The women's project: A profile

This paper offers an analysis of the Oprah Winfrey talk show's success as emanating from an ideal typical form of branding that we term “dynamic branding”, in which the gap between production and consumption is almost entirely bridged. Oprah has managed to maintain a dynamic relationship with her viewers based on multiple feedback and feed-forward processes in which consumers' concerns are immediately translated into Oprah's performed identity in her talk show. Such an ongoing exchange of information with her viewers was the basis for Oprah's performance of her own self as a “failed self” embattled with the problems of everyday life, thus creating an equalitarian relationship with her audience. The success of Oprah's brand identity thus derives from its content as much as from the mode of its construction, a mode which involves an intimate and adaptive relationship with consumers that enables Oprah to immediately respond to and incorporate viewers' concerns, values and norms. This paper analyzes in detail Oprah's performed identity with analytical tools informed by linguistic anthropology and brings it into conversation with contemporary branding theories.     

Jean Batten and ‘the Accident of Sex’

Through the critical analysis of visual and verbal texts, this essay offers a sighting of New Zealand aviator Jean Batten—one of the greatest women solo flyers of the twentieth century to ‘disappear’. Unlike US flyer Amelia Earhart whose disappearance some miles off Howland Island in the South Pacific prompted endless search and research, Jean Batten’s disappearance from stage and page of flight history engendered no such interest until the late 1980s when a documentary film (1988) and the first book‐length biography (1990) were published by Ian Mackersey. Although important contributions to understanding Jean Batten’s place in aviation history of the twentieth century, Mackersey’s construction of Batten’s life relies heavily upon a psychological interpretation of character and action that is largely removed from and uninformed by gendered history. Hence, an important aim of this essay is to offer an analysis of the impact ‘the accident of sex’ (a phrase coined by Earhart) and the performance of gender had and continues to have upon ‘the life’ of Jean Batten.     

When convenience is inconvenient: ‘healthy’ family foodways and the persistent intersectionalities of gender and class

This article draws on findings from an auto/biographical study about relationships with food to demonstrate how everyday foodways continue to be influenced by the intersectionalities of gender and class. Following Bourdieu [1984. Distinction, a social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge] how ‘foodies’ use food and foodways (the production, preparation, serving and eating of food) as a material and cultural display of capital (Johnston, J., & Baumann, S. 2010. Foodies, democracy and distinction in the gourmet kitchen. London: Routledge) or even ‘culinary capital’ (Naccarato, P., & LeBesco, K. 2012. Culinary capital. London: Berg) has been demonstrated. There has been less work exploring how mothers use ‘feeding the family’ (DeVault, M. I. 1991. Feeding the family. London: University of Chicago Press) as a source of cultural capital for themselves. Three-quarters of the 75 respondents in my UK study were parents and all mothers with dependant children fed their family ‘healthy’ food as a means of performing a particular middle-class habitus. I therefore examine how mothers engaged in ‘healthy’ foodwork as a means of positioning themselves as ‘good’ mothers or ‘yummy mummies’ (Allen, K., & Osgood, J. 2009. Studies in the Maternal, 1). Indeed, despite decades of gender equality in the public sphere and neo-liberal assertions regarding individualism, ‘feeding the family’ (DeVault, 1991) continues to be a highly gendered activity, with the added pressure of now having to provide ‘healthy’ food cooked from scratch. In these accounts, convenience foods and/or ‘unhealthy’ family foodways were vilified and viewed with disgust, with an adherence to ‘healthy’ family foodways used as a means of drawing boundaries within fields of ‘organised striving’ (Martin, J. 2011. On the explanation of social action, Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Savage, M., & Silva, E. B. 2013. Cultural Sociology, 7, 111–126). This article considers ‘healthy’ foodwork as a significant aspect of ‘good’ middle-class mothering, whereby ‘healthy’ family foodways become significant in the performance and display of ‘proper’ middle-class femininity that pathologises alternative family foodways and ‘other’ femininities. This serves to illuminate continuities within the intersectionalities of gender and class, with a commitment to ‘healthy’ family foodways central to ‘future oriented’ (middle classed) maternal identity.     

