Reviews

Feminisms’ Psychoanalysis

Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie (eds), The Woman in Question: m/f (Verso) London, 1990; Elizabeth Grosz, Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1990; John Lechte, Julia Kristeva (Routledge) London, 1990; Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine (Routledge), London, 1991.

Feminist Re‐Readings

Sarah Mills, Lynn Pearce, Sue Spaull and Elaine Millard (eds), Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading (Harvester Wheatsheaf) Hemel Hempstead, 1989.

Oppositional Interests and Women's Health Centres

Dorothy H. Broom, Damned If We Do: Contradictions in Women's Health Care (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1991.

(Re)Claiming Her Own Words: The Return of Michele Wallace

Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (Verso) London and New York, 1990 [first published (Dial Press), New York, 1978]; Invisibility Blues (Verso) London and New York, 1990.

Australian Lesbian Feminist Studies

The Myth of Superwoman and Feminist Fictions

Ann Cranny‐Francis, Feminist Fictions (Polity Press) Cambridge 1990; Resa L. Dudovitz, The Myth of Superwoman (Routledge) London and New York, 1990.     

“Ought to” as a Chinese Legal Performative?

The article discusses the legal performatives as used in Chinese legislative language consisting of bixu (shall), yingdang (should or ought to), keyi (may) and bude (shall not) with the illocutionary force of imposing obligations, conferring rights and permission, and prohibition (bude). It postulates that the use of bixu and yingdang is traceable to the influence of the ancient Chinese cultural and legal philosophy of li and fa. It argues that Chinese language is a carrier of messages with built-in Chinese cultural codes and to be able to understand Chinese law, the wider cultural and linguistic contexts must be considered. It also proposes that speech act theory needs to address the interlingual and intercultural variables in the construction of meaning.     

Editorial

Liverpool Law Review -     

Information technology and economic recovery in Western Europe

This article sets out to analyse the response of West European governments and of the European Community to the challenge of information technology (IT). European countries have joined the race among industrial nations to restructure their economies around the industries of the future (micro-electronics, computers and advanced telecommunications). The race is currently led by Japan and the United States with Western Europe following a poor third. In order to catch up, West European governments have for some time pursued national strategies and are now attempting to develop a common approach with the assistance of the European Commission. This attempt has been bedevilled, however, not only by national chauvinism, but by conflict between the ambitions of governments and the goals of private sector strategies. Eureka - Europe's response to America's Strategic Defence Initiative - marks a step towards resolving such differences. But as this article suggests, it will not resolve the deeper tensions between the major aims of current policies: the concentration of research and production resources while also creating an open and fully competitive market for IT in Western Europe.This article is part of a wider project on new technology policies in Western Europe, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and directed by Professor J.J. Richardson. The main findings will be published in Information Technology and the State, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CHILD SAFETY SEAT LAWS IN THE FIFTY STATES

This study evaluates the effectiveness of state child safety seat laws in the United States. Data for all fifty states for the period 1975 to 1994 are used. Pooled time series analysis is employed to estimate a model of the rate of fatalities suffered by children ages 0–5 years as occupants in automobile crashes. The occupant fatality rate for children 6–11 years of age is used as a comparison group to control for other trends not introduced in the estimated models. The results show that child safety seat policies have significantly reduced fatality rates among children 0–5 years of age. For each additional year of age covered by a state statute, this fatality rate drops 4.8%. A similar reduction in the fatality rate of the older age cohort (6–11 years old) was not observed.