Missionary Narrative as Coercive Interrogation: seduction,confession and self‐presentation in women’s ‘letters home’ 1

This article takes as its starting point the late nineteenth and early twentieth century missionary discourse of feminine self‐denial, and attempts to chart the ways in which it became a subversive theme in women missionaries’ ‘letters home.’ It argues that in the simultaneously public and private act of letter writing, women missionaries created complex sexual and political self‐narratives. By co‐opting the imperial rhetoric of a threatening, violent East, and then setting up their letters as conversations with an invisible interrogator, missionary women repeatedly forced their audiences to discover the various ways in which they had been seduced by this East, and had thereby deviated from accepted feminine norms. In the process, they both reinforced imperial notions of race and civilization and undermined the likewise imperial notion of protective domestic space.     

‘I get together with my friends and try to change it’. Young feminist students resist ‘laddism’, ‘rape culture’ and ‘everyday sexism’

Abstract

Contemporary alarm about ‘laddism’ reveals what feminist research and activism has long-recognised; universities, like other social institutions, can be dangerous places for women. Research in the US and, more recently, the UK reveals alarming rates of violence, against women, the cultural and institutional norms which support violence and gaps in institutional responses. In the midst of this contemporary alarm about the university as a hotbed of laddism, there is a risk that the university – a site of potential empowerment and liberation for women (and men) – becomes re-positioned as a danger zone. The limited focus on danger and safety belies the potential of universities to enhance human freedoms through intellectual endeavour. We argue this progressive potential should remain centre-stage, as should university-based resistance to everyday sexism and laddism. This paper analyses accounts of young women feminists (n = 33) in UK and US universities. It explores their use of feminism and features of the university environment to resist and challenge oppressive cultures and practices. It argues that, despite encroaching neoliberalism and enduring sexism, universities continue to provide environments for engagements with feminism, enabling young women students to use feminism to resist and challenge sexism and to envision their feminist futures.