Sentencing Female Drug Offenders: Reexamining Racial and Ethnic Disparities

This study analyzes the relationship between race/ethnicity and sentencing outcomes for female drug offenders in Florida. Grounded in the focal concerns perspective, the research examines whether, in the specific case of drug offenders, minority women are treated more harshly than White women. Interaction models are estimated to determine the influence of drug offense type on racial and ethnic sentencing disparities. Differences in sentencing outcomes are also examined following significant policy changes in the state. In general, the findings suggest that minority female drug offenders are disadvantaged at both the incarceration and sentence length decisions. It also appears that perceptions of dangerousness associated with female offenders' race/ethnicity and offense are incorporated into sentencing authorities' patterned responses. That is, the level of disparity between Black, Hispanic, and White females is conditioned by type of drug offense in the interaction models. The changes in sentencing policy also impact the role of race and ethnicity in sentencing decisions. By analyzing drug offenders exclusively, the current study clarifies the role of race in sentencing decisions for females. In contrast to prior research that examined all offense categories together, the current study suggests that for drug offenses, minority females may, in fact, be deemed more dangerous and culpable than White female drug offenders.     

Social Withdrawal and Aloneliness in Adolescence: Examining the Implications of Too Much and Not Enough Solitude

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescence is a developmental period when spending time alone becomes particularly important. The aim of this study was to explore adolescents’ experiences...     

Predictive accuracy of dynamic risk factors for aboriginal and non-aboriginal sex offenders: an exploratory comparison using STABLE-2007

Although Aboriginal offenders are overrepresented in Canadian prisons, there is limited research examining the extent to which commonly used risk factors and risk scales are applicable to Aboriginals. Aboriginal (n = 88) and non-Aboriginal (n = 509) sex offenders on community supervision were compared on the dynamic risk factors of STABLE-2007. Data on sexual, violent, any crime, and any recidivism (including breaches) were collected with an average follow-up of 3.4 years. Aboriginal offenders scored significantly higher than non-Aboriginal offenders on STABLE-2007 total scores and on several items measuring general criminality. STABLE-2007 did not significantly predict recidivism with Aboriginal offenders (although it did for non-Aboriginals). The general antisociality items were generally significantly less predictive for Aboriginals than non-Aboriginals, whereas items assessing sexual self-regulation and relationship stability predicted similarly for both groups. These exploratory results suggest that Aboriginal sex offenders are a higher-needs group but that some STABLE-2007 items are not predictive with this population.     

Minors' capacity to refuse treatment: a reply to Gilmore and Herring

Re R and Re W allow a parent to consent to treatment a competent minor refuses, but the cases have not been tested post-Human Rights Act 1998. Gilmore and Herring offer a means by which they might be distinguished or sidelined. They interpret Gillick to say that in order to consent a minor need only have a full understanding of the particular treatment. They argue that the minors in Re R and Re W were refusing all treatment which requires a separate assessment of capacity-an assessment which was not made. We fear that this distinction would not be workable in clinical practice and argue that their interpretation of Gillick is flawed. From a clinician's point of view, competence cannot always be judged in relation to a specific treatment, but instead must relate to the decision. We show that a decision can incorporate more than one treatment, and more than one decision might be made about one treatment. A minor's understanding of a specific treatment is not always sufficient to demonstrate competence to make a decision. The result is that whilst there might be situations when a parent and a minor both have the power to consent to a particular treatment, they will not share concurrent powers in relation to the same decision. Consequently, a challenge to Re R and Re W, if forthcoming, would need to take a different form. We emphasise the necessity to minimise the dichotomy between legal consent and how consent works in medical practice.     

Psychosocial work environment, interpersonal violence at work and mental health among correctional officers

The main purpose of this study was to present changes occurring between 2002 and 2004 in the prevalence of psychosocial constraints and interpersonal violence at work among officers working in correctional facilities in Quebec. Results suggest that in the absence of specific organizational intervention aimed at improving a deleterious work situation, exposure to low decision latitude remained similar between 2002 and 2004, while exposure to high psychological demands improved somewhat, for both men and women. In 2000, rates of exposure of correctional officers in Quebec to high psychological demands, low decision latitude and the combination of high psychological demands and low decision latitude (job strain) were significantly higher than those obtained for the entire population of workers in Quebec in contact with the public. Exposure of correctional officers in Quebec to intimidation at work increased substantially between 2002 and 2004, among both men and women. Globally speaking, rates of exposure to intimidation by colleagues and superiors practically doubled between 2000 and 2004. Rates of exposure to intimidation among correctional officers in Quebec were particularly high in 2004 (71% among men 66% among women) compared to rates in another study conducted among federal correctional officers (48%) by Samak. The present study also showed that in 2004, correctional officers in Quebec were more likely to present signs of psychological distress linked with work when they were exposed to high psychological demands, low decision latitude, job strain and poor social support from superiors and colleagues. Psychological distress was also shown to be greater when reward at work was scarce and when there was an imbalance between effort and reward at work. Finally, in 2004, psychological distress among correctional officers was also associated with intimidation and psychological harassment at work.